30th January—later (presumably)
It was some time before I was able to escape from visitors and their interminable questions about my nuptials —which I do not recall answering, though I suppose I must have done. Then I banished my servants to the doorway of my bedroom and settled by the window in an overstuffed white chair that looked like a frozen cake to read Wendell’s journal.
The journal had a silk ribbon attached to the spine, naturally, with which he had marked the page. Though I had promised to confine my reading to the relevant passages, I could not help flipping back through his earlier writings. I had not underestimated him—there was little there to speak of: a few desultory descriptions of Poe’s tree home and various rock formations the villagers must have pointed out to him and which he probably only wrote down because said villagers were standing there watching him expectantly; a few passages he’d copied from my field notes, perhaps to remind himself to put them in our paper; a handful of local faerie stories I recalled him collecting from Thora. He’d only bothered to describe a few of his days towards the beginning of our stay, and I half expected to find these full of complaints about my tyrannical demands or the deprivations of our lodging, but I suppose he considered written expostulations a pointless effort, for these entries were factual if extremely abbreviated. He had a habit of doodling, marginalia I was inclined to ignore given that a full half of these sketches were of me, including one that made me still. In it, I was bent over my notebook, hair tumbling over my shoulders as it usually does in the evening, my chin on my hand and a small smile on my face. It was very detailed work, each stroke carefully chosen. I could see the places
where he’d smudged the ink with a thumb to create shadow—the curve of my neck; the hollow between my collarbones.
I flipped the page—my face was hot, and little shivers ran over me like the strokes of a pen. I focused on the other sketches, some of which were of ghastly trees, huge and grasping yet drawn with a loving hand, and others were of a creature that I eventually understood to be a cat. This was not an easy deduction; he’d only ever drawn it in hints, a few slashes of black ink, as if it was not wholly a material being. Yet there was something about those hints that unsettled me. I could not tell if he was terrible at drawing cats or if he simply had a terrible cat.
I turned at last to the entry he had marked, the day he would have discovered me missing. To my astonishment (self-doubt not being a quality I had ever attributed to Wendell Bambleby), it began with a great many crossings-out, the words illegible now, though I saw the shape of my name beneath the scorings several times.
27/11/09 All right. I shall simply begin. You would want me to be academic about this, wouldn’t you? To treat your disappearance like some bloody appendix.
I will skip over my discovery of your letter. Suffice it to say that I will not be letting Krystjan in until I have cleaned up. Things are looking a bit warped, as if in my fury I put a crease in the veil between Faerie and the mortal realm. Poor Shadow! He was so affrighted he fled to the tavern. Never fear, I have given him plenty of pats, as well as an entire bowl of Ulfar’s gravy, and I believe he has forgiven me.
(At this point, he seemed to have stabbed the page several times).
Anyway. That was not terribly academic, was it? Only I cannot stop picturing you reading this. I think that I have to picture you reading
this, otherwise I will go mad. But let me try again.
Once I finished reading your letter—thank you for being so matter-of-fact about this suicidal mission of yours; it’s not as if I had just begged you to marry me and might thus be inclined to some emotion about the whole thing—and once I had calmed down afterwards, I naturally set out for the tavern to petition the locals for assistance. Rather, I tried to set out; when I opened the cottage door a little avalanche of snow came tumbling in, sending me reeling backwards. Lovely: it had blizzarded in the night, so much that a drift was piled halfway up the door. I collected myself and went hurrying down the stairs too fast, tripped, and plunged face-first onto the snow-shrouded lawn. The wind was vicious—it was cold like I’d never felt before, not even in Ljosland. It took me a quarter of an hour just to wade down the lane, and by the time I reached the tavern, there was such a quantity of snow in my boots and sleeves that I was soaked through and shuddering. Such an enchanting place this is.
Fortunately, Aud and Thora were both in attendance, as well as sundry village youths, having been bestirred from their beds to dig out the village. Aud seemed concerned by my appearance, saying something about my colouring, and it was only then that I noticed I’d forgotten to don my cloak before stepping out into the arctic chill.
Aud and Thora kept trying to herd me to the fire, talking endlessly about tea and breakfast, ignoring my protestations, which were rather garbled on account of my lips being turned to ice, until finally I took up the breakfast tray and hurled it against the wall, whereupon it shattered into a plume of leaves and pine cones (I did not mean to do this, only my magic was flaring erratically). I feel rather badly about that now—I believe I scared them, though Aud didn’t show it, merely shoved me into a fireside chair with more force than necessary.
“I don’t want tea,” I informed her when she pressed a mug into my hand.
“Either drink it or have it emptied over your head, you mad faerie,” she replied, flinging a blanket in my face.
It was a struggle to hold the mug, and I realized then the state I was in. I am so cut off from my own forests and lakes here in this land of winter, and it weakens me terribly. The tips of my fingers were blue, probably my nose also. Aud must have thought I was dying.
Shadow padded up to me and put his head on my knee, all forgiven, as it always is with dogs. If I frightened my cat as I had Shadow, she’d ignore me for days, or possibly put a curse on me, but then cats have self-respect.
Eventually, I was able to speak coherently again. By that time, most of Hrafnsvik had assembled in the tavern, the populace having sensed that something was afoot in that osmotic way of village folk.
“Now,” Aud said, “from the beginning.”
You could hear the snow blowing against the windows as I told them what you’d done. When I finished, I expected a long pause, the villagers stunned into silence. But Aud said, after only a small hesitation, “We must bring her out, then.”
