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失窃的孩子|The Stolen Child

第8章|Chapter 8

属类： 双语小说 【分类】世界名著 -[作者: 凯斯-唐纳胡] 阅读：[19096]
《 字+字- 行+行- 页+页- 字+字- 行+行- 页+页- 》
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“我有东西要给你。”

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最后的严寒冬日困住了大家。一场暴风雪和冰冻三尺的气温使得营寨外面寸步难行。我们大多数人都饥寒交迫，日夜缩在毯子下打盹。斯帕克站在我跟前，面带微笑，背后藏着一个惊喜。微风把她长长的黑发吹到脸上，她不耐烦地像拉窗帘一样，把它撩到一边。

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“醒醒，瞌睡虫，看我找到了什么。”

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我站起来，身上还紧紧裹着鹿皮抵御寒冷。她掏出一个信封，雪白的信封在她皮肤皲裂的手上轮廓鲜明。我拿过来打开，抽出一张问候卡，正面画着颗大大的红心。我不小心失手让信封滑落到地上，她飞快地弯腰捡起。

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“看，安尼戴，”她说，她用冻僵的手指沿着折线仔细地撕开信封，“如果你想到把它展开，你就有一张两面的纸，正面只有邮票和地址，反面是张白纸。”她把卡片拿过去，“瞧，你能在这张的正反面画画，还能在里面沿着这些字的外围画。”

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斯帕克在雪地里踮着足尖一蹦一跳，大约既是因为开心，也是为了驱走严寒，而通常她冷漠得像块石头，好像没法和其他人交流似的。

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“别客气。你还会更感激我呢。我踏着雪去把这个弄回来时，你和所有这些笨蛋们可都还舒舒服服地正把冬天睡过去呢。”

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“我该怎么谢你? ”

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“给我取暖。”她来到我身边，我打开鹿皮毯让她钻进来，她抱着我，冰冷的手和四肢让我睡意全消。大家都睡着了，我们缩入边上的一堆毯子底下，呼呼大睡。

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次日早晨我醒来，头靠在她胸口上。斯帕克一条胳膊围着我，另一只手里捏着那张卡片。她醒来时，眨巴着翠绿色的眼睛迎接早晨。她的第一个请求是让我读卡片里的字句：只要一想起你，亲爱的朋友，所有的失落和悲伤烟消云散。

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莎士比亚，《十四行诗集》第30首没有落款，没有地址，用墨水写在信封上的名字都已经被湿雪融掉了。

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“你觉得这是什么意思? ”

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“我不知道，”我对她说，“谁是莎士比亚? ”这名字似乎有点耳熟。

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“他的朋友解决了他所有的麻烦，只要他想到他……或是她。”

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太阳升上树梢，温暖了我们安静的营寨。开始听到融化的声音：积雪从杉树枝上脱落，冰块开裂，冰柱融化、滴水。我想独自和卡片待在一起，我的铅笔像火焰余烬般在口袋里燃烧。

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“你要写什么? ”

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“我要做一个日历，但我不知道该怎么做。你知道今天是什么日子吗? ”

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“每天都一样。”

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“你难道不想知道今天是什么日子吗? ”

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斯帕克扭动身子穿好外套，让我也穿起来。她带我走过空地，来到营寨附近的最高处，这是西北侧的一列山岭，是个难以翻越的地带，下面是由质地疏散的页岩形成的陡峭山坡。我们爬到顶峰时，我两腿酸痛，喘不过气来。她则跺着脚让我静下来倾听。我们一动不动地等着。除了正在融化的群山，一片寂静。

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“要我听什么呢? ”

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“集中注意力。”她说。

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我集中注意力，但除了偶尔一两声五子雀的笑声、枝条和树干的嘎吱声外，我什么都没有听见。我耸了耸肩膀。

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“再集中一点。”

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我听得太专心了，脑壳内发出一阵剧烈的头痛：我甚至能听到她放松的呼吸声，她的心跳声，还有遥远处有节奏的振动声，那起先听起来像是一群物体发出的粗重的声音，但很快就集中到了某一个体上。变速的嗡嗡声，低沉的飞溅声，偶尔的喇叭声，轮胎在马路上的滚动声，我意识到我们在听远处的交通。

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“棒极了，”我告诉她，“是汽车。”

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“注意听。你听到了什么? ”

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我的头快裂了，但我还是集中精神。“很多汽车? ”我猜测说。

