Текст книги "Ice Country"

Автор книги: David Estes

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ICE COUNTRY

A Dwellers Saga Sister Novel

Book Two of the Country Saga

David Estes

Published by David Estes at Smashwords

Copyright 2013 David Estes

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Discover other exciting titles by David Estes available through the author’s official website:

http://davidestesbooks.blogspot.com

or through select online retailers.

Young-Adult Books by David Estes

The Dwellers Saga:

Book One—The Moon Dwellers

Book Two—The Star Dwellers

Book Three—The Sun Dwellers

Book Four—The Earth Dwellers (Coming September 2013!)

The Country Saga by David Estes (A sister series to The Dwellers Saga):

Book One—Fire Country

Book Two—Ice Country

Book Three—Water & Storm Country (Coming June 7, 2013!)

The Evolution Trilogy:

Book One—Angel Evolution

Book Two—Demon Evolution

Book Three—Archangel Evolution

Children’s Books by David Estes

The Nikki Powergloves Adventures:

Nikki Powergloves– A Hero is Born

Nikki Powergloves and the Power Council

Nikki Powergloves and the Power Trappers

Nikki Powergloves and the Great Adventure

Nikki Powergloves vs. the Power Outlaws (Coming in 2013!)

This book is dedicated to my incredible team of beta readers.

Your kindness, selflessness, and gently honest feedback

has helped craft this series more than you may realize.

Chapter One

It all starts with a girl. Nay, more like a witch. An evil witch, disguised as a young seventeen-year-old princess, complete with a cute button nose, full red lips, long dark eyelashes, and deep, mesmerizing baby blues. Not a real, magic-wielding witch, but a witch just the same.

Oh yah, and a really good throwing arm. “Get out!” she screams, flinging yet another ceramic vase in my general direction.

I duck and it rebounds off the wall, not shattering until it hits the shiny marble floor. Thousands of vase-crumbles crunch under my feet as I scramble for the door. I fling it open and slip through, slamming it hard behind me. Just in time, too, as I hear the thud of something heavy on the other side. Evidently she’s taken to throwing something new, maybe boots or perhaps herself.

Luckily, her father’s not home, or he’d probably be throwing things too. After all, he warned his daughter about Brown District boys.

Taking a deep breath, I cringe as a spout of obscenities shrieks through the painted-red door and whirls around my head, stinging me in a dozen places. You’d think I was the one who ran around with a four-toed eighteen-year-old womanizer named LaRoy. (That’s LaRoy with a “La”, as he likes to say.) As it turns out, I think LaRoy has softer hands than she does.

As I slink away from the witch’s upscale residence licking my wounds, I try to figure out where the chill I went wrong. Despite her constant insults, narrow-mindedness, and niggling reminders of how I am nothing more than a lazy, liquid-ice-drinking, no-good scoundrel, I think I managed to treat her pretty well. I was faithful, always there for her—not once was I employed while courting her—and known on occasion to show up at her door with gifts, like snowflake flowers or frosty delights from Gobbler’s Bakery down the road. She said the flowers made her feel inadequate, on account of them being too beautiful—as if there was such a thing—and the frosty’s, well, she said I gave them to her to make her fat.

She was my first ever girlfriend from the White District. I should’ve listened to my best friend, Buff, when he said it would end in disaster.

Now I wish I hadn’t wasted my gambling winnings on the likes of her.

In fact, it was just yesterday morning when I last stopped by to deliver some sweet treats, only to hear the obvious sounds of giggling and flirting wafting through the red wood of her father’s elegant front door. Needless to say, I was on the wrong side of things, and much to my frustration the door was barred by something heavy.

So I waited.

And waited.

After about three hours her father returned home, and soft-hands LaRoy emerged looking more pleased with himself than a young child taking its first step. In much less time than it took for the witch to put the smile on his face, I wiped it off, using a couple of handfuls of ever-present snow and my rougher-than-bark hands. I capped him off with matching black eyes and a slightly crooked, heavily bleeding nose. He screamed like a girl and ran away crying tears that froze on his cheeks well before they made it to his chin.

Hence the big-time breakup today.

Best of luck, witch, I hope crooked-nosed LaRoy makes you very happy.

Why do I always pick the wrong kinds of girls? Answer: because the wrong kinds of girls usually pick me.

Since my formal schooling ended when I was fourteen, I’ve had a total of three girlfriends, one each year. None ended well, as endings usually go.

