Nivvy came trotting back, and curled himself in Mama’s lap.
“I think he really loved you,” I said, after a long silence. “And whatever he had done, at the very end he chose to make amends. I think that’s what matters most.”
Mama looked at me, with a strange smile.
“You’ve grown into a fine young woman, my little girl.”
I held her hands, and we cried again, although we were so happy. For my dadda, and for Yagin too. For all the losses of the winter world: for everyone twisted and broken by the cold, and for the chances that would not return, though spring would come again.
Returning
The train drew up at a deserted platform in the middle of nowhere, and a young woman got down with her bags. There were no guards with her. No one left and no one came. The hut which might have been a ticket office looked as if it had the same splash of mud on its door as had been there for seventeen years. The blank, grassy plain of the summer wilderness stretched out to the rim of forest on every horizon.
Eventually the Community Tractor grumbled up. The driver got down and slung the young woman’s bags into the cart; except for the knapsack she carried—that she wouldn’t let him touch.
“You never sent me that postcard,” said Storm, with a slow smile.
“I forgot.”
They both got into the cab, and the tractor drove away.
For my mama, returning to city life had been coming home. She had her work, she had friends, she loved her house and garden. She would never return to the city where I was born, though they’d have welcomed her as a distinguished scientist these days. But she was very happy indoors. I had not been able to get used to it. I missed the open air, the wildness, I missed dirt: I even missed the cold. I looked at Storm, and calculated he must be about twenty-four now. He hadn’t changed much. He had the same slow smile, the same dry way of talking. I wondered what he thought of me? The city girl who came back outside, of her own free will: just when wilderness people were being allowed into the cities. He probably thought I was crazy.
“What are you going to do with yourself out here, eh?”
“I’m going to teach. Here, and other places.”
“A job with travel, that’ll suit your habits.”
He started grinning slyly.
“What’s so funny?”
“Oh, I was just thinking about you and Miss Malik. What’re you going to do if you get stuck with a horrible pushy little girl who’s twice as smart as you?”
“Teach her to be three times smarter. What about you? Are you still in the illegal internal import and export business, with Nicolai?”
“Partly . . . Partly I’m a farmer. Got a land grant: it beats labor camp.”
“What do you grow?”
“Birch scrub and frozen swamp, at the moment. Few berries. I plan to diversify.” Storm looked at the knapsack I was holding in my lap. “What’s in there?”
“Seeds. From a seed bank. It’s time to try planting them out again.”
“We could be partners.”
I didn’t say yes and I didn’t say no. I just smiled. I thought of the dresses that life wears, all folded down so small, and how I would shake them out and set them dancing, in all their brave, and funny, and marvelous diversity.
And the tractor rumbled on, through the flowers and grasses, under the empty, magical vastness of the wilderness sky.
Author’s Note
The Seed Savers
The greatest seed bank in the world is held in Leningrad, a city we now know by its older name of St. Petersburg. In the Second World War, Leningrad was besieged for nine hundred days. Half a million people starved, but the curators of the seed bank barricaded themselves in, and defended their stocks—the hope of the future—from the starving citizens. When Allied soldiers finally entered the facility, they found the emaciated bodies of the botanists lying beside full sacks of potatoes, maize, and wheat, a priceless genetic legacy for which they had given their lives. This is the story that gave me the idea for Sloe and her adventure.
Susan Lindquist, whose name I’ve borrowed for the Lindquist kits, is a real person, and a biology professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She really has worked out that there’s a prion (a kind of protein) that can act like a genetic switch, controlling the expression of many tiny mutations, until they are all revealed at once. Of course the idea that you could build a compendium genome, where several different species could be hidden and “revealed” like that, is a complete fantasy. But the winter world that Sloe lives in could be ours. As you may know, a colder Europe may be one consequence of the phenomenon known as global warming. The great oceanic current we know as the Gulf Stream, or the North Atlantic Drift, may switch into reverse, bringing cold water instead of warm water to the western seaboard of Europe, and causing land temperatures to drop sharply.
You could, if you like, imagine that Sloe’s journey starts somewhere to the east of Warsaw; she travels to the Baltic coast (a journey I have made myself, by way of roads still potholed in places by Second World War bombs), and the city where the sun always shines is across the sea in the south of Sweden, somewhere around Malmö. But maybe not. You can imagine the adventure happening wherever you like. The Siberia I’m talking about in this story is not a place. Siberia is a state of mind.
About the Author
Ann Halam was born and raised in Manchester, England, and after graduating from Sussex University spent years traveling throughout Southeast Asia. She now lives in Brighton, England, with her husband and son. As well as being a children’s author, Ann Halam writes adult science fiction and fantasy books, as Gwyneth Jones. Her most recent books for young adults are Taylor Five and Dr. Franklin’s Island.
Also by Ann Halam
Taylor Five Dr. Franklin’s Island
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Published by Laurel-Leaf
an imprint of Random House Children’s Books
a division of Random House, Inc.
New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2005 by Ann Halam
All rights reserved.
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November 2006
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eISBN: 978-0-307-43376-3
v3.0
Ann Halam, Siberia
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