by Ann Aguirre
No. There’s no point to any of this. The past lies beyond an unbreakable glass wall, so we can see what we’ve done but not change it. Sometimes I think it would be easier to live without memory, so that each day feels brand new and each discovery comes for the first time. I suppose it would be difficult as well, as you would have to learn everything from the beginning, and there’s a limit to what one can master in a single day. Yes, I ought not to wish for that and just carry my memories—of my family and Owen—like a weary old woman hauling water from the well.
I’ve sorted all the usable scraps of broken furniture, turning the refuse into firewood and kindling for the winter that never ends. The rest of the keep is frigid to the point that I shiver when I leave the kitchen fire, but returning to my domain there always fills me with a sense of relief. Not quite homecoming, not yet, but I like how the copper-bottomed pots shine, all hung in orderly precision, and I’ve organized the herbs to my own specifications, so it’s a good feeling to find even a small trace of my presence lasting here, in such an inhospitable place. Sighing, I wish we had a goat because I could do so much more with milk. Right now, my meals are sparse, created from the supplies that haven’t spoiled, mostly dried beans and salted fish. My meals, not Njål’s, as he still prefers to dine alone, though only the gods know what he’s eating.
Before Njål speaks, I sense him watching me. It no longer startles me when his voice sounds nearby. “What has you so pensive?”
“Just wishing for better supplies.”
“I can do nothing for you,” he says, as if I expect him to produce a kitchen garden and livestock out of the frozen courtyard.
This place had a buttery, though, and a stable, plus I saw signs that they once kept bees in the far garden. Now everything is empty and frozen, lifeless apart from those unnerving ice statues. My imagination isn’t quite powerful enough to conjure what Bitterburn must have been like before, but I catch echoes, almost as if the keep wants me to remember memories that are not my own.
“Who asked you to?” I snap. “You inquired as to my thoughts. I answered. That’s all.”
“You’ve remarkable brass to scold the monster lurking in the dark.”
“If you’re a monster, I’m a dragon,” I mutter.
He’s done nothing to harm me or even mildly alarm me. My first few nights I wished I could lock the door to my little room behind the kitchen hearth or barricade it somehow, and I lay awake listening for any sign that he would come to ravish me, but there was never the faintest sense that he was nearby. I only get that feeling just before he speaks, generally in the brightest part of the day, though the sky above never lightens fully as it does in the village. At best it’s a pale and ominous gray, looming like a threat.
“Then you should melt the ice and devour me. I’ve lived this way long enough and I would welcome the end.” There is no levity in his deep voice.
A pang quivers through me. I remember how I felt when I came here—lonely, exhausted, and ready for the terminus of my life. My heart aches as I realize that Njål shares the feeling. I know nothing of him, but the idea of him ceasing to be? I cannot like it.
Yet maybe it would be better for the village, and our crops would grow again. Perhaps the endless winter is spreading from here like a magical sickness, and it explains why our growing season has become shorter over the years.
I surprise myself by admitting, “I felt that way too.”
“Is that why you came to me? Hoping for an end.”
“You could say that,” I answer quietly.
“It does explain a great deal. This is not a place one enters if any hope remains. In truth, I’m surprised the keep allowed you to. Others who have tried . . .”
“The statues.” I repress a shiver at the realization that I could have ended up as an ice sculpture. Questions peck away at me like greedy ravens. Do the frozen ones retain any awareness? That would truly be hell, locked in your own mind for eternity, able to perceive the world but not scream your pain and loneliness. Whatever foul magic afflicts this place, it’s truly diabolic.
“Indeed. It seems that this place recognized you as another lost soul, not one who came to plunder or conquer. Your family truly does not expect you to return?”
“I have said twice that I have nowhere else to go. Why must you force me to admit such a sad thing a third time?”
He surprises me by saying, “I’m sorry. It’s hard to believe that you prefer to be here. Please consider Bitterburn your home, so long as you respect the boundaries I’ve drawn.”
