“What happened? Where are yours and mine?” Henry asked desperately, hot tears sliding down his cold cheeks.
“Lanner. Fa…favela,” Father whispered. His lips were blue and his body shook uncontrollably. Tear tracks lined his face, a thing that Henry had never seen before. Rage built inside him.
“Don’t go inside the igloo,” the dying man pleaded and Henry could tell his beloved Father was summoning all his will to bring the words together.
“I’ll kill him. And whoever else did this.” Henry said this plainly, as if it was a matter of fact. A done deal. He turned toward the igloo. When he looked back, Father was smiling.
“Love you, Henry-son,” he muttered, before the last of the life left him.
Henry clutched the knife as he entered the igloo. The smell of the smoke almost overwhelmed him and it made the scene that unfolded seem dreamlike. The family’s few possessions which had not been taken had been smashed or overturned. Part of the ceiling and wall had indeed caved in; the outside world had breached the inside, in more ways than one. His home was now a ruin that would eventually bury itself.
Mother’s body was slumped in the corner where the igloo had collapsed. She stared at the entrance, sightless yet defiant, her hair and clothes in bloody disarray. She’d killed four of her attackers. There were two bodies to each side of her, and her right hand still gripped the hair of one of them. She held the shard of mirrored glass in the other, which she’d used to kill the men with, before she’d died herself from her wounds. The pot and the blubber lamp were on the floor, cracked and broken. In the center of the room, something smoldered. Something in a blackened blanket.
Henry looked at the shard of mirror. The dreamcatcher that had failed them. His mother’s blood was upon it, mixed with the blood of the men she’d killed. That thought disgusted him also; the mixing of the blood. The pure cordial of Mother’s, diluted with the filth spilled from the new enemy.
All on you, Henry-boy. Yourn doing.
Henry forced himself to go to the small pile that smoldered in the space between him and his mother’s corpse. He moved slowly, still gripping the knife. He touched the blackened blanket. It still showed the pattern on one side, which he recognized well. Tears streamed down his face as he unraveled the coverlet.
Fathom it!
Henry screamed and screamed until all strength left him and his voice broke. He hoped that his scream would be carried across the ice to the ears of Ginger Lanner. His scream was despair at first, but in the end, the sound changed and it became a warning. His scream was madness. It became a promise. He hoped Lanner could hear him.
The cruel voice in his head disappeared. He’d set it free and now he was altered. The Ritual was one thing. That had made him a man. But this had made him something more than that. Something else. He had not been watchful, but he would be ruthless.
Martin, Mary, Hilde and Iris weren’t amongst the bodies scattered around the homestead. After all that time thinking they were safe, forgetting the danger, Lanner had found the family and he’d taken Henry’s siblings. All except the baby, whose tiny body was swaddled, but whose head had been replaced with that of a plastic doll.
Eight
A Bedtime Story
THE GIRLS.
“This one’s mine,” said the woman warrior, grabbing Mary by the scruff of her collar as she knelt. Mary hugged herself, her chin tucked into her body protectively. She barely acknowledged what was going on, rocking herself in a vaguely comforting rhythm. She was confused, distant. She could feel the mark of a purple bruise which spoiled her cheek and the eye above it had puffed beyond its usual size.
An improvised shelter had been hastily thrown together in case the weather turned, but no snow fell that night and the sky was clear. The pack dogs lay in a sleeping, stinking huddle by the opening. They were unlike the dogs of the Great-Greats as they’d been bred over and over from the same bloodline for over a hundred years. Mother had told the girls this. Mother.
The animals’ teeth protruded painfully at all angles. Their manes were thick and their muscles strong. The dogs resembled wolves, ancient family pets, fighting dogs. All of these. Mostly, they resembled monsters.
Mary, in her daze, thought about the stars. She wished she was outside so she could look at them all. Only the stars. Nothing else. Never anything else. She closed her eyes and imagined that her mind could wander from the shelter and view the stars from outside. Outside, where it was safer, away from the people around her and the beastly animals so unlike the snow leopards she’d once feared.
