The Cold Is in Her Bones

by Peternelle van Arsdale

  “But now you’ve come, Milla. And you’ll get us all out.”

  “How can we get everyone out, Iris? Niklas wouldn’t agree to it. And even if he wanted to, the other boys would stop him.”

  “It must be tonight,” Iris said. She stared past Milla, as if watching her plan unfold. “You’ll call to Niklas, tell him that you want out. When he comes to let you out, we’ll lock him in the cell here and then we’ll let the other girls out. And then we’ll all escape.”

  “We can’t lock Niklas in here, Iris. He helped me. And he wants to help you. No, the only way is to tell him that we need to get you out. And then he’ll help us.”

  “You said yourself that he won’t let the other girls out, and I won’t leave without them. Milla, how could you expect me to after everything you know now? And can you imagine what Ragna would do to them if I got away? How much worse it would be for the rest? Anyway, if Niklas let only you and me out, we’d still have to get past the other boys. And that Petter. He’s a nasty one. We need the other girls to help us if we’re to get out.”

  “But locking up Niklas, in here?” Milla looked around her and couldn’t imagine it. She’d never forgive herself.

  “I’ve survived it for three days. It would be a few hours for him. Ragna or the other boys will let him out by daybreak, if not sooner.”

  “How can you be so sure he won’t help us, Iris? Why can’t we explain to him?”

  “Have you shown him your snakes, Milla?”

  “No.”

  “And why not?” Iris’s voice was mocking.

  “Because he wouldn’t understand. He’d be frightened. But maybe he’d come to understand. Someday.”

  “Someday, of course.” Now Iris was soothing, stroking Milla’s arm. Something inside Milla recoiled from Iris. The feeling she’d had when she first walked into the cell had returned to her. The fear that maybe Iris wasn’t entirely Iris anymore. “But someday isn’t right now,” Iris said. “And right now, Milla, I promise you. I will not leave here without the other girls. And if I don’t leave here, I’ll die. Just like Beata.”

  17

  “WHEN SHOULD I CALL TO him?” Milla hovered at the iron-barred door to the cell, peering into the dim passageway. Now that she had decided, she wanted to get it over with. To get past the horrible disappointment she’d see on Niklas’s face when he realized what she was doing.

  “Not yet. Wait a bit longer. Petter is supposed to stay awake all night, but he won’t. Let him get good and sleepy. Then you’ll call to Niklas.”

  “And Petter won’t awaken at the same time?”

  “He won’t come up here. He’s a brave bully during the day, but when night falls he stays well away.” She smiled. “We tell him the demon is coming for him.”

  Iris’s smile chilled Milla. “Does the demon really talk to you?”

  Iris looked troubled for a moment, then her face cleared and recomposed. “I told you she did.”

  Milla wanted—and didn’t want—to know more. She worried that asking more about the voice, how it felt in Iris’s head, what it sounded like, might somehow make it worse. Might even conjure the demon. “After we leave here, how will we get her out of your head? And how do we stop her from turning me into a demon, too?”

  Iris looked at the wall, wouldn’t answer. Milla couldn’t tell if she was hurt, or angry. Milla sat down next to her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you sad. We’ll figure that out later. There must be a way.” Iris smiled back at her vaguely, patted her hand. Milla looked down at Iris’s slender brown fingers, the delicate weave of blue-green veins just under the surface, and she thought of something else. “How will you and I lock Niklas in here? He’s twice as big as either of us.”

  “I’m stronger than I look,” Iris said. Milla believed her. There was a hardness to Iris now that was new. And Niklas might be far bigger than she, but he was also far softer. Iris tugged on a lock of Milla’s hair, and Milla’s crimson snake peeked out. “Let me play with your hair,” Iris said. “It will calm me.”

  Milla sat on the floor, her back to Iris, and Iris sat behind her, running gentle fingers through Milla’s hair, softly tugging on the ends. Despite herself, Milla’s eyes drooped closed and she allowed herself to be soothed for a moment, as if she and Iris were back home, and not in this cell. If it weren’t for the chill and the smell, and the snakes rising from her head, preening for Iris, she might have believed it.

  “Tell me a story,” Milla said.

  “Oh . . . a story. All right. Let me think.”

