The Ice Palace (7 page)

Extraordinary how quickly a thing can be destroyed. The ice was flat and white and dead.

And then it came at last, when they were called in to the next lesson: ‘Does anyone know why Unn isn’t here today?’

Nobody could have seen the start it gave Siss. It was over already. They looked at each other; nobody indicated that they knew anything.

‘No,’ came the reply finally, in all sincerity.

‘I’ve been half expecting her to come all day,’ the teacher said. ‘It’s not like her. But I suppose she must be ill.’

They realized that Unn was of more importance than they had normally reckoned. Perhaps they had always known. They must have heard how bright she could be. But
she stood over there keeping out of things. On the rare occasions when she did join in she would break off as soon as it was over, and then she would stand there just as before, looking superior or whatever it was.

They looked innocently up at the charge desk. They realized that Unn was being praised. The teacher looked up and down the rows: ‘Isn’t there anybody who’s friends with Unn and knows whether she might be ill? She hasn’t stayed away for a single day all the autumn.’

Nobody replied. Siss sat on tenterhooks.

‘Is she
so
lonely?’ asked the teacher.

‘No, she’s not!’

Everyone turned towards Siss. It was she who had said, or almost shouted it. She sat scarlet at her desk.

‘Was that you, Siss?’

‘Yes, it was.’

‘Do you know Unn?’

‘Yes?’

The others looked sceptical.

‘Well, do you know what’s the matter with her today?’

‘I haven’t seen her today.’

Siss looked so unlike her usual self that the teacher felt he should go into this more than he had intended. He came over to her. ‘You said that -’

‘I said that I’m Unn’s friend,’ burst out Siss before he had time to finish. Now they know, she thought.

One of the girls sitting near her looked as if she wanted to ask: Since when? So she added defiantly, ‘I was her friend yesterday evening. So now you know!’

‘My dear child!’ said the teacher. ‘What have we done, Siss?’

‘Nothing.’

‘So Unn was all right yesterday evening?’

‘Yes, she was.’

‘I see. Well, in that case perhaps you’d call in on her on the way home and find out what’s the matter. I know she comes to school a different way, but you don’t mind the extra walk, do you?’

‘No,’ said Siss.

‘Thank you.’

The others looked at Siss in astonishment, and asked in the last break, ‘What do you know about Unn?’

‘Don’t know anything.’

‘We don’t believe that. We can see you know something. The teacher could see it, too.’

They were rather cross. They were unable to swallow the fact that Siss seemed to have gone over to Unn all of a sudden. They could tell she knew something she didn’t want to talk about.

‘We can see you know, Siss.’

She looked back at them helplessly. Suddenly there existed some extraordinary thing about Unn which only Siss knew.

They were on their way home. Above them the sky thickened. As yet there was only a sprinkling of snow. Siss went on ahead with several of the others. She could see that they were thinking. What does she know about Unn? They came to the place where Siss had to turn off the road. They all came to a halt in an odd way. They were offended. Siss was to blame.

‘What is it?’ she asked sharply.

They let her go.

She hurried as quickly as she could down the path to the little cottage. Then – there it came: the snow.

The snow was released. The air had turned mild now that darkness was falling; now real snow could come. It showered down over a frozen landscape. Hard earth and frozen hillsides. It happened just before Siss reached Auntie’s house. When she got there the yard was already white.

Not a soul to be seen.

What do I know about Unn?

They think there is something. There is, too, but
it’s
for
Unn and me.
And perhaps for God, she added, to be on the safe side, staring out into the driving snow.

An important little pause on the way.

Through the driving snow she saw Auntie come out as soon as she entered the yard. Whatever did that mean? Now she realized that she was uneasy in advance – and there was Auntie coming out as if she had been on the watch for her. Why should she be doing that?

Siss took several big leaps through the sifting snow – the first to set foot in the fresh carpet. Auntie waited, small and lonely, looking sad through the tattered snowflakes.

‘Has something happened to Unn?’ she half shouted before Siss reached the doorstep.

