Page 81 of North Is the Night
He says nothing, waiting.
“Kalma is tall,” I begin. “As tall as you. She wears tattered black robes and paints her face with blood. Her eyes are two dark orbs, like looking into a bottomless well. And her hands...” I glance down at his hands folded over his lap. “They’re like yours... with those tattoos.”
He grunts, stuffing his hands in his pockets.
“Plus, there’s the smell,” I go on. “Gather every dead animal and every pile of dung you can find, and it still wouldn’t match her awful stench.”
He shrugs. “Fine. You met Kalma. And which goddess gave you that one?” he says, pointing to the bruise on my other temple.
I ghost a finger over it. “This wasn’t a goddess’s work. It was from a pair of Lumi’s trappers in the south. They wanted something from me I wasn’t willing to give. They’re dead now. And Lumi will join them if she stands in my way.”
“You’re not afraid of her either, then, I suppose,” he says, lips pursed in mild amusement.
“Should I be?”
His mustache twitches, and he ignores my question. “Now, about this bear...”
“I told you, he’s my friend. He’s no threat to me.”
“But is he a threat tome?”
“Why would a bear be a threat to you?”
He huffs, pulling a pipe from his pocket. “You really know nothing about magic, do you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not concerned about the bear,” he says, stuffing the pipe with a bit of smoking leaf. Returning to the hearth, he lights it at the fire. “I’m concerned about who’sinsidethe bear.” A haze of white smoke wafts my way, sweet with notes of vanilla, cardamom, and raspberry.
“What do you mean?” I ask again.
“In my experience, bears care more about finding berries and succulent fish. This close to winter, they look for a den to sleep through the long night. But your bear fights witches and breaks ice. More to the point, he knows how to find me, a shaman who chooses to be lost. Do you see why that might be concerning?”
I’ve had my suspicions, but I didn’t have time to stop and consider. Everything happened so quickly. “You believe someone might be inside Kal? Who?”
“How am I to know without questioning the bear?” He takes another long drag from his pipe. “If the bear died a watery death in that lake, whoever was inside him will have either perished with him or lost their host.”
I drop back down to the pelts, crossing my legs. “Their host?”
“Certain väki require a host, meaning they cannot take physical form,” he explains. “But they can possess another’s body—human, animal, tree.”
His words stir up a memory that’s plagued me of late, a memory of Aina holding my hand, begging me to come back to her. “I was once taken ill by a veden väki,” I say.
He relaxes back against the pinewood once more, pipe clenched between his teeth. “A water spirit? Nasty little sprites. How did you banish it?”
“My mummi used fire. She says only fire can fight water. She took me to the sauna and left me there for a half a day while the väki battled inside me.”
He considers me, his eyes narrowing. “It takes a strong constitution to survive a water väki without the aid of a shaman’s spell... and an even stronger spirit to host a fire väki. You say you had both in you at once?”
I hold his gaze. “Give me a chance, Väinämöinen. You’ll see I’m more than strong enough for this task. I promise I won’t be a burden. I’ll hunt my own food, melt my own water. I’ll gather and split wood, even heat water for your baths if you wish. I’ll do anything except lie with you and—”
He lifts a hand in protest. “Lie with me? You’re little more than a child.”
“That hasn’t stopped others from trying.” I peel down the edge of my bandaged throat to show him my wound. “And I’m not a child. I may be younger than you, but isn’t everyone?”
He snorts despite himself. “Call me ‘old’ again, and see what happens.”
I ignore his threat. “Teach me how to get someone out of Tuonela alive.”
