They went inside, and Solveig made rømmegrøt. The porridge was a summertime treat. While she stirred barley flour into sour cream, Amalie settled at the table with a Hardangersaum project. Solveig had no patience for the painstaking work, but Amalie had become well known for her delicate cutwork embroidery.
“How do you feel about working at the hotel?” Solveig asked. “You remember the story about Gjertrud …”
“Of course.” Amalie waved her hand. “Don’t worry. I don’t plan to let any city man have his way with me.”
Solveig was ten years older than Amalie, and at moments like this, felt even older. “It isn’t always easy to say no.”
“I’ll be fine,” Amalie assured her. “There is nothing to worry about.”
Solveig nibbled her lower lip uncertainly. “Just take care of yourself, Amalie. Please.” And she had to leave it at that.
An hour later Amalie disappeared back down the trail. Solveig leaned against the doorframe. The goats and cows were grazing nearby. A willow warbler sang its descending whistle. In truth, she thought, I like being alone. Up here, she was free. Solitude gave her the freedom to revisit her little leather book. She’d kept her writing tight and small, but the book was almost full. Here at the seter she often flipped through the pages, re-reading tales that linked her to ancestors she’d never met. Sometimes they helped her understand things about herself that defied explanation.
Best of all, at the seter she was free to play the fiddle.
The old butter churn had kept it secrets for years now. When Father climbed to the seter to mend a sagging fence or to fetch cheese and butter, he never entered the women’s workspace. Which was good, Solveig thought now, for Father must never know about the notebook, or the leather pouch holding the coins she’d set aside over the years, or the hardingfele.
Once the animals were penned that evening, Solveig tucked the fiddle case under her arm and walked to the waterfall. She settled on a rock ledge close to the pool where the plunging water collected itself before coursing on down the mountain. It was her favorite place to play.
Not that “play” is a fair word, she thought. She’d done what she could for the neglected instrument—polishing the wood with beeswax, filling the cracks with resin, gently removing clots of dried-out hide glue and adding fresh. Replacing the strings had been a taller task. She sliced pieces of a butchered sheep’s intestine and experimented with stretching, drying, and twining the threads. It took several more butcherings, several more years of solitary work, to produce workable strings. She’d taught herself to play, after a fashion. Between her ignorance and the fiddle’s defects, the results were nothing to be proud of. But she’d never given up.
That evening she played for an hour or more, trying to find a tune reflecting the rhythms of buttermaking that she’d been composing in her head. When darkness finally fell, she returned the fiddle to its case and stepped to the edge of the pool. “Thank you,” she murmured, as she always did—just in case a fossegrim was hiding beneath the torrent. The water spirit was said to be an exceptional hardingfele player, willing to teach his skill in exchange for some smoked mutton or beef tossed into the falling water. If the offering was satisfactory, the fossegrim would impart an inhuman talent to the pupil.
Solveig had never tried to summon a fossegrim. The very notion evoked her father’s thundering voice: Heresy! Evil! But someday I might, she thought defiantly. As she walked back to the cabin the sound of rushing water faded behind her.
She was almost to the door when she heard a hardingfele.
The back of her neck prickled. She froze, holding her breath, straining to hear. She didn’t recognize the melody. The rippling tune displayed a skill far beyond hers. Far beyond any music she’d ever heard.
Solveig slowly turned. Was the fiddler hidden among the shadows on the rocky slope above the seter? In the woods? Or … did the music emanate from the waterfall? Part of her wanted to run to the cabin and bolt the door. But the greater part couldn’t bear to leave the music behind.
Finally the tune ended, leaving only the breeze sighing through the trees. Perhaps it’s natt frieri, she thought. Night courting. But … night courting usually took place in late fall or winter, when farmworkers had more time. And she didn’t know anyone who might be inclined to climb up here at this hour.
“Hello?” Her voice sounded harsh in the sudden stillness. No one answered.
