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The boy closed his eyes and enjoyed the sensation of marble rubbing against his bare hands.
The stone was cold. It softened the itches on his skin.
He liked it. He laid down and peacefully wiggled on the stone.
He turned his little head around, peering about him from his spot on the floor.
He could see the moonlight streaming in from the windows. The moonlight was pretty, and it lit up patches of the floor. Sometimes, little round shapes fluttered outside, and the moonlight painted on the marble would be briefly speckled with shadows.
The wind cooed gently at him. Tommy smiled and tapped the marble floor with his fingers, tracing the silver veins along the smooth stone.
He’s waiting for his momma to come back.
The hunter drew his bow and darted behind the spruce trunk.
There was a sound that floated around the woods.
It was faint. It sounded like a hummingbird, gently singing as it licked nectar from a colored blossom. But he had only seen those birds once, during the one time he had journeyed south at the fresh age of seventeen.
There were no hummingbirds up here near the Arctic. The sound could belong to a moose, perhaps grazing at the sparse shrubbery and moss.
Bringing a moose to the table would give his sons full, satiated stomachs.
He nocked an arrow onto his flaxen bowstring, gently increasing the tension on the woven horsetail fibers.
He peered around the bark and gazed at the abandoned marble house. Maybe the moose was behind those pillars.
He had discovered the house years ago with his eldest son, during the early spring. Incomplete, the marble walls stood steadily with several small fractures in the sides. They supported a non-existent roof.
The floors were perfectly smooth, with blocks cut to fit into each other like two adjacent puzzle pieces. The craftsmanship was beautiful, cold white melting to streaks of ash and silver completed with a tiny crack of gold in the corner. Windows with neither frame nor glass.
It was beautiful infrastructure, and had he not already had a cozy home in a cave with his sons, he might have completed it.
Now, he hunted the animals that lingered around the area.
But he was confused. He scanned the snow. There were no imprints. No tracks, no tell-tale punctures in the flakey ice.
Scouring the perimeter of the small building, he found a shoe imprint digging into the snow. The print was slightly smeared and dug out.
A crease formed in Phil’s brow. Someone had been running here. From the shape of the shoe imprint, he would have guessed a woman.
He heard the humming sound again, and his head whirled around. The noise was much closer.
He walked through the door-less gap in the walls and found himself staring at a little child. Soft little curls that looked the color of dried buttercups, dotted with white flakes. Pale skin, clothed in nothing but a thin, sleeved red top and some woolen trousers. The boy was playing with the cloth around his wrist.
Phil stared before walking over to the child. He couldn’t have been older than… three? Four?
He bent his knees, lowering his head to look up at the sitting boy. The child glanced curiously at him, sunlight streaming in through the open marble windows and landing on his silky skin. The boy had bright eyes, eyes of ice, eyes of the river ice that Phil would have to break when fishing every winter.
Phil wondered why the boy wasn’t shivering. “What’s your name?” he whispered. He wasn’t sure if the child could understand, until he replied.
“T’m.”
“Tom? Are you Tom?” he murmured. He gently picked up the child and carried him home, where his two other sons would be waiting.
Twelve years later, the little boy had grown up. He had icy irises that were strangely warm when you looked him in the eye, and his shaggy locks rolled down to nestle around his ears. He had strong hands, and had developed a hobby of chiseling stone.
He chipped away at the block in front of him. It was a small cube of marble, about the size of both his feet placed beside each other. A special piece his father had brought him, it had veins of a muted mossy color. There were some specks of gold dotting the stone.
Gold was not extremely rare in the Arctic, yet it was not common either.
Tommy wanted to make something nice for his father with it.
He gently tapped away at the stone. First chisel out a general shape, then smoothen it by rubbing the surface with gravel from the fresh little spring outside their cave.
He felt a cold blast of icy air hit his back. He liked the biting sensation. It also told him that his father was back, briefly letting in the wind while opening the pine-plank doors.
Phil chucked when he saw his son at his workbench. He took a step forward and ruffled Tommy’s hair affectionately. Then he made his way to the kitchen table, where his eldest son was cutting carrots for their stew later. Phil sat down, sighing as the chair creaked from its weight. It was so old that the varnish he’d applied a decade ago had long wore off the seat.
Phil drew a tattered envelope from the inner folds of his coat. His elder son looked up in concern. “He actually got back to you?”
“Let me read it first before deciding if this is a good or bad occurrence, Blade.”
His eldest son hummed, tossing onions into the steaming pot. Phil stared at Blade’s hair, marveling the braid.
“Your hair looks good tied up like that. Girlfriend with steady hands?”
Blade snorted. “Tommy’s excellent at delicate things like braids.”
Phil let out a soft chuckle, glancing over to the other side of the room. Tommy was still hunched over the stone he was given, meticulously chipping at the marble.
He finally refocused his attention at the envelope Wilbur had sent him, opening it with a stone hunting dagger. The father gently removed the paper from its casing and smoothed the brittle parchment on the wooden table.
Dear Father,
It has been years since I have last seen you. Or Brother. Or little Tommy.
I’ve been meaning to visit, every month telling myself, “This will be the month that I go home.”
But my will to explore the world had been too powerful. Too intoxicating. I’ve always been the restless child. My spirit, it longs to run wild.
Occasionally, I remind myself about you and my brothers. But recently I have been doing so less.
I have my own family now, Father. I have a beautiful son with hair the color of ripe tomatoes. Yes, we grow tomatoes down here in the south. I have a beautiful wife, with hair the color of soft red begonia petals and a voice as sweet as an orange. Sometimes, we sit on the porch and watch the sunset together. I would take out my guitar and play a song, and my Sally would sing. My son always claps his hands together in excitement and stamps his feet on the floor when we finish. Once, he wouldn’t stop tugging on the hem of my overalls until we’ve played him another song.
I love you, father, and I love my brothers.
I want to visit, I swear, but I’m giving my family my heart.
Maybe we’ll all come up and visit, one day.
Love, Will
A warm tear soaked into the parchment. Phil’s eyes shined. He wasn’t sad, nor was he happy. He felt a bit upset, still heartbroken about his son’s sudden departure years ago, yet feeling warmed at the unexpected response.
He was still proud of his son.
He was proud of all of his sons.
Blade, who was ladling rich, frothy stew with thinly-chopped herbs and boiled rabbit meat into wooden bowls Tommy had carved out.
Tommy, the little child he’d found ten years ago abandoned in the snow, who tumbled joyfully over the table, tall, strong, bright, and so open.
His younger son dumped something onto his lap, which Phil gingerly placed on the table surface.
A chiseled marble bell, round, with little swirls and designs etched into the curved surface. Gold and mint ribbed the white surface.
Tommy beamed gleefully. “Isn’t it beautiful, Father? I still have to smoothen it in the river tomorrow, I’ll do it first thing after I wake up-”
“It’s beautiful, Tommy,” he interrupted.
The boy grinned wide and threw his arms around his father.
Blade lifted a bone spoon and gingerly tapped the marble with the tip. A dulled ding rang gently throughout the room. He laughed. “Tommy, it works!”
The family of three laughed.
Deep in his heart, Phil knew there would be a day in the future, reserved by Fate for when his two other sons would leave.
…That day was still a long ways off. He’d enjoy this beauty while he could.