The Snow Child (32 page)

Alpenglow, Mabel whispered.

She felt the awe of walking into a cathedral, the sense that she was being shown something powerful and intimate, and in its presence must speak softly, if at all. She stared into that color, trying to imagine a father who could name his child for such beauty and then abandon her.

We should go, Faina said. It will be night soon.

The child led Mabel back to the homestead, to the warm cabin where Jack waited with hot tea and bread he had baked in a Dutch oven.

So, he said. What did you see?

CHAPTER 33

Dear Mabel,

Your letters and sketches have become quite an attraction at our home. Whenever one arrives, we host a dinner party and invite many of our closest friends and relatives. With your permission, I have read the letters aloud and your sketches have been passed from one hand to the next, along with exclamations of “Remarkable!” “Such beauty!” More than once I’ve been told that you are the frontier equivalent of an Italian master studying human anatomy. Your sketches of the sable’s snarling teeth and clawed feet were among the favorites this last night, as were your studies of the alder cones and winterkilled grasses. Your letters, too, catch glimpses of this wild place that has become your home. You always did have a talent for expressing yourself, and perhaps no other time in your life have you had such wondrous sights to express. Our only wish is that you would write more often. I do believe I will hold on to everything you send, and someday you should publish a book of your drawings and observations. There is something fanciful and yet feral about them.

Along with your interest in the tale of the snow maiden, I am reminded of the time you spent as a child chasing fairies in the woods near our home. As I recall, you slept more than one night in those great oak trees, and when Mother found you the next morning you would swear you had seen fairies that flew like butterflies and lit up the night like lightning bugs. I remember with some shame that the rest of us teased you about seeing such spirits, but now my own grandchildren chase similar fancies and I do not discourage them. In my old age, I see that life itself is often more fantastic and terrible than the stories we believed as children, and that perhaps there is no harm in finding magic among the trees.

Your loving sister,

Ada

CHAPTER 34

E
sther burst into the cabin like a friendly hen, flapping and chattering and nearly knocking Mabel over as she tried to open the door for her. In one hand she held a towel-covered cast-iron pot and with the other she hugged Mabel and kissed her on the cheek.

“So, is this what it takes to have dinner with you two?” she said and pushed past Mabel to set the pot on the woodstove. “George’s got the dessert. That is, if he doesn’t eat it on the way in here. Should be enough chicken and dumplings for all of us. Lynx and dumplings, I should say, but it just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Guess we could call it ‘kitten and dumplings.’ ” Esther laughed and flung her coat across the back of a chair.

“Lynx? You’ve cooked a lynx?”

“Oh, don’t make that face. Have you ever had it? Absolutely, positively the best meat you’ll ever taste. Garrett had it live in a snare, so he killed it clean and brought home the meat. Guess we raised him right after all.”

“Has he come, too?”

“Nope. That’s the only reason we might have enough food. That boy could eat a side of beef and then ask for seconds. But he’s out these next few nights, siwashing it on his long trapline.”

“Siwashing?”

“Like an Indian. No tent. No creature comforts. He packs light and travels hard.”

“Oh.”

“You got a spoon I can stir this with?”

Before she could help, Esther had found one, and Mabel watched with fond amusement as Esther once again took over her home. Within minutes she had tied one of Mabel’s aprons around her waist, taste-tested the lynx, set the table, and added another log to the fire, though Mabel had just stocked it.

“I want to hear all about what you’ve been up to. But first, you’ve got to take a nip of this.” Esther pulled a small glass bottle from the back pocket of her men’s work pants and set it on the table. “Cranberry cordial. Positively heavenly. Quick. Get us some glasses so we can finish it off before the men come.”

Mabel didn’t move from her seat, as Esther was already on her way to the cupboard. She came back with two of Mabel’s jelly jars and filled each half full with the deep red liquid. It was sweet and tart and thick on Mabel’s tongue, and it warmed her throat.

“It’s delicious.”

“Told you. Here, have a bit more. This is my last bottle, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let George have any of it. He polished off the last of my blueberry cordial without even asking!”

Mabel drank it in a gulp, then took another after Esther emptied the bottle into their glasses.

“There now. That’ll do.”

Just then George and Jack came in, kicking snow off their boots.

“Well, where’s the cake? You didn’t leave it in the wagon, did you?”

George smiled sheepishly, one hand behind his back.

“Sorry, dear. Couldn’t help myself.” He smacked his lips. “It was mighty good, though.”

“You’d better be joking or I’ll—”

George grinned and pulled the cake out from behind his back. “Not one piece missing. Jack’ll vouch for me.”

Jack gave a nod with exaggerated gravity. Then he looked at Mabel. “Are you feeling well?”

“What makes you ask?”

“Your cheeks are flushed.”

Mabel saw Esther out of the corner of her eye, tipping a thumb up to her lips as if her hand were a bottle. “Tried to slow her down, but you know how she can be.”

“Esther!” Mabel protested.

“Oh, I’m just teasing. That cordial does have a kick, though, doesn’t it?”

“A kick? You mean it has alcohol in it?”

“Does it have alcohol in it? Are you pulling my leg? Don’t know what the point be, otherwise.”

“Oh, Jack. I had no idea. I thought it was just a sweet dessert drink. But it did seem hot in my throat.”

Jack grinned and kissed Mabel on the cheek. “You got any more of that, Esther?”

“Nope. Your wife polished it off.”

The room was warm and soft-edged as Mabel tried to keep up with the flow of conversation and the passing of food around the table. For a moment she seemed to slip out of her body, and it was a pleasant sensation to see four friends sharing food, laughing and talking in the small cabin in the wilderness.

“Well? Cat ain’t so bad, eh?”