Walking down the snow-covered street, I mumble curses at the beautiful stone houses on either side. The White District, full of the best and the richest people in ice country. And the witch, too, of course, the latest girl to add to my so-not-worth-the-time-and-effort list.

I pull my collar tight against the icy wind, and head for my other girlfriend’s place, Fro-Yo’s, a local pub with less atmosphere than booze, where a mug of liquid ice will cost you less than a minute’s pay and the rest of your day. Okay, the pub’s not really my girlfriend, but sometimes I wish it was. I’ve been drinking there since I turned sixteen and passed the “age of responsibility”.

Although it’s barely midmorning, Fro’s is open and full of customers. But then again, the pub is always open and full of customers. We might not have jobs, but we’ll support Yo, the pub owner, just the same.

Snow is piled up in drifts against the gray block-cut stone of the pubhouse, recently shoveled after last night’s dumping. Yo’s handiman, Grimes, is hunched against the wind with a shovel, clearing away the last of it along the side, leaving a slip-free path to the outhouse, which will be essential later on, when half the joint gets up at the same time to relieve themselves. There are two things that don’t mix: liquid ice and real ice. I’ve seen more broken bones and near broken necks than I’d like around this place.

“Mornin’, Grimes,” I say as I pass.

Grimes doesn’t look up, his matted gray hair a dangling mess of moisture and grease, but mumbles something that sounds a lot like, “Icin’ neverendin’ colder’n chill night storms…” I think there’s more but I stop listening when he starts swearing. I’ve had enough of that for one day. And yet, I push through the door of the obscenity capital of ice country.

“Dazz! I was wondering when you’d freezin’ show up,” my best friend says when I enter. Following protocol, I stamp the snow off my boots on the mat that says Stamp Here, and tromp across the liquid-ice-stained floorboards. Buff kicks out a stool at the bar as I approach. He’s grinning like an icin’ fool.

For a moment the place goes silent, as half the patrons stare at me, but as soon as they recognize me as one of the regulars, the dull drone of conversation continues, mixing with the clink of tin jugs and gulps of amber liquid ice.

“Get a ’quiddy for Dazz,” Buff shouts to Yo above the din. The grizzled pub owner and bartender sloshes the contents of a dirty, old pitcher into a tinny and slides it along the bar. Well-practiced bar sitters dodge the frothing jug as it skates to a stop directly in front of me. As always, Yo’s aim is perfect.

“Thanks,” I shout. Yo nods his pockmarked forehead in my direction and strokes his gray-streaked brown beard thoughtfully, as if I’ve just said something filled with wisdom, before heading off to refill another customer’s jug. He doesn’t get many thanks around this place.

“Out with it,” Buff says, slapping me on the shoulder. His sharp green eyes reflect even the miniscule shreds of daylight that manage to sneak through the dirt-smudged windows.

“Out with what?”

Shaking his head, he runs a hand through his dirty-blonde hair. “Uh, the big breakup with her highness, Queen Witch-Bitch herself. It’s all anyone’s been talking about all morning. Where’ve you been? I’ve been dying to get all the details.”

Elbows on the bar, I lean my head against my fist. “It just happened! How the chill do you know already?”

Buff laughs. “You know as well as anyone that word travels scary fast in this town.”

I do. Normally, though, the gossip’s about me getting broken up with after having done something freeze-brained, not the other way around. “What are they saying?” I ask, taking a sip of ’quiddy and relishing the warmth in my throat and chest.

Buff’s excitement seems to wane. He stares at his half-empty mug. “You don’t wanna know,” he says, and then finishes off the last half of his tinny in a series of throat-bobbing gulps.

“Tell me,” I push.

“Look, Dazz…” Buff lowers his voice, a deep rumble that only I can hear. “…the thing about girls is, when you want ’em they’re scarcer than a ray of sunshine in ice country, and when you don’t, they’re on you like a double-wide fleece blanket.” Now I’m the one looking at my unfinished drink, because, for once, one of Buff’s snowballs of wisdom is spot on. I thought I wanted the witch—because of her looks—but as soon as I got to know her I wanted to toss her out with the mud on my boots.

Using my knuckles, I knock myself in the head three times, exactly like I rapped on the witch’s door this morning before it all went down. Don’t ask, don’t ask, don’t ask, I mentally command myself. “What are they saying?” I ask, repeating myself. Having not listened to my own internal advice, I feel like knocking my skull against the heavy, wooden bar a few dozen more times, but I manage to restrain myself as I wait for Buff’s response.

“Well…some of them are saying good sticks for you, she got what she deserved, Brown District pride and all that bullshiver. You know the shiv I mean, right?”