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“对了。”她露齿一笑，“很多很多汽车。早晨的交通。”

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我还是没明白。

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“人们去上班。在城里。学校班车和孩子们。早晨有很多汽车。

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这表示今天是工作日，不是星期天。星期天静悄悄的，没有那么多汽车经过。”

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她把裸露的手指举到空中，又放进嘴里尝了尝，“我想今天是星期一。”她说。

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“我见过这个做法。你是怎么知道的呢? ”

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“那些汽车都排放烟气，工厂也排放烟气。星期天，路上没有那么多汽车，工厂也关门了。你几乎尝不到一点烟味。星期一就多一点。到了星期五晚上，空气尝起来就像嘴里塞满了煤。”她又舔了舔手指，“肯定是星期一。现在让我看看你的信吧。”

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我递给她情人卡和信封，她查看起来，指着邮票上的邮戳说：“你还记得是情人节是哪天吗? ”

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“二月十四日。”我骄傲地说道，仿佛在数学课上正确地回答了问题。眼前闪过一个女人的形象，穿着黑白相间的衣服，在黑板上写着数字。

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“对的，你看到这个了吗? ”她指着邮戳，上面的日期排成半圆：周一，1950年2 月13日，上午。“那是你的莎士比亚把它投进邮筒的时间。在星期一。这表示他们在星期一上午盖了邮戳。”

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“这么说，今天是情人节? 情人节快乐。”

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“不，安尼戴。你得学会读这些标记，看懂它们的意思。推论一下。如果今天是星期一，那怎么可能是情人节呢? 我们怎能在一封信丢失之前找到它呢? 如果我是昨天找到的这封信，而今天是星期一，今天又怎么可能是情人节呢? ”

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我被弄糊涂了，觉得很累，头痛起来。

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“二月十三号是上一个星期一。如果这张卡片已经寄出了一个多礼拜，它就已被弄坏了。我昨天找到它，把它带给你。昨天是个安静的日子，没有很多汽车，是个星期天。今天必定是下个星期一。”

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她使我彻底怀疑起自己的推理能力来。

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“很简单。今天是星期一，1950年2 月20日。你确实需要一个日历。”她伸手问我要铅笔，我高兴地递给她。她在卡片反面画了一排七个格子，分别写上一、二、三、四、五、六、日代表一周的天数。接着她在边上的竖格中写下了一年的所有月份，在另一侧，写下了从1 到31的数字。她写的时候，问我每个月的天数，还唱了一首熟悉的歌帮我记忆，但我们都忘了闰年，这迟早会让我犯错。她从口袋中拿出三个小金属圆片，声明说如果我想跟上时间，我只能每天早上把圆片移到日历的下一格上，并记得要在每周末和月末的时候从头开始。

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斯帕克常常告诉我一些显而易见的答案，其他人都没有这样一清二楚的想像力和创造力。她施展洞察力的时候，注视着我，声音中的颤动消失了。一缕头发逃脱了出来，将她的脸蛋分成两半。她用两只粗糙的、红通通的手拢起头发，别到耳后，我盯着她看时，她就朝我微笑。“安尼戴，如果你忘了，就来找我。”她走了，穿过树林，越过山岭，离开了营寨，把我和我的日历单独留下。我凝视着她的背影在林木间移动，融入到大自然中去。她消失后，我所能想到的只是这个日子：1950年2月20 日。我丢失了太多的时间。

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远远的山脚下，其他人正在臭烘烘的毯子和毛皮下酣然而眠。

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只要我倾听交通声，跟着声音找到源头，就能回到人群中间，那些汽车中有一辆停在我面前，带我回家。司机会看见一个男孩站在路边，会停在我前头。我会等她，等那个红衣女子来救我。我没有逃跑，而是等在原地，不像上次那样吓着她。

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她俯下身与我对视，把她的头发甩到脸后。“你是谁? ”我想起父母和小妹妹的面容，告诉这有着一双浅绿眼眸的女人我住在何处，如何回家。她让我爬进她的汽车。

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我坐在她身边，告诉她我的故事，而她把手放在我后脑勺上，说着一切都会好的。

