Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow - Jessica Day George [69]
Rollo was tucked up as he had been on their other wind journeys, but this time he would occasionally raise his head and lap at the moist air with his tongue. When she did open her eyes, the lass delighted in watching the play of dewdrops on her hands, seeing them bead up and then run up her arms as the south wind sped forward. Finally even that grew tiresome, though, and she closed her eyes and slept. The south wind bore her on and on, beyond a day and a night, until it was little more than a stiff, wet breeze that could barely hold its shape. With a last puff of effort, she was set down on the crest of a snowdrift as hard as stone.
“Brother,” the south wind called weakly.
The roar of the north wind blasted the snowdrift into a million sharp, cold diamonds, and the lass fell down and down, into a crevice of blue ice and white snow. Rollo landed heavily atop her, knocking the breath from both their bodies.
The north wind howled down the crevice, smashing the lass against a jagged wall of ice. She struck her head, and all went dark.
Chapter 27
When she woke, the lass found herself in a snow cave sitting propped up by a chunk of ice. A pool of water as gray as steel reflected dim light onto the roof of the cave, and a walrus was lying beside the pool only a few paces away. It was big, and brown, and had long yellow tusks.
“If you scare away my fish, I’ll eat you and the wolf,” the walrus said. Then it heaved its ungainly body into the pool without causing a splash. The lass assumed that it swam out of the cave, because it didn’t resurface.
“Nasty temper,” Rollo said from his position at her side. “Nothing but threats and insults since the wind brought us here.”
“Which wind?”
“North. South was too weak.”
“Will the north wind help us, do you think?”
“It won’t talk to me,” Rollo huffed. “But at least it brought us in here and gave us our things.”
The lass realized that she was covered in the white parka, and various other items of clothing had been spread over her. She wasn’t sure if Rollo or the north wind was responsible, but she was grateful all the same. It was very, very cold.
Riding the south wind had dampened her clothes, and now they had frozen stiff. She stood up and quickly undressed, then yanked on the first things she could get her hands on. In the end, she had a nightgown on over an outer shift, but she didn’t care. There were layers of skirts and vests over that, and then the white parka. Besides, there was no one here to see her but Rollo and the walrus, and the walrus still had not returned.
The north wind arrived before the walrus did. A great whirl of icy particles whipped into the cave and tore at the lass’s clothes and hair. Before she could protest, it lifted her off her feet and carried her out of the cave, with Rollo and her pack as well. The wind dropped her just outside, near the water, and then pulled back.
Looking around, the lass felt her jaw fall open. She was not on solid ground. She was on a large sheet of ice and hard-packed snow, floating in a sea of other sheets of ice, mountains of ice, pillars of ice. That hadn’t been a little pond inside the snow cave earlier; it had been the sea coming through a hole in the floor.
The sudden realization made the lass lose her balance and she staggered to keep herself from falling. What if the sheet of ice she was on tipped? How thick was it? She had heard that the great bergs and islands of ice in the far north floated freely, ramming ships and trapping sailors. Her father thought that was what had happened to Hans Peter’s ship.
“Are you ill?” The voice of the north wind was sharp and cold. It knocked the lass’s hood back off her head, and burned her ears with particles of ice.
“No!” She snatched her hood back, straightening. “I just—I didn’t realize—is this ice solid enough to hold me?” Then she saw Rollo, a pace away with all four legs splayed wide and his eyes rolling in panic. “Is it solid enough to hold us?”
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