The Last Hunter - Descent - Jeremy Robinson [12]
“Don’t eat too many,” a woman says, spinning me around on my heels.
Her skin is two shades darker than Mirabelle’s but her smile seems even brighter. I recognize her immediately. My father took a stunning photo of her once, sitting on a glacier wrapped in a blanket, having a picnic. Only, that’s not why I recognize her. “Hello, Mrs. Clark. How are you?”
She stops, puts a hand to her ample hip and says, “Well, aren’t you the polite one.”
I’m not sure what to say, but I’m not nearly as nervous around Mrs. Clark as I am around Merrill, or their daughter. I continue with a compliment. “These are really good.”
“You know, as much as I know everyone loves these cookies, you’re the first person to compliment them.”
This strikes me as odd, given how good they are. She takes out a plastic bag, loads it with three more cookies, takes the second out of my hand, adds it to the bag and hands it to me. She gives me a wink that lets me know we’re in cahoots. I nod and stuff the cookies into my cargo pants pocket.
“Thank you, Mrs. Clark.”
“Enough with the Mrs. stuff. Call me Aimee.”
I’ve never once in my life been invited to call an adult by their first name. I heard once that an art teacher at my former high school allowed the students to call her by her first name. But someone told her she couldn’t and she quit. I remember thinking she was silly for quitting, but having now experienced the sense of pride over using an adult’s first name, I understand. It’s a gift. An acknowledgement of not being superior simply for being older.
“I like how you spell your name.” Then I try it on for size. “Aimee.” But I drag the E sound out.
She laughs. “I have my mother to thank for the spelling. I like it now, but kids made fun of me a lot for it when I was your age.”
I think about the kids in my school, imagine what they’d come up with, and nod. They'd probably still make fun of her name. They certainly made fun of mine. Solomon. That alone could be bad enough. But my middle name—Ull—what were my parents thinking?
Granted, I appreciate the significance; Ull was the son of the Norse god, Thor. He was the god of winter, which is how I ended up with the name. Being born in a place of perpetual winter, I suppose it makes sense. Ull was also the god of death, the chase, combat, archery, hunting and trapping. I’ll never be good at any of those things, but at least my light complexion and ultra-blond hair fit the Viking look. Still, being named for a Norse god does not do wonders for a person who’s already socially blacklisted.
She sits on a bar stool and starts on a cookie. I perch myself in the stool across from her like we’re old chums.
“So how nervous are you?” she asks.
“Nervous?”
“About going home.”
I feel like she has somehow torn me open and looked at my soul. To everyone else I’ve appeared nothing but excited. In truth, I’m fearful of what I’ll find in Antarctica. I can’t fully explain it, but I think it has to do with my high expectations. It’s like when you go to a movie everyone has said is amazing, but it’s only so-so, and you end up hating it because of your raised expectations. I’m afraid that will happen in Antarctica, because I expect my homecoming to be magical. Even I know that’s stupid. Any real magic done in the past was simply science ahead of its time used on naïve people. Antarctica will not be magical, but I wish to my core that it will be. Of course, my rock throwing incident also has me worried that I’ll become a raging psychopath the moment I set foot on the continent.
“A lot,” I admit. “Part of me wants to spend a lifetime there, learning about the place, searching for its history.”
“For your history.”
I feel a wash of embarrassment. “I know anything found on Antarctica isn’t really my history, but—”
“You were born there,” she says firmly. “You probably have a legal claim to the continent,