19th December . . . Ice gauge reading satisfies our guide at last. We embark on the sea crossing tomorrow.
I didn’t have a guide. Where did the guides come from?
16th March . . . Blizzard continues, but we must leave tomorrow, or we won’t have enough supplies. Smaller sledge lost when crossing the bay, a blow . . . Pray for us. Saskia Lensky, Jacob Lensky, Shastha Sigratha, Victorine Sigratha (aged eight)
That one scared me, but some were even worse.
12th February . . . Little Ekaterina died today. She will join her brother. How terrible to leave our babies on this desolate shore. We leave as soon as Papa’s feet are better, walking gives him great pain.
Some of the entries were in faded ink, some in pencil. They went back for years. All of them the last messages of people like me, who had reached this far in their desperate escape from the Settlements, or some other kind of trouble. Though Mama had never told me about this place, and it wasn’t marked on her map, there was no doubt I was where she had planned to be. . . . The supplies I’d found must have been spares, excess baggage left by some other party of fugitives.
7th March . . . We will leave as soon as Manya has recovered from her fever. The season is late, but Vadim says the ice will still be good for two more weeks.
Could that Manya have been my mama? There was no year, but it was one of the last entries. She had been ill. . . . Oh, but she’d been here!
I told myself I couldn’t be sure. But the hope I’d been clinging to since I left New Dawn had never burned so strongly.
I took a pan outside and packed it with snow for fresh water, and put a mugful of it to heat for some tea. Then I spread my stolen quilt and blanket by the stove, and settled there with a tin of jam and a spoon, and the nutshell open so I could have the kits for company. They pushed their paws and noses against the shield, but I wasn’t going to let them out. I didn’t feel as secure as all that.
I was very tired. My arms and legs were aching. I sipped hot berry tea, and turned the pages of the record book. There were charts and useful tips, but I wished so many people hadn’t reached here, and then died. Especially the children . . .
I started awake.
The room was dark and cold. I grabbed the nutshell and sealed it, shocked that I’d fallen asleep and left it open, and fed the stove until the fire burned brightly again. There had better be more wood somewhere. . . . But what was that? I had glimpsed something moving, out of the corner of my eye. There was something white, moving creepily slowly across the floor. Oh, no, please, not a ghost. Was that a child’s white hand, groping out from the trapdoor that led to the cellar . . . ? I grabbed a burning stick from the stove, and held it up.
The white thing was the package of boiled sausage. It was moving because it was being dragged away by a huge gray rat. I yelled and threw my torch . . . and then had to run after it, stamping out sparks. Then I heard a rattling, rolling sound behind me. I spun around to see two more rats, making off with the nutshell! I swooped on them, grabbed the shell, and stuffed it into the front of my blouse, snatched another burning stick from the stove.
A carpet of little red eyes glinted back at me. The floor was swarming with rats. For a moment I was paralyzed. Then I ran around in a frenzy, screaming and beating at them with my torch. Very soon they had all vanished, into cracks and holes I couldn’t see. Unfortunately, they would surely be back.
Rats! I hated rats. I couldn’t stay here. But I had nowhere else to go.
There was only one thing to do. I retreated to the wrought-iron staircase with my quilt and blanket, and the knapsack, and the rescued sausage. I had solemnly promised myself, after Toesy, that I was not going to take another kit to second stage. But I hadn’t reckoned on rats. I opened the shell, and the shield. Three of the little ancestor creatures were burrowed deep in their nest. The fourth was sitting up, bright eyed, very interested in all the excitement. The kits still looked identical: but I was beginning to feel the hidden differences.
“Mama said I should be very careful about growing you, Mr. Carnivora. She said you could be dangerous. But that’s for the rats to worry about.”
I took him out, sealed the others away, and gave him some of the rescued sausage, torn into tiny scraps. He liked that a lot.
I spent the rest of the night on the stairs, wrapped in my quilt and blanket: alternately dozing, and feeding my new Lindquist. When the gray dawn came he was looking very like the animal I’d found on the doormat, all those years ago. I took him with me when I went in search of more plunder. I needed fuel, and much more important, I needed a sled. I could not carry everything I needed. I wasn’t strong enough, even if I could have found a pack for it.
