Page 43 of North Is the Night
“Begin at the beginning.”
I smile. This feels a bit like speaking to Siiri’s mummi. “Must I begin on a loom?”
“Begin wherever you begin,” she replies, apparently wholly indifferent.
Making my second bold move of the day, I step closer. A clever forager knows when to take. “Might I begin with your name, goddess? My name is Aina.”
The weaver’s hands pause on the heddle rod. I swallow the nerves in my throat, waiting to see if she might kick me as her sister did. “I am Loviatar,” she says at last.
Loviatar, goddess of illness and pestilence. The stories say that when she was a young woman, Loviatar was raped by the north wind, and from her womb—and her rage—sprang nine sons, the nine diseases of men. Some storytellers like to say Loviatar had a tenth child, a daughter. This child was Envy, who must go unnamed, lest the speaker be consumed by her.
There is another aspect to Loviatar’s stories. All mortals know the witch is—
“Yes, I’m blind.” The goddess turns to face me.
I blink, struck by the beauty of her face. While Kalma has black eyes, Loviatar’s eyes are cloudy white, like two pearls. I’m not sure what else I expected. Perhaps because Tuonetar and Kalma are so monstrous, I imagined the goddess of illness’s face would be riddled with boils and sores. But her skin is soft and smooth, with gentle lines framing her mouth and creasing her brow. There are streaks of grey at her temples. She looks austere... and sad. Those pearl eyes stare at me, unblinking.
My heart flutters. “How did you—”
“Because you are mortal,” she replies tonelessly. “And mortals are painfully predictable. Now, are you going to weave anything today? Or should I call my vapid sister back here to hammer nails through your thumbs or find some other such uninspired torture?”
I move quickly over to the rack in the corner of the room where a large collection of yarns wait ready for weaving. I pick up a ball of deep red yarn, the color of wine. The cord is thick. It would make quick work to knit a pair of socks. I fish through a basket and pull out a pair of needles. Returning to Loviatar’s side, I drag a stool closer to her loom and sit.
Loviatar’s head turns to follow my movements. As I sit next to her, she frowns. “What are you doing?”
“I’m knitting,” I reply. “The light is best here by your candles. I suppose they must be for warmth?”
Her frown deepens, creasing her forehead still further. “What are you knitting?”
“You said to begin at the beginning. Well, the first thing I ever learned to knit was a stout pair of socks. You see, the trick is—”
“Ican’tsee,” the witch corrects.
“The trick is to do this special row of stitches at the toe and again when you make the turn for the heel,” I say. “It saves hours of work later.”
We settle into silence as I begin. Once I have a good inch of knitting complete, I reach for Loviatar’s hand. The goddess jumps at the unexpected touch. “What are you doing, little mouse?”
I set Loviatar’s fingers on the knitted fabric. “See—I mean, can youfeelthe thickness of the sock here?” I smile as Loviatar moves her fingers over the stitches. “That will make a good pair of socks,” I say proudly.
Loviatar just huffs, returning to her work. I do the same. The cloth she’s weaving is a beautiful blue scroll pattern on a bed of white, like liverleaves peeking through the snow in spring. I watch in awe as the blind witch works, weaving her pattern without the need of sight.
I can’t explain why, but I feel comfortable with Loviatar, at least more comfortable than in the presence of Kalma or the Witch Queen. She’s certainly less menacing than Vammatar, who took an ear off Lilja’s head just for annoying her and kicked me for asking her name.
For the first time since waking in this dark realm, I feel almost at peace.
When I can stand the silence no longer, I lean forward on my stool. “Andwhat are you working on?”
“Cloth for the servants,” Loviatar replies, never stopping the movement of her hands.
This surprises me. I never expected the death gods to care what a dead servant has to wear. All the dead I’ve seen so far seem barely able to hold themselves together. They wear soiled clothes, their bodies bent and broken. “Why would the gods of Tuonela care about clothing for dead servants?”
Loviatar stills, her head turned away. “This is not Tuonela. Not anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
The goddess keeps working her wefts through the warps. “All is not as it seems, little mouse. You come to Tuonela in its darkest hour. Only chaos reigns here now.”
Some answers at last. The forager in me leans forward eagerly, ready to collect more kernels of information. I have to find a way to keep her talking. “Who made my dress?” I ask, keeping my knitting needles clicking.
