The Winter Spirits

by E. C. Hibbs

  “How can he survive that long without a life-soul, though?” he asked. “He’s not a mage. He’s just an idiot.”

  “You speak highly of him,” Lilja said sarcastically. “Is he truly the best company if he thinks it’s acceptable to insult Spirits?”

  “He just wasn’t thinking,” Tuomas insisted. “He’s the son of one of our leaders, you see.”

  Lilja raised her brows. “So that gives him a free pass to behave how he wants, does it?”

  Tuomas shook his head, suddenly defensive.

  “His mother died giving birth to him – the same as my mother, actually. So Sisu – his father – gave him everything. He’s used to getting away with things, pulling pranks, having all the attention. And I put up with it because he’s my best friend. He’s the only other kid in Akerfjorden the same age as me.”

  He heaved a sigh from the depths of his lungs.

  “I know I had my brother, and Mihka had his father, but we grew up together. We had something in common. So, yes, I know he’s an idiot, but he’s also my best friend. Haven’t you ever felt that about anyone?”

  Lilja’s eyes widened. He’d caught her off guard.

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “It didn’t turn out too well for me, though.”

  She scratched at her throat, then shook her head, as though chasing away whatever memory had bombarded her. Tuomas felt the shift as though she had thrown out a protective circle.

  But he couldn’t help himself.

  “Why?” he pressed.

  Lilja didn’t look at him.

  He tried again.

  “Where’s your brother?”

  A muscle twitched in Lilja’s jaw.

  “Gone.”

  “Gone where?”

  Her eyes turned to stone.

  “Finish your meal,” she said, in a tone which clearly spelled the end of the conversation.

  Fighting a frustrated sigh, Tuomas ate the final strip of marrow and placed the bones into a pouch at his belt. They were only small things, but no part of a kill went to waste. It would be disrespectful to the prey to end its life and then only use part of the body. So these he would keep for craft work. He could carve them and then use them to decorate a knife hilt, or bore a hole through them and make beads.

  He stretched his legs out, accidentally catching against a blanket in the corner. It fell down and revealed a stack of wood.

  Lilja carried on eating, but watched him from under her lashes.

  Tuomas stared at the logs, then at her, then at the axe she had given him.

  “You sent me out for nothing?”

  “One can never have too much wood,” replied Lilja.

  Tuomas sheathed his knife angrily.

  “Or time, so it seems,” he snapped.

  He got to his feet, snatching his sleeping sack as he rose.

  “I’ve had enough of this. You’re not what I was told you would be.”

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you,” Lilja said. “Where are you going?”

  “Back to Akerfjorden.”

  He threw open the flap and strode towards his sleigh, rolling up the sleeping sack in mid-step. He was about to toss it under the tarp when a single loud drumbeat sounded.

  His legs locked together as though a lasso had been thrown around them. He grabbed at the sleigh before he could lose his balance, and looked over his shoulder.

  Lilja was standing by the tent, drum in hand. The hammer rested gently on the skin, just touching it.

  Tuomas remembered the shockwave she had used to defeat the wolves. To be able to do that had told him she was powerful; but now, being on the receiving end of it, he couldn’t help but feel the true extent of her taika. It was like a physical pressure, as though invisible hands restrained him where he stood. If it had been anywhere other than his legs, she would have crushed the breath from his lungs.

  “Let me go,” he demanded.

  Lilja didn’t move.

  “Why do you feel the need to go back to Akerfjorden?” she asked.

  “Because Henrik said you’d be able to help, and you obviously can’t,” Tuomas snapped. “So I’m going to see what else we can do to get the Spirit back up there and help Mihka.”

  “Because you don’t like the idea that I’m your only hope,” Lilja corrected. “You don’t like my manners, my way of doing things, my stubbornness… I’ve heard all the excuses, boy. Don’t flatter yourself by thinking I’m offended by them.”

  “If you’re not offended,” Tuomas said, “then why stop me?”