I tried the cellar first. There was nothing down there except empty boxes. Three of the walls were frozen earth. The fourth had been blocked off by sheets of metal. I lifted my lamp, wondering if they could be useful, and saw a cross had been drawn there, maybe in charcoal; the wilderness sign against evil. Then I understood. You can’t dig graves, in the winter. I stood for a moment, thinking of the dead.
“Come on, Nivvy. This is not for us. We shouldn’t be here.”
The cupboards in the gallery held old broken pieces of scientific equipment: nothing I could use. I wrapped myself up and went outside. It was another calm day, but fiercely cold. “I hope this good weather lasts,” I said to Nivvy, who was tucked inside my blouse and jacket. Had anyone else been here this winter? I didn’t think so, the last entries in the book seemed to be older than that. I kicked around in the new snow, looking for footprints, but I couldn’t really tell. The woodpile was beside the door. There were no trees on the heath, it was all scavenged timber. One of the pieces caught my eye at once. I pulled it out and stood it up: a flexible board, about as wide as the length of my arm, and almost as tall as me.
“Nivvy! This is our sled! All it needs is some holes, for fastening the harness and roping things down.” Something glinted, out on the heath. I looked again, and it was gone, but I was sure I’d seen a flash of light, like a reflection on glass.
But rats love woodpiles. Just as I was searching for that glint of reflection, a great big daddy rat, disturbed by my poking, came jumping out, right in my face. I fell backward, and a slender, russet brown body leapt from my jacket. The rat disappeared, with Nivvy in pursuit. There was a terrific squealing and scuffling, then a small, sleek head popped out from among the timbers: bright eyes, round ears, and a fierce, bloodied grin. Nivvy licked my fingers, chirruped, and dived out of sight. He quickly reappeared dragging the daddy rat. He laid the body in front of me, smoothed his whiskers modestly with his front paws, and vanished again. Another terrific scuffle, and another rat was carried out. He repeated this process once more, and then he seemed satisfied. He took a few token bites, and rippled up to my shoulder, purring and nuzzling my ear.
My Nivvy was back! My dearest, first companion.
That night, I built a good fire, and cooked up a can of con stew. Of course the rats soon gathered, but we were ready: and Nivvy wreaked havoc. I had found a shovel in the woodpile, which I used to move the casualties. I built a triumphal pyramid outside in the snow, and counted twenty-seven corpses. . . . I thought of Yagin, and almost wished that strange man had been there to see the joyous slaughter. A little rampant predation, he would have said, never does nature any harm.
After that the rats didn’t bother me. I found a metal spike in one of the planks on the woodpile, heated it red-hot, and used it to punch holes in my flexible board. I made a sledge harness, with shoulder padding from a scavenged bunk-mattress. I packed my supplies, and repacked them. I memorized the notes and charts in the diary book. No one came, nothing moved on the heath or the frozen sea. The weather stayed fine and calm, I ate well, and slept well. Nivvy rarely left my shoulder, except when he was ratting. I played with him and talked to him, the way I had done when I was four years old. At night (I slept by the stove, I didn’t fancy those rat-gnawed bunks) I would wake, with Mama’s nutsh
ell hugged in my arms and Nivvy in the crook of my shoulder, and think I was a little girl again, in the bed-cupboard with my mama: dreaming of the great journey we would make, to the shores of the frozen sea.
I felt watched, all the time. But I thought it was my imagination.
Or maybe the ghosts, or my mama; thinking of me far away.
On the fourth day I packed my sled and dragged it down the cliff path. There was a bank of frozen shingle, clotted with snow, and then the ice. I stood with the sled at my feet, staring. Yulia and Aliek had said wait for company. But what if nobody came? Anyway, I couldn’t wait, because of Yagin. . . . I was rested. I had everything I needed. Except maybe the courage to set out alone. It was about sixty miles across the strait. According to the diary book, I should be prepared for at least ten marches, ten days and nights on the ice. I thought of being out there all alone. The ice failing: me waking up in the freezing water, my knapsack sinking, nobody to help me.
“This is our trial run,” I said to Nivvy. “Across the bay, and back overland.”
