Wintermoon Ice (2010) (18 page)
Read Wintermoon Ice (2010) Online
Authors: Suzanne Francis
She could do nothing for Chelah. Nothing except sit on the bed and stare at the four concrete block walls surrounding her. They stared back, like expressionless dun-colored faces. A high barred window let in a little light, as did an even-smaller window in the heavy door. An open commode huddled in the corner, next to an empty desk with no chair. No pigeon holes full of paper, no schedule board. No nothing.
How long would it be before someone missed her? She had left a note, but only to say she planned to visit Ebbetsfeld. They might never know what had happened. Suvi had no doubt that Jack meant to keep her in prison for a long time.
Final challenge to the Poet.
She had lost, and lost badly.
Darkness. Dinner. She picked at the food, but drank the kaffa, and wished she had her pipe. The evening would stretch into eternity, with nothing to do, and no one to talk to. Suvi considered going to bed, but realized she had no nightgown or toothbrush.
She frowned at herself for this, thinking that other prisoners had suffered far worse.
Three raps on the door meant stand by the far wall. The guard had told her that when they put her in the cell this morning. She stood and moved slowly across the room, wondering who her visitor could be.
A tall figure filled the doorway.
"Good evening, Miss Markku. May I come in?"
She saw no need to be polite in return. "Your courtesy is hardly necessary, Major Bennett. I am your captive, after all. But by all means pretend that I am here as your guest if it pleases you."
Her acrid response brought a frown. "It might be best to curb that tongue while you are in here. Not everyone would be as understanding as I am." He stepped into the room, carrying a box, and signaled for the guard to lock the door behind him.
"I could care less. Are you going to shoot me?"
He seemed to find this amusing. "Maybe. But not this evening. I forgot to bring my gun with me. Actually, I just stopped by to make sure you were comfortable, and see if you needed anything."
She raised an eyebrow. "Really? Do you always take such a personal interest in your prisoners, Major?"
"Not at all. But you are a somewhat special case." He put the box on the bed, and fished out a pack of cigarettes. "Sorry, I know you smoke a pipe, but I thought these would be better than nothing. If I can find time tomorrow, I will send someone to the shelter to get it for you, and any other personal items you require."
He proffered the pack, and Suvi stared at it suspiciously. "What do you want in return?"
"Nothing. All the prisoners..." He smiled slyly. "I mean
guests
, are given cigarettes. So are you going to take them or not?" She did, and he held out a light. "Mind if I join you?"
Suvi shrugged. "I certainly can't stop you. Help yourself."
He dug in the box again, and withdrew a long flannel nightgown, then awkwardly tucked it under her pillow. "It's Katy's, but I think you are almost the same size. It gets kind of chilly in here at night."
Suvi stared at him, almost speechless. "Why are you doing this?"
The last item in the box turned out to be the Prince and Poet board from his office. Jack put it on the desk before he spoke. "My wife is... away, so I don't have anything planned for this evening. I thought maybe we could play another round? If you want to, that is."
She nodded uncomprehendingly. After he took a critical look at the room, he called the guard and requested two chairs. "We don't normally allow them in the cells because they could be used as a weapon. But I think in your case we might make an exception." He dragged the table away from the wall and they sat facing each other.
"Do you want to be Poet again?" He pointed to the white talus.
She nodded. "I always do. And I bet you always choose Prince."
That had made him smile.
This time, because she did not have to start at a disadvantage, Suvi roundly trounced him. He shook his head as his Prince once again left the field in ignominious defeat. "You are very good. Do you think you could give me some pointers sometime?"
"If you like. I'm not going anywhere," Suvi answered dryly. "But perhaps baseball is more to your taste?"
"How did you know about that?"
"Tom told me. And anyway, I saw the picture in your office."
He smiled. "That was the year Litchfield took the state championship. Tom hit a grand slam in the final game of the series."
"Is a grand slam something good?"
"Very good. He won the trophy for us."
Suvi gazed at him curiously. "Why are you telling me this?"
"You asked me. Now, may I ask you something too?"
Ah,
thought Suvi,
here comes the price for all this courtesy,
but she nodded anyway. Inquisitive company was better than no company at all.