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车子停在我家门口，我跳下车，我母亲正在晾衣绳上晒衣服，妹妹穿着她的黄裙子，挥动双臂朝我蹒跚走来。“我找到了您的儿子。”女人这么说。我父亲从一辆红色的消防车上下来，“我们到处找你找了很久。”之后，吃了炸鸡和饼干，我们回到林中拯救我的朋友斯茂拉赫、鲁契克和斯帕克，他们和我们一起生活、上学、回家，暖和、平安又健康。我所要做的就是集中注意力，跟随文明的声音。我竭力向天际眺望，但毫无所见。我侧耳倾听，但毫无所闻。我试图回忆，但却想不起自己的名字。

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我把三个硬币放进口袋，翻过日历，大声把莎士比亚念给自己听：“只要一想起你，亲爱的朋友……”睡在山下洞中的那些人是我的朋友。我掏出铅笔，开始写下我所能记得的东西。自那以后，已经过去了很多年，我不止一次写下这个故事，但开头就是我独自站在山岭上。我的手指冻僵了，下山回营时，毯子呼唤着我，答应我会有温暖的梦乡。

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斯帕克的情人节礼物之后不久，另一件礼物也送到了我手中。

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鲁契克从一次远征劫掠中把它带回来，像圣诞老人在圣诞树下解开他的口袋。

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“这个，小宝贝，是给你的。这是你在这世上的所有梦想。

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足够装下你的每个梦。奇迹中的奇迹，也是干的。纸。”

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他给我一本硬面抄，是学生做作业用的那种，纸页上划着横线，以规范字句的位置。扉页上是校名和题目“作文练习簿”。封底是一个小方框，里面印有一则警告：如遇原子弹袭击，拉上窗帘，躺在课桌下，不要惊慌。练习簿里有作者的姓名：托马斯·麦克伊内斯，他把大名写在衬页上。这些已变了色的纸张上写满了他难以辨认的字迹，墨水是锈褐色的。据我所知，这是一篇小说，或是小说的一部分，因为在最后一页上，文章结束在半句话上，而封底的内面写着神秘兮兮的“见他本”。

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这多年来，我试图阅读这篇小说，但这个故事的意图使我不解。在我看来，作文簿的美丽之处在于麦克伊内斯由着自己的性子来。八十八页的纸，他只写了每一页的单面。我把本子倒过来，从另一头写我的故事。如今这本日记已经和其他很多东西一起化为灰烬，但我能说出它的基本内容：一本自然主义者的日记，记录的是我在森林中的生活观察，最后还画了找到的各种东西——一本记录我生命中最美好岁月的日记。

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我的编年史和日历帮我跟上流逝的时光，它节奏轻快。好多年我都怀抱希望，但没有人来找我。悲哀就像时间的暗流，而失望如同云影般来去。那些年里也有我的朋友和同伴带来的欢乐，我在内心长大时，一件不经意的小事把男孩赶走了。

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大多数年份，三月中旬停雪，几周后冰开始融化，绿色的生命萌芽，昆虫孵化出来，鸟儿飞回来了，鱼和青蛙准备捕食。春天立刻就让我们恢复了元气，随着白天的加长，我们的探索兴趣也在增长。我们会扔掉皮毛，弄坏毯子，脱下外套和鞋子。五月的第一个暖日，我们有九个人会去河里清洁我们发臭的身体，淹死头发里的寄生虫，刮掉结成块的脏土和污垢。布鲁玛曾在一家加油站里偷来一条肥皂，我们在这次焕然一新的洗澡中把它擦到变成小碎片。卵石滩上白白的身体，擦得通体粉红、干净。

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蒲公英花不知从何处开出，姜葱在草地上冒芽，我们的奥尼恩斯大快朵颐，吃着洋葱头和青草，把牙齿和嘴唇都染成绿色，散发臭气，味觉迟钝，到了最后，她的皮肤也散发出一股辛辣的、又苦又甜的气味。鲁契克和斯茂拉赫把蒲公英汁挤出来做成味道醇厚的酿制品。

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我的日历帮忙追踪莓果的游行队伍：六月有草莓，之后是野蓝莓、醋栗、接骨木果，还有其他许多。在山岭上的一片树林中，斯帕克和我找到了侵略山坡的悬钩子红色军队。七月里我们有很多日子都在荆棘丛中采集甜果。黑莓是最后成熟的，每次见到我们夜宴的第一罐黑莓时，我就心中难过，因为这些黑宝石预告着夏季的结束。

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我们中间好吃昆虫的人对暖和季节的丰盛食物欢欣鼓舞，虽然吃臭虫必然是一种需要日渐培养起来的品味。每个仙灵都有各自的特殊喜好，但都喜欢搞捕捉。劳格诺只吃他从蜘蛛网里提来的苍蝇。

