LXX
I was in the village maybe a week, and slowly I learned bits of their language, enough to communicate simple things, food, water, bathroom, hot, cold. The shaman's name was Ruba, and she had a baby at home, born to her a bit late in life. She was around her 40s, which was old enough to be a grandmother in these times. I showed her some simple modern things. I didn't have an extensive memory, but I introduced a little bit of art and seasoning.
I had the whole tribe eating out of plates made from simple clay and wood. No more eating from leaves for me. I showed her how to replant herbs closer to the village so they could be used when needed, only needing watering. They already had wild grain fields and places to gather fruit and vegetables. I taught them how to smoke meat for preservation. We had a proper barbeque. I held an art class for some of the younger village members, making animals and people, chipping them out of softer stone.
All the while, Rolan watched over me. Not hovering. Just… present. He made sure I was never cold, never hungry, never alone in dangerous places. He brought me firewood without asking. He carried water for me. He sat near me during meals, not touching me, just close enough that I knew he was there. He watched me work with the children, eyes soft, unreadable. Sometimes he smiled at me like he was proud. Those startlingly intelligent blue eyes looked at me like he was trying to memorize my face.
Rolan was an artist himself. I didn't realize it at first. He didn't brag, didn't show off, didn't try to impress me. He just… chipped away at stones in the evenings, sitting near the fire with a small pile of river pebbles and a sharpened flake of flint. It was something he did the way other people fidgeted or hummed. It had turned into a habit, comfort, a way to keep his hands busy. But he was good.
He had a little shelf carved into the wall of his yurt, just a shallow groove in the wood and bone frame, and on it sat a stone menagerie. Tiny animals, each one shaped with surprising accuracy: a deer with delicate legs, a squat boar, a mammoth with curved tusks, a fish with etched scales. Some were rough, some were polished smooth from handling, but all of them were unmistakably his.
One evening, while I was sorting herbs with Ruba, the hat‑man's cat form wandered over to the shelf and batted a figurine toward me with his paw. I caught it before it hit the floor.
It was a woman. Small enough to fit in my palm.
Rounded. Soft. Exaggerated.
Like the Venus of Willendorf, the same heavy belly, large breasts, thick thighs, tiny feet. The face was blank, just a smooth roundness with a suggestion of hair carved like a short bob with a fringe.
I turned it over in my hand, surprised by the detail. The stone was warm from the fire, smooth from being held often. Someone had spent time on this. Someone had cared about it.
Rolan noticed me holding it.
He paused mid‑chip, flint tool hovering above a half‑finished animal. His eyes flicked from my face to the figurine, then back again. A faint flush rose across his cheeks, not embarrassment, exactly, but something like being caught in a private moment.
He walked over slowly, watching my hands, watching how I held the little stone woman.
I didn't know what it meant, or if it was meant to represent something specific, maybe like a symbol, a charm, a joke, a prayer.
I didn't know if it was meant to represent someone specifically.
He just reached out, gently touched the figurine with one finger, then touched his chest, then touched mine. A simple gesture.
The figurine stayed in my palm, warm and heavy, while Rolan returned to his work, chipping away at another stone, shaping another creature, adding another piece to the quiet world he built with his hands.
And I sat there, holding the little stone woman, wondering what she meant to him.
Was this supposed to be me?
The thought hit me before I could stop it. I stared down at the little stone woman in my palm. A round belly, heavy breasts, thick thighs, tiny head. Rolan had exaggerated all the "important bits," apparently. I wasn't shaped like that, not exactly, but something about the proportions felt… intentional. Symbolic. Maybe even affectionate.
I glanced at him.
He wasn't watching me this time. He was sitting cross‑legged near the fire, shoulders relaxed, hair falling into his eyes as he worked. In his hands he held another stone, chipping away at it with a flint tool. Small flakes fell into his lap like pale snow.
He wasn't carving a woman now. He was carving a cat.
Or at least, he was trying to. The head was round, the ears triangular, but the muzzle was too broad, the jaw too square. It looked more like a tiny cave lion than a housecat fierce instead of domestic, proud instead of silly. But the markings he scratched into the stone were unmistakable: the dark patches, the white chest, the little blaze on the nose.
He was modeling it after the tuxedo cat. The hat‑man's host.
The cat padded over, tail flicking, and sat beside me. He didn't say anything, but he nudged my elbow once, as if urging me to look more closely. I did.
Rolan's brow furrowed in concentration. He tilted the stone, studying the angle of the ears, then glanced briefly at the cat sitting beside me. He made a soft sound, not a word, more like a thoughtful hum, and adjusted the carving.
He was trying to get it right. Trying to capture the creature that followed me everywhere.
Trying to understand it and me.
I looked back at the little stone woman in my hand.
Suddenly the ground shook, I put the little stone woman in my purse and hurried outside. Everything around us shook. The village was thrown into panic. Some were screaming, others gathered themselves and moved quickly into the sacred cave.
It didn't last long, just strong enough to shake everyone up.
The sky changed before anyone spoke about it.
One moment the village was wrapped in the usual dusk, smoke drifting from cookfires, children finishing chores, hunters sharpening tools. Then the horizon darkened in a way that felt intentional. Not storm‑dark. Not cloud‑dark. A deeper shade, like the world was dimming its lantern.
I stepped outside Rolan's yurt and felt the air shift. It grew colder, sharper, carrying the metallic scent of distant ice. The villagers looked up almost in unison.
And then the northern lights unfurled.
Not the soft green ribbons I'd seen in photos. These were violent, vivid, electric curtains of color whipping across the sky like spirits dancing. Green, blue, violet, streaks of white that looked like cracks in the heavens. They moved fast, pulsing, spiraling, as if answering some call from the earth.
Rolan stood beside me, his breath visible in the sudden chill. He didn't speak. He didn't need to. His eyes reflected the lights, turning pale and ghostlike.
Winter was coming.
Here, winter wasn't just a season. It was a force. A dry, brutal freeze that turned the land into stone. The permafrost would swallow the soil, crack the rivers, silence the animals. Life would shrink inward into caves, yurts, firepits, and whatever warmth people could scrape together.
And with winter came magic.
I felt it before I saw it. A pressure in the air, like the atmosphere thickened. The lights overhead flickered faster, brighter, and the ground beneath my feet hummed faintly, as if the earth itself was waking up.
Ruba emerged from her yurt with her baby strapped to her chest. She didn't look at me. She looked north.
Her eyes narrowed. In the newly chilled air, her breath caught.
She whispered something under her breath, too fast for me to understand, but the tone was unmistakable: recognition.
She could sense something. I followed her gaze.
Far beyond the village, past the forests and hills, past the frozen lakes and the jagged horizon, lay a place I had never seen but somehow felt: a shelf of glacier, ancient and massive, stretching like a bridge between worlds.
Ruba's fingers tightened on her staff.
She spoke again, louder this time, her voice carrying across the village.
I didn't understand the words, but I understood the meaning.
And somehow, though I didn't know how, I felt the truth settle into my bones:
With winter came a land bridge, a glacial bridge of solid ice.
A place where the magic that dragged me here could reach me again, the boundary between worlds thinned.
A place where something waited.
The northern lights whipped overhead, brighter, louder, almost roaring.
Rolan stepped closer, his shoulder brushing mine, steady and warm in the rising cold.
Ruba turned toward me, her baby silent, her eyes reflecting the lights.
She didn't speak my name. I felt it. The next part of my journey lay north.