The Flight of Anja by Tamara Goranson

Author:Tamara Goranson [Goranson, Tamara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780008455729
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Chapter Fifteen

River Thieves

I sleep next to Bjǫrn under the bear hide to benefit from his warmth, but when I wake early the next morning in the drizzling cold, I am shivering. We do not speak about the wolf encounter as we eat our morning meal. The roar of the river gods is conversation enough. After we finish eating, we do not linger long. The weather is worsening, and Bjǫrn is eager to set out.

“I’ll find you a new walking stick in the bush,” he says as we both stare sombrely at the charred remains of the one he carved.

“I’ll need one,” I say numbly. He can’t look at me. “Your carvings won’t be forgotten, Bjǫrn.”

He shrugs and hocks a wad of spit onto the ground.

At first we follow the river that twists and turns through a pristine valley where thickets of speckled alder rise from waist-high grasses. There, Bjǫrn finds and prunes a branch that becomes my new walking stick. I use it to help me hobble across a flat, marshy plain that stretches as far as the eye can see. Doggedly, I follow Bjǫrn, and we travel under a cloudy sky that smells of rain. The ground is muddy and strewn with lichen-covered rocks and larch scrub that make it hard to navigate, but I don’t complain. Nothing good would come of it.

It is past noon when the trail we have been following suddenly peters out. Just ahead, our way is blocked by a thick patch of tuckamore that appears to be impassable. We have no choice but to backtrack to a river cutting through a bank of rocks. I am fatiguing quickly; my leg is swollen and aching. My blistered feet are sopping wet.

“We’ll need to cross this pissing river at this point,” Bjǫrn announces to the wind.

I unclip my mantle and roll it up carefully, securing it to the base of my pack with some rope. It will only be a hindrance when I attempt to wade across. When I look up, Bjǫrn is staring across the water. His brow is furled..

“Come eat something,” I call to him as I rifle through my heavy pack. He waves me off.

A rainy drizzle turns to steady rain. At the bottom of my pack, I catch sight of the raven earrings and pluck them out. There is a power to them, as if they are singing in my palm. Óðinn’s ravens stare up at me, and I call on them and feel the tug of the ancestral spirits gathering round. I run my thumb over the etchings and think of my life and how it might have looked if I had stayed in Greenland. Then I picture my birth mother. I wonder if she looked like me. Was she tall or short? Thin or plump? How about her hair? I am sure it was raven black like mine. I shiver, noticing the rain pelting down, noticing the green of everything.

Bjǫrn is pacing up ahead. It seems like we have hardly rested when he calls to me.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.