Until We Reach Home

by Lynn Austin

  Kirsten let him kiss her again until it was finally time for him to leave. "Promise me you won't tell anyone about us," he begged as he said good-bye. "Not yet, anyway?"

  "I promise."

  She ambled back through the woods, light-headed with love, wishing she could marry Tor Magnusson this instant and run away with him to Stockholm. She was still thinking about Tor's kisses and wondering why Mr. Magnusson didn't like her when she nearly collided with Elfin in the kitchen doorway. Elfin plucked the thick letter from Kirsten's fingers without a word of thanks and scrambled up the steep stairs to read it in their bedroom in the loft. Kirsten didn't find out what was in the mysterious envelope until later that night, when she and her sisters were getting ready for bed upstairs beneath the eaves.

  "I have something to tell both of you," Elfin began. She sat hunched on the edge of the bed as if she had a shawl wrapped around her shoulders to protect herself from a biting wind. She always curled up that way, even on the hottest summer night. Elfin clutched the envelope in both hands as if it might fly away if she didn't hang on tightly.

  "Why are you whispering?" Sofia asked as she crawled into the bed she shared with Kirsten.

  "Shh! I don't want anyone else to hear us."

  "What's in the package?" Kirsten asked.

  "I'll show you in a minute." She paused, and as she inhaled slowly she seemed like an old woman to Kirsten-old before her time-even though she was only eleven months older than Kirsten was.

  "Just spit it out," Kirsten said, gesturing impatiently. Elfin frowned at her but finally got on with it.

  "Now that Uncle Sven has taken over the farm, it's getting too crowded here for all of us. Besides, there's no future for us here in the village. Mama wanted us to have a better life, remember? Before she died she begged us to stay together and to take care of each other. And so..."

  "We should all go to Stockholm to live with Nils," Kirsten said. She slipped into the bed beside Sofia and tried to plump up her pillow.

  "How can we do that?" Sofia asked. "We don't even know where he is."

  "Don't interrupt," Elfin said. "Let me finish."

  "And stop squirming, Kirsten," Sofia added. "You're making all the covers come untucked."

  Kirsten pinched her arm, making her squeal. "You're such a prissy baby, Sofia. You have to have every hair and pleat and hem perfectly in place."

  "Shh! Both of you, be quiet and listen to me. I've been writing to Uncle Lars in America, asking him if we could move there and live with him."

  "America?" Sofia's eyes went wide with fear. "Are you crazy, Elfin? We can't leave our home."

  "Yes, America," Elfin said. "And today Uncle Lars sent these." She pulled the contents from the envelope and spread them out on the bed. "Look-boat and train tickets that will take us from the village all the way to Chicago in America. He sent enough for all three of us."

  Kirsten snatched up one of the tickets and stared at it, then flung it down again. "I'm not going." She was in love with Tor Magnusson and he loved her. They were going to get married. She would have told Elfin the truth then and there if Tor hadn't made her promise to keep it a secret for a while longer.

  Elfin stared at her. "You're not going? Just like that? Aren't you even going to think about it? I thought you liked adventure."

  "I'm not going, either," Sofia said. Her voice trembled with unshed tears. "You can go if you want to, Elfin, but I'm staying here."

  "Listen, both of you. This is a wonderful opportunity. Everyone who moves to America says it's like a paradise over there. The farms are huge and the crops grow twice as tall as they do in Sweden."

  "I don't care what they say," Sofia said. "I'm not leaving home."

  "You can stay behind with me and-" Kirsten almost said "Tor" but stopped herself in time.

  "No one is staying behind," Elin said firmly. "We're a family. The three of us are all that's left, and we're staying together."

  "You're not the boss," Kirsten said.

  "How can you even think about leaving?" Sofia asked, her voice rising in pitch. "This is our home. We don't belong in America." She scrunched down beneath the covers as if the matter were settled, then added, "I'm not going!"

  "Shh! I don't want anyone to hear us."

  Elin's warning came too late. The stair treads creaked as someone ascended, and a moment later Uncle Sven emerged through the loft's opening.

  "What's going on up here, eh?"

  "Nothing," Kirsten said. She glanced at Elfin and saw that she had hidden the tickets beneath a pillow. "Sofia's mad because I kicked all the covers loose, but I'll tuck them back in." She wasn't sure why she had lied, but something about the way their uncle looked at them made Kirsten want to pull the covers up to her chin. She wanted him out of her bedroom.

  "You girls are going to wake up the children."

  "We're sorry, Uncle Sven. We'll be quieter," Kirsten said.

  He lingered several moments longer, as if reluctant to go. "Well, then ... good night, girls."

  Elfin stared at the open hatch until Uncle Sven went away. She seemed to have hunched even smaller. When she finally pulled out the tickets again, her hands were trembling.

  "What's wrong?" Kirsten asked. "You're shaking."

  "We can't let him know we're leaving until the very last minute," Elfin whispered, "or he might try to stop us. I would run away and live in the woods sooner than stay here with him."

  "Why would you say such a thing?" Sofia asked, sitting up in bed again. "You act like he's an ogre or something."

  Elfin closed her eyes for a long moment. "Won't you at least think about going to America?" she asked when she opened them again. "Both of you? We have tickets ..."

  "No," Sofia said. "I won't go!" She flopped onto her stomach and tunneled beneath the covers again like a mouse scurrying into its hole.

