East

That's the trouble with loving a wild thing: You're always left watching the door.

East of the sun and west of the moon.' As unfathomable as the words were, I realized I must figure them out, reason it through. For I would go to this impossible land that lay east of the sun and west of the moon. From the moment the sleigh had vanished from sight and I could no longer hear the silver bells I knew that I would go after the stranger that had been the white bear to make right the terrible wrong I had done him.... All that mattered was to make things right. And I would do whatever it took, journey to wherever I must, to reach that goal.

And telling a story, I suppose, is like winding a skein of spun yarn- you sometimes lose track of the beginning.

The joy I feel is immense; it burns inside me as though I have swallowed a piece of the sun.

East of the sun and west of the moon.

It was the difference between walking with a stranger and walking with your heartmate. It was the difference between working for duty and working for love.

She would search for him. In the land that lay east of the sun and west of the moon. But there was no way there.

A pine needle fell in the forest. The hawk saw it. The deer heard it. The white bear smelled it

Here. After so long waiting. Her purple eyes. Torn cloak. Skin pale, sheer as ice. Exhausted. But unafraid.

It is odd, the twists that life will sometimes take. The ewe that you think will give birth with ease dies bringing forth a two-headed lamb. Or the ski trail that you have been told is treacherous, you navigate easily.

It was not a monster that lay sleeping on the white sheets. Nor a faceless horror. Nor even the white bear. It was a man. His hair was golden, glowing bright as a bonfire in the light of the candle. And his features were fair, I suppose, but he was a stranger and that somehow was the greatest shock of all- that I had been lying all these months beside a complete stranger.

That's the trouble with loving a wild thing: You're always left watching the door. But you also get kind of used to it.

I crossed the room to him. "I love you," I said in a rush, afraid I would change my mind. "Charles," he replied.

They journeyed far and the white bear said, "Are you afraid?" "No," she replied. "I am not afraid.

Neither Rose nor Charles liked to talk much of their adventures with the trolls, but some of the so-called "softskins" whom they had brought out of Niflheim, as well as the crew of the ship Soren had hired to go north to find Rose, must have spread the story, because for many years afterward, there were tales of a race of trolls living on top of the world. Only Rose and her white bear know the whole truth of it.

Where is it?" I asked, willing him to tell me. He laughed suddenly, and I could hear the full-throated, grating sound of the white bear's laughter in it. "East of the sun and west of the moon," he said.

I knelt by the design. Yes, there was the sun rising. But the white form I had always thought to be a cloud was a bear. I could see it now, upside down. White bear, isbjorn, stood for north. Father had not been able to help himself. The truth was there, too. Truth and lie, side by side.