‘What?’ gasped Siss.

This puzzling little knocking.

She had to turn everything around. It had been standing on its head.

‘I asked why you’ve come and not Unn?’

So all she could do was release the horror. ‘But surely Unn’s at home, isn’t she?’

At once the dark shutters flew gaping wide. Flustered questions on both sides. A hasty search of house and woodshed to no purpose.

Flustered running. No telephone in the house, but there was one not far away. Auntie left to phone around.

‘It will be dark before we can do anything,’ she said as she began running.

Siss ran home to Mother and Father. Now she needed them, needed anything they might say. The snow sifted down, and the first darkness began to appear.

Again Siss ran along the road. Now in the fresh snow it seemed dazzlingly new. She met no cars; there were no tracks. She did not think about the sides of the road, only about coming home, giving warning.

Unn has vanished.

It’s getting dark.

It mustn’t!

But the early darkness would not be delayed by haphazard, desperate wishes; it continued to fill up and thicken rapidly.

People had now been warned over a wide area and had gathered to make a search. There were too few lanterns, and the evening and the driving snow turned the search into flustered confusion. Lantern light and prolonged shouts for Unn were drowned in snow and the growing darkness. People walked in lines – and a wall of night confronted them. They intended to break the wall down. They did not give up either and broke it down as best they could.

Unn had vanished.

If only this snow had come yesterday, said the searchers, there would have been tracks. Now it has come just too late and made matters worse.

Siss was part of the tumult. Nobody bothered about her to begin with. She ran with a lump in her throat. There had been a hard struggle at home before she was given permission.

‘I
am
going, Father!’

‘We’re not having youngsters rushing about in the night and the storm,’ said her father as he hurriedly got himself ready.

She had continued to threaten.

Then came an obvious question.

‘What happened when you were with Unn yesterday evening. Anything in particular?’

‘No,’ said Siss flatly.

‘Yes, what did she say?’ asked Mother, joining in. ‘You did seem a bit odd when you came home. What did she say?’

‘I shan’t tell you!’ said Siss and was to regret it bitterly. She realized she had already said too much. It was pounced on in mid-air.

‘Good heavens, did she say something so you know why this has happened?’

‘No, I know
nothing
about it, so there!’

It was lucky they asked questions backwards, so that she could say no with a clear conscience. I ran away when Unn wanted to tell me, she thought.

Mother came up and said, ‘I think she’d better go with you. We don’t know what this is all about. You see how upset she is.’

So Siss went with them. At first several of her classmates shared in the confusion, but they were sent home. Siss kept to the edge of the crowd so that she would only be seen in glimpses.

Soon it was night. They were prepared to search all night through, if necessary. Unn must not be left lying out of doors.

Where should they search? Everywhere. There was nothing to guide them. Auntie’s house was the centre. Auntie herself was exhausted. A few of the men had just looked in to ask for advice: guessing here and guessing there.

‘Up in the lake,’ said somebody.

‘Up in the lake? The only open water is near the big river. Surely she can’t have gone that way?’

‘What would she be doing there?’

‘What would she be doing anywhere?’

‘I can’t help thinking of the road. The cars driven by all sorts of people.’

They were hushed and embarrassed, in this muttering from man to man, from which helpful people went out into the night and found nothing. The road. The eternally unsafe and open road. They preferred not to think about it.

‘We’ve been telephoning for a long time in all directions,’ said somebody hurriedly about the road.

‘But there’s something else. What about the waterfall, the big pile of ice that has built up there? There’s supposed to have been some talk of a school trip to it. Could Unn have gone there on her own and then got lost?’

Auntie interrupted. ‘But to play truant from school to do that? That’s not like Unn.’

‘What would be like her, then?’

‘Has she any friends?’

‘No, none. She’s not like that. Yesterday one of the girls was here for the first time since Unn came to live with me.’

‘Oh? Yesterday? Who was that?’

