“Four! So it is true? What a tale! Parabens! Such bravery…I might’ve heard a tale like that afore,” declared the guest, much louder than he needed to be in the small room.
“What brings you to our home?” Henry asked the question and took a seat next to Mother and the baby, strategically placing himself on Lanner’s other side, making it difficult for the man to defend himself should things go awry.
Henry could see that Lanner was studying him. The man bit his lip, clearly annoyed with Henry’s question. Henry assumed that Lanner was calculating the odds and options available to him. Then the man restored his mask, perhaps for the benefit of the enthralled girls.
“Well, the truth is, I was looking for a friend of mine.” Henry felt his pulse race and hoped that it hadn’t translated to his face in a shade of crimson. “I haven’t seen him for several days.”
The children looked at their father and Henry in unison and Henry could tell that Lanner had noticed it. The man opened his mouth in realization of something and Henry imagined a tiny spark had gone off in Lanner’s brain, lining all the pieces together in a neat row as clear all of a sudden, as the moon rising outside. The fleece, the undershirt, the trousers, the thick woolen socks, the LED torch...
Henry touched the handle of his own knife, but Father gave him a look this time which said, ‘Don’t kill him in front of the girls or Martin,’ and Ginger Lanner witnessed that also. Lanner picked up a backgammon counter from the board, studied it, then returned it to the board. Games.
“He probably froze to death,” Lanner added, without any trace of emotion. “How come you live all the way out here on your own? Don’t seem fair on the filhos if you ask me. Safest place in the world is wherever there’s a big group of like minds…”
“It was our choice. A different choice to most, but…” Father paused for a moment and looked as if he was pinching the words from the air around him. “We do what it takes. Something comes our way hinting danger we deal with it. I reckon we’re safe enough.”
“You have a lot of possessions between you all,” Lanner replied, ignoring the threat. “More than most.”
“Some of it belonged to our kin. They’re ours now.”
The uninvited guest flashed a smile, then erased it just as quickly. “Entendo. Tell me your story, por favor.” Henry guessed Lanner meant the story of how their ancestors had survived the ever winter, or rather, the first weeks of it. People always wanted to know how they came to be and they clung on to what little they had from the old world.
Father sat finally and stroked his beard with the hand that had just four fingers on it. Lanner seemed pleased with the extra time he had given himself to think.
“Mine were from Merika, but lived near the warm pocket. My Great-Greats were both drilling holes under Lantic when they met, afore you could walk upon it. Was just luck they were where they were when the cold came, an’ they made to the volcano where the temperature ne’er got too low. That part of the story is the same as most.” Father spoke with a coldness that was unlike him.
“And yours, Agneta?” the guest asked Mother, having apparently learned her name when Father and Henry were absent. She painted a smile on her face once more and became The Good Mother.
“Mine were from the far, far north. They had a grand yot-boat that they lived on most of the time. They had many possessions. They came down here because they knew the ice was coming. They knew history. This, the ice, it all happened before,” Mother replied.
“I heard that. We have some old ‘uns and some smart ‘uns.” Lanner took another sip from the cup with the cartoon mouse upon it. “They say people with possessions didn’t last long without them. But you’re here, I see. Still got some things. Cold never got you, did it?” Maybe, Mother seemed unsure if it was a compliment or a slight, then she scowled at the guest for the first time. Lanner didn’t react. Henry found it curious. He knew how his own family would react to each other’s words and actions. But Lanner was not of them. He was an outsider in every way.
“Many didn’t know how to survive, but my people knew winter. It was in their blood… it’s in my blood. No, the cold never got me, or mine. What about you, Mister Lanner?” Mother sent her words with spikes upon them.
