Henry wanted off the vessel, but he knew Father would mock him and Mary would enjoy his confession were he to voice it. They’d lived on Lantic their whole lives. Lantic was far from the Favela. Lantic was safe. It was home. The difference between the two places was that if the ice beneath the igloo cracked, the family would have time to escape. If the ship began to sink with them inside it, there would be no escape.
He composed himself and let his heartbeat return to a normal thump. Mary appeared from the door to the accommodation. Her hood was up, and she held a shovel across her shoulder. Father followed her with a crowbar, both of which had likely been found in a general stores room.
“Brother,” Mary greeted him, ”Let’s get back to it.”
“Back to it,” Henry replied, acting as normal as he could, then followed her toward the door where he’d left the axe he’d been using for the job.
They toiled for another couple of hours and had almost cleared the container doors, a mere inch of ice still sealing the bottom of them shut. Henry wore his new sunglasses, and neither Mary nor Father had inquired where they’d come from, although Mary had said he looked stupid in them.
Finally, Father signaled for them to pack up and leave, but Henry refused to down his tools.
“We’re nearly done. I could shift this in a bit. Let’s finish.” Henry smashed his axe into the ice, sending chippings of it up into the air.
“It’s time to get back to the homestead, Henry-son. Night comes quick this time of it.” Father rested his arm upon Henry’s shoulder. Henry stopped striking the ice and looked up at the sky. Both the sun and the moon were visible at the same time, which Henry had never seen before.
“We’re close. We’ll get that open in no time, an’ all that’s inside is ours. Ain’t you keen to see what’s in this’n?” Henry moved his Father’s arm back so he could take another strike at the ice encasing the bottom of the doors.
“It’ll be more dolls, or another car for you to mash up,” Mary quipped, impatient and clearly eager to be home.
“I’m staying, Father. Like you said, I’m a man now. I can choose to dwell beyond the wire.” Henry struck the ice once more. “Well, I choose to. I’m staying, and I’m getting this tin open,” he said, ignoring his growling stomach and his tired body’s demands for warmth and rest.
“Henry, you prong!” Mary rolled her eyes and walked away in the direction of the homestead.
Henry felt Father’s stare boring into him as he hit the ice again. Neither of them said anything for a while, but finally Father spoke.
“All right. You did your Ritual. I said it myself. You’re no chook.” Father placed his arm upon his son’s shoulder once more. “You can hack that floor a while longer, but don’t be too long. Mother will be worrisome. An’ she’ll take that out on me.”
Henry laughed and went to speak but Father interrupted him. “Won’t do you good missing a meal, though. You need some meat on them arms if you’re ever going to wear this pelt!”
It warmed his heart to hear his father acknowledge that Henry would one day step into his furs and lead the family, and all he could do was grin and nod a few times.
Father turned to catch up with Mary. Henry called out his thanks, and watched his father’s silhouette get smaller until it joined Mary’s in the distance and they both disappeared in the panorama.
Seven
Road to Ruin
It took Henry over an hour to chip away at the ice until it no longer barred the doors to the container. Still they would not open on their own, so Henry used the ax, then the crowbar to bend the doors at the bottom, then lever one side open. Pulling at the doors was no use, so Henry decided he’d be better off forcing them inward, providing no cargo had been placed directly in front of them.
He looked through the gap he’d already made, where the dwindling light had penetrated a few feet. There was no cargo there, which worried him; if the container turned out to be empty, there would be much laughter at his expense when he returned late for his meal with nothing to show for it.
The doors were hinged on the outside of the container, and when he had no luck with his assault on the center, he worked tirelessly on the hinges themselves, which was easier on one side where they had already rusted considerably. Henry was exhausted, but excited that he alone was unearthing the treasures within.
