White Stag (Permafrost #1)(80)

Bones still crunched against my boots, and I forced myself to squat down, to examine them and see if I could figure out who they belonged to. Man, woman, or child, someone I knew, someone I loved, someone I hated. The bones were smooth and cold, strangers in my hands. Briefly, I wondered if the dead were watching me, judging my choices, but I found I didn’t care. It wasn’t my fault they died. Just as it wasn’t my fault that I’d grown anew.

I dropped the skull fragment I was holding and stood, trying to envision the village again in my mind. Where had I lived? Where had I grown for seventeen years, unaware of the life laid out for me, until I was pulled out of that blissful existence by a monster of a goblin?

I couldn’t tell. That was not my life anymore.

So I stood in the haze and the ash, stood among the bones of the dead and the scrap iron that had remained untouched throughout time. I stood there, in what was once my home, and closed my eyes, the emotions churning through me bringing me to my knees for a second time.





19


SALT OF THE EARTH


THE MEMORIES CAME slowly at first. Not even bad ones, but ones I’d forgotten long ago in a whirlwind of pain and a court of monsters. I shut my eyes, watching the scenes play out. My hands dug into the soil, burning at bits of iron that lingered among the ashes.

I toddled after my sister as fast as my four-year-old legs could manage. Her long brown hair streaming out behind her, the ties in her dress half undone, a man’s hand in her own. Where were they going? They promised to play with me, didn’t they?

I didn’t like the man. He smelled of the firewater that the sailors drank when they came into our village, and his voice was scratchy from the sticks that hung burning from his mouth. But Ika liked him, and Ika was a good judge of character.

I made my strides longer, taking advantage of my height. I was the tallest kid my age in the village, the most agile. And I could see the tracks where my sister and the man had gone.

I found them in a clearing, their lips locked together. My sister squealed in surprise when she saw me, and the man’s eyes narrowed, but then he laughed. It was a sound that came deep from inside of him.

“Is this the wild little thing I keep hearing about?” he asked.

“Janneke!” Ika was fifteen years old, but she sounded like my mother when she scolded me. “What are you doing here?”

“Following you,” I said. Wasn’t that obvious?

She sighed and pulled me up on her hip. All the women carried babies like that. But I wasn’t a baby, so I wriggled until she let me go. “How did you follow us? I was sure…”

“You’re easy to track,” I said.

The man came forward, bending down so he could be at my height. His breath still smelled, but he had a nice smile I hadn’t noticed before. Maybe that was why Ika liked him. “You like tracking? Wouldn’t you rather be playing with dolls, little one?”

I lifted my chin and looked the man in the eyes. “My father says I’m to fulfill the male role. If I am to do it, I’ll do it well.”

He laughed. “She’s very well-spoken for her age.”

Ika sighed. “Come on, Janneke, let’s go home.”

When we got back, it was dark out and my mother fretted over me. She scolded me, told me never to go into the woods. Bad things were there. I told her I would be a huntress one day and I wasn’t scared.

But I still slept curled up in her bed when the night came, my father in between us. I heard them whispering, but couldn’t make out the words from underneath the covers. Their voices sounded worried.

This was where we slept. I was sure of it. The iron in the ashes burned my hands, but it didn’t matter. I stood again and continued walking around the field, noticing which spot was which. There was a little whistle lying on the ground, iron again, the only thing that hadn’t disappeared completely. On it were the ancient carved letters that meant someone fancied a girl. Similar to the maypoles erected every summer during courting season—ones I’d never gotten.

“Why do you hate me so much, Bj?rn?” I asked, kicking at the sticks in front of me as I walked side by side with a towheaded boy. If he could be called a boy. He was beginning to grow taller, lankier, just as I was beginning to grow breasts and bleed. We were the same age—thirteen—and I was often paired with him on hunting missions or lessons. If I had a friend in the village, he was the closest thing.

“I don’t hate you,” he said.

“You didn’t give me a pole,” I said, as if it meant everything in the world. It did at the time, I knew.

“I don’t like you that way. Besides, we’re too young.”

I crossed my arms. “I’m a woman. I bled just last month.”

“Well, May Day was two months ago. Sorry, I can’t see into the future.”

“I don’t understand. I’m a woman, why can’t I also be a woman and a huntress? Why does everyone have to forget I’m also a girl?” My hair had been braided in the style the boys wore; I wore the clothing the boys did. I had their chores. Why couldn’t I even talk with the girls? Why couldn’t I join them in the women’s tent when I bled, instead of having to ignore it and continue hunting?

“You know why. You’re not supposed to be a girl. Not really.”

“But I am. My role doesn’t change that.”