I’m not ready to leave the seter, Solveig thought three weeks later, even though summer was coming to an end at the high farm. Moss flowing over rocky ledges was already mottled red and orange. Chanterelles clustered yellow beneath the conifers, and she’d spotted patches of gold emerging among the birch groves at lower elevations.
She’d wandered into the woods that morning, looking for leaves and slender twigs and nuts to save for winter fodder. But clouds hid the mountain peaks this drizzly morning, and a damp chill was creeping through her wool cloak. If she didn’t head back to the cabin, she’d soon be wet through.
After checking the animals she paused, head cocked, but heard nothing. Perhaps tonight, she thought hopefully. She’d stopped feeling spooked about the intermittent and mysterious evening serenades. Whoever was playing the hardingfele was so skilled that—
“Solveig!”
Whirling, she saw her father, Svein, marching toward the cabin from the lower trail. Even worse, Gustav was with him.
She struggled to compose herself as the men approached. “I didn’t expect visitors today,” she said.
“I’m ready to rig up the hay wire.” Svein’s eyes were narrow, inscrutable. “Gustav offered to help.”
Solveig suspected that something other than kindness had motivated this trip. “You’ve both had a climb. I’ll get you something to eat.” She laid out flatbread and butter, cheese and sour milk, and oatmeal mush served with lingonberry jam.
Svein peppered Solveig with questions over the meal: Are the animals fit? Is milk production starting to slack? How many tubs of butter are set aside? Is the coffee gone? Solveig answered calmly, but couldn’t stop thinking about the old churn in the corner. What would Father do if he knew she’d taught herself to play the devil’s instrument? She kept her left hand curled in her lap, afraid he’d notice the tiny calluses marking each fingertip.
Gustav didn’t speak until she started clearing the table. “That was good.” He looked as if he wanted to say more, but he did not. His face seemed thinner than she remembered, his eyes more hooded.
He’s lonely, Solveig realized—reluctantly, because she didn’t want to understand that about him. Perhaps he’d truly cared for his young wife, and deeply grieved her death. Perhaps he was eager to marry again because he couldn’t face the coming winter alone. She felt sorry for him.
Still, that didn’t mean she wanted to marry him. “I’ll send some jam with you,” she promised. A bachelor fisherman was unlikely to have much fruit put by.
Solveig scoured and scalded her wooden buckets in the cleansing sunshine while her father and Gustav worked on the hay wire. Svein had been working for years on his rig, hauling heavy coils of wire to precarious ledges, building the wooden framework. The stout cable ran from their main farm up to the seter. Instead of sledding hay down in the winter, he’d now attach bundles of hay to the wire with long, supple osier branches. Once released, the bundle would whip down the mountain with terrifying speed—allowing Svein to fill the barn before snow fell.
By mid-afternoon, Father announced the task complete. “We’ll try it out another day,” he said. Then he looked at Gustav. “I’ll wait at woods’ edge.” Father slung the sack of foraged fodder over one shoulder, nodded at his daughter, and walked away.
This was the moment Solveig had been dreading.
In the awkward silence Gustav shifted his weight from foot to foot. “My wife died in childbirth last month.”
“I was very s
orry to hear that.”
“A man needs a wife,” he said simply. “You have not yet married, even after all these years. And your father wants to see you wed.”
She didn’t need the reminder. If she told Gustav she didn’t want to marry him, would Father beat her again? I won’t be caught by surprise this time, she vowed silently, clenching her fists in her apron. I will not …
Gustav turned and walked away.
Solveig watched uneasily as he joined her father. Even across the meadow Father’s gaze sent a chip of ice down her backbone. Then he turned and the two men disappeared down the trail.
Her shoulders sagged. She’d been unable to make her feelings clear to Gustav. How had he interpreted her silence? With a heavy sigh, she went back inside.
