The Body

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By the time I left Bone’s hut, night had settled over the village again.

Bone had offered to let me stay another night. When I declined, he didn’t press. He simply walked me to the entrance, told me I could keep the pelt I'd spent most of the day wrapped in, and warned me not to make him regret letting me leave.

I assured him that I wouldn’t.

His expression suggested that he already had his doubts.

Outside, the air was bitterly cold. Snow was beginning to fall, and I pulled the pelt tighter around my shoulders as I started back up the main path towards Thorn’s hut.

For the first time in several days, I didn’t feel like I was dragging myself from one place to another. My body still ached from everything that had happened, but the exhaustion no longer felt like it was crushing me from the inside. Bone had given me time to rest. To think. To finally let everything that had happened catch up with me.

Thorn was dead.

I wasn’t.

Whatever he had expected me to do with the life he’d left behind, it was mine to live now. That thought still felt uncomfortable, but it no longer felt impossible to carry.

Eventually, the hut came back into view between the trees, and I slowed.

A faint orange glow flickered through the gaps surrounding the entrance.

I stood there for several seconds staring at it. The fire should have gone out earlier in the day. There hadn’t been any wood added to it since the day prior. No coals could have possibly survived in the pit this long.

For a moment, I thought maybe it was Echo. Maybe she had brought Shade home. Maybe he’d insisted on waiting for me, and she’d relented.

Then I noticed how quiet the hut was.

There was no movement from inside. Nobody rushed through the entrance to greet me. There weren’t any shadows that dashed and darted from within. No excitement from Echo trying to keep Shade entertained. Not even the soft murmur of her telling him a story or trying to convince him to sleep.

I tightened my grip on the pelt wrapped around my shoulders and approached with caution.

Warm air spilled over me as I pulled back the covering. Inside, almost everything appeared to be as I had left it.

Almost.

Across the hut, Raven sat on the stool beside the bed.

She didn’t look up when I entered.

Slowly, I made my way towards her.

Several pieces of clothing had been arranged over the hides beside her. A dark fur cloak lay folded at the very back of the bed near the wall. Below it, an old tunic had been spread across his side of the bed. A leather belt crossed its chest, cracked and rough from years of use and neglect. Below that rested an old pair of fur pants, heavily stained from years of moving through the dirt and snow. Below them sat a pair of even more heavily stained boots.

Raven held one of the sleeves of the tunic in her hands. For a moment, I thought she might be repairing it, until I saw her thumb brush over the empty sleeve. Back and forth. A gentle motion, like she was stroking the back of a hand.

My chest tightened as I realized what she was trying to do.

Unlike Bone’s story about Breaker, it wasn't hard for me to picture the man that once filled those clothes. I could see him lying there, head resting on the cloak, eyes empty, chest completely still, with one cold, lifeless hand resting in Raven’s.

Raven didn’t turn to acknowledge me. Her head and shoulders remained bowed, her eyes fixed firmly on the empty sleeve in her hands.

I wasn’t sure then if I should have been there. Every part of me wanted to retreat. I knew I could make it back to Bone’s before he settled down for the night. He would complain, but he wouldn’t turn me away.

Then Raven drew the sleeve a little closer.

I decided to stay.

Lowering the pelt near the wall opposite her, I settled myself on the floor. Close enough that she wouldn’t be alone, but far enough that she wouldn’t feel like she was trapped in a corner beside Thorn’s body.

For a while, the two of us just sat there with nothing to break the silence between us but the faint sound of Raven stroking the sleeve and the occasional pop coming from inside the firepit.

I kept my gaze fixed on the flames. A small pile of fresh wood had been arranged beside the pit. The heat had settled into the walls and the furs, making the hut feel warmer than I had ever managed to make it myself.

Eventually Raven spoke.

“I made the fire,” she said.

Her voice was rough and quiet.

“I noticed,” I responded as I continued to stare into the pit.

The silence returned briefly.

Then a thought came to mind as I saw the rawhide pouch I’d left sitting on the table.

“The dried rabbit meat you gave me the other night,” I mentioned. “It was good.”

Raven let out an airy noise from the other side of the bed. “I’m glad.”

I felt my heart clench as the silence settled back in.

I rested my arms across my knees as I watched one of the logs in the firepit collapse into the coals.

“I didn’t know if you would be coming back tonight,” Raven eventually stated.

I tucked my knees closer to myself. “Neither did I.”

