The Cold Is in Her Bones

by Peternelle van Arsdale

  Milla felt the earth move beneath her, but it wasn’t the earth, it was the mare, walking. Milla gathered the reins in her hands but she didn’t attempt to direct her, because the mare had ideas of her own. She wasn’t taking them back to the village; she was headed in the other direction, toward The Place. Milla had no desire to go back there, but nor did she want to go back to that sad, suspicious village. Milla’s snakes circled her neck. All that mattered to Milla at that moment was that the mare had made a decision and Milla didn’t have to. She was taking them away from the midwife’s cottage, the demon girls, and the swarming wasps. If there was anything else that Milla might hope for—in this moment or the next or the one after that—she hadn’t the strength to imagine it.

  PART THREE

  21

  MILLA HAD EXPECTED THE MARE to turn toward The Place once they came to the open meadow that led there. That would make sense—for her to return to the last place she’d been fed. But instead the mare kept walking. Milla let the reins go slack and the mare continue to lead the way.

  The sun was high overhead and the day was hot when the road passed through another lushly green meadow and the horse veered off. At first Milla thought the mare planned to gorge on clover, but she continued on. Through the meadow they went until they came to a path wide enough for the horse, and with only the occasional branch hanging so low that Milla needed to duck. It seem to be an old cow path, grown over but still passable. The mare took her time, careful of her footing, and Milla fell into a thoughtless trance. Then the path widened into another hard-packed road.

  “Well, aren’t you smart,” she said to the horse. Milla felt a pang for Niklas at that moment. He would have liked this horse. Iris would have, as well.

  Except for stops at streams, where both the horse and Milla took long drinks, the horse walked on until afternoon became evening became night. Milla’s eyelids were so very heavy, and her empty-hearted exhaustion, combined with the gentle rolling gait of the horse, lulled her dangerously close to sleep. More than once she jerked herself awake having nearly fallen off the horse.

  The night air grew chill again, and for the first time since the horse had led them away from Ragna’s cottage, Milla allowed herself to feel frightened for herself. Perhaps the horse had no more sense than she did, and they were simply wandering. Perhaps they’d both starve. Milla had no idea if another village lay down the road. She was hungry, and she was cold, and she was scared. And then she cried. Her snakes caressed her cheeks, licked her salt tears, and she felt comforted by them. Once she stopped crying, her panic was replaced with a hollowed out feeling, a desolation. A sense of aloneness so profound that she couldn’t imagine it ever ending.

  When she thought she couldn’t possibly go any farther, whether this mare continued on or not, Milla noticed that the forest on either side of the road was thinning to scrub. Then scrub became meadow, which became pasture and then farmland. Farmland meant a farm. A farm meant a house, and a barn, and people. Milla sat up straighter in the saddle. If there was a farmhouse nearby, it was hidden in the dark—too late for a lamp to be burning. Milla struggled to make out a darker mass among the trees. Then the horse turned off onto a smaller road and Milla smelled the familiar scents of home—a place where people lived. People who made fires, and baked bread, and chopped wood. People who milked cows and spread hay in barns. Then a barn and paddock rose to her left, and beyond it Milla made out a cottage, a bit larger than Jakob and Gitta’s. The horse didn’t take them to the cottage. Instead she stopped suddenly at the gate to the paddock, and Milla got the distinct sense that the mare felt they’d reached the end of the road.

  Milla slid off the horse and unlatched the paddock gate. The mare followed her through the paddock and then into the barn, which softly vibrated with the rhythmic night noises of heavy, deep-breathing animals. The mare made straight for the manger, and while she ate, Milla sat down on the straw-strewn floor. She might have been sitting in manure for all she knew, and she couldn’t begin to care. The night spun around her and her ears closed to sound, and then there was nothing.

  “Pappa! Fulla is back! And there’s a girl with her!” The voice was young, high-pitched, and excited. Then it was gone.

  Milla sat up and looked around her. The mare stared at her, still in her saddle and bridle. Not knowing what else to do, Milla stood and took the mare’s reins in her hand. The barn door was open, early morning light catching dust so it sparkled in the air. In walked a girl who looked to be about nine. Her hair was a mass of black curls that sprang from her head like living things, and she had bright, lamp-lit amber eyes. Milla thought instantly of Iris. Not because she looked like her, but because there was the same restlessness sparking inside her.

