The Fire She Gave Away

About this story

In the season of the long dark, when the sun goes down and does not come back, a girl named Pana carries a small fire across the snow. It floats in a curve of soapstone, one steady flame on a wick of moss, the only warm thing for a long way in any direction. Her grandmother lit it long ago, and Pana has kept it ever since, and now her own people wait across the frozen land in tents with cold hearths. She cups her hand around the flame and goes. At the edge of the lamplight an arctic fox stands white as new snow, and turns to lead her into the dark, where something colder is already leaning on the little flame.

Read the beginning

In the season of the long dark, when the sun went down and did not come back, a girl named Pana carried a small fire across the snow. It floated in a curve of soapstone, one steady flame on a wick of moss. It was the only warm thing for a long way in any direction.

High on the ridge, a black raven turned a slow circle and watched the one light below. Its feathers were the color of a sky with no stars. It did not call. It only watched, the way you watch someone you have been waiting for.

The flame was small, but it was hers. Her grandmother had lit it long ago, before she went still, and Pana had kept it ever since. Now her own people waited across the frozen land, in tents with no fire and cold hearths. "Carry it home," the wind seemed to say. "Carry it home to them."

Her grandmother had told her to guard it, to let no wind near it. But the way home was long and black, and Pana's heart beat fast. So she cupped her hand around the little flame, and she went.

At the edge of the lamplight stood an arctic fox, white as new snow, with eyes like two black stones. It did not run. It looked at the flame, and then it looked at her, and it turned to lead the way into the dark.

"Foxes do not walk with girls," Pana whispered, for that is what she had been told. The fox only flicked its tail and went on. Pana's heart was a little afraid. She followed it anyway, her lamp held close.

The dark was full of wonders. Snow that squeaked like a song under her boots. A frozen river smooth as glass. And then, above her, the sky tore open into curtains of green and rose, rippling and silent. Pana laughed out loud. She had never been so far from home, or so full of wonder.

But the farther they walked, the colder the world grew, and the quieter. The green light faded. The stars closed their eyes. And Pana felt, for the first time, that the dark was watching her back.

Then the killing cold came down. Not the cold of winter, but a cold that does not love. It crept into the lamp and leaned on the little flame, and out of the white came a shape made of shadow, with a voice like cracking ice. "Poor cold girl," it said. "Keep your fire for yourself. Give nothing away, and you alone will live."

The shadow's way looked easy. It looked safe. To hold the flame close, to share it with no one, to slip home warm and whole. Pana wanted, so badly, to believe it. But the fox stepped in front of her, and the fur rose along its back, and from somewhere far off came the cold's promise again, soft and sweet. "Hoard it," it said. "Or freeze."

Just then a man rose out of the dark, sitting still by a sled, his hands like stones, his dogs lying quiet in the snow. He had no fire at all. The shadow hissed, "Pass him by. His cold is not yours." But Pana knelt, and tipped a thread of flame onto dry moss, and gave it to him.

The story goes on in the video.