Kit's Wilderness

  The ice returned. The frozen valley. The low sun. The hunger in his belly. He held the baby close, he trickled melted ice into her mouth. He clambered from the gulley, set off across the crags. He had known the sun at the center of the sky. The words of the Sun God had entered his heart. That day he began to see people in furs on the ice below him, and he descended with his courage toward them.

  As Askew listened, I saw his head drop. His breathing deepened and lengthened. Jax slept as well. The embers faded. Lak’s mother watched with gentle eyes. I pulled my blankets close, entered again the ever-running tale. I murmured of Lak’s days on the ice, of the shelter he gained with families not his own. I told of the baby’s growing strength. I described the patches of green that began to appear within the ice as they moved south, the channels of freely flowing water, the sun that climbed a little higher in the sky. He heard rumors of his family. There were tales of sightings and encounters. Yes, he was told. This family carried the tale of the theft of a baby by a bear, of the loss of a son in its pursuit. Lak followed the tales and rumors. Many days of walking, listening, until he was pointed toward a riverbank where grass had started growing through the ice, where tiny bright blooms shone among the grass, where the entrance to a cave was. Lak hesitated at the entrance. Deep inside, a fire burned. Figures hunched about it.

  The baby whimpered, the dog whined.

  “Ayee!” called Lak softly. “Ayee!” His voice echoed faintly from the rock within.

  “This is Lak!” he called. “This is the baby Dal, carried next to Lak’s heart. Ayee! Ayee!”

  Askew stirred in his sleep. He grunted. Lak’s mother sat with her arms outstretched, prepared to welcome her baby and her son. I gazed into her eyes.

  Lak stepped inside. “This is Lak,” he called. “This is the baby Dal.”

  The faces above the fire turned toward him. The children, and the father, who was so frail, so shrunken now. His mother gasped with joy, spread her arms to welcome her baby and her son.

  We gazed at each other across the fading embers.

  Askew stirred again in his sleep, then settled.

  “Go on,” I whispered. “Go on.”

  He rose from his place by the fire. He opened the bearskin. He showed the baby held safe against his heart. His mother stood and took him in her arms.

  I watched. I waited for the vision to fade now that the tale was told. Then the mother released her son and came to me. She stooped down to me. I saw the tears in her eyes and felt her breath on me. She took my hand and pressed the brightly colored pebbles into it. She touched my cheek. Then went with her son out of the ring of light cast by the embers, past the ring of staring faces, back into the deepest dark.

  I slept. Just blackness all around. Knew nothing more, until Silky came running and flickering into me, and Grandpa held me tight.

  “Kit,” he whispered. “Kit.”

  “Grandpa!”

  “Don’t worry, Kit. They’ll come for us.”

  I lay a million years there, by the dead fire in the dead dark with my grandpa holding me. Then the distant footsteps came. The flickering of a lamp.

  “John,” I whispered. I reached across the cold ashes, touched him. “John.”

  He grunted, stirred. “What?”

  Somewhere in the darkness, Jax growled.

  “Down, boy,” said Askew.

  The footsteps came nearer. A flashlight beam flickered on the walls.

  “Will you come out now?” I whispered. No answer.

  “John,” I said.

  “Yes, I’ll come.”

  “Kit! Kit Watson!”

  I smiled. Allie’s voice, echoing through the tunnel to us.

  “Here!” I called. “We’re here!”

  “Kit! Kit!”

  “Allie!”

  “I dreamed all night about the baby,” said Askew. “About holding her, keeping her safe. Like the boy in the story with his sister.”

  We heard Allie coming closer, calling.

  “There was a space against my heart where she once was and I needed her there to fill it again.” He reached out and gripped my wrist. “It happened, didn’t it? We saw those things.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “And it was me that went with her? A part of me?”

  “Yes. I watched you go to her, then disappear with her.” I felt the pressure of pebbles in my palm. I kept my fist clenched tight.

  “When I woke,” he said, “I wasn’t sure where I was. I thought I’d wake with her and the baby, in a cave a thousand thousand years in the past.”

  I heard the catch in his breath. He sniffed.

  “I’m scared,” he whispered.

  “It’s okay, John. I’ll try to help. We’re joined in blood.”

  Then Allie came. She swept the flashlight beam across us. We sat up, wrapped in filthy blankets by the cold fire. Jax growled softly, wagged his tail as the light crossed him. We couldn’t see her properly, just a black figure behind the source of the light.

  “Jeez, Kit!” she said. “Jeez, Kit!”

  She came and crouched beside us. She shined the flashlight across herself. She had her ice girl clothes on; her skin was silver and her nails were claws.

  “There’s all Hell on,” she said. “They’re dragging the river for you. Your parents came last night and then again this morning. They said I must know something. I said nothing. I didn’t tell what you said about Askew. Then I knew it. I went to Bobby Carr and got the worm to spill the beans. But didn’t tell them. Didn’t want to raise their hopes.”

