Of Kin And Kindness

       "Cast off!" Moomintroll commanded with solemn ceremony, and Too-Ticky tossed him the line she had untied from the pier post. The north wind pushed against the lugsail, and the ice yacht slid smoothly and briskly away from the shore. "Be careful!" Too-Ticky called after them one last time, and Snufkin waved back at her from the bow of the so-called ice yacht. A mere formality; he was always subconsciously careful on any journey. That had never stopped him from enjoying the landscapes and the sensations. And besides, he could see no cause for concern at present. The cause for concern had come a few days earlier, when Moomintroll had dug out the disassembled ice yacht from behind the shed (Little My, from within the shed walls, had threatened to come out and bite whoever dared wake her again before March). The "yacht" was essentially a square raft made of three layers of planks mounted on four blunt, rusty blades, with rigging for a square sail. A shipping pallet on skates, really. Moomintroll had volunteered to repair it, declaring that carpentry and joinery ran in his blood. Snufkin had been a little worried about the outcome. Yes, his friend knew how to handle an axe or a hammer, but his creations had a tendency toward freeform geometry and not always the longest lifespans. Nor could Snufkin intervene, as he had already taken responsibility for the stock and equipment. He remembered all too well how Moomintroll packed for a trip: a rucksack three times larger and heavier than the troll himself, with no genuinely useful items to be found beneath piles of pleasant but hardly roadworthy little trinkets. And to leave Moomintroll with no duties at all would have felt like... a mistrust. He would have been hurt. And Snufkin was absolutely unwilling to wound his friend further, especially not emotionally. He had been struggling enough already to banish the memory of Yule night. The feeling of utter helplessness. The betrayal of his own body. He hadn't meant to... Afterwards, amid all the bustle of preparations, the fear loosened its grip a little. And yesterday, during a test run along the shore, Snufkin had even managed to forget about blood—both literal and metaphorical—for a while. First, it turned out that Too-Ticky had been helping Moomintroll with the repairs, and it showed: the "raft" now had a small raised bow, a controllable leading runner, low side rails to which luggage could be lashed. The square sail had been replaced with a lugsail as well. And the whole construction looked sturdier. Seeing Too-Ticky herself, Snufkin felt a slight tension: she had looked at him with a suspiciously knowing gaze the other day at the Yule bonfire, when he had refused to explain why he was staying for the winter. Amid the noise of the festivities, she had moved closer and said quietly, so that only he could hear: "You know, if you turn painful memories into words, it gets easier. Give it a try." He had hidden under his hat and muttered that he wasn't ready. But at the pier, she gave no reminder of that conversation. He truly wasn't ready. He hadn't even told Moomintroll everything. The poor dear had already had quite enough to process; he still suffered nightmares occasionally. Only Moominmamma had been told a little more, and even then, not about himself, but about the current regime at the former King’s Island. Just the facts, and even those in brief, general terms. After that, all attention turned to the sailing. The ice yacht differed from an ordinary sailing boat in handling, and it took time to get used to the platform's response to the steering runner's turn, to its yawing and rattling over uneven ice and snowdrifts, to the incredible speed that made the wind feel as if it were always blowing in the face. And to coordinating with Moomintroll. After experimenting with different arrangements, they decided that Moomintroll would mostly act as helmsman, standing behind the boom, managing the sail, while Snufkin, having better eyesight but worse balance on his feet for now, would be the lookout, sitting on the windward side, spotting pressure ridges or cracks, balancing the craft with his weight, and navigating. By now, the friends worked together reasonably well, and the ice yacht was flying like a swallow, the wind whistling through the rigging and tugging at the ends of their scarves—Snufkin's blue-and-white, Moomintroll's dark yellow. The wind would certainly have snatched the hat away, but the mumrik had heeded his friend's pleas and put on an old knitted cap of Moomintroll's, securing his proper hat under one of the backpack flaps. Oh, would he finally pitch