Ever Winter

by Hackshaw, Peter

  Two

  Whiskers

  The day began in the usual way, except the family had meat in their stomachs.

  Henry had been checking the integrity of the wire with Martin, while Father sharpened the few weapons the family possessed. Henry made a tight knot where the wire had come loose in the wind. The scraps of old tin cans and other junk found frozen in the ice of Lantic clattered and rattled, whilst Martin wrestled with the shaking wire. Satisfied with their work, the boys trudged back to the igloo, with Martin held in a gentle, brotherly headlock by his eldest sibling.

  Hilde sat by the ice-hole, trying to catch fish. She used a net attached to a spiked hook that had once been an anchor for a keel-boat or dinghy and was demonstrating to Iris how it was done. The youngest girl chortled, eager to try for herself, before Hilde told her to hush so as not to frighten the fish away.

  Mary prepared a daypack for a hunt and filled sealskin bags with rations of dried fish and water, plus spare clothing and a foil blanket in case anyone fell through the ice into the freezing waters, or were injured and couldn’t get back to the homestead in a blizzard.

  Mother emerged from the igloo with the bairn swaddled in furs and some of the new man-mades they’d acquired the day before. Her hair was braided as it often was and she wore a wide grin as she soothed the child in her arms.

  “God Morgon, husband,” called Mother. “Why don’t you take the baby today and let me catch our family a big, fat, juicy walrus? Vad tycker du?”

  Henry translated Mother’s words in his mind quite naturally; What do you think? Mother had clung onto the few lexes she remembered her parents speaking, which were unique to where their ancestors had hailed from. She’d passed what she could recall to her own family (feeling it her duty to do so) and they had embedded the phrases in their everyday conversations.

  Henry knew that Mother felt stifled whenever she bore a child, spending months cooking it in her stomach and so much more time nurturing it when it was out. She was good with most weapons and had been a better hunter than most men when they’d lived in the Favela, which Father was particularly proud of. Henry could tell she missed the thrill of it and was both restless and bored being confined to the igloo with the baby.

  Father approached his wife and child, smiling as he neared them.

  “What do I think? I think ten more moons, Agneta! Ten more moons, and if the baby survives, you can go out alone if you like and kill something big.” He used his arms to illustrate the size of the imagined prey, then they embraced and kissed the bairn together.

  “They love each other a lot, don’t they?” said Martin, picking up on the conversation between their parents as the boys neared the ice-hole.

  “They’ve known each other since they were younger than you are now, Martin. Probably been lovin’ nearly that whole time,” Henry replied, releasing the grip on his brother.

  “Will you and Mary have a bairn?” asked Martin. Shocked, Henry raised both eyebrows as high as they’d go.

  “Mary’s our sister. You don’t have family with family, you prong!”

  “But who else are you going to marry, Henry?”

  “Mother says I’m handsome. One daylight I’ll find some people. There’ll be girls.” It seemed that Henry had thought about the subject already. “An’ the way I see it, Father ain’t much to eyeball, yet he got Mother to like him. I’ll marry one who can hunt better than Mary an’ catch fish an’ gut them better than Hilde.”

  Martin looked very serious all of a sudden and reached up to put his hand on his older brother’s shoulder.

  “I don’t want to ever get with a girl, Henry. I don’t want bairns of my ownsome,” he whispered as they came in earshot of their family.

  “I’m sure you’ll change your mind when you’re a bit older,” Henry said.

  “No way! That’s a big deal,” Martin said. Henry laughed until his brother finally joined in.

  Later, when they set out, Henry searched for tracks, but he couldn’t find evidence of even a muskrat in the vicinity. He eventually realized that Father had no intention of hunting. He was looking for something else entirely, and had taken his son in the direction of where they’d found the frozen corpse the day before.

  Henry ceased walking and waited for Father to stop ahead of him. He counted eight deep footprints in the snow between them.

  “Mary wanted to come. Why did you make her stay?” Henry asked, then added, “She’s a good ‘un with the slingshot.”

