As always, the place made me want to run. The stench of crankcase oil; the circular saw hulking over the far end of the table, its shark’s teeth still specked with sawdust; machinery guts exploded on the floor. Gaskets, tubing, pipes of all shapes and sizes, plastic jugs of mysterious liquids. The place vibrated with a latent violence, with the memory of Jeanne’s constant movement, her restlessness, her compulsion to make something right that could never be right again.
A cursory check revealed no boxed wine, damn. The walk-in freezer was a remote possibility: it had a combination lock. I gave it a tug, hoping she’d forgotten to spin the dial. No luck. Got down to my knees next to the smaller, hassock-sized freezer, fully expecting to rattle the lock a bit, curse, give up, stay back, accept defeat, and sink, sink, sink into my maelstrom of fear. I couldn’t face the Enormity stone-cold sober, full stop.
I yanked down on the lock; its two teeth disengaged from the round barrel.
She hadn’t spun the dial.
The lid of the freezer resisted me at first, then let go with a snap of suction. Steam swirled up, momentarily blinding me. Through the mist, the faint outline of an animal. My first thought was: Frida. The little mutt Andy and I had as kids.
I blinked. Of course this wasn’t Frida. But what was this thing? I’d only seen them in photos, but it had to be an Arctic fox. It was curled up as if sleeping or trying to stay warm: paws tucked under its chin, tail wrapped around its body, kohl-rimmed eyes shut tight. Lace-ice fans feathered out across its glistening white pelt. It was so beautiful I wondered if it was real, but its bloodstained muzzle—clearly it had enjoyed a meal just before death—cast a pall on its Disneyesque perfection. I touched its black nose: a frozen marble.
Next to it, tucked into ziplock bags: several frozen Arctic lemmings; small, thick-bodied rodents; an antediluvian-looking fish with flat eyes wide as quarters; and a puffin, its cartoon-orange beak and webbed feet bright even under the plastic. All in perfect condition, no marks, icebound. How much had they suffered, I wondered; how quickly had death come?
With great care, I slipped my hands under the fox. A filigree of ice crackled free, tinkling into the box. He was so light—a sparkling cloud of opalescent fur. Underneath him, the mother lode. Three full fifths of Smirnoff vodka. I carefully laid the fox on the sawdust-covered floor, picked up a bottle, unscrewed the cap, and drank.
Two swallows later, a wave of self-loathing crashed over me. Why not do it? Why not just take Dad’s offer and get out of here? Have him call in that favor to his friends at Thule and go home. The world would happily close in around me again, and I’d welcome it; I’d hop on my M?bius strip of seeking safety and—not finding it—conclude I needed to make my circle smaller still, just tighten that noose…
The sputter of an engine firing up outside the Shed startled me back to the present moment. I squeezed my eyes shut. My head swam. I’m a mess, but I’m all Sigrid’s got. Heart smashing against my rib cage, I tucked the bottle of vodka in my parka, wiped my mouth, and ran to the door. Wyatt and Jeanne were just turning the cat to face the glacier. I took off as fast as I could across the field of ice toward the idling machine.
nineteen
Buffeted by winds lashing down from the glacier, the snowcat rocked on the ice lake, its small, tattered American flag on the hood snapping crazily. I sat buckled in the back seat like a child left in a car waiting for her parents to finish shopping. Through half-closed eyes—my head swimmy but functional—I watched Wyatt and Jeanne drill ice core after ice core, loading the gray tubes on a metal sled. Each new drill site brought us closer to the crevasse where Sigrid had been found. It seemed wider that day, a deeper blue. Impossible to look at for more than a few seconds at a time without hyperventilating.
Through slitted eyes, I took in the sun, a sizzling fat ovoid resting on the horizon, set to lurk there for the next couple of hours before our three-hour “day” came to an end. I reached out my gloved finger, tracing its perimeter on the steamy glass, just as I’d seen Sigrid do countless times. Traced another, and another, until I’d drawn a row of circles. My finger hesitated on the glass. The circles were suns! Days!
The perimeter of the setting sun pulsed red… Why were the last circles Sigrid drew red? What would happen to her on the final day?
I stopped drawing; my hand fell from the window. Sigrid drew a picture of suns every day, each day with one less sun. She was counting down.
* * *
WYATT LIFTED HIMSELF into the driver’s seat with a blast of icy air. He unscrewed the cap on a thermos and filled it halfway with hot coffee, offered it to me. I shook my head. A few yards from the cat, Jeanne knelt on the ice, struggling to free a core from the corer with a plunger. Wyatt downed his coffee, rubbed and blew on his hands, slipped his gloves back on. “Last chance to see the crevasse up close. You change your mind?”