"Why did you ask me to bring Tom back to Severnessa?" He began to pack away the game, unhurriedly fitting each of the forty tali into the drawers on each side of the board. Suvi sat in stony silence. When a minute passed he added, "You don't have to tell me, of course, but I wish you would."
She got up and paced the floor of her cell. "I can't imagine what difference my feelings might make to you or the war effort, Major Bennett. You certainly have shown them little regard up to now."
Jack seemed almost offended. "Tom is my oldest friend. I have known him since kindergarten. So I do care, believe it or not." He stood and straightened the chair, very precisely. "Being a commander is a tough job in wartime. I have to do what is needed, even when it might hurt people that I care about."
Suvi found a surprising amount of sympathy growing within her. "I appreciate your taking the time to see me. If I seemed a little, you know, out of sorts earlier, well..."
"It's all right. I don't blame you for being upset. We didn't exactly get off to the best start. But I will try to make that up to you, as much as I can, while you are here."
She took a deep breath, unsure whether to trust him. In the end she couldn't think of a single reason not to. "I love Tom, very much. But our parting was not a happy one, Major. I just wanted to tell him so, that's all."
He nodded. "Thank you for answering my question. Now I had better go. I have a briefing in a little while, about Grond movements to the north of
Lake
Copaheg
. Looks like they are planning some kind of push. Fareniis might see some action soon."
Suvi could see the anxiety darkening his eyes, almost to the color of ash. "Your wife is there, isn't she? Did you send her with Tom?"
He smiled sadly. "No, I didn't. But she went anyway."
"I am sorry." Suvi stared at the game board, not knowing what else to say.
"I'll leave it with you, if you like. Not that you need the practice. But maybe, if I have time tomorrow night, I could come back for another game. Would you mind?"
Now that she at last understood his reasons, Suvi gave him a reassuring smile. "No. I would like that. Truly." He nodded briefly at her and called for the guard. Once he left, the room seemed lifeless again.
Suvi went to bed wearing Katy Bennett's nightgown, feeling very odd. She slept almost immediately, though she had thought her worries about Carina and Chelah would keep her awake for hours.
Shadows shrouded the room when some tiny noise disturbed her. Suvi turned over and blinked, but she was unable to find any familiar signposts in the dark landscape of sleep. Then she saw something that made her shrink back towards the unforgiving concrete wall of her cell. A tall figure stood at the side of her bed, dappled in shadow -- a man, with blood-stained clothing. He swayed slightly, as though he were injured, or very, very tired. The stripes of light from the barred window revealed a watery blue eye, a red-blond moustache -- small slices of a face drawn with sorrow and pain.
"Tom!" Suvi frantically tried to scrub the sleep from her eyes.
When she opened them again, he had gone.
"All right, Miss?" the night guard called.
"Yes... Just a dream. A bad dream." But in the morning, when she woke, she could plainly see three rusty brown spots on the linoleum, where none had been before.
* * * *
Tom slammed his fist on the table, spilling the kaffa. "They have her in the brig. It isn't good enough, Katy."
She frowned in return. "Is that where you went when we finished that last round of surgery? You aren't supposed to travel that way, not here." Planes rumbled overhead, almost drowning the stuttering replies of an anti-aircraft battery.
Tom looked at the ceiling as the logs shivered, releasing a shower of earth. "I know." He made a wry face. "What's worse, I think she saw me."
"Tom! You probably scared her to death, poor thing. What were you thinking?"
"Only that I had to see her." His face grew hard. "I am going back to Ebbetsfeld tomorrow morning. Jack can't keep her locked up. She hasn't done anything wrong!"
Katy shook her head. "Don't be a bigger idiot than you can help. Going AWOL isn't going to fix anything. I asked Jack to make sure Suvi was safe. He must have known he couldn't keep her from going back to Carina any other way. He put her there for her own protection."
A shell screamed overhead, making Katy duck instinctively. "What's happening?"
A second followed, landing somewhere close enough to make the walls of their shelter shudder, but Tom's voice stayed calm. "We are under attack. Get out of here, Katy."
"No! There will be casualties. You'll need me. Anyway I..."
The rest of her words were lost in the roar that followed. He grabbed her and dove under the table as part of the ceiling collapsed. Another shell, landing very close, demolished the rest.
Up and down the trenches, snow fell, softly touching the faces of the dead and dying, like a mother's soothing caress.
