The Eye of the North

by Sinead O'Hart

  “What sort?” asked the man, licking his index finger and starting to flick through some paperwork on the desk in front of him. “I’ve got a flatbed, a reasonably good lorry—it’s small, but—”

  “The lorry—that should be fine. Thanks. Do you have the stuff to get us across the border?”

  “Only got papers for one—the driver. The boy? He’ll have to hide.”

  Sasha nodded, and the man reached into a desk drawer. He removed a sheaf of documents and slapped it into her outstretched hand.

  “Safe travelin’, young lady.” He glanced over at Thing, who was still toasting himself. “And, you—stay out of sight. Right?” Thing could only nod in reply.

  “Come on, Thing,” muttered Sasha, tucking the documents into a pocket. “We don’t have time to waste.”

  “Drive carefully,” the man muttered as Sasha and Thing left the room. “If you’re caught, you’re on your own.”

  Igimaq nosed his small boat gently up into a sheltered cove. Snow lay on the ground all around, and the water was so clear—even in the poor light—that Emmeline could see straight down through it, as though it were highly polished glass.

  “You can give me a hand with the boat,” said Igimaq. “Get ready now.” With a gentle thud they made landfall, and Emmeline hurried to her feet as the boat slid up over the rocky shoreline. She hopped off onto solid ground and grabbed the prow as firmly as she could.

  “That’s it! Hold it there,” called Igimaq, hauling himself out of his boat and using one strong arm to pull himself up the shore and the other to drag the boat along behind him. Very soon, between the two of them, the boat was out of the water and stored, upside down, on a specially built rack along the side of a nearby boathouse, Igimaq’s broad paddle placed carefully inside.

  “Not far now,” said Igimaq, propelling himself along the slippery ground, using his wide, flat hands like feet and his arms like legs. Emmeline had to hurry to keep up with him, her steps sliding on the icy rocks. The cold numbed the inside of her mouth and nose, and she could feel it creeping all the way down inside her, traveling into every corner of her lungs. Before too long a collection of low, colorful houses came into view, nestled together overlooking the small harbor.

  “There it is! That blue one, in the middle. That’s mine,” Igimaq called to Emmeline over his shoulder. “Let’s hope Qila has some dinner ready.”

  Emmeline’s stomach, which had wizened to the size of a small dried pea, perked up at the word dinner. Within a few seconds they’d reached the front door of Igimaq’s house, and Emmeline already felt warmth starting to melt the layer of ice that had formed all over her skin, both inside and out. Her hands and feet ached.

  “Qila? I’m home!” called Igimaq, making his way into the warmly lit living room. “I’ve got a guest, all right?”

  Emmeline could hear noises coming from the kitchen, but she wasn’t sure if they were sounds of delight or irritation.

  Emmeline took a few steps into the living room, looking at the low, comfortable chairs dotted about and wanting to sink herself into one of them for at least a year. She put her frozen fingers into her pockets and felt for her fishing line, her spoon, and her rope, their weight reassuring and their shapes comforting. They couldn’t replace her satchel, but they helped.

  Then a small, dark-haired woman who, Emmeline presumed, had to be Qila stepped out of the kitchen. Emmeline prepared to smile and perform her best “Thank you ever so much” speech, but she never got a chance to say it. Qila, instead of welcoming her, threw her a look of such ferocity that Emmeline was frightened by it right down to the soles of her inadequate shoes.

  “When we get near the crossing, you’ll have to hide, like we practiced, okay?” Sasha’s eyes were glued to the road.

  “No problem,” answered Thing. “Just gimme the nod in plenty of time, right?”

  “Of course.” Sasha smiled, flicking her eyes at Thing, just for a second. “So. Now that we have a chance to talk—are you going to tell me?”

  “Tell you what?” muttered Thing. “Look out for that horse and cart there.”

  “I see it,” said Sasha, smoothly maneuvering. She changed gear as she gained speed, the engine crunching and rattling as she urged it on. “Tell me about why you’re called Thing. Tell me about yourself.”

  “Nothin’ to tell,” said Thing with a shrug. “I call meself Thing because nobody ever bothered callin’ me anythin’ else. ‘Hey, get that thing out of the way!’ or ‘Oi! Tell that thing to come down from there!’ You know what I’m sayin’, right?” He gazed out the window, away from Sasha, but she didn’t get the hint.

