by Edith Pattou
He frowned, and said suspiciously, “Ah, after a bit of fun, are you, stranger? Who put you up to it? Asa? Or Jonah?”
Impatient, I told him that no one had sent me and that I just needed to know the answer to my question.
Sig Everhart looked at me, then turned aside and spat into the hay. “Saw a white bear – last full moon, I think it was. Past midnight. I had lost my way in the woods outside town. Mind you, I was drunk as a horned owl. But I saw it, I swear. And it had summat riding on its back.”
My heart felt like it would pound its way out of my chest. I grabbed the man’s arms with my hands. “Which way was it going? How fast did it travel? Could you see what was on its back?”
He pulled away from me, looking wary. “Probably naught more than a… What do you call them…? Hallucination. Brought on by the drink. Haven’t been that soused since. Although last night I came close…”
“Please,” I said, my voice cracking. “Just tell me.”
The man must have sensed my desperation, for he held up a placating hand. “Sure, sure. Well, whatever it was, hallucination or not, it was moving fast. But it had slowed down, to pick its way over Rilling Creek. And it was heading south. Could see naught of what rode its back. Could have been dirt even, or leaves. Or the wine…” he added with a grimace, putting his hand to his temple.
That was all I could get from the hungover Sig Everhart, but it was enough to give me my first spark of hope in a long while.
In my own mind I had no doubt that what the man had seen was my Rose riding on the back of the white bear. And so I found my way to Rilling Creek and from there headed south.
But days turned to weeks, and I could find no other trace of Rose and the white bear. I combed each village, asking everyone I saw. I roamed the woods, the meadows.
Finally I came to the sea, the farthest south I could go. I had combed the coastland, east and west, asking everyone I met, knocking at the doors to hundreds of strangers’ homes. And so I stood by the water’s edge and stared over the waves. It had been more than two months since I had left home, and the only clue to Rose’s whereabouts had been from a drunken sot. But it was a slender thread of hope and I clung to it like a drowning man.
I looked in vain for a striker; I could not find even a flint or a bit of iron. I tried fashioning something for myself. But nothing worked. When night-time came (or at least what could be considered night-time in the castle), I could find no way to illuminate the utter blackness of my bedroom, no matter what I tried. Candles, oil lamps – all were extinguished the moment before my visitor arrived. Night after night it happened, the unlightable darkness followed by the give in the mattress, and the odd thing was, I grew used to it.
I decided it was an enchantment. And that I wasn’t meant to see who, or what, my visitor was.
One night I did try speaking out loud to my visitor, but my tongue felt overlarge in my mouth and my voice came out hoarse and unintelligible. And what was there to say, really? There was such an air of wrongness about it, as if I were violating some sacred code or rule, that I did not try again. At any rate, there was no response to my croaking, not even a rustle of a sheet.
One or two times I was overtaken by the strong desire to reach over across the bed and touch whatever it was, to see if my fingers would encounter skin or fur or… But that, too, felt strictly forbidden, even more than talking, and somehow I knew I must not risk it.
Yet I never stopped trying to guess who my visitor was. I came to believe that it was the white bear. His smaller size was due to the fact that he had shed his fur for the night, which would also explain the lack of bulk. From riding on his back, I knew just how deep and heavy the bear’s coat was. And this theory fitted with something I had noticed – that the figure next to me often shivered, pulling the covers up close and tight as if to warm himself. I couldn’t imagine just what the bear would look like without fur, but the idea didn’t repulse me. Instead it made me feel sympathy for him.
With time, life at the castle took on a routine. I measured my hours by the number of feet of weaving I had accomplished and by the grumblings of my stomach, and I measured my days with a calendar of sorts I made from a piece of fabric. Each day I put one stitch in the fabric. I changed the colour of thread when I had counted thirty stitches. For exercise I walked the halls of the castle. I grew to know by heart every doorway, every painting on the wall, every inch of every rug. And one day I discovered something that made my imprisonment in the castle easier to endure.
