Shandi Mitchell - Under This Unbroken Sky

“‘Squeaky Mouse, who are you?’ replied the mouse.

“‘Croaky Frog, can I come in?’

“Squeaky mouse says, ‘No, there’s no room, this is where I live.’ But Croaky Frog pushed his way in anyway. Now there were two of them, when along came a rabbit, who asked, ‘Who lives in this mitten?’

“‘Squeaky Mouse and Croaky Frog. Who are you?’?”

“‘Hoppity Rabbit,’?” Sofia interjects. “‘Can I come in?’?”

Maria nods her approval. “Squeaky Mouse and Croaky Frog say, ‘No, no, there’s no room.’ But Hoppity Rabbit squishes in.” The children nestle closer. “When along comes…” Maria waits for the next storyteller.

“Sister Fox,” Dania adds. “And she said, ‘Who lives in this mitten?’?”

Maria continues, “‘Squeaky Mouse, Croaky Frog, and Hoppity Rabbit and there’s no room for anyone else.’ But Sister Fox decides to live there too and climbs over Hoppity Rabbit. The mitten stretches. And along comes…”

“Brother Wolf.” Katya betrays her knowledge of the story. “And Brother Wolf asks, ‘Who lives in this mitten?’

“‘Squeaky Mouse,’?” says Maria.

“‘Croaky Frog,’?” says Dania

“‘Hoppity Rabbit,’?” says Sofia.

“‘And Sister Fox,’?” proclaims Katya.

“And there’s no more room!” Maria whispers, their voices getting too loud. “But Brother Wolf squishes in and the mitten stretches more. And along comes…”

“Growly Bear,” pipes up Ivan.

“And Growly Bear asks”—Maria drops her voice low and rumbly—“‘Who lives in this mitten?’

“‘Squeaky Mouse, Croaky Frog, Hoppity Rabbit, Sister Fox, and Brother Wolf. And there’s no more room.’ But Growly Bear crawls in and the mitten stretches.”

Maria pushes against the children, who squeeze in tighter. When she was a child, the story had a wild boar, but he has no place in Canada. The children giggle and yawn, forgetting what woke them in the first place. “Then along comes Tiny Grasshopper. He asks, ‘Who lives in this mitten?’

“‘Squeaky Mouse, Croaky Frog, Hoppity Rabbit, Sister Fox, Brother Wolf, and Growly Bear. And there’s no more room.’ But the tiny grasshopper wiggles his way in under the bear’s paw. But this time the mitten doesn’t stretch: the seams split and the mitten bursts open.”

The children listen intently, knowing the story is almost over.

“All the animals go flying in every direction, they tumble and roll through the dirt. Bumping their heads and tails. One by one they get up and dust themselves off and decide to find their own homes elsewhere.”

Maria’s never been satisfied with that ending; she suspects it’s been changed. She used to ask her mother how come the fox didn’t eat the rabbit and the wolf didn’t kill the bear, and the frog didn’t eat the grasshopper, and the boy didn’t come back with a gun and kill them all. Her mother would shake her head and sigh, “That’s the story.” Her own children have never questioned the fable’s impossibilities. They want to believe. How long can she keep them believing? They bask in the afterglow of the story; their eyes are heavy again. Sleep is calling them back.

“What happened to the boy who lost his mitten?” Ivan murmurs.

“His mother made him a new one and told him to be more careful next time.” She can tell by Sofia’s breathing that she has fallen asleep. She reaches across her nest of children, absorbing their warmth.

“So the coyote won’t come into our house?” Katya ponders, half-asleep. “Because it has its own place to live?”

“That’s right.” Maria yawns. “It lives in the woods. Now go to sleep.” She knows she should get up and return to her own bed, but she wants to savor this moment. She has managed to keep them safe. Now that the letters have stopped, things will go back to the way they should be. The mitten has split open.

Katya is thinking about a frog, a mouse, a rabbit, a wolf, a fox, and a bear stuffed inside a mitten. Maybe the mouse is stuffed in the mitten’s thumb and its long tail is tickling the belly of the frog, whose webbed toes are stepping on the rabbit’s ears. Maybe the wolf and the fox are hugging each other to make more room for the bear, whose big bum is poking out the end.

Katya squirms for more room in the crowded bed. She knows there was a coyote in her room. But now that her bed is full, she knows that it won’t be able to crawl in: Mama wouldn’t let it.

MYRON KNOWS THE MITTEN STORY. HE MOUTHS THE WORDS I’m Growly Bear on cue. That was always his part. He was awake long before Katya, the hair on his arms bristling with each howl. He could tell one of them was by the stone wall, racing back and forth. Maybe it could smell the blood.

Myron hasn’t been able to check the snares for two weeks. He’s been running a fever and has a cold in his chest. Maria won’t let him outside. She has garlic bulbs under his pillow. Each night she rubs a mustard poultice on his chest and forces him to drink a tablespoon of wheat wine steeped with honey, fever root, and a raw egg. Twice she has heated the small glass domes and placed them on his body to draw out the sickness. Circular welts dot his chest and legs.

The first few days of his illness, he thought the coyotes were chasing him. He was lost in the snow and being hunted. No matter how fast he ran, he could hear the pack keeping pace behind him.

The coyotes started coming closer to the homesteads right after Myron’s last trip to the snares with Ivan. Teodor says it’s because the snow is too deep in the woods and the lake is frozen. They’re running the trails looking for easy prey. But Myron knows that’s not the reason.

He feels guilty that his father had to take on his chores. He’s tried to force himself outside in the predawn. But each time he takes down the rifle, his hands shake and he feels like he’s going to throw up. It’s the same feeling he had when he stepped between Teodor and Ivan. And when he held the gun on his uncle. And when he wished his father would die in the fire. And when he shot the rabbit. And when he doubted that there ever was a piece of paper. It’s the same feeling he gets when he looks out the window, expecting to see a three-footed coyote. Everything that’s happening is his fault. He took the coyote’s paw.

With everyone asleep, he quietly gets out of bed. He slips his boots on, pulls his jacket over his nightshirt. If his father wakes, he’ll tell him he’s going to the outhouse. He inches toward the door. He looks up at the rifle hanging above the door frame, considers taking it, but doubts that he can retrieve it without his mother hearing. Sofia is snoring, masking his movements. He lifts the latch and slowly opens the door just wide enough to squeeze through.

Outside, the night feels dense, like a storm is coming. The crescent moon is filtered by a gauze of clouds. Thankfully, it is silent. The coyotes are gone. The cold seeps through his long underwear. It nips his ears. His lungs constrict. He tucks his hands in his coat pockets wishing he had brought his mittens. He hurries around the side of the house, up to the outhouse, checking over his shoulder to make sure no one has noticed his absence. He searches the darkness, but there are no wild dogs in sight. He veers off the trodden path and heads behind the outhouse. The deep snow fills his boots and numbs his shins.

He scrambles uphill to the spruce tree with the two tops. Beneath it, a large boulder peeks through the snow. He stomps a path around it, excavating it from the drift, and heaves aside the stone. Embedded in the snow is the foot. Hiding it had not absolved him of his crime. He had stolen from the wild. Myron extracts the paw. It leaves behind a perfect print.

He looks toward the woods crowning the lake. He’s never gone there at night. It’s about half a mile. He can turn back, forget about this piece of flesh. Let it rot into the ground come the spring. But he knows he can’t. He took it. He has to return it. He has to make things right.