All too well. I nod. “And the others?”

Buff chews on his lip, as if deciding how to break something to me lightly.

“Give it to me straight,” I say.

He sighs. “You know tomorrow they’ll move onto the next freezin’ bit of juicy gossip, right?”

“Buff,” I say, a warning in my voice. I know what’s coming, so I tilt my tinny back, draining every last drop in a single burning gulp.

“If I tell you, promise me you won’t start anything—I’m not in the mood.”

Looking directly into his black pupils, I say, “I promise.”

He rolls his eyes, knowing full well I just lied to him. Then he tells me anyway. “Coker’s been saying the witch was too good for you, that she shoulda dumped your Mountain-fearin’ arse a long time ag—”

I’m on my feet and breaking my false promise before Buff can even finish telling me. My stool clatters to the floor, but I barely notice it. I get a bead on Coker, who’s between two of his stone cutting mates, laughing about something. Regardless of what it is, and even though they’ve probably moved on from discussing me and the witch already, I pretend it’s about me. About how I’m not good enough for someone in the White District. About how I’m lazy and good for nothing.

My fists clench and my jaw hardens as heat rises in my chest. Always aware of what’s happening in his pub, Yo says, “Now, Dazz, don’t start nuthin’, remember the last time…”

“Dazz, hold up,” Buff says, his feet scuffling along behind me.

I ignore them both.

When I reach Coker he’s already half-turned around, as if sensing me coming. I spin him the rest of the way and slam my fist right between his eyes. A two for one special, like down at the market. Two black eyes for the price of one. His head snaps back and thuds gruesomely off the bar, but, like any stonecutter, he’s tougher than dried goat meat, and rebounds with a heavy punch of his own, which glances off my shoulder, sending vibrations through my arm.

And his friends aren’t gonna sit back and watch things unfold either; they jump on me in less time than it took for the White District witch to cheat on me, swinging fists of iron at my head. One catches my chin and the other my cheek. I jerk backwards, seeing red, blue, and yellow stars against a black backdrop, and feel my tailbone slam into something hard and flat. The wooden table collapses, sending splinters and legs in every direction—both table legs and people legs. I’m still not seeing much, other than stars, but based on the tangle of limbs I’d say the table I crashed into was occupied by at least three Icers, maybe four.

I shake my head and furiously try to blink away the dark cloud obscuring my sight, feeling a dull ache spreading through the whole of my backside. When my vision returns, the first thing I see is Buff hammering rapid-fire rabbit punches into one of the stone cutter’s, sending him sprawling. The area’s clearing out, with patrons scampering for the door, which is a good thing, because Coker gets ahold of Buff and throws him into another table, which topples over and skids into the wall.

Me and Buff spring to our feet simultaneously, cocking our fists side by side like we’ve done so many times growing up in the rugged Brown District. Buff takes Coker’s friend and I take Coker. We circle each other a few times and then all chill breaks loose, as the fists start flying. After taking a hit in the ribs, I land a solid blow to Coker’s jaw that has him reeling, off balance and stunned. I follow it up with a hook that sends a jolt of pain through my hand, which is likely not even a quarter of the pain that I just sent through his face. He drops faster than a morning turd in the outhouse.

I whirl around to find Buff in a similar position, standing over his guy and shaking his hand like he’s just punched a wall. The guy he was fighting was so thick it probably was like hitting a wall. We stand over our fallen foes, grinning like the seventeen-year-old unemployed idiots that we are, enjoying the aliveness that always comes with winning a good, old-fashioned fair fight.

Yo’s glaring at us, one hand on his hip and the other holding an empty pitcher. I shrug just as his eyes flick to the side, looking past us. The last thing I hear is a well-muffled scuff.

Everything goes black when the wooden stool slams into the back of my head.

Chapter Two

I wake up to a slap in the face. Not a loving, caring slap when the doc smacks a newborn baby in the butt to get it to cry, but a stinging, full handed palm across the face that snaps my head to the side and will likely leave a fierce red handprint on my cheek. I’d be lying if I told you it didn’t conjure up memories of at least one ex-girlfriend.

“Yow!” I yelp. “What the chill?”

As I blink away the wave of dizziness that spins my vision in blurry swirls, I hear the sharp crack of palm flesh on cheek flesh. For a moment I’m left wondering whether it’s an echo from me getting slapped, but then I hear a similar outburst from someone close by.

I close my eyes, fighting back the urge to vomit as the spinning room gradually slows. “Buff, is that you?” I slur.

