6
Hannah
“There’s nothing but ice.
I look forward, left, right, it’s ice as far as I can see.
How do I know you aren’t carrying me around in circles?”
Not that I’m complaining…much.
His warm embrace, my new furry suit, complete with a fluffy hat, and lively conversation keep me toasty.
The crisp air with frigid breezes fills my lungs with excitement instead of the diesel I inhaled on the trip north.
“Why carry you in circles when we could be warm in one of my homes?”
He furrows his brow as if actually contemplating the plan.
He’s becoming more familiar by the minute and I long to see his face without the fursona.
What would it take for him to trust me with the man under the mask?
“You could plot to keep me forever.”
Do I sound hopeful? Yes, definitely, too hopeful for a lady with a boyfriend of eight years who’s probably searching for her right now.
“That’s a stupid plan.
You would try to run once I put you down.
We would freeze to death for nothing.
If I planned to break my promise, I’d tie you to my bed—”
“Kinky,”
I say between giggles.
My sides ache from laughing at Gleb’s naivete.
He doesn’t have a mean bone in his body and has no clue about the darker side of the human race.
It’s terribly rude to ask if he’s a virgin, but I’m burning with curiosity. I blame the Arctic. Even with his clan of furry friends in the area, he seems isolated to me.
“I don’t know this word,”
he says for the thousandth time.
His sheltered life—and lack of kink—makes him cuter.
I bet he’d be a generous lover who respected a lover’s boundaries.
No would mean no instead of only after we fight for a few hours.
Comparing Jack to Gleb isn’t fair, especially when I’m making wild assumptions, but I can’t help it. My relationship with Jack is safe, what I always wanted. I don’t have to worry about him taking my money because he claims to have his own wealth…but Gleb is immune to greed. He doesn’t use money at all .
“Google it.
You can live in the mystery of kink while I live in the mystery of not knowing where we are, where we’re going, or even what direction we travel.”
Is my growing attraction to the man or the lifestyle? That’s all it is! I want his lifestyle.
I would love a life where money didn’t exist…but is that enough to throw myself at a furry stranger when I know nothing about the fursona lifestyle? Gleb has too many question marks for me to jump out of the rat race and into the Arctic.
“I don’t know this Google either,”
he replies, stopping abruptly.
I grab his neck to hold on tightly.
My knees squeeze his arm.
The cheeky man smiles but tries to hide it.
“You scared me on purpose!”
“And I’m about to do it again,”
he says, swinging me toward the ground.
I shriek and climb him like a tree.
My legs wrap around his waist.
We’re pressed chest to chest with my head pillowed by giant pectoral muscles.
He sits on a soft patch of snow and wiggles until I slide down his thighs, putting daylight between us. I miss the warmth of his fur as the icy breeze finds its way down my collar. His blue eyes are striking against his severe profile—not even the fur can camouflage his razor-sharp cheekbones and jaw. No lines or wrinkles mar the skin around his eyes, so I’d guess he’s younger than me—he did say mid-twenties. Who would let their young son move to the Arctic alone? Could his family be as estranged as mine?
I wish I had my tarot cards to ask if he’s my twin flame.
Wait, I can make a pendulum out of anything! My crystal necklaces jingle as I pull them from under my furry suit.
They’re so warm in my hands that I want to rub the stones on my chapped cheeks.
Closing my eyes, I allow my prayer to make a sacred space run through my mind. Enlightened spirits, please hear my plea and keep the unenlightened from interacting with thee .
“What are you doing? Are you unwell? If you need to sleep, I can carry you to Serik’s northern home.
They won’t be there, so we can rest in the home furthest south on the northern grounds,”
he says, grasping my shoulders in his large hands to tilt me backward.
My eyes fly open at the loss of balance, and I’m blasted by his concerned stare.
“I was praying for my pendulum to give me answers—”
“Awe, because the stars aren’t visible.
I’m happy you have another source of comfort.”
“Really? Most people find my constant need to contact the spirit world annoying,”
I say, raising my eyebrow.
“Do you believe in the unseen world?”
“If it’s unseen, then I must give this other world the benefit of the doubt.
