River of Shadows

by Karina Halle

  I absently run my fingers over the frozen glass. “So what happened to Eero and Noora last night? How did you stop them? Why didn’t they come after us?”

  “If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me,” he says.

  He’s right about that.

  “What were they planning on doing to me?” I ask.

  “They were going to kill you. Probably sacrifice you.”

  My heart thumps in my chest. I slowly turn around to look at him. He’s bringing a big pot out of the fridge, seeming unbothered by what he just said.

  “I’m sorry…they were going to sacrifice me? Why?” I mean, Jesus.

  “Shaman won’t take lives for no reason at all. They’d make use out of your death. Even the bad shamans operate around this code, and they are bad shamans. Please don’t think we’re all like this. Almost all of us operate on peaceful magic and coexisting in nature.”

  I don’t fucking believe this. “I need to call the cops,” I say, bringing my phone out of my pocket. The battery is running low, and like before, there’s no reception. I quickly scroll through to the wi-fi, but nothing is showing up. I know I should have a million notifications from Jenny, Michelle, from the store’s Instagram account, from work itself even though they promised I was on bereavement leave. But nothing has come through.

  “And say what to them exactly?”

  I growl in frustration and shove the phone back in my jeans before throwing my arms out. “I don’t fucking know! Two crazy shaman people faked my father’s death and then tried to attack me and make me into a human sacrifice for who knows what. I can’t stay here.” I march on over to him. “You have to bring me to town.”

  He lights the stove with a long match before placing the pot over it and gives me a curious look. “Is that really what you want?”

  I look at him like he has two heads. “What do you think?”

  He shrugs. “I would have thought you’d do anything to save your father.”

  Well that felt like a slap to the face. “No. That’s not fair. That’s not fair at all. You know I would do anything for him. But not…nothing you told me is real.”

  “But if you could pretend it was,” he says, “like how you were humoring me earlier. Pretend it was. Would you still do anything for Torben? Would you go to the Realm of the Dead, as Eero and Noora fear you will?”

  “And do what?”

  “Find him. Save your father.”

  “But if he’s…” I don’t know how to reason with nonsense. “Can I save him? Is he still alive? Can I bring him back?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

  Rasmus suddenly reaches out for my ears and I take a step back, putting my hands over them.

  “What are you doing?” I whisper. “Don’t touch me.”

  “Your earrings,” he says, looking mildly rebuked. “Your father gave you those. When you were eighteen, right?”

  I run my fingers over the small stud earrings. They feel frozen to touch, though they’ve always felt cold.

  “Yeah,” I say uneasily. My father sent them to me in the mail as a birthday present. I haven’t taken them off since.

  “Do you know what stone that is?” he asks, and then walks off into the living room.

  “I don’t know,” I say. Actually, I collect stones and crystals, and it’s always bothered me that I could never figure out what the earrings were made from. In the end I just assumed green-colored cubic zirconia and called it a day.

  He pulls a large crystal off a shelf and comes over to me, holding it out. At first glance it resembles a fist-sized chunk of quartz, a translucent glowing green in color, the same color as my earrings. Then the green starts to shift, turning purple, then blue, while tiny sparkles form and disappear. The crystal seems alive.

  “Your earrings are from this,” he says. “The aurora stone. Very, very rare. Your father brought it back from his travels once. It is said that if you give the stone to someone else, the aurora will always be inside, as long as you are both alive. He took the other piece of this stone with him. This is what tells me he’s still alive.”

  He places it in my hand. It’s shockingly heavy, cold, and almost feels sentient, like there’s a universe inside of it. My ears start to grow warm, a strange buzzing sensation running through my lobes and down my neck.

  “So now that we know he’s alive, for now,” Rasmus continues, his voice deepening, “are you still willing to do anything for him?” He takes a step closer to me. “Hanna, are you willing to go to the Land of the Dead?”

  Chapter 4

  The Waterfall

  I turn the stone over in my hands, mesmerized by the changing light. It really is like holding the northern lights in your hands.

