by Wendy Delsol
“Hmmm.” My dad stroked his chin. “Sage. An anagram of ages.”
“I beg your pardon?” Ms. Bryant said.
My dad loved word scrambles, particularly those involving names. Penny still liked to talk about how he’d reworked Penelopa into one apple in mere seconds. Tina hadn’t been quite as tickled with her Kerstina morphing into a stinker. She had been a good sport, though, and he eventually had her laughing at his weird skill. Ages, though; it reminded me of something Penny had reported about Ms. Bryant in her teacher profile article last fall.
“Is it true, Ms. Bryant, that you can guess anyone’s age within a year?”
“I do seem to have an unusual ability in that area.”
“Then how old do you think Brigid is?” I blurted out in a rush, my big mouth leaving my social graces at the starting blocks.
Ms. Bryant tapped her chin with her index finger. “Well, now,” she began. “I’m not sure . . .” She hesitated, her eyes fluttering up and down nervously.
“Where are your manners, Kat?” my dad asked. “Brigid may not appreciate this game.”
“Sorry,” I said, but thinking Dang it all.
“Though I’d like to play,” my dad said with a cheeky glint in his eye. “How about me? How old am I?”
Ms. Bryant studied my dad while biting her bottom lip with her top teeth — very nice, very white teeth that they were.
“Thirty-eight. I’m sure of it. Though I bet you often get taken for younger. Partly because you’re such a lover of games.”
“Yes. Yes. And yes,” my dad said. “Very impressive, but how did you know about the games?”
“The anagrams, of course. I guess we all have our quirky little talents,” Ms. Bryant said.
Brigid returned from the choir room, looking as indefinable as ever. She and my dad walked me to my car, but I was lost in my own thoughts. I wondered about Sage Bryant’s curious talent and even the way her very name was an anagram of it. I also wondered at her pegging my dad so accurately as a game player. And more than anything, I wondered just what kind of a game Brigid was up to here in Norse Falls.
Stanley insisted on throwing a small Valentine’s party in honor of their postponed wedding date. He cooked live lobsters, my mom’s request, in a pot so big that on stilts it’d make a decent water tower. There were only five of us: my mom, Stanley, Afi, Jack, and me, but it was nice to have a little diversion from the winter blahs.
“Everything was delicious,” my mom said, placing her napkin to the side of the plate. “Thank you.”
“And you’re feeling all right?” Stanley asked. Though my mom had assured him, repeatedly, that her doctor encouraged an hour or two of low-key, around-the-house movement, he was still a nervous ninny.
“I’m good for a little while longer,” my mom replied. “Besides, we haven’t had the dessert yet. Kat, would you bring the cake over?”
The cake was carrot with cream cheese frosting and white chocolate shavings. Stanley had a sweet tooth, something I’d come to appreciate, given my mom’s pregnancy-related salt cravings. I placed the cake in the center of the table and sliced into it with a large knife. Afi got the first piece, and then my mom.
“You haven’t updated us on your trip,” my mom said to Stanley.
I handed out plates.
“I didn’t realize what a trek it would be,” Stanley said.
“We have to fly into Iceland,” Jack said. “From their international airport we’ll transfer to a regional airport in Reykjavik, where we’ll take a flight to Akureyri, and from there a charter flight to Greenland.”
“Into Akureyri?” Afi asked.
“Yep,” Jack said, excitement lacing through his voice. I hadn’t heard him this jazzed in weeks. “We’ll arrive in Daneborg, Greenland, and from there we’ll travel to the Klarksberg Research Station.” Jack paused and glanced around the table. “By dogsled.”
“Dogsled!” I said.
“Into Akureyri?” Afi repeated, clearly missing the connecting flight our conversation had taken. “That’s not far from my hometown.”
“Stanley, you didn’t tell me anything about dogsleds,” my mom said. “This sounds dangerous.”
If not dangerous, at least archaic. And if the Ice Road Truckers could haul those abominable monster trucks over a frozen tundra, then why wasn’t there some sort of bus service, or snow mobiles? Or how about that Polar Express?
