The Curiosities (Carolrhoda Ya) (18 page)

I didn’t answer. There were plenty of things I should have said—excuse me? or I don’t know what you’re talking about—but the truth was, I kind of wanted to.

His injuries were bad, worse than anything I’d ever seen—worse than dying squirrels or skinny, shivering best friends or beautiful girls in PE. I was halfcrazy to see what would happen if I tried my touch on a really bad break, one that might never heal right, even with pins and screws.

Brandon sat in his chair, looking up at me, and my hands felt hot. My skin was singing with adrenaline, a wild electricity that couldn’t wait to jolt out of my fingers and into bone. I knew, without a doubt, that I could do it—knew with ninety-nine percent certainty. Except.

Except, I didn’t feel pity when I looked at him. Except, I’d spent more than half my life mending bones and now, in the tips of my fingers, something didn’t feel right. My hands were hot.

Brandon watched me without saying anything, and then his face changed. His stare turned hopeless and painful, like he knew there was cruelty sparking off my fingertips, burning in my blood. He could see it on me before I was even sure that it was there.

“Jesus, Noah,” he whispered, and his voice sounded tired and almost frightened.

“You don’t want me to touch you,” I said. “It wouldn’t work out.”

This was the first longish story I wrote in one sitting. I’d had this idea of the bride waiting at the burial mound for the year anniversary of her husband’s death humming behind my eyes for a few weeks, and on my day to post, I sat down and started telling the story. I’m not sure I looked away or stopped typing for a moment until the final word was typed. ALSO there is no magic. Did you notice?
No magic
. No monsters. I
can
do it. —Tessa

Y
ou died far away from me, and I didn’t know.

When Kitta comes to tell me, I am
scraping seal hide to make into mittens for you
, humming old lullabies and dreaming of your ship’s prow cutting through the whale-road.

“Geira,” she calls, waving her hand.

I glance up from my work and shift my feet on the sand. To my right the ocean sighs, and to my left the land rises in rocky bluffs. I hear cormorants shrieking and the low of a cow, the distant song of Hrof’s shepherd, and from the edges of town the clang of iron-smithery. The sun is warm and high in the sky, and clouds trail peacefully down to the horizon.

And then I see her face.

. . .

They burned you in Uppsala,
near the row of kings
. I want to have been there. Everyone tells me again and again, “Hold your pride, Geira. They honored him and continue to do so with their gifts.” Because with the box of ashes are gold arm rings and fine iron weapons, statuary, dress-pins carved in their outlandish northern fashions, and piles of sealskin. I say, “It’s a wonder they didn’t send a pair of walrus tusks.” Your mother grips my arm, bruising it, and I am quiet after that.

We inter you in the barrow field, near your father and grandfather, your aunt and old cousin, and all the strong warriors of your line. I do not cry, and I know you will forgive me even if your mother does not.

. . .

At night I cannot sleep. The press of your brothers and their wives, of all the children rolling on their mats near the long fire, itches at my eyelids until I open them and stare at the timbers holding the roof up. I stare as the dim glow of embers catches the whorls of woodgrain, and I remember your fingers tracing the lines of my palm.

The emptiness when you were only traveling was finite. It would end when the days began to grow short and your ship would sail you home, your arms filled with treasures and stories. I spent those sleepless nights dreaming of what the stories would be, what tales of blood-price and love, of betrayal and honor and courage, you would whisper to me beneath the blankets.

These sleepless nights promise no end. The ship you steer now floats on an ocean with no shore. And I have neither shore nor ship.
I am drowning
.

. . .

I throw aside my blankets and go out into the night. It is the end of summer, so already the sun teases at the horizon, never too far from us. Even without my overdress I’m not cold, but I wrap my arms about myself and walk through the town and around the edges of the iron bog to where the land rises toward the silvering sky.

At the top of the bluff the barrow field spreads out before me. The granite boulders mark out a silent fleet of death-ships, arcing over the grey-gold grasses. I push through to yours, touching my fingers to the cool stones. Most are splotched with lichens, giving green and yellow eyes to the rocks. I trace the shape of your stone ship with my feet, walking the ring of stones and imagining you standing at the prow, which faces the ocean as they all do. I imagine you as you were the night you left, cheeks flared with excitement, wrapped in the blue mantle your mother and I made. The rings on your arms and fingers glittered while the sun set, and you were the most glorious you’d ever been. I took you home and slid them off of you, stripped you down and washed you with lavender water. I braided your hair and you pulled me onto your lap. You promised to come home with wealth enough to build our own house, a house for eight children, each stronger than the last. I laughed and reminded you we’d be lucky to get two out of me.

You put one of your rings on my thumb, and while I stand in the barrow field, I twist it around and around.

. . .

Every night I go to the fields and sit in the center of your ship. I listen to the ocean whisper, to the scrambling feet of rodents and foxes, to the wind ruffling nighthawk feathers. To the far-off wolves. I begin to carry your hammer with me, the one that did not protect you in the mountains of Uppsala. Some nights I see the Raven Keepers tending the graves, silent as wights.

When the sun lights the sky, I work. I sew aprons and turn milk into butter;
I tend the fire and go into the bog with the other girls to collect ore for the bloomeries
. More and more I stay in the bog, or wander the forest gathering bilberries and roots. Alone.