  “Yes,” I say, transfixed by the stone. Then some sense comes into my head. “And by the Land of the Dead, you mean the police, because that’s exactly what my father would expect me to do. And he’d want me to go now.”

  Rasmus exhales loudly and gestures to the pot. “I was going to heat up some hapankaalikeitto, that’s sour cabbage soup. It’s not a close journey to anywhere. You need to get your strength up. Then we’ll set out. I promise.”

  I sigh, and while Rasmus attends to the soup again, I go back into the living room. I gently place the aurora stone on a shelf and start going through everything I can get my hands on, from journals to field diaries and photobooks. Maybe there’s something in them that the police will want, some type of evidence. I don’t even know what exactly I’m going to say to them, but I’ll say whatever it takes so that I get them to pick up my passport and luggage from the hotel, and then tell them that my father’s body is missing and his funeral was faked. There’s a tiny little voice in my head that tells me that maybe Eero and Noora have gotten to the cops and they won’t be on my side, but that’s just paranoia brought on by all the delusional nonsense I’ve been subjected to for the last twenty-hour hours.

  So far though, the notebooks aren’t providing me with much I can use. There are decades worth of my father’s work in here, jotted down in tiny handwriting. It’s all in Finnish, so I have no idea what it says, but occasionally there will either be some piece of dried foliage taped to the page, or a quick sketch of an animal. Except the animals aren’t quite right, like he’s sketching them in a decomposing form, half-skin, half-bones. I flip through page after page of a reindeer, a raven, a bear, a wolf, a fox, an eagle, an elk, and even what looks like a dinosaur, all of them drawn in various states of decay. What puts my teeth on edge is the fact that none of them are drawn in death. They’re all alert or moving, and if they happened to have an eyeball intact, the eye looks gleaming and alive.

  Papa, that’s creepy, I think and quickly shut the book. What else are you hiding?

  I pick up the one next to it, one of those ones meant for painting, with the thick textured pages, and tentatively open it, expecting to see more half-dead creatures.

  And I do. On the first page there are three white reindeer. One is mostly bone, a standing skeleton with molting antlers, the others are intact but with milky eyes. They’re standing in front of a river, black as ink, and there are ripples on the surface that make me think there are large snakes slithering just below. There’s something so visceral about the image, like he’s captured a moment in real time, like there’s life in the painting, and if I stared at it long enough I could enter it.

  I had no idea my father could paint so well, and all from his imagination.

  With some effort, I flip the page to see another breathtaking image, this one of a forest quite similar to the one outside this cabin, with another river, only this one is light blue and iced over. At the end is a frozen waterfall, at least fifty feet high, and I swear the water is gleaming like a million crystals, like he’s used metallic paint.

  Along the river is a sign with an arrow pointing at the waterfall.

  Underneath the sign my dad has scribbled “Tytär, älä tule luokseni.”

  Tytär sounds familiar to me,
but I’m not sure what it means. I close the book, feeling a little unsteady on my feet.

  “Soup is ready, if you want to join me,” Rasmus says, gesturing to the tiny circular table by the door.

  I nod and go sit down. Rasmus brings me a bowl of steaming hot burgundy soup, some sour cream in the middle, and a cup of coffee. I eat two huge bowls, the sour cabbage strangely addictive, and drink three cups of coffee, while Rasmus stays mostly silent, his focus on his food and thankfully not me, slurping away. I used to eat like a bird, but part of my recovery was to embrace the messiness of food.

  As soon as the meal is done, I wash the dishes, feeling bizarrely domestic, and Rasmus starts gathering things from all around the cottage, throwing them in a leather backpack that has seen better days, then brings out clothes from a closet and starts laying them on the couch.

  “What’s all this?” I ask, wiping my hands on an embroidered dish towel.

  “Can’t go anywhere if you’re just wearing that,” he says, pointing at me. He then shoves a long black coat in my hands. It’s leather but there’s shearling inside and along the wide collar and when I bury my nose into it, it smells like my dad.