“No, George.” Jack leaned back in his chair and patted his belly. “I’ve got to say, I had my doubts, but that was tasty. Thanks, Esther. And give our thanks to Garrett, too.”

After they cleared the table, Esther insisting the men help as well, Jack and George went to the barn to look at the plow they had been trying to patch together for another season. As the men left the cabin, the fresh night air rushed against Mabel’s face and she stood in the open door and breathed deeply. Behind her she heard Esther fussing with the dishes.

“Oh, please don’t wash those. I’ll take care of them tomorrow.”

“Splendid idea.” Esther sat down heavily at the table and propped her feet on the chair across from her. “Wish we had a spot more cordial.”

Mabel laughed. “I think I’ve had enough, thank you very much. But I’ll get us some tea.”

“Good, and then sit down. We’ve got some catching up to do. I’m a little worried about you.”

“Worried? What makes you say such a thing?”

“I’m hearing things again. About you and that little girl. Now, don’t think I don’t see your lips sealing up tight. You think you’re not going to say a word, but we’ve got to talk this out. Why is this all coming up again?”

The cabin became so quiet Mabel could hear the fire crackling and the clock ticking. She didn’t speak or move for some time, while Esther waited patiently. Then Mabel went to the shelf and handed the book to Esther.

“What’s this?”

“A children’s book. It’s one my father used to read to me. Not read, actually. See, it’s in Russian.” She opened the pages to one of the first color plates.

“And?”

“It’s the story of an old couple who desperately want a child, and they make one out of snow. And… she comes to life. The snow child does.”

“I don’t think I’m following you here.”

“My sister always said I was a scatterbrain, my mind too full of fancies. A wild imagination, she called it.”

“And?”

So Mabel told her everything, about the winter they had shaped a child out of snow, and how Faina had come wearing the red mittens and scarf and looking so much like the little girl they had made. She described how Jack had buried the father in the mountains and learned he had died, leaving Faina an orphan, just hours before they built the snow figure. It was that night the child had come to them for the first time.

“We have tried to convince her to stay with us, but she refuses. She says the wilderness is her home, and I’ve gone with her there, and it’s true. It is her home. She walks on top of the snow. And I know it seems unbelievable, Esther, but she can hold a snowflake in the palm of her hand without it melting. Don’t you see? She was reborn that night… reborn out of snow and suffering and love.”

“Not to be quarrelsome, but nobody else has seen any sign of her. Me and Garrett, here working the farm with you those months. Nary a glimpse of the child.”

“She left. She was gone the entire summer. Just as I told you.”

“And now?”

“She came back. With the snow.”

Esther silently flipped through the pages of the book and looked at each illustration.

“You think I’m crazy, don’t you? It’s like you said—the winters and the small cabin. A fever, didn’t you call it? Cabin fever?”

Esther let out a long sigh, then turned back to the first illustration of the old couple and the child, half snow and half human.

“Is that what you think?” Esther asked.

“No,” Mabel said. “As fantastic as it all sounds, I know the child is real and that she has become a daughter to us. But I can’t offer a single bit of evidence. You have no reason to believe me. I know that.”

Esther closed the book and with her hands folded on top of it looked directly at Mabel. “I got to tell you, I had you wrong.”

“What do you mean?” Mabel asked.

“There at the beginning, I took you for soft. A woman whose thoughts could be twisted around by a lonely winter. Someone better suited to a different place, a different kind of life.”

Mabel’s temper started to rise in her chest.

“Don’t go getting all riled up,” Esther went on. “Hear me out, because I’ve thought this through. I was wrong. I’ve gotten to know you pretty well, I’d say. Count you one of my dearest friends. And you’re no weakling. A bit standoffish at first. Too tenderhearted, I suspect. And God knows you think too much. But you’re no feebleminded simpleton. If you say this child of yours is real, then by God she must be real.”

“Thank you, Esther, but I know you are humoring me. As a friend, I’m pleased to hear. But humoring all the same.”

“Have you ever known me to change my mind just to humor someone?” Esther said.

Mabel gave a small smile, slowly turning the teacup around in her hands.

“Why aren’t you jumping up and down? This might be a first. I’m owning up that I just might be wrong about something. But don’t tell George. The shock would probably kill him dead.”

“It’s almost spring, you know,” Mabel said. “Have you seen how the snow is melting? The river will soon break up.”

“Yep. Seen that. What’s that to do with…”

“Soon she will leave again. It’s just like in the fairy tale. Faina will leave us in the spring, and I just can’t bear the thought of it. What if we lose her? What if she never comes back to us?”

“Hmmm.” Esther sipped her tea thoughtfully. Then she set her cup down and looked at Mabel as if carefully measuring her words.

“Dear, sweet Mabel,” she said. “We never know what is going to happen, do we? Life is always throwing us this way and that. That’s where the adventure is. Not knowing where you’ll end up or how you’ll fare. It’s all a mystery, and when we say any different, we’re just lying to ourselves. Tell me, when have you felt most alive?”

CHAPTER 35

T
he March days began to lengthen. Jack watched the sun climb higher above the mountains each day. The snow was heavy and wet and melted from the eaves. Water ran along the surface of the river ice. And then one night the skies cleared and cold fell like a fog over the valley. Jack awoke to find the fire burned to black coals and the windows frosted inside and out. After kindling the fire and pulling another quilt over Mabel as she slept, he set off for town. It was the coldest it had been all winter, and by the time he arrived at the general store, he wondered if his nose was frostbitten. He stood just inside the door and rubbed it gingerly. “Don’t worry,” George teased from where he stood at the potbellied stove. “Mabel probably won’t leave you when it falls off.”