“No. Not dangerous at all,” Stanley said. “We’ll be part of a large team, and escorted by members of an elite patrol.”
“Brigid does it every year,” Jack said. “She has assured us it’s just a single day’s journey. She herself has done far more intensive treks, clear north to the Greenland Sea.”
My chin jutted forward at the mention of Brigid, particularly as it was yet another of her many fantastic — or was it fantastical? — life experiences. Plus, Jack had that all-too-familiar moony look, the one that, conversely, launched me into a sour mood.
“When do I leave for Akureyri?” Afi asked.
“Afi.” I put my fork down. “Jack and Stanley are going to Greenland. They’re only flying through Iceland.”
“But when?” Afi asked.
“We leave at the end of March,” Stanley said.
“The timing is perfect,” Afi said.
“Perfect for what, Dad?” my mom asked, her voice thin with concern.
“For the festival, the Dance of the Selkies. Takes place in Hafmeyjafjörður, my hometown, on April first every year.”
“They won’t have time for sightseeing,” my mom said. “They’re going on a research mission.”
“Who said anything about bringing them?”
“I don’t understand.” My mom pushed her dessert plate away from her. “Who are we talking about?”
“Me, of course,” Afi said.
“Dad, you’re not going to Iceland,” my mom said, as if this were the part of his announcement that was odd.
“Afi, did you say Dance of the Selkies?” I asked.
“Yes, I did.”
“Selkies?” I repeated.
“Yep.”
“Aren’t those . . . ?”
“Magical creatures who once a year discard their seal pelts and take human form to dance by a silver moon.”
“So, it’s an old folklore the town celebrates?” asked the human Stork. As much as I had a new appreciation for fairy tales and the weird and wacky — discarding their seal skins and dancing? You didn’t see me sprouting feathers and putting on an air show. Besides, it seemed like the sort of thing a mythical creature wouldn’t want to publicize, never mind preschedule. I’d come to understand the advantage secrecy had over exposure to some of life’s more mystical aspects.
“You must have some wonderful memories of those celebrations,” my mom said, her face looking pale.
“What times we had,” Afi said. “Feasts, and parades, and a dance in the festival hall.” He pushed his chair back with a loud scrape. “I’m booking my flight in the morning.” With that, he pulled his nubby old lopi sweater over his head, said his good nights, and headed out to his car with more giddyup in his gait than I’d seen in weeks.
Stanley assisted my mom up the stairs and back to bed, or as I had come to call it, command central. Jack helped me with the dishes.
“You think your afi is serious?” he asked, gingerly lifting a lobster shell by its tail and dropping it into the garbage.
“Nah. He probably just got excited by all your travel talk.” Which reminded me. “And by the way, dogsleds? Doesn’t that sound a little primitive? Not to mention bumpy.”
“Where we’re going is remote. That early in the spring and that far north, snow is a certainty. Sleds really are the best way to travel. Plus, what an experience. I’ll be above the Arctic Circle. What an opportunity. For me. For my —”
“Your what?” Even though it hadn’t come up again, I hadn’t forgotten his New Year’s resolution.
“My particular skill set.”<
br />
“What about it?”
“To understand it better. To make proper use of it, or —”
“Or what?” I dropped a plate into the dishwasher. “Jack, please tell me you’re going for research. Research only.”
I heard Stanley’s heavy steps coming down the stairs.
“Of course,” Jack said, hunching his shoulders in innocence.
A few minutes later, he and Stanley headed into the thick chill of the February night, leaving me with the rest of the dishes and a lot of questions.