  Iris continued to comb Milla’s hair with her fingers, and Milla’s snakes rested their heads on her shoulders as if they wanted to listen as well.

  “There was a young man,” Iris began. “A beautiful young man whom everyone loved. He was as sweet and gentle of disposition as he was handsome of face. Oh, and he was also a prince, which meant he was rich, and of course all the girls in the village wished to marry him. But the prince was sad. There was only one girl the prince could love, and she was dead. She was his childhood sweetheart and they had loved each other long before either of them thought anything of beauty, or gold, or marrying well. For this reason, the prince knew that she was the only one who would ever truly love him for himself. The prince carried on despairing and making everyone around him miserable as well, until finally the prince’s father told him to go out for a walk and not to come back until he was in a better mood.”

  “No one likes a moody prince,” Milla said.

  “Indeed. So the prince walked and the sky was blue, and still he despaired. He said aloud, if only I could see my beloved one more time, maybe I could be happy again. And just as he said that, who should appear but a small, wizened woman who looked very much like the witch in all the stories that the prince had ever been told. And the witch said to him, I can take you to the smoothest, glassiest pond where you can see the face of your beloved in the water. You can even talk to her. But you mustn’t try to get her back or you’ll die, too. Will you promise not to try? The prince was so overjoyed that he agreed. When they arrived at the pond, the prince saw that the pond was so glassy that when he leaned over it, he saw his own face as if looking into a mirror. But then he wasn’t looking at his own face anymore. He was looking at his beloved’s face, just as he remembered her, so fair and full of love. His beloved said to him, my dearest, how I’ve missed you. And he said the same back to her. He told her how lonely he’d been for her and how he didn’t think he’d ever be happy again. But, he said, perhaps now that he’d been able to see her one last time, maybe he could find a way. His beloved wept, and her tears bubbled the surface of the pond. My darling, he said to her, why do you weep so? And she said, because I have never stopped loving you, but you have stopped loving me, and now you are going off to love another. So the prince promised her that he would never love another, not as long as he lived. His beloved stopped crying and once again her beautiful face shone up at him smooth and unperturbed. And then she said, now come to me, my darling.”

  Milla tensed, and Iris laughed a little. Then Milla laughed a little, too. “Poor, silly prince,” she said.

  Iris continued. “This gave the prince pause, because of course the witch had told him that he mustn’t try to get his beloved back, or else he’d die, too. And he told this to his beloved, and she said, but, my darling! You’re not getting me back, I’m getting you back. Because you’ll be coming to me and living with me forever and we’ll never be parted again. So you see, she said, you’ll still be keeping your promise to the witch. And this caused the prince to pause just a bit again, because had he told his beloved that he’d made a promise to the witch? He wasn’t sure that he had. But in any case, if his beloved told him it would be all right, then he believed her. And so he dived in. As soon as the prince broke the surface of the water, he realized his mistake. His beloved wasn’t there, and he wondered if she ever had been. Instead of his beloved, there were water snakes. Hundreds and hundreds of water snakes. And even as
they ate him, the prince wondered if he might ever see his beloved again.”

  As she neared the end of the story, Iris had stopped combing Milla’s hair with her fingers and she rested her hands on Milla’s shoulders instead. Now Iris’s fingers gripped Milla there, and Milla felt Iris shaking. She turned and found Iris weeping, tears streaking her face, her mouth in a pained, tight line.

  Then Iris began to laugh.

  Then she began to cry again.

  Laugh.

  Cry.

  Laugh.

  Cry.

  Milla rose to her feet and backed away from Iris, not entirely meaning to. But perhaps meaning to, a bit.

  Iris’s face went still, and she wiped her nose with one long swipe of her forearm. “Do you know what the moral to the story is, Milla?”

  “What is it, Iris?” Though she was afraid to ask.

  “The people you love are dead and want to kill you.” Iris sobbed with an anguish so deep that Milla would have gathered Iris in her arms if she hadn’t been so frightened. Then Iris stood up abruptly, stopped crying, and looked around her in expectation. A smile hitched up the corners of her mouth—ghastly, all wrong. Up went the left, then the right, then the left. “She’s here.”

  “Who’s here?”

  “The demon,” Iris said.

  “Hulda?” Milla said.