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贝卡是个美食家，吃任何他看到的虫子，蠕动的、飞翔的、滑行的、扭动的。

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他会从一截腐朽的木头里寻到一窝白蚁，在泥潭里找到一群鼻涕虫，或者长满蛆的动物残骸，他挖下去，生吃这些恶心的生物。

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他耐心地坐在一小堆篝火边，当蛾子飞近他的脸，就用舌头凭空抓住它们。卡维素芮是另一位出了名的爱吃臭虫的，但至少她还会煮一煮。她在加热的石块上烤幼虫和母虫，把它们烤得爆裂开来，像烤肉一般褐色松脆，这个我还能接受。蚱蜢腿会卡在你牙缝里，还有蚂蚁，如果不事先烘烤一下，会沿着你的舌头、喉咙一路咬下去。

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来到森林之前，我从未杀生，但我们都是狩猎兼采集者，假如不偶尔在餐中加点蛋白质，身体都会受损。我们吃松鼠、鼹鼠、田鼠、鱼和鸟儿，虽然把它们的蛋从窝里偷出来要费一番打斗。我们也吃大家伙，如一头死鹿。我不喜欢死了很久的东西。特别是在夏末秋初，整个部落会一起聚餐，在烤扦上烧烤一头不幸的动物。

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没有谁会在满天星空下打死一头野兔，但正如斯帕克所言，只要是田园情怀都会屈服于欲望。

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我在森林中的第四个年头里，有那么一会儿让我的记忆无比深刻。斯帕克与我溜出营寨，她带我去果林，蜜蜂把巢穴藏在那里。我们停在一棵灰色的老山茱萸下。

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“安尼戴，爬到那上面去，伸手进去，你就会找到最甜美的花蜜了。”

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在她的要求下，虽然蜜蜂嗡嗡叫着，我还是攀上了树干，慢慢接近树洞。我牢牢抓紧树枝，看到她仰望的脸蛋，眼中闪动着期待。

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“上去，”她在下面喊道，“小心点。别把它们惹急了。”

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第一下叮咬像针刺一样让我悚然一惊，第二三下就疼痛起来，但我决心已定。

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我还没有看到蜂蜜，就已经摸到了，还没有摸到，就闻到了。手掌和手腕因毒液而肿胀起来，脸和裸露的皮肤也红肿了，我从树权上掉下来，摔到地上，手里抓满蜂巢。她低头看我，又是惊愕又是感激。我们在愤怒的蜂群追赶下逃命，在一个向阳的山坡上逃过了它们。躺在长长的新草上，我们吮吸着每一滴蜂蜜，吃着蜡一样的蜂巢，最后嘴唇、下巴和手都粘在一起。我们喝着蜂皇浆，胃里沉甸甸地装着花蜜，奢侈地享受着甜蜜的痛苦。舔干净蜂蜜后，斯帕克开始拔我脸上和手上剩余的蜂针，我一缩，她就笑。她除去我手上最后一把匕首后，翻过我的手，吻了我的掌心。

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“你真是个笨蛋，安尼戴。”但她的眼神背叛了她的话，她的微笑仿佛撕裂夏空的闪电，一闪即逝。

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"I have something for you." The last bitter days of winter imprisoned the whole band. A snowstorm and freezing temperatures made travel outside of camp impossible. Most of us spent night and day under cover in a drowse caused by the combination of cold and hunger. Speck stood above me, smiling, a surprise hidden behind her back. A breeze blew her long black hair across her face, and with an impatient hand, she brushed it aside like a curtain.

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"Wake up, sleepyhead, and see what I found."

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Keeping the deerskin wrapped tight against the cold, I stood. She thrust out a single envelope, its whiteness in relief against her chapped hands. I took it from her and opened the envelope, sliding out a greeting card with a picture of a big red heart on its front. Absentmindedly, I let the envelope slip to the ground, and she quickly bent to pick it up.

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"Look, Aniday," she said, her stiff fingers working along the seams to carefully tear the seal. "If you would think to open it up, you could have two sides of paper—nothing but a stamp and address on the front, and on the back, you have a blank sheet." She took the card from me. "See, you can draw on the front and back of this, and inside, too, go around this writing here." Speck bounced on her toes in the snow, perhaps as much out of joy as to ward off the chill. I was speechless. She was usually hard as a stone, as if unable to bear interaction with the rest of us.