  The girl held the hand of a man whose hair was a shorter, neater mass of black curls. He didn’t spark the way his daughter did. “What’s this now?” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” Milla said. “It was late, and I was tired. I thought it would be all right if I slept here.”

  At first she thought she read suspicion in his eyes, but then she realized it was simply puzzlement. “Why were you out in the middle of the night all alone? Where’s your home?”

  “I don’t have one.” Her first answer was her most honest. “I lived with my grandmother. But she died.” Milla didn’t know where the words were coming from, but she let them flow and decided to see where they led her. “So I left the village and decided to find somewhere I might work. You wouldn’t need help around here, would you? I can cook and clean. Tend a garden and feed chickens. I work hard, and I’m never sick.” Words, words, and more words, and she wasn’t even sure what she was angling for. Did she really want to stay here and work on this family’s farm? How would that be any different from the life she’d always led? But hunger and the craving for a bed were powerful things, and she thought she might tolerate more of the same for a while—till she got her bearings and formed a plan for what to do next.

  The man cocked his head at her. “You’re hungry, I expect. Liss, take her in to your mother.” He nodded to the mare. “Fulla, you found your way home.” He removed her bridle, stroking and patting her, then he unsaddled her.

  Liss smiled at Milla so wide that her oval face went round. She grabbed Milla’s hand. “Come. It’s time for breakfast. Mamma will take care of you.”

  The girl’s words caused Milla to bristle and lean away from her. Milla didn’t want a Mamma to take care of her.

  Liss’s smile shrank. “What’s wrong?”

  Milla struggled to control herself, to make her face placid and pleasant. “Nothing,” she said, closing the space between them again. “It’s just that I’ve never been away from home before.”

  “Oh,” Liss said, her face serious and thoughtful. Then she brightened again. “But you’ll like it here. You’ll see.” Her tone turned confiding. “And just so you know, Mamma needs help with my brother. Babies are terrible. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.”

  When they reached the log cottage, the front door was open to the morning breeze. The cottage’s grass roof was brilliant green and sparkled with damp. Everything here was healthy and bright and untouched by the insects that marched in lines under the doors of the village and turned the surrounding fields and forest to dust. Maybe Milla had truly left it all behind. Maybe the worst was over now that the girls had been freed and the midwife was surely dead. Milla wanted to believe that, but then her snakes squirmed.

  Milla’s hope was a delicate creature, and it bruised at the lightest touch.

  22

  MILLA SAT AT KATRIN AND Otto's wooden table breakfasting on bread with butter and jam, and slices of cheese and cold chicken. She tried not to look as wild as she felt. The moment Katrin had set the food before Milla, it was all she could do not to tear it apart and stuff it in her mouth by the handful.

  Katrin’s face had made an O of surprise when she first saw Milla at her door, but then she smiled and welcomed Milla to her table as if it were a t
ypical sort of thing to have a girl awaken in your barn. First though, Katrin led Milla to the well in back and handed her a washcloth and a bar of soap. Milla saw Katrin’s eyes travel to Milla’s hands. Her nails were black with dirt. Milla flushed with embarrassment, and Katrin smiled wordlessly and touched her arm before leaving her alone.

  Milla scrubbed her hands, face, and neck with soap and crisply cold well water, and the cloth came away brown. Her filth was something she hadn’t thought about in days—not since she left home for The Place. It was disconcerting to be doing this routine thing in a place that looked like home, but wasn’t home. Milla wondered if she should drop the cloth right there, fetch Fulla, and keep going. Then she thought that Fulla would be very unlikely to want to go with her. Nor could Milla blame her. The mare had done enough.

  In any case, Milla knew that she wasn’t going anywhere. At least not right now. She was starving. And so tired it was an effort to breathe. For the moment she needed food and shelter. That was all she could think about. All that made sense.

