Robbergirl

by S T Gibson

  Helvig used the last bit of energy within her to close the distance between her and the Snow Queen, nearly losing her footing on the ice. Her father’s knife gleamed ready and willing in her trembling hand.

  Helvig thrust the blade into Astrid’s back, high on her spine. Her knife slid up to the hilt between muscle and bone.

  I’m so sorry, little sparrow.

  Astrid screamed loud enough to rattle what was left of the ceiling, wracked with excruciating pain even in her waking death. She clawed for the knife as she staggered backwards, but Helvig didn’t let go, not even when she almost vomited up the fish soup from breakfast.

  She could hardly see anything through the tears blurring her vision, but she wrapped both hands around the knife, took a shaky breath, and twisted until she heard the sickening snap of vertebrae.

  Astrid, or whatever force had been animating Astrid’s body, dropped like a sandbag and took Helvig down with her.

  Helvig pushed the body away with a cry, kicking her feet against the ice to get further away from it. It fell lifeless onto its side, mirror-eyes open forever to the sky.

  "Oh God," She gasped, sobs bubbling up in her throat. "Oh Christ."

  But there was no time for tears. Gerda was still inside the whirlwind of snow, holding onto life and sanity by a thread. Helvig dug her fingernails into the ice and crawled forward on her hands and knees, unable to stand upright in such punishing winds. Every foot was slow-moving agony, and she could hardly see through her own burning tears, but eventually she reached the eye of the storm.

  Gerda stood with her palms up to the sky, back arched so far that it looked like she may snap in two. Her long hair had come free from its plaits and whipped around her neck like a noose, and her eyes were rolled up so the whites showed.

  Helvig shuddered, both from the cold that made her teeth chatter, and from how ghastly Gerda looked. The thief pulled herself upright, knees aching, and smeared the tears from her face.

  There was no way to tell how long Gerda had until she was lost forever, or how Helvig could break an enchantment so ancient and powerful.

  Spiderwebs of ice had started to form over Gerda’s hands and face. Whatever Helvig was going to do, she needed to do it soon.

  Squinting against the wind, Helvig took a few steps back and got a running start.

  Helvig crashed bodily into Gerda and wrapped her arms tightly around her. They hit the ground with a bone-shaking crash.

  Immediately the eddy of snow broke apart, tendrils ripping away from the spiral to lash out in all directions. Gerda convulsed gently on the ground, her eyes still rolled into the back of her head.

  Helvig was terrified that she had been concussed, but with dangerously high winds and razor-sharp fractals of ice spinning through the air, all she could do was pull Gerda close and hold her through the storm. Helvig's ribs and shoulder screamed out for a doctor, but the only one available was unconscious in her arms.

  "Come on," Helvig said. She patted Gerda's face briskly, willing color back into those bluish cheeks. The winds around them were dying down now, but the cold had settled deep into her aching bones. "Wake up, love. Please, Gerda. Come back to yourself."

  She kissed Gerda’s temple, cold as a slab of granite, and then pressed their foreheads together. The convulsions were farther apart now, perhaps one every three or four seconds, but there was still no evidence of vital life in her.

  The roar of wind died down until the only gusts blowing through the hall were the irregular northern winds that tugged at Helvig's clothes.

  "Helvig?"

  Gerda’s voice was weak, but she was alive. Helvig burst into delirious laughter, cradling Gerda's face in her hands. Gerda’s eyes were her own, and a tiny bloom of pink was on her lips. Helvig kissed that bloom so delicately, and wiped long, wet strands of hair away from Gerda’s face.

  "You gave me such a fright. I really thought you were gone. What were you thinking?"

  "I’m sorry," Gerda rasped, hooking a heavy arm around Helvig’s neck. She took a few deep breaths, and her free hand spread against the ice at her side, searching for Kai. "She was going to kill you. She wasn’t going to let him go. I had to keep you both safe."

  "Sweet, foolhardy girl. When will you learn that you’re of as much value as anyone else? You had that planned? All along?"

  Gerda shook her head and attempted a weak smile. It looked like it caused her pain.

  "Only in case of an emergency."

