The wheels of the car still spun, apart from the rear passenger side, where the wheel had been forced into the bodywork at a right angle and the white tire had blown.
“If there is, you ain’t drivin’ it. You could’ve killed us all, Mother would blame my ghost for it I’m sure,” Father said, walking away from the scene. Henry thought he saw him smiling, but couldn’t be certain.
Guilt twisted Henry’s stomach about wrecking the anteek car. It had been such a beautiful thing and he supposed it had taken years to build, by hundreds of people no longer of the Earth. Mary punched him on the arm but didn’t say anything more. Henry shot her an apologetic smile, knowing he’d already been forgiven.
Eiderdown snowflakes fell lazily upon the wreckage and Henry wondered how long it would take for the car to be forgotten once more. It really was a shame he’d wrecked it. They could’ve got back to the igloo in double quick time and he was sure Mother would’ve liked a go at driving. He felt guilty about that part especially.
“I should’ve gone slow. We could’ve rode it to China, or Canada. Might’n be trees there that can out-do the snow. Imagine!” Henry sighed, full of regret.
“Hilde’s never going to get over this! She’ll spit!” Mary laughed, following Father to the ship. Henry took a final glance at the car, silently mourned the passing of the holograph, then took off after his father and sister.
He’d been scared. He’d felt terrible afterward. But for those precious minutes, traveling at great speed in the Duesenberg, it was the most fun that Henry had ever had.
He didn’t need to ask Father, or Mary, but he knew from the looks on their faces in the vehicle, in the moment before the car had flipped onto its roof, that they also felt the same.
Six
Skills
Another snowstorm had confined the family to the igloo for a couple of days. Hilde sat reading the new book Mary had brought from the wrecked ship. She’d barely spoken to her family in weeks, furious that she’d been excluded from the great excavation of the cargo and that she only got to hear about the trove second-hand.
Taken from their original homestead, the mirrored shard turned slowly as it always did. It was the family’s dreamcatcher and warder of evil, another constant in their lives. The doll Henry had given Iris also looked over the family in silence, with a seemingly bemused look upon its face.
“How’s the book?” Father asked. Hilde ignored him and turned the page defiantly, keeping her eyes on the printed text. Mother shook her head as she worked at patching a hole in one of the sleeping bags. Henry knew that Mother knew her daughter’s stubbornness well, for she’d commented on it often.
Mother had always noticed more than anyone else about the changes in her children as they grew. Henry had heard her say that Mary was looking more like a woman each day and Hilde was on the cusp of it all (although he didn’t know quite what that meant). Henry had once heard Mother tell Father that Hilde had a harshness to her that not many men or womenfolk would ever suffer.
Iris lay beside Henry as he rested from the day’s work, digging the container free of the ice. The bairn crawled over them both, flapping his tiny hands at them with excitement, screeching with delight at the discovery he could move around on his own. Henry studied the boy-bairn.
He’d become interesting; no longer a thing that just lay there, demanding food and attention. The bairn had grown a single quiff of blond hair that looked like an upside-down question mark. He recognized his siblings. He smiled and pulled surprised expressions whenever he discovered something new, often things that the others took for granted. He had confidence and character already, which reminded Henry of Iris and a little of himself.
“I thought it’d be like the other book, but the world inside it is another,” Mary finally answered for her sister, as she’d read from its pages already. “It’s like starting over as you read it.”
“What’s this’n about?” Mother asked.
“There’s a man who gets sent on a yot-boat because people thought he was a bad ‘un. They send him to a place where the Devil lives, although you don’t see the Devil, an’ he keeps trying to get out and they keep finding him an’ punishing him, but he keeps trying an’ trying to be free.”
“Not all gods are devils. Ours was neither one nor the other,” Mother commented, referring to the fable of how they’d come to the icescape.
“Is he from Derry?” asked Henry, fascinated. The bairn cooed and blew a raspberry, which Iris returned.
“No. He’s from a place that were beknownst to them as France,” Mary said quite seriously, oblivious to her sister’s renewed annoyance.
“Does he get away?” Father asked, seeming genuinely interested in the tale.
“He does,” Mary replied as Hilde let out a maddened groan, threw her book down on the floor and turned to face the ice wall of their home.
“Sorry,” Mary said to no effect and picked up the book, placing it carefully in the plastic bag where it joined its distant cousin.
Later, as the family was distracted with preparing the evening meal, Henry watched his younger brother, Martin, slip away from the igloo, trudge his way to the wire and wriggle his tiny frame through it with ease, but absent stealth. One of the only rules in the homestead was that no child should cross the wire alone. Martin wasn’t meant to stray far from the igloo, but even with a large brood of siblings, they couldn’t keep an eye on him all the time.
Henry was surprised at his brother’s newly acquired boldness, but then, he’d not paid much attention to Martin of late. He knew Hilde was angry and jealous about being excluded from the excavation, but Martin was often the invisible one. Henry felt a pang of guilt that he’d neglected his brother in all the excitement that the yot-boat afforded.
He caught up with Martin, careful not to be seen departing from the homestead himself.
