The Mist Children

by E. C. Hibbs

  “I’m not tired,” she said, even as her eyes drooped.

  “Liar.”

  “You’re calling me that a lot. Please stop it.”

  “Elin, you’re not well,” Tuomas said. He grasped the tops of her arms, worried that she would plummet to the ground in front of him if he let go. “Stop pretending you’re fine. I know you’re not. You need to rest.”

  “All I’ve done on this migration is rest,” she snarled. “Why do you look so shaken up? What’s happened?”

  “I just don’t like seeing you like this,” he replied quickly.

  She didn’t move. “Now who’s the liar?”

  Tuomas faltered. He hadn’t expected her to see though him that easily.

  “What’s happened?” Elin asked again. “You can tell me. You know you can trust me.”

  He shook his head. “I need to speak to Lilja first. It’s important. I’ll talk to you about it tomorrow, alright?”

  Elin held a hand to her mouth to stifle a cough, then wiped it on her tunic in an effort to hide the blood. The sight sent a shiver through him. He couldn’t help but wonder how much longer she would be able to hang on.

  “Is it to do with the soul plague?” she asked.

  Tuomas nodded. “In a manner of speaking.”

  “Please stop keeping secrets from me…”

  She let out a shuddering breath and Tuomas felt her wobble in his arms. Before she could protest, he turned her around and guided her back inside the hut. She didn’t resist as he helped her sit down on the nearest reindeer skin. Then he helped her wriggle into her sleeping sack and tucked a blanket around her shoulders.

  “Just try to get some rest,” he said. “I’ll speak to you about everything in the morning.”

  She coughed again. No blood came this time, but when she breathed in, her lungs crackled horribly.

  A thought passed through his mind. He slipped a hand inside his tunic and drew out the little bone carving of the fox. He pressed it into her palm.

  “Keep hold of that,” he said. “I made it when I was going into the tundra with Lilja.”

  “Why are you giving it to me?”

  “Maybe it will help, somehow. It helped me, in its way.”

  Elin nodded and held the carving against her chest. Tuomas offered her the best smile he could muster, then slipped out into the night. She took the hint and didn’t follow him.

  He crept through the forest until he reached the hut Enska and Lilja were staying in. It was one of the furthest from the fire pit, nestled against the base of a hillock, the turf roof blending seamlessly with the sloping earth. He crouched by the wall to listen, and sure enough, heard the soft tapping of a knife. Lilja was back.

  Without even bothering to knock, he burst through the door. Lilja looked up in alarm, almost dropping the bone ladle she was carving. Like him, she’d wasted no time in washing the ashes off her face, but despite how hard she had scrubbed, he could still tell she had been crying.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “I need you to come to the beach with me,” Tuomas replied.

  She eyed him suspiciously. “Why?”

  “Just come with me.”

  Lilja didn’t budge. “Why?”

  He relented. “I want to see if there’s a way to free Aki, and he’s the only one who’s close enough to the draugars to know. I have to try and reach him, and I need your help to do it.”

  Lilja pressed her lips together and slammed her knife down angrily. The force of it made Tuomas jump.

  “I told you not to get involved,” she snapped. “You promised me you wouldn’t. Twice.”

  “I know, but things are different now. People are dead.”

  “I’m well aware of that, Tuomas. He couldn’t just make me suffer – he had to let the draugars take the children. All those innocent children… I killed them.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “I might as well have.

  “No, you didn’t,” Tuomas said again, more firmly. “Listen to me. You did your best. That’s all anyone could have asked for. Now, would you rather I help you with Aki or have the others pounding on that door? Henrik knows you have some kind of connection to him.”

  Lilja’s face paled, then her brows shot down with fury. “How? Did you tell him?”

  “He tried to make me, but I didn’t breathe a word,” Tuomas snapped back. “You know this isn’t the first soul plague. Well, Aki isn’t the first mage taken by them, either. They need a new mage for each time the mist comes back, and those they take don’t age and don’t die. Henrik lost his cousin the same way. He’s in exactly the same boat as you. And you might think you hide it well, but not from someone who knows what to look for.”

