Chapter 359
One room of pine logs, low-beamed, warm. A stone hearth with a fire roaring. A rag rug in front of it. A kettle on a hook. A blanket over a chair. A small window with snow falling outside it, on the beat. A shelf with two bowls on it, and a biscuit tin. Seven people and a dog, crowding into a room built for one boy and a dog, steaming, shedding snow.
walking straight to the rag rug in front of the hearth, turning round three times, and lying down on it with a groan of absolute satisfaction, exactly in the shape worn into it.
sitting down on the floor by the fire, a beat late, holding her hands out to it.
sinking onto the chair with the blanket, her staff across her knees, the grey strands in her hair, closing her eyes.
at the shelf, opening the biscuit tin, taking a biscuit, eating it. The tin empty now: he took the last one.
on the next beat of the snow outside the window, full again. Every biscuit back.
laughing, sitting down on the rug beside Mingus.
sitting against the wall under the window, a hand on his chest. Inside him, seventeen voices very quiet, warm, almost asleep.
standing at the window, not sitting, looking out at the snowfield: rows of snow-covered statues, and at the door, a gaunt iron figure with snow on his head, facing out.
opening the door a crack. The cold coming in. Nagel turning his flat head.
looking at her with his rivet-eyes.
a long beat. Her hand on the doorframe.
(She closes the door. Then opens it again, an inch. She leaves it open an inch for the rest of the night.)
The cabin at night from outside, small and gold in a snowfield of amber light, smoke straight up from the chimney, snow falling on the beat. Through the window, warm figures: a boy asleep on a rag rug with his arm round a golden dog; a pirate asleep in a chair with a biscuit tin on his chest; a girl asleep sitting up by the fire; a quiet man asleep under the window with a one-armed woman curled at his feet; a woman with grey in her hair asleep under a blanket, her staff across her knees; a woman with short crimson hair at the window, awake, looking out.
And at the door, the only thing in the whole picture that's cold: a gaunt iron man standing in the snow with his back to the wall, the firelight on one side of his face. Content.
And over the cabin, faint, in the dark between beats, nothing else at all: no letters, no grey, no black squares. Just snow.
asleep on the rug. And above him, a dream-panel beginning to rise. He frowns in his sleep. The dream-panel trying to be the cabin, the one he built, and there's nothing there: the place where it was is just blank, gently, the way a dream is blank when you can't remember it.
half waking. Feeling it. The loss. His hand going to his chest.
beside him on the rug, lifting his head, licking the boy's face, slow and thorough. Then lying back down with his head on Kompis's chest, right over his heart.
opening his eyes. Looking up at the low beams. The real fire's light on them. The real dog's weight on his chest. The real snow at the real window. A long breath out.
falling asleep again, properly this time. And his dream-panel rising again, soft: not the cabin. Something else. A road. A long road of light on the sea, and a lot of ships on it, and a lot of people waving. Not white. Gold.
in the chair, one eye open, watching his best friend sleep. The faint knot-mark on his own forehead.
Everyone asleep but Rougeina at the window and Nagel at the door. The fire resetting every beat: a log that burned down coming back whole, the flames starting fresh, the kettle refilling with a little sigh. Over and over. Quietly. The way it has a billion times.
at the window, lips moving silently. Eight names. Then, for the first time, a ninth thing, not a name: looking at the boy asleep with the dog.
waking before dawn, sitting by the fire, watching it reset.
amber light growing outside. The snow-statues of the finished hunters, rows of white humps in the field. Nagel at the door with a ridge of snow on his head.
turning his flat head toward the amber road at the edge of the snowfield. His rivet-eyes narrowing.
Down the amber road from the shore, fast, faster than anything should be: a white streak. A straight line, perfectly straight, cutting across the snowfield, through a row of snow-statues (the first thing in its path, cut clean, a statue's head tumbling into the snow), and ending with a crash in a drift ten paces from the porch.
A white scarf. Coat-tails like a swallow's. A face coming up out of the snow, spitting.
looking down at her.
The cabin door opening, the crew spilling out, sleep-rumpled, Vigolas with a biscuit in his mouth.
her face going serious.
pointing back up the amber road, toward everything.
the crimson mark on her arm already beginning to glow, her eyes bright.