Later, after finishing an English assignment, I pulled out the Thomas book, as I had for two weeks straight. It was a gesture, a get-to-know-you period. It wasn’t my taste in literature, wouldn’t have been even when I was five. I myself had always gone for the gowned princess stories. And don’t even get me started on what an impression the scene from Cinderella where the mice and birds embellish her old dress with beads and a sash had on me. Even back then I was a sucker for the swish of a skirt and a puffed sleeve. Thomas and his train-yard pranks were silly and a little repetitive, but I tried really hard not to let my voice reflect this boredom. I read two long stories that night, my voice high and clear, smiling even as I closed the book with an affected sigh. Nothing. I made a clicking sound with my tongue, wondering why the book wasn’t working. I looked around my room. I loved my room. Dusty-pink walls, a vintage purple duvet, an ivory-painted, scrolled woodwork vanity, a dress form with a half-finished cape and matching skirt, and a huge corkboard with design ideas pinned every which way. It was my space and reflected my own personal style. But maybe that was the problem.
The next day, at the store, I found Afi leaning over Ofelia’s shoulder and studying the screen of her laptop. Ofelia had a laptop? And Afi — a guy who still used an old-fashioned register and didn’t even have cable, never mind Internet — was looking on?
“Hey, guys. What’s up?” I asked.
“Airfares,” Afi said. “Can you believe eleven hundred dollars to fly to Iceland?”
Afi was checking out airfares? “Yowza,” I said.
“If it’s the best you can do,” he said with a shrug. “You said you needed my credit card.”
Whoa, there. “Wait. What? Does Mom know about this?”
“Why should she? She’s in no condition to fly,” Afi said.
“Not to go with you. To say it’s OK. You know how she likes to give her stamp of approval.” Uh-oh. I just told a soon-to-be seventy-year-old man that he needed a permission slip — from his daughter. Afi was a sweet old guy, but nobody likes to be treated like a kindergartner, not even kindergartners.
“I don’t need anyone’s approval,” Afi said.
“But when? For how long? And what about the store?” I asked.
“Ofelia here will cover for me. I fly out on March thirtieth.”
“Why don’t I call Mom real quick?” I said, thinking fast. “She knows all the best websites for cheap tickets.”
Ofelia lowered the screen to her computer. “There’re quite a few open seats on this flight. No harm trying to find a better deal.”
As much as Ofelia still wasn’t my favorite, I was grateful she was playing along. I snapped open my cell phone and went into the storage room to give my mom an earful of what was happening here. My mom sounded worried about Afi. She, like me, had assumed his homesickness was due to his upcoming seven-oh celebration. She sighed and said that she had enough to worry about without her aging father roaming around Iceland on his own, particularly as he seemed frail and sickly since the blizzard. The blizzard. Ugh. The catalyst for so much that was happening right now.
“So what do you want me to do?” I asked my mom.
“Let me speak to him,” she said. “Maybe I can talk him into waiting until summer, until after the baby’s born.”
I walked to the front of the store and handed the phone to Afi. I had been dying for my daily fix, a Caramel Macchiato, ever since Physics had been a lecture so boring it could put the theory of perpetual motion to rest. I bundled up and popped over to Starbucks.
When I got back, Afi and Ofelia were once again leaning over her laptop.
“Your mom says to call her,” Afi said, handing me back my cell phone. “And she wonders if your passport is still valid.”
“My passport? What do I need my passport for?”
“For spring break,” Afi said. “For Iceland.”
Somehow those two phrases were about as complementary as Nike and taffeta. My mind quickly connected the dots of what had possibly transpired, conspired even, in my absence. I quickly punched in the speed dial to command central.
“Hello?”
“Mom,” I said, “what’s going on?”
She exhaled in a slurry release of air. “Has Afi mentioned the trip?”
“Yeah. Kind of. But you’re not serious.”
“Maybe it’s a good idea.”
“Spring break in Iceland is a good idea?”
“You don’t have other plans.”
True. Technically. I did, however, plan to rest and relax in celebration that, by then, The Snow Queen production, and the ice fairy dance solo, in particular, would be history. And I hardly thought that flying to a climate where spring arrived at the beginning of July and hanging with a bunch of seal-cloaked, moonlight-dancing Icelanders sounded better than the plans I didn’t currently have.
“Shouldn’t I have some say in this?” I asked.
“Of course,” my mom said. “I’m asking you to accompany your grandfather on a short trip. One week. I’d feel a lot better about it if I knew he had someone with him. To keep an eye on him.”