  Lilja stared at him. She took hold of the knife handle and clutched it so hard, her knuckles cracked. Tuomas approached slowly, holding his hands out in an attempt to placate her.

  “I’m only trying to help,” he insisted. “And the migration’s over now. We can’t delay any longer. The draugars went after Sisu even though he’s older; he didn’t even have the sickness. The other kids are going to die too, and you know it. Elin is going to die.”

  Speaking those four words tore something inside him. He could barely fathom their meaning; the consequence they could bring. He knelt before Lilja and fixed her with a soft yet steady gaze.

  “We have to do something before anyone else dies or the draugars come back. We can work together. I’m the only one who can connect, but maybe Aki will listen to you.”

  “Are you mad?” she snarled. “I was there when we were crossing the water. The drumming didn’t work then. Every time I’ve drummed for him, it didn’t work. Why should it work now? What makes you think he’ll pay the slightest bit of attention to me?”

  Tuomas held her eyes. “You’re his mother. He came back to you at the Nordjarvi even after the draugars took him.”

  “Do I have to remind you again, what I did to him? You saw the state of his cheeks.”

  “Alright, do you remember the other day, when I said I had something to tell you? Well, I spoke to Lumi after you went to bed. She said that Aki would never have chosen to leave you. He’s not allied with the draugars, he’s their prisoner. They’re just using him as a puppet, you see? That’s why they retreated when Sisu cut him: his taika is their only link to keep the sickness going. He isn’t doing this to hurt you. Lilja, please. We must try.”

  She looked at him and didn’t move a muscle. Her face was unreadable; Tuomas couldn’t tell if she was going to cry or slap him. Her free hand curled into a fist, and for the briefest moment, he thought he might have pushed her too far.

  Eventually, she let out an explosive sigh and snatched her drum.

  “Fine.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Tuomas led the way back to the spot he had fled to, snatching twigs and peeling birch off trees as he passed them. When they arrived on the beach, he arranged the kindling, quickly struck a flint and let a small fire spread across the wood. It was far enough away from the main gathering; nobody else would see. The only ones who might be watching were some curious reindeer.

  Lilja’s eyes moved nervously towards the sea. The mist was still floating there, thinner than before, but its presence was unmistakable. It drained the energy out of the air; tasted foul and felt cold against the skin even from a distance.

  Tuomas stared at the fire. He rolled back his sleeve and held his hand as close to the logs as he dared.

  “Lilja,” he called. “Watch this.”

  She glanced over her shoulder. When he was sure she was looking, he moved his hand into the flames. Just like the last time, it didn’t hurt at all.

  Lilja rushed over and stared as the fire twisted around Tuomas’s fingers. He spread them wide and then wiggled them, leaving them there for even longer. There was no danger and no pain. This was as much a part of him as his own soul.

  He looked at her with a half-smile on his lips.

  “I found out
what Red Fox One means,” he said.

  Lilja nodded, not moving her eyes from his hand. When he removed it, she inspected the flesh, but there wasn’t a burn in sight.

  “Spirit of the Flames,” she breathed. “Of course.”

  The two of them shared a grin, but then a shadow returned to Lilja’s face as she recalled the reason the fire had been built in the first place. As soon as her own smile dropped, so did Tuomas’s. The brief moment of not thinking was gone, and suddenly he was surrounded once again by poisonous mist, crackling coughs, the memory of Paavo’s lifeless eyes and the Moon Spirit’s cold beckoning…

  He shivered and rolled his sleeve down. He felt a hundred times heavier, as though the beach had filled his every organ with its stones.

  “I want you to know I’m not happy about this,” Lilja said. She sounded how he felt.

  “I’m sorry,” said Tuomas. “I mean that.”

  “I can’t believe I let you talk me into it.”

  “You can go back if you want. I can do it by myself.”

  “Not a chance,” Lilja snapped. “I’m not letting you get hurt. Now, what did you have in mind? How are we supposed to reach Aki?”

