Gingerbread

by Robert Dinsdale

  He staggers back. Dead eyes stare at him. Lying between the trees is what is left of a deer. It seems a strange half-animal, its neck, its haunches all open or gone. Somehow its head seems untouched. It rests on a rucked-up root and fixes its gaze on him.

  The boy scrambles back. Now the smell is thicker in the air. Now, noises crowd in on him from every angle: the snap of a branch, the rustle of feet pawing over roots, the shriek and whisper of wings in the branches above. The stench is on him like a coating. The cold sears it to his skin.

  He crashes back, some treacherous oak tree rearing behind him. Winded, he sinks into the roots. He is still lying there, half-shrouded in darkness, when he sees something stirring on the other side of the ravaged deer. A new shape dissolves out of the darkness. Two silver orbs glow.

  His lips make the word ‘wolf’ but dare not breathe it out.

  He has seen them before, but only on the pages of his storybooks – and this wolf is not like any of those. It is rangy and tall, missing one ear. It moves with a strange gait, never planting one of its paws, and its muzzle darts from one side to another, flashing warnings into the pockets of snow dark around.

  Its eyes land on him. The boy wants to scramble up, hurtle into the forest, but his legs won’t obey him. He closes his eyes, but nothing comes, only the whispering of night. When he dares to open them again, the wolf has its muzzle buried in what is left of the deer. There are soft sounds: of tearing, of shredding, of muscle shearing from bone. There comes a flash of silver as the wolf rears up.

  It sees him. Here comes the silence. All shredding, all tearing comes to a stop. The wolf steadies itself, and out of its yawning guts there comes a low, cavernous rumble.

  The boy opens his mouth to cry out, but the words do not come.

  Something compels him to stand. No sooner has he got to his feet than the wolf is up, over the deer, its paws slathered in gore. It comes to a stop again, advances another stride, stops and lets its growl escape.

  He thinks to say: please. And he thinks to say: no! But the wolf’s silver eyes are on him, and there is only one thing he can do. His legs have come back to life. He heaves himself up, out of the roots, runs around the tree and scrambles off into the night.

  He runs and runs, and when he can run no more, he plunges over a bank onto the frosted earth. Over his shoulder he cranes – but the tussocks of undergrowth at the head of the bank do not come apart. The wolf has not followed. He is alone again, surrounded by only the trees.

  Time, like his body heat, leaches away.

  He does not know, at first, when he stops feeling the tips of his toes. It creeps upon him gradually, and he only really understands it is so when the cold has crept up to his ankles. Now, he cannot feel any part of his feet at all. It is as if he is walking on stumps, a particularly unfortunate pirate.

  ‘Papa, I need to get warm.’

  He thinks: what would papa do? He thinks: papa had a story. He slept, for three days and three nights, in a hole in the ice. In the end, it was the ice that protected him. It is like in the story of Baba Yaga: if you are kind to the wilderness, the wilderness will be kind to you.

  He reaches a small clearing where the canopy is broken to reveal the clouds above. Here the snow has tumbled down, gathering in great drifts against trunks and mounds of knotted root. He falls at one, reaching into the snow to carve it apart. By the time he has excavated a crater, his arms are numb up to the elbows. He pulls them inside his coat and rubs them together, finding a last cavity of warmth in the pits beneath his arms. Then he rolls into the hole he has burrowed. The ice bites when he curls up, but soon he does not feel it. He squirms one arm back into its sleeve and reaches for a fallen branch, hauling it across his hole like a blanket. With difficulty he reaches one more, and then one more again, and if it is not as comfortable as a real blanket might be, perhaps it will catch the snow in the night and fashion one for him.

  In the hole, he reaches into the knapsack still hanging from his shoulder, and his numb fingers find the can of Smolensk Smoked Beef. He scrabbles to find the key, fold it back and release the meat – but his fingertips fail him, and the meat remains hidden.

  He wriggles around in his coat, so that he can pull the hood up and cover most of his face. In here, his breath does not fog, and he can even feel its dewy warmth on his face.

  It is not a fire, but he is a long way from fire tonight.

  ‘Wake up.’