  “But where are your people? Your family?” The truck roared as Sasha missed a gear, and Thing was glad of the few seconds of silence it allowed him as she fought to get it to behave. The greasy stink that began to creep into his nostrils could be the engine, he supposed, but it could also be the other thing. The thing he didn’t allow himself to think about, ever. He rubbed his nose with the heel of his hand and ignored it.

  “I ain’t got family,” he said as soon as he was able. “I don’t know my mother’s name, or my father’s. Don’t remember, or can’t remember, when I last seen ’em. Couldn’t pick ’em out of a lineup, and I’m sure they’ve been in plenty o’ those. Why d’you even want to know, anyway?”

  “I’m just curious,” she said, her voice light.

  “Nosy, you mean.”

  “That, too, maybe.”

  “You want to know what sort o’ person you have yourself trapped in a truck with, ain’t that right? You want to check I’m not a murderin’ type, or what have you.”

  “I’m already pretty sure you’re not one of those,” she said, glancing over at him again. “I’m just—I don’t know. I’m interested, Thing. I want to know what’s behind your eyes.”

  “M’brain, probably. Not that there’s much of it to speak of.”

  Sasha sighed. “You’re not doing yourself justice. Again,” she said, adjusting her speed. Thing licked his lips and took a breath, and tried to find a place to start.

  “Look, it’s like this, eh,” he said eventually. “There’s things in my head that I don’t want to remember. I know where I ’ave ’em locked up, all right; I can feel ’em. But I never look at ’em an’ I never let ’em out, though they do their best to get loose every so often. All I know fer sure is, I been makin’ my own way now since I were about six. Seven, maybe. Don’t know how long.” Thing let out a short, bitter laugh and wiped his face on his sleeve. “Don’t matter anyhow.”

  “Of course it matters,” said Sasha, keeping her eyes on the road. “Of course it does, Thing.”

  “Yeah. Well,” he replied, and then he said no more.

  Emmeline stood alone, feeling awkward, in Igimaq and Qila’s living room, twisting the hem of her stolen coat in her shaking hands. From the kitchen came hissings and whisperings in a language she didn’t speak and at a volume she couldn’t really hear properly. Her mind was full of thoughts—so full, in fact, that she felt they were going to start spilling out. She felt like closing her eyes tight and sticking her fingers in her ears just to keep everything where it ought to be. She thought about Thing, wondering where he was, and she thought about Edgar and Sasha, even, and—more than anything else—she thought about her parents.

  “He said you were ‘in the ice’—but where’s that?” she asked herself in a tiny voice. She thought about the landscape surrounding her and wondered if it meant they were close by. “But how do I even know it’s true?” Emmeline had long ago concluded that most grown-ups lied, even when they weren’t really doing it on purpose. She was personally convinced her parents had never told her the truth about anything, and she’d never understood why.

  But she couldn’t think of a good reason for Dr. Bauer to tell her that her parents were here, somewhere, and for it to be a lie.

  Emmeline stood a little closer to Igimaq’s fire, feeling properly warm for the first time in ages. I have to try to fin
d them before Bauer realizes I’ve escaped from the boat. I can’t let him use me to get to them. And if he’s hurt them…Something dropped into her brain like a fat, cold raindrop: But he probably already knows I’m gone.

  Emmeline’s thoughts were smashed to pieces by Igimaq, who came hurrying out of the kitchen again, his dark eyes wide.

  “Um. Well. Qila says you’re welcome to stay for dinner, but that once you’ve eaten, we need to get you to the village council.” Igimaq licked his lips and tried to smile. “We can lend you some boots and mittens, and Qila’s spare snowshoes, because you seem to have lost yours. When you’ve warmed up, we can get going.” From the kitchen Emmeline heard a squawking cry, followed by another gush of words that meant nothing to her. She watched Igimaq’s face as he listened. “Make sure you get the stuff back to us as soon as you can, if that’s all right,” he continued in a much louder tone of voice. “Boots and mittens cost time and money, and we can’t be giving them away willy-nilly to whoever crosses our threshold.” His eyes were apologetic as he moved closer and leaned in. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “But living here, in times like these? Nobody trusts strangers. Especially not my Qila, not since…” He bit off the rest of his sentence and shuffled backward, shaking his head.

