The Snow Child

  “A dog? For Faina, you say?”

  He seemed puzzled at first. Then he grinned broadly.

  “A puppy!”

  “You think this is a good idea?”

  “Of course. She needs a friend.”

  “But can she care for it?”

  “Oh, she’ll manage fine. It’ll be good for her.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Jack must have noticed her anxious tone because he looked at her more closely.

  “She’s lonesome, Mabel. You must see that. Pulled between here and there—uneasy in our home, all alone in the woods. I’ll bet she’s never even been around a happy-go-lucky pup.”

  Mabel was tempted to explain her other reservations about Garrett and his peculiar behavior, but she couldn’t find the words to express them and knew she would sound fretful and silly.

  When Faina knocked at the door later that evening, Jack, Mabel, and Garrett were on the floor with the puppy, tossing a knotted rag around the room. At the sound of the knock, Garrett stumbled to his feet.

  Mabel opened the door and wondered if Faina would sprint away when she saw they had company, but the girl stood just inside the door without removing her hat and coat. When she saw Garrett, her eyes widened.

  Here, child, Mabel said. Let me take your coat. Has it started snowing again?

  Though Faina did not answer, she removed her hat and coat, her stare never leaving Garrett.

  You remember Garrett, don’t you? Esther and George’s son? He was here earlier in the winter. He… well, he has brought you something.

  Garrett had been holding the puppy by its leash, but now he slipped the rope from its neck. The puppy charged toward Faina, tail wagging, tongue flapping. The girl backed away, until she was pressed against the door and the puppy was jumping at her.

  It’s all right, child. It’s only a puppy, Mabel said. And I’d say it’s already quite fond of you.

  He won’t bite. I promise, Garrett said.

  He knelt at Faina’s feet and put his hands on the dog to settle it.

  See? He only wants to play. He’s young, just a few months old.

  Garrett reached up, took Faina’s hand, and brought it down to the dog’s head.

  There. You can pet him.

  The puppy lapped at the girl’s fingers, and Faina giggled.

  So, you like him? Garrett asked. Faina nodded, smiling, and letting the puppy lick her fingertips.

  Because he’s for you.

  The girl looked at Mabel, then back to Garrett, her brow furrowed.

  That’s right. He’s yours, Garrett said. I know he’s not like your fox. I thought about trying to live-trap one for you, but then I thought a pup might be better.

  Faina put her palms to the puppy’s cheeks, and the puppy leaned into her touch so that it seemed to be grinning.

  You’ll have to feed it regularly, Jack spoke up for the first time. He stood with an amused expression and his arms folded. Just feed it whatever you’re eating, and it will do fine.

  And I was thinking maybe you could sleep with him inside your coat, until he gets a little bigger, Garrett added.

  Faina was still petting the dog in pure wonderment. Mabel expected her to say thank you or ask a question, but the girl was silent.

  You don’t have to take the dog if you don’t want it.

  Even as Mabel said this, she knew it was ridiculous. Faina would not leave without the dog.

  You’ll have to think of a name, then, if he’s going to be yours, she said.

  Faina nodded earnestly, like a child prepared to make any promise to keep her pet.

  That’s a sled dog you’ve got there, you know, Faina, Jack said. He’ll carry a pack or pull a sled. And these dogs love the snow. He’ll go everywhere with you. Take him out in the yard, you’ll see what I mean.

  Jack opened the door then, and the dog bounded out into the snow. Faina and Garrett followed, buttoning their coats as they ran. Jack closed the door after them and went to the window to watch with Mabel. The cabin’s lantern light spilled outside, and near the trees she could see Garrett and Faina tossing snow at the puppy and running as it chased after them.

  “So, you’re sure this is a good idea?” Mabel asked.

  Jack nodded and squeezed her shoulders. She could see, though, that he was thinking of the dog, and she wasn’t certain that was what she had meant.

