by Edith Pattou
Winn awoke, and we discovered that his cloths were very smelly. We found that, like the basket of food, the cloths from the Morae magically replenished themselves, which came in very handy.
It was Charles who came up with the plan of dipping the bairn’s bottom in the sea to rinse him off, and washing his cloths in the same way.
The water was cold, and Winn let out a squeal at first, but he seemed to enjoy kicking his feet in the sea waves. I watched a little nervously at first, but I needn’t have worried. Charles kept a tight hold of his son.
Neddy
ONCE SIB HAD RECOVERED, we immediately set sail. Our captain was still leery of this search for a mythical island not on the map, but I insisted.
That night was a fine autumn evening with a bright half-moon above. Sib came and joined me on deck. There was color back in her face, and once she had settled beside me, I took hold of her hand.
“Just tell me, Sib, that you are not planning on going anywhere anytime soon?”
She smiled, squeezing my hand. “No, Neddy, I’m not going anywhere.”
“And how do you feel about the possibility of never leaving me?”
She turned and gazed at me. I waited anxiously for her reply, but she said nothing.
“I’m asking you to marry me, Sib.”
“I know.”
“And?”
“Yes,” she said. And I grabbed her to me in an unbelieving, ecstatic embrace.
“But first,” she said, pulling away, “I need to tell you.”
I gazed at her, feeling a flicker of alarm at the solemn expression on her face. “Tell me what?”
“Everything. The reason I was not sad at the thought of dying. Why I felt I could never marry. It is a strange tale, Neddy, one that most would have trouble believing. But with the things you and your family have witnessed and lived through, I’m hoping you will understand.”
She took a deep breath and began.
“When I was a bairn, less than a year old, I was stolen away from my mother and taken to live with people who were not my own.”
“What people?” I asked.
“The Sidhe, they call themselves. In other parts of the world, they are known as fairies or elves or fee, and like trolls, they live hidden from human eyes, mostly underground. They are not evil like the Troll Queen, but they are not good, either. They are selfish and cold and indifferent to anyone’s needs but their own.
“They stole me because I was a pretty wee child with blond curls who would entertain them for a time.”
I gazed at Sib, my eyes wide. I had heard of fairies, but thought they were made-up creatures from children’s stories, which of course was what I had once believed about trolls.
“My mother finally found a way to rescue me, but I lived with the Sidhe for five years. And in those years, several things happened to me. First, I learned about the wind.”
“The wind?”
She nodded. “The Sidhe woman I lived with had that as her skill, and she taught it to me. I told Rose about this. I even taught her wind music, as I call it. It is a kind of arts or magic, and it is what saved me. Or Rose saved me. But I am getting ahead of myself.”
She gazed off over the river. “The wind music is how I healed you, Neddy,” she said, turning back to me. “I had never done anything like it before. I wasn’t even sure that I could. But I called on airde gaoth, a bracing fresh wind from the west. It is said to have healing in it.”
I squeezed her hand, not able to find the words to express how grateful I was, but she knew. “Sib, did the calling of airde gaoth harm you?”
She paused before replying. “When I call on the wind, like I did the time we needed to cross Halsfjord, it depletes me, takes much out of me. And healing you, and later, when I helped Rose, those nearly broke me.”
She took a deep breath. “But there is more, Neddy. Something else happened to me when I was with the Sidhe. You see, I took on some of their qualities, one in particular that sets me apart from other human beings.” She paused again. “This thing is the reason I did not want to get close to you, Neddy. In truth, it still worries me.”
I could not imagine what she was leading to.
“You see, the Sidhe live much longer lives than we do. They are not immortal exactly, but they age very, very slowly. And by living among them, in their world, some of that rubbed off onto me. I didn’t realize it right away, but as the years went on, my mother saw it. She prepared me as best she could, knowing I’d still be young when she died.”
