The Children's Blizzard(8)

She believed him. Then she didn’t. Then she did again—a chain between their hearts, that’s what it felt like; it was so heavy, it tugged, then went slack, then tugged again. Yes, she believed him—his eyes were wet with emotion, his touch so gentle. Opportunity had presented itself before then and he’d never taken advantage of his desire to do more; at times, she’d ached for him to, and she’d been so angry when he hadn’t, she’d wanted to slap him just to feel him beneath her hand.

    But his honor invited her trust that night; it was like the fragile hope of peace that comes before a war. Peace destined to be shattered.

So surely, he would come for her now? Come for her and Anette—he loved Anette, he did, that was another sign of the goodness in him, he treated the little girl much more kindly than his wife did—he would come. To take them home, and then he could take the rest of the children, too. And although she cringed at the idea of bringing these innocents into that spider’s web, right now she could think of no better alternative. They would freeze to death if they stayed here overnight. There was enough fuel to last a couple more hours, including the desks and books. But who knew how long this storm would last?

So. She had decided—just as she had decided upon him last week; she had decided.

He would come for them. For her.

“Children.” She turned from the window. “It looks like we’re going to stay in school late today, because of the storm. Let’s pass the time by playing a game!” Maybe if they ran around, they’d stay warm. “Let’s play tag—I haven’t played it for so long! Tor, tag—you’re it!” Tor, his eyebrows drawn together with worry, leapt in surprise when she tapped his shoulder. He looked startled, then shy; his face turned ruddy. She understood—she wasn’t supposed to play games, she was Miss Olsen. They all looked embarrassed, but she nudged Tor and he obeyed, running slowly around in circles until the other children got into the spirit, began to giggle, began to run, too.

All except for Anette. Anette stood still, even when Fredrik shouted at her to run. She chewed her lip and she shook her head. She would not move. Her wary pale blue eyes that saw everything that went on in the house with an intelligence that shocked Raina, yet always looked so confused and slow here in the schoolhouse, were turbulent. The little girl kept looking out the window, then over at the cloakroom, then back to the window, which continued to shake and rattle, as did the entire schoolhouse. At one point a gust hit it so assuredly that it seemed as if the two-by-fours—such a proud sight on the treeless prairie, signaling an investment by the homesteaders for they had to be brought in by train—might lift off the foundation.

    Raina wished for a soddie all of a sudden, that symbol of poverty that yet was so much more sturdy, insulated, than these store-bought and tar-papered wooden planks. A soddie wouldn’t blow over in a blizzard. A soddie, snug to the earth—made out of the earth itself, walls that were stacked mud and roofs that were strips of sod—was warmer.

But a soddie was a signal that a community was still transient, not permanent. And the homesteaders near Newman Grove were too proud for that. So this schoolhouse, while it looked fancier than the surrounding farmhouses, was not as warm nor as sturdy, because it was merely a place for children to spend whatever meager time they were not forced to spend working at home.

Raina clapped her hands, both to keep warm and to inspire the children to continue at their game, as they’d fallen silent once more, as if mesmerized by the howling wind. She consulted her watch, pinned neatly to the breast of her calico dress; it was one forty-five. Almost forty-five minutes since the blizzard had started. And still not a sign of rescue.

But he would come. She knew it.

    “You are the most important thing to me in the world,” he’d said last week, in those stolen moments they clung to whenever his wife—in all her golden-haired glory, so bright, so fierce, it was like looking at the sun itself, only no warmth emanated from her—had her back turned. Flying about the small two-story house like a fury, her hair in those elaborate coils, it must have taken her an extra hour each morning to arrange it so. Her vanity on display.

“You are the light, she is the dark,” he’d whispered. He wrote it on a scrap of paper and handed it to Raina once. When they believed she wasn’t looking.

He would rescue her.

But she needed an affirmation all the same. She whirled around and asked, “Anette…”

The girl was gone. She wasn’t at the desk, nor was she running around with the others.

Then a blast of cold air froze everyone in their tracks; Raina dashed to the cloakroom. Anette’s pail was gone, and there was fresh snow inside the door, which wasn’t quite closed; the wind was too fierce.

“Anette!” Raina opened the door, gasped, shrank back from the howling wind, the snow as hard as pebbles against her bare skin and inadequate dress. She grit her teeth, tried to open her eyes, which had shut against the assaulting snow; she peered out, caught a glimpse of a red shawl, Anette’s shawl, before it was swallowed up in the whirling, blinding void.

“Anette!”

What should she do? Run after the girl? But what about the others, standing still, no longer at play, confusion and fear on every face?

Oh, Gerda! Gerda would know. Gerda would do the right thing, the smart thing. But Gerda wasn’t here. Raina felt the weight of her responsibilities fall across her shoulders like an oxbow, and she stifled a cry. It wasn’t fair, she was so small, she shouldn’t have left home in the first place, she was too young—both for the dangerous games at the Pedersen home and for this. Children—some too young to do anything but cry for their mothers—in her care. When most of the time she felt unable to care for even the hardiest baby chick. It was only last year she was in braids! And now here she was, in a quaking, barely insulated schoolhouse with no fuel. And one of those children—the one most dear—running out into this storm that was unlike any other.