Nora joined her husband, kneeling beside him. A strangled yelp escaped her. She clutched his arm. Wyatt and Jeanne quickly made their way to stand behind them.
Wyatt let out a low whistle. “Better get over here, Val.”
Sigrid had sunk into a state of melancholy. I’m not sure she felt or noticed the kiss I placed on her head before reluctantly leaving her side to join the others.
I gazed down into the dim, blue otherworld. A baby boy, perfectly preserved, floated a few feet below the surface, his body partially wrapped in a dun-colored rag that seemed to flutter in an eternal wind. His dark eyes were open, and he looked alert, one chubby hand reaching out as if to touch his mother’s face or pick a flower off a stem.
“My God, Raj,” Nora breathed. “Look at him.”
He gripped her arm, consumed by the sight.
“How did he get here,” Nora said, “so far away from all the others?”
Wyatt knelt next to her. “Maybe he was swept up in the same gust that took Sigrid, who knows? Look where she was found. Just yards from here.”
We all squinted at the azure depression on the other side of the crevasse, piecing together the weirdly plausible explanation.
“Perhaps they tried to place the children away from danger,” Raj said softly. “But the wind had other plans.”
“He looks just like Charlie, doesn’t he?” Nora hugged herself, eyes glittering.
“Come on, babe,” Raj said, peering out at the brooding mountains, their black cliffs crosshatched with ice. “Keep it together.”
Her voice rose. “It’s the truth, and you know it. Look at him. His smile, his eyes…”
Raj wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her to her feet, tried to lead her away. “This isn’t good for you—”
She brushed him aside. “Just let me look at him!”
“I say we cut him out of there,” Wyatt said. “He looks in good shape, not like the rest of them.”
Raj stepped briskly to his camera, snatched it up, and slipped the strap around his neck. “You’ve finally lost your fucking mind.”
Wyatt smiled and tipped his head to Jeanne, who was already on her way back to the sled and the ice saw.
Raj got up into Wyatt’s face. “This sick little sideshow cannot go on,” he growled. “I will not let it. Your game with Sigrid. Even if she did thaw out alive, you’ve still got no idea why or how, even after all your screwing around. This place”—he gesticulated at the shining circles beneath us, the vast lake with its jagged blue scar, the peaks beyond—“is sacred. This is a grave site. We should leave these poor people in peace.”
Head down against the wind, Jeanne dragged the ice saw behind her.
“If it’ll really offend you that much to watch us cut him out,” Wyatt said, “why don’t you head back?”
Raj stood over the baby, arms folded tight. “I won’t let you do it. This is obscene.”
Jeanne, out of breath, laid down the saw at Wyatt’s feet.
“That’s not very democratic of you, Raj. Maybe we should ask around. Take a vote. Nora?”
“I…” She wiped her eyes, looked at her husband imploringly. “I—Look at him. I can’t just leave him here. Not if… Raj, I’m sorry.”
He said, “Then what about everybody else down there? Why don’t we thaw out the whole lot? What have we got to lose?”
“Look at them, Raj,” Nora said. “They’re all—”
“Dead?”
She dropped her head, as if ashamed. “Maybe. But we can start with the boy.”
Wyatt turned to me. “Val?”
Raj stepped away from the cleared ice. I got on all fours to look. The baby was near enough for me to reach down and scoop up in my arms. He wore the slightest smile, as if seconds ago something had delighted him. I couldn’t get close enough to him. What if this little boy did thaw out alive? It would be a kind of murder to leave him in ice forever.
I knew that Sigrid would die unless we could finally understand each other. She had days to live; she had told me as much in every way she could. What hope would I have communicating with a baby? I could barely grasp what an eight-year-old was trying to tell me. Was Wyatt close to the answer, with his frozen foxes, caribou, lichen, beetles, bugs? Would this boy be the final clue to understanding how to survive the ice winds? Was I even thinking clearly? Andy, what would you do? I got closer, peering at the boy’s flushed cheeks, bow lips, toothless smile. Darling boy, is your little heart ready to beat again? How could I know? How could any of us know?