his tent again this evening after… how long? Three months? Four? It felt like an entire lifetime ago. Snufkin breathed in a deep lungful of fresh air, not as damp and fragrant as summer breeze over the sea, but still... The north wind blew at their backs, the dark blue sky was beginning to brighten, and the day promised to be clear and frosty. Having left the shore behind, the travellers turned south, where a pale orange band of dawn was spreading along the horizon. The ice was smooth, and the ice yacht easily skirted the occasional snowdrifts, but sometimes Moomintroll would shout "Hold on!" and steer the yacht straight into a mound of snow. The wooden platform would leap into the air and fly for a few metres amid his delighted cries. Snufkin flinched at the first few such jumps, gripping the side rail and even unsheathed his claws, but the runners held up against the landing. Perhaps there really was nothing to worry about. After all, Moomintroll had managed a similar expedition on an ice yacht of a far less sturdy design, accompanied by his recklessly overconfident father and the at-best-useless (and at-worst-downright-harmful) Joxter—and had returned in one piece. And that time, the Moomins had set off without delay or preparation, with almost no supplies... Now there was a respectable pile of luggage on the stern. A bit too much for Snufkin's taste, even though he had been the one in charge of packing. If he were alone, he would have managed with his own backpack. But Moomintroll... He had grown his winter coat, of course, so pleasant to the touch, thick, slightly coarse, with a downy undercoat in which Snufkin liked to bury his fingers. But the moomin didn't have a mumrik's knack for trapping heat inside his own body. And he was accustomed to three hot meals a day at home. Hence the large basket of provisions, the spirit burner and fuel for both it and the kerosene lantern, just in case they couldn't find any firewood on the wild shores. Similarly, if Snufkin were alone, he wouldn't have brought a hatchet or a file for sharpening the runners; in the event of a breakdown, he would have improvised something from whatever was at hand. But he was not willing to risk his best friend's life and health. That weight of responsibility frightened the mumrik a little. What if travelling together failed to satisfy a mumrik's craving for movement? But he already knew the best way to face fear was to step towards it. Just as he had when he asked Moomintroll to come back to Moominvalley together. Or simply to stay by his side. Or to admit aloud that he was rather fond of a certain round, soft moomin. Or... No, best not to think about those soft, warm, rounded shapes with the white fur that, in the twilight before sunrise, appeared silver-blue. Snufkin shifted his gaze forward, to the sharp line between the amber sky and the grey-blue sheet of the sea, where very soon… The horizon burst into an orange spark, as if a silent, icy volcano had begun erupting in the south-east. The spark spread into a disc, too bright to look at for long. Shadows scattered in every direction from the long-awaited sun, deepening. Snufkin fetched his hat and pulled it on over the knitted cap—now there was no risk of it blowing away. From under its brim, it was easier to keep track of their course. With no white snow drifts or pressure ridges ahead, he turned all his attention to the sun, growing paler and rounder, to the sparkle of fine snow on everything around them and the dark, smooth expanse of the ice, to the vast openness, the whistle of the wind in the rigging, and the whisper of the runners. The world lay open again like an oyster with a pearl of sun at its centre. The world was beautiful again, and the anxieties ebbed. Yes, the instinct had broken free, but he just needed more practice in keeping his claws under control. That slip must’ve been due to the joint effect of bonfire glogg and home brandy. Alcohol does that kind of thing. He’d just have to refrain even from occasional social drinking. That wouldn’t be hard. A glass of beer or punch now and then were nice but not a big deal to him. And the wanderlust could be soothed with expeditions like this. After all, he had managed so far to suppress the sharp, periodic urges to smoke. He hadn't even given in the other day at the Yule bonfire, despite the suffocating aroma of pine smoke. He had simply chewed on a spruce twig, riding out the spasm in his stomach and the wave of irritability, and after a few minutes, it had passed. Just as the crushing pressure of enclosed spaces had lifted off now. "Yee-hoo!" Moomintroll steered the ice yacht straight into