The last thing I made on that loom was for me. A cloak. It took me nearly half a year to finish. It was during this time that things went so wrong with the farm.
Father told me the bad luck began the year I was born. The barley crop failed, and that setback was followed by an unusually harsh winter that killed off our largest sow. Since then there had been blight that killed our fruit trees, a sickness that went through our poultry, not to mention a heartbreaking series of crop failures. By the summer when I was working on my cloak, there was so little to go around that it didn't seem right to be hunting chanterelles for Widow Hautzig; nor was there much time for weaving, other than that which was strictly necessary. We were all working so hard just to keep from starving. And there was no extra wool for spinning.
For a long time I had been in the habit of scrounging for tufts of wool. I would find them stuck to fences and the bark of trees. But it really wasn't enough, and it was only thanks to Father that I was able to finish my cloak at all. He brought me wool, clumps that he had bargained for from neighbors, and he insisted that I take breaks from chores to go chanterelle hunting with Snurri.
Widow Hautzig's tongue grew sharper over the years. She was unsympathetic to our ill fortune, sometimes even openly cruel about it, making nasty remarks about my father's farming abilities. I would have stopped going altogether had I not been on the verge of finishing my cloak. It was the best piece I had ever made. As our life got worse and worse at the farm, I even thought I might sell it, to bring in badly needed money, but Father wouldn't hear of it. He said the cloak belonged to me. The next thing I made, he suggested, we would sell.
I showed the cloak to Neddy first. I met him coming home from Widow Hautzig's, the material folded in my arms. It was a sunny day, with a brisk autumn wind blowing, and I was feeling a little breathless, irrationally excited about the thing I was carrying.
He knew at once. And smiled his dear, slow smile. "Show me," he said simply.
I started to unfold the cloak, then, impatient, I shook it out. It caught the breeze, billowing up between us. Then it flapped into Neddy's face and we both laughed. He took hold of his end and I held tight to mine. We lowered the cloak and Neddy saw the pattern for the first time.
"A wind rose," he said, then realizing, "your wind rose."
I nodded. "Do you think Father will like it?"
"Of course. It is beautiful."
I laughed again. I couldn't help it, for I knew he was right.
"Look," I said, pulling the cloak downward and gesturing for Neddy to lay it on the grass. "Now I'll never be lost, no matter how far I travel." Glancing quickly up at the sun, I pulled off my boots and, in my stockinged feet, positioned myself at the center of the cloak. "See, I am the compass needle," I explained somewhat proudly.
"Put it on," Neddy urged. He took the cloak from me and fastened it at the neck.
The cloth felt warm and solid and good around me.
"Fit for a queen," Neddy said, holding up the ends and pretending to be my courtier. I laughed, remembering the games we'd played as children; I'd be Queen Rose and he would be my loyal wizard or squire or tutor, whatever role he felt like playing that day.
Then he let go of the cloak, and the wind grabbed it again. Neddy tried several times to catch hold of it, and we were both laughing until tears came into our eyes.
It was then I saw the bear. Neddy and I were standing near a thick cluster of whitebeam trees, and it was through the trees that I saw it. That is, I saw its eyes and could make out a faint blur of white fur through the branches. We looked full into each other's eyes for what seemed a long time. Neddy was still going on about Queen Rose, but his voice faded and I was aware of only those black eyes.
I should have been frightened, with a large wild animal not fifty feet away, but I was not.
White Bear
Unafraid.
Her mouth. A smile.
Piercing.
So long ago, so much lost.
Alone.
Always alone.
A cloak. Catching the wind.
Colors.
North.
South.
East.
West.
Purple eyes.
North south east west.
East.
Unafraid.
Neddy
ROSE WHISPERED SOMETHING, but I couldn't hear it. Her eyes were fixed on the trees that lay a stone's throw away.
"A white bear, Neddy," she said, louder.
But by the time I turned to look, there was nothing there.
Rose dragged me over to the whitebeams and the two of us examined the ground for markings of a large animal. "You believe me, don't you?" Rose asked. There was nothing to show a bear had been there.
And yet I believed her, though I did not say so.
"'Tis almost suppertime," I said abruptly, and began to lead the way back. Rose took off her cloak and, folding it as she walked, trotted along beside me.
"What is it, Neddy?" she said.
"Nothing," I replied, trying to keep my voice normal. "It's gotten late..."
But I was lying. I was frightened. Not of the white bear, at least not for myself.
"Are you sure?" she persisted.
"Yes."
Rose gave me one last sidelong glance.
"I wish you had seen it, Neddy. It was so large, and its eyes..." she said. "I get this feeling it wanted something. And that it was sad."
"Must be your imagination," I said, making my voice light and teasing. "This time of year it's still too warm for a white bear. And you know they don't come this far south, even in winter. Perhaps it was a white doe. Their eyes sometimes look sad."
But of course I was lying. For I had seen the eyes of a white bear, that time years before. And I felt sure it was the same one.
I knew about white bears. After that day when I had looked into the eyes of the white bear that saved Rose, I set out to become an expert on them. I would interview everyone I came into contact with, to see if they had ever seen a white bear or if they knew anything of white bears. Most knew nothing. My main source of information turned out to be a peddler who had traveled into the far north and had once even been on a Saami expedition of white-bear hunters.
"Before going out on the ice to hunt the white bear," the peddler told me, "the Saami taught me. They said I must know the isbjorn by heart if I was going to hunt him. They called him the Great Wanderer or Ghost Bear. Other names they used are: He Who Walks Without a Shadow. Ice Giant. Nanook. The Traveler. Great White. Sea Bear." The peddler paused, letting those names settle into my memory.
"The white bear is a solitary wanderer, never moving with a pack or even a mate. He walks on all fours, but when he stands he is nearly ten feet tall." The peddler raised one hand as far as he could above his head.
"He lives by his sense of smell," the peddler continued. "There is a Saami saying about white bears: 'A pine needle fell in the forest. The hawk saw it. The deer heard it. The white bear smelled it.'
"His eyes are black. His nose is black. His paws are black and the five claws on each of his paws are black. The rest of him is snow white."
I listened to the peddler, my eyes held by a scar carved into the skin just below his hairline. Maybe a white bear had given him that scar, with a thrust of black claw.
I learned more. I learned that the white bear's habitat lay well to the north of us, in the region where snow can remain on the ground for twelve months of the year. It is true that an occasional white bear had been known to travel as far south as our farmhold, but only very rarely and only during the deep winter months.
I learned that the white bear's eyesight is not as good as its sense of smell, but that it is still very strong. The bear has an extra eyelid to protect its eyes from snow glare, and it can see underwater and through a driving blizzard.