Lanner scratched at his beard, then cleared his throat. “I was told by my papa that ours were into warring. Paid monies to protect some of those peoples with possessions. When the winter came, monies were no good. Mine had guns… guns are real good. Proper possessions! They cut through the shit, pardon my language, os pequenos…” Henry wondered what had become of the family Lanner’s ancestor had been protecting as Lanner continued, “That part of the story ain’t the same as most! My great-great granny was the poorest of the poor. She was used to surviving before there was ever a need to for most. Cold came and she spat in its face. That bucket combo of grit and outright fearlessness is what I like to think keeps me alive today. Sim. I’m proud of my peoples. Mine rose up when the time came.”
“We lived in a place once, where kin would do kin with cutters to survive the next day. ‘Til our eyes were opened wide an’ a God paved the way for this next life and we got out. We listened to and bided by his commandments and lived each day since in his debt. I’m proud of my peoples and something in that makes me fearless too.” Father’s tone had changed and Henry felt as if the room was getting smaller and smaller by the second. The air felt thicker than it had been and he silently blamed Lanner for that too; for polluting the homestead. Lanner turned to Iris all of a sudden, got to his feet and put his patchwork hood up. He held a jagged knife in his hand, but kept his arm to his side and the blade pointing toward the floor.
“Now, little dear, will you see me to the door? It’s moito late and I don’t think I’m gonna find my friend out here.” He cast a look at Mother, then Father and finally Henry. He took Iris’ hand and led her to the door.
Father picked up his bearskin once more and the weapon that lay under it. Everyone else stood and moved to the entrance of the igloo where Lanner was headed. The baby awoke and started to cry. Mary and Hilde looked worried, while Martin seemed bewildered and didn’t know where to look or who to focus on.
“Ginger Lanner, will you come back to see us?” Iris asked, unaware of her siblings’ anxieties.
“That I might, treasure,” he replied, “but for now I’m going to get off. Let us play a little game… I’m going to turn every hundred steps, just to make sure you’re still waving. Do you think you could wave until I become a tiny dot, Iris? No horizonte distante?” On the distant horizon. It was a clever maneuver by Lanner, but before she could answer, Father interrupted. “Venha comigo. I will see you to the wire.” Come with me.
“There’s no need,” Lanner replied. “Stay in the warm with your good family.” He stole Iris’ nose a final time with the hand that didn’t have a knife in its grasp. “Adeus, Iris. Adeus, girls. Adeus, the family of the bearkiller!” He raised his knife to his brow, saluted the family with it, and started to trek toward the wire alone.
“Hej hej, Ginger Lanner! Goodbye! Boa noite!” screeched Iris as she waved farewell to the man with the dead friend. Father had drawn his knife and taken a step toward the departing Lanner. Henry was eyeing Mary’s slingshot.
“Don’t, John! The children… and you, Henry!” Mother whispered urgently.
Lanner took slow, casual steps away from the family and began to whistle a tune that none of them knew.
“It has to be done,” Father replied, turning toward her. “He ain’t got a good bone in his skin!”
“You do this and more will come looking for him,” Mother argued. The baby, sensing the tension, began to scream, but Mother did not try to soothe him.
“Is he a bad ‘un?” Martin asked, ignored by all except Hilde, who gave him a look of contempt.
“And you think he’ll forget about us? The girls? After all we went through to escape? We need to down him, Agneta,” Father said.
“Do you fear him, Pa?” M
artin asked, louder than before, which drew everyone’s attention except Iris, who stood apart from them as she waved. Henry waited for Father’s reply, as did the others.
“I don’t fear him none. But I fear there may be others like him. That’s never good for any.”
Lanner stepped over the wire, stopped, then turned to the family. His voice carried on the wind across the space that divided them. “You can’t keep your daughters locked up in the middle of Lantic, Bearkiller!”
The family watched as he turned his back on them once more and continued his unhurried strides from the igloo, as if proving his bravery, or madness. Mother grabbed Father’s arm firmly, refusing to break her hold as he pulled away from her. “Let go and take the children inside,” he said through gritted teeth.