  “Because it’s the only way you’ll stay still for long enough to listen to reason,” she replied, not moving the hammer from the drumskin. “Henrik is doing all he can do right now: looking after your friend. Do you really want to go back with no answers and an even angrier Spirit behind you?”

  She had a point. He was supposed to be on his mage test – what would it look like if he ran home now, with his tail between his legs, only two days after leaving?

  But he wasn’t about to let her win that easily.

  “He never lied to me.”

  “Neither did I. I never denied we already had wood. And frankly, there are worse things to get upset about.”

  “Well, what am I supposed to do? Won’t you come back to Akerfjorden with me?”

  “No.”

  “But I was under orders to fetch you!” Tuomas insisted.

  “I wager there was no time limit on it though, was there? Anyway, I never was one for following orders,” Lilja said. “Akerfjorden can wait. For now, we go further north.”

  Tuomas stared at her. North? That was completely in the wrong direction!

  “But Henrik said –”

  “Forget Henrik,” Lilja cut in. “Henrik’s not here. Henrik wouldn’t have sent you out here if he could have fixed things. Henrik isn’t the one who dug himself into a deeper hole than he knew how to get out of.”

  She lifted the hammer off the drum and pointed at him with it. The pressure instantly vanished from around Tuomas’s legs.

  “You say you need to appease the Spirit? She can’t be appeased by anyone until she’s back in the World Above,” said Lilja. “You brought her down here; you need to put her back, and you don’t know how. You need to learn, from ones more powerful than me.

  “So I’m going to take you to the Northern Edge of the World. There’s an entrance to the World Below there, and you can seek the guidance of the Earth Spirits. I can get you in there, and they’ll be able to help you. The Spirit goes back in the sky, your friend’s life-soul gets returned, and you can go home like nothing happened. Will that satisfy your orders for now?”

  Tuomas ground his teeth in agitation, but didn’t argue. He knew she was right. But it seemed like Mihka was slipping further and further away on this ridiculous quest he had set upon. Yes, he had only been away from Akerfjorden for two days, but that was two days too many. He should have controlled his anger and never tried to invoke the Lights by himself. Lilja had found him quickly enough – even from the beginning, she had been within distance of the village. How easily he could have tracked her down, sought her help, and fixed everything, had he just left the drum alone!

  If Lilja sensed his inner turmoil, she didn’t give it away. She just took note of the defeat on his face and, knowing she had won, ducked back into the tent. Tuomas grabbed his sleeping sack and ruefully followed her.

  By the time he had stepped through the flap, Lilja was already wriggling into her own sack. She turned her face to the wall.

  “Get some sleep. We’re leaving early, and you can help me take down the tent.”

  “I have another question,” Tuomas said. “Why were you looking for me? Why am I so important? Because I pulled the Spirit out of the World Above?”

  “There are more dangerous things than Spirits roaming about this realm, boy,” replied Lilja. “Now go to sleep.”

  Tuomas stared at her. How was he supposed to sleep when those were her last words to him?

 
; He removed his belt and shoes and laid down. His eyes moved to the fire. The orange tongues had found the new logs and were licking away at them, turning the pale bark black. The heat and dancing flame were hypnotising in the way they moved, never the same twice. It was so much like the Lights.

  He reached out a hand, just skimming the top of the fire with his fingers. It reminded him of watching the aurora as a child, unabashed by their sacredness, daring to purse his lips in imitation of a forbidden jest. He wouldn’t have dared let any sound out, but the thrill was too tempting. Unlike the other children, he had no parents to stop him. It was only when Paavo had caught him pretending that he had been punished with a slap on the backs of his thighs. Then his brother had threatened to tell Henrik. That had done the trick, and Tuomas had never tried his luck again.

  A scornful smile played on his lips. How ironic that the Lights themselves were now his travelling companion.

  He threw a glance at the tent flap, half-hoping that she would at least poke her head through, and let him know she was alright. But there was nothing.

