Chapter Text
17 years old
...
The night air was crisp, a night where mothers zipped up their kiddos coats, where lovers wrapped scarves around each other, where gallant gentleman offered ladies their jackets. Crickets hummed in the meadows. Grass swayed softly in the light wind, tinged dark blue in the fading light.
Ymir sat above it all. She was alone, high above the town, sitting on a bluff, an edge, legs hanging out in the open air. Lights flicked on below her feet; the sun had made a hasty departure. The streets spread out in a grid, the houses perfectly aligned, streetlights in measured distances between the ninety degree crossroads. She could not see the details of the grass in front of each home but she knew it was cut neatly. Every blade the same length. Set the mower to 1.5, chop everything down, swish swish swish.
On the bluff, the grass grew wild. It was nibbled at, in some places, by the rabbits, but mostly it grew freely, long and thin, dancing in the cool night wind. It tickled Ymir’s hand, her hand pressed against the dirt, gripping the earth like it was her last tether to the world. Perhaps it was. The grass was soft on her hand, caressing her tanned skin. Don’t go, it said.
Everything was so small. She could imagine the people sitting in their houses around their tables eating their peas and carrots and chicken, putting on plastic smiles and filling the silence with meaningless chatter. That had never been her style. She had never been given the chance.
Her style was watching, all alone and up above. It had always been this way.
She watched, with a passion, with a yearning, and she realized she was leaning forward dangerously. A pebble rolled forward, then tipped over the edge. She watched it go. It dropped, falling, plummeting, ricocheting off of the bluff to be swallowed up by the darkness down below. An unsurvivable drop.
A creaky sign twisted in the breeze. The cracked paint no longer formed words, peeled away by rain and snow and the very elements that had carved this cliff into the earth. Devil’s drop, the kids in town called this place. Kids were never very original when it came to names. Names hurled at Ymir, names spit like curses, all of them the same, none of them original.
The stars twinkled down. There was not a cloud to be seen in the sky. Ymir could pick out the three stars making up Orion’s belt, the handle of the little dipper. If she listened closely, the grass would whisper the secrets of the stars into her ear. The crickets would chirp her a song. She looked down, past her feet, the tips of her beat up hand-me-down shoes, down into the tiny world below her. Not today. She could not steal the glory from the night. The stars winked at her, proud, putting on a show.
She leaned backwards, away from the drop, and tilted her head up to watch the performance. Her hands reached out toward the stars, hoping, wishing, that she could share this night with someone else.
________
10 years old
....
She did not go to school. She hovered by the fence sometimes, a mutt, a stray, a wanderer, to see the freshly groomed purebreds frolic on the black top. The kids would play handball, in a neat square of squares, yelling at each other, calling out, in glee and anger and cheer, as the ball bounced to and fro. They never looked at her, and if per chance they happened to see a grimy face peering in, their noses would wrinkle and they’d turn away in disgust. Ymir would watch the red ball dance about, until a whistle would sound and the dance would stop and the kids would all file into the red brick building.
She had never been inside. Sometimes she wondered what it would be like, if the insides were made of shiny metal like water fountains on the outside or if they were carpeted, like the library she frequented.
If she was hungry, she would pick up cans for coins, stopping by the house with the man with a round belly and a loud voice, who always had a large collection of cans outside his door on Mondays, or the house with the woman with sad eyes who always had something to spare on her porch, be it a pb&j with the crusts cut off or a bag of chips or an apple sliced in slivers.
If she was bored, she would go to the library. It was always warm and the water was free and there were mountains of things to learn.
The librarian was a quiet man, a tall, calm sort. He was a background fixture of the library, as much so as the books themselves, the muted colors of his sweaters matching the muted tones of the countless spines. Soft reds and beiges, easy on the eyes, feelings of warmth and tranquility resided in that library.
Moblit Berner, read the golden letters on his desk. They curved delicately, in a font Ymir never saw in books, the letters arcing into each other gracefully. When Mr. Berner was up and helping people, she liked to go behind the desk and trace the letters with her finger, even before she knew what they meant, running her fingers along the smooth golden metal.
