South of Winter, Two Singulars

       They could have descended earlier, but the Gunman scanned the land from a stone terrace at the cave’s exit and proposed waiting for twilight, so as not to betray the secret way. For these lands were more inhabited—he gestured toward a scatter of red-tiled roofs in the distance, clustered round a pencil-thin bell tower—and the locals might wonder how two travellers had come from a direction where no paths lay. Sound reasoning. By the light of a sickle moon, the mumriks scuttled down between beech and poplar clusters to the mountain’s foot. In the daylight before, Snufkin had spotted, halfway up the slope, a scatter of upright and fallen stone slabs like dominoes tossed across a meadow. A country graveyard. The last dregs of the cave’s mischief still sang in his blood, and the temptation was too great. Shedding his pack behind a sheltering magnolia bush, he told his brother he’d catch up in half an hour and hurried toward where the dark spires of cemetery cypresses cut the sky. He dearly hoped the folks in these parts knew how to cook caramel and had invented wrappers. And that they kept to certain traditions. He caught up even a little earlier. Likely the Gunman had slowed his pace. And he said nothing until they made camp before dawn, south of the outlying farms where the locals would not think twice about meeting travellers on the road. But his silence was a heavy, disapproving thing. And when Snufkin, instead of tea-leaves, crumbled a mint sweet into his mug and offered a couple of caramels across the small fire, the Gunman did not take them. He only glared from under his hat brim and delivered a short, dry verdict: “Pushing your luck.” Snufkin felt a flush of shame. Yes, he remembered his brother was oddly law-abiding for a mumrik, and had once even threatened to turn him in to police without regard for kinship should he ever see the younger’s face on a wanted poster. But a natural, wild-hearted liberty demanded its outlet. “It’s not theft, not really,” he explained, not without embarrassment. “Folks leave sweets on graves not for the dead—who don’t need food anyway—but for themselves. An act of giving to show thanks, to prove the connection’s still there. It’s even better if the offering vanishes. As if it’s been accepted.” “I know,” the Gunman waved a hand. “I’d visit a yard myself when the rations come too low. But the caretakers call it theft. And sometimes they carry shotguns. It can end poorly.” “I know.” A weight lifted from Snufkin’s chest. With a clearer conscience, he sipped the sweet, fragrant water. “That’s why I go by night. Quiet as can be. In the worst case, a good, spooky howl sends them running.” The Gunman shook his head again, but this time he smirked. And he took one of the candies after all. He turned it in his fingers as if unsure what to do with it. “I have a sweet tooth,” Snufkin admitted. “Got it young. Adults were always giving candy to a poor, pitiful, homeless little mumrik. These days, of course, I don’t look the part of a ‘poor little thing’—more ‘scram, you tramp.’ So cemeteries are the only place left to get a bit of pure sugar in a relatively honest way. Well, Moominvalley’s the exception.” “Or get a bellyful of buckshot from a caretaker,” the Gunman noted in gloom. After a moment’s thought, he unwrapped the candy, tossed it into his mouth, and washed it down with plain hot water. “Cemetery keepers usually use salt,” Snufkin reassured him. “Buckshot might chip the headstones, and then the relatives would have his hide. Salt is unpleasant, but not fatal. The real danger… once, running from an angry keeper, I landed in a worse scrape…” He used his spoon to scrape the last melted candy crumbs from the bottom of his mug. Yes, he had had his fill of sweets that time, enough for a lifetime, you’d think, and should have hated all confectionery forever. But the feeling passed. He had never told this story to Moomintroll, not wanting to frighten him, and in fear that his friend might take it as a reproach. The Gunman crunched the sweet between his teeth, swallowed another mouthful of water. Then, still silent, he gave a slow nod to his brother. And Snufkin took the plunge. “Don’t know how old I was. Just a scrap, no taller than a gooseberry bush. And stupid enough to go deep in the mountains in spring, when nothing proper to eat had grown yet…”