A peculiar warmth fills me. Not even my own father used the word “home” after my mother died. It was either drunken demands for me to sing or angry shouts that I wasn’t working fast enough.
“Thank you.”
“It’s nothing to thank me for, more of an exile. But I’ve come to be grateful for the sound of your voice. It’s been a lifetime since I spoke to anyone else.”
Some part of me suspects that he means it more literally than I can imagine. I don’t inquire, however, because I intuit that asking personal questions is the quickest way to drive him off, and like Njål, I have come to treasure the sound of his voice. We are not meant to live alone, in total silence. In the middle of the night, I huddle into my blankets and wish it didn’t feel as if I have pitched my camp in someone’s tomb.
“I enjoy your visits,” I say then. “I wish you came to the kitchen more often.”
“Do you?” He sounds astonished, as if it has never occurred to him that I would want his company.
I nod, then realize I’m not sure if he can see me. “Yes, it’s nice to chat while I work. Is there anything you wish I would cook? Bearing in mind our limited supplies.”
“Fry bread, if you have the ingredients. It’s been ages since I had any sort of bread.” His voice carries a wistful tone. “I wish I hadn’t been so stubborn that first day. You’ve no idea how much I regretted not tasting the bread you made then. It smelled so good.”
I’m glad he said it, so I’m not tempted to be pert; there’s no gain in provoking him. “I can whip some up, if you’ll wait a bit.” Silently I hope he’ll stay and eat with me, but I have no idea where he is currently. “It will go nicely with the kettle of beans I have on the hob.”
He doesn’t verbally agree, but I hear him settling nearby, just beyond my range of sight. “Did you find everything you needed to make the ale, by the way?”
“Yes, the first batch is fermenting.”
“Thank you,” he says quietly.
“For what?”
“It’s incredible that you need to ask. You’re the beating heart of this dreadful place, so warm and alive that I come every day to make sure I didn’t dream you.”
I’m startled into silence by the admission, as I had no idea that he thought of me as more than a nuisance. Then I try to imagine what it’s been like, living in such isolation for years untold, and I come up blank. But the ice around my heart that formed when Owen died, it shivers and cracks a bit, because it seems as if Njål needs me somewhat, and nobody else does. I’m . . . necessary here. I work hard, but my efforts are appreciated. He hasn’t berated me or asked for the impossible, and he’s grateful for what I can achieve. Conversely, it makes me want to do more for him; I wish that I could.
If he can see my face, he knows I’m smiling as I mix the simple dough and drop a spoon of lard in the cast iron pan, making the fry bread sizzle as it cooks. He draws in an appreciative breath, audible enough to tell me that he’s close, maybe closer than he’s ever been.
Perhaps I should be frightened, but the outside world has hurt me far more. Njål has never injured me, never made me feel unsafe despite his allegedly monstrous nature. I’m not sure I believe those old tales any longer. He’s been cursed, but he’s no evil fiend, and he certainly can’t sweep down on the town to unleash his wrath. He’s a damn prisoner. And the fact that we gave away so much food is our own fault, not his.
Quickly, I put together a meal o
f beans, salt fish, fry bread, and weak herbal tea, then I set everything at the far end of the worktable. I have smaller portions of everything, and I turn around, settling on a stool near the stove.
“You didn’t dream me,” I respond at last. “You stay because you can’t leave. I stay because I choose to. As I hope you’ll choose to eat supper with me. I won’t move. I won’t turn around. But we can talk and I . . .” Should I say this? “. . . would enjoy that.”
“As would I.”
There’s a scrape, as if he’s entered the kitchen, trusting me to keep my word. Trusting me. I exhale, because I didn’t realize how tight my chest got waiting for his reply.
“What did you want to discuss?” he asks.
“Nothing in particular. It’s nice to have company.”
“It is,” he agrees.
I don’t hear the scrape of cutlery, and I wonder how he’s eating. Maybe he scrapes the beans up with the flat bread? I do the same and find it works wonderfully, efficient and delicious.
“This is so good.”