“Dazz?”

“Yah.”

“You breathin’?”

“Nay,” I say.

“What the freeze happened?” Buff asks.

Before I can answer, a third voice chimes in. “You two and your icin’ prideful stupidity tore up my pub, is what happened,” Yo bellows. Yo. The slapper. I’ve never seen a day when his hands were clean. I’ll have to wash my face a half-dozen times…just as soon as I can figure out the difference between up and down.

“Sorry, Yo,” Buff says diplomatically. “It won’t happen again.”

“That’s two fights last week and three this ’un. Nay, it freezin’ won’t happen again, ’cause you ain’t welcome back.”

My eyes snap open and I see three Yo’s standing over me, looking angrier than a skinned bear in a snowstorm. His thick mess of beard is right over my face and I clamp my mouth shut for fear of getting a hairy appetizer before lunch.

“But, Yo, you can’t do that—we’ve always come here.” Buff’s words come out as a plea, which is exactly what it is. I expect if he was physically able to, he’d be on his knees with his hands clasped tight, praying to the Heart of the Mountain for Yo to reconsider.

The red hot anger leeches from Yo’s face, leaving him paler than one of the Pasties from the Glass City out in fire country. “You think I don’t know that?” he says, dropping his voice to a whisper. “Chill, I practically raised you boys.” Wellll, I wouldn’t go that far. I respect Yo and how well he runs his business, but honestly, I’d rather be raised by wolves, and not the tame, gentle kind who pull our sleds; the sharp-fanged vicious ones who are known to drag children into the forest.

But at the same time, there’s a degree of truth to his words. Most of what we’ve learned about life has come from our time spent in Fro-Yo’s. First, when we were just kids, brought by my father after school to “learn how to be men,” and then, after he caught the Cold and passed on, we kept going back. Yo could’ve turned us away, because we were too young without having a parent there, but he didn’t. Knowing full well from the gossip that my mother would probably never be motherly again, he served us wafers and goat’s cheese and gumberry juice, never charging us a thing. And we learned how to be men, or at least the ice-country-tavern version of men, drinking hard and fighting harder.

Look where it’s got us.

I don’t say a thing, because the memories are caught in my throat.

“C’mon, Yo, we were provoked,” Buff says, less nostalgic than me. Really what he means is that Dazz was provoked, and even that’s a lie. There’s a chilluva difference between saying a few nasty words in someone’s general direction and throwing a full-force punch between the eyes, although sometimes the nuances of good behavior and manners are completely lost on me.

“No ’scuses, boys,” Yo says. “Look, the best I can do is that I’ll consider lettin’ you back if you can prove you’ve changed your fightin’ ways.”

“And how are we supposed to do that?” I ask, finally dislodging the memories from my windpipe.

“Get a job. Pay for all the damages. And if I don’t hear about you startin’”—he cocks his head to the side thoughtfully—“or endin’ any fights, I’ll let you come back.”

I groan, but not from the pounding headache that I suddenly feel in the back of my head. From where I’m lying, his requirements seem impossible. Bye, bye girlfriend number two.

“Sure, Yo, whatever you say,” Buff says, but I can hear the dismay in his voice. “We’ll prove it to you.”

“Now you best run home and put some ice on those heads of yours. My oak stools pack a wallop, all right.”

He helps Buff to his feet, and then me. We stand side by side, two fierce warriors, swaying and unsteady on our feet like we might topple over at any moment. Some warriors.

Buff flops a heavy arm around my shoulders, nearly knocking me over. I cling to him just as tightly. We stagger for the door like drunks, open it awkwardly. Before we leave, I look back and ask a final question. “Who hit us from behind?”

Yo shakes his head. “You’ll just go and start a fight if I tell you.”

“Naw, Yo, I just wanna know how we lost. We don’t usually lose.” Never, really.

Yo closes one eye, as if he’s got a bit of dirt in it. “One of those stonecutters,” he says. “The third one, who you both thought was out of the picture.”

