Girl in Ice(59)

Raj relaxed his grip on his camera; it hung limply around his neck. “We need to get her out of here.”

“No,” Jeanne said. “She deserves to see.”

Wyatt walked the perimeter of the polished ice, eyes never leaving Sigrid.

“Why did you bring her here…?” Nora murmured.

“I didn’t know it would be like this….” Wyatt’s voice trailed off.

I got down on my knees next to Sigrid. The snow had ceased, as if in respect for the ravaged scene beneath us. She swept off the last delicate flakes. “Tahtaksah,” she breathed. “Mother, father.”

“You’re sad,” I said. “For your mother, and for your father. I’m so sorry.” And that’s when I understood, kneeling with Sigrid just yards above the seven-hundred-year-old bodies of her parents, what tahtaksah meant. Seven words used constantly… Where had I read about the seven basic emotions? The Book of Rites, a first-century Chinese encyclopedia, named the “feelings of men”: fear, sadness, contempt, surprise, disgust, anger, and joy.

An attempt to categorize emotions. Tahtaksah. It had to mean sad, grief-stricken.

She was telling me how she felt before telling me what she thought. I finally understood: in her language, every sentence began with an emotion. What a compassionate, gentle way to communicate: prioritizing feelings over facts.

“What is she saying to you?” Wyatt crouched at the edge of the gleaming ice a few yards away.

“That she’s sad. That her mother and father are beneath us.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Nora said. “What good is this doing anybody?”

Raj wandered to the far side of the cleared area as if scouting a better angle for photos. He came to an abrupt halt. Got down on his hands and knees, set aside his camera, and polished one of the circles with a gloved hand. “Guys, you have to come see this.”

Nora joined her husband, kneeling beside him. A strangled yelp escaped her. She clutched his arm. Wyatt and Jeanne quickly made their way to stand behind them.

Wyatt let out a low whistle. “Better get over here, Val.”

Sigrid had sunk into a state of melancholy. I’m not sure she felt or noticed the kiss I placed on her head before reluctantly leaving her side to join the others.

I gazed down into the dim, blue otherworld. A baby boy, perfectly preserved, floated a few feet below the surface, his body partially wrapped in a dun-colored rag that seemed to flutter in an eternal wind. His dark eyes were open, and he looked alert, one chubby hand reaching out as if to touch his mother’s face or pick a flower off a stem.

“My God, Raj,” Nora breathed. “Look at him.”

He gripped her arm, consumed by the sight.

“How did he get here,” Nora said, “so far away from all the others?”

Wyatt knelt next to her. “Maybe he was swept up in the same gust that took Sigrid, who knows? Look where she was found. Just yards from here.”

We all squinted at the azure depression on the other side of the crevasse, piecing together the weirdly plausible explanation.

“Perhaps they tried to place the children away from danger,” Raj said softly. “But the wind had other plans.”

“He looks just like Charlie, doesn’t he?” Nora hugged herself, eyes glittering.

“Come on, babe,” Raj said, peering out at the brooding mountains, their black cliffs crosshatched with ice. “Keep it together.”

Her voice rose. “It’s the truth, and you know it. Look at him. His smile, his eyes…”

Raj wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her to her feet, tried to lead her away. “This isn’t good for you—”

She brushed him aside. “Just let me look at him!”

“I say we cut him out of there,” Wyatt said. “He looks in good shape, not like the rest of them.”

Raj stepped briskly to his camera, snatched it up, and slipped the strap around his neck. “You’ve finally lost your fucking mind.”

Wyatt smiled and tipped his head to Jeanne, who was already on her way back to the sled and the ice saw.

Raj got up into Wyatt’s face. “This sick little sideshow cannot go on,” he growled. “I will not let it. Your game with Sigrid. Even if she did thaw out alive, you’ve still got no idea why or how, even after all your screwing around. This place”—he gesticulated at the shining circles beneath us, the vast lake with its jagged blue scar, the peaks beyond—“is sacred. This is a grave site. We should leave these poor people in peace.”

Head down against the wind, Jeanne dragged the ice saw behind her.

“If it’ll really offend you that much to watch us cut him out,” Wyatt said, “why don’t you head back?”

Raj stood over the baby, arms folded tight. “I won’t let you do it. This is obscene.”

Jeanne, out of breath, laid down the saw at Wyatt’s feet.

“That’s not very democratic of you, Raj. Maybe we should ask around. Take a vote. Nora?”

“I…” She wiped her eyes, looked at her husband imploringly. “I—Look at him. I can’t just leave him here. Not if… Raj, I’m sorry.”

He said, “Then what about everybody else down there? Why don’t we thaw out the whole lot? What have we got to lose?”