  Over the next few weeks, Garrett and Faina and the puppy cavorted through the snow and trees outside their cabin. Often Garrett would come early in the day, usually with some excuse of bringing a jar of his mother’s jam or an ax handle he had mended for Jack. Then, inevitably, Faina and the dog would emerge from the forest. The girl’s blue eyes were alight with joy, yet Mabel was apprehensive. She tried to enjoy the afternoons when they all came indoors, the young dog sprawled beside the woodstove, Garrett and Faina eating pie at the kitchen table. This, too, had been part of a life she once hoped for herself—children dancing outside her window, children safe at her table. She tried, just as she had during harvest when she and Jack had worked together, to take every bit of pleasure from that moment, knowing it might not last.

  Garrett soon hatched a plan to train the dog, and Mabel teased that this had been his motivation all along, to have a hand in raising a sled dog. He laughed but said he knew this pup was born for the snow. The next time he came, he brought a small wooden sled he had built and a harness he had fashioned out of rope and leather. Since the dog was far from full grown, he said, it would pull the sled empty. Mabel watched as the puppy charged toward the river, the sled bumping along behind it and Garrett and Faina running after. They were gone for some time, long enough that Mabel began to worry. When Jack came in from the barn, she told him as much.

  “They’re fine, Mabel. Those two children know these woods better than anyone I’ve ever met. Did you see that pup run? He’ll make Faina a fine dog.”

  Garrett returned alone just before sunset. “Tomorrow we’re going to take the dog for a long run, up the river. We’re meeting here in the morning. Can I sleep in the barn for the night?”

  “Sure,” Jack said. “Looks like you found her a good husky.”

  “Yep. He’s a fast learner, and there’s nothing he wants to do more than work.”

  “Tomorrow then? You’re going up the river for the day?” Mabel was wringing her hands like a grandmother, old and fussy.

  The next morning, as she gave Garrett a lunch she had packed for the two of them, including a chunk of moose roast for the puppy, she could no longer keep her silence.

  “Garrett, promise me something,” she spoke in a near whisper. Jack didn’t need to hear what she had to say.

  “Sure. What?”

  “Promise me you won’t build a fire?”

  “A fire?”

  “Yes. When you stop for your lunch or if you catch a chill. Promise me you won’t build a fire, even just a little one of twigs.”

  “But why would…”

  “This is important,” Mabel said, and she had to keep herself from reaching up and shaking the young man’s shoulders. “Promise me that you will never let Faina near any kind of fire.”

  As her voice climbed, Jack glanced up from the paperwork he was reading at the kitchen table, but then, distracted, went back to it. Mabel quieted herself.

  “I know it must sound like a strange request, but will you promise?”

  Garrett looked down at her kindly, and for a moment she wanted to tell him the truth. Maybe she and Garrett could laugh at the improbability of it, and then it might never come to pass.

  “I don’t understand, but I promise,” Garrett said earnestly. “And I would never let anything happen to Faina. You must know that.”

  And in his face, she could see that he believed his own words.

  CHAPTER 44

  The bear den was a gift Faina had given him deliberately and with some understanding of his heart. It took Garrett time to think of a gift of equal significance, and at first he worri
ed the puppy was a mistake. He hadn’t foreseen that she would be frightened of it.

  Weeks later, he was more confident in his choice. The puppy was thriving under her care, its black coat thick and shiny. It watched Faina closely with its one blue eye and one brown. When it thought she had disappeared, it would sit and wait somberly like a much older dog. When she reappeared, the pup leapt and yipped. She still hadn’t named it, but called it easily to her side with a whistle like a chickadee.

  And Faina—she was transformed. Where she had been quiet and serious around Garrett, she now laughed and danced. She and the puppy would chase each other in tighter and tighter circles until the girl fell giggling to the snow and the puppy bounded on top of her. When she was on her feet again and had shaken the snow from her long hair, she sometimes took Garrett by an arm and pulled him through the trees as she ran after the puppy, and it was as if he were swimming through a snowy dream. In that dream, he sometimes even kissed her cool, dry lips.

