Page 125 of North Is the Night
“You’re not?”
“No. You’re not a thinker.”
I square my shoulders at him. “And just what isthatsupposed to mean—”
“I’m not saying you’re not clever,” he corrects with a raised hand, stopping my tirade in its tracks. “You’re as bright as they come, Siiri.”
I settle with a frown, still feeling like a failure.
“Perhaps we must let your luonto be our guide,” he muses. “A woodpecker doesn’t waste time picturing the pretty places it would like to visit. It doesn’t lose itself to sentiment. It doesn’t idle. Like you, Siiri. You don’t rest, you don’t wait. You justdo.”
“So, to release my itse I should...”
“You should just do it,” he says with a shrug.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
He chuckles. “Why does it not? You have a task ahead of you that must be done. So, do it.” He points to the instrument in my lap. “Pick up that drum. Don’t waste another moment thinking about it. And don’t do it my way. Do ityourway.”
Hesitantly, I reach for the drum. “Don’t think,” I mutter, brushing my calloused fingers over the runes for the lake and the hunters. I call the larger one Onni. I smile, feeling the warmth of his laugh in my chest. I close my eyes tight. “Don’t think.”
“Go and come back,” Väinämöinen warns. “If you’re gone too long, I’ll send my luonto after you. When you see the eagle, follow your tethered hands. Let them be your guide.”
I nod, keeping my eyes closed.
Don’t think... don’t think... don’t think...
All I can do is think... and I think this is madness. I sit on the floor of Väinämöinen’s hut, tattoos fresh on my hands, willing half my soul to split itself away from my body and travel a vast distance across the wintry woodlands back to my lakeside home. I do this as practice so that I can send it out again, next time through the veil of death itself.
This is all utter madness.
This is a dream.
This is impossible.
“To be a shaman is to embrace the impossible,” comes the shaman’s voice, the hint of a smile in his tone, and I know I must have said that last bit out loud.
I flex my fingers around my drum mallet. Thisisimpossible. And yet I’ve been doing the impossible every day since the moment Aina disappeared. Nothing is impossible.
Lifting my mallet, I strike my drum.
I groan, rolling onto my back as something cold and feathery tickles my nose. It makes me want to sneeze. I hold it in, blinking my eyes open to find that I’m lying on the forest floor. A canopy of snowy trees overhead all but hides the moon and stars. The air is cold, but I’m bundled up, warm. I feel it only on my cheeks and the tip of my nose.
I sit up, glancing around the snowy clearing. I’m fully dressed in thick reindeer-fur boots, wool socks, elk-hide breeches, and a fur coat. My neck is wrapped up in a scarf to conceal the scabs that will one day soon fade to scars, and a fur hat sits low on my forehead, covering my ears. Lastly, I raise my hands, wriggling my fingers in thick rabbit-fur-lined mittens. Inside the mittens, my hands sting. I scramble to my feet and pull the mitten off my right hand, revealing the spray of black runes tattooed on my skin.
“I did it,” I whisper to the trees. I’m standing in my itse. I drummed it free. And if I did it right, that should mean...
I stomp off through the trees. Väinämöinen was right; even in the dark, I know my way. My breath comes out in little puffs as I near the lights of my homestead. I walk around the trees beside the barn, eager to see my family again. I miss them all so greatly—even Liisa, who before was only ever a nuisance.
But she wasmynuisance. We looked out for each other. We love each other. I’ll be glad to see her again.
I hurry around the side of the house, my boots crunching in the snow. Slipping my other mitten off, I tuck them in at my belt. Then I rap twice on the door and wait.
Nothing.
No sounds from within, no scuffling of chairs dragged across the wooden floor.
“Odd,” I mutter.