Like a hawk in flight, her mind soared around the icescape and flew up to the sky until she was amongst the stars. Mary was so far from Earth and everything upon it that she could no longer see Lantic and all the terrible things that happened there. She lingered, drawing warmth from a single thought: that clouds would form again soon and shroud the surface of Earth from her completely. Only then could she forget everything.
Hilde hugged Iris and Martin closer to her, as they huddled like the pack dogs that guarded the entrance. They’d given up trying to engage their sister. They hoped she’d come back at some point and go back to being Mary, but the longer she was estranged, the more they worried, and it seemed less likely they’d ever see the old Mary again. None of them spoke. They’d learned not to in the days since Lanner had announced himself once more at the wire.
“Pare.” Stop.
Ginger Lanner stretched his arms and then tilted his head from side to side to stretch his neck muscles. He yawned, displaying his gapped teeth to all, taking his time to reply to the woman who wanted to claim Mary as hers. He wore the Big White pelt that he’d taken from the children’s father. Although he was a tall man, the coat was too big and hung awkwardly upon his frame. The fur was no longer one color. It was two; white and red.
“Comrade, amigo. The king determines the spoils.” His voice was soft. He wasn’t as animated as he’d been when he first met the children some months previous. He no longer needed the mask he had worn for them. “Erasmus, I’m promised the little one. I’ll put in a word about this ‘un, si, but the king may want all of them, for some time at least. Or he may put them all into the ice. Either way, we deliver the subjects as seen. The witch will check them over. None got permission to ruin.”
Erasmus grunted a response and sat back down. She was as old as Mother had been, absent Mother’s softer features and warm smile. She was sporting a fresh wound to her own face where she’d been struck on the bridge of her nose during the assault, but it had clearly been bent many times before. Hilde thought she may have been beautiful once, before she had been spoiled by the violence upon her. Yet Hilde could not feel sorry for Erasmus, who’d been one of the butchers that wrapped an anchor around Father and left him spread across the ice-hole to perish.
Erasmus kept her eyes upon Mary, who was oblivious. Erasmus bit her bottom lip as if she were suppressing words, or thoughts. It drew blood and she let it run down her chin. Her teeth looked orange. Hilde in turn kept her eyes upon her, uncertain how she could intervene and protect the younger ones at the same time. Though she hated Erasmus and her companions, she was also angry with Mary. She needed her help. She needed her strength and guidance. Yet she understood. What they’d all gone through, what they’d seen, had been unthinkable. It would stay with each of them forever.
There were four other raiders in the shelter, two men and two women. One couple was sleeping close together, with the woman’s arm draped around the man’s form as they snored in unison. The man’s beard, like his hair, was mottled into unruly knots. It held morsels of food and other things and gave off a stale stench, which the children could smell from the other side of the shelter along with the pack dogs. They’d heard the others call him Jared, but he himself rarely spoke, and his eyes were mostly hidden under the peak of his Hooters trucker cap. The lady tucked next to him was Ula and she was bigger than all of the men in height and heft. She’d not been cruel to the children and hadn’
t been directly involved in the deaths of Mother or Father, but she was present and had helped drag the children to the sleds. That made her just as guilty as everyone else. Hilde would never forget her name, or the names of her cohorts.
The other pair were keeping guard reluctantly, looking like they needed to sleep themselves. One was a short, walrus-looking fellow with ashen hair and a thick mustache. He called himself Needol. Needol blinked continuously to try and keep his eyes open. He wore the belt that Henry had given Father when he’d first discovered the yot-boat. The girl, Dookie, had her jet-black hair cut short, which made her look like a young boy. She had a slim frame and none of the usual curves of a woman. Just a few years older than Henry, she glowered at the children hatefully. One of the raiders Father had killed had meant something to her and she blamed the children for it. At least when Ula was on guard, Hilde could relax slightly.