His stomach groaned under his furs, but he ignored its protests, resisted its demands for him to head back to the igloo to see what Hilde had added to the pot. His arms ached and the remaining hinges stood firm, so he threw his weight against the doors once more and barged them with his shoulders, which hurt, but caused the ingress he’d made to buckle further. There was a thud as something hit the floor; one of the rusted hinges had disintegrated entirely and the left door now hung from the bottom joint alone.
Henry focused on that side with crowbar and axe once more, then resorted to kicking it over and over, wondering to himself if his drumming of the container was being heard by Mary and Father on their way back to the homestead. He thought momentarily of the snow leopards too, not to mention the big whites.
Finally, the doors submitted to his assault, and a daydreaming Henry fell into the container and landed heavily on whatever was stacked within.
Henry ached all over, but he was exhilarated. He had done what he had said he would do, and he’d done it alone. He felt altered; broader, taller, despite what Father had said about his arms. Henry raised his face from where he lay on the cargo, then turned finally to savor his victory against the broken doors.
Outside, the shrinking sun made its curtain call sky, having dipped to make way for the pearl moon that rose in its stead. The sky was dark now, but had light from two opposing sources at the same time on different ends of the panorama. It felt eerie. Henry reached for the torch in his pocket and wound it up to see what surrounded him inside the container. Identical rectangular boxes filled the entire space, each carbon-colored and made of a plastic material, which explained why none had degraded since they were first sent overboard from the ship. The words British Army were stenciled on each box in an identical font and some had numbers upon them, which were all meaningless to Henry.
Henry barely noticed the roiling mist that descended upon the plateau as he unclipped the fastenings on the first box. The box held some kind of bodysuit. The dark gray material felt strange. Unlike anything Henry had ever touched. It was thin, like an undergarment rather than something you would wear to brave the cold, but it felt immensely durable. Henry tapped the breastplate with his knuckle and it made a din as if he was hitting man-made steel. He drew his blade and dragged it gently across the fibers of the material, then more aggressively when nothing happened. The material held, the fibers remained intact and there wasn’t even a visible scratch on the bodysuit. Henry stabbed it several times, but the blade failed to penetrate the outfit.
Henry sensed something then and turned instinctively to see the thickest of fog had swept down upon him and he could barely see six feet beyond the broken doors of the container.
Henry grabbed the suit and the crowbar. Every direction was obscured by the fog. The other containers were invisible and even the ship was concealed from him despite its immense size. The fog hung all around him and above him. It encroached upon him and left Henry claustrophobic, confused at how quickly the weather had changed. The need to return home grew suddenly overwhelming.
Henry thought once more of Father telling the family many times to stay put and weather the storm when they’d built their new home as the storm arrived. He could hear Father’s voice in his mind, then Mother’s too. But he was scared to remain and wanted to get back to everyone.
Henry took a breath, then made off in the direction he thought was home. The air around him was thick. It seemed to penetrate his lungs, adding weight to them, threatening to make him wheeze the more he inhaled and exhaled. He walked, blind. But very quickly, he faltered, smacking into the side of a container that he didn’t realize
was there because his bearings were so muddled.
He punched the container in frustration and the noise of it rang out, but that too seemed to get lost in the mist. He changed direction, but after a few steps, the same thing happened and he cursed. He strained to see through the mist, but it became a gray wall. Annoyed with himself and frustrated with his situation, Henry conceded and realized all he could do was go back to the ship.
Henry sat in the captain’s chair, eating one of the blue crabs he’d lured from the engine room with some of the tinned food he’d long given up on eating himself. He’d simply removed the lid of one of the cans, made a hole in the side through which he knotted a rope, and lowered it from the walkway into the pit below. He’d smashed one of the crab’s claws to get to the meat, which he ate raw. It tasted like everything else from the sea; same texture, same smell. The only other new food he’d tasted was the man-meat, and though he dared not admit it, he found himself thinking about it time and again, re-imagining the taste and the way he had to chew it thoroughly before swallowing each mouthful.