She did have a point. Even I got nervous every time he headed out the front door for the short walk home, noticing more than once he set out in the wrong direction.
“I guess it’s cool,” I said. “To see where Afi and Amma were from. But I still think it’d make a better summer trip.”
“I know, but for some reason it’s important for him to be in Iceland for the festival.”
After a long pause, I said, “It’s valid.”
“What is?”
“My passport.”
Next, I called Jack to let him know of my own travel plans. Though it looked like he’d already be safely installed in Greenland by the time I routed through Keflavik, Iceland’s international airport, it was still kind of neat to think our itineraries were so similar. He was surprised and excited and then claimed to be a little jealous of my trip.
“You’re jealous?” It definitely needed clarification.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I’m stoked about the research opportunity, but I’ll be logging numbers into charts and graphs, and staying in military-style barracks, while you’re at a festival, sightseeing, eating at restaurants, and enjoying the comforts of home.”
“When you put it that way.”
“And Brigid has warned us the food is awful.”
It was my turn to feel jealous. Even the most casual of Brigid mentions made my toenails shrivel.
“Yeah, well, they pickle or smoke their fish, and hang their meat in Iceland,” I said. “And you don’t want to know what slátur is. Or hákarl.”
“I’ve heard of both of them. But the Inuits in Greenland still eat seal blubber.”
“It’s a draw,” I said. “Am I gonna see you later?”
“I’m going to try.”
Which I knew meant no promises. One of my favorite Jackisms had always been his rock-solid commitment to things, but that had been when I was one of those things. Lately, all work and no play was making Jack a dull boy, and me impatient. I was in the mood to tell him so, but he hung up on me, claiming to have numbers coming in via fax.
As Ofelia and Afi had the store well in hand, especially given we were the only three in the place, I grabbed my backpack and warmest parka and headed out the back door.
I hardly ever used the back door. It was mostly for deliveries. And behind our side of Main Street lay the abandoned rai
lroad tracks, now overgrown and pulled up in sections and used mostly by joggers and dog walkers. I was neither, but I picked my way along the patchy snow-covered rails. Something had briefly flashed through my mind when I had treated Afi like a kid. Not even a kindergartner likes to be treated like one.
A few minutes later, I found the Paul-Bunyan-size log I was looking for. It lay on its side like a fallen giant, three feet thick and worn smooth as marble. It ran along the tracks with the forest, its likely home, at its back and had presumably watched the busy trains bustle past, clickety-clack, for many, many decades. I laughed at myself. I was beginning to think like a Thomas character. Not too many girls in those books, and the few there were had subordinate roles: passenger coaches pushed and pulled by the bossy engines.
I took a seat on the log and stretched my legs out in front of me. It was very cold. I shivered, though my jacket was designed for modern-day explorers and adventurers. I pulled from my backpack the Thomas book and held it up as a teacher would to her class. I then set it on my lap, opening to a random page.
“You choose this time,” I said out loud, my breath curling like a ghostly ringlet in the chill air.
Nothing. So what was I doing wrong? The right bait. No more pink walls. Asking him to pick. And then it hit me. Child Psych 101. I was asking him to pick. Julia had described him as headstrong, even contrary at times.
“Whatever you do,” I said, “do not pick a story from this book.”
I sat back, bracing myself with arms fully extended to both sides. Even through my fleece-lined mittens, the trunk of the old tree nipped at me with its icy bite. I wasn’t sure how long I would last in this weather. Even Mother Goose had to have flown south for the winter. Then a wind blew from the east, rifling the pages of the book, the last two turning almost languidly until they settled on a story.
A huff was trapped in my throat. I didn’t dare move. I looked down to find the pages flipped to the very back of the thick book and a story entitled “Ghost Train.” Of course, I thought, mentally smacking my forehead. Something scary.
I grasped the edges of the hardcover and began: “‘And every year on the date of the accident, it runs again, plunging into the gap, shrieking like a lost soul.’ ‘Percy, what are you talking about?’ ‘The Ghost Train. Driver saw it last night.’”
