Page 249 of These Tears

Surely Elias hasn’t been teaching me about life on a homestead so his family would approve of our marriage.

Has he?

I can’t tell if this is that ugly side of me wanting to be wanted, wanting to experience something that some fiction-poisoned part of me apparently needs… or if it’s real.

‘I wish you had told us beforehand.’ I shake my head, planting my face into my palms as I try to hide the heat that has begun to gather in my cheeks.

‘That would defeat the purpose of the Hunt,’ Inga supplies. Helpfully, of course.

And isn’t that the truth.

My eyes go to the hide flap at the entrance of the giant tent.

‘Is Elias here?’ I ask, because I suddenly don’t feel confident being here without him. ‘I mean… Jakob.’

Sunna’s smile softens in a way that makes my spine draw taut before she even answers. ‘The men are preparing him.’

Inga’s already laughing at the shape of my face. Because somehow, this sounds exactly like something someone says before a sacrifice is made.

I disdainfully eye the duodji knives on the small table.

‘For what?’ I ask, still confused, cold and irritated – with myself for the most part.

Inga sets her cup down and crosses her arms unforgivingly. ‘For you,’ she says with a wry smile.

My lids flutter with confusion. ‘I have no idea what that—’

‘Because your family is not here,’ Sunna continues gently, ‘we intend to stand with you as the bride’s own.’

Bride.

Soft and quiet. That’s how it lands at first. It knocks the air from me, regardless.

‘That’s… kind,’ I say, standing up in mild shock, shedding the blanket they’d wrapped me in as I take a nervous step back. ‘I’m not sure I need marinat—preparing!’ I correct myself with a slap over my face. ‘Preparing for… uh… I need to talk to El—Jakob.’

‘Oh you can’t talk to him tonight,’ one of the cousins supplies. ‘The family calls this the wedding night.’

‘The wed—’

The word dissolves on a breathless exhale and I’m not entirely sure I haven’t bitten my tongue off.

There’s no air in this giant, kaleidoscopic cone made of hide. I should have known the moment Inga led me into a tent with a ceiling of crossed birch poles, reindeer hides and coloured woven bands that no ordinary night was coming.

I turn towards the low fire burning in the centre of the tent that Sunna had called a lávvu. Smoke slips up through the dark opening overhead, while a copper teapot hisses at the edge of the embers.

My legs turn me around again and I meet the red and blue cloth hanging from one pole – a gákti. My gaze flits from one silver brooch to another that winks from a carved wooden box on a chair below it. The one I found in the cabin’s bedroom drawer a while back.

Inga’s smile vanishes. She puts her cup down and rises slowly, palms open. ‘Okay. Look at me. One thing at a time.’

‘There’s no thing,’ I mumble, clenching my hands. My stomach is churning as I look to my feet that are still tingling from the cold.

Then it appears in my vision – the gákti, folded in Sunna’s hands.

And the room takes another spin around me.

‘The pattern was my mother’s,’ she says.

The panic doesn’t leave, exactly. It only hesitates, confused by grief wearing such a gentle voice.