I can’t see the cold, but I’d be dead if I didn’t believe in it,”
he says with a shrug.
The open acceptance in his casual body language lights me up like Christmas morning.
He may not be spiritual, but he’s not condemning me for my practices.
He’s not making fun of me.
“Exactly! There are forces in this world that control our lives, but we only see their effects.
Like the cold turning this place into a land of infinite ice!”
“Infinite ice? Like goes on forever? Oh no, svet kamina , that’s why I paused our trek.
I wanted to give you proof I’m taking you south as you wish,”
he replies, swiping at the snow furiously.
“I don’t need visual proof, remember?”
My whisper is in awe of what he reveals under the thin layer of snow.
What seems like miles of frozen ground is a couple inches of snowfall, coating tiny purple, pink, and green plants.
A carpet of waxy plants—no more than an inch tall—rests beneath the frost.
“This is a floral meadow! I’d thought I read this far north is the permafrost?!”
“These flowers weren’t this far north in my childhood on the Tundra, but now they reach halfway up our northern territories.
They aren’t like the flowers of the boreal forest—or what the doctorates call the boreal shield— ”
“Doctorates?”
“Sydney, Vera, and Adam are doctorates and mates of my clanmates who know more about the world than the rest of us.
Sydney is particularly upset about these plants,”
he says, ripping a clump of purple flowers from the ground.
“She calls them bryophytes—don’t ask me what that means.
I only know the plants make her cry.”
“Does she share a connection to Mother Earth?”
I act casual by rubbing a purple flower petal between my fingers, but inside I’m screaming.
To have a green witch in my social circle would be awesome! We could drink tea while she teaches me her plant powers and I calculate her birth chart.
She could have a tarot deck I could borrow too!
“I don’t know because I don’t know what that means—”
his sheepish smile is too cute for words “—but you can ask her.
She’s probably on the southern grounds, collecting the first berries for tart jam.
Her mate, Sergei, has the biggest jam store in the zima season.”
“You talk of Sergei a lot.
When can I meet him and Sydney?”
The flower petal is thicker than leather and covered with insulating wax, but my fingers still shred it against the necklaces in my excitement.
The tumbled crystals must have some rough edges.
“If I were on better terms with him, we’d head straight there.
I must talk to Serik first—but Serik is on the way.
Never mind about them, let me show you I’m a male of my word.”
Serik, Sergei, Timor, Artyom, Gleb.
All his friends have Russian names.
Even the women who aren’t doctorates—Sveta, Patricika, and Tatiana—have Russian names.
Gleb’s features resemble the faces of Russians I’ve seen on social media and the news. Could his fursona and isolation be some sort of witness protection program? Could these doctorates be hiding defectors of the Cold War and Gleb came to Canada as a kid? My heart breaks for him. What horrors did he endure as a child? Forced immigration explains the secrecy, the naivete, independence from money, the lack of social media, and the absence of vehicles. Where better to hide than the Arctic?
“These flowers have tiny roots because they live on the permafrost.
The top layer has melted enough for these little hairs to grip the soil and live.
As we go south, the plant roots will lengthen.
The permafrost thins and our cavern homes have rock walls instead of ice. Whenever your stars hide, the plants can show you the way.”
“My stars?”
I stop picking plant wax from between the crystals of my necklace to frown at him.
“You said you get your directions from the stars, and we are in the endless daylight part of the sun cycle.”
“Endless daylight? Do you mean it doesn’t get dark? No wonder plants sprout.”
“We miss one moon cycle by staying this far north.
It’s the reason I like to migrate with the clan…and the food in the forest…and my friends…”
His eyes fill with tears before he turns away.
He attempts to replant the flowers but leaves the mangled plant half-buried in snow.
“Do you miss your friends?”
Do I? Fantasies of me braiding flowers into his fur have nothing to do with Jack, Madison, Ms.
Greene, or the rest of civilization.
Spending summers gorging on berries and winters collecting seaglass have nothing to do with my former life, either.
Am I looking for an escape? Where does Jack fit into all this? He hated every minute of the tour. I’m still unsure why he wanted to come along or how I ended up paying his way. He’s been miserable but endured to stay close to me.
