by Cate Martin
"Okay. Why not?"
"I know she saw Solvi," I said, opening my eyes to look at him. "But I know when she saw him. It was just after I left."
"That was early in the evening," Thorbjorn said.
"Yes, but late enough for someone to get off the ship, meet Garrett by the bridge and kill him, then go back to the meeting hall to be seen by enough witnesses," I said.
"You saw him arrive?"
"I saw him go in through the front door, the Runde side of the building, just as I was leaving," I said. "I actually ran into him. I was so tired at the time I sort of forgot it, but I'm sure it was him now."
"He could've stepped outside for all sorts of reasons," Thorbjorn said.
"Do you remember seeing him before that? At any point after we left the ship?" I asked.
"No, but I was, as you said, distracted," he admitted.
"We both saw Roarr," I said. "Solvi wasn't with him when we were talking about Roarr."
"That's true," he said. "It's so little to accuse someone on."
"I'm not saying we arrest him," I said. "I'm just saying, we need to talk to him again."
"Then we shall," he said, pushing himself up onto his feet. "I'll seal the door and then we'll go. But Ingrid, you do realize it's nearly dark?"
"I'll be fine," I promised. As unsettling as the path through the woods to Solvi's house had been in daylight, it was bound to be downright unnerving after sunset. But it had to be done.
And I would have Thorbjorn with me.
Chapter 21
I left the little troll behind in the fire cave, but I took my sketchbook with me. If drawing really was necessary for me to access my magic, I was going to have to acquire some pocket-sized journals for on the go. But the messenger bag wasn't so heavy as all that. Especially compared to all the weapons Thorbjorn was carrying on his belt and strapped to his back.
"Here," Thorbjorn said, adjusting the strap on my bag so that it rested against my back rather than on my hip, leaving my hands free. Then he took my walking stick from me and leaned it against the wall beside the troll and thrust something else into my hands.
"Thorbjorn? I don't know how to use this," I said, looking at the short spear I was suddenly holding. It reminded me far too much of the fishing spear that had been plunged into Garrett's back. And the image of how he must've died, held down under the water until the thrashing stopped, turned my stomach.
There was no way I could ever do that.
"It's self-explanatory," Thorbjorn told me. "And it's just in case. If trouble jumps out at us, your first action should be to get behind me. And if things take a turn for the worst, run."
"Run away and leave you?" I asked.
"Run away and return with help," he said. "But don't worry. I'm sure it will be fine."
"It's the full moon," I said.
"The extra light will come in handy."
"It's overcast."
"If you want to speak with Solvi, we must go where Solvi is," he said.
"Sure, but can't we bring your brothers?" I asked.
He looked appalled. "Summon all my brothers to escort us on a walk into the woods? And not even very deep into the woods? Just a little stroll outside of the village boundaries? I would never hear the end of it."
"All right," I conceded. "You know the level of danger better than I do. I yield to your experience."
"I'm not going to let anything bad happen to you, Ingrid," he promised.
We trekked through the town and past Thorbjorn's house, cresting the last hill before plunging down into the woods. The sun had only just set, and it wasn't so dark as I had expected under the trees. Still, the quality of all sound being swallowed unheard persisted. I wasn't sure if I wanted to make more noise or less. Did I feel safer when I crept along quietly, or when I made a racket to announce my approach?
It didn't seem to make any difference to the forest. And I didn't think any sound I made carried past more than a tree or two.
We reached Solvi's hut far sooner than I was expecting it. As we emerged from the trees, the clouds parted to let the full moon rising over the hill behind us shine down into the clearing. The scattering of statues had an eerie quality in the gloaming that became downright sinister when lit by the brightness of the moon. Its silvery light lit up one side of everything nearly as bright as day, but thrust the other side into even deeper shadow.
"It doesn't look like anyone's home," I whispered to Thorbjorn as we approached the green door. The windows to either side were dark, and there was no smell of smoke from the chimney or sound of anyone moving about within. Still, Thorbjorn knocked loudly and called out Solvi's name.
"This is my fault," I said.
"What do you mean?"
"He's probably back at the mead hall with my grandmother and everyone else," I said. "I could've saved us a lot of walking if we'd just checked there first."
"Maybe," Thorbjorn said. "But I don't think so. Two nights in a row in the mead hall? That's not like Solvi."
"Does it make him look guilty?" I wondered. "Trying to shore up his alibi or something?"
"If he ran off on us, it would certainly make him look guilty," Thorbjorn said darkly.
"We should see if he's with the others before we condemn him," I said.
"Well, we came all the way out here," Thorbjorn said, and he turned the door handle. It stopped abruptly, clearly locked, but Thorbjorn just turned it further. I heard a snap of metal and then the door was swinging open.
"That's the first locked door I've seen since coming up north," I said. "Although he does live pretty far out of town. Does he lock it for protection, do you think?"
"To keep out the bears who've mastered doorknobs?" Thorbjorn asked me, then plunged into the darkness within the hut. I hovered near the doorway while he poked the fire in the fireplace back to life, then used its flame to light the lantern that rested on the mantle.
