3. Footprints in the Snow
Footprints in the Snow
Everything happened in slow motion, like something observed through a blurry cloak of water.
Even people I didn’t like wept for me—those who disliked me no matter the many overtures at friendship I had attempted through the years.
The children who had tossed snowballs at me sobbed as though I was someone dear to them, someone who mattered.
Everyone left the comfort of their hearths and braved the cold in search of me.
They hunted.
They hunted until they didn’t.
The search parties that once went out in a steady stream gradually ebbed, becoming less and less.
Until they stopped altogether.
Until everyone shook their heads in tacit agreement that it was hopeless.
Until everyone accepted that I was no more.
After three weeks, the hunt for me was done. They gave up.
The world moved on as it does when someone dies. Just because life stopped for me did not mean it stopped for others. Life, sharp and dull, high and low, ugly and beautiful . . . life with all its hollows and planes and jagged edges, endured without me.
I continued to walk alongside them: family, friends, neighbors, strangers. I talked and shouted until my voice went hoarse. Until I had no voice left at all and it was just a soundless whisper escaping my lips.
I watched helplessly the morning Henrik and Meya packed up all their belongings and departed. Left me for dead and left Isstad forever.
I stood beside Da and Jens with my heart in my throat as their wagon, heavily loaded with all their worldly belongings, rolled away.
West to the Borg where they had a chance at a life that did not consist of bleak winters, marauding bandits, and a grueling, day-to-day, hardscrabble existence.
Great for them, but no less miserable for me even though I had known the moment was coming when they would leave me.
The night they had decided to resume their plans and leave Isstad—and me—I’d stood inside Henrik and Meya’s room, listening, chewing at the edge of my thumb, an old habit suddenly revived from childhood. I’d stood there, an unseen shadow in the corner, a voyeur . . . the only thing I was anymore.
They’d curled together, a loving couple, snug as two spoons in a drawer, demonstrating the sort of intimacy that was as elusive as the moon to me.
Henrik’s long fingers stroked Meya’s arm.
I’d never seen his big, work-worn hands move so gently before.
Meya brought this side out of him, and I was awash in a bleak sort of envy that they had each other whilst I had no one.
“We have to go,” Henrik murmured, his voice a barely there sound in the room’s cozy cocoon.
She sighed. “She could still be out there—”
“She is gone,” he cut in abruptly, his expression hard, a door slammed shut, refusing to let any softness, any sorrow or pain weaken him. “It’s hard to admit, but it’s the truth.”
“I’m not gone.” My voice was a shaky plea, willing Henrik to sense me even if he couldn’t hear me.
“What about your father and Jens?” she asked, and I felt her relenting, surrendering to his desire to leave.
“No!” I cried. “Don’t give up on me, Meya.”
“The plan was always to leave them,” he reminded as his fingers continued circling rhythmically on her skin. “We cannot let this upend our lives. Staying here . . . there’s no future for us. We must go. Staying is not an option.”
I swallowed down the painful lump in my throat because I knew he was right. If they stayed, they would be as trapped as I was. I did not want that for them.
And just like that, I became a thing of the past.
It was a bitter thing to accept. Life was for the living, and whatever I was now . . . I wasn’t that.
My life was no life. It was something else. Something terrible.
I slipped from their room that night, from the house, a wraith walking through the sleeping village.
Snow fell lightly upon the blanket of white already piled on the ground, concealing the path, but I knew it from memory, so I followed the trail as though it would lead me somewhere, as though a destination awaited me.
I glanced behind me, expecting to see my footprints on the lustrous snow, but they were not there. The snow was smooth and unblemished.
I left no mark.