  “Oh no. No, no, no, no. No, it’s you. You’re the demon, Milla. You’ve always been the demon.” Iris’s face was lit up from the inside, her eyes bright and wide. And that hitching, twitching smile.

  Cold sweat slicked Milla’s forehead, her skin burned and prickled. “No. I’m not. I’m me.”

  “Even with those snakes on your head? Come out to play . . . snakes.”

  Iris pulled back her lips and hissed between clamped teeth. Milla fell backward away from Iris and cowered in a corner of the cell. Iris went to the bars of the cell and shook and howled. “Come get her, Niklas! Come get your sister!”

  The shaking of the bars grew deafening as every girl and woman shook the bars of their cells, too, and hissed and howled, “Come get her, Niklassssssss. Come get your ssssssissssster! Come get her before the demon comes for her. She’ssss coming, Niklas. The demon is coming.”

  Milla had thought her worst fear was to be a demon herself. But now she knew what her worst fear was. It was this. Locked in this cell with Iris, the demon who was eating Iris up from the inside coming to make a meal of Milla, too. She’d lost all her bluster, all of her belief in herself and in Iris, and it was all she could do to keep from emptying her bladder in her dress.

  “Are you afraid, Niklasssss?” Iris shouted. “Afraid of me? Is that why you never touch me, Niklasssssss? Because you’re afraid? Is that why you put me in this cell, Niklasssssss? Because you’re afraid? You’ve always been afraid, Niklassssssss. That’s what Milla told me. I know eeeeeeverything about you, Niklassssssss. How you used to cry when she told you stories. Because you’re such a big baaaaaaby, Niklasssssss.”

  Milla’s terror turned to shame. Things that Milla had confided in Iris were coming out of her as poison. Nasty and cutting and bitter. Milla hadn’t intended to hurt Niklas by telling his secrets, had she? Milla had only been lonely, had only wanted a friend—someone to love her. To see her. But now Iris was using Milla’s words to hurt Niklas, and Milla knew it was her fault. All her fault. She had betrayed Niklas, and Iris had betrayed her.

  “Stop it! Stop it, Iris!” Milla jumped up from her crouch and tried to drag Iris away from the door. “Don’t say those things!” Iris shrugged Milla off, her back to Milla. Milla grabbed back on, pulling at Iris’s dress, her arm. “Please, Iris. Please. Come back to me. I know you’re in there.”

  Iris stilled for a moment. Milla allowed herself to hope. Then Iris turned around to her, and Milla’s shame and hope dissolved and fear and abandonment rushed into their place.

  The face that looked back at Milla wasn’t Iris. Her eyes were the same amber, her skin the same wheat-brown. But something else moved under the surface of her skin, altered its shape. And the voice that passed between her lips wasn’t Iris’s at all. It belonged to someone else. Someone older and filled with a hate that had been festering for years upon years.

  The face that was Iris and not-Iris was so close that Milla could see the bones bulging and reforming themselves as if something had climbed into Iris and was wearing her body as its own. This thing—Iris and not-Iris—smiled at Milla. “Iris is mine now.”

  18

  MILLA HEARD NIKLAS'S BOOTS POUNDING on the stone floor as he ran down the corridor.

  When he came to the door Iris backed away from it.

  “Let her out, Niklas,” Iris said.

  “No, Niklas,” Milla said. “I’ll stay in here. Don’t open the door.”

  Niklas’s face was tight with worry, his eyes blinking fast. “Milla, are you all right?”

  “I am,” Milla said. “I’m fine. But if you open that door, Iris is planning to lock you in here and release all the other girls.”

  “Why would you tell him that?” For a moment Iris looked like Milla’s dear friend whose feelings had been hurt. Her face was her own face, not the demon’s. Then the moment passed, and Iris’s face turned hard and strange and horrible again. Iris walked toward Milla and pinned her against the wall of the cell, one hand around Milla’s throat, leaning in so close to Milla that their foreheads touched. Iris squeezed, and Milla’s snakes rose from her head and snapped at Iris’s face, but didn’t break skin. Milla tried to push Iris away, leaning into Iris with all her strength, but Iris was like stone. Immoveable.

