The antlered man stepped out of the dark huddle of the pines. The lower half of his body was hidden in a swirl of ground-mist; his chest and shoulders were covered with a soft white pelt. Under the wide sweep of his horns, his face was wise and gentle. In her dream, Ritva spoke to him in the secret language of the animals. He smiled, and held out his hand to her. Just as their fingers touched, she woke.
And found that it was Gerda, snuggled beside her in their rabbit-skin nest, whose small damp hand gripped hers.
“You were talking in your sleep,” Gerda said. She propped herself up on one elbow and stared down at Ritva. Her expression was half-curious, half-worried. “Was it in Finnish? I could not understand a word you said.”
“Stupid one,” said Ritva, yawning. “How should I know what language I speak in my sleep?”
“It must have been Finnish,” said Gerda, with infuriating certainty.
“It was not,” said Ritva. “I was talking to my guardian animal.”
Gerda’s eyes widened. “Oh,” she said, caught off guard. “What sort of animal?”
“A white elk.”
“I didn’t know you had a guardian animal.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know,” said Ritva, unpleasantly.
“Do I have a guardian animal?”
“Everybody does. Even you. I think yours is a little white rabbit with pink eyes.”
“You’re making fun of me,” said Gerda, offended.
“Of course I am. I like to make fun of you.”
“I know,” said Gerda, her eyes reproachful. “You tease everybody — me, your mother, Ba. You’re a mean, cruel girl, and one day God will punish you.”
Ritva gave a howl of laughter. “God! Which god?”
“Why, what do you mean? There is only one.”
“Only one! Well, that can’t be much use to anybody. My mother’s people have dozens of gods. There are very little gods, and bigger gods, and great gods like Aijo, the father of shamans; and Baei’ve the Sun-God, and the God of Thunder, and the Old Man of the Winds.”
“And where do you find all these gods?” Gerda’s voice was scornful.
“Where? They are everywhere. They live in the forest, the river, the hearth fire, in the rocks and bushes — everything has a god in it.”
I suppose she can’t help it if she was raised a heathen, Gerda thought. Still, she wondered what their good Pastor Larssen would think of all this. Little gods who lived in rocks and trees, indeed! And how Kai would laugh! “Shall we go to church and pray to the benches and the altar-cloths?” she could imagine him saying. “Shall we sing a hymn to the door knocker?”
“If you had been brought up among Christian folk,” said Gerda, “you would know there is only one God, and he lives in Heaven.”
Ritva sat up in bed. She seized one of Gerda’s plaits and yanked it so viciously that Gerda gave a shriek of pain. “Don’t speak to me of the Christian god,” Ritva hissed. “I know about him. He is the god of the southerners, who rounded up my mother’s ancestors, and murdered their shamans and burned their drums. If you mention him to my mother, she will pull out her skinning knife and slit your throat.”
Tears of pain and injured dignity oozed down Gerda’s cheeks. She had long since lost her pocket handkerchief; these days she did as others did, and wiped her face on a filthy sleeve.
“That’s not how it was,” she said. “The missionaries were God-fearing men who built schools and churches to teach the gospel.”
“And dragged the Saami people into those schools and churches by force, and made bonfires out of their drums,” said Ritva. “One thing my mother taught me, is to hold my tongue when I don’t know what I’m talking about.” Gerda felt a rough hand grasping the wooden crucifix that still hung on its frayed ribbon at her throat. There was a sharp, angry tug, and the ribbon broke.
“This is what I think of your God,” said Ritva. And beside her in the blackness, Gerda heard the brittle snap, snap of wood.
When Ritva was asleep, Gerda fumbled in the dark for the broken pieces of her crucifix. Weeping with helpless rage, she hid them in the damp straw beneath her bed, where she prayed that Ritva would not find them. They were the only talismans left to her now, and the only reminders of her other life.