“John! No!” Mother pleaded, but Father was agitated and finally shook his arm free of Mother’s grasp. She grabbed him a second time and pushed her face close to his, frown lines creasing her forehead in a wide M shape, which always made Henry think of the way birds spread their wings in flight.
Lanner was fifty steps beyond the wire.
“Agneta, he’s a danger to us all! We have to kill him! I have to!” Father declared.
“Please don’t kill him, Father,” Iris said simply, “Mother? Father won’t kill Ginger Lanner, will he? He was nice.”
Henry could tell Mother was conflicted.
“He’s going to stick him,” whispered Martin.
“I’ll do it.” Henry spoke quietly, in that moment believing himself capable of such a thing.
“I doubt it,” Hilde snarled.
“No, Iris. He won’t,” Mother said finally. Father glowered and shook his head.
“Damn you, Agneta,” he said before throwing his knife to the floor, where it stuck firm in the ice. Father went inside without another word. Mother looked hurt at first, then composed herself. Everyone except Iris stared at her.
“In,” Mother instructed her children, though only Martin did as commanded.
“I need to stay here and wave at Ginger Lanner,” Iris argued.
“In,” Mother repeated and ushered her inside with a firm prod. Iris hung her head in defeat. Her sisters followed quietly, and the baby filled the silence with piercing cries. Henry was the last to go inside.
“It’s a mistake,” he said, but no one spoke to him.
Lanner was gone.
Three
The Crudest Refinery
Henry woke earlier than usual, drenched in sweat from a nightmare. He tried to recall what he’d dreamt, but the second he’d opened his eyes his mind had erased itself and only fragments of the feelings he’d experienced from it lingered, leaving him unsettled.
Henry found that Father was gone from his sleeping bag. He found him outside, silently undoing the wire that surrounded the homestead. He knew then that they were going to leave their home and build another, further toward the center of what had been a mighty and deep sea.
Henry didn’t question it. Instead, he helped Father in silence as the sun rose in the distance with its tantalizing promise of warmth. Yet, it remained a broken vow, never raising the temperature enough to break the cold spell.
By mid-morning, their long-time family home was empty. They’d managed to pack everything onto their sled, with the man-meat, dried fish and personal effects in sealskins slung from their shoulders. The baby was dressed in extra furs and looked twice his size, like a bear cub. He was swaddled around mother’s waist, facing her with his head nestled between her bosoms and he slept much of the time, as the rhythm of the journey lulled him to sleep.
None of the children remonstrated. They all knew Father wouldn’t force them to move without good reason, and Lanner’s visit had left everyone, apart from Iris, nervous. The atmosphere was altered and their moods were downcast. Henry couldn’t remember it ever feeling that way in the homestead, even when times were hard and food was scarce.
Mother was abnormally quiet. Henry had seen her battle with her own conscience the night before; he knew that if Iris and Martin were a few years older, she wouldn’t have hesitated to kill Lanner herself.
Henry, Father and Mary took turns to pull the sled in teams of two, allowing one person to rest their arms and shoulders for a time, before getting back to the long haul.
They traveled for five days, sleeping in makeshift shelters unlike the carefully built home they had long shared. The family moved farther and farther out on the ice, beyond anywhere they had ever ventured before. They finished the man-meat between them, and eventually found a spot they all reckoned upon.
The family set up the wire as they built their new home from hard-snow. Yet no sooner had they started, Henry pointed out a storm in the distance, which crept slowly toward them. They worked in haste, but it still took them five hours to complete their new home and unpack their belongings from the sled. They made it inside just before the weather turned for the worst all around them and the storm intensified
Inside the Igloo, there was an air of relief that they were all no longer exposed to the conditions outside and had secured a safe shelter for the family. But the temperament shifted once more, as the storm moved overhead and the skies rang with thunder and the howling of an ireful wind.
The snow was unceasing and soon dulled the sound of the bluster, as it covered the roof of the igloo. That noise was replaced by the sound of the baby crying, until he eventually succumbed to his tiredness and fell to sleep once more. Father unfurled his sleeping bag and everyone else followed suit.
