Arctic Smoke

by Randy Nikkel Schroeder

  “Yes, Theodore,” said the boy. “I know you’ve suffered. God loves our tears.”

  The boy laid the guitar by the white cone, then drew a dagger from the heap of fallen knives. Theodore wriggled madly, claws still pinned. The far magpie called. The boy raised the dagger, and said, “One more communion.” Lor looked down.

  He heard a whizz, a chunk of bone or wood, a broken aye! aye! aye!

  He didn’t want to look.

  He did.

  The far magpie was nailed to the trunk, wings spread awkwardly, ribbon of blood tracing the bark’s curved corrugations.

  Lovely touch, thief.

  Lor shifted from foot to foot. His hands felt empty. Digging into the Mackinaw pocket, he gathered the ash from the old photograph of Alistair and Franklin. He pulled it out, sifted it from palm to palm.

  Theodore keened.

  “Now, Theodore.” The boy clutched the guitar once more. “Fly. Find the virgin, who steals my remaining dust.”

  The snowman glistened. I will take my heart, Knife Thrower. And I will take you, too.

  The boy chortled. “You’re nothing but spirit. You don’t even have a real voice.”

  The magpie drooped, then gathered itself. It sprang from the boy’s shoulder and flapped into the world’s dark half, vanished in falling snow. The boy stroked the guitar. When he looked up, his eyes were completely blue, no whites at all.

  “Adieu,” he said.

  Lor gripped his brothers’ ash. “What about our bargain?”

  The boy seemed to consider this, fingers tapping the guitar’s dust. Finally he chuckled softly. “Well, if God won’t keep his promises. . . .”

  Lor’s squeezed his fists till the knuckles cracked. “You little bastard.”

  “Please watch your language.”

  “You goddamned—”

  “Shh.”

  “You goddamned fucking—”

  “Tut.”

  “You goddamned fucking little shit-eating—”

  “Hush!”

  The boy reached a finger to Lor’s lips. “We’re not quite finished.” Reaching down, peppermint eyes still frozen to Lor’s, he grabbed the white cone around the tip. He pulled it from the flowers and tossed it over his shoulder. It landed on the snowman’s head.

  Lor slumped.

  It was Alistair’s hat.

  The boy giggled. “Too late, now.”

  Too late for what?

  “I leave you to your impotent daemon.” The boy doffed his own hat, tossed it spinning into the air. His hair was winter white. Then he cracked into a cloud of buzzing flies, guitar shapeshifting with him.

  Lor lunged. Clawed at the cloud. Crushed a handful of strings, flies, dust. Held tightly, teetered, fell into the snowman. An ocean of cold poured free, a scent of rain, a sky of sunlight.

  The flies tried to buzz south, but were pulled back in a jittering line. They roared once around Lor’s head, then winged up and sizzled into the snowman’s face. The snow came instantly alive, phantom cloak whirling to existence, features quickening. The snowman, or angel, or demon, or whatever the fuck it was, loomed over Lor, extending its arms, straightening Alistair’s hat on its head.

  “Ahh, Kenny. Free at last.”

  Kenny, about to faint, fell forward, just in time to catch the boy’s plunging top hat on his own head.

  † † †

  Seri refused to fill out Constable Mohanraj’s Lost or Missing Person Report.

  “We’re wasting time here,” she said. “People could die.” Well, that was a slender lie; people were already dead.

  “We must proceed with an orderly process.” Mohanraj’s eyebrows tightened. One thinner than the other. He began to scribble. “I won’t lie to you. Search and rescue is not my forte.”

  “God forbid.” She wanted to pull the knife from her sock and cut off his fingers.

  He held up the pencil. “God willing, we would have a chopper with infrared and a trained specialist in ice rescue. But the nearest are in Whitehorse. There are none in Kivalliq. Kivalliq is the last post. These are the facts. Please fill in the report.”

  “I won’t.”

  Mohanraj sighed. He began to fill in the report himself.

  “Listen.” Seri stood and placed a hand on Mohanraj’s shoulder. “Here are the facts. There are men out there on the ice with no survival equipment of any sort. These are not upright men.” She hardly cared. She softened her voice for effect. “They could die, completely unredeemed. I tell you in good faith: they are not going to heaven without another chance.”