Henry had no idea how many hours he slept, but when he peered out of one of the portholes he saw that the fog had lifted, the sky was clear once more and it was a new day. A light snow had fallen, but it looked like it would be a good day.
Henry set off for home after putting on the bodysuit he’d found in the container. He wore it as an undergarment, but was surprised how warm it felt, and as he trekked through the snow, he actually felt hot and loosened the top layers. The suit was unlike anything he’d ever seen and the heat it provided made it precious. Henry had marveled at himself in the captain’s mirror when he put it on, knowing it had been worth the effort of digging the container free – and worth whatever punishment or harsh words awaited him when he got back to the homestead.
The journey home was similar to when he’d walked back with Mary after first discovering the ship. He had the same feeling of guilt in his stomach, the same worry. Only this time, Mary would be one of the people scolding him for being late and allowing them to think he’d come to harm alone in the fog.
Henry smiled when the homestead appeared in the distance. He picked up his pace, passing the hidden cave that screened Martin’s sculptures from the world. He didn’t look inside, but he could picture Martin’s creations still; ice imitations.
It was then that Henry noticed something odd about the homestead. He broke into a run.
The wire was down on one side. It looked like it’d been trampled. As he neared it, Henry could tell it had been cut in several places and dragged apart. Dusky smoke billowed from the igloo, and outside there were several mounds upon the snow, which reminded Henry of the containers scattered around the vessel. A thin layer of recent snow masked them, and some instinct urged Henry not to look at them for too long. Not to focus too clearly on the shapes. Not to count their number.
His heart pounded with urgency. There were footprints in the snow, trailing in every direction. Too many. Still Henry couldn’t grasp what he was seeing. Nothing made sense. Everything he saw was wrong: the plastic Mickey Mouse cup lay half-buried in the snow by his feet; a swathe of fabric flapped in the wire beside him; Mary’s slingshot was broken in two pieces by the entrance of their home, and one side of the igloo looked like it had collapsed in on itself. The white of the snow was spoilt in places with little dots and lines and pools. Blood.
Henry clutched his knife. Everything was silent. Mother wasn’t calling after any of the children. Hilde wasn’t yelling at Mary, or Iris. Iris wasn’t giggling and Martin wasn’t climbing the wire to sneak into his secret cavern. Father’s voice did not boom, or curse. The baby didn’t… the baby.
One of the mounds arched in an S shape a few strides away. Henry saw it out of the corner of his eye, but ignored it. He called out, too scared to go straight to the igloo itself. No answer came. No warmth, or scolding. Just silence.
Finally, something inside of him dared him to look at the mound. A wicked voice inside his head, barely audible, goaded him on.
You know what it is. Take a closer look. Fathom it, you prong. You know what it is.
Henry found he was approaching the stack. A gust of wind swept through the homestead and brushed some of the fresh snow, unmasking a face beneath it. Henry was startled, yet relieved that it wasn’t any of his family. The face belonged to a young man, not much older than Henry but with a full beard of yellow hair. Henry called out once more and went toward another mound, finding an older man stretched out on his back with his arms laid above his head as if he’d been dragged by them. The snow around the body was pink, and as Henry’s boots breached the surface of it, a darker color hemorrhaged the top layer and Henry could tell this man had lost a lot of blood as he lay dying. Henry rolled the body to one side and found a whalebone sticking out of the man’s kidney area.
“Mother! Father!” Henry screamed, frightened and unsure exactly what he should do.
Among the footprints and bodies were traces of sled tracks and paw prints. There had been more than one sled, by the look of it, each one much bigger than that which the family owned, each one pulled by five or six animals of some kind.
Henry’s mind raced. He tried to put his thoughts together. His family had been attacked. They were nowhere to be seen. Who might have done this?
Lanner!
The dead he’d seen weren’t his kin, and that meant his family had fought back. He pictured a battle, with Father charging into the melee head-on. Father was strong. Father had killed a Big White. The two men Henry had seen had not survived.