a small snowdrift and let out a joyful cry as their "boat" flew several paces through the air. In the frost, his own fur shimmered with specks of rime, his blue eyes sparkled with a smile, and Snufkin smiled back. Free of any mountains on the horizon, the sunny day lasted what felt like four or five hours. For lunch the boys stopped on the leeward side of a solitary rock not far from the shore. The sun shone so lovely that Snufkin risked taking out his harmonica from a felt sachet under his shirt for a brief jolly tune. Tucking into soup heated on the spirit burner, he tried to work out where this rocky islet sat on the map. The forests and beaches he remembered seeing from a boat in summer or walking through on foot looked utterly different now. Snow blurred the shoreline and the distant silhouettes of the hills. The only recognisable landmarks were lone rocks with their peculiar, windswept pines atop them. In the end, Snufkin gave up the useless exercise. His intuition and Too-Ticky's forecasts both suggested that the wind would change soon, and whatever distance they had covered by then, the journey home would be just as quick. Moomintroll was eager to press on even after sunset, by the light of the moon and the lantern lashed to the mast. Snufkin could see well enough in the dark, of course, but he still persuaded his friend to turn towards the shore in search of a snug, wind-sheltered cove with access to some grove where they could chop some firewood. Snufkin had rather hoped that Moomintroll would be worn out after a full day of tension on his feet by the boom, and would fall asleep straight after supper without any... But he was even more lively and cheerful as the mumrik. Moomintroll helped anchor the ice yacht, went foraging for wood, and might have claimed the duty of pitching the tent, but Snufkin didn’t let him; he had waited too long to do that familiar, homely work. What a pleasure it was to find a good spot, to trample shallow snow, to drive the pegs into the rock fissures with the hatchet butt, to smell the well-smoked and worn canvas from inside and arrange a sleeping place… Having finished his tea, Moomintroll shuffled sideways, closer to his companion, until their shoulders brushed. In his eyes danced little red imps from the firelight, and his paw, still in its mitten, slid towards Snufkin's waist. "Hmm?" Moomintroll asked, brushing his snout against the mumrik’s cheek. The gesture was so familiar by now that Snufkin leant in without thinking. His own hand almost twitched of its own accord to ruffle the fur on that broad white muzzle; the pads of his fingers tingled with the phantom memory of that fur's texture... And then, instantly, the other memory: a cry, a spasm in his fingers, fresh scratches blooming with blood. Snufkin froze. He didn't want to push his friend away, but fear overweighed. A single second of hesitation was all it took for his attentive, tender, wonderful Moomintroll. "That's all right," he whispered, without a trace of reproach or disappointment. "Some other time. I'll wait as long as it takes." And he wrapped his paws around Snufkin, pinning his arms to his sides so there was no need to hug back. He gave a little shake, pressed his cheek to Snufkin's shoulder, and then, in the very next moment, let go and crawled on all fours towards the tent flap. And so they slept beneath a single blanket, chaste and huddled together for warmth. Snufkin even allowed himself to lose a little heat, to warm their shared cocoon of bedding. Like any mumrik, he could sleep in a tent without a stove even in November, even on glaciers. But his body, to the touch, was at best cool, and Moomintroll would have frozen next to him. Moomins, unlike mumriks, were perfectly able to catch a chill. The next day greeted the travellers with pale, light clouds against a still-dark sky and increasingly uneven ice. Snufkin had to lurch from side to side, dodging the boom as Moomintroll carved turns around snowdrifts and ice protrusions. At one point they even stopped to watch the sunrise in peace, which was edged today with clouds trimmed in pastel hues. But the shadows racing across the ice made it harder to follow the path; they pretended to be holes or patches of open water, masking the real bumps and ridges. And then, at last, the ice yacht struck a frozen mound. For one terrible moment, Snufkin felt flying—and then his claws bit wood, and he was still aboard. Moomintroll held fast to the tiller and just laughed. Snufkin looked at his own hands; the unconsciousness of the reaction troubled him. And so did the state of the ice. He asked Moomintroll to slow down. Reefing