And suddenly so many little things I had wondered about Sib came together in my head. The ageless way she had about her. The many places she had traveled to. The experiences she’d lived through, like the Sweating Sickness, which hadn’t occurred in Europa for a hundred years.
I must have been gaping at her, for she shook her head, giving a wistful laugh.
“That is just the expression I never wanted to see on your face,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” I said, squeezing her hand again. “It is a lot to take in.”
“Of course it is,” she replied. “You’ll want to know how old I am, and I can’t tell you that, not exactly. But I believe I have lived close to two hundred years.”
I shook my head in wonder, trying to absorb all the ramifications.
“As I said, I am not immortal. And if someone should thrust a dagger into my heart, I would die. But I seem to be immune to most of the sicknesses of our world.”
We were silent a few moments.
“Have you . . .” I started, but stopped, feeling awkward all of a sudden.
“I have not had a husband, or children,” Sib said, her eyes on the horizon. A gull swooped down and glided over the surface of the water, wings not moving.
“Early on, I had friends, people I grew close to, but when they aged and I did not, it was hard, even frightening for them. So I always traveled on. And I stopped getting close to people. It was too painful. I felt very different, outside of life somehow. I was not Sidhe, but I was not human anymore either. I belonged nowhere.” Her eyes were bright with tears. “So I lived a wandering life, never staying in one place for very long.
“When I was stolen by the trolls, it was almost a relief. I also thought it possible I might finally die, since they were so brutal with their slaves. But Rose and Charles rescued me and took me in. I couldn’t help but love them.”
She paused, wiping a tear from her cheek.
“Even now I don’t know, Neddy,” she said. “I’m still trying to figure out this strange, overlong life of mine.”
“But you are now willing to let me try to help you sort it out?” I asked.
She nodded, and I pulled her into my arms, my heart brimming. I would not have thought it possible to love Sib more than before, but I did.
Then she pulled away. “I do wonder, though, if something has changed,” Sib said softly. “Ever since I called on the airde gaoth, I have felt different. Would it not be ironic if I started to age, and it is you who buries me?”
“How about this, Sib,” I said with a smile. “Let’s not think about our dying time just now, but concentrate on the time we have ahead of us, together.”
She smiled back. “I can do that,” she said.
Rose
WE WERE IN THE THIRD DAY of our journey back to Leodhas. Winn was showing signs of wanting to crawl, which wasn’t good timing, given that we three were confined to the small currach.
I was relieved, though, that he only called me Maman once. Charles thought he’d said, Nyamh and was impressed that Winn somehow had picked up my name.
“Although he is showing no sign of saying Papa or Dada,” he said wistfully.
“He will,” I replied.
By the fourth day, we were beginning to be sick of even the flaky cheese and spinach pie, though Charles’s hunger seemed unabated. “Still a little of the white bear hanging on,” he said, ruefully, “though I have to say that even one thousand servings of spinach pie would be a gr
eat deal better than eating dead raw shark in the middle of the sea.”
He went on to describe the northern lights he had seen, how immense and beautiful they were. But out of the corner of my eye, I saw Winn had managed to let himself down into the bottom of the currach and was about to grab hold of my wind sword.
Charles got to him just in time, snatching the sword away, and Winn let out a howl of disappointment. Charles’s nose wrinkled.
“Time for a change,” he said, and grabbing Winn up, he unwrapped his cloths, handing them to me.
“Thank you,” I said dryly, and turned to rinse them over the side of the currach.
Charles did his bottom-dipping routine, and Winn continued to cry and sputter. I handed Charles a clean cloth from the Morae hamper.
“Nyamh,” Charles suddenly blurted out as he wrapped the fresh cloth on Winn’s bottom, “You have never spoken to me of the husband you lost. I wondered if you . . . if you perhaps still have feelings for him?”
“I do,” I said. My throat was better, though still purple with bruising, so my voice only cracked a little.