We close the door, welcoming the cold.

~~~

“Yah, she was pretty icy,” Buff says, “but there are plenny of fish in the ice streams.” The thing about that is, I’ve gone ice fishing twenny times this winter and I ain’t never caught a freezin’ thing.

“Yah,” I say, not really agreeing. It’s just a bit of bad luck, I tell myself, referring to the three broken and mangled “relationships” I’ve left in my wake. If bad luck’s got two-mile-long legs, a deadly white smile, and more curves than a snowman, then that’s exactly what I got.

“You’ll bounce back. We both will,” Buff says, scraping a boot in the snow. We’re sitting in a snowdrift, having never made it home. Neither of us has much to go home to anyway, and there’s plenny of snow and ice to treat our throbbing heads.

“How?” I say, adding another clump of snow to the snow helmet I’m wearing. “How in the chill are we supposed to get enough silver to pay for everything we broke?”

“There’s always boulders-’n-avalanches,” Buff says, referring to our favorite card game of the gambling variety, another vice we picked up the moment we turned sixteen and were permitted into the Chance Holes.

I feel a zing of energy through my bruised body. It’s a longshot, but…

“How much silver do you have to put on the line?” I ask.

Buff shrugs, removes the snowball he’s holding against his skull, chucks it at a tree, missing badly. “Twenny sickles,” he says.

I frown, scrape the snow away from my own head, doing the math. Combined we have maybe fitty, give or take a sickle. Probably a quarter of what we need to pay Yo back. We’d have to get awfully lucky at b-’n-a to win that kind of silver. I pack the snow into a tight ball, launch it at the same tree Buff aimed for, missing by twice as much.

I look up at the gray-blanketed sky, striped with streaks of red, like bloody claw marks, where the crimson sky manages to peek through the dense cloud cover. When I look down again, I know:

We have no other choice—we’ve gotta try.

Luckily, cards have nothing to do with throwing snowballs.

~~~

The bland gray of the daytime is long past, giving way to a heavy night. I end up stopping at home to get my last bundle of silver coins. When I pry it from behind the bearskin insulation we’ve got pressed against the stacked-tree-trunk walls, it feels lighter than it should. Turns out I’ve got even less than I thought, only twenny sickles. The missing sickles are probably because Mother found my stash and stole what she needed to buy enough ice powder to keep her in a sufficient stupor to forget about me and my older brother, who she says, “Reminds me of your father more than anything.”

Wouldn’t want to do that.

Not that it matters. If she didn’t find some of my silver, she’d have found another way. She always does. That’s one thing I’ve learned about addicts: they’ll get what they need one way or another. Sell a piece of furniture, steal it, trade something. Whatever it takes.

I don’t confront her about it, because it wouldn’t do any good anyway. She barely knows I’m there, sitting blank-eyed and cross-legged in front of the dry, charred fireplace logs, holding her hands out as if to warm them on the invisible flames. “Oooh,” she murmurs softly to herself.

I sigh. If we do win anything tonight, I’ll have to find a better place to hide whatever’s left over after paying Yo back. Like somewhere in another country, fire country perhaps.

Shaking my head, I light a small fire so my mother doesn’t freeze to death.

My brother, Wes, isn’t around, because unlike me, he has a job doing the nightshift in the mines. Ain’t much of a job if you ask me, but without his dirt-blackened face we’d have died of starvation months ago. He’s only two years older than me, but if you asked him, he’d tell you he’s ten years my senior in maturity. Not that I’m arguing.

Given our situation, I should’ve gotten a job a long time ago, when I turned fourteen and school ended. Or at least at age sixteen, when most guys do, after they’ve had their two years of fun. So why am I seventeen and wasting my life away? I wish I knew.

My little sister, Jolie, is staying with a neighbor down the street until my mother can pull it together. The way things are going, she might be there forever. Although I’ve had a pretty shivvy day, not seeing Jolie’s smiling face at home is the worst part. She’s only twelve, and yet, I swear she’s one of the only people who really gets me. Her and Buff, that is.

I leave my mother babbling to herself about how the Cold is growing wings and flying above the clouds, or some rubbish like that. The warmth of the fire I made chases me out the door.

It’s colder than my ex-girlfriend’s personality outside. Even with my slightly-too-small double-layered bearskin coat that I won playing boulders when I was fifteen, and the three thick shirts underneath it, I’m instantly frozen from head to toe. When the wind blows it goes right through me, like I’m naked and made of brittle parchment, and I find myself running just to keep warm. My bruised skull aches with each step.

Before heading to meet Buff, I stop at our neighbor’s place to see Jolie. Although not rich by any stretch of the imagination, Clint and his wife, Looza, are better off than us, which I’m glad for. It means Jolie gets a decent place to stay, three warm meals a day, and a taste for what it’s like to be part of a real family. Selfishly, I want my mother to get cleaned up so my sister can come home, but I know that might not be the best thing for her. Either way, I’m glad she’s close by.