I was going to come in when it was no longer dark and I was sure of not tripping over anything, but the moment the light bathed everything I was dumbstruck in the doorway.
And I had thought the woodworking was gorgeous on the outside. That had all been just hints of waves in the flow of the boards, brought out by a few carved touches and careful use of stain. But inside? The inside was so much more.
Everything around me had a fanciful touch. There was an elaborate knot work carved into the wood beams, then colored red, blue and gold to bring out the pattern. The bed was a mattress resting inside an ornate wooden box, carved all over with running wolves chasing the sun and the moon over and over again, in a dozen subtly different ways. The fireplace had carvings in nine distinct groupings, which I quickly realized represented the nine worlds of Norse creation stories.
But most glorious of all was the central beam. Branches with leaves were carved all over it, but near the floor I could see a dragon chewing at exposed roots and a trio of women gathered around a pool of water. I looked up to see a little squirrel racing up one of the leafy branches at about my eye level. Then I tipped my head back to see the top of the beam opened out into a delicately carved leafy canopy, and among those carved branches an eagle was perched, perfectly positioned to watch me standing in the doorway.
"It's Yggdrasil," I said. "Oh my goodness, this place is gorgeous."
"You're just scratching the surface," Thorbjorn said as he continued to feed branches to the fire, adding ever more light to the cabin's interior. "Open the doors on the cupboard in the kitchen and you'll see scenes of farm-life, our ancestors and some of their Ojibwe companions. Lie back on the bed and look up at the ceiling, and you'll see the ship that brought our ancestors here at the moment of Torfa's spell. You can tell lake from sea in the carving, it's so intricate. And the bathtub in the other room is all carved wood as well, showing the Valkyries flying into battle for some reason. He's probably added some things since I was here last."
I started towards the door to the bathroom, but stopped myself. We were there for a reason, and
admiring the art wasn't that reason. "There's no creek near here, is there? No reason for him to have a fishing spear."
"No, and I've never noticed one here before," Thorbjorn said. He turned to close the door behind me. Behind where the open door had stood was a rack that held assorted tools, not for woodworking save perhaps for the axe, but for farming. There was no hook without a tool hanging from it, but there was something like an umbrella stand that was empty. "His walking stick is gone," Thorbjorn said as if he had followed my gaze.
"Is anything else missing?" I wondered, turning to look on the other side of that gorgeous bed. I threw back the lid on the chest that formed a seat under the window, but there was nothing inside of it.
"His clothes," Thorbjorn said, looking over my shoulder at the empty chest. "His weapons. His cloak, which should be on that peg there."
"He would need that to get to the mead hall. It's chilly out there. And a lot of you Villmarkers wear your weapons all the time. Especially walking through the woods, which he would've had to do."
"Ingrid, he took all his clothes," Thorbjorn said, sweeping his hand towards the empty chest. "He packed up his things, as much as he could carry, and he left."
I sank down on the edge of the bed. "He's looking guilty, isn't he?" I sighed. "Or else he's worried about my grandmother knowing he was selling art on the sly. Maybe that's what he's running from."
"I don't think so," Thorbjorn said. He opened the door again and leaned out into the night. "I see no sign of which way he might have gone, and even with the moon it's too dark for me to track him through the woods."
"So what do we do?" I asked.
"Wait until morning," he said, and closed the door.
There were worse things in the world than passing a night in a cozy little cabin with Thorbjorn, especially when he walked over to the kitchen and took out a heavy loaf of rye bread and a wheel of cheese. That would go perfectly with the apples I had in my bag.
But if Solvi really was running away and hadn't just gone to the mead hall or some place in Villmark, then every moment we delayed made it less and less likely that we'd ever find him again.
And I had to know what happened. I wouldn't believe that someone who could create such wonderful art, art that seemed to be bestowed with its own spark of life, could murder someone the way Garrett had been murdered. It just didn't make any sense.
But if Thorbjorn couldn't track him through the woods at night, what choice did we have but to wait?
I laid back on the bed and found myself looking up at the carving of a ship with its front end in Lake Superior and its back end in the North Sea. Thorbjorn was right. Even in the dim light that reached inside the bed frame, you could totally tell he was depicting two different bodies of water. It was like a magical illusion.
I sat back up, shoving the pillows against the headboard to support me as I pulled my sketchbook out of my bag and set it on my drawn-up knees.
I knew what to do. But would it work here, so far from the magic fire?
I thought it would. This cabin was filled with a different sort of magic, maybe a less powerful kind, but a kind I was far more attuned to.
My first few strokes were slow, uncertain, but as the curves began to define a shape, I grew more confident and worked faster. I was vaguely aware of Thorbjorn saying something to me, but his words couldn't reach my furiously active mind. I felt my fingers pressing harder, making more aggressively dark lines. That wasn't my usual style, but then I was blending the graphite under my thumb. Just like I had done when I had drawn the waterfall parting for the ship.
This was how I did it. This was how I accessed my magic.
Thorbjorn sat down on the edge of the bed and the mattress gave way, sending me rolling enough to shift the sketchbook off my knees.
"Sorry!" he said. "I just wanted to see what you were doing."