Behind a dark-hued tapestry at the end of a dimly lit hall on the top floor, I found a door. The door opened onto a small, winding staircase, which was not lit. I went and got a candle, and climbed the stairs. At the top, which must have been the highest point of the castle, I found a tiny window. I could see little through it – just the sky and a lone tree branch – and could open the thick glass pane only about an inch. But the opening gave me the faintest taste of fresh air, as well as a sense of night and day beyond that which was provided by the lamps and candles of the castle. I visited that window nearly every day.
Another place I went each day (other than the weaving room) was the room I called the library. Most of the books were in Fransk, a language I knew because my mother had taught it to me as a child, though I was not fluent.
There were also books in Latin, which I knew very slightly from our family bible, and I even found two books written in Njorden. One of them, to my delight, was a book of the old stories like the ones Neddy used to tell me, the ones with Freya and Thor and Odin and Loki.
The white woman and man kept things in the castle running smoothly. They provided me with delicious, nourishing meals. They kept lamps and fires lit in the rooms I used, and tidied up after me and the white bear (whose only bad quality I could see was his shedding; I’d occasionally come across tufts of white fur stuck to the edges of furniture). They did all this without my seeing them, except for now and then, and those times they would always hurry away. The door to the kitchen was kept locked, and the few times we came face-to-face, the language difference made it impossible to understand each other.
The white bear visited me daily as I worked the loom. Usually it was in the afternoon and he would lie on the rug near me. I took to talking to him, though he rarely responded. I would tell him of my family, of life on our farmhold, and of the places I had explored beyond the farm. I would also tell him stories, both from my memory of the ones Neddy had told me and those from the Njorden book I had found.
I didn’t know what he thought of my chatter, but I came to believe he liked the sound of my voice. If I was in a quiet mood, he would raise his head expectantly, as if waiting for me to start talking.
I grew used to his presence, and his sheer immensity no longer distracted me. A wordless communication developed between us. I could read his mood by the way he held his head, the small sounds he made, and even the way his fur lay on his body. Much of what I understood about him I saw in his eyes, those deep, expressive black eyes. I sensed something almost human in him, a thin, wavering strain of thought and feeling that was decidedly nonanimal. I believed it was where his limited ability to speak came from.
I wondered if at one time he had been either all animal or all human, and then those two elements of him were mingled, though clearly the animal in him had become the stronger and that was why words were so difficult.
There were times I sensed he hated that nonanimal flicker inside him, wished he could obliterate it altogether. And there were times I felt he clung to it for dear life. There were also a few times that I felt that this barely perceptible flicker was the only thing that kept him from ripping me to shreds or devouring me whole.
On one occasion I was coming out of my room on my way to the loom. I had just bathed and my face was flushed from the heat of the water I had bathed in. The white bear was standing just outside the door, and I nearly ran into him.
I heard a low growl coming from deep in his throat, and I glanced up into hi
s eyes. To my horror they were blank, almost unrecognizable, with a terrible hunger in them. I stepped back, my heart thudding in my chest. He bared his teeth, something he’d never done before, and the growl grew louder. He took a step forward.
Without thinking I darted backwards into the room, slamming the door behind me.
Desperately my hand scrabbled for a key or lock, but there was none. I pressed my back against the door, knowing how futile the effort was, given the enormous strength of the white bear. Batting down a door would be child’s play to him. I heard a scratching sound on the door, then a sudden unearthly roar, like that of a creature in indescribable torment.
The roar echoed for a moment, then all was still. I waited a very long time before venturing out of my room again.
After I finished the weaving of the meadow from home, I moved on to a design from one of the stories I’d read in the Njorden book. It was a harsh tale about the trick Loki played on Idun, the guardian of the golden apples that ensured immortality to the gods. My weaving depicted Idun in the place the terrible giant Thiassi had taken her – a cavernous hall lit by columns of fire that burst from the earth.
