East

Rose

THOSE FIRST FEW DAYS were as grim as any I can remember. I had no idea where I was, much less where I was going, and I could not stop thinking about the candle wax dripping onto his skin, the cry of despair, and the sleigh disappearing from my sight. I rewove the scene over and over in my head until I thought I would lose my reason.

I had caught a chill, no doubt from lying weeping in the snow, and was plagued by a nasty cough and a nose that wouldn't stop leaking.

I walked for three straight days without finding any sign of a town or farm. I chose my direction by instinct, thinking that I would follow in the general direction the sleigh had been heading—north. I still wore my nightdress under the vest, sweater, and cloak. But the weather was gradually warming, and most of the snow had melted by twilight of the third day.

The fourth day I came across a large farm. My spirits rose. I was hoping desperately for some kind of assistance—food, directions, anything. I had eaten nothing aside from what remained of Torsk's honey and the toffee Mother had given me many months before. But the closer I came to the first building, a pale blue barn of medium size, the clearer it became that the farm was abandoned. There was no sign of a living creature, human or animal. However, it did not look as though it had lain deserted long, for all the buildings were well maintained, and as I searched the grounds, I even found feed in the troughs, and heaps of dung that didn't look much older than several days. Suddenly it occurred to me that the farm may have supplied the raw material for all the fine food I had eaten at the castle, and I wondered if those who ran the farm had disappeared, as well as the animals, along with the man who had been a white bear.

Anything that I could have eaten had vanished as well, and I found only some dried-up carrots and beans at the bottom of a few pails in one of the barns. I stuffed those in my pocket and resumed my journey. There was a dense forest surrounding the farm and the traveling was difficult. It took at least a day and a half to get through the forest.

Finally I stumbled out of the tangle of the trees, onto a stretch of meadowland. I was weak, my stomach tight with hunger, and my cough had worsened. But much worse than either my hunger or the cough that tormented me was the sound that kept ringing in my ears, the cry of despair from the man who had been a white bear. I heard it as I walked through dull-green grass and knee-high shrubs. I heard it when I dozed fitfully at night. I heard it when I awoke to a pale wintry sun. But I continued to struggle forward, telling myself that somehow I would make things right again.

Though I did not see any specific places I recognized, the gently rolling hills and the shapes of the trees were familiar to me from my journeys with the white bear. I knew it was winter, but clearly the winters in this land were much milder than in Njord, and some of the time it was warm enough for me to take off my cloak.

On the seventh day it began to rain. That night I made myself a bed of leaves in a small grove of some kind of broad-leaved tree I did not recognize. After eating the last of the shriveled carrots, I slept restlessly and awoke feeling feverish. When I got unsteadily to my feet, I was wracked by a cough that doubled me over. I sank to my knees, feeling lightheaded and dizzy. All I had eaten for the past seven days were toffees and the few shriveled carrots and beans. I thought ruefully of the last meal I had had in the castle. Melting-soft bread and creamy butter and herb-crusted meat with tender chunks of vegetables...

I groaned.

I was able to travel only a short distance that day, too weak to stay upright for long. That night I huddled under some bushes, feeling damp and chilled, though my face felt hot with fever. When I awoke I could barely move. Every time I lifted my head, the world around me spun crazily, and deep, hacking coughs felt like they would split my chest apart. I forced myself to my hands and knees and crawled forward but was stopped by another spasm of coughing.

I lifted my blurred eyes to look at the sky. I'm not going to make it, I thought. But I have to. Then I saw something that made me blink. A thin curve of wood-smoke against the gray sky.

I staggered to my feet and took several steps forward. But then I tripped over a low-lying shrub and fell to the ground. I began coughing and could not stop. Finally it subsided and I lay there, wrung out, my eyes closed.

I thought I might just go to sleep for a while, and then the cry of despair from the man who had been a white bear rang again in my ears. "I have to get up," I croaked. I struggled to raise myself, but a mist of gray veiled my eyes and I sank back to the ground, resigned. So weary. I heard footsteps in the grass, but it did not matter. "I'm sorry," I murmured, then slipped into unconsciousness.