a sail as simple as a bedsheet was impossible, so the helmsman simply turned the boat onto a broad reach. The wind, as if it had heard Snufkin's fears, began to die down, and by lunchtime it had vanished completely. "It's nothing to worry about," Moomintroll said with a dismissive wave. "It happened to Pappa and me once before. I towed the fully laden ice yacht all by myself, because Pappa had a fit of back ache and was lying flat on the platform." Well, with no wind, they could stop for lunch right there in the middle of the sea. With the warm weight of porridge and canned meat settling in his stomach, Snufkin felt his fears ease a little. The guys lay on their backs, watching the clouds. Which, come to think of it, were now drifting slowly from the south, where the cloud bank already looked solid. And dark. A storm? Or the reflection of open water in the clouds? Snufkin scrambled to his feet at once and asked Moomintroll to give him a boost. Bracing himself against the mast, he stood on his friend's shoulders at full height and peered anxiously towards the southern horizon. It looked like a snowstorm, after all. All right, then where was the nearest shore? To the south, too. Must be some really long cape. "What do we need to hide for?" Moomintroll blinked. "Can't we just wait here and then fly back on the wings of the storm?" He suddenly caught himself, slapping a mittened paw against his forehead. "Or did you want a longer trip? Of course then, we'll spend the night by the shore, and tomorrow we'll turn back, just as we planned." Snufkin sighed, but decided to clear things up as he pulled coils of rope from his backpack. "First, we’re not spending the night but waiting out the weather. For as long as it takes, be it one hour or two days. And not because I want to stretch my legs, but because travelling in a blizzard is too dangerous. We could capsize, lose our bearings, crash into a pressure ridge or a cliff. No, since you're not hibernating because of me, the least I can do is make sure nothing else happens to you." "Oh, quit that," Moomintroll sniffed, though he dutifully tied one end of the rope around himself while Snufkin fastened the other to the ice yacht. Then the fuzzy nose nuzzled against his cheek. "Nothing's going to happen… Hey, what are you doing?" he protested, noticing that Snufkin was tying the second rope around his own waist. "Stay on the deck, I can manage on my own." "No, we need to hurry! Don't worry, I'm not tired." In the end, though, the mumrik wasn't much use. Pushing off with his bad leg was awkward—though the poor ice helped, and a cane was some assistance. But the ice yacht kept snagging on every bump and ridge. At least Snufkin's weight was off it. So he concentrated on their whereabouts. The first flakes were already dancing in the air when there was barely half a mile left to the rocky headland. Despite the rapidly thickening twilight, Snufkin managed to make out something noteworthy. "There's a house on the hill!" he called out to encourage Moomintroll, who had squeezed his eyes shut and was hauling the boat with all his might, following the voice of the mumrik navigator walking just a few paces ahead. "Though it looks suspiciously dark." Straining their eyes and their strength, they dragged the yacht up to the rocks as the blizzard grew fierce. Together they found a stone to serve as an anchor. Together they unstepped the mast just in case and lashed it to the deck. Together they hauled the backpack with the tent and an armload of provisions for dinner and breakfast up the low hill—no point dragging the whole basket up the slippery slope. Together they pitched the tent, because calling that ramshackle wooden structure a house was being generous. Four crooked, draughty walls reaching barely to one floor height, a sloping, uneven floor, a couple of beams in place of a roof. Still, it offered some shelter from the wind. Compared to the previous day, the wind was almost warm, but also very damp. Snufkin usually loved that sort of wind and would drink it down in greedy gulps—but not when wet snow was lashing his face. And because of the damp, Moomintroll was even chillier than he had been under the dry, icy wind. Snufkin watched with a mix of sorrow and pity as his friend shivered but didn’t complain, and even tried to joke through the chattering of teeth. "What a weird box of a house," Moomintroll grumbled, stomping on the floorboards to test their sturdiness. Whenever a board gave way beneath his feet, he pried it loose to prop up the walls or patch the worst of the gaping cracks. "What sort of creature built this place? Where did its paws grow