Ice (23 page)

Father Forest ran into the kitchen.

The aspen was screeching loud enough to fell trees.

“Cassie, tea!” Father Forest shouted. “She’s hysterical!” Cassie ran to the kettle. Conveniently (and intentionally), it was empty. She brought it to the sink.

She glanced over her shoulder. With his back to her, Father Forest wrung his hands over the tree-girl. The aspen whirled around the room, scratching gashes into the wood walls and tearing at leaves. Cassie turned the sink handle. “Plumbing’s clogged!”

“Fix it!” Father Forest cried.

Cassie opened the cabinet under the sink. She squatted. She’d inserted the clog in the faucet to prevent drips, but the real problem with the plumbing was down here. She knew she could not fix it—not after all the trouble she had gone through to break it. This was one time when Father Forest’s dependence on man-made things instead of magic worked to her advantage. She patted the Spic and Span fondly. “Doesn’t look good,” she said out loud. Pulling herself up by the counter, she said, “I’ll try the bathroom.”

“Hurry!” She could barely hear him over the aspen. For a tree, she had quite a set of lungs. Ears ringing, Cassie waddled to the bathroom.

“No luck,” she called. “The well must be dry!” She returned to the kitchen.

He was near tears. “She needs tea!”

Cassie went for a pitcher on a shelf. Now here was the final step. She uttered a silent prayer. Heart beating in her throat, she said, “I could fetch some. Where’s a stream?”

“Quarter mile north.” He pointed. “Go!”

Cassie went.

The trees did not stop her.

TWENTY-SIX

Latitude 63° 55’ 02” N

Longitude 125° 24’ 08” W

Altitude 1296 ft.

CASSIE RAN, SOFT STEPS ON THE NEEDLES. She clutched the pitcher to her chest. Her breath roared in her ears. She felt the baby kick as if running with her. “Hang in there,” she told it. “We’ll make it.

Just hang in there.” Ligaments tugged as her stomach bounced.

She heard the stream gurgling like a drowning man.

She jumped over a root and landed on feather moss. Her feet slid, and she flailed for a branch.

Catching one, she steadied herself before remembering it could be an enemy. She let go fast, and the branch snapped back.

The ground softened as she neared the stream, and Cassie sank into it like it was a sponge. Mud sucked at her feet, slowing her. She spotted the stream. Oh, no. It wasn’t wide enough! It wasn’t safe. The narrow stream was still within Father Forest’s reach. Balsam poplars and alders leaned over it. Horsetails and ferns draped in it. Cassie plowed through them and splashed into the water.

Bare feet on the wet rocks, she ran through the stream. She clenched her teeth as the rocks pinched.

Miniature rapids swirled around her toes. Please, let it lead to a river, she thought.

Cassie saw a fern unfurl. Her gut tightened. He knows. Bushes rustled, and horsetails whipped her ankles. Branches stretched to scrape her skin. How could he know so quickly?

She heard the red squirrels chittering from the treetops—spies.

Branches waved like octopus tentacles. She kicked through them. She jammed her toe on a rock, and winced, slowing. Branches snagged her hair. She wouldn’t get another chance at this. She had to make it now. She yanked. She felt strands rip from her head as she splashed downstream.

Shadows fell across the stream. Cassie glanced up to see branches weaving and bending into a net.

She chucked the pitcher at the tree. It recoiled. She ran under it. Shrub willow seized her skirt. She heard it tear.

“Little mother, wait!” Waving her arms, the tree-girl sprinted through the spruces. Father Forest could not be far behind.

Holding her bouncing stomach, Cassie bolted down miniature waterfalls. Rocks and twigs flew under her feet. She had to run faster—for Bear, for Dad, for Gail, for the baby inside her.

“Stop!” Leaping over bushes, the aspen raced beside the stream. She stretched out her stick arms to Cassie. “It’s too dangerous!”

Avoiding the aspen’s arms, Cassie tripped over loose rocks. She fell, and her hands slapped the rocks.

She clutched her stomach and propelled herself onto her feet.

In the distance, she heard a crashing.