Tessa
Better to die of thirst than drink from a poisoned stream.
Powwaw Speak: Shamanic Wisdom of the Irrakish
, Theodore Black, PhD
* * * *
Tessa said good-bye to Jane at her apartment, and once again refused her offer of hospitality. "I will be fine. All I want to do is go back to Seadrift and sleep for a week."
Jane gazed at her worriedly. "I still think you should have let Jakob keep the mirror. What's the big deal with it, anyway?"
Tessa's mouth set stubbornly. "It belonged to Suvi and I don't want to part with it. And I just can't deal with Jakob -- he is totally unpredictable."
"I thought he was all right. A little rough around the edges maybe, but a nice guy underneath it all."
Tessa raised an inquiring brow. "Oh really, Dr. Piper?" Jane blushed and fumbled for her keys. Tessa didn't have the heart to tease her. "See you at Mama Rosa's on Friday?"
"Yeah, sure. See you." But Jane's voice sounded less than hopeful.
Her house looked comfortingly solid. Tessa would have been more than happy to go inside and sleep as long as she had threatened to. She dug in her purse before she remembered. "Damn! Why didn't I ask him for the key when I got the mirror?" She sighed, not really looking forward to another confrontation with Jakob Faircrow.
When she arrived at the boathouse, she noticed that he hadn't opened the curtains, though it was well past midday. Tessa stood at the bottom of the stairs, remembering his injuries, and wondering if she should disturb his rest. The sound of his thumb ripping from its socket returned, making her feel a little queasy.
But he still had the key, and she needed to get in.
She put her foot on the bottom step. "Ahoy, Tessa!" a booming voice called.
"Captain Romine! I didn't know you were back."
"Aye, lass. Me and the
Damsel
got in last night. But how are you? Heard you'd gone missing in the forest. But I guess you must have been found, eh?" He stared at her with undisguised curiosity. Captain Romine stood a head shorter than Tessa, and was almost as wide as he was tall.
She felt her cheeks grow warm. "It turned out to be a misunderstanding, really." Tessa decided to change the subject. "Have you seen my tenant anywhere?"
Captain Romine nodded as he patted his dungaree pockets. "Where did I put that? Ah..." Tessa's heart skipped a little when he withdrew an envelope and a brass key. "That actor fella Faircrow came by this morning. Said he had to leave town. Told me to give you this."
Tessa took the items, and held them tightly, so that Joe wouldn't see her hands trembling. "Did he look all right? I heard he had an... accident."
Joe pushed his fisherman's hat back rakishly and scratched his iron-grey curls. "He looked like he'd gotten the short end of a long stick, tell you the truth. I tried to get him to stay with me for a few days, but he said he had to be moving on."
You have three broken ribs. Also a probable cracked left radius, two broken fingers and a dislocated thumb, as well as several nasty gashes.
Tessa closed her eyes, trying to erase the picture. "Did he give you my house key?"
"Said he left it in the envelope with the rent. Too bad he had to leave so sudden. Seemed like a nice fella. He fixed the dory good and proper. And he knew his way around a boat real well. I'd like to take him fishing again sometime. Think he'll come back?"
She couldn't decide how she felt. "I... don't know. You had better hold on to the key in case he does. Thanks, Captain. Guess I'll see you later." Tessa turned to go.
He fixed her with a blue-eyed squint. "Aye. Me and Ellie are having dinner tonight at my place. Got to cheer her up, somehow."
"Why does she need cheering up? Is she sick?"
"No, but she seemed right attached to your tenant. Won't be happy that he's gone. Not at all. He used to make himself useful round her place -- chopping wood and tidying the yard. Didn't you ever see him over there?"
She felt suddenly and unaccountably guilty. "No. I haven't been to visit Miss Rayne for ages. Work has been keeping me pretty busy."
"Well, why don't you join us tonight? I've a fine catch of white perch to cook."
Tessa smiled. "All right. I will, thank you. Shall I bring something?"
He winked broadly. "A bottle of wine never hurt a broken heart. I'll have things ready round six o'clock."
Tessa walked back along the gravel path, kicking broken shells out of her way.
Hadn't she told him to go? Hadn't she thought, over and over, that he was a jerk? Hadn't she said she could take care of herself?