Lanner sidled up to Iris and she slunk away from him, nestling under Hilde’s protective arm, which Lanner ignored. He held his hands up and grinned. The gesture wasn’t surrender, but it was hard to interpret exactly what it was. Lanner was the clown. The demon.
“I’d like to tell you a story. It’s an old story that was told to me by one of the old ‘uns at the Favela. Are you listening? Good.”
Lanner hadn’t waited to see if anyone was listening to his tale, but the heavy-eyed guards eavesdropped, interested, even if the children weren’t.
“There was once a little girl who thought that the moon was the most beautiful thing in the world. One day, she asked her papa to get it for her. Her papa, he made something called a ladder and it stretched up and up and up. He climbed that thing until he came face to face with the moon. ‘Hey, amigo,’ he said, thinking them lifelong buds, because he’d gazed at that moon his whole life long. Then he reached out and he took it. The moon! That’s right. He went back down with the moon in his hand and he gave it to his little girl. The moon! The girl was so pleased that, do you know what she did? You’ve no idea. She took the moon and she danced with it! She danced with the moon. Si?” Lanner moved his arms then like he was dancing. He looked insane.
“But as she danced, she jumped up and up and the moon went up and up with her. Except it kept going. Zooming. Up and up! It grew tiny as it got further away, until none ever saw it again and the world was in darkness forever. Ever and ever, amen. All because – let me tell you why – all because the papa thought he could just take the moon and keep it for him and his! That’s the moon!”
Lanner had become agitated as he told the story and laughed his childlike laugh in all the places he thought were funny. His arms moved wildly as he told it, until he came to a final stop. He shook his head as if he were trying to work it all out, closing his eyes as if he were viewing the story inside his head and replaying it to himself. He smiled sardonically, then continued, “Now, your papa, he thought he could take you all and keep you to himself out here in the mid of nowhere. Keep the rest of us in darkness. Whilst he danced with you all. That’s not right. It’s mercenary! It’s wrong ‘un! I found you. Me. I found you. I found you! The king has promised you to me. I accept his gift. Whole-heart. It’s my turn to dance. It’s my turn. Up and up and up. Until none can see you anymore.”
It was clear finally how frayed Lanner’s mind was. He was more dangerous than any of them could have imagined when they first met him back in the homestead. Then Hilde remembered; Father had known. Father had wanted to stick him. If only he had.
Before Hilde realized it, Martin, who hadn’t spoken in days, sprang up.
“Leave her alone!” he said bravely, throwing a shard of ice at Lanner, which missed pathetically, and wouldn’t have caused any bother if it hadn’t. It was the first time Martin had ever had an outburst of any sort and the first time Hilde had heard him raise his tiny voice. Lanner looked furious and went to strike Martin, but Hilde grabbed his arm with both hands, screaming for him not to touch her brother, who looked so small compared to the man that towered above him. Dookie had readied her weapon, eager to step in and cause harm to the children, but Lanner shoved her backward, keen to handle things without her. Ula and Jared leaped up from where they lay, but Lanner changed tact and let Hilde go. He laughed hard before regaining his usual sinister expression.
“Hark at you, girl! There are spikes upon you. I have noticed. The king will see it, of course, but just in case he don’t, I shall help him fathom it! There’ll be a few choices for you. None great, si? Bite your tongue, serpent bitch. And you, boy, unless you want me to not treat you as well as I have been. I can adapt my behavior.”
“Why wait?” Hilde blurted out. “Why don’t you just kill us like you did our mother and father? And our—”
“You ain’t mine to kill,” Lanner interrupted, red in the face. “I ain’t sorry about taking any of you, or doing them in. That man who raised you out here had no respect. Sem respeito! You don’t make treasures and keep them all to yourself. From your king!”
Lanner closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
“Dorme and dream sweet. Don’t make me switch on you right here. Soon you’ll wish we butchered you with your family. They goners now. Like the Great-Greats. Yourn misery is just starting. Compreendo?”
He turned to Iris, who cowered behind Hilde, but still formed a barrier to Martin. He scratched at his patchy beard and softened his voice.