  Emmeline stared at Igimaq, and lots of things flicked across her mind like birds zooming through a wide, empty sky. I don’t know where I am! was swiftly followed by I don’t know where I’m going! and then How will I find my parents? She scrunched her hands up into tight fists, hidden inside her pockets, and took a deep breath.

  “Thank you,” she said in a voice that sounded a lot calmer coming out of her mouth than she’d expected it to.

  “Great! That’s great. I’m sure you’ll be back home in no time,” said Igimaq, guiltily avoiding Emmeline’s eyes. Her insides felt like they were falling, very fast, from somewhere very high. “Now come on through to the kitchen. We’re having my favorite—fish casserole! Qila makes it better than anyone else in Greenland, no doubt about it.”

  Emmeline felt empty inside but somehow couldn’t bring herself to think about eating. She wondered about the village council, and what would happen to her there, as she followed Igimaq out of the room.

  At least now I know where I am. She filed that thought away so she could think about it properly once she was on her own.

  Because, she realized, she’d soon be alone again, and she had to be as well prepared as possible when the time came.

  BRUXELLES, said a sign by the side of the roadway, 25 KM.

  “Right,” said Sasha. “We’re getting near the border with the RNB. You need to get hidden.” Thing started unbuckling his seat belt as Sasha, checking her mirrors, drew the lorry to a halt in the scrubby grass that lined the edge of the asphalt.

  “The border with what?” said Thing, feeling around for the catch that opened the secret compartment under the seats.

  “RNB. République Neer-Belge,” Sasha explained. “It used to be two separate countries once. Before the sea.” Thing nodded. He didn’t remember much from before the waters rose, of course, but he’d picked up enough, in bits and pieces, from other people to know that the world had looked completely different before the ocean had started to take bigger and hungrier gulps out of the land. Something was melting the ice around the frozen edges of the world, he’d heard somewhere, but Thing hadn’t ever given it much thought. It was just one of those things that had nothing to do with him.

  “We won’t be long getting through the border, right?” He stuck one leg into the secret compartment and then the other. Wriggling, he curled his way around and out of sight, right down into the darkness. He refused to let himself be scared, though he did allow himself to wonder how much air was down in the hole, and how long it would take him to breathe it all up.

  “No. Just a few minutes. Don’t worry, okay? We’ll be there soon. I’ll drive as quickly as I can.”

  “Who’s worried?” scoffed Thing, staring up at Sasha out of the dim hole beneath the seats, his eyes huge. “Not me, mate.”

  “Of course not.” Sasha smiled and winked at Thing and snapped the secret compartment closed. Carefully checking her mirrors again, and hoping nobody had seen her pull over, nobody who might wonder what she was doing stopping her vehicle so close to the checkpoint, she pulled back out onto the road and kept driving. She didn’t hurry, particularly, and she didn’t go unusually slowly. She tried to clear her mind and relax her muscles. Just out for a drive, doing a job across the border. Smile, Natasha, smile. She checked, for the tenth time, that she had her documents in easy grabbing range. She looked at the fuel gauge and saw that she still had nearly a full tank.

  Please, Monsieur Pichon, she heard herself begging. Please, please be where you’re supposed to be.

  Fighting hard to keep her hands from trembling, Sasha relaxed her grip on the steering wheel and drove straight for the border.

  Despite her apparent lack of appetite, Emmeline’s empty stomach welcomed Qila’s casserole. It was hot, tasty, and full of barley and onions and potatoes, as well as more types of fish than Emmeline could recognize. A wide-bottomed glass of cool, frothy liquid sat by her plate.

  “Told you it was good,” said Igimaq. “I was right, eh?” Emmeline nodded, her smile fading as she caught Qila’s eye. The woman was still staring at her with fearful suspicion. She muttered something to her husband in the language new to Emmeline’s ears, and Igimaq’s face fell as he listened.

  He turned to Emmeline and tried to smile. “So, young lady. We’d better get you ready to head out. We’d have you stay the night, but it’s probably best if we get you to the council. You must have parents somewhere worried about you, right?” Emmeline felt her stomach quiver, and her casserole started to taste sour in her throat. If you hadn’t taken me off that boat, I might be with my parents now! Then she remembered the giant wheels and wondered whether, without Igimaq, she’d even be here at all.