  Helvig cracked an unsteady smile.

  "And here I thought you were just going to ask nicely."

  Gerda spied the body laying in a heap a few feet away, and her eyes widened. "Did I…?"

  "No. She went after you, and I—"

  Her throat tightened, refusing to let any more explanations pass. Gerda slipped her cold fingers into Helvig’s tangle of hair.

  "I’m so sorry," she murmured.

  Then Gerda rolled onto her side and smoothed her fingers over the glistening death mask of her brother’s face. She curled up beside him, pressed her lips to the ice, and shivered.

  Helvig burrowed beside her, arms wrapped so tightly around Gerda that they ached.

  "It should have never happened like this," Gerda said hoarsely.

  Helvig kissed her shoulder. She felt like she could sleep for a thousand years and still wake up exhausted.

  An eerie creak went through the fortress hall, and then another. It sounded like leather straining tight enough to snap, or a fir bending dangerously far in a windstorm.

  Gerda and Helvig exchanged expressions of consternation.

  "What was that?" Helvig whispered.

  The ice underneath them bowed, and a crack split the air.

  FIFTEEN

  Gerda shot to her feet and pulled Helvig upright. The ground beneath their feet shuddered, the glossy surface sweating beads of water, and then split open. Helvig put her arms around Gerda’s waist and hoisted her away from the faulty ice.

  "Run!"

  The frozen lake gave way beneath their feet faster than any natural thaw, hairline fractures bursting into gaping maws in the blink of an eye.

  Behind them, the ice opened up under Astrid’s body. The water swallowed her slowly, until even the last tendril of her hair had disappeared beneath the water.

  When they had entered the room, it was impossible to say how deep the flood was. Now, as sheets of ice sloughed away and water poured out of the hall and back towards the lake, Helvig saw it could not have been more than ten feet or so. She and Gerda clung to pillars removed from the worst of it, but when water splashed over their feet, Helvig was surprised to find it was temperate, balmy even.

  When Gerda saw how rapidly the flood was receding, she splashed back in to retrieve Kai’s body, up to her hips in dark water

  "You’ll die of cold!" Helvig shouted, but the witch would not be deterred. She lunged around where she had last seen her brother, kicking up great splashes of water.

  Her arms sliced through waves like knives, grasping for flesh and bone, and then, finally, she hoisted Kai's limp frame out of the water with both hands.

  She sobbed aloud and pressed him to her chest, cradling him like he was still a baby. Helvig waded in after them both, knowing that it would take two people to carry his body out and give it a proper burial. The water was bathhouse-warm despite the frigid air, and steam curled up into the January sky. It was as though summer had come in a snap, but only to this one little piece of the world.

  Then, to Helvig's amazement, Gerda started waving at her frantically.

  "Helvig?" She sounded near hysterical. "Helvig, he’s breathing!"

  Gerda shook her brother and he retched up filmy viscous fluid. He gasped for breath, and Helvig’s heart leapt into her mouth.

  He had survived under the ice all this time? Did that mean—?

  Water poured out of the hall, taking with it ice and debris and leaving behind the Snow Queen’s most precious possessions. Children, dripping wet and bleary-eyed. C
hildren who moaned foreign names and coughed up mouthfuls of lakewater.

  Helvig lurched forward, reaching blindly for the nearest form that appeared above the water. Fear for Gerda’s life was replaced with a new terror, that these innocents would drown before she and Gerda could reach them all.

  She dreaded brushing against Astrid’s corpse, but the Snow Queen’s body was nowhere to be found. It had vanished in the melt.

  Helvig hoisted up the child nearest by onto her hip. A little girl, with color quickly returning to her cheeks and a tumble of black hair plastered against her head. Truly alive, not just animated as Astrid had been. She could not have been older than three.

  A little boy staggered to his knees in the water, choking violently. Helvig grabbed him by the sleeve and hoisted him onto unsteady feet. He wobbled but stood, knobby-kneed in summer breeches and an askew cotton cap. Older, maybe ten.

  Helvig patted the life back into his cheeks.

  "Can you breathe, boy? Can you see?"