That evening Solveig paced the room, arms crossed. Finally she brought out her leather pouch and counted the kroner. She loved the seter, and she’d been reluctant to leave her mother and Amalie, but perhaps it was time to leave Høiegård altogether. She had enough money to travel to Bergen. Finding work as a maid or cook’s helper wasn’t appealing, but being on her own was. And in the city she could attend dances and concerts.
Once darkness fell over the mountain, she walked to the waterfall with a lantern and wooden club. The fine rain had ceased. She listened hopefully, but heard only the sound of falling water and a distant owl’s call.
Since springtime, when snowmelt roared over the rocks, the river’s flow had gradually slackened. Earlier that week she’d repaired the small dam built from stones below the fall every autumn. Now she put the lantern on a rock at the pool’s edge, hoping the light would lure a trout or perch to the shallows. Kneeling, she picked up her club. She’d never perfected the skill of snatching fish with her bare hands.
Against the steady rush of water the plaintive chords of a hardingfele slipped through the night. Solveig forgot about fish. The fiddler must be quite close.
She put the club down as the melody strings and drones became more clear. Tonight’s tune felt sad. Was the fiddler lamenting summer’s end as she was? She got to her feet slowly. Turning, she stared into the darkness. Her heart beat too quickly.
The fiddler stepped from the trees, stopping just short of the lantern. Solveig held her breath. After the last quivering chord died away, he lowered the bow. In the dim light the stranger appeared to have dark hair, a narrow build. He was about her age, or perhaps a few years older. Finally she licked her lips and said, “Who are you?”
Twenty-Six
The silence in the tunnel was overwhelming. Finally, as if from a great distance, Roelke became aware of a metallic ticking as the engine cooled. He still gripped the Volvo’s steering wheel. Blinking, he tried to make sense of the insensible. Quite unexpectedly, he was alive. He summoned every ounce of courage before slowly turning to his fiancée. “Chloe?”
“I … yeah.” She stared forward. Her chest was heaving as if she’d just run up the mountain.
“Are you okay?”
“I think so.” Her voice was shuddery. “Banged up, but—yeah.”
Thank you, God, Roelke thought.
“But—you’re bleeding.” She touched her temple to indicate the spot.
He brushed his forehead. Sticky. “I don’t think it’s serious. Head wounds bleed a lot.” He closed his eyes.
“What do we do now?”
Roelke opened his eyes again. Stay in control, he ordered himself. Do not give in to shock. He started with a preliminary assessment of the car. The left door was crumpled. The window had shattered. His lap was full of shards of glass. The Volvo’s headlights, still on high, glared against the rock wall. He managed to loosen one hand and turn them down. It seemed important.
He looked at Chloe. “You’re sure you’re okay?” She nodded. “Then I need you to get out of the car.”
Her eyes seemed enormous in the dim light. “What about you?”
“You first. I’m guessing the workers who built this tunnel had an emergency telephone installed in at least one of the pullouts. See if you can spot one.” There was more to think about—emergency flashers, the first-aid kit in the trunk. But calling for help—the cops, an ambulance—came first.
It seemed to take a long time, but Chloe managed to unlock her seat belt and climb from the car. “Be right back.”
Chloe’s okay, he told himself over and over. Chloe, is, okay. Nothing else mattered.
After a few minutes he heard her voice. He couldn’t make out the words, and decided she wasn’t talking to him. Hopeful sign.
She’d left the passenger door open. When she got back the first-aid kit was in her hands. She knelt on the seat to face him. “I found a phone,” she reported. “Help is on the way.”
Hours later, after full examinations and multiple X-rays at a hospital in Odda, doctors agreed that Roelke and Chloe could leave. That was good, because he was in no mood to linger. Blossoming bruises gave evidence of the battering Chloe had taken. He’d needed three stitches on his left temple, and he had a mild concussion. But a scan didn’t show any signs of serious swelling, and he knew things could have been much, much worse.
When they finally got back to the Utne Hotel that night, they dragged themselves up two flights of stairs. “I think we’re eating bread and water for the rest of the trip,” Roelke said. The fare for the cab ride from the hospital in Odda had almost sent him back into a medical state of shock.