It took me several hours to cross the bay: including a stop in the middle, when I practiced putting up my tent, made myself some tea: ate a meal and packed everything up again. I was tired, but pleased with myself when I reached the western shore. There was no path here, but the cliffs were much more broken. I hauled and struggled, cursing the rocks and the sudden drifts. Eventually I reached the heath again, drenched in sweat. I set off for home at once. It’s best not to stop when you’re overheated, you’ll get a chill. There was a tingling like invisible messages in the frozen air, and on the eastern and western margins of the sky stood two pillars of light, unimaginably tall, shading from pink to green. A great silver arc unfolded between them, the point of the curve seeming to dip into the sea. I had not seen the northern lights since the time I met the wild snow hare, on the plain beyond the fur farm.
“That’s got to be a good omen!”
Nivvy made a grumbling noise, from the warmth of my greasy, dirty layers. I gazed until the magic faded. How beautiful the winter world is, I thought. In spite of everything. Then I realized I could still see lights in the sky, dull yellowish lights, that seemed to be coming from the ground. . . . I heard a murmur, a human voice. I could see nothing, but sound travels far, on cold dry air. I slipped off the sledge harness and crept toward the skyline.
I was looking down into a valley, a shallow rift in the heath. In the bottom there was a big sleek black vehicle with caterpillar treads. I’d seen the light of its headlamps. Beside it stood a group of men. Two of them were wearing sheeny, square-shouldered dark coats, and sable hats: they had a look of power, but they didn’t look like officials. The word that came to my mind was Mafia. The men with them were rougher, and carrying guns. Except for one, who was in uniform, a tunic with collar flashes, a peaked cap, and high boots. It was Yagin, of course.
He wasn’t carrying a gun, but he had a shiny pole in his hand. As I watched, he folded this shiny pole up on itself. . . . I had seen a telescope at New Dawn.
It was Yagin who had been watching me.
He was telling the Mafia men something: explaining something. One of them beckoned, and an armed guard came up, with a flat case. Yagin took it, looked inside, and nodded. I couldn’t hear a word. But I’d seen enough.
I shot backward, and rolled to the bottom of the slope, getting a mouthful of snow. “It’s Yagin!” I gasped, thrusting my arms into the sledge harness. “He’s been here all along, he’s been watching us! He’s sold us to the Mafia! We’ve got to go, straightaway, anywhere, we’ve got to get out of here!”
I set off at a frantic pace over the iron-hard, uneven ground, the sled bouncing and jarring. I was lucky I didn’t break an ankle. Suddenly the desperate rush went out of me. What was I going to do? Where was I running to? I let the harness slip from my shoulders, and sat on my roped bundles. The cold sparkle of the snow glittered between my feet, every broken and jumbled flake distinct.
Yagin is here. The words drummed in my head.
I had realized he must know about the Observatory. I’d been expecting him to turn up. But this place, so silent and lonely, had put me off my guard. He had sold me to the Mafia, I was sure of that. But why here? Why not before? And why had he been watching me, when he could have just grabbed me? Don’t try to understand him, I told myself. Just think. Think of a way out. . . . Yagin had been in uniform. That told me he was still playing his double game, even now. His men might be near. Could that help me, somehow?
I had everything I needed, I could set off right now across the ice. But I would be on foot. My enemies would come after me on motor sleds. . . .
A soft growl made me start. Nivvy had slipped out of my jacket, and I’d let him go; I knew he wouldn’t stray. I looked around and saw that my Nivvy had become a bigger animal, the same sinuous body but much stronger and longer, with thick dark hair, a snarling muzzle. A pair of evil yellow eyes gazed at me with anxious love, a paw with claws like razor-sharp meat hooks lay on my arm.
“Nivvy?”
He jumped up, and rubbed his face against my cheek. The air was full of his stink. Nivvy excited was always quite strong, this was much stronger. I hugged him, feeling the formidable muscle under his fur. I must keep calm! If I got scared he would go into that cascade of change, and die like Nosey.
“Nivvy, I’ve got a sort of plan. Come on! Back to the Observatory!”
I marched, under the stars, Nivvy bounding beside me. When I finally reached the point where I could see the Observatory, I found out I’d been right about the Fitness Police. The snow cruiser was there. They hadn’t been able to get it onto the headland: it was parked on the heath, its security lights glowing, lighting up that lying promise emblazoned on its side. Protecting Your Fragile Environment. Yagin had been here on his own, with his telescope. But the young officers had caught up with him. Had he sent for them, by radio or something? Or had they come without instructions—and nearly caught him at his double-dealing?