  The little girl clung silently to Helvig’s neck, taking in the scene with round onyx eyes. The boy’s coughing fit continued until he cleared the last of the water from his lungs. Then he scrubbed at his eyes with a wet hand and said in Swedish,

  "Where is this? Where’s my brother?"

  The water was swirling around Helvig’s ankles now, almost drained and forgotten. The receding tide revealed a smaller boy lying a few yards off. His nut-brown skin matched the boy in Helvig's grasp.

  "Nils!" The bigger boy cried, and sloshed off to aid his baby brother. To Helvig’s relief, the smaller one was alive too, and promptly started to cry.

  Helvig left them to their hugging and hurried over to Gerda. She was seated on the ground with Kai pulled into her lap, and he held her tightly while she buried her face in his neck.

  "Kai, Kai, my dear heart, I have been looking for you for so long! I knew you were alive. I knew it in my soul."

  Three years beneath the ground. It didn’t seem possible, but here he was, snub-nosed and freckled with eyes that were quick and intelligent despite his bewilderment.

  "Gerda?" He managed.

  Gerda continued to cover his face with kisses. Kai craned his neck up to take in the open roof and the imposing stone walls that enclosed them, blinking slowly.

  "How did I get here? I don’t remember...No, I remember a sleigh. And a White Lady, just like in the stories." He looked back at his sister and seemed to truly see her for the first time. His brow furrowed, and he touched her face in wonder. "Gerda, why are you so big?"

  Gerda’s smile shattered, and her lips uselessly tried to form words adequate to explain what had happened. Helvig took a deep breath and put her hand on Kai's shoulder. It was plain to see that he had not aged in the long years Gerda had spent bloodying her feet trying to find him. He still wore the patterned knit sweater and the cuffed pants of a schoolboy not yet ready for a formal apprenticeship.

  "I think…" Helvig began warily. "That you’ve lost some time. Three years, to be exact."

  Kai squinted skeptically at her.

  "And who are you?"

  "Her name is Helvig and she is very dear to me," Gerda cut in. "And you will mind her as you would me."

  "But what’s going on?" Kai pressed, a bit of whine coming into his voice. Gerda had described him as having a scholastic bent, and now Helvig saw the scientist in him, unwilling to accept anything but the full and rational truth. "How did we come to be in this place? Where’s mother? What city is this?"

  The little girl clinging to Helvig’s neck shivered. The cold was settling in again, only kept at bay for a short while by the miraculous thaw.

  The Snow Queen may be gone, but winter remained, hungry and dispassionate.

  Helvig gave Kai’s shoulder a squeeze. "They’ll be time for explanations later. Suffice to say we’re friends, and you’re a long way from home. It's important we get away from this place and start a fire before the cold creeps into your bones."

  Gerda looked wrung-out, but she nodded. Even in this state, she was practical enough to recognize that their survival depended on finding shelter and drying their wet clothes.

  Helvig put her free arm out for the brothers, who were loitering a few feet off with wide eyes. Nils, the little one, skittered over to the warmth of her body heat and curled his fingers into her sopping vest. His big brother followed, but warily.

  "Please Ma’am, can Pettr and I go home?" Nils asked.

  "Where’s the other lady?" Pettr demanded, almost at the same time. His shifty eyes seemed to suspect that Helvig might put him right back under the ice at any moment.

  Helvig glanced around the waterlogged hall, empty apart from the six of them. She opened her mouth, but then her chest caved in on itself and she closed it again. There wasn’t enough strength in her yet to speak of what had happened.

  "She’s gone," Gerda said. Her gaze was fixed with concern on Helvig, but she made her voice bright for the sake of the children. "No more white witches to kiss the warmth out of you and put you under the ice, I promise. She can’t get you anymore."

  Gerda pulled herself to her feet, tugging Kai up after her, and put one arm around Helvig’s neck while she clung to her brother's with the other.

  They must have all cut a funny picture, two adolescent girls, a boy, and three children all clinging to each other with scarce family resemblance to pass between them. Still, the duties and anxieties of heading a family had been foisted upon Helvig without notice. It was like she had aged a decade in the last hour.