  From far beneath the surface of sleep, he feels himself rising, desperate for air. In the dream he is trapped in the waters of a frozen lake. Fish locked in bubbles of ice float past, mouths open in circles of surprise, and all around is shimmering blue. He rises, rises further still, but the surface of the lake is thick ice. When his head hits it, it lifts, revealing a strata of air. He gulps at it greedily, but the ice forces him back down. In the water he turns, panicked.

  ‘Wake up, my little one. You have to wake up.’

  It is mama. Mama’s voice. Though she is telling him to wake, waking is the last thing he wants to do – for, if he wakes, he will not hear her again. Now he knows this is a dream, he does not mind floating, breathless, in these crystal waters. The cold cradles him, but it does not matter. He fights the urge to rise, smash through the ice, and open his eyes. Better to stay down here with mama.

  ‘Listen, little one. You have to wake up. If you don’t wake up now, you’ll never wake up. It will be too late. Do it for me. You wouldn’t want to upset me, would you?’

  There were times when he upset mama. He didn’t mean to, but she snapped and cried and, once, she even struck out. It was his fault, and he doesn’t want it to be his fault again.

  ‘Wake up. Please wake up …’

  There is a different timbre to mama’s voice now. She is not telling him to wake; she is begging. ‘Just open your eyes. This cold won’t last forever. Just a little bit longer. You’re not alone.’

  A voice his, but yet not his, whispers, ‘Mama?’

  ‘Wake up, my littlest friend. Stay alive. He’ll be here soon. He’s already built you a fire. Cooked you a dinner.’

  Silence, with only the muffled sound of the waters to hold him.

  ‘You see, he’s coming to find you.’

  ‘Who is, mama?’

  ‘He’s coming out of the wood …’

  The boy rises, his head forcing its way again into that stratum of air – and with one last heave, he smashes through the ice.

  He opens his eyes.

  It is still dead of night, though all around him the trees stand luminescent in the snow. The branches are still stretched above him, but they have frozen together, and ice has grown between them to make a trapdoor of frost. It is some minutes before he tries to stand. He reaches up to push open the trapdoor and, as the ice breaks and the branches fly back, he sees the shadow man above.

  He opens his mouth to scream.

  ‘Oh, boy. Oh, boy.’

  Hands reach out to take him, and he is too weak to resist. For a moment he lies there, frozen into the earth, but then he is aloft, whirling through the air with different darknesses shifting on every side.

  ‘Boy, can you hear me?’

  The words come from so very far away. All the boy can really hear is the heavy drumming from deep in the breast against which he is held. When he does not reply, its beat seems to quicken.

  ‘I didn’t come for you, boy, but I’ve come for you now. Please, boy. Please don’t …’ Voice cracking, words fraying apart. ‘… hate me. Please don’t hate a cowardly old man.’

  Now they are moving. Trees sail by. The figure takes great loping strides, but then he breaks into a run. Now the trees hurtle past more quickly. After a short burst the figure slows, and the boy can hear a rattle deep in his breast. The heart beats an ugly, irregular percussion, and then the running starts again.

  In this halting way, they come out of the wood. The snowy pasture is bathed in silver light, a gibbous moon showing between fragmenting clouds, and a wild wind whi
ps in over the treetops.

  He opens his lips, to find them parched dry. That cannot be right; he could not possibly be parched in a world with so much ice. ‘Papa?’

  The arms squeeze him tighter. The heart thunders its reply. ‘We’re nearly there, boy. I’ll build up the fire.’

  In the shelter of the ruin, the wind dies. Grandfather stops, holds the boy tight, and lifts one of his jackboots to force their way through the door. As they barrel inside, the smells of the hearthfire assault him. There has been a pot in the flames, and it is those rich scents that stir him. Suddenly awake, he squirms to be set down, but Grandfather’s arms are locked tight.

  The old man kneels in front of the fire, and lays him down in its glow. ‘Boy, can you see me? Do you know where you are?’

  Bitter cold is only a whisper away from raging heat. He feels as if he is inside the flames, tossed there like a piece of dead wood. The fire rampages over his naked skin, under his clothes, deep into his flesh.

  ‘I can see you, papa. Are we home?’