  Mohanraj sighed even louder. Poor, pitiful man, with all his vacant certainties. He re-capped his pen and stuffed it in a pocket.

  “That was a transparent trick,” he said. “And it worked.”

  Out of the lobby, en route to the plane, Seri saw the snowman draped with Rooke’s coat. An out-of-nowhere rage bloomed in her belly, for this creature steadfast in the face of wind and weather.

  “You must admire this lovely snowman,” said Mohanraj. “So lovingly built.”

  Seri was already kicking it to pieces.

  “What in goodness are you doing, Ms. Hamm?”

  “Let’s go.” She knocked the ice from her shoes.

  † † †

  The Twin Otter winged across dark skies under Mohanraj’s capable guidance. Back and forth over the island, though all they saw below was the plane’s impossible shadow staining the unlit landscape.

  Seri stared down until her sinuses ached. She felt completely emptied, until she raised her head to stare out the window at the endless ice-cracked barrens. Her tongue of fire flickered, then, as they flew across the roof of the world. But the feeling was inappropriate, illicit, more like kissing Ricky, teasing Greg, sniffing Rooke’s cologne. She ignored it, spoke to manifest her resolve. “We won’t come this far to turn back.”

  “You know,” said Mohanraj. “The Zen masters say that success is a form of failure. Not so different from Christ, who says one must lose life to find it.”

  Or find it to lose it, thought Seri, grimly.

  Mohanraj chattered. “This plane is originally out of Fort Smith. Once it carried Prince Charles from Norway House to Swan River.”

  “How much flying time do we have?” Seri said.

  Mohanraj shrugged. “Can’t stay up forever. Some of the parts on this dinosaur are ready to fall apart, scavenged from the old Mountie Air Division—a Beaver that crashed in the Yukon, a Beechcraft burned in a hangar fire in Edmonton, an Otter that crash landed in Newfoundland. . . .”

  “A real Frankenstein.”

  “Frankenstein.” Mohanraj nodded. “He’s the one with the fangs?”

  “No.” Seri realized her mistake. “He’s the one who created the monster, the one. . . .”

  She stopped, fully chilled, every fine hair bristling. Just a minute now: if she had summoned Rooke’s lightning, if she had lit the fire, then given the outcome here, what pray God, what exactly, what again was her calling? She had never known God to be fond of irony, that hopeless realm of pagans. What was the sin, what the restoration? What was God’s will, what hers? A jumbo jet rumbled high above. For all Seri knew, Gran and Mr. Scott might have been on board, winging their way to Europe. She felt a surprising sting of resentment.

  “We’ll have to give it up,” Mohanraj said, banking steeply. “For now, at least. What in goodness name are you doing?”

  Seri realized she had withdrawn the knife, and was slicing off hanks of her hair. She dropped the knife and hair in her lap, heart and sinuses pounding. “Constable, do you know of any text, apocryphal or otherwise, where Satan gets credit for both the fall and the restoration?”

  “I do not believe in Satan.”

  “Since one is the source of the other?” Gran had always loved Seri’s long blonde locks, said they looked like the White Witch of Narnia’s.

  “I do believe in Samson,” said Mohanraj. “Who of course cut off his hair and lost all his strength. You know this prophe
tic story, in Judges? I think you had better put that knife away.”

  Seri pulled the pouch from her pocket, one quick hit of comfort, wondered exactly what was inside, jigged it a few times from palm to palm. “Hold on.” She pressed against the window. “What about that little forest down there?”

  † † †

  Lor flung the top hat to the ground and began to stomp it.

  The snowman laughed. “Still the same old punk. Yet I thank you.”

  The sun hazed, mercury dropping. Poppies grew sparkling skins of frost. The snowman blew steam from beneath his cowl, white Merlin hat perched precariously. He gestured widely with one long arm, as if welcoming guests to a mansion.

  “Well, Kenny. The time for words is over. Go. Listen for the signs.”

  Lor’s hips tightened.

  The snowman fairly bowed. The hat stayed. “You may pass. One brother is the deal. Do not trust your eyes, Kenny. Listen. Listen very carefully for the signs.”

  Lor’s buttocks clenched. He listened to his breath, whistling through one clogged nostril.

