3. Chapter 3 （Nickur）

CHAPTER 3 (NICKUR)

C hopping wood used to be something I enjoyed. The physical aspect of swinging the axe satisfied some primal thing inside me, and some of my anger would release when the sharp whack of wood splitting echoed through the clearing. Now, though, rage and sadness expand inside my chest the more I swing my sharp blade. As those feelings do no matter which essential task I perform. To keep boredom at bay and focus on something other than my growing frustration, I sometimes mix up the chopping techniques, but there are only so many variations of swinging an axe. And some of my new methods proved injury prone, so now I mostly use the classic variation.

The worst part is that I can only blame myself for this situation. If I hadn’t been a spoilt, arrogant kid, I’d never be stuck on this mountain, by these lakes.

I wipe the sweat off my brow with the back of my hand and look over what I’ve split so far. There’s enough for a day’s use, so that means I’ve finished this task. The wood stack behind my cabin is so tall I almost can’t reach the top. It’s time to start another pile.

I look around the clearing behind my home and at the large stacks of wood there already. I have enough to survive several snowstorms. There are two woodsheds, both have been full for a while. In another month, I’ll haul some of the wood down to the tiny village of Sunshine and sell it. The beginning of fall is when people start thinking about how to fuel their woodstove through the cold months. And in the mountains, that season comes earlier than at sea level.

I hold out for as long as I can, but the compulsion to check on my vegetable beds takes over and I can’t resist. When I reach the south side of the cabin, I find my garden is just fine, just like I knew it would be. I checked it yesterday, and I knew there would be no new weeds. Plus, the big chicken-wire cages I’ve built protect the plants from deer and other wildlife. But even after all these years, I can’t change the order of my day.

My anger grows as I’m reminded again that I no longer have free will.

At least that was the last essential task for the day. The compulsion will start up again tomorrow, and I am forced to perform the same five tasks that I did today. That I have done every day since I was young and stupid and thought myself invincible.

My main purpose is to protect Twilight Lakes and Falls, including the freshwater life within. This, I don’t mind. Being the guardian of this beautiful piece of nature is an honor. It’s the endless repetition of setting traps, fishing, chopping wood, and growing vegetables that I resent.

You’d think some jobs would vary by season. It’s challenging to grow and harvest food in the middle of winter. And I don’t have an urgent need for firewood in the summer, but the wily old Fossegrim who cursed me didn’t bother with finesse.

At least meat and fish are easier to haul down the mountain to sell than all the wood. And when huckleberries are in season, I pick gallons of them and exchange them for groceries in the tiny Mercantile in Sunrise. The village has less than one hundred and fifty inhabitants, but ever since the Forrest Service established the National Sawtooth Recreational Area in the early nineteen-seventies, tourists flood to Sunshine for lodging, dining, and food shopping. From what I understand, the Mercantile charges exorbitant prices compared to stores in less rural and remote areas. But beggars can’t be choosers, and I haven’t left these mountains since I was cursed one hundred and fifty years ago.

The axe needs sharpening, and I should look over my traps for tomorrow. The Forrest Service forbids trapping in the recreational area, so all I do these days is pretend. I place a few already-sprung traps close to the cabin and call it a day. Honestly, I’ve never enjoyed trapping. I’d rather hunt for meat so that I don’t have to cause more than necessary pain to my prey.

I’m on my front porch, sharpening and polishing my axe, when Rae trudges up the path to my cabin. She moves through the forest without a sound, but I noticed her approach a while back. The waters of the Twilight Lakes and Falls called out to her as soon as they noticed her coming.

I’m not exactly sure what Rae is. She hasn’t volunteered the information, and I’ve never asked. It seems rude.

I know she’s some kind of water fae, the same as me, or at least a water creature. That’s why my lakes and my water fall calls out to her. And she’s originally Swedish, which is close enough to Norwegian for me to feel like we share a heritage.

“Hey, Nick,” she says and dumps her large backpack on the ground.

Rae is the closest to what I would call a friend. Although she’s been around less time than I have, she’s not completely human, so I don’t have to pretend that I’m my own great-great-grandson several times over. At least, I think she’s been around less time than I have. We first met only about ten years ago, but she could have lived for a long time somewhere else before then.

I raise my hand as a greeting and continue to work on the axe. Judging from the weight of her pack, she’s been out digging up aquamarine minerals again—another thing the Forrest Service no longer allows in the Sawtooth Mountains. Rae doesn’t sell the stones, though. She needs them for something to do with her powers.

Again, she hasn’t volunteered, so I haven’t asked.

