Free The Snow Queen by Eileen Kernaghan Page B

there. And then, as though her name had been spoken, she looked up.
    The bear reared on his hind legs, an immense and terrifying shape, black as shadow againt the silvery wall of birches. Ritva could smell the pungent wet odour of his pelt, feel his rank breath on her face. He lashed at her with one of his enormous paws. She felt his claws peel the flesh from her face and the scalp from her head, shred the clothes from her body. She shrieked in pain and terror as muscle and fat and tendons were ripped away. And then she stood shuddering in her naked bones. Her ribs clattered together; she looked down at her feet, saw the delicate framework of white twigs, the polished white knobs where her ankles joined her feet. She began to count all the bones in her body, giving each one a name — not in the Saami tongue, or in Finnish, or in any other human speech, but in the secret language of the animals. When she had finished, she felt no more pain, nor was she conscious of the whistling of the night wind between her ribs, the gnawing of the pre-dawn chill on naked vertebrae. She was flooded with calm, and lightness, and power; freed of everything that was transient, unessential; pared down to the hard imperishable bone.
    And now she could hear all the voices of the forest calling to her.
    â€œHurry, hurry,” howled the wind-spirit. “Would you spend another winter shut up in your father’s house?” And the river-spirit joined in with her murmurous, insistent voice, “Go quickly, Ritva. This is the adventure you’ve dreamed of.” The grasses, sly and insistent, whispered, “Life is short, Ritva. Tomorrow will be too late.”
    Only the rock-spirits, stolid and earthbound, said “Stay, Ritva, stay. You must listen to us, for we are the oldest and wisest. What is this southern girl to you, that you would risk your life for her? She prays to the Christian god, who burned your drums and drove your mother’s people into hiding. Let her go alone into the winter lands. Let her god save her from the wolf’s jaws.”
    But the trees called out to her with all their voices joined, like a great chanting. “We are wiser than the rocks, for we are the children of the World-Tree. Our trunks join under earth with air; our branches hold the sky up. Go, Ritva. Travel our hidden paths. We will protect you.”

    The light had changed. Her throat was parched, her bladder ached, her belly churned with hunger; she guessed that she had slept the day away, and it was evening again.
    When she reached her father’s hall she found Gerda hovering anxiously in the forecourt.
    â€œThank goodness,” Gerda said. “No one knew where you’d gone — I was sure the wolves had eaten you.”
    â€œNot wolves,” said Ritva. She felt light-headed and weak, but unaccountably cheerful. “A bear.”
    Gerda’s eyes widened, but before she could open her mouth to speak Ritva had seized her by the elbows and was dancing her madly through the gate and into the hall. “We’ll rescue your Kai, little rabbit,” panted Ritva, half out of breath. “I have made up my mind to it.” The evening stew was simmering on the hearth. Ritva dipped out a ladle-full of broth, blew on it, and gulped it down. Then she began spearing chunks of meat and vegetables straight out of the kettle on the point of her knife. “Where’s my mother?” she asked, with her mouth full.
    â€œGone gathering mushrooms,” said one of the women.
    â€œAh,” said Ritva. “She’ll be out in the forest, then. All night, did she say?”
    The woman shrugged. “Most like.”
    â€œGood,” said Ritva, and as the women of the camp watched in horrified delight, she stepped over the invisible line that marked the boundary of her mother’s boasso , her sacred space.
    She lifted the shaman’s robe from its hook, and settled it over her shoulders. It had a