There was a chair in the corner, sequestered away in the children’s section, that Ymir liked to sit at. Often, when she came in the mornings, a book would be sitting on the chair, waiting for her.
It began with The Giving Tree and progressed to Charlotte’s Web and before long she found The Outsiders sitting on the chair. She had cried at Where the Red Fern Grows, slipping the book under her shirt and taking it outside the library. She reread it up on the bluff, the colder air stinging her skin as the words pierced her heart. She returned the book, eventually. It was folded and crumpled, but still the library put it back on the shelf, for Ymir to take out and escape to, to a world of happy times and coon-hunting and dogs loyal to the end.
On days where she felt up to it, she would return to the house. It loomed large in her memory, a giant creaking thing full of disappointment and anger, but whenever she could muster up the courage to step in front of it, and tilt her head up, all she saw was a house like any other. In between two houses that looked exactly the same. The white exterior, the brown roof. But the grass was un-mowed, and the dandelions grew wildly in the patch between, yellow spots on bold green brushstrokes. The neighbors’ lawns were neat, every grass straight up and at attention.
By the time the dandelions were turning into fuzz, the yellow making way for white fluff, a new sign was hung on the rusted mailbox. Ymir noticed it immediately, and stared at it, sounding out the letters until the word made sense. For Sale. Even then, it did not make sense. The wildness was sliced to bits, the grass tamed once more by a growling mower, and soon afterwards new words were put in front of the house, in the form of a mat in front of the door. Welcome, said the mat. No, thought Ymir. This is all wrong. She returned to the abandoned shed she had made her temporary home, and tore the grass in front of it to make it more right. It didn’t work. Instead, bald patches alternated with wildly overgrown patches in front of the creaky wooden shed, and it looked horrendous. Ymir bit her lip and tried not to cry, but there was no one to stop her from crying anyway.
It wasn’t such a bad existence. Just a lonely one. She could hardly remember her mother anymore, just waking up one morning and feeling the absence, the pit in her stomach that wouldn’t let up, until she had tiptoed to the bed to find it empty, the sheets wrinkled, pillow cold. She had waited for a week, before resigning herself to the fact that her mother was not coming back.
She left the house, because it felt wrong to stay, and had found the shed, empty, waiting for her.
She slept wherever she felt tired, in the summer on the bluff, the gentle winds and warm sun caressing her to sleep, but as the weather changed, she spent more and more time in the library. One day, she found a door on the inside of the library left ajar, and she nudged it open, curious. It was a closet, big enough for her to lay down in, with miscellaneous novels and writing utensils and book binding tape lining the sides. In the middle, on the ground, there lay a blanket. It was fuzzy, a light maroon color with fraying edges. She furtively glanced around, and she took it out of the library, to the abandoned shed.
The following day, after she had wandered around the town, stopping by the schoolyard to watch the kids play and then going to the creek to race the red and yellow leaves littering the ground, she reentered the closet. There was a pillow there now, a fluffy thing, and she glanced around suspiciously. After no one showed up to claim it, she took it away.
The blanket and the pillow helped, but the nights were quickly growing colder and the chilly wind snuck in through the wooden slats of the shed.
Once, she was on the way to the library to see where Edmund’s gluttony would lead him next. She had picked up a stick, twirling it around like Peter in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, when a taller shadow sent the stick clattering out of her hand. The sharp wood cut her skin, and she backed up in alarm. A harsh laugh cut the morning air, and she glanced up quizzically, drawing her wounded hand closer to her body.
“Fuckin kids,” leered an older boy, dirty blonde hair falling into his face. “Didn’t anyone teach ya to be careful where you swing that thing?”
His friend laughed. Ymir trembled. The boy stepped on the stick, and it cracked in two, the noise making her flinch.
“Welcome to reality,” he said, his eyes flicking to the older girl leaning against the fence.