“No, no, no,” the aspen cried. “Danger! You must stop!” Her voice rose, approaching a shriek.

“Stop!”

Cassie heard the sound of a waterfall. Suddenly, she saw it through the spruces: the river! Blue, beautiful, and wild, it rushed through the forest.

Branches slapped her. She shielded her face as she ran. Up ahead, the stream narrowed between boulders, spilled through them, and tumbled down ten feet into the stormy water below. Squatting on the boulders, Father Forest waited for her.

Cassie lowered her head like a bull. Father Forest was ten feet ahead of her. She barreled into the gap. As if scolding a toddler, he said, “No, Cassie, no. You’ll hurt yourself. You’ll hurt your baby.” Five feet ahead of her.

He held out his gnarled hand. “You must trust me. I promise you will be safe with me. I’ll take care of you. I’ll raise your child like my own.”

Inches ahead of her.

“Think of your baby, its future,” he said. “That’s a good girl, take my hand. Come home with me.” She was there. “Like hell I will,” she cried, and ducked under his hand and slid down the rock face.

Scrambling, the aspen tried to stop her. “No, little mother!” Her fingers scratched Cassie’s arm like claws.

Cassie spilled over the rocks. She hit the water feet first. Her bare feet slammed down on the sharp rocks of the river floor, and she doubled over, hissing. The stream crashed down onto her back. She heard the aspen scream.

Cassie straightened, and water tumbled over her shoulders and down her stomach. Her feet throbbed. Blood tinted the water and then swirled with the fast-moving current.

“Oh, please, come back!” the aspen called, again a little girl’s voice.

Cassie fought the churning water. She lifted her foot, and the current grabbed it. She forced it down and wormed it between stones. She lifted her other foot. Wet, her skirt pulled with a weight that smacked against her legs. She raised her arms as the water deepened, and she gasped when the wet coolness licked her stomach.

Reaching the middle of the river, she forded downstream. Pleading with her, the aspen and Father Forest followed onshore. Mouth pressed into a grim line, Cassie focused her eyes on her feet over the broad curve of her stomach. Blood stopped swirling around her toes after a few minutes. Salmon darted through the clear water as passing streaks of silver. She hoped Father Forest was not on speaking terms with their munaqsri. How soon until the river was also her enemy?

The shore was suddenly quiet. She spared a glance at it. Father Forest and the aspen were nowhere to be seen. Bracing herself between the stones as the current pushed against her back, Cassie scanned the trees. Was it paranoia if the trees really were watching? She managed a grim smile.

Cassie waded to a boulder midriver and pulled herself out of the water like a whale beaching. In protest, the baby in her writhed. She stroked her undulating stomach and leaned back on one elbow.

“Rest first. Then stage two,” she said to it.

She should not have difficulty finding a bog. In a boreal forest, it was harder to not find one. In fall, the woods were riddled with them. Cassie rubbed her aching thighs, chilled into gooseflesh in the wind. The trick would be after the bog.

She knew where she was going; the aspen had told her: Some trees on mountainsides can speak to the winds. She remembered seeing the Mackenzies back when she’d been in the tundra. But the journey there . . .

First things first: Find the bog, lose her pursuers. Cassie slid off the rock. The water felt almost warm after the chilling air. She waded downstream of the boulder, then lowered herself in up to her shoulders. She lifted her legs. Her stomach buoyed with her torso. Floating, she was swept downstream.

* * * * *

“Charming,” Cassie said, half to herself and half to the bog. Steam rose around her from the rotting ferns and logs. Hell could not have more humidity. Or smell worse. She wrinkled her nose. The bog smelled cloying, the sweet-sour of decomposing vegetation. “Whose bright idea was this?” she asked aloud.

She waded across the muck. It squished between her toes and oozed over her bare feet like melted tar. Stepping into a patch of rotting leaves, Cassie sank to her knee. Mud slurped as she lifted her foot out. She grimaced. It was nearly impossible to distinguish depth. One false step, and she could drown in mud.

Cassie looked across the bog. Straggly spruces clung to the muck like sickly scarecrows stuck in an abandoned field. Roots need ground, she thought. The mud will be shallow near the trees. But were these trees in Father Forest’s domain? She did not want to risk it. But she did not want to risk sinking into bottomless ooze either.