  Tuomas faltered. “I… I don’t actually know.” He thought quickly. “Can we combine our taika, like we did when we were crossing the channel? If I do the drumming, and call him out, then you can do the talking.”

  Lilja shrugged, but a glint of hope flickered in the depths of her icy eyes.

  “I guess there’s only one way to find out.”

  She threw herself down beside the fire and dangled her drum over it, balancing it on the end of one finger. Tuomas couldn’t help but smirk at the offhand way she did it. It reminded him of the night when he’d met her, and Lumi demanded she put her back into the sky.

  As she held it, he looked at the symbols. He had seen them on the way to the Nordjarvi, but once again marvelled at the time and complexity she’d taken to recreate them from memory. The level of detail didn’t surprise him – he had realised during their travels together that everything Lilja touched was beautifully decorated. In places, the alder paint was so thin, he supposed she must have applied it with the tip of a needle.

  His attention lingered on the image of the little boy in the middle of a frozen lake. It was practically identical to Henrik’s.

  She laid the drum over her legs and ran her palm across the surface, as though caressing a child. Then she glanced at the Lights, nervousness tangling into a knot behind her eyes. Tuomas didn’t have to look twice at her to sense the whirlpool of emotions raging inside her. Fear, sorrow, guilt… and yet also strange excitement.

  “You’re looking forward to seeing him again, aren’t you?” he asked.

  Blood rose to Lilja’s cheeks. “Uh… well…”

  “It’s alright,” said Tuomas. “I understand. He’s your son.”

  She looked straight at him, not blinking, and two tears dripped down her cheeks. Tuomas offered her the sincerest smile he could manage, then held his own drum to the fire to warm it. After a few seconds, he pulled it out, but jumped when Lilja suddenly reached over and took hold of his hand.

  “Sigurd,” she said.

  Tuomas frowned. “What?”

  “Sigurd,” she said again. “He’s Aki’s father.”

  Tuomas almost dropped his drum in shock.

  Elin’s father? The kindly man who had taken both of them in, travelled with them to the Northern Edge of the World, helped rescued him from Kari’s clutches?

  Lilja watched him carefully, gauging his reaction. She wasn’t joking.

  “But…” Tuomas stammered, “but… that means Elin and Aki… they’re half-siblings?”

  “That’s correct,” said Lilja.

  “Does Sigurd know?”

  “No. I told you, the only ones who know are me, you and Enska.”

  “So, he never met Aki? Not even once?”

  “Never.” Lilja poked at the fire with a nearby piece of driftwood. “I wasn’t proud of the fact that he was already a married man. So I kept it quiet. Like I said, Kari and I were enough to Aki. We were the ones who raised him.”

  With a jolt, Tuomas remembered the evening she had taken him to the Nordjarvi. She had forbidden him from telling anyone, even Elin, who she knew they could trust. It all made sense. Why would she have excluded Elin so blatantly if there was a risk of word getting back to Sigurd?

  His heart raced.

  “The Great Bear Spirit coming to you wasn’t the only reason you stayed wandering for all those years, was it?” he asked. “It was so nobody would find out about this.”

  Lilja nodded sadly.

  “So why did you tell me?”

  She gave a gentle shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe because I don’t know what’s going to happen now. Calling Aki, trying to connect with him, this whole business with the rip in the Worlds… Someone ought to know the truth. I’d rather it be you.”

  Tuomas swallowed anxiously. “But what about Sigurd? Aren’t you going to tell him?”

  “It’s better this way,” said Lilja. “Think about it. He has a wife and daughter. Their family is secure. They love each other. If I told them about this now, it would tear everything apart for the three of them. I won’t do that. I’m the one who deserves to feel the shame, so I’ll have it myself.”

  Tuomas’s shock melted into an overwhelming sense of pity. He knew better than to pry into how or why the affair had happened, but the way Lilja spoke sent chills down his spine. She had borne her burden, practically alone, for ten years, simply to give one family a chance at happiness. And, most tragic of all, they would never know she’d done so.

  He was reminded, in a strange way, of his relationship with Lumi. Son of the Sun and Daughter of the Moon, switched at birth, then separated by two Worlds. When they had been reunited, how long had Lumi held off telling him who they really were to each other?