“Knock it off,” she said lazily. “Can’t you see the kid’s about to cry?”
For some reason, that hurt even worse. Ymir stood, shaking, then shot off in the opposite direction, leaving the stick snapped in two on the ground.
She went to the bluff instead, looking out at the town, at the schoolyard that was empty now, the kids having filed into the building. No walls contained her, no teachers herded her in, she was free.
She was alone.
________
Sometimes, when Ymir read in the corner of the library, the door would burst open with a flare, and a tall figure would bound into the quiet building. The air would always change, with the presence of this newcomer, and it would be reflected on Mr. Berner’s face, his mix of exasperation and happiness upon the arrival.
A great fellow would stride in, dressed in a suit, a patch over one eye, with a big briefcase that fascinated Ymir. The briefcase would be set down with a flourish on Mr. Berner’s desk, and Mr. Berner would stand up and pull over a chair. The chair would more often than not go unused, as Mr. Berner’s friend would begin talking, hopping on their feet, unable to stay still for a second.
The faint edges of a smile would arrive on Mr. Berner’s face, and he would sit patiently, occasionally reminding his friend that they were in a library, after all, and he knew they were excited, but please, Hange, people were trying to read.
The volume would lessen in apology for a minute, but then a particularly important topic would be brought up and hushed tones were not appropriate for such matters, and Ymir would sit surrounded by books, unable to read as real life stories poured out of this fellow’s mouth. She would close her book carefully, and row by row inch closer.
Hange would go on about wild adventures, a trip to the jungle, a jaunt across the sea; worlds that were only accessible to Ymir through novels became personified in this jovial suited figure with the eye patch.
Ymir would eventually hover right next to Mr. Berner’s desk, and he would softly smile at her and gesture to the chair left empty by Hange. She would slowly sink down into it, and Hange would wink with the one good eye. “Well, where did I leave off,” Hange would say, before launching into a tale of trees tall enough to scrape the sky and colorful birds that could repeat human speech, nothing like the drab brown birds that hopped from branch to branch in this town. Stories of architecture that had been ancient when this entire town was just sticks and mud, of foreign tongues that scratched the throat or lulled to sleep, of food flavored so enthusiastically that it nearly burned off tastebuds. Ymir grew lost in these worlds, and listened to them raptly, sitting still, eyes shining. Hange would take note of this and embellish further on their stories, ramping up the hand gestures, until Mr. Berner would eventually have to intervene with a gentle reminder that they were still in a library.
Mr. Berner would invite Hange for dinner, and then Ymir would be invited as well. She had tried to decline, once before, but had quickly yielded to Hange’s overwhelming presence. They would walk a block to Mr. Berner’s house. Ymir would offer to carry the briefcase, and Hange would let her. She proudly walked the streets, smooth handle clenched in her hand, her unusual height and purposeful strides making her look like a small adult.
At Mr. Berner’s sparsely decorated bungalow, he would whip up something quick, like pasta or sloppy joes, and they would sit at his uneven dining room table with one leg shorter than the rest. Those were the times Ymir felt the most comfortable. If she sat back and relaxed, she could almost feel part of a family.
Hange never stayed long. After dinner, Mr. Berner would ask Ymir to help him with the dishes, and then would ask Hange to stay over.
Hange would look at their watch, the colorful face with a slim band, and declare, “My, look at the time!”
On would go the jacket, the briefcase would go back in their hand, and they would be off. Mr. Berner always walked Hange to the door. “I’ll be here,” he would say. “Please be careful.”
“Oh Moblit,” Hange would reply fondly. “You worry too much.”
After one of these nights, Mr. Berner turned to Ymir. The air was getting colder, and the clouds were thickening in the sky. “How would you like to stay here?” he asked quietly.
She pondered the question, scrubbing a stain of sauce off of her plate, the warm water running over her hands. “Here?”
“If I fix up a room for you.” He looked ashamed, nervous even. “I know this isn’t ideal, I’ve been trying to save up, but being a librarian in this town doesn’t get you very far.” He shook his head. “What I mean is, winter is coming. The library is not a suitable place for a young kid to sleep. What if you get locked out? I will not have you freeze to death on my watch.”