“Oh,” Charles answered, looking a little crestfallen. “But maybe . . .” he went on, then stopped. He abruptly started up again, his voice rushed, “I know this is the worst possible moment I could pick, and I am still a puzzle of a man, with too many missing pieces. But I was wondering, would you ever consider, I mean, do you think it even remotely possible that you might one day consider taking me as . . . as husband? Nyamh?”
Winn had stopped crying and let out a chortle, reaching for Charles’s ear.
Nyamh. I gazed at him silently.
And I decided that it was enough.
In some unexpected astonishing way we had found our way back to each other. And in truth, I had fallen in love all over again, but this time with the man, not the white bear.
“Yes,” I said. “I do. I would. I will.”
Neddy
IT WAS ESTELLE WHO SPOTTED THE LITTLE BOAT. She had been determined to be the first to spy the isle we were hoping to find and had been fastened to the prow, watching the horizon avidly.
“Regardez!” she shouted out, and turned toward me. “It is them, Oncle Neddy. I know it is!”
I peered in the direction she was pointing.
“Rose,” I whispered. Then louder, I called out, “Rose!”
Mother
SOON AFTER THEIR RETURN, Rose sat us down and explained all about Charles’s lost memory of her and how we were supposed to keep quiet about it. She said she was planning on telling him, but not until after they were wed. For the second time.
I told her it was extremely unlucky to wed the same person twice, and Rose and I had a quarrel that went on for some time. But she wouldn’t change her mind. And Arne told me I needed to respect her decision.
I tried hard, but the name Nyamh stuck in my throat. It had always bothered me that Arne had secretly named her that, entirely against my wishes. So I just avoided calling Rose anything at all.
Winn was more endearing than ever, with his sweet nature and winsome smile. He had grown so much, was already talking and of course crawling everywhere. He loved splashing in any kind of water, had a dreamy, farseeing look in his eyes, and loved to laugh. A west-born child if ever I’d seen one.
It was a busy time, planning not just one but two weddings, Sib and Neddy first and then Rose and Charles. Fortunately both couples wanted small celebrations. Especially Rose and Charles. Which was understandable. A second wedding!
The whole notion made me shudder. I told Rose more than once, with all the ill fortune they’d already faced, why tempt fate? A second wedding. It was madness.
Rose
WE ALL BORE SCARS from our brush with the pale queen. Some visible, some not.
My ankle had long since healed, and the purple bruises at my neck had mostly faded, but I still took the prize for the most impressive tapestry of scars, the lost finger being the most eye-catching. It had healed cleanly, with the help of an herbal concoction of Sib’s. And I found it took little time to get used to being without it. The only thing that gave me trouble at first was weaving, but that soon came easily once again.
Estelle took great pride in her scars, especially the troll-snake bite on her shoulder, which her “cousins” were in awe of.
The wound to Charles’s side had also healed cleanly. It was a white jagged ridge that sometimes ached on cold nights. It also reminded us both a little of troll skin.
Sib had developed a tendency to catch cold easily, but this actually pleased her, since it proved to her that she had indeed become more “human.” She and Neddy had told Charles and me of her history soon after we returned to Trondheim. I could not even fathom that Sib had been alive so long. But it struck me that she and Charles bore that in common, and in truth, I do think they became closer as a result.
Neddy was somewhat embarrassed to have acquired no scars at all, and in fact, had come out of the whole thing with the greatest piece of luck he could imagine, Sib as his soon-to-be wife.
And Winn, well, that remained to be seen. Since that moment in the blackhouse that turned into an icehouse, when the Troll Queen had been holding Winn, neither Charles nor I had noticed any sign of the arts she claimed to have given him. It was true he was a very alert child, talking far sooner than any bairn I’d ever heard tell of. But Neddy reminded me that I too had been an unusual bairn, walking much earlier than most bairns.
One rather unfortunate outcome of what had occurred was that Mother got it into her head that because of the dream of the ash raven and the extraordinary accuracy of its prophecy, she had the makings of a skjebne-soke. She even suggested that she and I join forces, as a sort of mother-daughter fortunetelling team, and that we should offer our services far and wide.