  Now, as they headed up the Wolverine River, sunlight flashed off the snow and every branch and dead leaf glittered with frost. The air stung Garrett’s lungs, and the exposed skin of his face burned in the cold. Until they began walking in earnest, his feet felt half frozen. Faina and the dog ran ahead and then waited for Garrett to catch up. When they stopped for lunch at a pile of driftwood logs, Garrett thought of starting a campfire to warm themselves but then remembered Mabel’s plea. They ate cold sandwiches from wax-paper wrapping and fed the puppy the bit of frozen moose roast.

  We could head back now, Garrett suggested when they were finished eating.

  No, just a little farther. Please?

  So they continued north, sometimes crossing the frozen channels, other times weaving through the trees along the shore. The riverbed was blown clear of snow, and Garrett could see where the white-blue ice had buckled and froze into great swells and dips. In places he hesitated to walk the ice, but Faina beckoned him across. He believed in her, trusted she knew where it was rotten and sheared and where it was strong and clear as glass, and he always made it safely to her side.

  As they came to a bend, Garrett realized this was the farthest he had ever traveled upriver. Around the curve the valley opened up, and in the distance spires of blue ice glowed. It was the river’s source—a glacier cradled between white mountains. From so many miles away, the craggy peaks of ice seemed to waver in the sunlight like a mirage, close and distant, real and unreal.

  Come on! Faina called, and she and the dog darted across hard-packed snowdrifts and into a stand of willow along the riverbank. Garrett tried to follow but he could not weave so easily between the frost-encrusted willows. Stumbling through the brush, he did not see the girl until suddenly she was in front of him. She had hooked her arm around the trunk of a willow, and it bent gently under her weight. She leaned out from the sparkling branches and gazed at Garrett with a look he did not understand. Then she leaned closer, and he felt her breath cool on his skin. Like a startled snowshoe hare, Garrett didn’t move, not until her lips touched his.

  Her cheeks were so smooth, so cold against his, and she tasted of the fragrance that all winter had haunted him—mountain herbs and wet stone and new snow. He slowly circled his arms around her and pulled her closer still. He shook off a glove and put his bare palm to her hair, something he now knew he had longed to do since he had first laid eyes on her, that day when she killed the swan. Pressed against his, the entire length of her body was delicate but steady, alive and cool, like nothing he had ever felt before.

  You are warm, she whispered against his lips.

  Garrett let his mouth follow her jawline down to her neck and back to her ear and he knew he could lose himself in the place where her blond hair met her soft skin. He could lose himself in her pale smoothness, in her gentle fingers, in her wide blue eyes.

  He wanted to let his knees give way and pull them both down, to lie together in the snow, but he didn’t. He stayed on his feet, one arm around her waist, the other at the back of her head, his face against her neck.

  It was her—she reached up and began unfastening the silver filigree buttons of her coat.

  No, no, Garrett mumbled.

  Why?

  You’ll be too cold.

  She didn’t speak again but continued unbuttoning her coat. Garrett shook his other glove to the ground and slid his hands beneath the wool, his rough skin catching on the silk lining. A wave of guilt shuddered through him, that somehow what they were doing was wrong, but it was too late. There, along her delicate rib cage… there, against her beating heart… there, he was lost.

  CHAPTER 45

  I’m troubled, Jack.”

  He’d seen it coming. The way Mabel had been staring out the window all day, biting her lower lip, sighing as she swept and washed. Why she always waited until mealtime to make her worries known, that he had never been able to figure.

  “Hmmm?” He ladled some beans onto his plate.

  “I’m concerned about the children… well, that’s it, isn’t it? They aren’t children anymore. A young man and a young woman, I should say.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Are you listening, Jack?”

  He was buttering a slice of bread, but nodded.

  “Well, it’s just… they seem awfully close, don’t you agree? They spend so much time together, just the two of them, and I’m not sure it’s appropriate. Considering their age.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Jack, for goodness’ sake. Do you even know who I’m talking about? Are you listening to a word I say?”

  He set his knife and fork down and looked across his plate at Mabel.

  “I’m not eating my dinner, am I?”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just… it’s Garrett and Faina. I think they may be, well…”

  “What?”