  I close my eyes for a moment as my heart aches for him.

  “There’s no way this will fit,” I tell Rasmus, but I put it on and somehow it fits perfectly, cozy without being bulky.

  “I think he’s had that since the 70’s,” Rasmus says with a smile. “He was a lot slimmer then.” Then he hands me a black scarf and a pair of black-and-white mittens and a matching knit cap with flaps over the ears, similar to the Sami traditional dress.

  At first I think it’s overkill, but when we step outside to fetch the reindeer, I immediately know how life-saving these clothes are. I pull up the scarf over my mouth and nose, the air biting at my exposed skin, and watch as Rasmus gets the reindeer attached to the sleigh.

  “Ladies first,” he says when he’s done, having made quick work of it.

  I sit down on the animal pelts he just laid out on the sleigh, then he gets down beside me and says an encouraging word or two to the reindeer. It starts to trot, pulling us through the snow with a jerk.

  “You don’t even have any reins,” I point out as the sleigh glides along under the snow-frosted trees. “How are you steering him?”

  “Sulo is a she,” he says, “hence why she still has antlers at this time of year. And we have a connection.”

  “Is this a shaman thing?” I ask.

  He gives me a wry smile. “You have a lot to learn.”

  He says it in a jovial way but his words strike deep. My father was a shaman. All this time and he had this whole other life, one he never let me be a part of. Why didn’t he trust me? He knew I wouldn’t think it odd, or any less of him. Hell, he knew I was a bit woo-woo myself with all my crystals and tarot decks and whatnot (I mean, I mostly have the tarot decks because I like the artwork, I don’t actually know how to use them well).

  And yet, it was all kept from me. Why?

  What hurts even more is the fact that I may never get an answer to that question. For all that Rasmus has been talking about my father being alive somewhere fantastical, I can’t help but cling to the idea. I don’t believe in a Land of the Dead, no matter how powerful a shaman my father was, but part of me hopes that Rasmus is at least partially right. That my father is still alive and out in the world somewhere, and it’s just a matter of time before he pops up.

  But that’s what people think when their loved ones die, isn’t it? They keep thinking it’s only temporary. That they’re gone, in the other room, maybe at work, or on vacation. That they’re just away and they’ll be back at some point. Maybe that’s how you get through death, by telling yourself your father will pick up the phone, and that if he doesn’t that he’ll call you back soon, and so in the back of your mind, at the back of your heart, you’re just waiting. Waiting for them to return and for life to go back to normal again. The idea that they’re never coming back is…it’s more than unbearable. It goes against everything you’ve ever known.

  My father was a true constant in my life, even when he was far away. He was always there. That’s all that I’ve known. That’s all I can accept. I’ve never had someone just vanish off the face of the planet—everyone always comes back in some way.

  But maybe not this time, I think to myself. I shut my eyes to the tears.

  I don’t know if it was the food, all the stress, or the fresh air and rocking motion of the sleigh, but I seem to doze off for a bit. When I come to, the sleigh has stopped and I expect to find myself in a strip mall parking lot or something like that.

  Instead, we’re still in the forest.

  I look around to see Rasmus getting off the sleigh and patting the reindeer who is snorting, stamping its hooves, and looking restless.

  “What’s happening?” I ask.

  “We have to walk the rest,” Rasmus says to me. He reaches into the sleigh and grabs his backpack, shrugging it on over his coat, then reaches for my hand.

  “What? Why? Where are we?”

  “A place where Sula won’t go any further.”

  “How far from the police station are we?” I ask.

  “We only have to walk a bit,” he says, gesturing impatiently with his hand again.

  I sigh and let him help me out of the sleigh.

  Once on my feet, I gasp at the sight ahead of us.

  I’m standing in my father’s painting. While I don’t see a sign, I see an ice-blue river that’s frosted over, coming from a frozen waterfall in the distance. It’s at least fifty feet high, caught in mid-cascade over a cliff dotted with dead trees.

  “My father painted this,” I whisper in awe.

  “Yes, I know.”