“Night, my little dear. Won’t be long and we’ll be home, you and I.”
Iris shuddered and sobbed into her sister’s arm. Lanner gave them all the creeps, but after what she’d witnessed at the homestead, Iris clearly thought he might just be the devil himself. Hilde held her tighter than she ever had, even after Lanner retreated to the other side of the shelter. It was Henry or Mary who usually comforted the youngest siblings. It was Henry or Mary who played with them. Mary was absent even though she sat just an arm’s length away, and Henry was gone. If the fog didn’t lose him forever, there’d be other predators on the ice that he couldn’t match alone. Hilde realized she was now sister and mother in one. She looked down, twisting her sister’s hair in her fingers the way that Henry often did, and at some point, Iris and Martin both fell asleep.
Hilde could not sleep. Not until she was sure that Lanner was comatose. She lay in silence, listening to strangers and pack dogs breathing around her, worried about all that awaited them at the Favela. She knew she had to think of a plan to keep them together and to escape the clutches of their captors before it was too late. Killing Lanner in the process would be a bonus, but right then, all she wanted was to get away. Mary was the hindrance. Mary wasn’t herself and Hilde wasn’t sure if she could rely on her when the time came, or whether she’d have to make the choice of taking Martin and Iris and leaving Mary behind.
Only when she was sure everyone apart from the guards were asleep did she let her tears come.
Nine
Salvagers
Father had once said you shouldn’t name a bairn until it was old enough, because it was harder to lose something with a given name. Henry thought it ironic how in the nights before Lanner had attacked, the family had finally named the bairn, only for the bairn to be taken from the world in such a grotesque way.
He’d spoken the name just a single time that night, but Henry would never speak it again. The pain and the horror of what he’d seen was still indescribable and would never leave him.
Henry had trekked for twenty-two days, covering over a hundred leagues. He’d found what might have been footprints in places, but never caught sight of anyone. No clues had been left behind, intentionally or otherwise. He’d guessed they were hours ahead of him, but he could never be certain as he didn’t know how fast the animals that pulled their sleds were, or for how long they rested.
Never before had he experienced such solitude. His mind endlessly replayed the horrors he had seen, causing him at times to scream to the heavens with demands of explanation, or retribution, until his throat was hoarse and his head dizzy from the exertion.
He’d sobbed, often without realizing it; then, upon coming to his senses, he’d tried to pick up his pace and close the gap between him and those he sought. He thought of every key decision he’d made that past month, and in his thoughts, he altered each of the decisions, trying to grasp what course his new action would’ve taken. It was torture. In his mind, he put himself at the homestead when Lanner and his men had attacked. He defended his family. He died with them. He slaughtered Lanner. He won, he lost, negotiated and begged, he threatened and tricked and was tricked in return. Nothing mattered. Because what had happened, had happened. Yet his anguish and loneliness remained.
Henry tried to limit his sleep, so he could make some of the distance up between him and whatever was left of Lanner’s raiding party each day. He didn’t have to hunt; he’d taken the flesh with him from the dead raiders and packed it in a sealskin. Not from Mother. That he couldn’t do.
“Meat is meat,” Father had once said to him.
He hoped Lanner’s men would have to find their food beneath the ice, which would give Henry time to close the gap on them. Then he worried that, being from the Favela, they would not be well accustomed to catching fish in the middle of Lantic and would instead turn to their captives when hunger took hold. The Favela is evil.
Like the scenarios Henry had imagined playing out when Lanner had attacked the homestead, he also found his mind conjuring what had been happening to his siblings ever since they were taken. It plagued him even more than the events at the homestead, because unlike the decisions he’d made in the past, the things he imagined happening to his siblings could actually be unfolding somewhere on the distant ice.
Henry kept moving, because every time he sat still, he felt the urge to remain where he was and give up. He pictured himself just lying on the ice and doing nothing. Letting the snow cover him and dying upon the ice like his father had. Yet love kept him going – and, in equal amount, hatred.
Ever Winter Page 9