  Henry rarely challenged Father, but he didn’t entirely feel like a child anymore. He knew he still had a lot to learn and he was mostly obedient. He helped whenever it was requested of him and did the chores that had been assigned to him, but he’d also killed plenty of things to qualify him as a man. Henry felt something stir. A changing. He decided he would start to speak up when he wanted to be heard. When things were important to him and needed to be said.

  “I know. She can knock a hawk out of the sky with a shard of ice. I’ve seen her do it plenty.”

  “But you—”

  “I wanted her home today, to protect the family,” Father interrupted, a somber look on his face.

  “We’re not hunting today, are we?” Henry asked.

  “No. Not animals, anyway. I don’t want that dead ‘un’s lot to start venturing close to ours. That’d be bad news for us. Atomic bad.” Henry was surprised by his father’s honesty. He’d expected to be told to keep quiet, or not to ask too many questions.

  “What will you do if we find more people out here, then?”

  Father frowned and looked down at the snow. Henry remained where he stood. The gap between them felt further than it was.

  “It depends, I suppose. It depends on the number of them. It depends if they look like they’d do us harm if they found the homestead. And it depends if we see them first. Let’s hope we see them first.”

  “Why would they do us harm? We’re not bothering them any. We’re just a family,” Henry said.

  The wind picked up and Father had to raise his voice above it to be heard.

  “People are cruel. They would harm us because they can. I’ve never said this afore, but we, people, shouldn’t have survived.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The world had a chance without us. The winter came, and betwixt one daylight an’ next, it was better. It’d cleansed itself of our cities and our drilling and our warring. The few that survived the first cold, they had the gift to start anew, this is what my granddad told me and mine. We could’ve gotten salvation, but we created suffering, even then. It’s what we’ve always done.”

  “Not us,” Henry said. “We’ve done nothing to no one.”

  “I know, lad, but you’ve not seen it – the evil that exists, and the hatred. We kept you all from it, but it’s still out there on the landside. The Favela, once peaceful, is now a place of evil. Mother and I left when my seed took in her belly. You know the fable.”

  Henry thought about Father’s words before giving his reply, just as the wind softened. In the distance the same wind traveled onward, sweeping the top layer of powder snow up into the air in spirals, like churning clouds.

  “I’d like to think we survived for a reason. People. We ain’t all bad ‘uns,” Henry said, but he privately wondered if he was a bad ‘un, because he’d eaten another human, after all.

  Father went to add something, then changed his mind. He looked down at his prints in the snow, then turned and looked in the direction they’d been heading toward, where the wind stirred the thaw as it journeyed away from them and beyond that, a place where lay the remains of the man with the secret pockets.

  “We’ve trekked enough this day. Let’s get back. If trouble’s coming, it will come no matter what. We need to be watchful, is all. Watchful, then ruthless. Fathom it.”

  Henry waited as Father retraced his steps and stood level with him, and Henry thought of the long years that lay between them; a gap that seemed smaller as he grew older. “Well
? What you waiting for, Henry-son? The end of winter?”

  The sun, high above, told them it was a little after midday. Henry looked up at it and wondered about all the things that the sun had ever witnessed; all the warring, all the sickness and death. Even their own robbery of the dead man. The sun knew all but would never tell, and that was just fine with Henry.

  When they reached the homestead, the sun had just set, and this time Henry had watched it disappear over the horizon.

  There was laughter coming from inside the igloo and it made them both smile. Iris was giggling hysterically and even Hilde could be heard joining in.

  Then they heard a man’s voice. Henry’s heart sank. He looked at Father, but he was already rushing toward the entrance of the igloo.

  Inside, the flickering yellow glow of the blubber lamp bled with the white brilliance of the wind-up torch. The igloo was a cavern and the shadows of the family danced upon its walls.

  Where Father usually sat, was a man at least a decade younger than Father. Disheveled auburn hair swept across his forehead, in a wave tucked around one of his ears. The man’s pockmarked skin was a few shades darker than Henry’s; it cloaked the rings around his eyes. His whiskery beard had flecks of gray in it.