  Instead, his thoughts turned to Lilja. Who was the person she had cared about so deeply? Was it her brother, Kari? He supposed the two of them must have been close, to wander together as they had for so long.

  That raised another question. Where was Kari?

  Even as he pondered it, he felt his thoughts becoming groggy. In the end, he gave up, and waited for dreams to take him.

  Chapter Eight

  The next morning, Lilja woke Tuomas with a rough shake of the shoulder, and barely waited for him to stand before she started stripping the skin tarp off the tent frame.

  The sudden blast of cold instantly snapped him into action. He pulled on his shoes and hurried to help her, gathering the birch twigs laid across the floor which had served as a rough carpet.

  Lilja didn’t speak or even look at him for too long. Was she still annoyed from him pressing her last night? It was hard to tell if she was or whether this was just her usual way of going about things.

  They worked by torchlight, piling everything into the sleighs. Even though he had done this more times than he could count, Tuomas felt a wave of satisfaction. It was amazing to see an entire camp folded down and packed away like this, with such efficiency and care, the only thing left behind was a patch of disturbed snow and the ashes of a fire. Everything of use was taken; even the leftover firewood, stacked under the tarp to keep it dry.

  When all was folded and tied down, they retrieved the reindeer. As Lilja tied hers into position, Tuomas ran a rope between the back of her sleigh and the reindeer at the front of his, so they could journey in a single line. It would be easier for the animals that way, to walk in the compacted snow rather than on fresh powder.

  Tuomas clambered into the tiny space left in his sleigh. He looked around again for the Spirit. There was no sign of her anywhere, but he sensed she was close. He remembered what Lilja had said the night before, and supposed she would follow at her own distance.

  That made him feel a little better – at least she wasn’t sitting next to him this time.

  He threw a glance at his hands. They had stopped shaking now, but he could still feel the shock from grabbing her wrists. He had never felt power like it. It was beyond the capabilities of any mage, as though it had the strength of all three Worlds behind it.

  How had that hit him and yet walked away unharmed? How had he managed to knock Mihka out of it?

  He shoved his hands into his mittens. Maybe the Earth Spirits would be able to tell him.

  The Northern Edge of the World… he had heard of it in stories, but never thought he would actually see it. The closest village to it was Einfjall, and even that was miles away.

  What did it look like? With a name such as that, he imagined a great crevice stretching through the earth; when he looked down into it, there would be no snow or river, such as might carve its way through any normal gorge. No, there would be darkness, like the night had come down below the ground. After all, that was what the World Above looked like. Surely the World Below would be the same?

  He sighed. He was letting his imagination run away with him. Soon, he would be a full mage, and he would know all these things. He would visit the other realms just as easily as he would walk into the forest, and he would look back on this quest with the same idle musing as Henrik did of his own youth. The Spirit would be back in the sky where she belonged; Mihka would be awake, sitting beside him, and the two of them would laugh about his stupidity until they were old men.

  Lilja set the pace with a snap of reins. The sleighs jolted forward as the reindeer trotted away, leaving the clearing behind. Tuomas settled back in his seat, holding his torch between his knees, and turned his eyes to the stars.

  The sky was still dark overhead, and would remain so for several more hours, but Lilja knew where she was going. She angled her reindeer in the direction of the North Star, and after some clever manoeuvring through the trees, the forest began to thin, and they entered onto the plain which marked the beginning of the tundra.

  The Sun Spirit slowly crept closer, casting her cool glow across the World. A layer of cloud swept in and blanketed the sky, blurring the line of the horizon, until Tuomas felt like they were moving over a sea of nothingness. Only the occasional sapling or dwarf shrub, bowed under snow, reminded him they were still on solid ground.

  He pulled his hat further down until the brim rested just above his eyes. The wind was harsher here. With no trees or other obstacles, it blew hard, with a biting edge which penetrated deep. The skin on his face tightened at its touch. Inside his mittens, he tucked his fingers into his palms. His lips turned numb and his cheeks felt as though they were going to drop off. Soon, his eyelashes and hair would start to freeze.