  “Go!” The snowman pointed north. “Follow the moon. Then listen.”

  The cloak fell away slightly, enough to reveal the snowman’s glassy skin. Beneath, deep in the ice, Lor’s guitar was cracking into a skeleton—strings stretching to bones, frets bending to ribs, pickups lining a spine. A melody lit the transformation, the most heavenly music Lor had ever heard. If there ever had been a song Fatty was chasing, this was it—smoky chimes, wind through pines, fire and wild violin.

  Lor felt like he had chewed and chewed until the tooth itself had fallen out, leaving a vacant ache. He stared at the guitar bones. The dust was long gone. He raised his eyes to the wide white hat, clenching his teeth until they squeaked.

  The snowman stepped aside, made a sweeping gesture for Lor to pass. Lor stepped stiffly forward, each footfall turning the ground to snow. He came even with his dark visitor.

  “Goodbye, Kenny. I wish you happiness.”

  “Not goodbye!” Lor lunged and seized the snowman’s neck. The snow blackened beneath his ashy fingers.

  “Don’t touch me!” the snowman gargled. His cowl fell away. His face was a night blizzard. Lor’s hands slid up toward the face, toward the hat, ash blackening more snow.

  “The time for words is done,” said the snowman in a strangled voice. “Release me.”

  Lor seized tighter. Guitar bones jangled.

  “Leave me, Kenny,” the snowman croaked. “No one escapes what he denies.”

  Lor locked his hands and crushed. The snowman’s frozen arms encircled him, driving frost into his spine.

  “Give me my brother’s hat,” Lor cried.

  “I will not bless you. I will never bless you.” The snowman cracked its frozen skin and morphed into a grotesque Frosty sporting an icicle prick. The prick speared between Lor’s legs, raised him from the ground till his feet dangled.

  “Want a lick?”

  Lor hung on. Beyond, the sun melted, summer meadow changing to winter forest—stalks blooming to Christmas trees, flowers to icicles.

  The sooty snowman reeled, shaking Lor like a wet towel. “Release me!”

  Still Lor squeezed. Ice water poured through his fingers, melting his flesh, freezing his bones. Firing his remaining strength, he flung his head forward and bit out a chunk of snow.

  “Give. Me. My. Brother’s. Hat.”

  Then spit it back at the angel’s face.

  Ashes roared out like a plague of Yahweh, blighting trees, blearing snow, smearing stars, finally choking the moon. The last thing Lor heard was the roar of a plane, then an entire forest of crashing icicles.

  † † †

  The plane dropped. Mohanraj bit his lip in concentration, patted his jacket pocket. “Would you like a smoke?

  Seri almost wanted one. She looked at the knife in her lap. This entire journey she had lacked the keen blade, the Augustine logic to cut through contradictions. She squeezed the pouch. Then, under some new compulsion she could not account for, she loosened its drawstrings and spilled the contents into her palm.

  A luscious blue powder.

  A thrill danced instantly up her arm, like one touch on the nipple or clitoris. She startled. Something about that sea-blue colour.

  She turned to look at the landscape, trees sparkling blue as the dust in her hand, and heard music—snaky violin, chimes in empty canyons, wind and running water. Her arms crackled with goosebumps.

  “Can you hear that?” she said.

  “Just the wing flaps creaking.”

  “No. The music.”

  “Wait! I see motion down there,” Mohanraj said. “Good thing you were steadfast.”

  Seri stared again at the dust in her palms, and was seized with an inexplicable jealousy. She suddenly thought of Gran, with loathing and contempt, with the kind of bitterness that explodes one day at breakfast with one long loved—those filthy crumbs, those squeaking teeth and soft inhalations—all Gran’s slobby proverbs, fat platitudes, skinny religion. What a sickening toy box of consolations.

  Seri stroked the knife. “No. Don’t land.”

  “Sorry?”

  “We’re in the wrong place,” she lied. “We’ve failed. Don’t land here.”

  “We’re over the treetops.”

  “Just climb again.”

  He turned to look at her, eyebrows tight. His eyes flicked to her palms.

  “Climb!” Seri yelled.