Mosquitoes descended en masse as she debated. In a cloud, they rained down on her unprotected skin. She swatted the air. “Bloodsucking vampires,” she said. “This just gets better and better.” She wondered if her slapping was attracting the attention of the mosquito munaqsri. Anything could be an enemy, she thought. She stopped slapping. Quickly compromising, she tugged a sapling out of the mud. Waving away mosquitoes and poking the ooze, she slogged forward.

She used her makeshift walking stick as a guide. If it sank less than two feet, she waded forward; more than two feet, she went in another direction. She did not bother to test the pools of black water. Purple orchids and pitcher plants marked those bottomless pools. She steered wide around them, and worried she was doing figure eights through the bog. She missed her GPS.

By the time that sunset flared across the sky, she missed her water canteen even more. Cassie wet her lips, and she tasted mud. Her throat felt like sandpaper. The baby squirmed, and she felt an elbow in her rib. “Sorry,” she said, patting her stomach. “It’s not purified.” The bog water looked like chocolate syrup in the fading light.

She had to stop—the growing shadows made it impossible to distinguish between the bottomless pits and the harmless puddles. Cassie curled up on a moss patch as Orion’s belt poked through the deep blue. Hours later, she woke three inches deep in muck.

She extracted herself with the aid of her walking stick. Mud made her skin itch. Her hair was clotted.

She stretched her back, and mossy mud slid off her shoulders.

Cassie eyed the muddy water. Do you know how many bacteria are in that water? her father’s voice said in her head. Could one sip hurt so much? she argued with him. Her tongue felt swollen. It hurt to swallow. Indigestion was better than dehydration. Dehydration would kill her faster.

Kneeling, she swirled her hand in a pool of light brownish water. Water bugs scattered. Algae bobbed in the ripples. She tried to think of it as iced tea. It had the same color and consistency. She scooped some into her hands and sipped. It spilled over her chin. “Oh, ew,” she said. It tasted as vile as she imagined raw sewage would taste. She wiped her mouth with a muddy sleeve. Her stomach churned. But she needed the water. Her baby needed it.

Midway through the day, she drank again, and then she drank again in the evening. Thinking constantly of water, she had trouble concentrating. Jab the stick down, walk forward, jab the stick down, walk forward. She repeated it to herself as a litany.

During her second sunset in the bog, she found a patch of cloudberries. She fell to her knees in the muck. She tore the fat yellow berries from the bushes and shoved them into her mouth. Berries exploded like fireworks on her tongue, and the juices slid down her throat, as sharp as liquor. She tasted mud from her fingers, but she did not care. She ate until the bushes were bare, and then she slept beside them.

Her feet tingled, waking her near dawn. Reaching awkwardly around her stomach, she rubbed them.

They were clammy to the touch. Skin that showed through the mud was red. She had to find dry land soon.

She combed through the patch of cloudberries. She found three uneaten berries, no more. The night before, she had been thorough. This morning, her stomach hurt. Taking up her walking stick again, she slogged on.

* * * * *

Cassie saw a phalanx of spruces, shooting tall into the air. She leaned on her stick and hobbled on numb feet. Her stick sank five inches, then two, then one. The carpet changed from sphagnum moss to spruce needles. Ferns and club mosses replaced orchids. She hesitated five feet from the first white spruce. Dripping from her skirt in clumps, mud plopped irregularly to the ground. The forest could hold a thousand spies. Father Forest himself could be waiting for her.

She told herself he would not recognize her, caked with mud. Even if he did, he would keel over from the stench of her. Slowly, painfully, she climbed up a hill, out of the bog. Needles stuck to her feet, crackling softly.

At the top of the hill, Cassie stopped again and lowered herself onto a fallen log. Dark spruce green, broken by autumn leaves, stretched for miles and miles over the foothills of the mountains. The mountains, outlined in the sun, crowned the horizon. Honey golden and brushed with glacial white, the mountains were beyond beautiful, but it was hard to care when everything hurt.