That finally made her look up, and I turned towards her. The firelight reflected off of the damp tracks that ran down her cheeks. The whites of her eyes had turned pink, and her steely grey irises had turned into a deep shade of blue.

She studied my face for only a second before dropping her head again.

Seeing Thorn looking back at her now must have been unbearable.

I turned away again.

“Shade is with Echo,” Raven said, “He wanted to come here with me.”

My hands curled slightly against my arms. “Why didn’t he?”

Raven swallowed and her voice broke.

“Because I didn’t want him to see me like this.”

She smoothed the sleeve across her lap, carefully straightening a fold that didn’t need to be straightened.

“He already believes his father has come home,” she continued, “I didn’t know how to explain to him that I needed to mourn him.”

I looked back at the clothes arranged beside her.

Neither did I.

Last night, I mourned the loss of my home. Alaska, the homestead, my grandparents. Everything I had ever known for the past eighteen years.

Then there was my dream, Bone’s story, and the man within them that I had barely begun to understand.

As I continued to watch, I couldn’t help but think of the things I’d mentioned as I cried into Bone’s chest. I thought about the empty coffin Grandma and Grandpa might have had to bury, with nothing left of me to fill it but maybe a few photos, some flowers, and the personal belongings that reminded them of me.

In some ways, this was no different.

There was nothing I could give Raven that would make the space beside her feel less empty. Nothing I could say to her that wouldn’t sound hollow coming out of Thorn’s mouth. So I gave her the same thing Bone had given me the night before.

I sat beside her grief and let her take as long as she needed.

After a few minutes, Raven had composed herself enough to speak again.

“Do you know anything?” she asked, “About why Thorn chose to go to the lake that day?”

I shook my head, “All I know is what Rain said back in the healer’s den. Thorn had decided to go cold fishing, he fell through the ice, and Rain was the one who pulled him out.”

Raven was silent for a long moment.

“Did he go to the lake because of me?”

Her question made me turn.

“We were fighting before I left to join the far-hunters,” she admitted, “You saw the state of our hut – how it looked before. I told him I couldn’t stand living like that. That it was bad for Shade. And then I told him…”

Her words trailed off as a haunted expression settled over her face.

“I told him I wished he were gone, if that was how he wanted to live,” her grip on the sleeve tightened as she drew in a deep breath through her nose, “Oh, ancestors… What if he took that as a command?”

My chest tightened again as a sob tore out of Raven. Her body started to shake as she buried her face into the sleeve.

I wanted to tell her that it wasn’t her fault. That there’s no way she could have known how Thorn would have interpreted that statement. But I didn’t know that for certain, and I didn’t want to prop her up by letting her believe a lie.

I let out a sigh. “He looked exhausted.”

Raven sniffed as she slowly lifted her head. “What?”

“Thorn,” I clarified, “He looked exhausted. It didn't seem like he was angry or afraid. Just… drained.”

Raven stared.

“I know he wasn’t alone,” I continued, “He had Rain, Flower, and Storm there at his side. Then he saw me…”

My mind kept replaying that moment. The moment Thorn slowly turned his head to meet my gaze.

“Whatever happened next, I don’t think it was an accident.”

Raven blinked. “You had that dream, too?”

I felt a chill run through me as I turned my whole body to face her.

“Last night,” she began, “I dreamed I was in the healer’s den with him. I had followed Rain in through the entrance. I tried to reach for him when they placed Thorn next to the fire, but I couldn’t move. I begged, pleaded for him to look at me… but he turned away instead.”

Raven’s breath hitched, and she let go of the sleeve in her hands briefly to brush away her tears.

She took a few deep breaths to calm herself, then continued.

“I know he said something… I couldn’t tell if it was mountain speak or not. I didn’t catch it…” Raven’s voice broke as she forced herself to continue, “And then he stopped breathing… His eyes had rolled back… And then he was gone. The worst part was when I was finally allowed to move and reached for him… My hand passed straight through him.”

Raven laid one of her hands down on the front of the tunic, as if she were mimicking the motion from her dream. She sighed deeply as she ran her hand over the fabric.

“His final words…” she whispered, “And I didn’t even get to hear them.”

I closed my eyes and let out a slow breath.

“‘Not me… Him.’”

I let the words roll off my tongue exactly as I had heard them. Thorn’s voice had a faint hiss to it. One that I definitely lacked.

Raven stared at me, tears streaming down her face.

“That’s what he said,” I told her, “Looked right at me when he said it, too.”