“Where do you think you’re sneaking off to, nipper?” Henry inquired, grabbing him by the scruff when he reached him beyond the wire. “You’re too young yet for crossing the wire, but not too young for a hiding. Mother’d kill you if she knew you’d trekked out in this cold, boy.” Henry wouldn’t have hit Martin, but the boy winced anyway.
“Don’t tell none of ‘em, Henry. You promise, or I won’t show you.” His eyes betrayed him, and Henry looked over his brother’s shoulder, seeing nothing at first.
“You show me now, or I’ll kick your rump,” Henry said.
Martin’s shoulders slumped in defeat and he pointed in the direction he’d been heading. Henry blinked, but saw nothing through the haze of snowdrift.
“It’s over there. I’ll take you to it, but don’t tell the girls. It’s no devilry, jag lovar. I promise.” Martin led the way from the wire in silence, and Henry saw the boy’s worry in the way he was stooped and the way his boots dragged in the snow.
After fifty yards, Henry fancied that he could make out something ahead of them, and he smiled at the memory of the day Mary had seen the yot-boat in the distance before he had. This was different, though: a blur, not so distant, bleached and camouflaged against the all-white backdrop. As they neared it Henry could make out an irregular mound, with an opening that faced them. It wasn’t made of ice bricks like the igloo; the shape had clearly been made naturally during one of the recent snowstorms, where the cold air had frozen the snow during the blizzard.
Henry recalled the way their igloo had been buried so many weeks before, but he
couldn’t believe that only Martin had discovered the anomaly in the weeks that they’d been there, unless it had been made recently. He recalled Mary talking to him in the yot-boat about being small and unseen. There was an absurdity to the situation, but the family simply wasn’t looking for a new formation, especially so close to the wire and the homestead.
Martin crouched into the discreet opening and Henry followed on all fours.
Inside, Henry was met by a sight so beautiful he knew he’d always remember it. Henry had always respected and feared the ice
equally. It had nearly wiped the human race from the Earth. Everything about it was unceasing and dangerous. It was death. On that day, for the first time, he saw it anew; the ice could be majestic. More than the stalactite teeth that made a face out of the side of the container ship, the sight that met Henry was something else.
The tiny opening broadened into a room the same size as their igloo, although its shape had been created at random. Unlike the igloo, the structure wasn’t a dome within. The very walls of it were crystals that shimmered in confused flakes and spikes in shades of blues and frosted greens not seen from the outside. The ceiling was translucent in places, letting in light through a handful of rime clouds frozen above them. Henry’s heart raced as he took it all in. In that moment, he was glad he’d found the corpse in the snow all those months ago, for it had triggered the events that had led him to explore the yot-boat with Mary and discover Martin’s cave.
Martin sat on the floor next to a tool that neither Henry nor Father had realized was gone. The boy had been at work, sculpting a block of ice the size of a kettle-pot. The sculpture was starting to resemble the shape of a face, and the features hewn on one side already hinted at a woman. Mother.
“I didn’t mean any harm. I just wanted a secret, and a place that was…just for me. I found this place and I thought you all would too, except you never did. You’re always out with Mary, or Father. The bairn isn’t any fun yet, Mother just scolds me for this an’ that and the girls get on my nerves.” It was the most that Martin had ever spoken all at once.
Henry studied his brother. Martin too had changed in recent weeks. He’d gotten taller and had lost some of the chubbiness from his cheeks. Henry had always thought of Martin as a nuisance until that moment. Just a kid. He’d forever let the girls sort the boy out, as they were nearer Martin’s age than he was. Henry had also been distracted, learning the things he needed to become a man. He felt another crush of guilt as he stood in Martin’s secret den and listened to him speak from his heart.
“The girls told me about fairies and I never believed them afore, but I think fairies might be real because this place is so bleedin’ pretty,” Martin said earnestly.
He was simply a young boy; playing, exploring, and believing in things that Henry had never been given the chance to believe in. He envied his little brother then, but also wanted Martin to stay the age he was, just for a while longer, before Father put a blade or spear in his little hands.
“I won’t grass you up, Martin. It’s very…nice. Muito bom,” was all Henry could manage. He wished he could’ve found more fitting words to praise his brother’s genius, but he just didn’t have any that could do it justice.
Henry drew toward the sculpture and studied it. He liked that it was smooth and perfect on one side, with contrasting jagged edges on the other where it was yet to be humanized. To Henry, it didn’t need finishing. He liked all that it was. All that it wasn’t.
“This is good, Martin. Bleedin’ pretty,” he said and watched his brother’s cheeks flush red at the compliment.
“It’s Mother,” Martin replied with a smile, as if Henry had never cast his eyes upon her face before and hadn’t made the obvious connection.
Without thinking, Henry took off his glove, then reached out and touched the finished side of the ice being’s face, leaving his hand upon its cheek for some time. The side that was complete was the perfect image of Mother. Henry remembered the holograph of a family in one of the lockers of the container ship. Although that had captured a moment in time so perfectly, his brother’s artistry had captured something more. It wasn’t just a likeness of Mother; Martin had captured the way he saw her and what she meant to him.
“I know. I never knew you could do anything like this.”
