Girl in Ice(67)

Raj got a little closer. She allowed it. Sigrid shoved aside her drawing and wandered into the kitchen to Nora’s side.

“He’s dead, sweetheart,” Raj said. “He died seven hundred years ago.”

Rocking him in her arms, Nora collapsed into the child, sobbing. Her grief pushed everything else from the room. Sigrid stretched upward and wrapped her arms around Nora’s waist. Momentarily startled out of her hell, Nora reached down and stroked Sigrid’s hair.

With a groan, Wyatt got to his feet, face pallid in the bleak light, beard scraggly and unkempt. He held his arms out to Nora. “Give him to me.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Come on, it’s time to… to take care of him.”

She gripped the baby tighter, broke away from Sigrid, and darted into the living room. “Oh, no. You’ve had your chance with him. You’re not fit to touch him again.”

Wyatt followed her in his awkward, yet eerily fast, stocking-footed gait. “Look, you’re exhausted. I’m exhausted. We’re all wiped out. Nobody wanted this to happen. But the reality is, he’s gone, and we’ve got to—”

The whites of her eyes shone. “What are you going to do with him?”

“Learn from him.”

“What, you’re going to cut him up?”

“He’s dead, Nora. Maybe… if I take some samples, I can understand why Sigrid lived and he didn’t. Find out what he ate, how he lived…”

“You knew there was no hope. You just wanted his body.”

Wyatt reached out again; she slapped him away.

“You keep your filthy hands off this baby—”

His face turned hard. “Nora, do you know how many people froze to death in an ice wind off the Oregon coast yesterday?” he hissed. “Fifty-seven. Fifty-seven people who—if they’d had access to whatever protected Sigrid—would be alive right now. And you—a fellow scientist—stand there telling me to look away, to squander clues that are literally in our lap?”

Raj stepped between them. “Let’s… let’s calm down. Why don’t we take the baby to the Dome for the night? Get some sleep. Talk in the morning.”

“Fine,” Wyatt said. “But the baby stays here. In fact, it’s too late to go to the Dome. No one’s going anywhere tonight.”





twenty-nine


In the dream, I stood on the ice lake, a fine snow falling like silt all around me. Just beyond the orange toes of my boot, where the polished rings had been, a cavernous hole gaped. At the bottom of the pit, bodies lay scattered just as they had when beneath the ice, the now-soft snow beneath them soaked in blood. Moaning echoed from shadowy corners. Here and there, the twitch of an arm, the rasp of breath in ancient lungs. A woman dragged herself free and staggered to her feet, eyes wild the moment she caught sight of me. Clawing at the ice wall, she cried, My baby, where is my baby? I wanted to tell her how sorry I was, that we should have left her child in peace, but couldn’t open my mouth to speak. With a scream, she lunged at my ankles. Jagged ice tore at my face as I tumbled into the pit.



* * *



I JOLTED AWAKE, the laminated dive instructions I’d used to fall asleep cutting into my cheek. In disgust, I tossed the sheet on the floor. The room was infused with gauzy gray light. It was eight o’clock in the morning, only two hours since we’d gone to bed.

I rolled over, expecting to find Sigrid buried in her usual pile of pillows, but I was alone. Maybe she was getting something to eat; maybe she couldn’t sleep. Quite possibly she missed her refuge under her own bed and had retreated there. Exhaustion steamrolled over me; every cell in my body cried out for rest.

So go back to sleep, I told myself.

But I couldn’t.

Something felt off.

I slipped on my clothes and padded down the hall. My stomach dropped at the idea of going into the kitchen. The night before, after we’d all agreed to do nothing with the baby for the moment, Wyatt suggested putting him in the refrigerator, which caused Nora another round of hysteria. The compromise was to leave him where he was for the night: on the kitchen table, covered by a towel. As I shuffled into the kitchen, I couldn’t bring myself to look at him, even concealed, so kept my eyes averted from the table as I made my coffee, then settled on the couch near the picture window.

Eyes glazed with fatigue, I scanned the snowfield, luminous under turquoise skies. What was that? Something was advancing, slowly, steadily down to the brash ice at the shore. Hot coffee lingered in my throat, burning me. I swallowed, slamming the cup down. Bolted to the window. The red dot bobbed along, the only movement on the icy slope.

Sigrid.

What the hell was she doing?

I whipped around, scouring the kitchen. Yelped.

The baby was gone. Even the towels were gone.

I glanced back out the window. Sigrid was a red speck now. I suited up fast and woke Nora and Raj as quietly as I could.



* * *



WE PLUNGED THROUGH the violet half-light, the snow oddly soft under our boots. Even as I ran, I wondered, What is different? I whipped off my hat and stuffed it in the pocket of my parka, realizing I was too warm with it on. The air felt above freezing, full of moisture, even with the strong wind bearing down off the glacier. Our boots sank to our ankles in the snowpack.