Page 89 of The Winter Princess
I wrinkle my brow, recalling the plot. A young man is promised riches beyond imagining by a witch who tells him to plant a yearly harvest, reap the grain and weave the last sheaf into a cross, storing up reserves. He grows rich and old and fat, passing away in his bed after having the best slice of Christmas pudding he’s ever had in his life. I shake my head at Oskar. “‘The Steadfast Plowman’ isn’t anyone’s favorite.”
Oskar follows the GPS toward the Elsum Forest Reserve. As we gain in elevation, the snow becomes deeper on the plowed edges of the road and into the woods.
“Wouldn’t the Citizenship Board be happy to hear that an immigrant already loves such prized national virtues as thrift and hard work?” he returns.
I don’t love this, the way he has of detaching himself from Sondmark, holding us at arm’s length. “Give me your real answer.”
“Will you get back to quizzing me if I do?”
I make a signal in the air between us. “Promise.”
We are silent until the road bends, crossing a narrow river. Droplets of spray have frozen on the rocks below, turning them into downy pillows. The silence doesn’t make me fidget or shift. He’ll answer when he’s ready.
He releases a breath as though confessing to a petty crime that covers him in no honor. “‘The Boy and the Nykur Horse.’”
Green and white flash past the windows as I recall the story. A lost boy befriends a nykur horse—a creature with the terrible power to trap a person with its sticky hide and barrel roll them into the depths of the sea. Because the little boy loves and trusts him, the horse betrays his nature and carries the boy away on adventures.
“Where did the horse take you,” I ask, “in your imagination?”
“Pavieau…at first.” He turns a rueful smile at me. “I could hear the thunder of his hooves pounding down the cobblestones of Gransoleil, and I’d bounce along on his back like a sack of potatoes.”
I smile and the car, so spacious when we began our journey, narrows. I see the child who wanted to go home. I see the little boy who must have whooped and laughed before he discovered how to brace himself for the worst of his adopted land.
The hum of the engine fills the space. If he loved and trusted me, I would betray my nature—the nature of a woman who likes to be alone—and take him on adventures.
I clear my throat. “Name the five enchanted trials of ‘The Woodsman’s Daughter.’”
The road narrows and becomes more winding until, eventually, Oskar steers the car into a layby and cuts the engine. We could be teenagers. I open my mouth to say so, snapping it shut when I remember that you can’t make a kissing joke to a man you want to actually kiss. Not if kissing hasn’t been nailed down as an itinerary item.
He shifts and my breath catches.
Click.His seatbelt unfastens, and he steps out of the car leaving me feeling as though I’ve been nearly swept off a cliff, pushed back onto the grass by a chance gust of wind. I breathe deliberately and step into the snow, tugging on my knitted cap.
Oskar, handling his saw, halts.
“What?”
He’s silent for too long, but I know how to wait. He tugs the end of my scarf. “I like this.”
Turning, he leads us into the woods where the ground is uneven. Pockets of snow camouflage hidden holes, and it takes a half-hour of scrambling over tree trunks and boulders before we find a likely candidate—a Nordmann fir, one-and-a-half meters high.
“Perfect,” I say, charmed by the tiny scale of it when contrasted against the tree in the Great Hall of the Summer Palace which almost brushes the ceiling.
I unfold a tripod and set the camera up, framing Oskar and the tree. “Ready?”
He nods, putting his back into getting the tree down as I introduce our subject. Soon, I hear the crack of the trunk and a glistening Oskar fetches up at my side, holding the tree at the top.
“In Lothar Thord’s day,” he begins, “he didn’t have to buy a permit to cut down a Christmas tree. Families would load into sleds…”
Oskar seems distracted, losing himself in minute details of the period and art style. This is not why people watch us. I smile at the camera, stepping away and bending over a feathery pile of snow. Shucking off the mittens, I press snow with frozen but dexterous hands while he continues, too conscious of his duties in front of the camera to look around.
“…when Thord found fulfillment in domestic life, he became—”
In a Christmas miracle, I achieve the perfect aim, and my snowball bursts against Oskar’s neck. He whips around, brushing it away, but more than half slides into his collar.
“Freja!” he shouts.
I laugh, taking over the narration.
