Wintermoon Ice (2010) by Suzanne Francis Read Free Book Online

shaded carefully into neutral.
    Tessa thought it better not to ask what he had been about to say, so she changed the subject. "What brings you to Cloudy Bay , Jakob? Are you a writer?" He looked at her for a long moment, his eyes dark with suppressed pain.
    "No. Why would I be?" Just that.
    She tried again. "What do you do then?" His baffled expression was almost comical.
    "Do?"
    She took a deep breath, wondering if he could possibly be as dense as he seemed. "For a living. What sort of job?"
    "Oh." He looked thoughtful. "I suppose I am a mariner," he said after a moment. "Yes, a mariner -- like my father."
    Tessa gave him a sad little smile. "Mine too. Only he is dead now. He drowned when I was eight. So did my mother." Jakob reached out and covered her hand with his own. The palm was calloused, and very warm.
    He spoke softly. "I know. I am sorry, Tessa."
    Tessa blinked once or twice. "How do you know? How do you know so much -- about me?" Slowly, a little unwillingly, she withdrew her hand and placed it in her lap. By holding both hands tightly together, she could almost stop them from trembling.
    He shrugged. "You won't believe me."
    "Try me." Tessa spoke with an insouciance she didn't really feel. "My friends say I am very open minded."
    "All right. I knew your grandmother, Suvi Markku."
    Tessa frowned. "Why is that so hard to believe? How old are you -- thirty, maybe? My grandmother died ten years ago. You might have met her."
    "I have known her for a long time, Tessa. Suvi befriended my twin brother when she was about twenty-two. Later, when she shifted to this place, I visited her here in Cloudy Bay , several times. The first time was in 1980."
    She did some quick mental math and then her eyes narrowed. "How old were you then?"
    He tugged fretfully on the knotted hank of hair at the back of his neck. "I don't know."
    "Why not? Don't you have a birth certificate or something?"
    "Please, just let me finish." Jakob's hair burst free from the knot, in a cascade of sandy-colored waves, and suddenly, with a shiver, Tessa remembered something.
    ...and in return I cut his long hair. It is the color of a Dureg's mane, and just as thick...
    What color
was
a dureg anyway?
    Tessa's mouth fell open, and he pressed on, trying to finish before she could give voice to her objections. "By my last visit, you had already come to live with her, after your parents were killed, but you were away at school so we never met. Suvi talked about you a lot -- she was very proud of you."
    She couldn't voice her objections quickly enough to keep pace with her outrage. "I can believe you came here before she died -- yes -- OK -- fine. But your brother couldn't have known her when she was twenty-two. And there is no way you are old enough to have seen her in 1980. That is just insane."
    Jakob sighed and slowly raised his eyes to meet hers. "Do I look insane to you?"
    Tessa shook her head in confusion. "I don't know. I am an archaeologist, not a psychiatrist. Why are you telling me this anyway?"
    "You wanted an explanation about why I tried to get your attention last night."
    She found this opacity infuriating. "And that is it? Your reason for insulting me and Jane on the street last night is that your brother knew my grandmother when she was a young woman?"
    "I said you wouldn't believe me." He sat back, almost smug, as if it were her fault he wasn't making any sense.
    Tessa ground her teeth together. "Look here, Jakob Weirdcrow. I don't know where you came from, with your crazy clothes and your even crazier talk, but I am a scientist, and nothing you have said is in the least bit rational. If you want me to believe, then..."
    Jakob spoke over her words. "Suvi lived in Severness during the War with Berengarth. She ran a refugee shelter, called Carina, home to several hundred people." Tessa stared at him, shocked to the core at this recitation of fact. "Do you want to hear more?"
    "No! First I want to hear how you know that." Then she sat back,