The Raven and the Reindeer

by T. Kingfisher

“Sometimes I think that snow could be alive,” he said once. “Like a hive of bees.”

Making someone a fine wife had not included learning how to sleep in the woods without freezing or getting soaked. This struck Gerta as an enormous and unexpected gap in her education.

Feeling bad about feeling bad was not significantly better than feeling bad in the first place.

The fields were mown stubble and the weathered fences looked the same as weathered fences have looked since time immemorial.

Ukko,

Ravens have spoken since Odin brought us to sit on his shoulders. My great-grandmother rode on the Morrigan’s battle-harness.

The Morrigan

“Do you have a name?” asked Gerta. “I do,” said the raven. Gerta waited. The raven fluffed its beard. “I am the Sound of Mouse Bones Crunching Under the Hooves of God.” Gerta blinked a few times. “That’s…quite a name.” “I made it myself,” said the raven, preening. “I stole the very shiniest words and hoarded them all up until they made something worth having.

“You get it from your grandmother, I imagine,” said Mousebones. “That’s a guess. Only a guess, but a raven’s guess is worth more than a magpie’s. Aurrk!” “Get what?” asked Gerta. “No magic,” said Mousebones. “When it’s that strong, being unmagical is a thing itself. Like being a white raven. White ravens aren’t really white, they’re just an absence of black. But they’re very good at it.”

“Mousebones?” “Aurk?” “Are you a he-raven or a she-raven?” “I am a raven,” said Mousebones, “and the rest is none of your business, as we’ll not be having eggs together.”

The snow that night came quietly at first, a few flakes and a few more flakes, then settled into a business-like snow that did not trouble itself with theatrics. The winds did not howl and the flakes did not dance. They simply fell straight down, thick and white and relentless.

“Should I have gone back?” she asked Mousebones. “Does it matter?” asked the raven. “You didn’t go back.”

The old woman cackled, a really good cackle, the sort that you can only get if you are over the age of eighty and know how to drink.

“Do you want to know my story?” asked Gerta, somewhat amused. “So you can tell it?” “Not particularly,” said the old woman. “No one wants true stories. They want stories with truth dusted over them, like sugar on a bun.” She cackled again. “But tell me a little bit of yours anyway.”

Sámi

tonttu

Her grandmother had put out hot oatmeal for the tonttu, the spirits of the house and the sauna,

Being polite is all well and good, right up until it’s a trap,

It seemed that she was only plodding along from one exhaustion to the next.

She took a drink, hoping that hot tea would fill up the spaces in her that would otherwise be filling with despair.

Parts of her that were born lonely, as all humans are born lonely, were suddenly gathered up and loved and made one with the herd.

Gerta dropped her head. Listening to her friends talk at each other eased the ache in her chest a little. They were a small herd, and strangely shaped, but still better than being a reindeer alone.

“Are you a witch?” asked Janna. “No,” said the old woman, “I’m a Lutheran. But we’ll make do.

“Naked and bloody we come into the world, and sometimes we go out of it the same way.” Livli draped a blanket over Gerta’s shoulders. “But it’s not a good way to spend the parts in between. I’ll heat some water for you.”

And people who really live in their own flesh and know it and love it make lousy shapechangers.”

You’re like an empty pot that someone poured magic into and poured out again.”

Being an empty vessel, magic will always take you very hard, I think, and leave something of itself behind for a time, like dregs at the bottom. But at the same time, it can’t really get at the core of you. You can be filled up and emptied out, but the pot does not become its contents.

Jábmiidáhkká.”

But reindeer belong to our gods, and our gods belong to them.” “I thought you were Lutheran,” said Janna. “I am. Doesn’t mean I’m stupid, girl. Luther lived a long ways away. Jábmiidáhkká lives under my feet. And I’ve never heard that Luther had much to do with reindeer, which was clearly a failing in an otherwise upright man.”

“The sea is very large,” she said finally. “And it’s not like anything but itself.

“Anyway, we like languages.” “Words are like fish and you catch them and you get to keep them forever.”

The raven looked unimpressed. “Typical. And short.” “We have to take them off sometimes.” “Sometimes we trade them with each other.” “It’s easier when they’re shorter.” “Tell us yours.” “I am The Sound Of Mousebones Crunching Under The Hooves Of God,” said Mousebones.

Otter names

“But taking off a name like that would take so long.” “I do not intend to take it off,” said Mousebones. “I may even add to it. I believe that after this mad adventure into the north, I shall be The Sound Of Frozen Mousebones Crunching Under The Hooves Of God. Assuming that I am not dead, which requires a different sort of name.”

travois,

“Is that a dead reindeer?” asked Kay. “Why are you dragging a dead reindeer around?” “It’s complicated,” said Gerta wearily. “This is going well,” said Mousebones. “And you’ve got a crow,” said Kay. Mousebones gave him a look of withering disgust. “Crow? Crow? Are you sure you want to rescue him?”

If she was half an animal, let the animal half speak for her, then. The human part was tied up with human things like self-loathing, but that did not matter. There were no words in reindeer speech for I hate myself. It was not a concept that could be thought, and so she did not bother to think it.

There is nothing in the world so patient as a plant awaiting spring.

mawkish,