I’m not expecting praise, so the soft words fall like gentle rain on parched earth. The feeling warms me further, but I keep my head down, trying not to glow too visibly because it’ll make me seem pathetic—that I’m this starved for kindness. Before Owen died, I drank in his approval, but since then . . .
“I’m glad you like the fry bread. We have enough flour that I can make it more often. I just didn’t know that you enjoyed it.”
“There’s been no one to ask. Or to care. This much is already an unimaginable boon.”
I care. That, I don’t say out loud, because it’s so open to misinterpretation. Though I don’t think he’d take it as an invitation, I don’t trust him fully yet. I only know that he’s more alone than I am, a feat that takes some doing.
“I know that feeling as well,” I say softly.
He moves, but doesn’t approach; it seems as if he wants to. “You make me curious.”
“About what?”
“How you ended up here. Why the keep permitted you to pass when it’s allowed no one else.” His tone is pensive.
“You said it was because I had abandoned all hope and had nowhere else to go.”
“That’s purely speculation. I am not the master of this place,” he says.
“Well, I’m the mistress of the kitchen and I’m glad you had supper with me.”
“As am I. I’ve tested your resolve long enough. I don’t wish for curiosity to get the better of you.”
“You assume I’m curious about you.”
“Are you not? I should take comfort in that, but it’s a bit disappointing somehow. Keep safe and warm until the morn, Amarrah.”
Hearing him speak my name feels so intimate. The warm tremor it creates stays with me for a long while, well past the time when I’ve tidied the remains of our meal and am tucked up in my blankets, staring into the crackle of the fire.
4.
The next day, there’s a goat in the courtyard, and I have no idea how she got there. She seems equally bemused, bleating at me plaintively. The portcullis is still closed, and it’s not as if she could’ve simply dropped from the sky. She’s not injured, though she is a bit thin. Times are tough even for mountain goats, it seems.
But I have nothing to feed her and nowhere for her to graze.
Maybe it would be quicker and kinder to butcher her and smoke the meat, but when I gaze into her eyes, I can’t do it. She’s not as skittish as most wild goats, making me think that she might have belonged to someone once. The animal doesn’t flinch when I approach and holds still as I pick brambles from her fur. In fact, she bumps her head against my hand. Absently I rub her ears, treating her as I would a friendly dog. My family never kept livestock, so I don’t know much about looking after such a creature.
Is this because of my silent wish that I had a goat? The mere idea sends a shiver through me as I conclude that the keep is a sentient force, one capable of making judgments. I’d reckoned that Njål was being clever when he said he didn’t let me in—that the keep had a mind of its own.
But I didn’t tell Njål about that fleeting thought. And here the goat is regardless.
“How am I supposed to feed you?” I ask.
The goat stares at me, surrounded by patches of snow and the eerie ice statues that used to be people. Slowly, I pass through, examining their faces one by one. There are twenty in all. Two seem to be hunters, judging by their apparel and gear, caught in a moment of abject terror, mouths frozen open in matching screams. I shiver, moving to the next, a group of three, minstrels by the look of the instruments they’re carrying. Then there’s five merchants who came to peddle their wares and never left. The last group appears to have arrived together, soldiers prepared to deal with the threat, perhaps. At least that’s what the weapons and armor suggest. They all made it through the portcullis, but the keep deemed them unwelcome and froze them where they stood.
Why am I the exception? Perhaps it’s because I didn’t intend to take anything away from here. I only ever meant to work and possibly find a place to call my own, even if it seems sinister and strange to the rest of the world. Others might posit that they’re the chosen one, destined to bring life back to this barren place, but me? I’m just another desolate space. So maybe that’s it; the keep recognized me as an extension of itself.
The goat bleats, distracting me from my dark thoughts. “What’s your name, hm?”
Silence. I don’t know what I was expecting, though talking animals wouldn’t seem out of place in the fairy tale I’ve stumbled into.
“Meredith?” I try.
No response.
“Nancy? I guess not.”