  She shined the flashlight straight into Askew’s black-patterned face.

  “Jeez, Askew,” she said. “Look at you.”

  She touched my hand.

  “They’re desperate, Kit. What’s he done to you?”

  “Nothing, Allie.”

  “You’re all right?” she said.

  “Yes, we’re both all right.”

  “Ha. Knew you would be. Knew it’d just be this stupid lout and his stupid games again.” She shined the flashlight on him again. “Askew, man. You drive me bloody wild.”

  Then she laughed. “Come on. Get your things and let’s get out before the place collapses.”

  By the light of the flashlight, Askew emptied the bucket across the ashes, threw his knife and axe in. We lifted the blankets. I kept my fist clenched tight. We looked one last time into the inner tunnels, saw the watching eyes there, saw Silky’s glistening.

  “Come on,” she said again. “What you looking at?” And she led us out.

  We stumbled through the tunnel, scrambled through the rockfall, came through the brickwork arch and through the hawthorn. The sun glared down into the narrow valley. We held our arms across our eyes. Allie roared with laughter.

  “Look at you! Just look at you!”

  And Askew and I looked at each other, the filth and blood on us, our goggling eyes, and even Askew laughed.

  I opened my hand, showed the brightly colored pebbles there.

  “What’s those?” asked Allie.

  “Gifts,” I said.

  Askew reached out and touched the stones. His eyes were shining as he stared into my eyes.

  “Jeez,” said Allie. “What’s going on between you two?”

  I closed my fist again.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll tell you everything.”

  Then we headed down through the deep frozen snow.

  Before we turned onto the final slope that would take us into Stoneygate, Allie made us stop. She posed in her silvery clothes, raised her silvery claws, tilted her silvery face toward the sun.

  “I put these on for the publicity,” she said. “There’ll be cameras coming to catch the rescuer. The girl who brings back disappeared boys in a story, and brings them back in real life. Allie Keenan, actress, life force, rescuer, aged thirteen.”

  “You look great,” I said.

  “Thank you, Mr. Watson. Mr. Askew?”

  “You look great,” he muttered.


  Allie nodded. “We’ll have some work to do on your attitude, Mr. Askew. But in the meantime, that will be fine.”

  And we walked on toward Stoneygate, the blackened boy with bone necklaces and paintings on him, the good-bad ice girl with silver skin and claws, the wild dog Jax behind, and me between with ancient pebbles in my palm.

  PART THREE

  * * *

  Spring

  The pebbles are on my desk. They’re in a dish beside the ammonite, the carved pony, the fossil tree. Grandpa’s pitman’s lamp is there as well. His wedding photograph is on my wall. His voice is singing in my head, his stories are running through me. Outside, the ice has gone and the wilderness is green. Kids play out there in jeans and T-shirts. They run through the year’s first heat haze, they stamp up clouds of dust that hang in the brilliant light. The river’s flowing free. Ice never did meet at the center.

  When does spring begin? In March? On the day the clocks go forward? Or does it really start at dawn on the morning that ends Midwinter’s Night? From that moment, the days begin to grow, the nights diminish. The world begins to turn us toward the sun again.

  So it was spring already as we walked back down to Stoneygate from the drift mine. It was spring when Christmas came. And it was spring when Grandpa came to stay with us for the final time.

  We saw the little police boat on the river. We saw policemen and our neighbors digging in the snow beneath the hawthorn hedges. We saw the huddles of worried adults, the struggling knots of excited kids. We saw the faces turning to us, we heard the exclamations of relief. There they are! Look! There they are! And they came running uphill through the snow to us, astonished to see the disappeared ones brought back into the world as if by magic. They clustered around us, goggled at us as if we were ghosts, as if we were creatures in some weird dream.

  “Look at them,” they whispered. “Look at the state of them.”

  The police stood with hands on hips, faces blank, watching, silent. Little kids reached out, touched us, giggled, dashed back to Stoneygate with the news. As we entered Stoneygate, we saw Askew’s mother with the baby in her arms coming from the potholed cul-de-sac. She hurried to her son and stood before him and he took her and his sister in his great filthy arms and they cried and cried. She broke away and came to me, with dirt and ash from her son’s face smeared on her cheeks, and she gripped my hands. I felt her rings and fingernails pressing into my skin.

  “You brought him home,” she said. “You really brought him home.”

  “And me!” said Allie.

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Askew, and she kissed Allie’s silver cheek. “You as well. Both of you.”

  Allie and I walked on. She skipped and danced. She tilted her silvery face and raised her silvery claws. Yes, she told them. Yes, she was the one who’d known where to look for us, she was the one who’d brought us out. She gripped my arm. “They were frantic,” she said. “Desperate with fear.” I trembled as we came to the wilderness, as we entered the lane that led me home, as my parents rushed out of the house at me.

