North Child (25 page)

On the seventh day it began to rain. That night I made myself a bed of leaves in a small grove of some kind of broad-leaved tree I did not recognize. After eating the last of the shrivelled carrots, I slept restlessly and awoke feeling feverish. When I got unsteadily to my feet, I was wracked by a cough that doubled me over. I sank to my knees, feeling lightheaded and dizzy. All I had eaten for the past seven days were toffees and the few shrivelled carrots and beans. I thought ruefully of the last meal I had had in the castle. Melting-soft bread and creamy butter and herb-crusted meat with tender chunks of vegetables…

I groaned.

I was able to travel only a short distance that day, too weak to stay upright for long. That night I huddled under some bushes, feeling damp and chilled, though my face felt hot with fever. When I awoke I could barely move. Every time I lifted my head, the world around me spun crazily, and deep, hacking coughs felt like they would split my chest apart. I forced myself to my hands and knees and crawled forwards but was stopped by another spasm of coughing.

I lifted my blurred eyes to look at the sky.
I'm not going to make it,
I thought.
But I have to.
Then I saw something that made me blink. A thin curve of woodsmoke against the grey sky.

I staggered to my feet and took several steps forward. But then I tripped over a low-lying shrub and fell to the ground. I began coughing and could not stop. Finally it subsided and I lay there, wrung out, my eyes closed.

I thought I might just go to sleep for a while, and then the cry of despair from the man who had been a white bear rang again in my ears. “I have to get up,” I croaked. I struggled to raise myself, but a mist of grey veiled my eyes and I sank back to the ground, resigned. So weary. I heard footsteps in the grass, but it did not matter. “I'm sorry,” I murmured, then slipped into unconsciousness.

I cannot think clearly. I am human again, but I am lost. There is something in the drink they give me, and I want to refuse it, but I am cold, chilled through to my soul, and the drink warms me. I cannot remember. Except, just barely…her. Her face, all white and pinched and filled with despair, and guilt. Her name…

Rose.

Must remember.

The beautiful pale queen drives the sleigh. She looks back at me frequently. We rise high, moving quickly through the sky, but I see glimpses of the lands I once roamed as a white bear. Rolling hills laced with white. A boundless grey sea. And then jagged peaks crowned in glaring ice.

I am wrapped in fur. But it is not
my
fur. My limbs feel strange, thin and wavery and weak. My face is bare, strangely bare, I can't get used to it, and the cold wind rips at my naked skin. I dip my head under the furs, but the heavy warmth makes me feel sleepy and muddled. I raise my head up again, trying to remember. I want to remember.

Rose.

Tears come and they freeze on my face.

Peering down at me, a young face framed by dark braids. Her eyes widened. “
Maman, Maman!
” she called out.

I could smell food cooking. I was inside a home of some kind.

A woman's voice answered the child, but I could not make out the words she said. Another face loomed beside the face with braids. It was a kind-looking woman, with auburn hair and a broad, friendly mouth.

“
Comment allez-vous?
” she said.

She was speaking Fransk, I suddenly realized. It had been long since I had heard it spoken. When I read to the white bear from the Fransk books in the castle, I had always translated the words to Njorden. I closed my eyes at the memory but opened them again when I started coughing.

“
Estelle,
” I heard the kind lady say, followed by more words. The girl with the braids disappeared.

My chest ached, but I could not stop coughing. The woman put a cool cloth on my head, and then the girl handed her a cup that the woman put to my lips. Between coughs I managed to drink something warm and fragrant. Some kind of tea, I thought, with honey in it. My coughing finally subsided and I slept.

When I awoke again the light was dim. I could hear the woman's voice, singing softly. I turned my head and saw her sitting by the hearth, sewing. I was lying on a mattress stuffed with straw, with a warm woollen blanket pulled over me.

The woman noticed that I was awake and, setting aside her mending, came to my side.

“
Comment allez-vous?
” she said again.

I thought she was asking how I was feeling but was unsure.

The woman must have seen the dim light of recognition in my eyes, for she nodded encouragingly and repeated the question.

“…
regretter
…” I stammered, “but I do not…
parler
Fransk.” My accent was probably unrecognizable, for she looked puzzled for a moment but then understood, I think.

“Njorden,” I said.

Again she nodded. “
Oui, Njord.
” The girl with the braids appeared beside her mother.

“
Maman?
”

“
Estelle, elle est Njorden,
” the mother said to the girl, gesturing to me.

I started to cough again. The mother bustled into the kitchen, bringing a cup that she filled from the kettle resting on the hearth fire. Again I drank some of the sweet honeyed tea.

“Thank you,” I said. “
Merci.
”

After several days of tea, and soup, and the kind attentions of the woman, whose name was Sofi, along with her daughter, Estelle, I regained some semblance of strength. At least I was able to sit up on the third day. I was still plagued by coughing, but each bout got a little shorter.

My knowledge of Fransk from childhood and the time I had spent in the castle teaching myself made it possible for me to communicate with Sofi and Estelle, if they spoke slowly. I learned that mother and daughter lived by themselves in the fairly remote part of Fransk, Sofi's husband having died several years before. Sofi had thought about moving to a coastal village where her brother lived, but she loved the countryside too well, as did Estelle.