When I was finished I was well pleased. I had intended both pieces as wall hangings, inspired by the tapestries on the walls of the castle. But though there was no fault or mistake in either, when I gazed at them side by side I began to feel dissatisfied with both. The first was lovely to look at, but it had no feeling to it. It was a pretty scene, remote and at a distance. The second piece had an anger to it that made me feel unsettled and unhappy.
I decided to take a rest from weaving to work on another kind of project instead. So I set about repairing my torn cloak. It was the last thing Neddy had given me, and if I was ever allowed to return home, I would need my “compass”. Strangely, I gave no thought to making a new cloak. The old one was a link to my life back home, and I didn’t want to break that link despite the lie that was woven into it.
Using the castle’s good, strong thread and sharp needles, I quickly mended the cloak. And the white bear watched me, as he always did. When I came to the part of the wind rose where Father had hidden the truth, I felt tears prick my eyes. I thought of my father, of the pain I must have caused him with my anger. He may have been wrong to go along with Mother’s lie, but he had done so reluctantly. I remembered the name that Father had called me in his heart. Nyamh. And more tears fell.
“You are sad,” came the deep hollow voice.
I jumped a little, because the bear had not spoken to me in a week or more. But then I nodded, wiping my face with the edge of the cloak.
“Why?”
And the words came tumbling out as I told the white bear the whole tale of the birth-direction lie. When I was done, we were both silent. Then he said, “Rose…Nyamh…East…North…West…South… You are…”
I laughed a little. “I am all of the directions?”
He nodded.
“Are you saying you think the whole birth-direction superstition is nonsense?”
“No.” He sounded definite, but when I asked him to explain what he meant, he did not answer but lay with his eyes shut, as though the small amount of speaking he had done had worn him out.
I sat watching him, confused but no longer sad. Again, despite his size and despite the fact that he had taken me from my family and home, I felt stirrings of sympathy for him.
“Is Sara well?” I blurted out.
He opened his eyes halfway. “Yes.” The word was expelled from his chest like an arrow pulled from a wound. And then he left the room.
I thought of Sara as I finished mending and cleaning the cloak. I was relieved to hear that she had recovered. And I believed it to be true; for some reason I could not imagine the white bear lying.
I took my mended cloak to my room, folded it neatly, and stored it in my pack from home. Then I returned to the weaving room and began to think about what I wanted to make next on the loom.
My eye had been caught by spools of gold, silver, and pearly moon-coloured threads, and I suddenly decided to make a gown for myself. It was a ridiculous decision. I had never made any clothing that did not have some practical use, and there was certainly no call for ball gowns on a remote, impoverished farmhold. Nevertheless, I decided to do it. After all, there was nothing I needed. Everything – my lodging, food, drink – was being taken care of for me. So why not go ahead and make something thoroughly impractical?
At first I could not decide which of the shining threads to use. I was drawn most to the pearly moon-thread, as I called it, but the others were so lovely, too. Then I made an even more ridiculous decision. I would make three gowns. “Well, why not?” I said to myself. I had all the time in the world, and each colour would make a beautiful gown.
I would start with the silver, then gold, leaving the moon-thread for last.
I felt a thrill of excitement as I cast the delicate yet amazingly strong silver thread onto the loom. It should have been difficult to work with, so fine were the strands, but because of the exquisite craftsmanship of the loom, it was not.
I would make the fabric first, I decided, then design a pattern later.
As I wove, my mind twirled pleasurably through dozens of possible dress designs. I knew little about the latest fashions, but there were pictures in the book of Njorden tales, and the gowns worn by Freya, Idun, and Sif were lovely.
The shimmering fabric took shape under my fingers and I was in awe of its beauty. The further I got, the more I began to have doubts about using it to make a dress for myself. It really was fitting only for a princess or some other grand lady, not the daughter of a poor farmer. If (no, when, I told myself firmly) I ever left the castle, there would be no place in my life for a gown made of silver fabric.