  They’d believed I was dead. They’d imagined I’d never be seen again. They’d imagined I’d be brought out on a hook from the river, found frozen in a snowdrift, discovered in a dark lane with my skull smashed in or with a knife in my heart. How could I tell them about the power of ghosts and stories, about the caves and tunnels in our heads, about a boy and his mother from the deep dark frozen past? How could I tell them about the dead ones that surround us, about John Askew, aged thirteen, and Christopher Watson, aged thirteen? How could I tell them the truth about the pebbles I carried in my palm? But I told them about Askew’s pain and fright, about his loneliness. I told them about the baby inside him that had never had a chance to grow. I told them there was something in him and something in me that kept drawing us together.

  “John Askew,” they said. “That lout, John Askew.”

  They inspected me for scars, for damage.

  “What did he do to you?” they said.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Nothing. He became my friend.”

  There were the same questions from the police. They sat at the kitchen table in their dark uniforms, sipping tea. A woman and a man.

  “What did he do to you?” he asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “You can tell us,” the woman said softly. She touched my arm. “Don’t worry. It’s him that’ll be in trouble, not you.”

  “Really,” I said. “There was nothing. I went to find him. We talked and we ate rabbits. It got late. We spent the night in the drift mine. Then we came out again.”

  The man raised his eyes, shook his head at my parents.

  “We could get a doctor to examine him,” he said.

  They looked at me.

  “No point,” I said. “There’s nothing to find.”

  Then I showed the little scar on my thumb.

  “Just this,” I said. “He did it with an axe. We became blood brothers”

  The policeman shook his head again.

  “Kids,” he said.

  He scribbled in his notebook.

  “Have you any idea the trouble you’ve caused?” he said. “It’s not a bloody game, you know.”

  They went away. They stood at the front door with my parents. Nothing they could do, I heard. They’d keep an eye on things. They’d talked to the Askew boy but he’d given them nothing to go on. The Askews. The bloody Askews. They knew that family from a long way back. They’d keep an eye on them.

  Mum and Dad came back. We sat together and they watched me for a long time, as if by staring and staring they could keep me close to them, as if I’d never again be lost to them. We cried together and we held each other and we said no, nothing like this must happen again. Then we talked about Grandpa coming, and we started to prepare for him.

  We cleaned the room next to mine. We made his bed and folded back the covers. We cleaned his wedding photograph and polished his pitman’s lamp. We hung baubles and tinsel at his window. We found a special Christmas card: an ancient scene, children playing on a frozen river. We wrote “Welcome home,” and signed our names with love.

  We were in the papers. A reporter came to talk to me but Dad wouldn’t let him in. He sent a photographer packing too. Allie sent a photograph of herself in her costume anyway. She wrote that she was the rescuer, and there was a great story of danger, courage and magic to be told. When the paper came on the Monday, there were just a few lines about Askew and me, and nothing at all about Allie. “BOYS SAFE AFTER NIGHT IN ABANDONED DRIFT MINE.” Underneath it said “How Long Until These Death Traps Are Sealed Forever?” There was a photograph of the newly bricked-up entrance. There was a long article about the dangers of the old pits, and an announcement of a new campaign to make sure they would all be properly filled in and sealed.

  “Typical,” said Allie. “They wouldn’t know a decent story if it slapped them in the face.”

  They printed her photo on Christmas Eve on the Local Events page: “Miss Alison Keegan, aged thirteen. A Little Miss Who’s Been A Big Hit In St. Thomas’ Christmas Play.”

  She came running to the door waving the paper in her fist.

  “Have you seen it?” she said. She rushed in and spread it on the kitchen table. “They can’t even get my bloody name right! Makes you want to tear your bloody hair out! Nothing about the proper story or even about the bloody part I played! Little Miss! Who do they think I am? Shirley Bloody Temple? Jeez, Kit!”

  “Alison!”

  It was Mum, standing in the doorway. Allie gasped and bit her lip.

  “Sorry, Mrs. Watson,” she said.

  Mum nodded. “Glad to hear it.”

  “Have you seen it, though?” said Allie. “Can’t even get my—“

  “I know who that is!” shouted Grandpa from the living room.

  Allie looked through, saw him sitting there with a blanket on his knee.

  “Mr. Watson!” she said.

  “Aye,” he said. “That’s the
one. And you’re that little bad lass, aren’t you?”

  “Yes! Yes, I am!”

  “Well, get in here and have a cup of tea with me and stop driving that lad and his mother round the twist!”

  Grandpa had come that morning, Christmas Eve. Dad brought him in the car. He tottered into the garden, in his old best suit with a blanket around his shoulders. He stood leaning on his walking stick. His body trembled gently. His eyes were watery. His breath rose in plumes around him. He turned to stare back through the gate.