  So she sat at the breakfast table like a good girl, and after she’d eaten enough that she could concentrate on something other than her hunger, she began to examine her surroundings. Liss was a chatty one. A little sly, but well-behaved. She made faces at her baby brother, Kai, who was just old enough to walk and babble nonsense. He sat in a high chair scooping up fistfuls of oatmeal despite Katrin’s attempt to guide the food to his mouth with a spoon. This made Liss laugh. Katrin was gentle. Motherly. She smiled.

  Milla took this in: Katrin smiled at Liss. A mother smiled at her daughter. She didn’t look at her with fear.

  Then Milla scanned the rest of the room. There were no streams of salt across the window frames or doorways or hearth. Katrin and Otto lived like people who didn’t expect to lose their daughter to a demon. Who might not even know what a demon was.

  Otto chucked Kai under his chin and the baby cackled and sprayed oatmeal. This caused Liss to laugh harder. Katrin wiped drool and milk from Kai’s chin and handed her husband the spoon. “Here, you take it. And just so you know, the idea is to get the oatmeal inside the baby.”

  Otto took a big spoonful of the oatmeal, started for Kai’s mouth, but then reversed the spoon and began to steer it toward his own. The baby’s mouth and eyes opened with anticipation and Otto held the spoon just outside his mouth, held it, held it, and waggled his eyebrows at the baby. The baby screamed with laughter and reached for the spoon, and then Otto ate the oatmeal himself. Then he handed Kai the spoon and said, “All right. Now you.”

  Kai took the spoon in his hand and Otto looked at Katrin triumphantly. “See,” he said.

  Kai slapped the spoon down on the surface of the oatmeal, sloshing and spraying it over the sides of the bowl. Slap, slap, slap.

  Katrin raised an eyebrow. “Yes,” she said. “I see. Very smart.”

  “Kai, you rascal!” Otto scooped him up.

  Liss looked at Milla. “I told you. Babies are terrible.”

  Milla smiled despite herself.

  Katrin stood and wiped Kai’s face and untied his bib. “You,” she said to him, and kissed him on his round, sticky cheek. Then she kissed Otto’s cheek as well. “Liss, take your brother out to play while we talk to Milla.”

  “But, Mamma,” Liss said. “I want to talk to Milla, too. You’ll let her stay, won’t you?”

  “Liss.” Katrin looked at her daughter, and Milla sensed unspoken communication. An understanding. Trust between them that there were reasons for what mother was asking daughter.

  Liss sighed and took Kai from her father.

  The baby looked at Milla. Then he made a sound that caused Milla’s hair to rise all the way from the nape of her neck down to the small of her back.

  “Sssssss. Sssssss. Ssssssssssss.” He hissed. Right to her. To Milla. Had the rest of them heard it? She looked around the room frantically, searching for proof that they’d all heard it, seen it, and would also stare at her and point and call her: Demon. Snake girl.

  Liss laughed, oblivious to Milla’s panic. “That’s what he calls me, Milla, isn’t it funny? Say my name, silly. It’s not Ssssss. It’s Liss. Say it, silly. Liss.”

  “Ssssssss. Sssssss. Ssssss.”

  “You sound like a snake,” Liss said. “Mamma, I wanted a baby brother, not a snake. Send this one back and ask for another.”

  “Liss,” Katrin said.

  “All right. All right, I’m going. Come, Snake.”

  “Snnnnnn. Snnnnnn. Snnnn.”

  “Oh heavens, Liss. You’ll have him thinking that’s his name. Off with you.” Otto waved her toward the door.

  Liss held Kai in front of her and looked over her shoulder at Milla on her way out. She smiled. “Come find us in the meadow. Kai likes to try to catch butterflies. But don’t worry. He never can.”

  Katrin placed a mug of tea in front of Milla. “How did you happen to come by our Fulla? We were sad to sell her, but she’s one more than we need, and she’s getting old for pulling.”

  Milla couldn’t think what to say, so she stalled. “She’s a wonderful horse. Took me right here. And now I know why.”

  “Sweet old thing,” Katrin said.

  “The woman from the far village who bought her from me,” Otto said. “I can’t remember her name, but she said she was a midwife. Any relation?”

  “No,” Milla said. She felt her snakes tighten around her head, insulted by the suggestion. “How long ago was that?” Milla wondered what he’d thought of the village. If it was as sad and threatening a place then, Otto would have to say so. It was too glaring a thing not to mention.