So where had this unhappiness come from?
"Who needs you anyway?" she muttered as she dug through the envelope for the key. It nestled under a couple of hundred dollars, far more than she had planned to charge him. She sorted through the crumpled currency, hoping to find a letter or at least a forwarding address. But Jakob seemed content to leave her life as mysteriously as he had entered it.
She tried her best to ignore the oppressive silence in the house.
Jakob had cleaned the glass off her bed, and put the sheets in a tidy pile in the corner. He had even repaired the broken panels in her bedroom door. Tessa could not fathom how someone so abrasive could also be so thoughtful.
After unpacking her bag, she tucked her clothes back into the wide welsh dresser that had been her grandmother's. When she found the mirror she held it before her face. The creeping blackness around the edges threatened to swallow what little image remained.
She spoke to her cracked and hazed reflection as though it were Suvi she saw. "Why did you hide this? And why do they want it so much?" The warmth of her breath against the chill of the glass produced condensation. Tessa rubbed it away with her shirt, thinking that she could see something odd behind it.
Her mobile phone rang. She let voice mail pick up the call. It sounded again, almost immediately.
Tessa suddenly remembered that Jakob had bought a phone -- that he had her number. She slammed the mirror on to the table and hurried across the room, hoping all the while. "Hello?"
The voice grated in her ear. "Tessie? Thank god you are all right. Where have you been? You said you would be back Sunday."
"Um... Well, I went for a walk and got a little lost. So I had to stay another day. Sorry. I guess I should have let you know."
He sounded peeved. "Sorry? I have been out of my mind with worry. Well, why didn't you at least call me when you got back in town? I left you about ten messages."
Tessa realized to her horror that she hadn't given it the least thought. "I, uh... spent the night at Jane's last night and my phone's battery had gone totally flat. I just got back to Seadrift, and plugged it in a minute ago. I am sorry, Ted."
"I want to see you, babe. Just to make sure you are OK."
"I am fine. Honestly. But I need to catch up on some sleep."
"Tessa. Please. I think we need to talk." The despondency in his voice wrestled with her desire to go on avoiding the inevitable confrontation between them.
Despondency won. She sighed. "All right. I'll come over tonight after dinner."
Ted disconnected. Tessa held on to her phone, wondering if she should call Jakob. She brought up the missed calls listing, her finger hovering over the button. Then she closed the cover with a firm snap, and dropped it on the table. "If he wanted to hear from you, he would have left a note," she said out loud. "So just forget it, Tessa."
She lifted the mirror again. Now it reflected nothing but her own unhappy face.
In the hours before dinner, Tessa ignored the pile of unmarked papers on her desk and finished Suvi's journal instead. The writing ended, quite abruptly, just after the police had arrested her grandmother for espionage. There must have been much more to the story. Tessa wondered if there might be another volume somewhere.
She hunted around on the bookshelves to no avail. It occurred to her that Miss Rayne might well know something of her grandmother's later life -- she had lived in Little Sardinia for thirty years or more. The clock showed 5:45 pm, so Tessa found a bottle of cheap Chianti in the pantry and walked over to Captain Romine's.
His clapboard house had shingles of gently weathered grey. The sign on the door advertised Captain Romine's charter fishing boat, the
Damsel
. Business must be good, judging by the new coat of bright blue paint on the window frames and shutters. Tessa could hear Joe's deep bass rumble of laughter from inside.
She knocked on the screen door, and he called, "Door's open. Come on in."
He and Ellie sat in high ladder back chairs, sharing a pitcher of red wine laced with orange and lemon slices. A fan stirred the air lazily overhead. Tessa accepted a glass of the sangria and pulled over the third chair. Ellie smiled and patted her hand. "So nice to see you, Tessa."
"Nice to see you too." Tessa studied her face, thinking that despite Captain Romine's words, Ellie looked very cheerful. She wore her usual outfit -- a crinkled broomstick skirt and a crisp cotton blouse tied at the waist, both colored in jewel tones of pink and turquoise. Her white hair, as always, formed a perfect chignon. Tessa often told her friends that if she looked as beautiful as Ellie Rayne at eighty, she would be very pleased. The woman had ageless cheekbones.