I was vague about my own circumstances. I did not want the nice woman to think I was a lunatic by speaking of castles in mountains and enchanted bears. Instead I said I had become lost while travelling to visit relatives. I don't know what she made of me, with my tattered nightdress and small knapsack, but she did not press me with questions.

The girl Estelle was very friendly. She loved to listen to the way I mangled Fransk words and would laugh delightedly before correcting me. On the fourth day Estelle suddenly asked if I came from the forest “
hanté par les fantômes
”. I asked her what that meant. Estelle rose to her feet and put her arms above her head, scrunching her face into a grotesque mask. She stalked about the room, moaning and crying. I stared at her in complete bewilderment. Sofi joined us, laughing.

She tried to explain, saying that Estelle was acting the part of a
fantôme.

I was still baffled. I asked if
fantôme
meant “monster”, or “troll”.

Sofi shook her head. I realized Estelle thought I had come from a haunted forest, and I asked them to tell me more. Sofi described a very dense wood several days' distance from their cottage. The forest had the reputation of being haunted, she said, because of the unexplained disappearances over the years of several people who had last been seen near there. It was in a very remote part of the country and not many lived in close proximity, but the few who did gave the forest a wide berth.

I honestly don't know what got into me at that moment, but I blurted out that yes, I had come through the forest “
hanté
”, and that I had come there after having lived for nearly a year with an enchanted white bear in a castle in the mountain beyond the forest.

The two of them stared at me without speaking. Uneasily I wondered if Sofi was regretting having taken in a madwoman and was trying to figure out how soon she could send me packing.

Then Estelle burst out, “
Maman, c'est l'ours blanc!
”

“
Oui, oui,
” Sofi responded distractedly. Sofi then told me that Estelle had come to her a handful of times over the past two or three years, claiming to have seen a white bear loping through a nearby meadow. Sofi had not believed her, thinking Estelle was making it up.

“It is true,” I said earnestly. Sofi shook her head in amazement, and I spent the next hour or so telling her what had happened in the castle and of my plan to go in search of the land that lay east of the sun and west of the moon.

“
Fantastique,
” Sofi finally said in a soft voice, but then she added firmly that before I could even think of embarking on any kind of journey, I must first regain my strength and get rid of my cough. And though I was impatient to resume my travels, I knew she was right.

There was a fine, sturdy loom in a corner of the room, with the beginnings of some woven cloth at the bottom, and the next day, because I had no money to repay Sofi for her kindness, I offered to help with their weaving. Sofi said I did not need to repay her at all, but I insisted. So I made my way over to the loom, sat on the small stool, and began to weave.

It felt good to be at a loom again, though at first it brought up memories of the castle. But the loom was much more like the one at home, and so I thought of Neddy and Snurri, and as usual I got lost in the work. When I came to myself I discovered that I had completed a very long length of cloth. Both Sofi and Estelle were beside me, looking at me as if I were a troll with seven heads.

“
Magnifique!
” Sofi cried. Holding the cloth bunched in her hands, she asked where I had learned to weave. And Estelle piped in that my hands moved so fast, she could barely see them.

I was embarrassed, saying my skill wasn't really anything; it was just that I had begun young. Sofi again shook her head in amazement.

That afternoon Sofi went off to collect kindling and fetch water from the well. She declined my offer to help, saying she'd rather I stay behind and help Estelle prepare the evening meal. We were done quickly, a meat-and-vegetable stew we left simmering in the pot on the hearth fire, and Estelle suggested we play her favourite game. She brought out a wooden board with squares painted on it and a small box of playing pieces. It looked something like
hneftafl,
a game I had played back home, although there were more pieces for Estelle's game. The little figures were skilfully carved out of wood, with small pieces of amber for the eyes.

Estelle enthusiastically described the rules of the game, which she called
echecs.
Having done this, however, she quickly lost interest in the actual game and began making up rules of her own and stories about the small figures.

“Father carved the pieces,” she said in Fransk, “and I have given each one a name.”

She held up one intricate piece, saying, “
C'est la grande dame, Queen Maraboo!
”

According to Estelle, Queen Maraboo was a very brave young woman who met with many heart-stopping adventures, including vanquishing an impressive array of hideous creatures, among them a troll-witch with twelve heads, a slithery creature called Boneless that stole your bones because he didn't have any, and a ghost-wolf that breathed fire and could only be controlled by singing. My knowledge of Fransk was sorely tested by the tales, but I managed to follow along fairly well and my vocabulary grew.

Estelle played the part of Queen Maraboo, while I was assigned roles that corresponded to the other pieces of the board, either those who served Queen Maraboo or those who were her inept enemies. But when I was assigned the role of the ghost-wolf and my howl fell short of her expectations, Estelle decided that she was tired of playing
echecs.

She then began to teach me a clapping game. It was similar to games I had played with my sisters, when they could get me to sit still long enough, but the rhyming song was unfamiliar and difficult for me. This is how it went: