From the Bookshelf of Around the World in 80 Books…

She could see, now that she had been shown...

She could see, now that she had been shown...

Just as startling was the fox. It sat beside Faina with its silken red tail curled around its feet and its ears pricked forward. Something in its predatory eyes and thin black mouth told of a thousand small deaths, and Mabel could not forget its muzzle smeared with blood.

She could see, now that she had been shown. The sun had disappeared behind them, and the girl pointed across the valley to the mountain slopes aglow in a cool purple-pink. Silhouetted against the sky, tendrils of snow unfurled from the peaks, whipped by what must have been a brutal wind. Here on the rise, though, the air was still. The colors were distant, impossible, untouchable.

That’s what my name means, Faina said, still pointing.

Mountain?

No. That light. Papa named me for the color on the snow when the sun turns.

Alpenglow, Mabel whispered.

She felt the awe of walking into a cathedral, the sense that she was being shown something powerful and intimate, and in its presence must speak softly, if at all. She stared into that color, trying to imagine a father who could name his child for such beauty and then abandon her.

We should go, Faina said. It will be night soon.

The child led Mabel back to the homestead, to the warm cabin where Jack waited with hot tea and bread he had baked in a Dutch oven.

So, he said. What did you see?

He had said too much, but not as much as he could have.

“We have tried to convince her to stay with us, but she refuses. She says the wilderness is her home, and I’ve gone with her there, and it’s true. It is her home. She walks on top of the snow. And I know it seems unbelievable, Esther, but she can hold a snowflake in the palm of her hand without it melting. Don’t you see? She was reborn that night… reborn out of snow and suffering and love.”

Esther burst into the cabin like a friendly hen, flapping and chattering and nearly knocking Mabel over as she tried to open the door for her. In one hand she held a towel-covered cast-iron pot and with the other she hugged Mabel and kissed her on the cheek.

This November day, the river otter did not keep her waiting. She heard ice splinter, a splash, and then he was just the other side of the small creek. She expected him to dash across a log or run humpbacked down the bank as he always did. Instead he paused at the water’s edge, turned toward her, and stood up on his hind legs. He was remarkably still, supported by his thick tail, his front paws dangling at his chest. For longer than Mabel could hold her breath, the otter stared at her with his eyes like deep eddies. And then he dropped to all fours and scampered down the creek.

Farewell, old man, until we meet again.

She had no way to know its age or gender, but there was something in the light-colored chin and long, coarse whiskers that reminded her of an old man’s beard. From a distance the otter gave a comical, mischievous impression, but when it slithered close Mabel could smell fish blood and a wet chill.

She told no one of the otter. Garrett would want to trap it; Faina would ask her to draw it. She refused to confine it by any means because, in some strange way, she knew it was her heart. Living, twisting muscle beneath bristly damp fur. Breaking through thin ice, splashing in cold creek water, sliding belly-down across snow. Joyful, though it should have known better.

In my old age, I see that life itself is often more fantastic and terrible than the stories we believed as children, and that perhaps there is no harm in finding magic among the trees.