“Nor did I. I know her face better than my own. I just started hacking the ice at first. Then I fathomed what I was doing. It makes me feel good. Like I can do something no one else can. Don’t tell Father. I bet he’d wreck it or scold me some.”
“I won’t tell him, just as long as you promise that the next one you make will be your handsome brother, fighting a snow leopard!” They laughed together and Martin promised Henry that he would, but added that he’d heard Mary had done all the hard work defending them both.
Henry left Martin in his den and made his way back to the igloo to see if anyone had tried a pickled cucumber from the yot-boat yet.
-
In the morning, the sky was clear again and they all knew that meant another trip to the ship. The trio spent a few hours clearing the front of one of the stricken containers to try and free its doors, but to no avail. Instead, Father sorted through the trove of goods they’d relocated to the captain’s office and Mary lay on one of the beds in her cabin, braiding her hair whilst apparently deep in thought.
Henry wandered the corridors. He’d been everywhere and searched all of the cupboards, shelves and places he could think to store anything of interest. He knew where all the bodies lay and in which position, and had secretly named them after characters in the family’s first book. The chief cook was Mike Hanlon, the second mate was Richie Tozier and the woman in the boiler suit was Beverly Marsh. He wondered if the creature from the story, the demon, lived somewhere in the belly of the ship beneath the ice. The thought made him shudder.
He stood in the doorway of the stairwell, transfixed by the deep darkness below. His torch’s light caught the shimmering surface of the ice that blocked the stairwell a few flights down and blurred the steps as they disappeared beneath it. Without thinking too much about it, Henry descended the stairwell and pushed hard at the door of the first sub-level beneath the deck until it groaned against his weight and juddered open for the first time in a hundred years.
Martin’s cave had been wondrous and majestic, but the underbelly of the ship was an ugly nightmare; twisted rails and arcs of steel made crooked webs in the shadows as the torchlight found them. A disorder of rusting machinery filled the spaces between the mezzanine floors, much of it shifted or bent out of position by a tremendous force. Henry stood at the top of what had been the engine room, sharing the walkway with another corpse that he’d not yet chosen a name for. This one wore a hard hat with a green logo upon it and wore thin trousers and a casual shirt with the sleeves rolled up. It lay with its legs twisted and a bony arm dangling over the side of the walkway, still gripping a clipboard that had a pen hanging from it by a piece of string.
Just like the stairwell below, the water had frozen inside the bottom third of the engine room and Henry was amazed at the glimpse into the past it provided – the arrival of the Ever Winter. Henry shone the torch slowly in a long straight line from one end of the engine room’s iced floor to the other. A blue crab scuttled across his line of light and disappeared under a fallen cabinet. Henry wished he’d had his net with him, having caught a few blue crabs when they’d swum up for bait, usually just once a year.
“How’d yous get in here?” Henry spoke quietly, not wishing to hear his voice echo in a such a place.
His torchlight caught a large moving shadow beneath the carpet of ice. Henry thought he’d imagined it at first, but caught it again a second time: the distorted yet unmistakable silhouette of a shark stalking the extremities of the ship to the keel. The shark was swimming inside the ship. The hull had been breached, yet the ship had not sunk.
Henry searched until he found evidence of a tear; the tip of something huge, pointed and man-made, of the same material as the ship had speared the hull. The top of it was visible above the ice and the rest obscured beneath it. Henry had no idea what the thing was, or what it had been used for, yet he did understand then that the ship’s hull had both torn and frozen before the crew realized – so instantaneously, that the rushing waters which entered the hull had no time to fill it, or sink the vessel and the man with the thin trousers and rolled-up sleeves had no time to drop his clipboard and alert others.
The squall and the freeze had come so rapidly that the surface of the sea h
ad crystallized in a single moment as the vessel was impaled. Henry recalled being confined to the igloo in the blizzard and that Father had feared breaking the ice whilst they were there, because below them, under the ice, was the deep dark waters and all the creatures within it. If the family could not escape the igloo and the floor beneath them broke apart, they would have all drowned. Maybe not all at once. Maybe not in the same minutes. But without an escape, they would have sunk to the depths below.
Henry looked around him in the engine room and knew that were the weather to ever change, or were the sun to ever return to its former brilliance and bring with it a thaw, everything on the yot-boat would be lost. Time would uncase. Both the object that had impaled the ship and the ice itself would release the vessel from their grasp and it would continue its fateful course to the seabed below, with all the prizes inside forever lost.
In Henry’s mind, even without the sun bringing its warmth to the ice, he pictured the bottom of the ship just falling apart from the rest of it. He’d seen the rust on those parts exposed on the surface of the ice. Below it would be far worse.
“Shark got in. Whole time we’ve been here, we’ve been sharing it with sharks.”
The stark revelation brought panic to Henry. The comparison of the buried igloo and the stricken, rotting underside of the ship.
“This rotten underbelly. It could break apart down there and the shark knows it.”
Anxious and unable to stand being in the engine room anymore, Henry ran from the sub-deck to the corridor above where Beverly Marsh lay without her coffee cup. The ship was no haven for his family. The ship was death itself, waiting languidly to slide from the sword that held it and drag them all down into the darkness.
Ever Winter Page 7