I decided I would sell it. Such a sumptuous gown would fetch a small fortune, and that kind of money would help pay back all our debts on the farm, or it could enable Neddy to go to Bergen or Oslo to do the scholarly work he had always yearned to do. It could even help set Father up in a mapmaking business of his own.
So I kept weaving and planning the design of the dress. And if I occasionally imagined myself wearing it… Well, there was no harm in that.
When I had woven enough of the glittering silver fabric, I began work on the dress. I went slowly and carefully, unaccustomed as I was to handling such exquisite fabric, and I did not want to make any mistakes.
Because I had to concentrate while I was creating the gown, I did not talk as much to the white bear. As a result he seemed more restless and would not stay with me but would pad in and out of the room with a put-upon expression in his black eyes.
At last I finished. Shaking it out, I held the dress up. It was a simple design, falling to the floor in silvery folds from a high waistline. I decided I must try the gown on, telling myself I just needed to see that it hung right. Remembering the long mirror in my room, I hurried there, carrying the dress. A little nervously I slipped the gown on, my back to the mirror. When I turned around I barely recognized myself. I stared for a moment, then let out a laugh.
I looked ridiculous, like an awkward little girl trying on her mother’s wedding dress. I made a face at myself in the mirror, then grinned, saying, “That’s what comes of putting a fancy dress on a girl who belongs in muddy boots and torn cloaks.”
I had enjoyed making the dress, anyway, and believed it would fetch a high price, so I launched right into the making of the next, this time using the gold thread. This thread, too, was extraordinary, no thicker than the filament of a spider’s web, yet it was just as strong as the silver. I felt like I was working with the spun gold from fairy tales. The dress turned out to be more elaborate than the silver one, and just as lovely.
And so I came to the moon-thread. While I was making the fabric, I told the white bear the tale of the Maid of the North and of how Vaina the song maker tricked Seppo the sky maker into going to the frozen land by singing into creation a giant pine tree with a moon and stars in its bra
nches. By the way the white bear held his head, and the expression in his eyes, I could see that he was listening intently.
I marvelled as the fabric took shape on my loom. The gold and silver had been beautiful, but this was something extraordinary. It seemed from another world entirely, a world you might glimpse on a frozen, misty winter day with the northern lights blazing above. I remembered the first time I had seen the northern lights as a child. I was breathless with excitement, convinced I was seeing the way into a whole new land, or into Asgard itself, where Freya and Idun and the thunder god Thor lived.
I hadn’t understood Father’s logical explanation about the phenomenon of the aurora. To me it was sheer magic. And the fabric I had made looked almost as much like the northern lights as it did the moon. At once moon white, the cloth would come startlingly alive with pearly, rippling colour when the light caught it in a certain way.
When the time came to design the gown, I didn’t look at any books but let the fabric itself guide me.
I cut and stitched and pieced the gown with the greatest concentration. Then I found a spool of pearly moon-ribbon and a small bowl of pearly buttons I had not noticed before, and used them for the finishing touches. I barely noticed if the white bear was there in the room with me.
The moment I was done, and had sewed on the last pearly ribbon and button, I ran to my room so fast I was out of breath when I got there. And in my haste I forgot to shut the door behind me.
When I stood before the mirror in this dress, I did not laugh. For just a moment I saw myself as beautiful. And I smiled at my reflection. Dreamily I thought how I might put my hair up and wind a length of moon-ribbon through it.
Then I heard a noise. A gusty, sighing sound like I had heard once before, when I first came to the castle. I spun around and saw the white bear standing in the doorway.
I froze. I was afraid for the first time in a long while. We stared at each other. For what felt like an eternity, all I was aware of were those black eyes, fierce and sad, fixed on mine. Finally the white bear lowered his head. He kept it low for several moments. Then he raised it again, turned, and walked away and out of sight.