  The old man’s face comes into focus. It is covered, now, with white down, wild whiskers curling down the line of his jaw. His brow, scored with such deep lines, is an atlas of unknown lands. Here are dark ravines, and here unscalable cliffs. His eyes, tiny craters on that atlas, brim with tears. He shivers, and the tears break free, to flow unchecked down his cheeks. Where they hang in his whiskers they glisten with firelight. ‘Oh boy, I meant to come. I promise I meant to come.’

  The boy manages to sit, though his body wants to curl up like a withering leaf.

  Soon, Grandfather turns, dipping a chipped mug into the pot and bringing it up, filled with tea. ‘Not too much, boy. Take it slow …’

  ‘Papa!’ the boy protests. ‘Papa, it’s burning me …’

  Grandfather recoils, whipping the mug back. ‘Your lips,’ Grandfather begins. ‘Boy, they’re …’

  The boy feels them with the tips of his fingers. They are swollen, hard in places and too soft in others.

  ‘Papa, I promise I waited. I waited and …’

  ‘I know, boy.’

  ‘I went back to the tenement but you weren’t at the tenement. And I went back to school and …’

  Grandfather rocks back, lifting his knees in front so that he can put his arms around them and squeeze, like a spat-upon child. His chin is balanced precariously on the points of his knees.

  ‘What happened, papa?’

  ‘Boy, you’re burning up …’

  It cannot be. Only moments ago, he was freezing. Yet now he can feel the heat raging in him. His face glistens, his skin sears, and he shakes fiercely, sloshing pine tea onto the hearth. ‘Papa, I don’t feel …’

  Grandfather springs to his feet, swooping the boy into his arms. Cradled again, the boy finds himself sailing through the room, past the tumbledown stairs and out through the backdoor. Grandfather hovers on the step and holds him up, as if offering him to the night.

  ‘Papa, I’m sick, aren’t I?’

  ‘You’ll be well.’

  ‘I want to be sick, papa, but I haven’t had a thing to …’

  ‘It will pass.’

  ‘Was it the cold, papa?’

  A voice, barely recognizable, whispers, ‘Yes …’

  ‘I got trapped in the cold, didn’t I?’

  A voice, even harder to recognize, utters, ‘Yes …’

  ‘What happened, papa?’

  Grandfather’s arms hold him tight, so that when he speaks the words vibrate from one body to the other.

  ‘I came for you, the same as always. I went to the car.’

  ‘It didn’t start, did it, papa?’

  ‘Oh, but it started. I turned her round and drove through the trees. But I reached the end of the trees, boy, and …’

  His words trail off, and the boy feels the thunder of his heart dying.

  ‘… I stopped.’

  ‘You stopped, papa?’

  This time he can only mouth the word ‘Yes’.

  ‘Was it because of mama?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Because you couldn’t leave her?’

  Again, ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Because she needs you, doesn’t she, papa? And she needs me too.’

  ‘It isn’t just that, boy.’

  Grandfather turns him, so that he is peering up into the old man’s lined face.

  ‘I couldn’t leave the trees,’ he whispers. ‘They … wouldn’t let me.’

  The boy does not understand. He can see only one half of Grandfather’s lips, so that it looks as if he is speaking from the side of his mouth, whispering dark incantations.

  ‘I sat there for the longest time, boy. Don’t think I didn’t. I sat there until the darkness had spilled all over the world. Until it was deepening and hardening and freezing like the frost. I sat there when the snow began to fall. I waited until it had smothered me where I sat. But when I stepped out, into that snow, it held me there. I couldn’t even walk out to the road.’

  He lifts a hand to stroke the boy’s head. ‘Your fever’s dying.’

  The boy nods.

  ‘I wanted to come for you,’ he trembles. ‘You do believe me, don’t you, boy?’

  ‘Of course I do, papa …’

  ‘It just wouldn’t let me.’

  He turns to cradle the boy back into the ruin. In front of the hearth, he lies him down.

  ‘I won’t ever leave you again. I promise.’

  ‘I was scared for you, papa. I thought …’

  Tramping to his armchair, Grandfather looks over his shoulder. His eyes are full again, reflecting the leaping flames. ‘I know,’ he utters, and sinks into his seat.