There were lights inside the Observatory too. The police would have found the proud entry I’d made in the diary book this morning. Trial run . . . Now they were waiting for me to get back.
I had planned to come back here and hide: hide and watch them search for me, and steal what I needed, the same way as I had done at the fur farm. Now things would move faster than that.
Nivvy’s nose bumped against my hand.
“Let’s find the sleds,” I said.
I jogged down the slope. I knew I couldn’t be seen or heard from inside, not unless I went and knocked on one of the snowy windows, but when I got closer I moved very cautiously. The three motor sleds were in a row by the woodpile. I left my laden sled at the top of the cliff path, and crept back. I chose the one with the fullest fuel gauge. One of the young officers had left his rifle in the sled: I decided I would take that too. Then I opened the engine housing on the others, pulled at whatever would pull, opened the fuel caps, and quietly, carefully, tipped them over into the snow. We made two trips to the shore: first I took the laden sled, then I went back for the motor sled. It was a slow, awkward business getting it down the path, kicking it with one foot, and trying not to make a sound. When it was done, I was shaking.
I realized I hadn’t eaten for hours. I forced myself to stop, and get that fire inside burning. The stars burned down on me as I sat there in the icy dark, on my bundles, and ate a jar of con and pickled peppers; and a chocolate bar. And by my side my magic guardian kept watch. His teeth were daggers, his tufted ears turned this way and that, alert for any danger, his coat was richly dappled. His eyes were still full of the same love. I licked oil and herbs from my fingers, and tied the board-sled on behind the motor sled. . . . I’d need it when the fuel ran out, and anyway, I didn’t have time to transfer everything. I hugged my Nivvy, burying my hands in his beautiful soft ruff. “This is it. Here we go.” He jumped up beside me. I turned the key, gripped the steering bar, and away we went. The whine of the engine sounded horrib
ly loud.
North. What other direction could there be? All my life, north had been the dream, the way to freedom. I felt sick with excitement, and clutched the steering bar with a manic grip. We shot out of the mouth of the bay, onto the open sea. The stars were burning in the black sky, the sled bucked and bounced, leaping over the frozen crests where I would have stumbled and toiled; it was as if I were flying.
Suddenly I was flying. I was in the air, the stars cart-wheeling. I landed with a crash, on my bum, and collapsed in mortal terror, praying for luck I didn’t deserve, while Nivvy sniffed anxiously at my face. I got up slowly, testing my arms and legs, and retrieved my cap. The knapsack was still on my back. I took it off, and checked the kits. They were all right, just scared. They looked up at me in bewilderment. “It was a little accident,” I whispered. “Nothing serious. It won’t happen again.”
The motor sled was on its side. I righted it and turned the key: it started.
I hobbled over to fetch the wooden sled, collected my scattered gear, counted the bundles, and packed everything securely. I slung the rifle over my shoulder and knotted the sledge harness where it had snapped. “So that’s how easy it is,” I muttered. “That’s how easy it is to wreck everything, and die.” Fear gripped me. It was a long, cold time—only minutes, but long ones—before I could convince myself to get on the sled, and start again. I found out how to use the steering bar—don’t clutch it, hold it gently—and how to use the brakes. I found a pace that wasn’t too fast and wasn’t too slow, and kept an eye on the little dials that lit up all by themselves in the dark. I could recognize the compass, and the fuel gauge, and there was a clock, and a thing that might be measuring distance. Nivvy pressed himself against my shins, his chin on my knee, and we flew north by the stars, until my hands wouldn’t grip the bar. Why are my hands getting so clumsy? I wondered, vaguely annoyed.
I slackened my speed, we glided to a halt. Fear opened up and swallowed me, but I forced myself to do what would take the fear away. Hug Nivvy, feel his warm breath and his rough tongue. Bury my frozen face in his beautiful soft fur. Drink water, and eat something sweet, quickly. Unpack the tent, inflate it, drag everything you need inside, crawl inside with this big Nivvy who is still Nivvy.