I rap firmly on the door, feeling every thud echo in my head. On the third knock the door opens and Jolie pokes her head out. “Dazz!” she exclaims, breaking into a huge smile that instantly warms my frozen body and soul. Her dark brown hair is in a long, tight braid down her back, almost to her waist. It’s not done exactly like how I would do it, but it’s close enough. When my dad died and my mother lost herself, I had to learn how to braid real quick, because Jolie wouldn’t have it any other way.

She rushes out into my arms and the cold. As always, she stands on the tops of my snow-capped boots, her socks getting soaked through. She’s getting so big that my toes get crushed under her weight, but I can’t bring myself to tell her. “You’ll catch the Cold,” I say, walking us both inside where I can feel the tempting heat from a crackling fire.

Face smashed against my chest, she says, “Are you staying for a while tonight?”

I can hear the memory in her voice, a desperate longing for another time, when life was simpler and nights were spent listening to Father’s stories by the fire, or playing sticks and rocks on the big bearskin rug between our beds.

But those days are long spent. “I’m sorry, Joles, there’s something I have to do.”

She steps off my feet and looks up at me all pouty mouthed. She calls it her sad sled dog face. “Fro-Yo’s,” she says, accusation in her voice.

“Uhhhh…” I wish? I can’t tell her the truth—about my fighting and getting banned from the pub. I hate lying to her, but I can’t let her down, not now when she needs a big brother to be proud of. “Nay, nothing like that. Actually, I have a job.” As if. The words just pop into my head, like my heart wished them into existence. But even just saying the words makes me feel a little lighter, like even pretending to be respectable in front of my sister makes me a better person.

Jolie’s eyes widen and her smile returns like a flint spark. “Really?”

I nod uncertainly, on an angle, like I’m not sure whether I’m saying yah or nay. She takes it as a yah. “That’s wonderful, Dazz! Does that mean I can come home soon?” Her hopeful words are like ice daggers shoved between my ribs and I find myself breathless.

She senses my hesitation. “Mom?” she says.

“She’s still pretty bad,” I admit. “But maybe soon,” I say, unable to resist giving her a small measure of happiness, even if it’s as false as the so-called job I have to do tonight.

“What’s the job?” Jolie asks, which is the natural question that I’m totally unprepared for. I’ve got to come up with something, and fast, because she’s looking at me with that cocked-head snowbird expression that usually makes me laugh.

“Master of Chance,” I say, once more going with the first thing that flashes to mind. Technically I won’t be the Master of Chance tonight, but I will be a master of chance of sorts as I participate in a few rounds of boulders-’n-avalanches.

“Congratulations,” she says, giving me another hug. Hopefully her congratulations will still be appropriate tomorrow, when I’ve quadrupled my tiny pouch of silver.

“Thanks, Joles,” I say, giving her a final squeeze. “See you tomorrow?”

“Promise?”

“Yah, Joles, I promise.” This one I’ll keep.

“Will you at least stay for supper, young man?” Clint says from across the room. I didn’t even notice the thin sandy-haired carpenter and his wife, silently preparing dinner and listening to us.

“Evenin’ sir and ma’am. Sorry, I didn’t see you there. I’d love to, but I really must be on my way. First day and all.” More like last night. If I’m not lucky, that is.

“Are you sure, sweetie?” Looza says, chiming in, her wide waist swinging from side to side as she mixes something in a big pot. “There’s plenny of soup.” As if to illustrate, she scoops up a ladleful of hearty stew, letting it slowly drip back into the mixture. My stomach rumbles as the delicious aroma of tender bear meat and winter vegetables fills my nostrils.

“I’ll take it with me, if that’s all right with you,” I say.

She sighs, but nods and begins filling a largish pouch.

“Bye, kid,” I say, kissing Jolie lightly on the forehead.

She steps back up onto my boots and I lean down so she can kiss my cheek. “Bye, Dazz. I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you, too, Joles,” I say, clenching my stomach around the empty pit that’s forming. I take the pouch from Looza and open the door. “Thank—” I start to say, but she muscles me outside, still holding onto her half of the pouch. She pulls the door shut on my sister.

I look at her face, which has formed a question mark out of her eyes, nose and mouth. “Don’t do anything to hurt that little girl,” she says, her eyes as iron grey as the clouds were earlier.

“I won’t, ma’am,” I say, unsure of what she’s getting at.

“Well, then you might want to turn around and go right back home,” she says, firmly but not unkindly.

“But my job,” I say, knowing how weak it sounds.

“Yah. Your job,” she says.