Melt

by Robbi McCoy

  Malik gritted his teeth and sputtered, “You are full of shit!” He threw up his hands and walked rapidly to his tent, his dog at his heels.

  Chuck shrugged and faced Jordan, smiling. “That guy’s got a big chip on his shoulder.”

  “You’re diddling with what he’s most passionate about,” Jordan commented.

  “Diddling?” He pressed his lips together. “You’re right. That’s exactly what I was doing.” He turned to Kelly. “Let’s go, Sheffield. Get your gear.”

  “But…” Kelly began, turning a questioning glance toward Jordan.

  “I have to be back by four,” Chuck explained. “No time for any more diddling around here.”

  Jordan laughed. “Thanks for coming out, Chuck. I hope you got a good story. And, Kelly, send me a few of those photos, okay? I’m sure they’ll be amazing.”

  Jordan’s expression was thoroughly public again, showing no sign of the earlier openness she had extended to Kelly. There would be no further opportunity for a private conversation today and Kelly didn’t know if or when another would present itself.

  Frustrated and disappointed, Kelly took her cameras to the boat and prepared for the trip back to town.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Despite her agreement with Kelly that they would go together to the cave, Pippa couldn’t wait. It was her last day off work and Kelly was with Mr. Lance at Camp Tootega for the day. Besides, Kelly didn’t believe in Asa, and Pippa worried that her negative energy would interfere with her ability to reconnect. So she took her family’s boat out alone and piloted up the coast, pulling in as close as she could to the location of the cave, and limping with her walking stick over the coastal terrain to the ravine. From the edge she could easily see the patch of cottongrass below that had drawn her there in the first place, white heads bobbing in the breeze. Near them was the opening in the cave roof she had fallen through.

  She made her way down to the side entrance she had created and squeezed into the cave, shining a flashlight around the interior. It was as she had left it. On the floor were scattered a few wilted cottongrass flowers, left where they had fallen on that day. The pile of small rocks stood near one wall as before, imbued with a new significance now that she understood its purpose. The sight of it filled her with tense expectation, sending a chill down her spine. Under those rocks was the proof. A tiny skeleton, maybe an animal skin wrapped around it, lay protected there where Asa had left it hundreds of years ago.

  Pippa wanted so badly to pull the rocks away. But she knew enough about archaeology to know she had to leave the grave marker intact, to preserve the integrity of the site. Her presence here may have already compromised some of the evidence, such as footprints, hairs and fibers left by Asa and Gudny. But the most important evidence, the grave and the baby, had to remain untainted until someone qualified and impartial could gather the evidence that would prove Asa’s story. Then everyone would believe it, even Kelly.

  She knelt beside the pile of rocks and shined her light on the wall to illuminate the carved symbols. “These are letters,” she announced triumphantly, her voice echoing in the chamber. She traced the markings with her finger, trembling with the force of knowing that Asa herself had made this message with her own broad, freckled hand, and that the only person ever to see it was Pippa, as if it had been meant for her, like the entire story, sent to her from the past to find a voice, finally, after such a long silence.

  She roused herself to take photos of the runes and the rock pile before sitting cross-legged on the floor and turning off the flashlight. She closed her eyes and tried to empty her mind of every thought except an image of Asa, that willowy blonde woman with eyes the color of her own, her ancestor, her grandmother whose DNA lived in her cells, carrying the memories of her life.

  She reran the episode of Asa arriving home in triumph only to find her family and village decimated. As she remembered these facts, she began to feel sad and hopeless. She focused her mind on those emotions, willing herself to be Asa, a woman fighting against nature, her countrymen and history itself to survive, to allow her child to survive, to allow her story to survive down through the generations and generations until one of her progeny would finally remember it.

  After several silent minutes had elapsed, Pippa felt a mild wave of nausea overtake her. When it had passed, she found herself sitting inside a dome-shaped room, the air warm and heavy, smelling of soot. She looked up to see a grid of whale bones forming the ceiling, packed over with animal skins and turf. A fire burned on one side of the room and smoke curled out through an opening in the ceiling. Sitting beside her was a brown-skinned woman in her late forties with sable-colored eyes and long black hair punctuated with strands of white. Her upper lip was creased with a fine network of wrinkles. Her hands, working with needles made of bone and thread of caribou sinew, moved rapidly to make fine stitches, binding together two pieces of seal skin.

  Saamik, that was the woman’s name. She smiled at the children at their feet, stretching her mouth wide and causing the wrinkles above her lip to disappear. The children were playing on the fur-covered floor. As far as Asa could tell, they were acting out a story about a bear and a fox. At least it was supposed to be if Gudny had her way. Gudny was the bear. She commanded her little brother Jaaku to be a fox, but he had his own ideas. Crawling around his sister where she stood on all fours, he growled deeply and shook his head so that his black, shoulder-length hair flew side to side. Gudny’s pale eyebrows were knit together in consternation as she complained at him to no avail. She then looked to her mother, hoping for an intervention.

  Asa shook her head and continued her sewing. She was making a pair of pants for Jaaku. He was growing so fast, he kept her busy making clothes.

