Page 32 of North Is the Night
12
Siiri
I slip down fromthe stone altar as I scan the sacred alder grove for the source of the voice. There, standing where I’d dropped my weapons, is the woman from the woods. Like Tellervo, her beauty is breathtaking. She wears robes of white that drape around her slender shoulders. Her night-black hair falls in a glistening sheet down her back, almost trailing on the ground. It’s parted perfectly down the center, framing her child-like face. The blue of her eyes glows almost white, the hint of a smile tipping her lips. In the woods, I wasn’t sure if she was a goddess or a shamaness. But now that I see her face, I know. She’s another goddess.
She tsks her tongue, looking at the broken cross. “Do you not fear the wrath of the foreign god?”
I square my shoulders at her. “The foreign god can get on his longboat and sail back to Sweden. We have no need of him or his zealots here.”
Her smile falls as she considers me, tilting her head slightly to the side. “The old gods are dead, hadn’t you heard?”
“Then tell me how you’re standing here.”
“Maybe I’m a witch,” she muses.
“You were with me the other night. In the woods, after Kalma took my friend. You got me to my feet.”
“You got yourself to your feet.”
“You helped me.”
“You helped yourself,” she counters. “I did nothing.”
“You were there,” I press. “I wanted to die, and you called me back from the brink. You gave me the hope to stand, to keep fighting.”
“You already had hope. I just reminded you of where you’d temporarily misplaced it.”
I search her face. “Who are you?”
“A friend.” As if to prove her point, she lifts her hand from her side, holding out my discarded hatchet.
I tense, not having realized she’d picked it up. She had it hidden in the folds of her robes. Crossing the clearing, I tuck it back in my belt. She holds out my knife with her other hand, and I do the same, slipping it back in its sheath at my hip.
She watches me adjust my belt. “Do those help?”
“Well, they can’t hurt,” I reply, grateful to feel their weight at my hips again.
She shrugs a narrow shoulder. “Where I’m from, they’re not very useful.”
“And where is that?”
She ignores my question. “I heard you’re looking for Väinämöinen. I assume my cousin wasn’t forthcoming with her aid?”
“No, she wasn’t.”
She nods, lips pursed in curiosity as she surveys me. “She’s angry. And bone-weary with grief. Don’t judge her too harshly.”
“Why does she grieve?”
“A life-giving goddess will always grieve death,” she replies. “And there is so much death now. It infects everything. She is powerless to right the balance, so she grieves.”
“And what if Väinämöinen could help restore the balance? What if he could return order to life and death? Would you help me find him?”
“You assume life and death are out of balance.”
I blink, confused. “But you just said—”
“I said she is powerless to right the balance, and she is. There is no one in this realm who can mend what is broken. Not even your lost shaman.”