The goat stares, as if wondering whether I’ve lost my mind.
“Agatha?”
She bleats in response, so I’m taking that as agreement.
“Excellent. I’m happy to have you here, Agatha, but I’m a bit worried. There’s nothing for you to eat, and I’ve never looked after any animals apart from Brave Sir Reginald. It didn’t end well for him, you see, though that wasn’t entirely my fault. At least my stepmother’s not here or she’d likely roast you over an open fire.”
Agatha widens her eyes, alarmed as well she should be.
I’m studying the goat, trying to decide what to do with her, when I recall that this place has a stable. That’s the natural place for a goat to live, but I don’t know how to herd a goat. To my surprise, she follows me like a puppy when I leave the courtyard, her little hooves clacking on the cobblestone. I lead the way to the stables, which I’ve only seen from the outside, as I’ve been more occupied with making the keep more habitable. I push open the door and stop, rubbing my eyes to make sure I’m not hallucinating.
This . . . is not normal. Nothing about Bitterburn is, but there are no signs of pests here either. No rats to nibble the leather or spiders to adorn the place with webs. From the gleaming tack to the pristine feed bags, this space looks untouched by time, the hay perfectly fresh as it must have been on the first day of the curse. Where is the dust? All the grain for the horses is dry and new looking, whereas the supplies sent from the village spoiled in their containers.
How does the magic work exactly? Why did our goods go bad? Because they’re from outside the walls, perhaps. Njål must have carried them in, so they must have dropped them right outside the portcullis. Puzzling over such things makes my head hurt.
I wonder if it’s safe for—
Agatha has no such doubts. She’s already munching on some hay, showing no hesitation or distaste. I should have wished for a pregnant goat, I suppose, because now I have a goat that I won’t kill for meat and that I can’t milk. Still, at least she’s company, and there’s plenty of fodder in the stable for the time being. It’s stocked for forty horses, not a single scrawny goat.
“Stay here,” I tell her. “I have to make supper, but I’ll check on you later. Don’t eat until you’re sick. This has to last for a while.”
&
nbsp; Gods know what I’ll do when she runs out of hay, but for now . . . I hurry to the kitchen to check my provisions. I’m already tired of beans, so I’ll make lentil soup instead. It’s a minor but important distinction. Wistfully I think of the venison I took for granted as a little girl, but even the deer herds have thinned because they can’t find enough to eat.
I’ve got the soup simmering when I hear Njål approach. He no longer tries to conceal his arrival, and I don’t feel like I’m being watched anymore. He stays in the shadows near the doorway. My other senses have sharpened since I’ve been here. I can’t see him, but I pinpoint his location by the smell of the raw lye soap he washes with and the hint of pine, likely boughs he’s laid in his drawers to freshen his clothes, though maybe that’s simply how he smells. I don’t even know if he wears clothes. I haven’t washed anything of his since I’ve been here, nor have I seen him doing so, even from a distance.
But then, I avoid the east wing, as instructed. If that’s the best way to keep him happy and to stay safe, it’s the least I can do. And there’s plenty to occupy me elsewhere. When curiosity nibbles at me like a hungry mouse, I shoo it away with impatient hands.
My life is decent. Not idyllic like a child’s imaginings, but life seldom is. There are shadows and sorrows, shards of broken dreams so sharp they’d cut my hands if I reached for them. For me, Owen is that dream, one that almost came true. The “almost” ruins me, time and again, so I wake with tears on my cheeks, my chest stinging with tightness.
The worst part about Owen is that I can’t allow myself to remember what he was like when he was alive. Those memories hurt too much. He had no family, and I was the one who loved him best, so it fell to me to wash his body and lay him out for burial. And once you’ve cleaned someone’s cold hands, you can’t bear to recall how it felt to hold them when they were warm. That chill stays with you, eating away at the memories until you only see their death. I didn’t even have two coppers to set on his eyes. Someone else donated them, and that hurts me too. He died alone in his little room above the smith’s workshop, perhaps waiting for me to come.