I’m a shitty girlfriend for having fun with Gleb while Jack’s worried sick.
“Ms.
Greene was my employer.
I say was because she’s probably replaced me.
I’ll miss Madison, but I just met her a few months ago. She’s probably forgotten me, too. Babies don’t remember people… ”
The loss of the relationship I could have had with Madison brings tears to my eyes.
What if I became her full-time nanny? I’d have someone to nurture, and she would have someone supporting her when her parents’ careers took them away from her.
Sobs shake my shoulders as I imagine the places we would go together and the things we’d do as she grows up.
I wanted siblings more than anything when I was little—a best friend who endured our parents with me. Even after I cut them from my life, loneliness was my only companion. Jack listens, but he doesn’t understand I wasn’t privileged just because I grew up in a mansion.
A bigger house just makes the echoes louder when you’re alone.
“There, there,”
Gleb says as he rubs my back and allows me to soak his fur.
“I’m sure the kit remembers she was loved even if she doesn’t remember you.
She will grow better equipped to love others because she had you in her first sun cycle.
You should be proud. There will be other opportunities to….raise kits…I mean as you birth them…not that I imagine you pregnant…”
“You can stop talking before you injure yourself,”
I whisper between sobs, giggles, and hiccups.
“I understand your vibes.
Thank you.
No matter how many times I’ve melted down, you’ve been patient. You put up with a lot of crap. How are you still single? ”
“The stars haven’t sent my dushevnayasvyaz .
Like you, I believe there are things I can’t control, like my dushevnayasvyaz —my fated mate.”
“That’s beautiful,”
I murmur in awe.
This matches my idea of a soulmate.
Is this how Jack sees me? To believe there is someone out there compatible with you.
Who completes you without judgment or friction? “You deserve a beautiful…Dush-nay-says. Dish-nah-says? Dutch-nal-size? It’s a good thing I’m not yours because I can’t even say it!”
“And the man on the iceberg?”
We hold our breath as we stare at one another.
I wish I hadn’t put the two men against one another in my head.
Would there be this awkward pause as I formulate my answer if I friend-zoned Gleb right away, like a good girlfriend?
“Jack and I have been seeing each other for a while.
It’s serious, I think.”
“Does he provide good homes for you?”
He asks the question to the ground.
How odd! Not how long have you been together or how did you meet, but can he provide for you? Maybe Gleb does know about money, but just not how much of it I have.
“I have my own place—”
I bite my tongue on the pokey studio apartment.
My tiny space is funded by my business, so I love every square inch.
The furniture I found in the trash and attempted to transform—not so much love there.
I learned a valuable lesson from them. No matter how easy it looks on TV, I can’t refurbish anything and will go over budget to fix the mess I made. “It’s not great, but it’s mine.”
The air rushes through his lungs in a whoosh that blows my hair off my shoulder.
“Sorry, I feared you might compare my homes to better ones.
I’m not the best at handicrafts, foraging, hunting, or really anything.”
Oh no, poor Gleb!
“If it’s warm, I promise I won’t criticize a thing.
I’m sure I’ll be comfortable wherever you take me.”
It’s scary how much I mean the compliment.
He nursed me to health and now carries me across the tundra without complaint.
I can’t remember the last time someone put me first in everything.
Maybe Jack should take boyfriend lessons from Gleb.
Wouldn’t that be hilarious?
“The closest home on the central grounds is Serik’s.
We should be there by evening.”
He stands up while holding me to his waist.
His thigh muscles must be thick beneath his suit to perform such a feat.
I was teased for my rail-thin figure, but I’m still a grown woman with the mass of one.
“Yeah, you can’t say we will reach his place by nightfall— ”
“Because night doesn’t fall,”
we say in unison.
Our giggles return and the tension releases like a slingshot that throws our troubles across the ice.
He spins around.
I squeal and clutch his neck.
Why can’t my life be this carefree? No luggage, no money, no cell phones, and I couldn’t care less about the outside world.
This is what I imagined when I was emancipated from my parents.
Beverly Hills is thousands of miles away but might as well be another planet.
My heart is light as a feather, and my soul is free.
Would Jack settle in the Arctic with me? Or do I secretly want to turn him into Gleb?