  “Haven’t you noticed? All the time they spend together? The way they walk arm in arm?”

  “They’re just kids. It’s good for her to have a friend.”

  “But Jack, they aren’t children. Not anymore. Don’t you see that? Faina must be sixteen or seventeen now, Garrett nearly nineteen.”

  It did surprise him, how time had passed. Faina had been a small child when she first came to their door, and only yesterday Garrett was a thirteen-year-old boy keenly interested in trapping weasels and not much else.

  “I suppose you’re right, Mabel. The years have slipped by me. But I wouldn’t trouble yourself. Garrett isn’t one for chasing after girls. And courting is still a long ways off for those two.”

  “No, Jack. You’re wrong.”

  “We were nearly twice their age when we courted.”

  “But we were unusual. My youngest sister was married by the time she was as old as Faina.”

  Jack stared down at his cold beans and hardening bread. Mabel’s knack for conjuring troubles, present or future, wore on him. Sometimes he wished he could just eat his beans warm and his bread fresh, and leave worries be.

  “I’m sorry, Jack. Maybe it’s nothing. It just seems dangerous for them to be spending so much time alone together without chaperoning. And I’ve seen a change come over Faina, something I can’t quite explain. But what can we do? It’s not as if we can forbid her. She isn’t our daughter, is she?”

  This last shot struck its target. How many times had he spoken those precise words? Faina wasn’t their daughter. They couldn’t determine her life. All they could do was be grateful for any time they had with her. And this other bit, about Faina running off into the woods with the boy, this rubbed like a small pebble in a boot. At first it seems like nothing but a nuisance, but eventually it hobbles you.

  For days, Jack thought of little else. When he had been a young man, he had been oblivious to girls. While his friends spiffed themselves up each weekend for dances, he was more interested in spending the evenings whittling on a wood project or caring for a foaling horse. Sure, he had kissed a few girls behind the barn, but only when pressed to, and he often wondered what had been
different about Mabel that his attention was caught and firmly held. She was quiet and gentle and preoccupied, and at first showed no interest in him. Over time, though, they had formed an affection that was also quiet and gentle, and at times reserved.

  So he had thought it would be for Garrett. Esther had joked that there was no one on God’s green earth who would be willing to put up with that headstrong boy. While his older brothers rushed into marriages with pretty, giggly girls, Garrett tended to keep to himself. Jack suspected that eventually, maybe years down the line, a woman with an unlikely temperament would come along and be the perfect match for Garrett.

  But Faina? It was impossible. No matter her age, she was childlike, pure and fragile. Garrett had more decency than to defile that.

  Then he watched the two of them, the way they stood so their arms touched as they talked, the way they squeezed hands when saying goodbye to one another. One night in bed, Mabel broke the news, and in her voice he could hear vindication and alarm.

  “Faina isn’t leaving. She says she will stay for the summer.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. She’s not leaving when the snow melts.”

  “Why?”

  “Do you have to ask?”

  “What did she tell you?”

  “She says Garrett wants to take her salmon fishing and to the tundra to hunt caribou. She says she’ll stay all summer.”

  Jack couldn’t put his finger on why it unnerved him. Wasn’t this their wish? The girl would be with them all year, and for those long summer months they wouldn’t have to wonder about her safety. But it wasn’t what he wanted. He missed her when she was gone, but he liked even more to think of her in the mountain snow, far from the hot sun and the mosquito-infested river valley.

  “Don’t you know what this means, Jack?”

  He said nothing.

  The sun came and the snow began to drip, first from the eaves and tree branches, then down the mountainsides. Spring came fast and warm, and the river broke up in a great crashing rush. Jack told Mabel he was going to watch the ice flow past, but in truth he was following them. Garrett was already staying in the barn, though planting season was far off, and this morning the boy rose early and met Faina and the dog in the yard. They hadn’t even come to the cabin to wish Jack and Mabel a good morning or a goodbye or a how-do-you-do before they walked down the trail toward the river.