‘That one there, Siss. But she can’t tell anything today. I’ve asked her. Though there was something she didn’t want to say. Something they were giggling about, I expect. I could see it when Siss went home last night. But
that’s
not important.’

Auntie stood exhausted in the snow outside her house, completely useless as a guide. But she was still the centre.

‘Why did the snow come
afterwards?’
she said. ‘Immediately afterwards.’

‘That’s what always happens,’ answered somebody despondently.

‘No,’ said Auntie.

Lights shone in all the houses that night. The new snow was trodden underfoot along all the paths and in between them. Lanterns winked, half blinded by the driving snow, in thickets and on the open heath. Shouts rose up but did not reach far, unable to penetrate the pitch darkness.

‘There’ll be more chance of finding something in the morning when it gets light,’ suggested somebody. But they could not possibly wait until then.

Siss had collapsed in a clump of trees. She was never at any time far enough away to be unable to see the lights and hear the noise. Her father was in touch with her to a certain extent, but she kept well to the edge. Suddenly she collapsed among the trees at the thought of Unn.

Where is Unn?

‘Hey there!’ called somebody close by, but she paid no attention, there was so much shouting.

She had collapsed. Not from fatigue but from a different kind of helplessness.

Nothing must happen to Unn.

She heard steps behind her. She turned her head and saw a young man in the rays of the lantern he was carrying; saw his face, and the joy in it shining warmly towards her. ‘Hey there!’

She only cringed at the sound of his voice. But now he had reached her.

‘No, you don’t!’ he said. ‘I know what you’re thinking. You’re not going to run away from me!’

A pair of strong arms encircled her, she felt them hugging her hard in uncontrolled joy.

‘I was certain I’d find you – I felt I would.’

She understood. ‘But it’s not me!’

He laughed. ‘Try to get me to believe that. But I must say I think you’re carrying this too far.’

‘I tell you it’s not me! I’m helping to look for Unn, too.’

‘Aren’t you Unn?’ said the stranger, his joy extinguished.

It sounded so wonderful, but she had to say, ‘No, I’m Siss.’

The strong arms released her so suddenly that she fell against a stake and bruised herself. The boy said angrily, ‘You’d better stop fooling around here like this. Everyone will think it’s you.’

‘I
must
come with you, so there. I know her. I know Unn.’

‘Oh, do you?’ he said more gently.

She was not angry with him either.

‘Did you hurt yourself?’

‘No, not a bit.’

‘I didn’t mean to – but I could see you did hurt yourself.’

A small joy in the midst of misery.

‘But you mustn’t fool people like that, when you’re a little girl exactly like the one we’re trying to find. We’re not here for fun. You must go home at once,’ he said and began to be stern again.

Siss was defiant. They weren’t going to talk to her as if she were an unwelcome child they wanted out of the way. She said thoughtlessly, ‘I’m the only one who knows Unn. We were together yesterday evening.’

Was he impressed by that? No. He asked directly, half reluctantly, ‘Do you know anything, then?’

She looked at him. The lantern was between them so that they could see each other’s eyes clearly. His round eyes looked down and he went away.

Siss was to regret such thoughtless words. The atmosphere was tense. In a trice, she was caught in a net of her own making. It was reported quick as a flash that the little girl Siss knew something.

The minutes were precious. Before long a forceful hand was holding her arm. But this was no strange boy with kind eyes like marbles, it was the stony face of a man she knew, a face that was stony and frightening tonight, though not normally so.

‘Is that you, Siss? You must come with me.’

Siss was numb. ‘What do you want?’

‘You ought to go home. You’re not allowed to run about here like this. But there’s something else, too,’ he said, making her tremble.

His hand was rough. She was forced to go with him.

‘My father gave me permission. You know nothing about it,’ she said defiantly. ‘And I’m
not
tired.’

‘Now then, come along. Some of us want to talk to you a bit.’

No! she thought.

The man let her go when they reached two other searchers – she knew them, too. They came from the next district. She already knew what this meant.

‘Where’s Father?’ she asked to brace herself.