Exit Kingdom

Abraham says. I don’t need my brain haunted like that.
    What do we do? asks the Vestal.
    Nothing
to
do, Abraham says. He ain’t gonna hurt anybody. He might thaw out come spring, but we’ll be long gone or long dead by then. Come on, let’s get back.
    Abraham turns and head back to the cabin.
    Mose? asks Amata.
    Moses has been gazing at the man beneath the ice. He wonders howmuch the dead man can see – how well those eyes still work. What must be the world to him? Shadows of light and fog, fish
nibbling at your skin, your eardrums rotted to blissed silence.
    It’s like Abraham says, Moses replies. Ain’t nothing to do.
    He rises and walks back to the cabin, and the Vestal follows soon after.
    Except much later that night, after the sun has set and they havegathered dry wood and started a fire in the fireplace, after they have settled on accommodations – Moses and his brother
on the double bed, the Vestal on the couch – after Abraham’s snoring harmonizes with the crackling of the embers in the fireplace, the sap of the tree branches popping and hissing, the
firelight casting dramatic shadows on the ceiling, after everything has settled to hauntedinaction, then Moses finds he cannot sleep.
    He rises in the dark, puts on his boots and overcoat and steals out quietly into the night.
    Twenty minutes later, he is still there at the pond, kneeling prayer-like over the ice, when the Vestal Amata finds him.
    Don’t be startled, she says and comes up from behind him. It’s just me.
    I know, he says.
    Well, I didn’t want you shootinme for a slug or anything.
    He does not respond, and she stands over him where he kneels. He sees her pull her coat tighter around her.
    It’s too cold for you out here, he says. Get on back inside.
    I been colder, she says.
    When? he asks.
    What?
    When’ve you been colder? Tell me a story.
    She must detect a hostile challenge in his voice, because she doesn’t respond. Instead,she kneels down in the snow beside him and looks at the face, barely visible in the moonlight,
staring up at them from beneath the ice.
    For a while the two say nothing. There are hoot owls in the trees, and they make a lonely sound.
    Finally, Moses speaks, but he does not look at her – nor does she look at him. Instead, they both gaze down at the bloated, cloudy face beneath the water,as though a dead man were the
only kind of true hearer of tales.
    You ain’t holy, he says.
    No, she replies quiet. I ain’t.
    Are you a whore?
    I’ve been a whore, she says without flinching. I’ve been lots of things. For a while I just wandered. When you ain’t got a destination, you find yourself going down all kinds
of different roads.
    How come you talk like you do? Differentways.
    She shrugs.
    I picked it up. I been high and I been low. You learn things when you travel around a lot.
    Me, I travelled around a lot more than you, and I ain’t learned any mannered speech.
    She shrugs again.
    I’m a people pleaser, she says. I like to fit in. It’s different when you’re a woman and you ain’t got a gun. Sometimes your only weapon is a ticklish subterfuge. You,now you’re like a grizzly walking on two feet – I guess you never had to subtle your way through anything.
    I guess not. Subtlety ain’t my strong point.
    I recognized that.
    She laughs, and Moses chuckles along with her. Then they sit in silence for a while longer. The Vestal leans back on her hands and looks up at the night-time stars. Ever since the world has gone
awry there aremany more of them, and they are brighter – like the shimmering dust left behind after some levelling destruction.
    Then Moses begins to talk again.
    So, he says slowly, if you ain’t a stranger to whoredom—
    Among other things, she reminds him.
    Right.
    I mean, I never had any whore business cards made up.
    Understood, he concedes. Among other things. If you ain’t a stranger toit, how come you were so intent on keepin me from the girls back there?
    She smiles up at the stars.
    It’s pretty out here, she says. You do find it sometimes, don’t you – even in a world of death?
    That ain’t an answer.
    The good thing about being a tricksy bitch, she says, is that you don’t have to tell all your secrets.
    True enough, Moses nods. Everyone’s entitled to their secrets,tricksy bitch or otherwise.
    She seems content not to answer for a few minutes, but the question still lingers in the air between them. After a while, she sits forward and brushes the icy dirt