It was a good sign, but he’d not checked all of the mounds. He was scared to. In case. There was still a chance that his family wasn’t among the fallen. They might have chased off the attackers, or gone looking for Henry to warn him, or join him within the safety of the yot-boat. Henry hadn’t checked Martin’s cave. They could even have been hiding there! As long as Henry didn’t see any of his family amongst the mounds, there was still a chance.
He looked instead at the entrance of the igloo, from which smoke still escaped.
Go to it. You know what’s inside. Prong. You know what happened here, and it’s your burden.
Henry found himself walking to the igloo once more, tasting the smoke as he neared it. Before he reached the entrance, something caught his eye: a figure was laid across the ice hole, partly submerged in the ice. Father was sprawled in a star shape, with his arms and legs wide open, in a position almost as laughable as it was tragic. His torso was bare and it was covered in wounds from blades and blunt instruments. His skin was pale and his eyes were closed.
Henry fell to his knees, broken at the sight of Father. A thousand remembered images of the man he loved with every fiber of him came to Henry in quick succession. All smiling and reassuring, nothing like the pitiful sight before him.
Henry tried to gather his thoughts but he couldn’t. He was tormented and pushed his hands over his eyes to shield them for what he saw, hoping it would be a different scene when he let his hands fall away. He was confused as to why Father had not sunk into the water without a trace, then he saw the anchor looped around his waist and embedded in the ice next to the hole, which alone kept him from slipping under. They’d wanted him to die slowly. They’d tossed him into the waters after they’d beat him and tortured him. They’d wanted him to be found and wanted Henry to see it and forever drown in that vision, with no chance of shaking it from his mind. Lanner! Henry saw then that the net strung from the anchor was also tangled around Father’s legs beneath the knees, knotted in an imprisoning web. Catch of the day! he thought, somewhat hysterically. Father would not have approved of the assailants leaving the anchor that they’d used to catch fish behind. It was wasteful and stupid.
Henry leaned forward, wiping the tears from his face before pulling his father from the ice by the waist. He failed at the first attempt, but found the strength to lift him the second time. As he hauled his father’s body up, he was repulsed to find small fish attac
hed to Father’s back, nibbling from the open wounds. All but one of them fell back into the water, and Henry pulled the last one from his father’s skin in disgust and threw it across the ice.
Nausea engulfed him. He sank to his knees again and thought about how everything was linked. The walks back to the homestead, the death-stares of strangers, the mounds scattered like the containers, and now lifting Father’s corpse from the ice hole just as he’d dragged a seal from the waters just weeks previous. His family fed on fish. The fish fed on Father. A tin can to bait the blue crab and the old man to bait the fish. The world was a cruel place.
In Henry’s head, the voice continued to mock him.
This is yours. On you, boy. Look at the bear killer!
He wasn’t sure then if the voice was his, or if it belonged to Lanner.
Henry tried to untangle the mess of net around Father’s feet but quickly gave up, looking around instead for Father’s coat to cover his body. It was nowhere in sight and he assumed it would be inside the igloo somewhere. He closed his eyes, not wanting to venture further. Henry knew the path ahead would only lead to sadness. Heartache. He called for his mother and no reply came, which he’d expected by now. So many mounds. A cemetery of snow dunes.
An agonized groan came from the corpse beside him.
“Don’t. Go in. Don’t go inside.” Father’s rasping voice frightened him so much that Henry scrambled away from him. Then he crawled back just as quickly, realizing Father was still alive, or still clinging on to life at least.
“Father!” Henry took off his own coat and placed it over his father’s bare chest. He rubbed the shoulders to try and bring warmth, but Father grimaced, from the pain of his wounds, which were everywhere. “I’m sorry, Father! I should’ve come back. I should’ve come back with you and—”
“No. Don’t go,” Father managed. He gripped Henry’s wrist feebly.
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