“You scared the shit out of her.”
“All right, I got this. We’re going to try something else.” Wyatt lifted a frying pan off a hook over the sink, splashed some oil into it, snapped on the burner. He picked up the terrarium and shook the insects into the pan, gathering the errant ones with his hands and slamming on the lid. Sigrid watched me wide-eyed, cheeks flushed with the heat, a death grip on my sweatpants. In seconds, an acrid smoke seeped from under the lid. Wyatt shook the pan from side to side like a gourmet chef perfecting an omelet, then grabbed a plate and slid the now genuinely dead creatures onto it.
Sigrid’s body pushed harder into me as he set the plate of sizzling bugs on the coffee table. “What do you think now, kiddo? They look pretty tasty to me.”
Her fingernails dug into my flesh through my pants.
With a thick finger, Wyatt nudged one of the beetles around on the plate. “Maybe a little salt.” He ran for the shaker, salted them; they sizzled and shrank into themselves, the caterpillars melting into a furry paste. “Come on, Sigrid, you just said you ate these. Well, here they are. Let’s go.” He picked up a beetle and popped it in his mouth, crunching, his face a blank mask. “See? Mmm, delicious, right? Now, you,” he said, opening his mouth and pointing. A few spindly black beetle legs remained on his tongue. He closed his mouth, swallowed, and edged the plate closer to her, up against her chest now. She shuddered, recoiling. “Come on,” he said. “Just try one.”
He picked up a fried beetle and held it to her lips. She jerked away, her mouth opening in a wail as she sent the plate flying, scattering the bugs across the floor. She thrust herself away from me and bolted from the room.
“Nice, Wyatt,” I said, jumping to my feet. “You really found the way to her heart.”
“Fuck.” He grabbed a broom and began sweeping up the bugs. “She said she ate them. You saw her! She nodded when you asked.”
Feeling his eyes burn into me, I retrieved the plate and brought it to the sink. “I’m going to talk to her.”
* * *
I EXPECTED TO find her where she usually escaped: burrowed deep in her refuge of blankets and pillows under her bed, tearful. But she was sitting on top of it, facing the window, bare legs dangling, a pad of paper on her lap. It was full dark outside now, and she drew by lamplight with great concentration. Her forehead shone with sweat.
“Hey, Sigrid,” I said softly as I approached her, hoping the tenuous trust between us would hold, until I settled next to her, watching her draw. Carefully I lifted my hand, easing it around her until I rested my palm on her forehead just beneath her hairline. She didn’t react in any way; just kept sketching furiously, mumbling under her breath. I could feel her heart beating in her temples, her soft flesh pulsing with too much heat.
On the page, outlined in black emerged what looked like strips of seaweed, or like snakes or worms, sometimes separate, at others in squiggly piles. A wide-winged bird soared over the odd shapes. She carefully colored the seaweed strips dark purple; the bird—very simply drawn—stayed white with a black head and long, red beak. When she was done, she smoothed her hands over the drawing, as if ensuring it was dry or safe somehow, and with abundant ceremony, spread it across my lap.
“Thanks, Sigrid.”
She put her hand on my arm and looked up at me with trust in her eyes. The damp heat of her palm radiated through the sleeve of my wool shirt. I clicked on the recorder hidden in my pocket. Pointed at her drawings.
“What are these animals, or plants, can you tell me about them?”
For several minutes she spoke to me in the strangest way: patiently, slowly, as if I were the child and she were the adult and I’d better pay attention because this was important.
She began most sentences with one of seven words—I’d been tracking this much at least. But now she spun off into some kind of explanation, gesturing, pointing at the bird, then the squiggly lines, back to the bird. I repeated the words she used for seaweed or snake and bird back to her, “Sahndaluuk, kahdayglu,” and she got very excited, more excited than maybe I’d ever seen her.
She jabbed her dirt-encrusted nail over and over at the snake and bird, then carefully tore the piece of paper from the pad. Folding it into the smallest possible square, she tucked it into my palm, closing my fingers around it. She reached up with both hands for my face—it took me a second to understand—I lowered my head to hers, and she rubbed her forehead on mine, like a forehead kiss. I’d read that this was how Greenlandic Inuits greeted each other sometimes; they leaned in to each other, touched foreheads, and smelled each other briefly. I wondered how I smelled to her; I’d grown used to her essence: earth, skin oils, fish, wet leather, so I breathed her in and for several seconds we relaxed like that. I wanted to ask more questions, but that was her good night, her benediction. She dropped to the floor and disappeared in her hideout.