“I don’t like charity, Mr. Berner.” said Ymir. She sounded very grown-up, she thought. Like her mother.
“Call me Moblit. You would be helping me,” he countered. “I already worry about Hange so much that worrying about you too might just tip me over the edge.”
“But Hange says you shouldn’t worry.”
Moblit exhaled a half-laugh. “We don’t always do what we should.”
“Ok.” said Ymir.
“Ok?” said Moblit, in a mixture of relief and delight. They fell into an easy silence, as she handed him dishes to dry.
She started sleeping at his house, and he took her offering of the pillow and blanket from the shed with great honor, throwing them in the clunky washing machine when she wasn’t looking. He made for her a room, separated from the living room by a red curtain which he hung from the ceiling.
The winter passed, through books and meals and icy air and walks that make the tip of her nose and ears red. She stopped going to the bluff, because she could not fight through the snowy path up. And then spring came, and the snow melted and the grass returned. The kids started coming back out to the blacktop to play again, and snowmen became snow puddles and snow angels became holy water.
She hadn’t stopped going past the school. She had stopped going to her old house, had stopped going to the shed, but the she could not let the school go. She would go in the afternoons, because in the mornings before the teachers called the students in, they would make fun of her, call her words she didn't know the meaning of. In the afternoon light, she stood by the fence, peering through the slats, watching the kids play handball. Ymir could pick out who was who by now, could tell when the mousy brown haired child was going to chuck the ball in anger, in a show of poor sportsmanship, could tell that the dark haired girl by his side disapproved.
There was one kid who caught her attention the most. A girl, about Ymir’s age, sat under a tree, on a stump, and read, flipping the pages gently. Ymir watched her read, and wondered what world she was escaping to.
Sometimes, a bulky blonde boy would shyly shuffle up to her stump, and would present the girl with something found on the ground, like a flower or a funnily shaped rock. The girl would smile brightly at the boy.
The boy would turn red, and would hastily return to his friends, proudly returning to talk to a lanky dark-haired boy and two boys who looked almost the same, save the color of their hair. They would laugh at him, and he would beam, his tousled light blond hair not as bright as his smile.
Ymir saw the girl drop the gifts to the ground, returning to her book, the smile fading as quickly as it had come. Ymir would be filled with an urge to make her smile, to make her really smile, and to make the smile last.
The bell would ring, the kids would go file in the building, and Ymir would leave. She’d return to the library or the bluff or the creek or wherever she fancied. She never picked up cans anymore.
Moblit said, when she was accompanying him to the library, out of the blue, “I think you should go to school.”
She shook her head violently. “I don’t like school.”
“How would you know?” he asked gently.
She shrugged. She thought of her sword becoming a stick snapped in two on the ground, of heated arguments over a simple game, of a kid like her, away from the action, reading a book, lonely.
“Don’t make me go,” she said.
He sighed.
They passed a cluster of white flowers poking out of the sidewalk cracks.
“Let’s make a deal,” said Moblit, voice soft as the spring wind blowing.
“What?”
“If you do the schoolwork I assign for you, you don’t have to go to school this year. But promise me you’ll think about going next year.”
“Ok,” said Ymir cheerily.
“And that means all of the work. I won’t go easy on you,” he warned.
Ymir shrugged.
When they got the library, Ymir went to her spot to read, while Moblit hemmed and hawed in the textbook section. He eventually selected one. Harcort Elementary Mathematics.
He sat her down at one of the two tables in the library. The book fell open, the pages yellowed. He slid a pencil and some paper toward her.
“This is a practice assessment, to see where you are at. Do your best. I will be back in thirty minutes.”
Ymir opened her mouth, to say something biting, when Moblit raised an eyebrow at her, as if to say, you chose this, and picked up Slaughterhouse Five. She sulked, but picked up the pencil. “Time starts now.”