  She sniffed at the dust. There was only one act she could truly control here in this dreamland, and that was the extent of her participation. Well, it was time to take control. Time to withdraw. Rooke and his apprentice could finish the journey, freeze in Dante’s hell for all she cared.

  “Ms. Hamm. Why am I climbing?”

  “How old is this plane?”

  “Depends which part.”

  “How weak? How corroded?”

  “I don’t often think about it.”

  “Could I break this window?”

  Mohanraj laughed. “No. That would take a miracle, an angel’s strength.”

  Fine. If she was playing Samson here, failed judge Samson, then God could complete the story and strengthen her for one final task.

  So, Lord? How about it?

  She hurriedly sifted the dust into the pouch, tightened the strings, stuffed it in her pocket. Then grabbed the knife, aimed the butt.

  Sniggered. “Lord God, remember me.”

  One backhand smash to the window. The pane crazed, shattered in honeycombs.

  “Hey!” roared Mohanraj. “That is public property. That is enough. That is impossible!”

  “I know.”

  Bit by tinkling bit, glass confetti scattered to the night. Chill rushed the cockpit. The plane dipped.

  “This will go in my report,” Mohanraj said.

  “Just keep circling.” She fished her notebook and began ripping out the pages, pausing only at the last scribble: I will never be shaken, Gran’s guiding verse. Seri tore it to shreds, then scattered the pages out the window. She chased them with her chopped hair, tumbling out like wind-blown straw.

  “One more pass, Constable.”

  Finally, she pulled out her grandfather’s watch, that antique beauty, that delicate piece, all the springs and wheels. Winding up as best she could, she pitched it from the plane, watched it spin into the dark. “Dear Theodore!” she called after. “A few totems for you!”

  “Ms. Hamm, I really must insist—”

  “Take me south,” Seri said. “As far as we can fly.”

  “I appreciate your request. But no.”

  Seri raised the knife. “Constable. It wasn’t a request.”

  “Are you truly threatening me with a knife?”

  “Would you prefer a tent peg?”

  Moments later, as they winged southward, she patted her shirt to make sure the powder was safe. The ghostly music trailed off, like a choir of falling angels.

  † † †

  A m
ist cloud crept through the forest, awakening each detail—each twig, each needle, each barky furrow. A creek murmured over frozen stones.

  “Don’t drink the water,” something said. Then, “Welcome, friend. Difficult to stay awake, isn’t it?”

  Lor opened his eyes. He was resting against a tree. On the stream’s far side, a raven crouched the low boughs, pinned by a moonbeam.

  “The Lord provides eternal rest,” it said. Then it rose croaking and flapped into the dark.

  Lor squinted. A dim figure sat beneath the boughs. “That’s a lovely hat,” the figure said in the raven’s voice.

  Lor looked at his hands, pressed around Alistair’s wide white brim. He wished for his glasses. His vision here was smoky and blurred.

  The man leaned slowly forward, fingers grasping at snowy boughs. “Welcome to the promised land, where we will finally see, where the angels will at last be named. Here we will be restored.” He coughed. “Here is where time flows backwards, like any good tale or waterway. Here is the pure land. Here we keep our clothes on.”

  “Yeah.” Lor leaned forward at the familiar voice. This was his brother, and the snowman had kept his word. “Who are you?” Loudly.

  “Shhh. We are waiting to see the signs.”

  Lor squinted again, collapsed back. No. He did not remember this hoarse voice. Was he deluded by hope, tricked again?

  “What is your name, friend?” the man continued.

  Lor emptied, felt the distance. “Don’t really have one.”

  “Are you Nebo?”

  “No.”

  “Raziel?”

  “No.”

  “Ah! Of course. One of the sukallin.”

  “No.” Maybe this was a ferryman or gatekeeper. How to decide?

  The man paused. “Are you a demon?” He shuddered. “You may not pass.”

  “No.” Lor unblinked, lashes almost icing shut. The stream whispered its cold melody.

  His old friend the mist cloud danced just beyond his toes. Here to lead him further on? Lor cleared his throat. But the man seemed to have fallen asleep. Quietly, Lor put a hand to the ground. Just as he was about to push up to wake this brother or stranger, a small silver disc tumbled from the sky, trailing a thin chain. It clonked the sleeping figure’s head and bounced to the snow.