“My dad will wire us money if we need it.” Chloe was looking around the room as if she’d never been there before.
“Let’s just go to bed,” Roelke said. “Things will look better in the morning.” He didn’t really think so, but it seemed like a reasonable thing to say.
Once in bed, Chloe rolled close. He gingerly pulled her into his arms. “All that matters to me is that you’re safe,” he murmured into her hair.
“And you.” She shivered. “I was so scared.”
“You did good, though. It all happened so fast … I couldn’t talk and think at the same time.”
“Once I figured that out, I just wanted to be helpful. All I came up with was sliding my water bottle behind my back so it wouldn’t fly around when we crashed.”
I will never think of this woman as impractical again, Roelke vowed.
“Why did you tell me not to brace myself?”
“It goes against instinct, but bracing makes it more likely that bones will break in a crash.”
She nuzzled closer, settling her face against his shoulder. “Roelke, what happened?”
There was nothing to be gained by evasion. “One of the cops told me they found hydraulic fluid in the tunnel, above the point where we crashed. I’m hoping that some mechanical issue caused that problem, but … it’s also possible that someone tampered with the brakes.”
She went very still.
“The car is totaled,” he added, just in case she hadn’t figured that out. “We’ll have to deal with the rental agency in the morning.”
Chloe was quiet for so long that he thought she’d fallen asleep. Finally she said, “I give up.”
“What?”
She pulled away and sat up. Her long blond hair was loose and she looked extraordinarily beautiful in the moonlight. “I said, I give up. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ve had it.”
Roelke sat up too. In the ambulance, through all the waiting and exams and scans and more waiting at the hospital, he’d had plenty of time to think. If the brake line had been deliberately compromised, it seemed likely that the sabotage and the theft of Chloe’s heirlooms were related.
“Someone stole my precious family textiles. Now someone might have tried to kill us.” Chloe rubbed her palms over her face. “I can’t imagine who, or why. But at this point, I don’t even want to find out who my mom’s people were anymore. It’s led to nothing but trouble. I’ve never been so terrified as I was
in that tunnel.”
Roelke had no idea what to say.
“You were amazing. If I’d been at the wheel, I’m sure we’d both be dead.” Her voice trembled. “It’s not worth it, Roelke. Whatever is going on, it’s not worth it. I quit. I want to go home.”
Hearing Chloe say “I quit” was a shock. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Trying to talk her out of her feelings never worked. Besides, he understood her feelings. In the end he just hugged her again.
After they settled back down, Chloe’s breathing eased into sleep’s quiet rhythm. Roelke lay staring at the ceiling, reliving what had happened in the tunnel, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Someone had tried to grab Chloe’s daypack in the Bergen Airport the day they arrived. Someone had managed to break into the hotel safe and steal Chloe’s textiles. If the trouble had started because someone was after those embroidery pieces, it should have ended with the theft. Instead, someone had tried, he believed, to cause a car wreck in a manner that should have been fatal. Did that mean that some SOB wanted to harm Chloe? Or were there two people trying to get their hands on the textiles, and SOB #2 didn’t realize that SOB #1 had already snatched them?
Either way, the fact that Chloe had survived the crash meant that the person responsible was probably getting desperate. Desperation might make that person careless, easier to catch. But desperation might also make that person even more dangerous. If Chloe wants to go back to Wisconsin, Roelke thought, that’s probably for the best.
As for him, well … he did not want to leave Norway. Maybe he could put Chloe on a plane, but stay behind. He was way too angry to fly back home.
The next morning, Chloe woke with a groan. Everything hurt. Worst was her right forearm, which was green and purple from wrist to elbow. Right before impact she’d cradled her head in her arms. After the car hit the stone wall she’d slammed back against the side window. It could have been worse, she reminded herself as she staggered to her feet. It was nothing short of a miracle that Roelke had managed to stop the car.
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