  “He called this…Tytär, älä tule luokseni.”

  A tight look comes across his face and he nods, then turns his attention back to the reindeer. He says something in a quick, hushed tone while stroking its nose and the reindeer snorts again, before backing up with the sleigh. Like on a dime, it turns and runs away, snow flying in the sleigh’s wake.

  “What the hell!” I yell. “Where is he going?!”

  “She,” he corrects me again, adjusting the backpack on his shoulder. “And she is going home.”

  “She’s not going to wait for us?”

  He stares at me for a moment as light snowflakes begin to fall. “You’re not coming back this way, you said so yourself.”

  “Okay, so how are you going to get back home?”

  He shrugs. “It doesn’t really matter now. Come on.”

  He starts to walk off, skirting along the edge of the frozen river. The snow is falling faster and sticking to his shoulders.

  I look behind me, but the reindeer is long gone and the tracks it left in the snow have already disappeared. I truly am in the middle of fucking nowhere and I have no choice but to follow Rasmus.

  I grumble and then start after him. “I’m starting to believe this isn’t the way to town,” I tell him. “I mean, we’re heading toward a frozen waterfall and a cliff. I’m starting to think this isn’t the way to anywhere.”

  Rasmus doesn’t say anything.

  “So, what did the painting say?” I ask, trudging through the snow behind him. “What did my father write at the bottom? When was he here?”

  “All the questions again.”

  I run a few feet and grab his arm, pulling him to a stop. It’s harder than it looks. He may be tall and skinny, but he’s built solidly, like a tree with roots.

  “What did it say?” I repeat.

  He rubs his lips together and then looks off to the waterfall. “It says…Daughter, don’t come for me.”

  Then he pulls out of my grasp and keeps walking.

  Daughter, don’t come for me?

  “What does that mean?” I ask, jogging after him again. “That was directed to me. How did he know I’d be reading his journal, his diaries? How did he know?”

  “I’m sure he wrote it in a lot of p
laces, knowing someday you’d find out he was gone, knowing someday you would be right here, in this very place, about to go after him.”

  “In this very place?” I repeat.

  Rasmus stops and nods at the frozen waterfall. We’re right next to it now and I can see the darkness behind it, feel all that empty space. There’s a cave or a passage back there behind the solid ice curtain, and the wind that’s blowing out of it smells like mint and I swear I hear a low murmur, like a crowd of people.

  And then I hear it.

  I hear him.

  I hear my father’s voice, airy and breathless, like a forgotten whisper. “Hanna, don’t come for me. Please. Just let me go.”

  My heart sinks, my eyes going wide. I try to swallow but can’t.

  “Papa!” I cry out softly at the cave, tears freezing on my lashes.

  But there’s nothing in return. Just this mint-scented wind, that’s sometimes ice cold and sometimes furnace hot and sounds like another world, another life is hidden in the depths.

  “Was that you?” I ask Rasmus. “Was that some trick you did with your voice?”

  He gives his head a firm shake. “No. I wouldn’t have told you to stay behind. I need you to do this, Hanna. I can’t go and get Torben alone. You have to be with me.”

  No. No, this is still all crazy talk, still all nonsense, still all a fairy tale and make-believe.

  “I just…I want to go home,” I say faintly.

  Rasmus stares at me.

  “And I want my father back.” My voice is louder now.

  He sighs and looks at me with melancholy eyes. “You can’t have both. Which one do you want more?”

  Of course there’s only one answer. “I want my father back.”

  Oh god, Papa, I want you back.

  He gives me a quick smile. “Okay. Then we keep walking.”

  He starts again, heading to the cliff face and walking alongside it until he disappears behind the iced veil of the waterfall.

  “Rasmus?” I call out after him. No response. Even the wind seems to have stopped. All is eerily calm. I look behind me, but there’s just the frozen river and the snow and the trees and there’s nothing but silence. Rasmus had lied to me, told me he was taking me to town, when he was really taking me here. He’s unreliable and untrustworthy, but there’s shit-all I can do about that now.