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"You’re welcome. You could be more grateful. I trudged through the snow to bring that back while you and all these lummoxes were nice and cozy, sleeping the winter away."

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"How can I thank you?"

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"Warm me up." She came to my side, and I opened the deerskin rug for her to snuggle in, and she wrapped herself around me, waking me alert with her icy hands and limbs. We slid in near the slumber party under the heap of blankets and fell into a deep sleep. I awoke the next morning with my head pressed against her chest. Speck had one arm around me, and in her other hand she clutched the card. When she woke up, she blinked open her emerald eyes to welcome morning. Her first request was that I read the message inside the card:

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But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,

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All losses are restored and sorrows end.

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Shakespeare, Sonnet 30

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There was no other signature, no addressee, and whatever names had been inked on the envelope had been smudged into oblivion by the wet snow.

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"What do you think it means?"

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"I don’t know," I told her. "Who is Shakespeare?" The name seemed vaguely familiar.

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"His friend makes all his troubles end, if he but thinks about him ... or her."

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The sun rose above the treetops, warming our peaceful camp. The aural signs of melting began: snow sloughing off firs, ice crystals breaking apart, the thaw and drip of icicles. I wanted to be alone with the card, and my pencil burned like an ember in my pocket.

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"What are you going to write?"

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"I want to make a calendar, but I do not know how. Do you know what day is today?"

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"One day is like another."

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"Aren’t you curious about what day it is today?"

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Speck wriggled into her coat, bidding me to do the same. She led me through the clearing to the highest point near the camp, a ridge that ran along the northwestern edge, a difficult passage over a steep slope of loose shale. My legs ached when we reached the summit, and I was out of breath. She, on the other hand, tapped her foot and told me to be quiet and listen. We were still and waited. Other than the thawing mountains, it was silent.

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"What am I supposed to hear?"

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"Concentrate," she said.

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I tried, but save for the occasional laugh of a nuthatch and the creak of twigs and branches, nothing reached my ear. I shrugged my shoulders.

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"Try harder."

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I listened so intently that a fierce headache knocked inside my skull: her even, relaxed breathing, the beating of her heart, and a far-off rhythmic vibration that at first sounded like the rasp of a file but soon took on a more fixed character. A hum of alternating speeds, a low splash, the occasional horn, tires on pavement, and I realized we were listening to distant traffic.

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"Neat," I told her. "Cars."

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"Pay attention. What do you hear?"

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My head was splitting, but I focused. "Lots of cars?" I guessed.

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"Right." She grinned. "Lots and lots of cars. Traffic in the morning."

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I still didn’t get it.

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"People going to work. In the city. Schoolbuses and kids. Lots of cars in the morning. That means it’s a workday, not a Sunday. Sundays are quiet and not so many cars speeding by."

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She held her bare finger to the air and then tasted it in her mouth for an instant. "I think it’s a Monday," she said.

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"I’ve seen that trick before. How can you tell?"

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"All those cars make smoke, and the factories make smoke. But there aren’t so many cars on the road and the factories are closed on Sundays. You hardly taste any smoke at all. Monday, a bit more. By Friday night, the air tastes like a mouthful of coal." She licked her finger again. "Definitely a Monday. Now, let me see your letter."

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I handed over the valentine and envelope, which she inspected, pointing to the postmark over the stamp. "Do you remember what day is Valentine’s Day?"

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"February fourteenth." I felt proud, as if I had given the correct answer in math class. An image flashed of a woman, dressed in black and white, writing numbers on a chalkboard.

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"That’s right, and you see this?" She pointed to the date on the postmark, which ran in a semicircle: MON FEB 13 ’50 AM. "That’s when your Shakespeare put it in the mailbox. On a Mon. That means Monday morning is when they stamped it."

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"So, today is Valentine’s Day? Happy Valentine’s Day."

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"No, Aniday. You have to learn to read the signs and figure it out. Deduction. How could today be Valentine’s Day if today is a Monday? How can we find a letter the day before it is lost? If I found the letter yesterday, and today is Monday, how could today be Valentine’s Day?"

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I was confused and tired. My head ached.

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"February thirteenth was last Monday. If this card had been out for more than a week, it would be ruined by now. I found it yesterday and brought it to you. Yesterday was a quiet day—not many cars—a Sunday. Today must be the next Monday."

