Once upon a time, in a green house at the top of the world, there was a blackened carpet and a scorched chair and a little girl in tears because her father was packing her suitcase.
“You could have killed her,” he said in a tight voice to the mother, who was sitting on the hearth, wrapped in the sheet that had held the shadow puppets. Her expression, blank as a wall, did not change as the father’s words splintered around her.
Irresponsible.
Dangerous.
Foolish.
Unfit.
The girl’s broiling head throbbed; the ceiling warped down and the couch bent up, and she clung to the cushions so she wouldn’t be thrown off. Her father pushed boots onto her feet, tugged a coat around her shoulders, and lifted her onto his hip.
“Never again,” he said. “Not until you stop this.”
He flung the door open, and the girl expected her mother to stop him. She was far too sick to be outside—her mother had taken her temperature and fought to keep the worry out of her face when she read the number. But now her mother sat like a statue beside the fireplace, didn’t look up as the girl cried out. Not a blink, not a twitch.
Then the girl was outside in a cloud of water and ice, and her father was running, slipping and gasping.
“Put me down.” She planted her palm on his cheek and pushed. His skin was wet with tears or sleet, and he didn’t let her go. The mountains leaned in closer, groaning in disapproval. The father ran down the main street of town, past the grocery store and the library, past a gray-shingled bar. The girl realized where they were going, and her chest grew tight.
HOTEL LUND, read the sign in straight black letters.
“Pappa, no.” The girl’s voice was a frog jumping in her throat.
The father carried her up the steps and into an austere lobby that was only slightly warmer than the outside. The entire space reeked of pine-scented cleaning liquid. A woman with short, gray hair stood behind the desk, arms folded over her thin chest.
Mormor. Grandmother.
The father set the girl on a straight-backed chair and leaned over the counter to whisper to the grandmother. The girl strained to listen, but the fever made her head so thick that the words sounded like they were underwater.
“. . . almost burned the house down . . . can’t leave her alone . . . frankly terrified.”
The grandmother’s gray eyes matched her hair. They fixed on the girl, and the girl felt as though she were a circle of cork and they were steel-tipped darts. Where the girl’s mother was soft edges and whispered secrets, the grandmother was titanium plates and factual statements. She gave a sharp nod.
“Your mother is sick,” she said to the girl. “You’ll stay here until she’s well again.”
“But I’m sick too,” moaned the girl. She pleaded with her father, begged him to take her home. Trails of salt and mucus ran down her face, but he seemed unable to see her. The girl fell to the floor and wrapped her arms around his muddy boot. With an irritated huff, the grandmother pulled her off, pinned her arms to her sides, and carried her, kicking, through a doorway behind the reception desk and into a small, sparsely furnished apartment.
“You’ve got one night to cry,” she said, pointing to a narrow cot beside a woodstove. “Tomorrow, sick or well, you will help me with my work.”