Lilja burst into tears, burying her face in Margret’s shoulder. I sank back in my chair, overwhelmed with relief. For I do not know if I could bring you out alone, Em—I have only a shadow of my powers in this world. But with the help of the villagers, I feel a sense of hope.
Finn looked pale but determined, and gave a nod. “I’ll gather the brambleberries,” he said, and shrugged his way out into the storm as if
it was nothing.
“What’s that about?” I asked.
“An old tradition,” Aud said. “Ancient. In the days when the king in the tree ruled over the Folk of Ljosland, we mortals would summon him by burning dried brambleberries in our hearths.”
I found the notion of any monarch of Faerie answering a mortal summons highly amusing, and for such a trifle as perfumed smoke, but Aud was insistent. “He would not always listen,” she said. “But
sometimes. It’s worth a try. If we cannot get his attention that way, we will try sacrificing a lamb.”
This seemed more promising. I would never trouble myself over something so silly, but some Folk like to have mortals make a fuss over them, to treat them like some pagan god. “Very well. While you are doing that, I will try to free her by force.”
Aud blinked. “How will you find his court?”
“It’s easily done.” Indeed, I already had a sense of where it was, pressing against the mortal landscape like a seed stuck between two teeth.
They exchanged looks but did not press me for any more tedious elaborations. “We should first try to speak with the king in the—with the king,” Aud said. “Perhaps he does not intend to hold her long.”
I laughed at that, bitterly. “He intends to make her his wife.”
Aud flinched back. “How do you know?”
I felt suddenly weary. “It’s only right. She freed him. What other reward would he give her? What else could be sufficient
recompense?”
“Madness,” Ulfar muttered.
Aud held up her hand, for the villagers had started muttering among themselves. “And you believe you can free her from the king
yourself?”
“I can try,” I answered.
They looked at me dubiously. I suppose I was not cutting an impressive figure seated there by the fire with my blanket and my tea like an aged grandfather, and my nose constantly in need of blowing.
I’d gone through two of Aud’s handkerchiefs already.
“We will help however we can,” Aud said. I suppose she thought she was sparing my feelings. She needn’t have worried. As I said, I am not optimistic about my odds of success. I need these villagers rather desperately.
Aud began assigning tasks, all cool efficiency. Brambleberries were to be gathered and burned in every hearth, and several youths were
sent to the next village to consult with their bard, for they have a bard there, and he has collected many stories that may give us some ideas for dealing with this king. I was assigned to show a handful of the men the way to the snow king’s court, but not, Aud said, until I had turned a normal colour again—my fingertips still looked a bit blue.
She tried to force toast and smoked fish on me, but I couldn’t eat a thing.
In part to warm myself, and mostly for a distraction, I paced the length of the tavern a few times, even ducking into the back where Ulfar was preparing an enormous quantity of stew for our strategy session. Oh, God, that kitchen. I’ve never seen such a mess. I paced back to the fire whilst everyone stared at me and likely worried I’d gone mad, but I couldn’t stop picturing that kitchen. It was pleasant to think of something other than you being made to dance until you collapsed or clothed in a gown of icicles, so I began rearranging the pots and generally setting everything in order. By the time Ulfar returned to give the stew a stir, I’d cleaned the majority of the space, though it remained far from satisfactory. Certainly a long way off my father’s standards.
“How does one manage to affix toast to the ceiling?” I demanded.
This had not been the most offensive example of the kitchen’s disorder, but it was the most perplexing.
Ulfar didn’t seem to hear me. He stared at his kitchen, those blond eyebrows of his nearly disappearing down the back of his bald scalp.
My fingers itched to have a go at his apron, which was filthy and torn, one of the straps fastened to the body with a pin, but I restrained myself. Aud followed a moment later, and she stopped too, staring.
You’d think neither of them recognized their own kitchen.
Eventually, Aud seemed to remember herself. “You’re looking well enough now,” she said a little nervously, as if I’d truly scared her, which was utterly ridiculous. If ever you want to frighten a person, Aud, show them your kitchen.
Anyway. She helped me bundle up in some of Ulfar’s things, and I braced myself for another ghastly expedition, this time to show the villagers how to reach the king’s court. At least it had stopped snowing.
I was skimming by this point, flipping slowly through the pages. Each day, it seemed, the villagers had tried something else. After their brambleberry fires had come to naught, they had made a sacrifice of a dozen lambs, and then several women had woven a quilt from polar bear hair, which, according to an ancient tale, the king had once accepted as a fair exchange for a stolen village girl. After that had come a series of attempts to sneak into the king’s court with Wendell, an elaborate scheme to capture one of the courtly fae in the hopes of some sort of prisoner exchange—this inspired by a similar tale shared by the bard—and then, when that ended in disaster, several parlays with various common fae to elicit information that might be used to set me free. It went on and on.
A drop landed on the back of my hand, and I realized to my dismay that I was crying. Never in my adult life had I had someone looking out for me.
Everything that I have wanted or needed doing, I have done myself.
And why not? I have never needed rescuing before. I suppose I always assumed that if I ever did, I would have two options: rescue myself or perish.
The whole village, working for weeks. Setting aside their own lives and interests to help me. At first I was horribly embarrassed. But underneath that was something that warmed me to the core, even in a palace of ice.
They are coming to rescue me.
I am not alone.