  Asa’s husband Ortuq was outside repairing the sled, but he wouldn’t stay out there for long in this bone-chilling weather. Inside, they were cozy and warm. Shadows flickered on the walls, cast by the flame of whale oil lamps with their cottongrass flower wicks. Asa thought wistfully about those fluffy white flowers and how the Norsemen trampled them underfoot, giving them no thought, while their sheep dwindled to nothing and even a cotton wick became scarce and precious.

  She reflected that if she were still in her old village during a dark winter day like this, she would be huddled under a deep pile of skins, shivering in her wooden house. She thought of the village less and less often. It had been four years since she left. There had been no word from or about the village since. In the beginning, Asa had dreamed of returning to her kinsmen, but as time went on, she no longer had that desire. Especially once Jaaku was born. Besides, she knew the Norsemen would never adopt any Skræling ways. Even if life could be better. Sometimes she thought the Norse way was to suffer proudly. Skrælings, she had learned, did not invite suffering. Their disposition was much more lighthearted.

  Grif, Olaf’s young son who had come with her, was now a young married man with a baby. His second child was on the way. He said he was going back to the village next summer when they moved south to the hunting grounds. He wanted to see his father and persuade him to come live with them…if Olaf were still alive. He also wanted to introduce his father to his son and his wife. Would Olaf be happy about this? Asa wondered. Most likely he would. This was what he wanted for his son. The others would be horrified that Grif had taken a Skræling wife and that neither she nor their son had been baptized as Christians. They would feel the same about Asa, Ortuq and Jaaku. Hild would not welcome Jaaku into her house, despite his beautiful, innocent smile. As for Ortuq, Asa knew Hild would see him merely as one of the savages who had murdered her son. But the Norsemen had killed Skrælings too and Asa no longer saw any difference.

  She was grateful that Ortuq and Saamik and the others had not held views similar to Hild’s about her little party of refugees and turned them away.

  No, she thought, there was no going back, even if there was a village to return to. She was afraid for Grif, that he would go there and find no one left. The l
ast few winters had been hard. She could only hope that some of the others had become desperate enough to do as she had done and were safe with other Skræling families. She was certain that was the only way she would ever see any of them again. When she heard of Grif’s plan to visit the village, she urged him not to go, saying, “It will be a miracle if anyone still lives.”

  “Then I will go and bury the dead,” he replied fatalistically.

  Grif was an admirable young man. He was respected and well liked. His father would be proud.

  Saamik chewed on an aku root, sucking out the sweetness. “Naja,” she called to Gudny, for that was her name for her. “Since he’s growling like a dog, let him be a dog, then he has it right.”

  Gudny answered to both her Norse and her Skræling name, but she had lately exhibited a preference for Naja, introducing herself to strangers that way. Because of her fair skin, blonde hair and blue eyes, she was often fussed over, and she savored the attention.

  Gudny shook her head at Saamik. “He has to be a fox,” she insisted.

  “I think Jaaku wants to be the bear. Why don’t you be the fox.”

  “I have to be the bear because I’m bigger,” Gudny explained with patience beyond her nine years.

  Expecting Ortuq to return at any moment, Asa put down her sewing and poured boiling water over some crushed aku root to make him some tea. Like his mother, he had a weakness for sweets. Once in a while Asa wished she could make him some sweet milk because she knew he would have liked it so much. Gudny had missed milk more than anything. But there were no cows or goats left in Greenland, as far as Asa knew. Without milk, she could not make one of her favorite dishes, creamed kvan. Ortuq had never eaten kvan at all before Asa came. But he ate it now because she stewed it for him, without milk, and he liked it. That wasn’t the only thing of value she had brought with her, she liked to think. But the truth was that the Skrælings knew how to make good use of everything available to them on the land and in the sea. If her kinsmen had known how to do all these things…

  Gudny had gradually forgotten about milk. She had forgotten many things. She had almost forgotten Bjarni. Thankfully, she had forgotten how he died. Now her father was Ortuq and she loved him dearly. He had taught her about fishing and hunting and carving bone. He said she had special sight in her light-colored eyes, that she could see things nobody else could see. Before a hunt, playfully, he often asked her to guide the hunters. “Naja, where will we find the musk ox?” he would say, then point one direction or the other and ask, “Over there? Over there?” Gudny would look self-important and point in some random direction and confidently pronounce, “Over there!” Then Ortuq and the entire hunting party would set off in whatever direction Gudny had pointed. If they turned and went another way after leaving the camp, she never knew.

  “Mama,” begged Gudny with irritation, “can you make him bark like a fox?”

  Asa turned from the hearth. “Jaaku,” she called. He sat up and turned his lovely moon face to her, giving his full attention. She made a yipping sound like a fox to demonstrate. Yip-yip-yip! Gudny rolled over on the floor laughing hysterically. Saamik giggled. Why is it so much funnier when your mother does it? Asa wondered. Then she yipped some more, sending both children into ecstasies of laughter.

  When Jaaku recovered himself, he sat up and imitated his mother, laughing between his yipping barks. Gudny, happy and triumphant, clambered around him growling like a bear, her plan finally realized.