Raven took the sleeve back in her hands and pressed it against her chest. The hurt in her expression shifted as she realized Thorn hadn’t turned away from her out of anger or resentment.

He’d been looking at someone else.

“And then what happened?” she asked.

I swallowed.

“I was pulled into his body. Just as he took his final breath.”

The hut fell silent again. Neither of us said anything for a while.

Slowly, though, the grief in Raven’s expression gave way to another emotion.

Anger.

“‘Not me. Him,’ huh?” she said bitterly. She tossed the sleeve away from her, letting it flop against the front of the tunic, “Of course he’d make that decision for the rest of us.”

She crossed her arms and turned away from the bed, but made no move to get up and leave.

“Bone and I talked about it,” I told her, “He said it might have been the most honest decision Thorn had made in a long time.”

Raven scowled, “Honest… Not kind.”

I lowered my gaze to the clothes resting on the bed. “No. Not kind.”

Raven’s anger faltered slightly as her arms loosened across her chest.

“He took you away from your home,” she said, turning to me, “He trapped you inside of his body, and then left you here to deal with the messes he left behind.”

I shifted uneasily where I sat. Hearing Raven say it made Thorn’s decision feel heavier than it had when Bone and I were discussing it.

Bone had seen the life Thorn saved.

Raven saw the one he had abandoned.

“He never asked you,” she continued, “He never asked any of us.”

“No,” I confirmed. “He didn’t.”

My mind wandered back to when I was still in the lake. I had checked the weather and the condition of the ice beforehand. After I fell through, I'd tried to steady my breathing, straighten my body, and reach for the safety spikes. None of it had been enough.

I wondered, if Thorn had found a way to ask for my permission to take over his body to save my own life, would I have refused? Or would I have chosen to remain in the ice and die as myself?

Raven’s eyes drifted from me back to the clothing on the bed.

“For years, I begged him to think about what his choices were doing,” she said, “To me, to Shade, and to the people of the tribe. Every time he refused, I told myself that he simply didn’t understand.”

Her jaw tightened.

“Then, at the end, he understood enough to choose someone else to fix it all for him.”

I shook my head. “I’m not sure if that’s what he really expected.”

“Well, what else could he have expected?”

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

Raven laughed bitterly, shaking her head. “Exactly.”

For several seconds, neither of us spoke.

Having gotten plenty of sleep earlier in the day, and not knowing how much longer Raven planned on remaining at the hut, I stood up and added another log to the fire.

From over my shoulder, I heard Raven draw in a slow breath.

“I owe you an apology,” she stated, “Many apologies, actually.”

I turned around to face her. She wasn’t looking down at Thorn’s clothes anymore. Her attention was completely focused on me.

“When I returned from the far-hunt, I thought you were Thorn trying to deceive me,” she continued, “And after I learned the truth, I still treated you as if you had taken him from me.”

I could only shrug.

“I woke up in his body,” I said, “I have his face, his voice… His scent, too, apparently. I was told about how he treated you and Shade. You didn’t have any reason to believe me.”

“That does not excuse everything.”

Her answer came more sharply than I expected.

I fell silent.

Raven unfolded her arms and rested her hands on her lap.

“You worked so hard to get the hut to look like this,” she said, gesturing around us, “And I entered it assuming every change you made was part of some sort of scheme. I provoked you deliberately. I mentioned the Tribe of the High Mountains because I knew what Thorn would have done if I’d angered him enough.”

My eyes dropped to the floor as Bone’s words came to mind.

“Thorn would have torn out her throat for saying that to him.”

The thought made me nauseous.

“I wanted him to reveal himself,” Raven continued, “And when you didn’t react the way he would have, I only became angrier because I didn’t understand why.”

I nodded. “You thought he was just pretending.”

“I wanted to think he was just pretending.”

That made me look at her again.

Raven’s gaze fell.

“Because if Thorn was just trying to deceive me, then I could understand what was happening,” she explained. “I knew how to protect myself from him. I knew how to protect Shade. But if you were telling me the truth…”

Her eyes moved over my face.

“Then my husband was gone, and I had no idea who – or what – was looking back at me.”

A chill ran through my body.

“I saw how frightened you were outside of the healer’s den,” Raven continued, “I saw it, but I didn’t understand it. I thought that your fear meant that you were hiding something.”

My throat tightened.

“Now I know that you were just as confused as I was,” she said, “You were unsteady and could barely breathe, and I still stood there demanding to know what you had done to Thorn.”

