The Raven and the Reindeer

Do you have a name?” asked Gerta.  “I do,” said the raven.  Gerta waited. The raven fluffed its beard. “I am the Sound of Mouse Bones Crunching Under the Hooves of God.

No matter how pale and pure and perfect you are, the moon is even more perfect.

Are you a witch?” asked Janna. “No,” said the old woman, “I’m a Lutheran. But we’ll make do.

If she was half an animal, let the animal half speak for her, then. The human part was tied up with human things like self-loathing, but that did not matter. There were no words in reindeer speech for I hate myself. It was not a concept that could be thought, and so she did not bother to think it. She

There is nothing in the world so patient as a plant awaiting spring.

I stole the very shiniest words and hoarded them all up until they made something worth having.

Oh no, a human feeling awkward. How terrible.

It is hard to see a story when you are standing in the middle of it.

I daresay I wasn’t like other girls harder than anyone else ever was. I was so unlike other girls that I wasn’t even like myself, except on Sundays.

The old woman cackled, a really good cackle, the sort that you can only get if you are over the age of eighty and know how to drink.

Her grandmother had taught her any number of things, like embroidery and spinning and plain sewing and some basic knitting. She had started to teach her how to use the great loom that stood in the corner, so that someday Gerta could earn her living as a weaver, if she didn’t marry, or if she outlived her husband as her grandmother had done. And Gerta could cook on a stove and clean nearly anything. All good, useful skills. She’d make someone a fine wife some day. Everybody said so. Making someone a fine wife had not included learning how to sleep in the woods without freezing or getting soaked. This struck Gerta as an enormous and unexpected gap in her education.

And you and your wise prince will talk long into the night, every night, and live to a ripe old age. And the children in this town will grow up telling the story of how they saw the Raven Princess, before she found her prince.

Humans are fine if their hearts freeze. They can keep moving for years like that.

And I’ve never heard that Luther had much to do with reindeer, which was clearly a failing in an otherwise upright man.

Do I trust you? thought Gerta. I barely know you and you frightened me and then you kissed me, and truth be told, that frightened me even more.

Naked and bloody we come into the world, and sometimes we go out of it the same way.

White ravens aren’t really white, they’re just an absence of black. But they’re very good at it.

No one writes poetry comparing their lovers to chickweed (or if they do, the poems are rarely well received).

Sight was the last sense to waken, but when it did she turned her head and saw them: the sea of antlers, the white backs, the ones who walked the reindeer road. She was part of a herd and the herd was around her. She was not alone. While she was with the herd, she would never be alone.  Parts of her that were born lonely, as all humans are born lonely, were suddenly gathered up and loved and made one with the herd.

You got tired of waiting around for a worthy husband to present himself,” continued Gran Aischa, “so you went out, with your trusted raven, to find the prince wise enough to speak to you without fear.” She brought her hands together. “And you are still looking, but one day, I’m sure, you’ll find him.

Between one stride and the next, the herd of reindeer faded away. She felt a last few ghosts go with her, shoulder on shoulder, and then they too were gone and she was back, alone, in the world of humans and ravens.

The old woman snorted. “Knives aren’t magic, girl. All they are is sharp. Cut or don’t, but don’t dither over it. It only makes it worse for both of you.” Janna

Being able to talk to ravens is a sensible magic. Moreso than most of the fool stuff you see flying about. Aurrk!

The third house had a man living alone. He told her three times over supper that his wife had died and how lonely it was for him, and tried twice to touch her hair. His lower lip trembled when he talked. Gerta offered to sweep the porch, left a copper on the step to pay for her supper, and slipped away. I may have spent the last seven months under a spell, she thought grimly, but I’m not a total fool.

The snow grew thicker and thicker. It was no longer crunching underfoot, but piling up silently. Gerta felt as if the world was growing larger and larger, or as if she were growing smaller and more insignificant, a little hooded mouse toiling along the road, not even leaving tracks behind her.

My heart is smaller,” she whispered.  “Of course,” said the woman. “Reindeer have greater hearts than humans. They have to, to give us as much as they do.

Artists are odd,” said Mousebones, walking around the man in blue. “Even for humans.

Words are like fish and you catch them and you get to keep them forever.

In all the old stories, the only thing that ever won was love. And occasionally a good sharp knife.” “I’ll

Oh. Yes. There would be someone, wouldn't there? Of course there would be a person. Ask at the farmhouse did not mean that you addressed your questions to the front porch. She had not thought it through.