  Telling mama he loved her was as automatic as waking up in a morning and making toilet. But telling it to Grandfather is a different thing, because Grandfather is an old, old creature and might not understand.

  The boy, accustomed to warmth once again, sees the knapsack lying in the hearth and crawls to pick it up. Inside, the can of Smolensk Smoked Beef is frozen as a ball of ice. He sets it aside, thinking it will make a broth for Grandfather, and goes to him.

  ‘I brought it for you, papa.’

  At first, Grandfather’s eyes don’t seem to see the knapsack in his hands. Then he reaches up, and old fingers take hold of old leather. ‘Where did you find this?’

  ‘It was in the tenement.’

  The old man caresses it, wondering at its every wrinkle and flake. ‘I haven’t seen this thing in …’ Grandfather’s words peter away.

  ‘You’re okay, aren’t you, papa?’

  At last, holding the knapsack tight, he says, ‘I promise.’

  The boy throws his arms around his breast and buries his head there, in the old man’s shoulder. Both of them are crying now. The channels of their tears run together.

  ‘I promise, too. We don’t have to leave the woods, papa. If the trees won’t let you, they won’t let me either. I’ll stay wherever you are. I’ll look after you.’

  ‘I’m the one who’s meant to look after you.’

  ‘We’ll look after each other, papa. I promised mama.’

  Tonight, he will sleep in Grandfather’s lap. Tonight, he will curl up there like mama’s shawl in the tenement chair, and listen to Grandfather’s heart echo in his breast. He hauls himself up, feels the old man’s arms close around him.

  As their eyelids fall, a thought occurs to the boy. He voices it, though his tongue is thick between blistered lips. ‘How did you know where to find me, papa?’

  But Grandfather is already skimming the surface of sleep. ‘It was the trees,’ he breathes through lips that barely move. ‘The trees showed me the way.’

  He does not miss school, for now there are different kinds of lessons.

  In the weeks that follow – because, for once in his life, the boy must learn – Grandfather spills his sorceries. First, there are lessons in sculpting fires. Together they collect kindling and build the sculptures into which flames
can be invoked. It is not like that night, lost in the wild, when he thought simple words could cast a spell; a spell is a more difficult thing, and to make the magic work you must take two pieces of wood, one with a dip in the middle, and drive a brittle branch into it, rolling it between your palms. In this way, a magic is born – and, out of that magic, the flames that can guard you in the long nights.

  There are other lessons, too. In the forest, Grandfather sets traps. He leads the boy on his rounds, from cattail pond to open dell, and shows him the lengths of string, tied around trunks, from which frozen squirrels dangle, or the rabbit with its hind legs caught in a loop of wire. He shows him how to take the axe to the trunk of the black pine and how to roast that bark in a fire for biscuits, or grind it down for flour. He takes him to the fringes of waters where the frogs sleep, ready to be plucked out and put in the pot, and to the boy this seems the least cruel of all. Those frogs just go to sleep, waiting for spring, and never wake up.

  He takes him between the trees, where the monstrous bison graze. Those beasts with legs like trunks and great humps above their heads, two devil horns. He whispers, ‘I ate one, once. I scrapped with a vagrant wolf and won, and I feasted on him for six days and seven nights. It made me human again.’

  ‘Is it true, papa?’

  ‘Oh, I know it is true …’

  The boy joins him for the final words. ‘… for one was there who told me of it.’

  Soon, the boy knows how to spirit the flames and broil up a wild rabbit, and soon Grandfather trusts him to tend to the cauldron while he stalks the fringes of forest, rooting up nettles and pine needles to soak in the snow-melt. And, as he stirs those wild things round and round, he begins to think: the city, the tenement, the schoolhouse – all of those are the things out of stories. They are lost in the long ago, and the real world is here, in this little house.

  Tonight, Grandfather returns from the forest with a brace of wood pigeons. ‘Do you know what night it is?’

  The boy stops, lost in steam from the pot. He wonders what Grandfather might mean, but then a sudden thought occurs.

  ‘Oh, papa!’ He is filled with glee. ‘New Year’s night!’