  “Oh, let me think. Had to have been a year ago,” Otto said. “No one in the near village wanted our Fulla. At least not at the price I wanted. So I took her to the spring market in the far village. I hadn’t been to the far village in years. It always felt . . . unfriendly to me.” He shrugged. “Liss insisted on going with me, and I should have said no. Oh how she cried when I sold our Fulla.”

  “She gets attached to the animals,” Katrin said. “A dangerous thing for a farm girl to do. Our horses aren’t pets. But she doesn’t have much company here,” Katrin said. “She gets lonely. She looked forward to Kai coming, but then once he was born she realized that he wouldn’t be much of a playmate for a few years yet. In the meantime, he’s just more work for her.”

  “Yes,” Milla said. It occurred to her that Otto and Katrin were so chatty that she could let them talk and maybe she’d never have to say anything at all.

  Katrin looked at her with gentle eyes, her thick dark eyebrows knit together in the center. “You must miss your grandmother. And you’ve really no other kin?”

  “No,” Milla said. “They’re all dead.”

  “It happens,” Otto said. “I lost all of mine when I wasn’t much older than you. But at least I had the farm.” He looked at Katrin and raised his eyebrows. She nodded.

  “Milla,” Katrin said. “We really could use your help. We haven’t much to offer. But you’d have your own bed, and we’d treat you as one of our own. We’d ask no more of you than we’d ask of Liss if she were your age.”

  “Oh,” Milla said. “Oh. Yes. I’d be most grateful.” Milla felt a combination of relief and dread in her belly. Now that she had been offered what she’d hoped for, was this really the right thing? How could she possibly know? Not for the first time, she wished there were a voice in her head to say, yes, yes, Milla, exactly right, stay there. But when she needed it most, there was no voice. There was just her own trembling, uncertain heart. She told herself that for today, this was the right thing. When it was no longer the right thing . . . then she would figure out what was.

  Katrin smiled at her. “Good,” she said. “Good.”

  Otto smiled, too. “It’s settled then. To the fields with me. I’ll see you at dinner.” He kissed Katrin on the forehead and ran a hand over her tightly braided hair.

  Once he was gone, Katrin led Milla up to a pleasant room with a pea
ked ceiling, a window looking out over the garden, and two narrow beds. “You’ll share with Liss.” She ran her eyes over Milla’s dress. “You’re slimmer than I am, but taller. I have a few dresses and night shifts I’ll give you.”

  “Oh,” Milla said. “But not if you need them.”

  Katrin smiled at her, touched her arm. Milla was learning that this was Katrin’s way of saying, I understand, and we don’t need to speak of it.

  “And an apron, too.”

  An apron. Milla remembered the apron she’d left in the mud next to the spring back home. She felt overcome with weariness and the recurring, heart-numbing fear that she was making a terrible mistake. If she wore Katrin’s clean apron, would that change her back into the sort of girl who did such things? Would her snakes shrink away to nothing, or possibly worse: rise up in protest? Her green snake nipped her scalp.

  “You must be tired,” Katrin said. “Rest. I’ll wake you for dinner.”

  “I can help with dinner,” Milla said. “I should help.”

  Again Katrin smiled, touched her arm. Then Katrin left and quietly closed the door behind her. Milla looked at the bed that was now hers. She lay down on it, and her aching body sank into its softness. What a weak-willed creature she was. Defiant one moment, and crying with relief the next. She reached her hands into her hair and gave each of her snakes a long stroke. “You must keep us safe,” she said. “These people are kind, but they won’t understand you. So. Please. Keep us safe.”

  Milla closed her eyes, and her snakes settled in, hidden away in her thick, black hair. She slept.

  23

  IN THE SLENDER MONTH BETWEEN summer and winter, there was more work than could be done by Otto and Katrin even with Milla’s help. Two men from the near village helped Otto with the harvest, while Milla helped Katrin preserve jar upon jar of vegetables to hold them through the frozen months. Milla fell into the familiar rhythm of working alongside another woman, doing the things that must be done to keep a family fed and clothed and clean.