  Helvig did not know whether there had been more children taken over the years. All she was sure of was the four live children huddling around her, chattering their teeth and asking for their mothers. Four children that needed her to keep them alive as long as it took to get back to Rávdná’s, and with only a few scant hours of daylight left.

  Helvig took a deep breath. Her heart ached, her shoulder screamed out for attention, and her skin burned where the cold air touched it, but she could be strong for a few hours more.

  "Come on, then," she said to the little girl with her face buried in Helvig’s neck. "Let’s go untie the animals and get some color into those cheeks with a walk, and then we’ll have a cozy fire and maybe a bit of bread. How does that sound?"

  The children muttered their half-hearted agreement, not having much of a choice in the matter. Gerda’s nod was more decisive. She had wiped her face clean of tears and was wearing her determined, unbothered mask. But a new light shone in her eyes whenever she looked at her brother.

  "A perfect idea. Helvig, that little thing seems very attached to you. Are you willing to carry her?"

  Helvig shifted the baby on her hip and winced when her shoulder barked.

  "Are you hurt?" Gerda asked. Her fair brows knit together in distress, and she pressed closer to Helvig.

  Helvig swallowed and shook her head tightly.

  "You can have a look later. She’s light, I’ll manage. I’m afraid to put her down in the snow. Will you two take the boys?"

  Gerda crouched down in front of the brothers. Nils stared at her wonderingly while Pettr stuck his fingers into the straps of his overalls and scowled like she was trying to sell him a dry milking cow.

  "Nils and Pettr are your names, is that right?"

  Pettr gave a nod. Seeing that he was going to be the more difficult one to convince, Gerda smiled at him. It was a lovely smile, one that could get Helvig to turn over her innermost thoughts at a moment's notice.

  "And Pettr, what do you like? What is your most favorite thing to do?"

  He eyed her up and down, trying to decide if she was made of the same stuff as the Snow Queen.

  "Well...I like sweets. I like to eat them, and soft rolls and meatballs, sometimes."

  Gerda twittered in delight.

  "Good, good! What else?"

  "Um…" Pettr twisted his overall straps. "I like to go see the boats with my papa at the harbor. He let me ride round the wharf on one, and I met the ca
ptain."

  Gerda cast a knowing glance over her shoulder to her brother, and indicated him to Pettr with a nod.

  "Well, it just so happens that my brother is a very fine sailor, and we used to live in a house right over a canal. We would sit up on our beds and wave out the window to the boats every morning."

  Pettr’s eyes lit up. "Really?"

  "I swear it. Would you like to walk with us and ask my brother about the boats? I’m sure he has many fine sailing stories to share."

  Kai caught on to Gerda’s game and gave an enthusiastic nod, beckoning Pettr over.

  "It’s true! Why don’t you bring your brother over and we’ll talk man-to-man about it? You can tell me all about the ship you and your papa visited."

  This won him. Pettr obediently fell into step with Kai, ushering his baby brother along and babbling about how unsteady on his feet he had been on the big ship. Within minutes they were all on their way in a tight formation, leaving the bitterness and the gloom of the great hall behind. Gerda and Kai walked with their fingers tightly entwined ahead of the pack, leading them through the dim corridors to a kinder world outside.

  Helvig watched them with a deep sense of both elation and grief, the sort of feeling that could only accompany a satisfying ending to a beloved bedtime story. But this was not a story, she reminded herself, and if it was, it wouldn't be Helvig's — it would be Gerda's and Kai's, and this would be the moment Helvig faded back into the scenery while Gerda and Kai took center stage for their well-earned bows.

  Light stung Helvig's eyes as they emerged from the fort, dazzling off the white even as the sun sunk lower in the sky. The winds outside were harsh and unwelcoming, but Helvig was grateful to be back in the open under sun and sky again.

  She hitched the small girl higher up on her hip and wrapped the babe's face in the scarf from her own neck. None of the boys were dressed for the weather, but Gerda held them close and gave Kai her gloves, which was all she had to spare.

  They would make it. They had to.

  Kai cast a wary glance to Helvig. He wasn't stupid. He must know their odds. Helvig nodded to him grimly.