The Marsh King's Daughter(65)

Or does he?

“What makes you think I have children?”

My father reaches into the dead man’s jacket and pulls out a dog-eared copy of Traverse magazine. I recognize the cover. My heart sinks. He tosses the magazine at my feet. The magazine falls open to the photograph of me and Stephen and the girls standing in front of the old lightning-scarred maple beside our driveway. The tree is distinctive—especially if it’s standing beside the driveway of the homestead where you grew up. The article doesn’t name my girls, doesn’t have to. The picture told my father everything he needed to know.

Stephen was so proud when the piece ran. He set up the interview a couple of years ago after the economy went bust and gas prices went up and tourism fell off and jam sales were slow. Seeing my name and picture in a magazine was just about the last thing I wanted, but I couldn’t think of a reason to tell Stephen no without telling him the truth. He said the publicity would boost my online sales, and he was right about that—after the article ran I started getting orders from transplanted Michiganders from as far away as Florida and California.

I honestly thought I’d covered my tracks well enough that the article wouldn’t be a problem. Maybe that sounds naive, but it’s easier to reinvent yourself in the U.P. than you might think. The towns may be only thirty to fifty miles apart, but each is like its own separate world. Folks keep to themselves—not only because the people who live in the U.P. are naturally independent and self-reliant, but because they have to. When you have to drive fifty miles to go to a Kmart or see a movie, you learn to be content with what’s around you.

Everyone knew all about The Marsh King and his daughter. But by the time I moved from Newberry to Grand Marais, I didn’t look anything like the twelve-year-old wild child in the newspaper pictures. I’d grown up, cut my hair, dyed it blonde, changed my last name. I even wore makeup when I was in public to hide my tattoos. As far as anybody knew, I was just the woman who bought the old Holbrook place, and that was fine by me.

If I’d had any idea that a copy of the magazine would one day find its way into the prison library and my father’s cell, I never would have agreed to do the piece. In the photo my girls’ faces are smudged. How many times did my father run his fingers over their pictures as he plotted and dreamed? The idea of his playing doting grandfather to my daughters . . . playing with them, tickling them, telling them stories . . . I simply can’t conceive of it.

“Tell me, do your girls help you make jelly and jam?” He leans in close and presses the Magnum against my chest. I can smell the bacon the old man was cooking for his breakfast on my father’s breath. “You thought you could hide from me? Change your name? Deny I’m your father? You’re living on my land, Helena. Did you really think I wouldn’t find you?”

“Don’t hurt them. I’ll do anything you want as long as it doesn’t involve my family.”

“You’re not in a position to make demands, Little Shadow.”

There’s no warmth when he says my pet name, no twinkle in his eyes. Maybe the charm I remember from my childhood has been snuffed out by the years in prison. Maybe it was never there. Memories can be tricky, especially those from childhood. Iris will tell a story with absolute conviction about something she thinks happened, even though I know it isn’t true. Maybe the man I remember never existed. Maybe the things I think happened never did.

“You won’t get away with this,” I can’t stop myself from saying.

He laughs. It’s not a pleasant sound. “You can get away with anything. You of all people should know that.”

I flash back to my last day in the marsh. I’m afraid that this is true.

He waves the Magnum in the direction of my house and stands up. “Time to go.”

I push myself to my feet using the tree as balance. I start walking. Father and daughter, together again.





24





THE CABIN

But there was one time of the day which placed a check upon Helga. It was the evening twilight; when this hour arrived she became quiet and thoughtful, and allowed herself to be advised and led; then also a secret feeling seemed to draw her towards her mother.

The Viking’s wife took her on her lap, and forgot the ugly form, as she looked into the mournful eyes. “I could wish that thou wouldst always remain my dumb frog child, for thou art too terrible when thou art clothed in a form of beauty. Never once to my lord and husband has a word passed my lips of what I have to suffer through you; my heart is full of grief about you.”

Then the miserable form trembled; it was as if these words had touched an invisible bond between body and soul, for great tears stood in the eyes.

— HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN,

The Marsh King’s Daughter



I thought about the man in the woodshed all the rest of that day. I wondered what he was going to tell me about my father and mother that I didn’t know. It must have been important, because my father beat the man for almost telling. I wanted to sneak out to the woodshed many times to ask him, but my father stayed close to the cabin, hauling water and splitting firewood and sharpening his chain saw, so I couldn’t.

I spent the entire day inside. It was without a doubt the longest, dullest, least exciting, and most boring day of my life. Worse than the day my father made me help my mother make jelly. I didn’t want to take care of my mother, though I was sorry about her broken arm. I wanted to run the snare line, check our ice-fishing holes, tag along with my father when he went to shoot our spring deer even though I was mad at him for breaking my mother’s arm—anything but stay inside. It felt like I was being punished, and I hadn’t done anything wrong.