  Henry’s sisters were staring at the man in awe, as if he was something special; an apparition. Henry felt annoyed as he beheld the intruder sitting in Father’s place. It seemed disrespectful somehow and he took an instant disliking to the man who sat there, smirking at them.

  Henry couldn’t quite believe that his whole life had been spent with his family in isolation and in just over a day he’d seen not one, but two outsiders; two men that weren’t his kin. One alive and one dead. The dead man. Henry recalled his thought that the sun above had seen all and kept their dark deeds a secret... Pilfering a corpse’s belongings. Hacking pieces off of him to later consume. As Henry looked around the igloo, he saw that those dark deeds were surfacing before him. He remembered the dead man’s garments his father had rifled through the previous night, and realized with a jolt of panic that his siblings each wore something that had belonged to the dead man – a navy blue fleece jumper with Helly Hansen stitched upon the breast of it; a long-sleeved cotton undershirt that would once have been white, but seemed now to be every spectrum of beige; thick wool socks; and a pair of padded trousers of a material unknown to Henry that rustled when the wearer moved. There was blood on some of the garments, but the stranger seemed not to have noticed.

  The man’s eyes had widened as Henry and Father entered their home and removed their outer furs, but he did not move from where he sat, which seemed rude to Henry, although his sisters and Martin still gazed at the man with fascinated smiles.

  The silent visitor was also dressed in man-mades, yet his were put together from the rags of other garments. The patterns and materials of the patchwork were mismatched, the colors faded and covered in filth. It was similar to the way Henry’s attire had been collaged from different pelts, but the effect was wildly different. Henry thought the man looked like the clown in the book. A demon.

  Henry noted his sister’s slingshot propped against the wall of the igloo where she bedded down each night. The stranger must have convinced her he meant no harm when he’d crossed the wire. Henry was unsure if the man had surrendered his own weapons, or whether he had them upon him still.

  “Daddy, isn’t it wonderful? We have a guest!” declared Iris, finally breaking the silence, beaming and clapping her hands together gleefully. Martin copied her until he saw Henry’s disapproving expression.

  Only Mother held a countenance different to all the rest. She was smiling like Henry’s siblings, but it wasn’t her usual smile. It was painted on.

  “He’s a Salvage Man!” added Hilde.

  Mother had told them of the Salvagers in the Favela. They were tough, hardy men who found where the rising waters had covered the old places. They would go through the ice and explore the ruin of the citadel, bringing back what they could find. The problem was that the easy things, things found in rooms of buildings still standing near the top of the ice, had been taken. Whatever remained was harder to get, because even the hardiest Salvager couldn’t stand the frozen waters or hold their breath long enough to get to the unspoiled bounty.

  From what Henry knew about Salvage Men, he couldn’t imagine the stranger before him being strong enough in mind or body to go through the ice, even for a meal.

  “Bom dia. I’m Ginger Lanner.” The man finally stood and extended his hand across the circle of Henry’s family to introduce himself. His accent was alien to Henry and although Lanner was taller than Father, his build was wiry. A good wind would blow him over, Henry thought, which was something his mother had once said to him.

  Henry assumed Father wasn’t going to shake the man’s hand at first, because he stared at it and left their uninvited guest holding it out in front of him. Finally, though, he reached out and took a firm grip of the stranger’s hand.

  “Diga-me. What’s a Salvage Man doing out here? Nothing under the water this far out,” said Father.

  “Didn’t expect a bunch of yourn on top of the ice this far out, ou,” the man laughed.

  “We’ve never had a guest,” Iris chipped in. “Doesn’t he talk nice? Do all people talk like that?” No one responded. “Do you have children, Ginger Lanner?” she asked the man, whose hand was yet to be released by Father’s grip.

  Henry was troubled as he saw the altered expression on Lanner’s face as he met Father’s gaze. There was something unspoken going on between them which Henry couldn’t quite fathom and his sisters were oblivious of. Lanner donned a gap-toothed grin, yet his eyes glinted dangerously. Father wore no expression, but his muscles were taut, and his eyes bored into the intruder’s.

