Girl in Ice(64)



She chuckled and clicked the top off a beer, sat down for a rare break. “Whatever you say, Wyatt.”

“All I know is, that ice in the kitchen is melting fast. I’d say eight, nine hours tops. We’re going to have to be paying attention.” He turned his beneficence in my direction. “So tell us, Val, how’s the young lady doing this morning?”

I washed down a bite of dry peanut butter sandwich with my margarita, said, “She’s got a bad headache, I think. Otherwise she’s better. No fever.”

“Could have sworn I heard you two talking last night,” Jeanne said. “You guys making progress?”

I swirled my drink in my cup. “Here and there. I was listening to recordings. Old Norse, West Greenlandic. Dialects. That sort of thing.”

Wyatt set his guitar aside. Picked up the tequila bottle and had a taste. “You seem like best buds to me these days. No new words to report?”

Heat flushed up my neck, sweat gathering at my hairline under my hat. “No, sorry to say.”

“Well, there’s a terrible shame, don’t you think? For me, for you”—he swung the bottle around—“for all of us. I get it, Val. You’re putting the time in, but—Hey, you know, doesn’t matter. Because—that little boy in the kitchen? He’s the missing piece, as far as I’m concerned.”

“I’m going to go check on Sigrid,” I said.

Nora said, “I’ll come with you.”

As I bent to pick up a plate, I glanced down at the hummock of snow where Andy had been found. He lay in the fetal position, dressed in the tuxedo he wore to my wedding, his bare feet black with frostbite.

I blinked, and he was gone; just elongated shadows marked the place his body had been.



* * *



THE LUMP UNDER the blankets didn’t move. In the air, an acidic, greasy tang. Nora walked around the bed, knelt down to a small, glistening pile.

“Looks like the poor thing’s been sick.”

“Oh no.” I gently folded the covers back; Sigrid yanked them over her head with a growl.

Nora went to the kitchen, returned with a wet towel, and got busy cleaning up the mess. “That was you talking last night, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” I said, relieved to spill the truth. “Last night she completely turned around with me, Nora. She wanted to communicate. She learned a couple dozen words, easily! And concepts, too, because language is learned in chunks. It’s how a toddler learns.”

“That’s brilliant, Val.”

“But why now? I can’t stop wondering. Why did it take weeks for her to open up?”

Nora shrugged. “Maybe she realizes her family really is all gone. You’re it for her now.”

Why hadn’t that occurred to me? Maybe Sigrid had been hanging on to the fantasy that her family would be found alive, but seeing them mortally wounded under the ice put an end to that.

Nora sat next to me on the bed and inhaled deeply. “She smells so good now. I almost miss my stinky girl.”

I laughed. “No, you don’t.”

“It’s great she’s making progress.”

“Look, Nora, you’ve got to keep this on the down low, okay? That she’s finally talking to me?”

Jeanne rapped on the open door, startling us. “Hey, birthday girl,” she said to Nora, unsmiling. “Mind going outside to wait for your cake?” Not waiting for an answer, she disappeared from view.



* * *



FROM BEYOND THE open door, peals of laughter from Wyatt mingled with the muffled sounds of Nora and Raj talking. Jeanne rifled through a drawer next to a tall, round cake festooned with swirls of canned chocolate frosting, extracting a beat-up box of birthday candles and matches.

“You have birthday candles here?”

“People have birthdays in the Arctic. We did it up for Andy last spring.” She poked half a dozen candles in a circle on the cake. “Mine was last week.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

She waved me away, concentrating on her decorations. “Never liked my birthday. Happens to fall on a really bad anniversary, if you want the truth about it. Wyatt never remembers it anyway.”

I opened the door wide in preparation to march outside with the cake. The thunk of the football on the roof, another bout of laughter from the party.

Jeanne struck a match and lit the first candle; the flame glowed against the rough skin of her hand. She lit the next one before her match burned out.

Wyatt spoke in a stage whisper. “Well, you’d think that after a year with just my fist I’d screw anything…”

The wick of the third candle sputtered and drew the match’s flame, igniting. Her hand shaking slightly, Jeanne moved to the next one.

“… and then I think, well, Jeanne’s not that bad… I mean, she is female, after all…”

The fourth wick caught, but the match was used up. Something clattered on the roof, a plate or silverware, maybe. A bitter gust shunted down into the kitchen from the open door, sucking all warmth from the room. Jeanne struck another match.

“… but the same thing always happens. I have a really good look at her, and I’m back to my fist.”

Jeanne’s hand shook badly now, the match’s flame not catching at the wick for the longest time until it singed her flesh as she lit the final candle. She threw the match in the sink, where it sizzled on a gob of frosting.

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