  This was just a taste of why travelling north in the wintertime was foolish. He had been to this part of the Northlands before – it was part of the migration route which the herds followed. But that was later in the year, when it was alive with the colours of hardy plants and mosses. Now, it bore no resemblance to the place he thought he knew. The snow stretched for miles in every direction, the land formless and flat under its thick white coat.

  The light passed in the blink of an eye, and the faint faraway glow faded back into darkness. Without breaking pace, Lilja lit her torch again; wedged it against the side of the sleigh with her leg. It was only when the Milky Way appeared that she pulled the reindeer to a stop.

  Rummaging in a bag, she dug out some moss and tossed it over for them to eat, before retrieving the tent poles. Tuomas helped her pitch the shelter, wrapping the skin tarp into place. With the two of them, it took much less time, and they were soon sitting around the fire. Lilja plucked the ptarmigan from the day before and Tuomas whittled one of the hare bones with a knife.

  He let himself become lost in the activity, shaving the smooth surface away until it started to take shape. The scraping of his blade was the only sound save for the crackling fire.

  Lilja worked the ptarmigan with a speed and surety such as he’d never seen, and once again he couldn’t help wondering about how she had come to be like this. He knew as well as anyone that nature could be harsh, but at least he’d had a community around him, and they all survived together.

  However, even when her brother was here, it would have still only been the two of them. Two people: specks on the huge white World, with only a shelter and two reindeer to their name. There would be no company except each other, no change in faces or conversation.

  He pictured them living in a shelter like this one all year round – if they were so nomadic to not even join in the migration routes, they wouldn’t have solid summer or winter camps with turf huts. Come blazing summer heat or howling blizzard, it would just be this skeleton of poles with a patchwork of reindeer skin draped over it. Even the tarp itself showed signs of age: the interior was darkened from years of fires. Some areas were newer than others, replaced when they would have inevitably worn thin, but
the entire thing spoke of constant use, being raised and struck time after time.

  How could they – she – get by like this, all alone?

  He glanced at the bone and realised the shape he had carved it into. It was crude, limited by size, but two hollowed-out eyes peered from the white surface, framed by a pointed face. A fox.

  He hadn’t even been thinking of the Spirit, out there in the cold. Unnerved by the carving, he thrust it inside a pouch on his belt.

  The evening flew by in a haze of smoke and slumber. Tuomas felt as though he had barely settled and closed his eyes before Lilja was shaking him awake again. The tent was collapsed once more and they continued on their way.

  Several miles passed until they reached a huge flat expanse, dipping in the girth of the tundra. Tuomas recognised it as a lake which Akerfjorden folk passed with the herd, now frozen over and dusted with a layer of snow. He felt a small wave of relief at coming across somewhere he knew in the endless tundra.

  When they reached the bank, he and Lilja climbed out of the sleighs and, separating them from each other, guided the reindeer across on foot. They walked out into the centre of the lake, then Lilja pulled them to a stop, and began hacking at the ground with her axe to make an ice-fishing hole.

  While she widened it, Tuomas fetched a length of antler from his belongings and wound some sinew around one of the points. He attached one of his new fish hooks to the end and baited it. Lilja stuck a flaming torch beside the hole to use as a lure, then tossed down a couple of reindeer skins.

  She and Tuomas laid on them and dangled their lines into the hole. Tuomas rested his chin on his wrist as he gently flicked his antler back and forth. The fire threw a flickering orange dance of light and shadows across the ice, and everything beyond its warm circle seemed darker.

  Tuomas regarded Lilja in silence. Like her ladle, her antler was carved with intricate designs, some so small, he could hardly make them out. That alone showed her capacity for patience: antler was as hard as stone, and notoriously difficult to work even with the sharpest blade. He couldn’t imagine how long it had taken her to complete.