  After a few seconds, Ginger Lanner broke the stare, which reminded Henry of his own silent battle with the dead man the day before. The intruder chuckled to himself in a high-pitched, childlike manner. His mask had slipped during the exchange, and now when his eyes darted around the tiny, now claustrophobic room, they lingered on the girls longer than they should have. Henry felt rage build inside him and Mother’s eyes upon him the whole time.

  The mirrored shard twisted from its coil in the center of the igloo, reproducing the faces and expressions of each of them as it turned; Iris, joyful. Martin, wary, Henry, vexed. Mary, tense. Hilde, doubtful. Ginger Lanner, malicious, abnormal. Father, benevolent. Mother, restrained…

  Henry thought of how Iris would pull funny faces to make them laugh. Each expression in the mirror was such a contrast to the next, it might have been amusing on any other day.

  “Ginger Lanner? Do you have any children?” Iris repeated, and the man’s pretense changed once more. His mask was restored, and he turned to Iris with overwrought charm and pretended to steal her nose. She gave a delighted squeal.

  “Don’t ask him personal things, Iris. Herr Lanner has barely been here one hour,” said Mary, as Hilde cast Mary a disapproving look, laced with condemnation and her usual jealousy.

  “I don’t mind, little dear. It’s just a question. Os filhos? Sadly, I don’t, but I come from a place with many children,” he said, and he touched Iris’ hair. It was then that Henry noticed Father had readied his knife, though he kept it concealed under his bearskin coat. Only Henry could see it from this angle, but Mother knew her husband too well and shook her head, then gestured discreetly toward their children. Henry understood the gesture well. Don’t kill him in front of the girls and Martin.

  Lanner feigned interest in the backgammon board, tracing his grubby fingers along the lines as if he didn’t know what it was.

  “Do you have a wife?” asked Hilde. She blushed as she said it, like Henry had never witnessed before. Ginger Lanner seemed to enjoy the attention; he seemed giddy on it, sitting back down between Hilde and Mary, like he was the head of the family, or their husband. Henry hated him most of all then, and felt a surge of anger.

  “Not yet, Hilde,�
� Lanner said, winking at her. Hilde blushed some more.

  “What brings you here, friend?” asked Henry’s father, making the word friend sound like enemy. His grip on the knife remained firm under the bearskin, and Lanner’s eyes widened, noticing the hidden threat.

  “Just wandering. You never know what you’ll find out on Lantic.” Lanner took a sip of broth from a plastic cup with a picture of a cartoon Mouse on it. “Nice furs, amigo. Why don’t you put ‘em down and come sit with your family? You must be tired from your own wandering, si?”

  “That’s a Big White! Our father killed it before I was born and it bit off one of his fingers,” said Martin proudly.

  Ginger Lanner looked at the hand that held the bearskin. He actually seemed impressed by the story. No one ever survived against a Big White on their own.

  “I count five fingers. Let’s take a look at the other hand.” Lanner’s smile was a crooked sneer. The girls seemed untroubled by it, but Henry had never seen someone grin in such a wicked way before. It was unnerving, that smirk.

  How did they kill the clown in the book? Wasn’t it the slingshot?

  Father put the bearskin down and the knife with it, then held up his other hand, which had only four digits upon it. A beam of light from the mirror caught his hand and lingered on the old wound. A scar ran deep into his palm from where the middle finger was meant to be rooted. Henry knew the story; Father had built a shelter during his ritual. The Ritual was a coming-of-age event that all had to endure, where the survival of the Great-Greats was celebrated by sending each child beyond the safety of the homestead to spend a night out on the ice alone. Father had gone out into the wilderness, assembled a makeshift igloo for the night and woke to find a Big White caving the roof in to get to him. He’d fought savagely to stay alive. Somehow, he managed to kill the Big White after blinding it, but had lost his finger in the battle, which had lasted just seconds. No one had believed him in the Favela and suggested his finger had been taken by something smaller, until they realized that he was wearing its fur. Over the years, his frame had filled the pelt from the inside out; in time, he had become the bear.