The Children's Blizzard(30)

Her own family thought she wasn’t good enough even for that hole in the ground, and they sent her away.

The Pedersens surely wouldn’t care if she froze to death. They would find her lifeless, but with the slate and the lunch pail, the only two things Mother Pedersen cared about, and she would sigh with relief and let her husband deal with Anette’s body; he’d probably bury it somewhere because he was decent. But then he would forget her as soon as the last spade full of earth covered her up, he wouldn’t put up a marker or anything, and soon the grass would grow over her, and she would lie there in the cold earth alone for all eternity, forgotten.

    Not even Fredrik would mourn her now—she’d made sure of that, she’d chased him away, she’d reminded him, the only person who hadn’t yet discovered it on his own, that she wasn’t worthy of love.

“Fredrik!” Seized by panic, she scrambled up, her anger forgotten, and she was herself again. No longer a fury raging at her fate, just a stupid girl unable to do anything on her own, lost. “Fredrik!”

She began to run in the direction she thought he’d gone, she kept screaming his name, and finally she heard something. She stopped, listened with all her might, and it was crying she heard, a boy crying, and her heart beat faster with hope, propelling her legs toward that sound.

“Fredrik!”

She found him seated in a little swallow of the earth, drifted over with snow—she didn’t see him, she tripped over him. His legs were drawn up tightly against his chest and he was crying; he looked up at her—the snow had frosted over his eyebrows, was stuck on his eyelashes, his cheeks were unnaturally red from the biting cold, the burn of the snow. But he was Fredrik, all the same.

“I’m so-so-sorry,” he wheezed, his voice quaking, but he got up and hugged her tightly, and the surprise of this made Anette gasp. He’d never hugged her. No one had—she was so shocked she forgot to hug him back, or maybe she didn’t know how to. But either way, in a moment they were hand in hand again, and he meekly allowed her to pull him back in the direction that, a few moments ago, she had been so certain of that she’d nearly lost the only person in the world who would mourn her if she died.

    But now, she wasn’t so certain; in fact, she had no idea which way to go. But Fredrik didn’t seem able to help; he was muttering something to himself and obediently held on to Anette’s hand as she led him forward.

So she pretended that she knew the way home but the only thing she really knew was that they had to keep moving or else. So they continued to stumble on.

Together.





CHAPTER 14


?????



“WE HAVE TO LEAVE.”

Raina was surprised to hear her voice—a calm, rational voice—say the words out loud; she’d been sure she was only thinking them. But once she said them, they made sense; her mind, not her heart, was finally in control. Even as the snow kept blowing through the broken window, the temperature dropping with each heartbeat, she was sure of one thing. It was all up to her; no one would come to save her. Not her big sister, not her father. Not Gunner Pedersen.

“Children,” Raina shouted over the wind and the sniffles and the wails—she did a quick headcount, just to make sure. Ten children, plus Tor. Sofia Nyquist was the youngest, only six, sobbing for her mother; her older sister, Enid, barely older, seven. Rosa and Eva Larsen, twins, eight years old; Albert Blickenstaff, nine; Clara Hagen and Tana Berg, ten; Albert’s big brother, Walter, and his best friend, Daniel Hagen, eleven. Tall but painfully thin Arvid Dahl, thirteen; he was the biggest boy next to Tor but so frail from a lifetime of illnesses, and his asthma was already making his breathing squeak and rattle.

Surveying them, Raina found herself unaccountably touched by small things: The crooked part in Daniel’s hair—she imagined him refusing to let his mother part his hair anymore; that was for a baby and he was a big boy, he could do it himself. The way Clara and Tana held hands, as they always did, sitting side by side on the bench or out at recess skipping together. Enid’s lopsided smile; one of her front teeth was missing, and she wasn’t embarrassed about it at all, she smiled boldly, brilliantly, defying anyone to make fun of her. Walter’s way of hitching up his suspenders, just like a man would, an unconscious yet proud little gesture, as if he was constantly surveying a field of bounty, mentally calculating the income from it. Yet he was a small child, finer boned than the other boys, better fitted for a general store than the farm that he’d been destined for since birth out here on the prairie.

    Raina realized she’d not really taken the time to get to know her pupils; her mind had been so distracted, first by the excitement of leaving home, then by the oppressive atmosphere at the Pedersens’, her fear of Anna, and then the cyclone of confusion, hope, desire, that Gunner stirred in her. Taunted her with, to be honest. Her pupils had been the least of everything; they had occupied the smallest space in her brain and heart, and she chided herself. Teaching was her job, and these children were her charges. It was only now that she was about to lead them out into the chaos of the storm that she fully realized it. Fully saw them as individuals.

“Miss Olsen, please, before we go—let me just run out for a minute to see if I can find Fredrik and Anette.” Tor dared to take her hand—a big breach in manners, but he was so desperate. He clutched her hand until it hurt. “Please, Fredrik is so little, Mama and Papa have always told me I have to look out for him. Please!”