North Child (22 page)

“Ice?” I said.

“Ice,” he repeated, nodding and pantomiming cold.

Was he trying to tell me he lived in a palace in his icy land? I was becoming frustrated. If only I could ask him straight out what I wanted to know:
Where are you from? Who do you serve? Who sleeps in the bed with me at night?

Suddenly I got an idea. I took up a book and skipped to the end, where I found several blank pages. Heedlessly I tore them out, and while Tuki looked on with interest, I found a burned stick in the fireplace. Using the charred end, I drew three stick figures, two female and a male. I pointed to one and said, “Rose,” then to the male figure, saying, “Tuki.” Finally I pointed to the third figure, on which I had drawn an apron, and turned to Tuki with a questioning look.

“Urda,” he said after a moment, a delighted look on his face because he understood the new game I was playing.

“‘Urda',” I repeated with a smile. Then I turned the paper over and drew, as best I could, a bed. On one side of the bed I drew the stick figure that represented me. I pointed to it, saying, “Rose.” I pantomimed sleeping. Then I pointed to the empty space beside me on the bed.

“Tuki?” I asked, though I knew he could not be my visitor, who was at least my size, probably larger.

He shook his head, mystified.

Then I said, “Urda?” My heart was beating fast. I felt I was on the verge of learning something important.

Again he shook his head.

My finger shaking slightly, I once more pointed at the empty space beside me. “
Lumi karhu?
” I said. “White bear?”

He looked wary, the way he had the first time I had brought up the white bear.

“White bear sleep with me?” I said, my voice cracking a little.

Suddenly the door swung open and there stood the woman called Urda. She looked at us. Then she quickly crossed the room and took Tuki by the wrist. She pulled him from the room, speaking sharply as she did. She did not give me so much as a backward glance.

She is clever, more so than I gave her credit for. But her efforts to know the truth are fruitless. And I am pleased rather than disturbed by her actions, for they mean that, very soon, her curiosity will overmaster all else and then it shall be over.

He will be mine. For ever.

But she has raised his hopes. Too high. And I cannot help feeling sad for the disappointment he will soon know. (How strange to have such a feeling! If he were still alive, Father would say that is what comes of consorting with softskins.)

But the disappointment will fade; indeed, it will be only a short time before he has no memory at all of the softskin girl he set his heart on.

Father returned home a week after Rose left.

“How is it that you, all of you, allowed her to return to the white bear?” he asked in disbelief.

“She said she must,” I told him. “We could not change her mind. You know Rose when she is set on a thing.”

“Was she bewitched, do you think?”

I shook my head. “She seemed herself, Father.”

“She was well?”

“Yes. A little thin when she first arrived. But Mother fattened her with all manner of good soups and meat pies.”

“Then she is not well fed at this – what did you call it…?”

“Castle in the mountain,” I replied. “She said her meals are more than ample. It was homesickness that caused her to lose her appetite.”

“Then will she not be homesick again? Oh, would that I had been here!”

We were having this conversation in Father's workshop, just the two of us. Suddenly the door flew open and there stood Mother, pale and breathing hard.

“I have done something… Oh, Arne…” And she sank to her knees, weeping.

I stared at her in confusion while Father crossed the room and bent over her. “What is it, Eugenia? What has happened?” His tone with her was gentler than I had heard in a long time.

“You will never forgive me. I will never forgive myself,” she gasped between sobs.

Father pulled her up and led her to a chair, where she slumped, clutching at the handkerchief Father gave her.

“Oh,” she moaned, “why did I not give her only a handkerchief, and a bit of toffee candy? Fool that I was…”

“Stop this, Eugenia.” Father's voice was still kind, but it held authority. “Tell us about it. From the beginning.”

And she embarked on her tale.

As I knew, Mother and Widow Hautzig were regular visitors to Sikram Ralatt, the new shopkeeper in town who sold potions and charms in addition to his regular merchandise of soap and herbal infusions. Mother had purchased a handful of charms from him, such as the one she'd wanted Father to tie around his ankle before one of his journeys.

“When Rose was home, Neddy,” Mother said, wiping her eyes, “I happened to overhear the two of you talking. It was about her sleeping arrangements at the castle. When Rose said she was sleeping next to some unknown creature night after night, I became frightened for her. I was afraid it might be some hideous monster, or a wicked sorcerer, or…a troll…” She looked at both of us beseechingly.

Father opened his mouth to speak, a confused look on his face, but Mother plunged on.

“I knew that if I spoke to Rose about it, she would brush me off, saying there was nothing to worry about. I was so upset that I confided my concern to my good friend Widow Hautzig, and she advised me to go straight to Sikram Ralatt, to see if he had some charm that would protect and help my dear Rose. So I did – I told Sikram Ralatt about someone close to me who was in danger, who slept in a room that because of some spell or another was impossible to light. I asked him what could be done. And it was then he sold me the flint and the candle.”

We stared at her, Father in complete bafflement and I in horror.

“I…I gave them to Rose,” Mother went on. “I said nothing to her, leaving it to her own inclination whether or not to use them. But I confess that I hoped she would. That her curiosity would lead her to light the candle and look at who was beside her.”

“Well, Eugenia,” Father said, still perplexed, “perhaps it was not well to meddle, but I do not see…”

“You haven't heard the worst of it, not yet,” Mother interrupted, tears spilling down her cheeks. “I…I went into the village today and found that Sikram Ralatt is gone, disappeared without a trace, his shop cleared out, empty. As I went about, inquiring after him, I learned that he vanished the very day after Rose left. And what's more, there are all sorts of terrible rumours flying about the village. That he was…he was…” Fresh sobs shook her shoulders. “Oh, what have I done, what have I done?!”

After the woman called Urda snatched Tuki away that morning, I rarely saw him. When I did it was only in glimpses, and despite my friendly greetings, he kept his eyes averted. The only indication that he heard me at all was that his white skin turned a pinkish colour, especially around the ears. Urda acted the same as always, not angry or hostile, just blandly indifferent.

To make matters worse, I had had a new nightmare. In it I was able to light the lamp, and when I brought it close to the face of my visitor, I saw that his head was turned, facing away from me. His hair was a rich gold, and I tapped him on the shoulder, to awaken him. The head turned to face me, and when it did I saw there was no face at all, just a great gaping hollow. I screamed.

This time when I awoke, the scream raw in my throat, it was still pitch-dark in the room. I heard a rustling and then some hurried footfalls. I didn't dare reach over to see if my visitor was gone but tiptoed across the room, feeling my way in the darkness, and found the door ajar.

She dreams.

Cries out.

In fear.

I dream.

Of peace.

An end.

Finally.

To tell her.

Soon it will be over.

Freedom.

Because of the nightmares I dreaded the time when the lamps in the halls were extinguished. But in contrast with the nights, my days with the white bear were happy ones. There was an ease between us, like that of close friends who could read each other's moods in an instant. And the humanness in his eyes seemed to be almost always there now. I looked forward to his arrival in the room with the red couch. I would sit on the rug before the fire, a book in hand, and he would come and settle beside me. While I read aloud he would rest his head on his massive paws. Oftentimes he would close his eyes while he listened; I could tell he was not asleep because when we came to a twist in the story or a climactic moment, his eyes would open. He also made small noises that told me he was alert to every word – a rumbling, purrlike sound when the story was particularly satisfying, or a grunting when the tale took a more unbelievable turn.

The stories I read to him were good (some were wonderful), but at times they were almost beside the point. It was the companionship that mattered, especially when we would laugh together at something funny. (Although the sound of an enormous white bear laughing out loud is not for the faint of heart; the first time I heard it, I had to fight back a strong urge to flee the room.)