After they had chatted for a few moments, Joe got up to check on the dinner. As he passed Tessa's chair, he brushed against her purse and knocked it to the ground. Her pocketbook and Suvi's mirror spilled out.
"Look at me! Drunk already." He chuckled sheepishly. "Sorry about that."
Tessa bent to retrieve the fallen items. "Don't worry. Nothing broken."
When she straightened, Ellie's sea green eyes rested upon her, but she did not speak until Joe had passed into the kitchen. "Where did you get that?"
Ellie had seen the mirror, and Tessa could think of no way to change the subject. She kept her voice light, hoping her neighbor would lose interest. "What, this?" Tessa took the mirror from her purse and held it to the light. "My grandmother left it to me."
"May I have a look?" She held out her hand, mottled with age spots, but surprisingly wrinkle free.
Tessa felt a strange reluctance as she passed it over to Ellie. "It's very old. You can hardly see anything in it at all."
Ellie raised a perfectly manicured brow as she examined the mirror. "Indeed. It is far older than you know. My grandmother gave it to me, in the last age of the world."
Tessa stared at her, aghast. "You? But it belonged to
my
grandmother!"
"Suvi must have taken it. The mirror went missing a long time ago."
"She wouldn't have done that." But her objection sounded half-hearted, at best. Tessa's cheeks colored, wondering if Ellie would demand the mirror's return.
She smiled gently. "I took something from her, too." But what that thing was, Ellie Rayne would not say. "It is all ancient history now. The mirror has passed to you. But you must take great care with it, Tessa. Great care."
Joe bustled back in, with plates and a big bowl of salad. Ellie put the mirror in her lap and asked brightly, "Need some help?"
He shook his head. "Just be another couple of minutes, ladies. The fish is almost done. Have some more wine." He refilled their glasses, and went back to the kitchen.
Ellie gazed at Tessa. "Do you know of the mirror's power? I suppose you must, or Suvi would not have given it to you."
"I know that there are... people trying to take it from me, but I don't know why and neither does Jakob. Are you saying that you do?"
Ellie's voice was sharp. "Jakob knew you had it?" Then she smiled again, somewhat ruefully. "I am too old to be much help nowadays. I expect he thought he would spare me the worry." She put the mirror on the table. "But he knows why the Polys are seeking the mirror -- he knows very well."
Tessa shook her head, absolutely thunderstruck. "You... know about the Polys? How?"
"I had a few turns with them -- in my younger days." Ellie sighed. "That Jakob! Always wants to do everything himself. He should have told you the truth long ago."
"Tell me about it! I never met anyone so stubborn. But..." Tessa stared at Ellie thoughtfully. "You must know him pretty well. Joe said he'd spent a lot of time at your place."
She smiled serenely and didn't contest this. "Let me show you something." Ellie lifted the mirror and exhaled on the glass. When the fog cleared she placed the mirror on the table between her and Tessa.
Instead of the expected blank reflection of the ceiling, Tessa looked upon a tiny vignette -- a woman, pacing back and forth in a bare room. She bent over some kind of board, with pieces set up for a game.
Suvi...
Tessa rubbed her eyes, then squeezed them shut. "I am going crazy. This is just an old mirror, not some kind of video device. When I open my eyes I had better be able to see my face." But she didn't. The mirror now showed a snowy field, with many fallen trees. Pieces of machinery lay strewn about, as though tossed by some monstrous hand into great raw gashes of earth. There were many soldiers, scurrying, searching, bearing the wounded on stretchers.
And a tall, uniformed man standing forlornly apart, with a hand covering his eyes.
Suddenly Tessa understood just what the Polys wanted with her mirror. It was another window to the worlds between. Just like the one in the cave.
The glass grew dark. Tessa leaned forward, barely able to make out the latest scene -- a man lying on the ground, covered with a grey blanket. He looked to be asleep or, more likely, ill. His cheekbones stood out prominently, almost painfully so, above a heavy growth of beard. Tessa stared and stared at his face, recognizing the curve of the jaw, the straight nose, the shaggy brows.
Jakob. Hurt. Alone.
She turned to Ellie and gripped her arm. "That was Jakob! I saw him. How did you make it do that?"
Ellie shook her head. "That wasn't Jakob. Jakob is..."
Joe came in, bearing a huge platter of broiled fish, roasted corn and potatoes. "Let's eat!"