I told her that under no circumstances would I consider such a thing. She wasn’t deterred, of course, until Father pointed out that she’d had only one dream since the raven dream. It had been about the lingonberry plants in the woods beyond our meadow all withering and dying out, when in point of fact, we had the best crop of lingonberries ever that fall.
Fortunately Mother continued her previous non-dreaming ways and was forced to reconsider her skjebne-soke ambitions.
Neddy
SIB AND I GOT MARRIED the week before winter solstice in the barn behind our family house. Rose, Estelle, and Gudrun had set dozens of candles all around, as well as garlands of Njorden spruce tied up with red ribbons. Sib looked radiant in a simple white dress and a circlet of white holly berries in her silver hair. I felt like the luckiest man alive.
Just as we were ready to begin the ceremony of binding, I stepped up to Sib, saying I had something I wanted to read out loud. Sib was surprised, but happily agreed. I felt a little nervous as I drew out my paper with the writing on it.
“It’s a poem,” I said. “And it is short, I promise,” I added, catching Rose’s eye. She grinned.
“To Sib,” I read.
You are my west wind,
my east, north, and south.
And you have blown open
the door to my heart.
Forever.
Everyone clapped, at first politely, but then with more enthusiasm. I noticed that Rose clapped the loudest. But most important, Sib hugged me tight, her eyes glistening, and whispered in my ear, “It was beautiful, Neddy. Thank you.”
And as we were putting the rings on each other’s fingers, I felt a gentle wind curling around us, and could have sworn I heard a faint melody. I saw a quick knowing look pass between Sib and Rose and I smiled. I guessed that the wind was ciuin and knew that it was a lucky one.
Father told me later that once again Mother had deliberately not brought a handkerchief to the wedding, but this time Father had assigned Estelle the job of loaning her one, only to discover that it was bad luck for a girl from Fransk, wearing a red dress, to loan anybody anything on someone’s wedding day.
“Such nonsense,” Father had grumble
d, but, resigned, handed over his handkerchief to Mother.
Rose
MY SECOND WEDDING TO THE WHITE BEAR took place on the winter solstice itself.
We gathered in the great room, just as we had almost four years before.
I well knew Mother believed that marrying the same person twice was exceedingly unlucky and that she had tied little sprigs of dried bayberry all over the room for luck, as well as loading herself down with good luck charms. Estelle said the odor was far superior to the garlic that had been ever present during the Sweating Sickness.
Mother had also insisted that Charles put three grains of coarse salt in the left-hand pocket of his jacket. I told him to ignore her, but he said there was no harm and gamely went along with it.
And then came the moment when Charles turned to me, preparing to put the silver Valois ring on my left ring finger. But suddenly he froze.
Something flared in his eyes; they almost seemed to change color, as if he was being lit from within. His mouth curved into a wide smile, and reaching over, he deliberately slid the ring onto my thumb, saying, “I take you, Rose, for wife.”
I stared at him in shock.
“Did he say Rose?” I heard Mother say.
And Father whispered loudly, “Yes, he said Rose. Now, hush, Eugenia.”
But Mother called out in a triumphant voice, “Just in the nick of time. Why, that is the best luck of all!”
And at that moment, my white bear kissed me, over and over and over again.
* * *
After the wedding celebration was finished, after we raised the last toast, ate the last bite of the traditional wedding cake, kransekake, and washed the last dish, Charles and I slipped away to our favorite spot by Trondheim harbor. We were bundled up in furs and scarves and mittens, but just as we had four years ago, we sat side by side on a blanket, sipping cold apple juice and eating brown bread. We could see a handful of Yule bonfires off on Munkholmen Island to celebrate the solstice. And instead of looking up into a pale midnight sun sky, we were treated to a display of northern lights that seemed to have been put on especially for us.