from? And where on earth were its eyes?" Laughter warmed bot the body and soul, and soon the pair were gleefully inventing a suitably bizarre beast to match the tumbledown hut, interrupting each other and giggling at their own nonsense. Snufkin recalled a rather riveting tale about a house without a single straight corner, but thought better of telling it. It was a horror story, and the last thing he needed was to make Moomintroll, too sensitive to creepy tales, feel even colder than he already was. A fair stretch of bare stone had been uncovered on the floor—beautiful stone, like agate or jasper (the hapless architect hadn’t thought to lay any foundation). The travellers built a small fire from the broken boards to save the fuel in their spirit burner for warming the tent. First they spent five minutes thawing their paws and noses, then drank a mug of plain boiled water each before setting about cooking ravioli. As for hanging up their snow-damp scarves, hats and mittens, that had to be done in the cramped confines of the tent, with great care not to knock over the spirit burner. Gradually, the air inside the tent warmed to something bearable, and Snufkin was finally able to stretch out his throbbing right leg on the blanket. Moomintroll immediately settled beside him to massage his shin, just as Moominmamma had taught him. Snufkin soon grew drowsy, and it was only by an effort of will that he roused himself to turn off the spirit burner and tug his friend under the shared blanket. He thought Moomintroll wished—and maybe even kissed—him goodnight, but by then, he was already fast asleep. *** Sleep shattered on a sudden spike of panic. Beside him, Moomintroll was whimpering in his sleep, eyes still shut. Then the whole house, or what remained of it, shuddered and began to sway. Snufkin sprang up, throwing himself over Moomintroll to shield him, to wake him, though he didn't yet understand what was happening. Every instinct screamed at him to get outside, under the open sky where nothing could fall on his head, but he couldn't abandon his friend. "Moomin! Wake up!" An earthquake? But the nearest unstable ground was far in the opposite direction from Moominvalley. A storm? But the wind wasn't howling outside, only the desperate groaning of the boards and the pounding of his own heart in his ears, together with a strange grating sound from below. At last Moomintroll stirred, mumbling, asking what was wrong—and then came another jolt. Snufkin grabbed his paw and was already fumbling with the tent fastenings. The shaking and rocking continued, but it didn't feel as violent as it had in his first groggy moments of wakefulness. He could stand. And the beams weren't falling. Moonlight filtered through thin, fast-moving clouds, and Snufkin could clearly see the moon shifting relative to the walls, as if the house itself had turned half a point. Moomintroll clutched his arm. "What's happening?" Without waiting to answer, Snufkin pulled him onward, out of the ruined house. He stumbled at once—not much snow had drifted inside overnight, but just enough to hide the holes they had torn in the floor. Somehow the two travellers tumbled out onto the open hilltop. Outside, the wind was still strong, dense, but not storm-force. And it was warmer and damper than the day before, almost like spring. Snow squelched wetly under the boots and paws and slid down the hillside with every new lurch. The rocky outcrops that yesterday, before the storm, had been barely visible twenty or thirty paces to the south-east of the ruins, were now much further away in some indeterminate direction. Snufkin's heart seized. He scanned the slope below for the ice yacht, but could make out only a churned slush of snow, through which water glinted here and there. Then he looked further out, towards the slowly retreating rocks, and— On the broken, snow-covered ice he saw a dark, shattered rectangle. The ice yacht looked as if it had been dropped from a great height—or as if a boulder had been dropped onto it. If they rushed down the slope right now, leaving all their belongings in the ruins of the house... No. Nothing good would come of that. On his own, Snufkin might have managed. But not with Moomintroll. Without the tent and the warmth of the spirit burner, the two of them together wouldn't stand a chance. "What's there? Can you see anything?" Moomintroll shouted, pointing down the hill. Snufkin stared but couldn't make sense of what he was seeing. It looked as though a great flat stone, tethered somehow to the hill, was ploughing through the snow and ice, shoving the hill away from the rocks. "Pack up the tent! Quickly!" Snufkin shouted to his friend, pulling his hand free from Moomintroll's grip to dash around the house frame and assess what lay ahead. He had to understand why this chunk of land was moving. And when it would stop. In front... two more flat stones, three times larger than the first, were grinding their way forward, smashing the ice. They seemed to be dragging the hill along behind them, though the awful grating sound had stopped. And between those 'stones' he could make out another boulder, rather cylindrical or oblong. And when it tilted slightly, a great eye gleamed on its flank. Snufkin bolted back inside to help gather their things, because this movement was not going to stop. Moomintroll was still fumbling with the tent when the mumrik came racing back, pointing at the brown, beautifully striped stone now exposed where their campfire had been. "That's not a rock or hill," Snufkin declared, already stuffing the spirit burner and tins of food into his backpack, quickly but carefully. There was no time to fold the tent neatly; he’d have to carry it bundled in his arms. "It's a giant turtle! It went to hibernate, and then came the thaw, the south wind, and we lit a fire right on top of it. So it's woken up and is heading south, smashing the ice as it goes!" trying to sound calm and assured, he pulled a length of rope from the backpack, tying one end around his own waist and the other around Moomintroll's. "We jump as far as we can onto solid ice, to the side. Get back to the headland. Fix the broken yacht—the turtle crawled right over it—and... we'll work the rest out." "A turtle?!" Moomintroll gasped, utterly astonished. But he snatched the backpack from his friend anyway. "I'm carrying this. You just get to carry yourself." Ah, right. Snufkin had no thought to spare for old injuries now. He grabbed his cane and the tent and pulled his friend after him, out of the ruin and down the slippery slope of the shell. He paused for a heartbeat to get his bearings. Blast it. The turtle's front flippers were far too long and crashed a wide stripe of ice. There was no way to jump from the side onto untouched ice, not for a mumrik with a bad shin. And— Moomintroll, who in the dim moonlight couldn't tell one kind of ice from another, was already poising for a takeoff run. Snufkin yanked him back by the rope. He stared harder at the ice around and muttered a curse under his breath that Moominmamma would not have approved of. The ice beyond the reach of those flippers only looked solid. But a mumrik's eyes could catch the subtle heave of that uneven white field, stirred by the waves the creature was pushing ahead of itself. It was a thick porridge of broken floes and slush. They couldn't walk on it. They couldn't swim or sail through it. This was the transition zone, where the warm current from the south bent away from the shore into the open sea, warming the archipelagos to the north-west. Snufkin rattled off this icy geography as fast as he could to Moomintroll, already backing up towards the top of the turtle's shell. What could they do? The shore was too far behind them now. There was no reaching it across the shallows through that shattered ice. Make a raft from the house walls? They would never push it through that slushy mess. And all the while, the turtle was straining southwards with everything it had, desperate for warmer water. "Maybe we stay here, then?" Moomintroll shouted over the grinding noise of ice and slush battering the shell and the creature's armoured head. "We wait until it reaches open water, and in the meantime we build a raft from what's left of the house!" A perfectly sensible plan. Except— "What if it gets tired of smashing through ice and just... dives?" As if the turtle had heard Snufkin's suggestion, the white surface ahead suddenly seemed to rise—no, the hill of the shell was sinking. "A raft from the boards—quickly!" Snufkin commanded, already spinning towards the house. But at the same moment, Moomintroll grabbed the hem of his coat and shouted something completely different: "Play your harmonica! Maybe the beast will… I'll handle the raft!" Play? The idea seemed absurd. But then again, the raft plan wasn't much better when you thought about it. Snufkin reached inside his smock. At least there was one benefit to this sudden spell of warm weather—the brass reeds of his harmonica wouldn't freeze and snap. But what to play? What could possibly make a turtle linger on the surface? A giant sea turtle, one that surely loved warmth and sunshine and sandy beaches… Snufkin took a deep breath for volume and launched a fitting tune. A lazy, lolloping little song about