  Iris was calm in a way that was more dreadful than her laughing and crying had been. “I’ll kill her, Niklas.” Her voice was a chorus, Iris mixed with not-Iris.

  Milla heard the clank of metal and then the crack of wood hitting stone and the door crashing against the wall as Niklas opened it. And the moment he did, Iris released Milla, and she turned on Niklas and shoved him so hard that his head knocked against the stone wall behind him and he sank to the floor.

  “Niklas!” Milla screamed, and she ran to him as Iris dashed through the door.

  The girls and women raised such a din of hissing and clanging metal that it was as if the noise were inside Milla’s head and chest. She held Niklas by each shoulder. His eyes were closed and his skin was more gray than cream. “Niklas, please. Please be all right, Niklas.” She felt tears in the corners of her eyes and panic rise in her belly. She could hear Iris opening the doors of the cells one by one, and the slaps of the girls’ bare feet as they ran down the passageway, a quick and excited pitter patter. Niklas’s eyes fluttered and then he opened them. “Niklas!” Milla let out a moan of relief.

  “Milla,” he said, and touched his hand gingerly to the back of his head. It came away with a slick of shiny red on the fingertips.

  The clanging had stopped and now Milla could hear the girls’ whoops and shouts and hisses as they taunted the boys.

  “We’re coming to get you, Petter.” They shouted down to him.

  “We’re coming to get all of you. Time for your dousing!”

  Milla struggled to calm herself and think through how best to keep Niklas safe. If Iris—her Iris—could threaten to kill Milla, if she could do this to Niklas, then what might the rest of them do to him? To them he was just another boy, like the others who’d tortured them. She hoped for those other boys’ sakes that they’d run off. Then again, she was hard pressed to feel sorry for them. “Can you get up? We need to leave, Niklas.” Milla rose and held him by the hands to help him stand. He wavered on his feet at first, but then steadied himself. “Can you walk?”

  He nodded, and she picked up one of his arms and brought it around her shoulder. She looked outside the cell and saw the corridor was empty, then she led Niklas out and toward the ladder. She looked down at the girls and women in burlap running below, hair streaming around them, laughing and hollering like children playing a game. One stopped and peered up at her. Faded r
ed eyebrows, faded red eyelashes and hair. Leah. She smiled wide and sharp. Then she ran off.

  “All right, Niklas,” Milla said. “Can you climb down?”

  Niklas nodded at her, but looked troubled. “I saw something. But I couldn’t have seen it.”

  “What?” she asked, even though she knew already what Niklas meant. Her snakes had hidden themselves away again, under her hair. But Niklas had seen them rise up when Iris’s hands were around her throat, had seen them try to fight off Iris.

  “There were . . . snakes. Coming from . . . there.” He pointed to her hair, like a small child pointing at something he didn’t know the word for. “I saw them. But I couldn’t have.”

  Milla couldn’t lie to him now. She didn’t have the will. She loosened her hair with her fingers, encouraging her snakes to show themselves. They rose up to greet her brother.

  Niklas stared openmouthed. Then he took a step backward, just as she had done with Iris. Milla didn’t think she had more heart left to break, but as it turned out, she did.

  “I’m still me. I’m Milla.” Her snakes hid themselves away again. “Please. Come with me.”

  As she climbed down the ladder, she looked up at him all the while, begging him with her eyes to follow.

  When Milla reached the bottom, Niklas paused one moment longer, leaving her to wonder if he’d stay where he was rather than go with her, a girl with snakes on her head. But then he started down, and Milla scanned the passageway for signs of danger. The girls had all run out, it seemed, and there were no signs of the boys, either. Perhaps they’d had the sense to get away. Milla hoped it was that.

  She stepped away from the ladder to make room for Niklas. At the bottom, he turned toward her and then he took one of her hands in his. “Let’s go home,” he said.

  Milla knew they had no time to waste, but she threw her arms around him nonetheless. They held onto each other one moment longer than either of them needed to, and then they both turned toward the doors that led to the outer ring of the fort. Milla could hear the screams and laughter of the girls. She hoped they were so consumed by their escape—by the joy of breathing in clean night air after so long crouched in dank, airless stone—that they wouldn’t notice or care that Milla and Niklas were making their own escape. She took Niklas’s hand as they emerged into the moonlight.