  “Yes. Of course,” she murmured, placing her hands in her lap. She couldn’t eat another bite. “Thank you. For the food, and the rescuing, and everything.”

  Qila made a small, spluttering noise and stalked out of the room. Igimaq turned back to Emmeline, who very carefully said nothing.

  Igimaq placed his hands flat on the table. “Forgive Qila. It’s just—well. It’s just that she’s afraid. Of you. Of anything to do with this whole thing. Mostly, she’s afraid that if we keep you here, that man—that doctor, whoever he is—will set the Creature on us.”

  “The Creature?” repeated Emmeline, feeling like the words had spikes. The air in the once-warm kitchen became cold suddenly, like someone had flung a door open. Her mind flew to her parents and clung to them.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” said Igimaq quickly. “I mean, we shouldn’t talk about it. Just in case.”

  “Why not?” probed Emmeline. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Can it hear us?”

  “No! What a silly question,” Igimaq said with a grin, but it quickly faded. “Actually, you know, I’m not sure. The legends say a lot of stuff, and not all of it makes sense.”

  “Legends?”

  Igimaq sighed, clenching his hands into fists. “You’re only a kid. You shouldn’t have anything to do with any of this.”

  “But I do,” said Emmeline. “And I’m not a kid.”

  Igimaq folded his arms and sat back in his chair, looking across at her. “What were you doing on that boat, eh? How did you get mixed up in all of this?”

  Emmeline felt a flood of frustration sweep through her, and it burst out of her mouth before she could stop it. “He has my parents! All right? He’s taken them, and I don’t know where. You have to help me.” She gripped the edge of the table until her fingers stung, willing herself not to cry.

  “He what? What does he want with you, then?” Igimaq unfolded his arms and sat forward, focusing on Emmeline.

  “He wants to—to use me. To force my parents to do something he wants. Something—something b
ad. He mentioned this—this Creature too.” She wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands. “So, don’t you see? I have to know what he’s doing. I have to know, so I can get my parents back.”

  Igimaq frowned gently. “It’s not as easy as that, little one. We’ve been trying to figure him out for years, but he just never gives up trying. Every time we think we’ve foiled him, we turn around and there he is.” He paused thoughtfully. “There’ve been reports for a while now of big, silent airships flying in under darkness, carrying equipment of some sort. Folks say he’s building something: a bomb, maybe, or a drilling machine. Then there’s the aurora—it’s acting so strange lately….” He rubbed at his tired face with one large hand. “We think he’s actually breaking up the glacier, you know? It’s been going on for years now, decades even, but lately it’s been getting worse fast. Took us a while to realize what was going on, and then it took us longer still to decide what to do about it, and when we finally did…” He shook his head. “We’ve been doing our best to find him, but some who have gone haven’t made it back, and the others have found nothing.” He blinked sadly. “Qila’s own brother went looking ten years ago, more maybe. Not much older than you. He never came home.”

  Emmeline swallowed. “That’s awful. I’m sorry. For Qila, I mean.”

  “She’s far from the only one who’s lost somebody,” said Igimaq.

  “When you say he’s breaking up the glacier—do you mean he’s melting the ice?” said Emmeline after a moment. Her memory suddenly flooded with thoughts of Thing and their journey to France and the cold waves around the ship. “Is that why the sea’s rising?”

  “Could be,” Igimaq said, and shrugged. “Can’t be helping, at least.”

  “But what’s so important that he’d do all this? Melting ice and stealing parents?”

  “Raising the Kraken takes a lot of work, I guess,” replied Igimaq, his face dark.

  “The K—the Kraken?” Emmeline said. “But that’s not real, is it?” Her head began to feel tight as it filled with thoughts. What was that book Dad used to read to me? Images piled up in her mind as she searched for a particular memory. It had a mammoth on the cover, didn’t it? There had been a story in that book about the Kraken, she was sure. But it was just a story, she told herself. A story to scare kids with. A small voice in her head continued: But it’s a story about a beast that’s stronger than anything imaginable—and with the power to live forever. She swallowed hard. The same power that Dr. Bauer wants.