a turtle and a lion cub cut clean through the rasp of ice scraping past the reptile's bulk and the crack and groan of boards under Moomintroll's hatchet. Without stopping his playing, Snufkin walked towards the front of the turtle to gauge the effect. The ice was no longer drawing closer to the house. Quite the opposite, in fact. Then, from out of the slushy porridge, the great boulder of the turtle's head emerged, turning this way and that as if listening. The creature's advance slowed. No. That wouldn't do. Snufkin changed key to something livelier, a marching tune, calling onwards. After five minutes or so, the message seemed to reach the turtle, and it resumed its former speed. All he could do now was keep playing until… Behind him, the remaining walls collapsed with a thunderous crash, folding in on themselves like a house of cards. Snufkin spun round in horror and tugged at the rope on his waist, forgetting that Moomintroll had untied his end when dashing for the house. But before he could shout the dear name he heard Moomintroll's voice, cursing turtles and hattifatteners and grokes in every inventive way imaginable. A moment later, a couple of planks lifted, and the hapless carpenter crawled out, looking rumpled but otherwise whole. Snufkin immediately resumed playing. "I built the raft," Moomintroll reported, puffing and looking around. "Only now we have to dig it out from under all this rubble." He eyed Snufkin. "You seem to be getting on all right, too." Snufkin nodded, just to calm him. He didn't feel optimistic himself. How many hours would he have to play this harmonica before they got a chance to reach dry land? And would Moomintroll's handiwork even float? The strange thing was, when he was travelling alone and found himself at the mercy of nature, he felt nothing but a fierce, bright thrill. But now, with another life at stake, a life he held terribly dear, all that remained was worry, pressing down on him until it threatened to tip over into genuine, paralysing fear. When the sky began to lighten before sunrise, Snufkin was already growing tired, his head nodding despite himself. He had never played harmonica for so long, his lips were raw, and arms heavier with each hour. Or minute? He lost the track of time. At least Moomintroll had managed to clear some ruins above the raft, scrape the remaining snow into a small pile (a reserve of fresh water!), and then fallen asleep, curled into a tight ball. But most importantly, the dark patches of thin ice were gradually giving way to black gaps of open water. The unfrozen patches widened, merged into one another, and now white islands of ice appeared only here and there amid the restless dark waters. Or rather, they rushed towards the turtle and fell away behind with growing speed. The creature was swimming faster, and the crack of breaking ice had given way to the rhythmic slap of waves against its shell. Snufkin risked letting his melody fade into a gentle close. He dropped the harmonica from the cramping fingers and peered at the water's edge. No. No sign of the turtle diving. He let out a long breath and looked around. The horizon was clear in every direction, the scattered ice floes too small to count. Not once did his sharp mumrik eyes catch the dark smudge of land. Well now, he smiled bitterly to himself. Open space, no walls, no roof. Everything he claimed to love. The crisis was past, the wind was rich and full. And yet a worm of worry had eaten away all the joy. How was he going to get his friend home safe and sound? As if hearing his thoughts, Moomintroll stirred beneath the blanket, yawned, stretched. He sat up at once, pulling the blanket tighter around himself, and looked around. "Good morning!" he announced, as cheerfully as if it were any ordinary day—and then immediately sneezed. That was all they needed, a cold! "Well then! I'd say it's time to launch Adventure Three!" Snufkin shook his head. Adventure Three (following the sailing boat and the ice yacht) was touching, really. But he would have to temper his friend's enthusiasm. "Not yet. First, we need to inspect the raft's construction. In the dark and the rush, you might have missed something. Second, we have no sail, no mast. And on oars—which we would have to make first—a raft would be far too slow to reach land before running out of food. Remember, most of our food supplies went down with the ice yacht. And fishing in the open sea is a lottery." He paused, measuring his next words. "So we stay on the turtle. We keep going until land appears on the horizon." And at the turtle's current speed and the ice yacht speed before, he realised with a sinking feeling, that land would likely be far to the south. Weeks of travelling to get home. Without landmarks or stars, he couldn't even begin to guess their exact position. "And while we still have snow that hasn't melted, and spare boards and kindling, I suggest we make some hot tea." Moomintroll nodded vigorously. He still seemed to be treating all of this as a grand adventure, and that made Snufkin feel distinctly unwell. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "It's because of me that you're sitting on a bare turtle shell in the middle of a cold sea with almost nothing to eat. If I could just handle the winter better…" "Oh no, it's not your fault at all!" Moomintroll protested at once. A moment later his arms were around Snufkin, hugging tight. "Nothing terrible has happened. And with your experience and your knowledge nothing will happen. We'll get home, and in the spring we'll tell Mamma and Pappa all about our amazing southern adventures!" He giggled then, the fur on his face tickling Snufkin's cheek. "Actually, do you remember how we were wondering what sort of idiot built that crooked, ramshackle house? Well, guess what? That lunatic was me! The moment you said 'turtle', it all came back. I built that house for Ms Mymble, to get her and her dreadful brood of children out of my room!" Then, with great gusto and much humour, he launched into the tale of his first encounter with the elder Mymble, Snufkin’s mother, and Little My, all while the two of them worked at clearing the ruins, properly packing the tent, and finishing the raft. Snufkin insisted on adding two more layers of planks, sandwiching the whole thing together with the few surviving nails and their last length of rope. And he did snicker more than once at the story. The image of the house rising and crawling forth into the sea was too hilarious. Afterwards, they ate half of their meagre rations of pasta and dried tomatoes. The warm, heavy feeling in his stomach, combined with a full sleepless night, finally caught up with Snufkin. He could feel himself drifting off no matter how hard he fought it. He instructed Moomintroll to keep watch: watch the turtle in case it tried to dive, and watch the horizon. Then he slumped against the backpack and was asleep in an instant. *** Moomintroll woke him close to sunset. The sun was descending behind ragged clouds, painting their edges in a pale, cold yellow. And at eleven o'clock relative to the turtle's heading, a dark shape resolved itself into a small island with rounded groves of leafy trees and the sharp spires of cypresses. Beyond the trees, Snufkin could just make out a house with a light burning in one window, and at the shore, a pier. He sprang to his feet at once and declared battle stations. There was little left to do, really. Just roll up the blanket and wait for the land to draw closer, to nine o'clock. At his signal, the travellers pushed the raft down towards the turtle’s tail, where the shell sloped more gently. Even so, the raft dug its side into the water, and the first wave washed clean over it. At least nothing was swept away. Moomintroll and Snufkin grabbed the oars roughly hewn with the hatchet out of planks, and rowed, and rowed, and rowed into the deepening twilight. Their vessel had no streamlining or sideboards whatsoever; the larger waves rolled straight across its surface, and both travellers were soon soaked to the knee. Moomintroll began sneezing again. Still, the island drew nearer. The sound of waves breaking against the coastal rocks grew louder. At last, the raft bumped against the wooden pillars of the pier. The boys hauled their sodden belongings onto the planks of the jetty. To clamber up themselves from the unstable raft, they had to paddle over to a small sailing boat moored there, hook its anchor onto the raft, and climb up using the boat as a step. Now Snufkin had to warm and dry Moomintroll, and quickly. But he had not taken two steps towards the shore and the house when he saw something that made his claws extend of their own accord, and a hot, snarling fury vibrated in his throat. Nailed to the pier, in plain view, was a sloppily painted wooden sign. It read, PRIVATE PROPERTY. UNAUTHORISED LANDING AND MOORING PROHIBITED. The sign was low, crooked, fixed to a flimsy picket. One good kick would surely snap it off. Let it bob in the waves while the salt of the free, indifferent sea that cared nothing for such silly restrictions ate away at those stupid letters… Wait ‘til the next ‘No Trespassing’ sign,the lazy, arrogant voice of Joxter rose from somewhere deep in his memory, and see how your ancestry decides for you.