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She made me question my ability to reason at all.

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"It’s simple. Today is Monday, February 20, 1950. You do need a calendar." She held out her hand for my pencil, which I gladly ceded her. On the back of the card, she drew seven boxes in a row and labeled S-M-T-W-T-F-S for the days of the week. Then she printed all the months of the year in a column on the side, and then on the opposite side, the numerals from 1 to 31. As she drew them, she quizzed me on the proper number of days in each month, singing a familiar song to help me remember, but we forgot about leap years, which would throw me off in time. From her pocket, she took three round metal circles to demonstrate that if I wanted to keep track of time, all I would have to do would be to move the disks to the next space on the calendar each morning, remembering to start over at the end of the week and month.

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Speck would often show me what proved to be the obvious answer, for which nobody else had the clarity of imagination and creativity. At such moments of insight, her eyes fixed on me, the tremor in her voice disappeared. A single hair escaped now, bisecting her face. She gathered her mane with her two rough red hands and pushed it behind her ears, smiling all the while at my stare. "If you ever forget, Aniday, come find me." She walked away, moving through the forest, across the ridge and away from camp, leaving me alone with my calendar. I spied her figure progressing among the trees until she blended into the natural world. When she vanished, all I could think of was the date: February 20, 1950. I had lost so much time.

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Far below, the others in camp slumbered beneath a mat of stinking blankets and furs. By listening to the traffic and following the noise to its source, I could be back among the people, and one of those cars was bound to stop and take me home. The driver would see a boy standing by the side of the road and pull off on the berm ahead of me. I would wait for her, the woman in the red coat, to come save me. I would not run away, but wait there and try not to frighten her as before. She would lower herself to eye level, sweeping her hair back from her face. "Who are you?" I would summon up the faces of my parents and my little sister, tell the woman with the pale green eyes where I lived, how to get home. She would bid me climb into her car. Sitting beside her, I’d tell her my tale, and she would put her hand around the back of my head, saying everything would be all right. I’d jump from that car as we stopped before my house, my mother hanging laundry on the clothesline, my sister waddling toward me in her yellow dress, her arms aflutter. "I’ve found your boy," the woman would say, and my father would pull up in a red fire engine. "We’ve been looking all over for you for a long time." Later, after fried chicken and biscuits, we’d come back to the woods and rescue my friends Smaolach, Luchóg, and Speck, who could live with us and go to school and come home warm, safe, and sound. All I had to do was to concentrate and follow the sounds of civilization. I looked to the horizon as far as possible, but saw no sign. I listened, but heard nothing. I tried to remember, but could not recall my name.

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Pocketing my three tokens, I turned over the calendar and read the Shakespeare aloud to myself: "But if the while I think on thee, dear friend ..." The people sleeping down below in the hollow were my friends. I took out my pencil and began to write all I could remember. Many a year has passed between then and now, and I have written this story more than once, but that was the beginning, alone atop the ridge. My fingers stiffened in the cold. As I walked down to the camp, the bedcovers called out to me with the promise of warm dreams.

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Not long after Speck’s valentine, another gift landed in my lap. Luchóg brought it back from one of his pirating expeditions, unpacking his sack like Santa at the Christmas tree. "And this, little treasure, is for you. The sum-all and be-all of your earthly desires. Enough space here for your every dream. Miracle of miracles, and dry, too. Paper."

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He handed me a bound black notebook, the kind schoolchildren use for their lessons, the pages lined to ensure the proper placement of words and sentences. On the front was the name of the school and the title RULED COMPOSITION BOOK. On the back was a small box with this printed warning: In the event of atomic attack: close the shades, lie down under your desk. Do not panic. Inside, the author of the book, Thomas McInnes, had written his name on the flyleaf.

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The weathered pages were filled with his virtually indecipherable penmanship, the ink a rusty brown. As far as I could tell, it was a story, or part of a story, because on the last page, the writing ends mid-sentence with the rather cryptic See Other Book written on the inside back cover. Over the years, I tried to read it, but the point of the story eluded me. The beauty of the composition book for me stemmed from McInnes’s self-indulgence. He had written on only one side of the eighty-eight sheets of paper. I turned the book upside-down and wrote my contrary story in the opposite direction. While that journal is in ashes now with so much else, I can attest to its basic contents: a naturalist’s journal recording my observations of life in the forest, complete with drawings of found objects—a diary of the best years of my life.

