I nod, then realize I’m not sure if he can see me. “Yes, it’s nice to chat while I work. Is there anything you wish I would cook? Bearing in mind our limited supplies.”
“Fry bread, if you have the ingredients. It’s been ages since I had any sort of bread.” His voice carries a wistful tone. “I wish I hadn’t been so stubborn that first day. You’ve no idea how much I regretted not tasting the bread you made then. It smelled so good.”
I’m glad he said it, so I’m not tempted to be pert; there’s no gain in provoking him. “I can whip some up, if you’ll wait a bit.” Silently I hope he’ll stay and eat with me, but I have no idea where he is currently. “It will go nicely with the kettle of beans I have on the hob.”
He doesn’t verbally agree, but I hear him settling nearby, just beyond my range of sight. “Did you find everything you needed to make the ale, by the way?”
“Yes, the first batch is fermenting.”
“Thank you,” he says quietly.
“For what?”
“It’s incredible that you need to ask. You’re the beating heart of this dreadful place, so warm and alive that I come every day to make sure I didn’t dream you.”
I’m startled into silence by the admission, as I had no idea that he thought of me as more than a nuisance. Then I try to imagine what it’s been like, living in such isolation for years untold, and I come up blank. But the ice around my heart that formed when Owen died, it shivers and cracks a bit, because it seems as if Njål needs me somewhat, and nobody else does. I’m . . . necessary here. I work hard, but my efforts are appreciated. He hasn’t berated me or asked for the impossible, and he’s grateful for what I can achieve. Conversely, it makes me want to do more for him; I wish that I could.
If he can see my face, he knows I’m smiling as I mix the simple dough and drop a spoon of lard in the cast iron pan, making the fry bread sizzle as it cooks. He draws in an appreciative breath, audible enough to tell me that he’s close, maybe closer than he’s ever been.
Perhaps I should be frightened, but the outside world has hurt me far more. Njål has never injured me, never made me feel unsafe despite his allegedly monstrous nature. I’m not sure I believe those old tales any longer. He’s been cursed, but he’s no evil fiend, and he certainly can’t sweep down on the town to unleash his wrath. He’s a damn prisoner. And the fact that we gave away so much food is our own fault, not his.
Quickly, I put together a meal of beans, salt fish, fry bread, and weak herbal tea, then I set everything at the far end of the worktable. I have smaller portions of everything, and I turn around, settling on a stool near the stove.
“You didn’t dream me,” I respond at last. “You stay because you can’t leave. I stay because I choose to. As I hope you’ll choose to eat supper with me. I won’t move. I won’t turn around. But we can talk and I . . .” Should I say this? “. . . would enjoy that.”
“As would I.”
There’s a scrape, as if he’s entered the kitchen, trusting me to keep my word. Trusting me. I exhale, because I didn’t realize how tight my chest got waiting for his reply.
“What did you want to discuss?” he asks.
“Nothing in particular. It’s nice to have company.”
“It is,” he agrees.
I don’t hear the scrape of cutlery, and I wonder how he’s eating. Maybe he scrapes the beans up with the flat bread? I do the same and find it works wonderfully, efficient and delicious.
“This is so good.”
I’m not expecting praise, so the soft words fall like gentle rain on parched earth. The feeling warms me further, but I keep my head down, trying not to glow too visibly because it’ll make me seem pathetic—that I’m this starved for kindness. Before Owen died, I drank in his approval, but since then . . .
“I’m glad you like the fry bread. We have enough flour that I can make it more often. I just didn’t know that you enjoyed it.”
“There’s been no one to ask. Or to care. This much is already an unimaginable boon.”
I care. That, I don’t say out loud, because it’s so open to misinterpretation. Though I don’t think he’d take it as an invitation, I don’t trust him fully yet. I only know that he’s more alone than I am, a feat that takes some doing.
“I know that feeling as well,” I say softly.
He moves, but doesn’t approach; it seems as if he wants to. “You make me curious.”
“About what?”
“How you ended up here. Why the keep permitted you to pass when it’s allowed no one else.” His tone is pensive.
“You said it was because I had abandoned all hope and had nowhere else to go.”
“That’s purely speculation. I am not the master of this place,” he says.
“Well, I’m the mistress of the kitchen and I’m glad you had supper with me.”
“As am I. I’ve tested your resolve long enough. I don’t wish for curiosity to get the better of you.”
“You assume I’m curious about you.”
“Are you not? I should take comfort in that, but it’s a bit disappointing somehow. Keep safe and warm until the morn, Amarrah.”
Hearing him speak my name feels so intimate. The warm tremor it creates stays with me for a long while, well past the time when I’ve tidied the remains of our meal and am tucked up in my blankets, staring into the crackle of the fire.
4.
The next day, there’s a goat in the courtyard, and I have no idea how she got there. She seems equally bemused, bleating at me plaintively. The portcullis is still closed, and it’s not as if she could’ve simply dropped from the sky. She’s not injured, though she is a bit thin. Times are tough even for mountain goats, it seems.
But I have nothing to feed her and nowhere for her to graze.
Maybe it would be quicker and kinder to butcher her and smoke the meat, but when I gaze into her eyes, I can’t do it. She’s not as skittish as most wild goats, making me think that she might have belonged to someone once. The animal doesn’t flinch when I approach and holds still as I pick brambles from her fur. In fact, she bumps her head against my hand. Absently I rub her ears, treating her as I would a friendly dog. My family never kept livestock, so I don’t know much about looking after such a creature.
Is this because of my silent wish that I had a goat? The mere idea sends a shiver through me as I conclude that the keep is a sentient force, one capable of making judgments. I’d reckoned that Njål was being clever when he said he didn’t let me in—that the keep had a mind of its own.
But I didn’t tell Njål about that fleeting thought. And here the goat is regardless.
“How am I supposed to feed you?” I ask.
The goat stares at me, surrounded by patches of snow and the eerie ice statues that used to be people. Slowly, I pass through, examining their faces one by one. There are twenty in all. Two seem to be hunters, judging by their apparel and gear, caught in a moment of abject terror, mouths frozen open in matching screams. I shiver, moving to the next, a group of three, minstrels by the look of the instruments they’re carrying. Then there’s five merchants who came to peddle their wares and never left. The last group appears to have arrived together, soldiers prepared to deal with the threat, perhaps. At least that’s what the weapons and armor suggest. They all made it through the portcullis, but the keep deemed them unwelcome and froze them where they stood.