With the snow came bitter cold, and by week’s end Viator was resplendent in a glittering drag of ice and snow, an old battered queen overdressed for a ball, wearing every bit of gaud in her closet, ice sheathing the rails, plating the decks, icicles descending from the toppled winch, from every protruding edge, and the forest, too, was shrouded in white—although during even the worst of the weather, a blizzard lasting for almost two days, the fir trunks and sprays of blackish green needles showed amid the whiteness like splotches of dark metal on a wall from which the paint was flaking—and as the snow continued, Wilander would glimpse flashes of corruscant light emitted by an indeterminate source in the middle distance and hear the complaint of tortured metal, a display he associated not with Viator’s penetration of the Kaliaskan shore twenty years previously, but with a new penetration, one just begun, made by a ghostly prow. Though he alternated between fear and disbelief in regard to what appeared be happening to Viator, he had given up the thought of abandoning the ship. For one thing, Arlene’s manner made it plain there was nothing for him in town, and for another, the forest was alive with surreptitious movement, with the cries of the qwazil, with other, unfamiliar cries, and something large had taken up residence in the linden tree (against logic, it had retained its leaves, although they had gone brown and papery and were now beginning to fall), shaking down snow showers whenever it moved, and he had on several occasions spotted what appeared to be multiple tracks on the shingle. But the most telling reason behind his reluctance to leave was a vacant, unstudied disaffection with the idea, a non-reason that eventually translated into a sense that he was better off where he was, that life in a fantasy of his design, albeit one whose existence he did not wholly credit, was preferable to anything he might encounter elsewhere. And once he embraced this passive choice, a spark of certainty was kindled by his every smaller choice, as if by staying he had come to terms with all life’s problems; and perhaps Halmus and Arnsparger and Nygaard had achieved a similar peace of mind, for the atmosphere aboard ship was cordial by contrast to what had gone before, with pleasantries and nods and brief, cheerful dialogues exchanged in passing; and, after the storm blew off, the diamond weather that followed seemed an additional validation that a sea change had taken place—long perfect days of white sunbursts in pale blue skies; hushed, enduring twilights that washed the snow lavender; blue nights with haloed moons and hard bright stars when Wilander, alone with his maps, felt like a magus imprisoned in a crystal, laboring over a casting that would set him free, detailing the coastlines of the Six Tears, adding a notch to the tip of the peninsula that bordered the lagoon, putting the finishing touches on the city of Cape Lorraine, adding marginalia beside portions of the forests, noting a concentration of whistlers or some other imaginary creature, not quite believing the fantasy, playing with it, obsessive in the way of a hobbyist or a gamer, and yet telling himself maybe, perhaps, what if, supposing it were real, tempted to belief. Sometimes he would walk out into the forest (not far; he remained uneasy with the environment) in order to gain a perspective on the ship, to think whatever thoughts the sight of it would generate, contemplating it as might a connoisseur in a gallery, the moonstruck superstructure, so pristine looking, a clean light spilling from ports and doors, here and there a refracted crystalline glint, and the sharp black prow lifting from between hills and boulders as if cleaving a swell, a far cry from the brooding image it had once presented, resembling a stranded luxury craft wherein a party of minor dukes and their be-gemmed ladies, confident of rescue, quietly celebrated the moment with the roast flesh of mythical beasts and wine fermented centuries before by eunuch saints in a Serbian castle; and one night, returning from a walk, as he clambered over the aft rail, having shinnied up the frozen rope from the shingle, he saw a shadow drop to the deck from the linden tree. At that distance, he could determine only that the shadow was human. He crept closer, keeping low to the rail, more intrigued than frightened, imagining that it must be someone from town. The shadow flattened against the outer wall of the officers’ mess and had a peek in through the port. Wilander would not have sworn to it, but the face that flared for an instant in the light from the port appeared to be that of a woman with extremely long hair. Then, as he crept closer yet, placing his feet carefully so as not to crunch patches of ice, she opened the door of the mess and stepped into the light, proving to be a slender young girl, dirty blonde hair falling over her shoulders and down her back; utterly naked, her skin onion pale, small-breasted, her crotch all but hairless; and then she darted inside, leaving the door ajar. Easing forward again, Wilander found an angle that allowed him to peer into the mess. The girl moved with furtive quickness about the table, and perhaps, he thought, she was no girl—although her body exhibited the immature development of a fourteen-year-old, her face was exotic, womanly, a beautiful, sensual face with high cheekbones and a mouth that was a little too wide and full for her narrow jaw. She pawed at the maps, stopped and tipped back her head as if catching a scent on the air; she picked up a colored pencil, bit it, tossed it aside, sniffed the air again, and then sped through the door leading to interior of the ship. Dumbfounded, Wilander held his position. Rather than pursuing her through the darkened maze of the ship, he thought it would be easier to intercept her when she returned to the mess; but as he debated whether it would be more effective to wait inside the mess, she sprinted back onto the deck, carrying a loaf of bread, leaped to the rail without breaking stride and vaulted up into the linden, bringing down a shower of snow and dead leaves. An air of unreality settled over Wilander. That a beautiful woman might be inhabiting the linden tree, existing in freezing temperatures without the benefit of clothing, failed to meet even his lowered standards of what was credible. Unless she were a whistler, in which case the very concept of judgment would take a hit. Shy; slender; physically alluring. Driven to steal food when winter made game scarce. She fit the description. He started for the larder, curious as to how she had negotiated the lock, and then recalled that he had bread, peanut butter, and tinned sardines in his cabin. The sardines and peanut butter, he discovered, were still on the shelf above his bunk. The bread, however, was gone.
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