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My chronicle and calendar helped me track the passing time, which fell into an easy rhythm. I kept up hope for years, but no one ever came for me. Heartbreak ran like an undercurrent of time, but despair would come and go like the shadow of clouds. Those years were mixed with the happiness brought by my friends and companions, and as I aged inside, a casual nothing drowned the boy.

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The snows stopped by mid-March most years, and a few weeks later the ice would melt, green life would bud, insects hatch, birds return, fish and frogs ready for the catching. Spring instantly restored our energies, the lengthening light corresponding to our interest in exploration. We would throw off our hides and ruined blankets, shed our jackets and shoes. The first warm day in May, nine of us would go down to the river and bathe our stinking bodies, drown the vermin living in our hair, scrape off the caked dirt and scum. Once, Blomma had stolen a bar of soap from a gas station, and we scrubbed it away to a splinter in a single renewing bath. Pale bodies on a pebbly shore, rubbed pink and clean.

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The dandelions blossomed from nowhere, and the spring onions sprouted in the meadows, and our Onions would gorge herself, eating the bulbs and grass, staining her teeth and mouth green, reeking, indolent, until her skin itself smelled pungent and bittersweet. Luchóg and Smaolach distilled the dandelions into a potent brew. My calendar helped track the parade of berries strawberries in June, followed by wild blueberries, gooseberries, elderberries, and more. In a patch of forest over the ridge, Speck and I found a red army of raspberries invading a hillside, and we spent many a July day gathering sweetness among the thorns. Blackberries ripened last, and I am sad every time to see the first potful at our evening repasts, for those black jewels are a harbinger of summer’s end.

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The insect-eaters among us rejoiced at the abundance of the warm season, although bugs are a decidedly acquired taste. Each of the faeries had their own peculiar pleasures and preferred capturing techniques. Ragno ate only flies, which he plucked from spiderwebs. Béka was a gourmand, taking anything that crawled, flew, slithered, or wriggled his way. He would search out a colony of termites in a rotting log, a party of slugs in the mire, or a maggoty carcass, and dig in and eat those disgusting creatures raw. Sitting patiently by a small fire, he snatched moths out of the air with his tongue when they flew too close to his face. Chavisory was another notorious bug-eater, but at least she cooked them. I could tolerate the grubs and queens she baked on a heated rock until they popped, as brown and crispy as bacon. Cricket legs tend to stick in your teeth, and ants, if not roasted first, will bite your tongue and throat on the way down.

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I had never killed a living thing before coming to the woods, but we were hunter-gatherers, and without an occasional bit of protein in the diet, all of us would suffer. We took squirrels, moles, mice, fish, and birds, although the eggs themselves were too great a hassle to steal from the nest. Anything bigger—such as a dead deer—we’d scavenge. I do not care for things that have been dead a long time. In late summer and early fall, in particular, the tribe would dine together on an unfortunate creature roasted on a spit. Nothing beats a rabbit under a starry night. But, as Speck would say, every idyll succumbs to desire.

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Such a moment in my fourth year in the woods stands above all the rest. Speck and I had strayed from camp, and she showed me the way to the grove where honeybees had hidden their hive. We stopped at an old gray dogwood.

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"Climb up there, Aniday, and reach inside, and you’ll find the sweetest nectar."

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As commanded, I shinnied up the trunk, despite the buzzing of the bees, and inched toward the hollow. From my purchase in the branches, I could see her upturned face, eyes aglow with expectation.

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"Go on," she hollered from below. "Be careful. Don’t make them mad."

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The first sting startled me like a pinprick, the second and third caused pain, but I was determined. I could smell the honey before I felt it and could feel it before I saw it. Hands and wrists swollen with venom, my face and bare skin welted red, I fell from the limb to the forest floor with handfuls of honeycombs. She looked down at me with dismay and gratitude. We ran from the angry swarm and lost them on a hillside slanted toward the sun. Lying in the long new grass, we sucked every drop of honey and ate the waxy combs until our lips and chins and hands gummed up. Drunk on the stuff, the nectar heavy in our stomachs, we luxuriated in the sweet ache. When we had licked clean the honey, she began to pull the remaining stingers from my face and hands, smiling at my every wince. When she removed the last dagger from my hand, Speck turned it over and kissed my palm.

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"You are such an idiot, Aniday." But her eyes betrayed her words, and her smile flashed as briefly as lightning rending the summer sky.

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