"Look," I said, handing him the sketchbook.
"Solvi," Thorbjorn said appreciatively. "You drew his face from memory?"
"More than that," I said, "look at his hair."
Thorbjorn tipped the sketchbook to catch the light, then got up from the bed to carry it closer to the lamp on the mantle. "Are those mountains?"
"Yes!" I said. "I saw it, saw it as I was drawing it. Do those mountains look familiar? Does it mean anything?"
Did I do anything?
Thorbjorn continued examining my drawing without speaking, and my heart began to sink. But then he turned to me and there was a twinkle in his eye. "Yes. I know this place. It's not far from here. It must be where Solvi intends to go, and that's why you drew it in his head like this."
"I don't think the position on the page is important," I started to say, but this was no time to argue artistic intent. "Never mind. We have to get there, right away."
"But Ingrid, this is further into the woods. Dangerously further into the woods."
"Well, there isn't time to take me back to Villmark first and then for you go out to get him on your own," I said. "I could feel as I was drawing him that he's getting further and further away. There really isn't much time."
"You could wait here," Thorbjorn said. "You'd be perfectly safe, and I would bring him straight here for you. You could ask him all of your questions."
"Thanks for the offer," I said, "but I really think the only plan is for me to go with you."
"Ingrid," he started to say with a shake of his head, but I didn't let him finish.
"Look again at the mountains in that picture," I said, scrambling off the bed to show him. "This mark here, nearly through this mountain pass? That's Solvi."
"Okay," Thorbjorn said.
"And these two down here," I said, pointing to the very bottom of the mountain image, at what was more hair than landscape, "these are us. You and me."
"But you drew this," he said. "And you weren't all swept up like before. You drew this with intent. You drew yourself here because you wanted to go."
"I did," I agreed. "And that intent hasn't changed. Put it this way. Do you want to leave with me now and go after Solvi, or do you want to argue about it first and then leave with me to go after Solvi?"
"Well, if you put it that way," Thorbjorn said and thrust my sketchbook back into my arms.
"I do put it that way," I said. "Now, let's go."
Chapter 22
After banking down the fire in Solvi's fireplace, we went back out into the night.
The moon had left the sky, and the sculptures dotted around the clearing were no more than formless shadows against the grayish-black of the forest beyond. We circled the cottage and crossed the dried remains of the kitchen garden, then pressed on to the far side of the clearing where the little forest path resumed.
The path started climbing almost at once, up and around one hill after another. The trees were denser here, their branches intertwined just over our heads as if we were inside a living tunnel. But even though everything was pressed close around us, the soundscape had opened up wide. My steps on the needle-strewn ground were the appropriate volume, but other sounds around us were amplified. They echoed without fading. I had no idea whether the acorn I heard plummet to the ground was a foot away from me or on the far side of the valley.
I clutched the short spear that Thorbjorn had given me and tried not to jump at every sound around us. But from the way Thorbjorn kept looking over at me, I don't think I was succeeding.
"It's all right, Ingrid," he told me. But as if to prove him wrong, there was a sudden rush of sound off to our left. It was like a boulder rolling down the hillside, smashing through the trees.
"What was that?" I asked. I wanted to scream, but I didn't dare speak above a whisper.
"Probably nothing," he said.
"I don't believe you," I said.
"Look, anything making that much noise is probably just a bear," he said.
"Just a bear?" I asked. "Just a bear?"
"Yes, just a bear," he repeated. "The giants are smart enough to pick their way through the less
dense parts of the forest, if they should happen to be out at night, which they almost never are. And even a troll knows how to be sneakier than that. No, that was almost definitely a bear."
"There could be trolls here?" I asked.
"Perhaps," he said with a shrug.
"And they might attack us?"
"Only if there were a large number of them," he said with a slight raise of his axe.
"And they would be sneaking?"
"If they knew what was good for them," he said.
"So you're telling me that I should be more afraid of the things I can't hear?" I asked.
"Well-"
"And that there almost definitely is a bear just a few feet away from us?" I went on.
"He wasn't just a few feet away," Thorbjorn said. "He was at least one hill over, and anyway that's stopped now."
"So we're back to things lurking out there that don't make such a racket?" I asked.
"I never should've let you talk me into taking you along," he said.
"No, I'm fine," I said. "I just want to understand the risks. You said we came here all the time as kids, but I just don't remember it."
"We didn't go this far in as kids," he said gravely. Then a hint of a grin twitched at the corner of his mouth. "Well, just that one time, but we got in so much trouble we never did it twice."
"I need to relearn what I learned then," I said as we resumed our climb up the hill. "And there is so much new stuff to learn after that."
"We have time," he said. "But if we're going to be coming out here a lot, we're going to have to start with some weapons training. That little spear isn't going to do you much good against real trouble."
"Oh, thanks," I said. "Why am I carrying it again?"
"To make you feel better?"
"Well, it's all I have now. I don't think I can run back for help from here," I said, looking back down the way we'd come.
"Just follow the path," Thorbjorn said. "You wouldn't have to get all the way home, or even all the way back to Solvi's house."