The snow had put more distance between them and the outside and the austere weather confined them to their new home for days. Hunger pain and absence of energy left them subdued. They talked little and the storytelling and games of backgammon to pass time were replaced by silence, or sleep. The endless snow masked the ice all around them and made it impossible to breach. The family couldn’t fish the waters less than a meter below. Father suggested breaking the ice floor within the igloo to reach the bounty beneath them, but it was too dangerous, in case they fell under the ice, or the structure around them fell in as they penetrated the floor below. As the days went on, the expression on his father’s face became ever more serious and his temper increasingly short. The family argued in those moments, but none had the energy to sustain it and the awkward silence returned, broken only when the baby cried.
Henry had had another brother once, but that one had not survived long enough to gain a name. “It’s harder to lose something once you’ve named it,” Father had said. So, they waited until it was strong enough to eat food proper. The boy-bairn wasn’t old enough yet to secure a name and they had still worried about it with the cold.
Stuck in the igloo, without food, Henry worried about his youngest sibling the most in their current predicament. The thought of death remained as he sat in silence watching Mother with him. He’d suggested once going out to see if there was anything to hunt, but Father told him simply, they’d be snow-blind and would be at greater risk of being prey to another creature than victor. In all likelihood, they’d just get lost and freeze to death without shelter. They were frustrated, but had no choice but to wait it out.
The comforting warmth of the blubber lamp died out when the last of the oil was burned. They huddled together for warmth, instead of in their usual circle; no longer the hours of the sundial clock. Twice, Father and Henry had to dig out the entrance when the snow threatened to encase them within.
Finally, the heavy snowfall ceased and the temperature rose slightly. The wind howled less and a calm fell within the igloo as well, although the immediate hunger remained. Henry caught Mother giving a huge sigh of relief, marking the moment they all left the igloo. She kissed the baby on his forehead.
Henry saw how the snow had built up around the igloo and obscured its shape.
There was no time to waste to get food. Any longer confined to the igloo would have been perilous.
Father clapped his hands loud, getting everyone’s attention.
“We’ve all got jobs today,” He said. “I’m going to smash the ice so we can fish. Hilde, Iris and Martin, I want you to set a second wire, a way past the first. Before the storm, as we trekked this way, I saw signs of a Big White. It was just half a day from here an’ that’s too chummy for me just now. Keep a lookout for each other. We ain’t got no claim on this icescape yet.”
The children nodded, glad to leave the igloo finally. Even Martin seemed pleased despite the danger.
“What about me and Hen?” Mary asked, already holding her slingshot.
“You won’t need that, Mary-daughter,” Father replied, “but you’ll need this.” He handed her a whalebone pick. “Take the sled. Be watchful. You an’ Henry are gonna fetch us a seal or two. We need the oil and we need the meat, but the oil is important ‘case the temperature drops quick.”
Mary’s face lit up. She looked at her brother and sprinted to the sled. Henry put on his boots and hurried after her.
The rarest thing on Earth was wood, which is why food was often eaten raw and use of the blubber lamps restricted to a minimum.
It wasn’t always that way, according to Father. Wood came from trees, which grew everywhere on land once upon a time. The family had seen some old pieces of it, frozen or stuck beneath the ice crust they walked upon. Mostly they were rotten and crumbled easily, but some bits the children kept. Father said they weren’t good for anything, unless they were burned. If they were burned, then they were gone for good. Wood was rare and wood was pointless. Oil was wondrous and it came from seals.
Henry and Mary both knew that a harp seal pup was fairly easy to kill. They were most common since the world had frozen over. There was a month during the year when the premature seal pups were fair pickings; they’d die on their own and the family did not need to kill any single one of them. They’d simply arrive with their sled and take what they could, then store it. They’d not go back and forth to get more, and Father gave two reasons for that.
Ever Winter Page 3