  A scuffling at the crawlspace announced the arrival of Ortuq. The children stopped their game and came to attention, waiting to pounce on their father as soon as his head poked into the room. Asa sat down next to Saamik to watch them.

  “Do I hear a bear inside my house?” Ortuq called, crawling in and looking like a bear himself in his thick coat and hood, a fine dusting of snow clinging to the fur.

  “It’s me!” Gudny cried, beside herself with excitement.

  Ortuq moved toward them on all fours, glancing briefly at Asa and Saamik with a twinkle in his dark eyes. “Here is a bear trying to eat my family.” He grabbed Gudny, rolled over on his back and held her above him as she giggled and kicked the air. The hood fell from his head, revealing his silky black hair.

  “I’m a fox!” Jaaku boasted and climbed on his father, yipping at him.

  Ortuq wrestled with them, all three of them laughing, until he was out of breath and overheated in his heavy clothing. Saamik squeezed Asa’s hand fondly, sharing a look of maternal satisfaction.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Having spent most of her time so far in Greenland shooting scenery, Kelly decided a look at Ilulissat itself was in order. She’d go for a walk around town today and shoot the people, the buildings, the ordinary life in this extraordinary place. She liked shooting people more than scenery anyway because there was more to discover. The camera became a more active participant with a human being as its subject, not just a passive recording device.

  As she sat on the edge of the bed to tie her shoes, she was startled by Pippa’s friendly face at her window. She was peering in through the glass with her intense blue eyes. Seeing that she’d been noticed, Pippa waved.

  Kelly stepped over and raised the window. “Hi. You’re out awfully early.”

  “I was hoping you’d have time to talk about the cave before I go to work.”

  Kelly sat on the bed again. “Okay. Chuck’s working on his story today so we’re sticking around town. I’ll meet you in the living room.”

  She reached down to tie her other shoe. When she turned back to the window, she saw that Pippa had hoisted herself onto the windowsill and was squirming through the opening. When she’d gotten halfway through, she let herself fall in. She landed with a thud on the floor.

  “What are you doing?” Kelly asked impatiently.

  “Coming in,” Pippa answered matter-of-factly, then got to her feet.

  Kelly sighed. “What did you want to talk about?”

  Pippa sat on the end of the bed, bending one leg up under herself and producing a small digital camera. “I went to the cave yesterday. I took some pictures this time.”

  “You went out there by yourself?”

  Pippa nodded emphatically. “I got the rest of the story! It’s so amazing. I went right home last night and wrote it all down because I didn’t want to forget a thing.”

  “That was a good idea, but you should have waited for me.”

  “I just couldn’t wait. Now I need to get an archaeologist out there. Dr. Westgate probably knows an archaeologist, don’t you think? She could help.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Kelly was reluctant to get Jordan involved in Pippa’s fantasy.

  “I know you don’t think it really happened,” Pippa said. “You think I’m just inventing it.”

  Kelly shrugged. “I guess it’s more important that you believe it really happened.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Pippa admitted. “But it isn’t like a ghost story. It doesn’t have to be like that. You know how some people believe in reincarnation because they have these memories of previous lives, memories of things that happened but they know didn’t happen to them, not in their present life?”

  “Sorry, Pippa, but I can’t go along with the idea of past lives. If that’s your explanation of Asa…”

  “No, not exactly.” Pippa grew more serious. “What if there are these, like, threads of memory that get passed along in our genes from our ancestors just like instincts do? There’s an awful lot of mysterious stuff in our subconscious minds. If even simple animals can inherit awesome bits of information like how to fly south for the winter, why can’t we inherit specific memories too? Maybe they’re in there wherever your baby memories are and you can’t get to them except under hypnosis or something. Or when you have a concussion.”

  “What are you saying exactly?”

  “I don’t think Asa is me in an earlier time. I think she’s my ancestor. Maybe we can inherit memories the same way we inherit everyth
ing else, through our genes. Maybe memories of past lives aren’t our own lives, but the lives of our ancestors.”

  Kelly considered the idea. “I guess it’s not impossible, put like that. Like you said, our minds are full of mysteries.”

  “It would certainly explain a lot of these crazy memories people have.”

  “It’s an interesting idea,” Kelly relented sincerely. “Whatever it is, this story seems to have had a profound effect on you.”

  “It has. She was a very brave woman to have left everything she knew, especially to go trust her life to people she thought of as heathen savages. Do you want to see the pictures I took?”

  “Sure.”

  Pippa extracted the memory card from the camera and handed it to Kelly, who sat at her computer and opened a folder containing a half dozen photos. On the screen was a series of angular scratches on stone.

  Pippa stood behind her chair and pointed. “These are letters.”

  “They don’t look like letters to me,” Kelly said, peering at the scratches.

  “Because they aren’t your kind of letters. They’re runes.”

  “Runes?” Kelly looked again. “Really?”

  “Yeah. Viking runes.”

  “What does it say?”

  “I don’t know. I recognize some of the characters, but I don’t remember enough to read them. It’s been a few years since I studied this in school. It’s very exciting, though, isn’t it? I bet nobody has ever seen this before. Not since it was created, I mean, almost seven hundred years ago.”