She digs around in the top pocket of the backpack and throws me a plastic grocery bag. “Got you some treats.”

I catch the bag and peek inside. King-size Kit Kat bars and sour-cream-and-onion-flavored Pringles potato chips. Both are my favorites. I bite into one bar and grin at her. “Want some?” I mumble around my mouth full of chocolate.

She laughs and shakes her head. “No, it’s all yours. I’ll take some water, though.” She fills her metal bottle from the spout of the large glass container with filtered water that I keep on the porch. Collapsing into the chair next to mine, she takes a large sip and then leans back and closes her eyes. “Mm,” she says, “your lakes and the fall are happy. You’re taking good care of them.”

“Not much else to do around here.” The words sound more bitter than I mean to, so I smile to take the bit out of them.

Rae’s teal-blue eyes look sad as she studies me. They’re the same color as the gems she hunts for in these mountains. “I’m still searching for a way to break the curse. I promise I haven’t given up.”

I shrug my shoulders. “It is what it is.” She’s a good friend trying to free me from this enchantment that is entirely my fault. Once upon a time, I was too cocky for my own good, and here we are.

Well, here I am, cursed for an eternity to guard the Twilight Lakes and Fall. It’s not a hard job. I mainly monitor the aquatic creatures, and the curse has hardwired me to know whenever foreign bodies or chemicals enter the water. Since the mountains became a national recreational area, though, that hasn’t happened. The regular mortals who visit these woods care about them almost as much as Rae and I do.

“I wish it wasn’t, though,” she answers.

I shrug again.

One evening, early in our friendship, Rae visited on a day when I felt particularly sorry for myself. I’d picked up a bottle of whisky in the mercantile and had drunk most of it before she showed up. In my drunkenness, I blurted out the details about the curse, and Rae’s been trying to find a way to counteract it ever since. “You’re a good friend,” I tell her. She has her own shit to deal with, I’m sure. It’s not her job to solve my problems.

“I am what I am.” She grins as she paraphrases my words and takes something out of her pocket. “I want you to have this.”

The object she hands me is bright orange and looks like a chunky cell phone. “You know there’s no signal up here.”

“No cell phone signal,” she says. “But this is a satellite messaging system.”

“A what now?”

“You can message me on that via satellite.”

I look at the device with mixed feelings. It’s a connection with the outside world that’s not one-sided. I listen to the radio all the time, but this would allow me to actually contact someone. Well, contact Rae. She’s the only person I know. But will this new ability just mean that I’ll covet what I can’t do even more? “How does it work?” I ask to cover up the contradictory emotions this thoughtful gift created.

“It has a long battery life, two hundred and forty hours, but eventually, you have to charge it through your solar panel.” My electricity system exists because of Rae, although I traded her aquamarine stones for it. I have a solar panel that powers the lights in my cabin, as well as a rechargeable hurricane lantern and my radio. We also put together an array of car batteries that lasts me through the darker winter months when the panel can’t give me enough juice. She bought the equipment for me, drove it to Sunshine, and then we both dragged it up the mountain. “You could actually get a proper satellite phone,” she continues. “But the battery life on those is much shorter, and you’re not very chatty. You’re not likely to want to talk in person.”

I smile again. “True.” I enjoy hanging out with my friend Rae, but we spend a lot of our time together in silence. My routine never varies, so there’s not much for me to tell her. And she’s not very chatty about her life in Sandpoint, in the northern part of Idaho. I know she works with regular mortals at a fish hatchery and does something that has to do with counting or monitoring fish. That’s as much as she’s told me voluntarily, and there’s no reason for me to ask questions if she doesn’t want me to know more.

She shows me how to send her a message on the small communication device. It also has something called an SOS feature. “You can use that to get in touch with rescue, fire, or police in case something happens to you or someone else,” she explains.

“There’s only been a few times I’ve had to help hikers down the mountain. And I did that without having to message anyone.”

“I only said ‘someone else’ so you wouldn’t give me a hard time for worrying about you. The fire seasons are getting longer and longer. What if you get trapped up here?”

I pat her arm. She’s sweet for worrying about me. “I’ll just jump in the lake and take shelter behind the waterfall,” I say.

“Yes, but—” She looks around, frowning. “Did you feel that?”

I listen to the woods around us and reach out with my senses to check on my lakes and the waterfalls. They all seem alright. “Feel what?”

She closes her eyes and remains silent for a few beats. “Never mind. It’s gone now.” She shrugs and smiles.

But for the rest of the evening, her eyes remain troubled. And when she leaves, her head swivels back and forth as she scans the woods while walking down the trail back to Sunshine.