My gaze dropped to the floor. “You deserved answers, too.”

Raven’s expression hardened, “I did… But I did not have the right to demand them from you as though you were responsible.”

I looked towards the fire.

I considered everything — the argument, the far-hunt, the early return, the changes she returned to, and the familiar-looking stranger that had greeted her when she came home.

Part of me wanted to tell her that it was all right. That I understood why she treated me the way that she had. That I didn’t blame her for any of it.

But understanding all of that didn’t mean it hadn’t hurt.

“I don’t blame you for thinking that I was him,” I eventually said. “But that doesn’t mean that I enjoyed being treated like him.”

Raven’s voice became quiet. “No, I imagine you didn’t.”

“When I woke up, the whole village already seemed to hate me. I didn’t know who Thorn was or what he had done. I only knew people kept looking at me like they were waiting for me to hurt someone.”

I paused.

“As I learned more, I began to understand. Then you came home, and I knew you had more reason than anyone to hate the man whose face I was wearing.”

Raven flinched.

“I thought if I did everything right, if I just acted like myself, maybe you’d realize I wasn’t him,” I continued, “But the harder I tried, the more suspicious you became.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t expect you to trust me immediately. I just…” I wrapped my arms around myself, “I didn’t know what else I was supposed to do.”

Raven’s face fell.

“There was nothing else you could have done,” she admitted, “The fault was mine.”

“Not all of it.”

“Enough of it.”

I let out a slow breath.

Raven looked back towards the clothes beside her.

“I’m sorry, David.”

The sound of my name caught me off guard. She had used it before. In the healer’s den and at Storm’s, but it had sounded more like a fact that she’d been forcing herself to accept.

Now it sounded like she was speaking directly to me.

Not Thorn.

Me.

“Thank you,” I said.

Raven gave a small nod.

The silence that followed felt different from the ones that had come before it. It was still heavy, but it no longer felt like there was a body lying between us anymore.

“Storm was right,” Raven eventually spoke up, “You seem young. How old are you, if I may ask?”

I felt my cheeks burn slightly, “Eighteen.”

Raven’s back straightened, “Eighteen?”

I nodded.

Raven paused, glancing at the hut around her.

“Eighteen, and you managed to do all of this?”

I smiled as I scratched the back of my neck, “Well, Rain and Bone helped a little.”

“And how much is ‘a little’?”

“Well, like I said, Bone brought me new bowls, and Rain helped me clear out what was too dirty, worn out, or broken to keep.”

Raven waited.

She made a gesture with her hands, encouraging me to say more. “And…?”

I shrugged. “The rest was me.”

Raven paused before gesturing around the hut again.

“Eighteen, and you managed to do all of this?!” she repeated, more shocked this time.

“I told you. Apparently, I nested.”

Raven let out a scoff, “Apparently…”

For the first time since I had left Bone’s that night, I managed to chuckle. Raven did as well, letting out one that was light and passed easily through her nose.

The moment passed quickly, but the silence that followed felt lighter.

Eventually, Raven turned back towards the bed. The sleeve that she had been holding earlier lay across the front of Thorn’s tunic, still positioned where one of his hands should have been. She stared at it for several seconds before reaching down and folding it across the chest.

Then she removed the belt.

Slowly, Raven began dismantling the body she had built.

She folded the tunic first, smoothing out the wrinkles from it before setting it near the wall. The pants followed, then the fur cloak. When she reached the boots, she rested one hand against them briefly before placing them on the floor at the foot of the bed.

I stayed close to the fire, allowing her to work.

When she was finished, Thorn no longer appeared to be lying beside her. Now, there were only clothes.

Raven kept one hand on the folded tunic.

“He was close to your age when he came to us,” she commented.

I glanced at her.

“Bone told me about Breaker,” I stated, “About the soldier he used to be.”

Raven’s eyes remained on the tunic.

Until today, nearly everything I had learned about Thorn had come from the damage he’d caused. The anger. The violence. The people he had frightened and the family he had abandoned.

But that wasn’t the man Raven had married.

At least, not entirely.

I returned to my place on the floor, leaving the same careful distance between us.

“What was he like?” I asked.

Raven raised her eyes to mine. For a moment, she seemed surprised that I even wanted to know.

She turned to the stack of clothes that rested beside her.

“Before Shade?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Tell me about the man you married.” 151Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqfau3CpDGA

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