  He could remember her words as though it was yesterday:

  “I was not sure it would be best for you. You had a life, a mission you needed to accomplish. I simply became ensnared in it when you summoned me.”

  He crawled over to Lilja and put his arms around her. She stiffened, not expecting the embrace, but then held him back and pressed her face into his shoulder.

  “Thank you for not judging me,” she whispered.

  “I never will,” said Thomas. “I promise.”

  That earned him a small snigger from Lilja. She pushed him away gently and motioned to the drums in their laps.

  “Well, speaking of promises about to be broken,” she said, “let’s do this, and then hopefully we can go home.”

  Her nonchalance didn’t fool Tuomas for a moment, but he didn’t say anything. It was just her last line of defence against the torrent of emotion which was about to hit her.

  He took his position beside her and they drew a circle around themselves. Already, he could feel their taika weaving together like the strands of a braid, to keep out all the evil which might be lurking nearby.

  Then they struck up a rhythm. They were different at first, but then settled into one, followed by their chants; voices dipping and rising, using muscles that mere speaking could not find. In Lilja, Tuomas heard a sound he’d never sensed before: all her longing and sadness, as she held the image of her little boy in her mind.

  He felt her souls fluttering, like a bird with a broken wing; as hard as she tried, she couldn’t rise high enough. Tuomas latched onto her and pulled both of them away from their bodies, up into the beyond, where there were no boundaries. She held him tightly and they broke through.

  His summery taika twisted with hers: warm light on the tundra; lingonberries and spring flowers. Then a landscape began to fall into view: first banks of powdery snow, followed by a grey sky and a plane of flat frozen water.

  He recognised it at once. They were on the Nordjarvi – or a version of it from long ago. And in front of them was a five-year-old boy with hair like his mother’s, wide-eyed
and smiling, running around with a small antler held to his head. He looked so similar to Lilja, with the same upturned nose and ice-blue eyes. There was hardly anything of Sigurd in him at all – if she hadn’t told Tuomas about his parentage, he never would have even guessed.

  But more than anything, it struck him how eerily different Aki was. His clothes were dry; his skin was plump and his laughter rang through the air like a bell. It was like watching the complete opposite to what had appeared in the channel. He was so alive.

  Lilja stifled a sob.

  Aki? she said.

  He turned to look at her and dropped the antler.

  Mama? he asked, taking a tentative step towards them. What took you so long?

  Lilja choked. I… I thought… Have you been waiting for me?

  I’ve been so lonely! Aki cried, stamping his feet. I miss you! I want to come home!

  For a long moment, Lilja was unable to speak. She clung so strongly to Tuomas, he wasn’t sure where her power ended and his own began. In that crushing grip, he felt all her years of darkness; all the lingering uncertainty as she drummed for an answer which never came.

  I want nothing more than for you to be home with me, she cried. I love you so much, baby.

  Where’s Uncle Kari? Aki asked. Then he looked straight at Tuomas. Who’s that?

  This is a very good friend of mine, said Lilja. He’s a mage too, just like you. He’s the reason why I can talk to you now. His name is Tuomas.

  Aki suddenly smiled. I’m going to be the best mage ever, aren’t I, Mama? Uncle Kari said so! He said I was going to be amazing!

  Yes, that’s right, Lilja cried, not bothering to hide her tears. You would have been wonderful.

  Behind Aki, the ice of the Nordjarvi sparkled in the pale light. He picked up the antler again and swept it around himself, pretending to beat an invisible drum.

  Bam, bam, bam! See, Mama? I’m going to hit you with a shockwave – wham! Amazing!

  He giggled so hard, he lost his footing and slipped over. As he landed, blood smeared across the ice and Tuomas felt Lilja tense at the sight. It was coming from a large gash down his forearm from when Sisu had attacked him.

  Aki stumbled upright and took a step closer. Tuomas instinctively shied away, nervousness getting the better of him, but Lilja held tight and refused to let him back off. This moment was too much for her to give up.