Page 4 of North Is the Night
She huffs, rolling another fish in salt. “Well, I wouldn’t, but other girls might. Not everyone has a mother as kind as mine... or a mummi as protective as yours.”
True.
I smile, thinking of my grandmother, of her warm hands and her cold glare. That woman was born with iron in her spine. She protects her grandchildren with the ferocity of a mother bear, and she loves us just as fiercely. And there really is no kinder woman than Aina’s mother... except perhaps Aina herself.
“You’ve made this point already,” I tease. “More than once.”
“Well, it’s as true now as it was this morning,” she counters. “We’ve heard these stories for years. Women go missing, Siiri. Too many women die in childbirth, and that leaves too few of us unmarried women left. And men get lonely—”
I snort, peering out at the boats. “Oh, do they? You wouldn’t know it from Aksel.”
She follows my gaze. We both know how decidedlynotlonely my brother is, most nights. If my father catches him with a girl in the barn again, he’s likely to strap Aksel’s hide clean off.
“Fine,somemen get lonely,” she clarifies. “And then they get desperate. I’m not saying it’s right,” she adds quickly. “I’m only saying I bet if someone went out and looked, they would find every one of those missing girls scattered somewhere along the lakeshore, adjusting to her lot as a lonely man’s wife.”
Now my grimace has nothing to do with the salt burning my hands. “Gods, why does your theory sound even more horrifying than the one about witches and blood sacrifice?”
She purses her lips, trying to hide her smile. “Perhaps because you are singularly opposed to even the idea of marriage? For you, a woman choosing to marry is as disturbing as being kidnapped by a witch or fed to a stone giant.”
I snort. “Surely I’m not that bad?”
“You are worse, and you know it. No man will ever be good enough for you, Siiri. You’re smarter than they are, funnier than they are.”
“True,” I joke.
“Not to mention you always best them in every contest of will. It’s quite maddening, I assure you.”
“Maddening? For whom?”
“For them.”
“How can you know how they feel about it?”
“Because theytellme so,” she replies with a laugh. “Repeatedly. They call you the pickled herring.”
I laugh, too, puffing a little with pride. “Well, perhaps they should try harder to impress me.”
“And since no man is good enough foryou,” she says over me, “you’ve decided no man can possibly ever be good enough forme,either. You’ve scared away my last three suitors—”
“Stop right there.” I waggle a salt-crusted finger in her face. “If you call that duck-brained Joki your suitor one more time, gods hear me, I’ll marry you to him myself. See how well you like it when a year from now he’s still telling you the same story of the time henearlyfelled a ten-point stag.”
She laughs again despite herself, tossing another fish down on her bed of salt. Leaning over, she gives my knee a gentle squeeze. “Be at peace. I don’t want to marry Joki.”
The tension in my chest eases a bit at her admission.
“But I will eventually marry someone,” she adds, turning back to her work.
Her words stifle the air like a blanket tossed over a fire. I can’t look at her, can’t let her see my face.
“I want a family,” she says, her tone almost apologetic. “I want a home of my own. Gods willing, I’ll have children.”
“Gods willing, you’ll survive it,” I mutter. Too few women do. We lost our dear friend Helka just last month. Her and her baby. That’s three mothers and three babies this summer alone. Just another one of the curses plaguing our land. I swear, sometimes it feels like the gods are laughing at us... if they bother to see us at all.
Maybe my brother Onni is right. Maybe our gods really are dead. What else could account for this cruel, senseless suffering?
But my sweet Aina is ever hopeful. “I’ll have children and a husband who loves me,” she goes on. “A home of my own. A family. A purpose. Don’t you want that for me, Siiri? Don’t you want it for yourself?”
I stare down at my fingers, red and stinging and swollen with salt.A family and a home of my own.That’s supposed to be the dream, right? Children. A warm fire and full bellies. My own njalle stocked with provisions to last us the long winter. A man in my bed to warm my back and keep the wolves at bay.
