maggot had crawled to the inside rim of the pan, slipped down and was getting cooked alongside the rabbit.
Why do you stay out here? asked Nyssa, wiping grease from her hand on the dirt.
Out where?
In the woods.
Moll pushed the rabbit to one side of the pan as if offering it again.
Nyssa shook her head. Moll picked up the rabbit and threw it into the woods. She put the pan back into the cache. Then she put out the flames with dirt.
Not all questions are wise, she said. Too much knowing makes you old.
I want to be old, said Nyssa.
Not yet.
Can I go inside your hut?
They sat in silence and Moll said, You come back here sometime.
In the winters the shores of Millstone Nether got iced in with great shifting ice floes. The young boys jumped from one ice pan to another, daring each other to float up the coast looking for seal holes, playing at being at sea. They leaped from one chunk of ice to another, laughing and wrestling, their backs cold against the ice on the open water. Briny air stung their cheeks and hidden currents taught their feet to submit to the whim of the sea. Nearly always someone fell in and had to race home to get dry, hair freezing, fingertips tingling. The other boys ran in a clump around the wet one and everyone scattered when the old woman or man at home caught the ice truant and scolded, I’ll give you your tea in a mug! Only once in the living memory of the island had a boy slipped and got caught under an iceberg and drowned dead.
One snowy, bright dawn Nyssa jumped from Norea’s bed and ran out into the cold and down through the settlement to her father’s house. She pushed through the door into the front room where Danny slept and shook him awake. Let’s go jump clumpers, she said.
Danny rolled away and pulled the quilt over his head, You’re too young!
I’m not, you slowcome! She tugged at his covers and his arms, jumped on top of him and said, I’m going.
Too dangerous, said Danny and pushed her off him.
I’ll go alone then, said the girl.
Danny hauled himself out of bed, dressed quickly and followed her down to the shore. Nyssa had already found a long stick and was testing it in the water full of small ice pans. She stretched her foot out to rock the thick ice, planted her pole and hopped on her long limbs loose in the cold.
Swiftly Danny jumped on his little sister’s large pan humming with the swish of cracked ice. He squatted, and stared into the clear sky, letting strong-willed Nyssa test her arms and balance.
Don’t go away from the shore, he said.
Why not? she answered, swinging her stick out of the water and spraying cold drops on his face.
Stop that!
Nyssa edged to the side of the ice, held her stick across the front of her and jumped to a pan about a foot away. Danny scrambled up and jumped after, calling, Springlegs, you’ll have us both in the drink!
But the girl had stopped and was listening gravely to something up the cliffs.
Together they listened beyond the light clinking of the ice to the moan of cold settled over the earth and from far up on the gaze they made out the sound of Moll’s pot, tiny variations in a pitch that slid along the tones between the notes.
Nyssa asked, Is it true men go to her at night?
What would you know about that?
She thrust her stick down her fingers, breaking the surface of the icy water and poled them farther out from shore.
I heard them talking behind Da’s rooms, she said.
Danny said, Men should mind who’s in the shadows. I wouldn’t know about it.
He whooped, spread his legs and started to rock the ice. Hands outstretched toward the sky, her tousled hair aflame around her ruddy skin, Nyssa slid to the middle. Danny leapt to the next pan and the next, scrambling toward shore. Hard on his heels Nyssa jumped and slipped and rocked on the thick white rafts. Panting, she caught up with him as the off-shore winds stirred up. They were both stuck on a large floating pan and too far to jump to shore.
Now we’re done, Danny teased, his quick eye searching for a way back. Stuck on the back of snake that won’t be charmed!
The open water grew all around. Nyssa hurled herself toward the shore, slipped and fell.