  Kirsten didn't have to think about it. She was going to marry Tor and live with him, not move to America. He would race to her rescue as soon as she told him about Elin's plans. He would confront his father, and finally declare his love. Tor would never allow Kirsten to move to America, where he'd never see her again. She could hardly stand waiting three more days to see him, much less leave him forever. But she would have to wait until Sunday to tell him Elin's news. She wouldn't have an excuse to walk into town before then.

  When Sunday morning arrived, Tor sat dutifully with his family during the church service while Kirsten sat with her sisters. Afterward, while all of the other parishioners milled around outside, she signaled for him to meet her behind one of the outbuildings. When they were alone, he tried to pull her close for a kiss.

  "No, wait, Tor, and listen to me," she said. "Elfin wants me and Sofia to move to America with her. That's what was in that thick envelope the other day-tickets to America on an ocean liner. For all three of us."

  She waited for his outraged protests, his declarations of love, but Tor simply stared at her as if he didn't comprehend.

  "I told Elfin I'm not going. I told her I'm staying here. I want to be with you."

  "With me?"

  "Yes!" Why was he being so thickheaded? She wanted to shake him. "We care about each other, don't we, Tor? Don't you want us to be together forever? We're going to get married someday."

  His eyes widened in alarm. "Oh, Kirsten..." He stumbled backward. "We can't. . . we can't get married."

  "Well, maybe not now, but when we're older."

  "No ... not even then."

  "Why not? And don't tell me it's because of your father."

  "No. It's because of yours."

  Now it was Kirsten's turn to stare in disbelief. "Because of mine? But my papa is dead."

  "Yes-and he killed himself."

  "What?"

  Tor's words tumbled out all at once, as if he wanted to throw them down on the ground and run. "My father won't let me marry you because suicide is a sin, and he says it would bring disgrace on our family and on our store if-"

  "Papa did not kill himself!
That's a lie! Suicide is for cowards, and he was never a coward. I don't know why your father would say such a terrible thing, but it isn't true, and I don't believe it! Papa made a mistake, that's all. The ice was too thin, and he fell through it and drowned."

  Tor gave an embarrassed shrug and looked away.

  "Don't tell me you believe that lie, too? It was an accident, Tor. Papa never would have left us all alone that way. He loved us."

  "It doesn't matter what I think. What matters is what my father thinks. And a lot of other people in town think it's true, too."

  "Well, they're wrong. I'll admit that Papa suffered from the winter sadness sometimes, but that's all it was. A lot of people feel that way right before spring comes. Tell your father he's wrong!"

  Tor stared at his feet, kicking a pebble back and forth. "Your brother Nils thought it was suicide, too."

  "He did not! That's a lie, and I hate you for saying it!"

  Kirsten stormed away without looking back, hurrying down the road toward home. She expected to hear Tor's footsteps behind her, his pleas for her to wait, to listen to him. But he didn't run after her. He didn't try to stop her.

  The accusation that her father had killed himself made Kirsten ache inside. But Tor had caused an even deeper wound by allowing anything to stand in the way of their love. It could only mean one thing: He didn't really love her. And that realization caused a pain she hadn't felt since her mother died. Kirsten managed to hold back her tears until she reached the edge of town, but at last they began to fall.

  She had fallen in love with a man who didn't love her in return. And she had made a fool of herself with him, accepting his kisses and caresses, believing they meant something, believing he loved her and wanted to marry her.

  By the time Kirsten's family caught up with her in the farm wagon, she was only half a mile from home. "What's the matter?" Elfin whispered after Kirsten climbed onto the back of the flatbed wagon beside her and Sofia.

  "Later," she mumbled. If she talked about Tor or even thought about him right now, she would burst into tears. Elfin waited until they were alone in the barn that afternoon before asking her again what was wrong. Kirsten slammed down the empty milk pails with a clatter.

  "Do you know what people in town are saying? They think that Papa's accident wasn't an accident. They think he died on purpose."

  Elfin rested her hand on Kirsten's shoulder. "Don't you remember how sad he was near the end? How much he mourned for Mama? He stopped living long before he stopped breathing."

  "I know, I know. We were all sad after she died, but that doesn't mean-"

  "I think Papa decided to join her in the grave."

  "No! I don't believe it! It was an accident. The ice was too thin."

  Elfin gripped her arms. "Think about it, Kirsten. Papa knew how to test the ice better than anyone did. He taught all of us how to listen for exactly the right sound, remember? He left the cottage that morning and walked straight out onto the lake. He couldn't have made a mistake. He simply didn't want to live any longer."

  Kirsten covered her face.

  "That's why he wasn't buried beside Mama in the churchyard," Elfin said. "They wouldn't allow it."

  "He wouldn't leave us all alone!"

  "But he did, Kirsten. And now all we have is each other."

  Kirsten leaned against her sister and sobbed. Their father hadn't loved them. He hadn't wanted to be with them. And because of the disgraceful thing he'd done, Tor wouldn't marry her.

  "What am I going to do?" she sobbed. She was in love with a man who didn't want her.

  "We need to start all over again, far away from here," Elfin said softly. "People will never forgive Papa for what he did, and they'll never forget it, either." She released Kirsten and held her at arm's length. "We need to go to America."

  "All alone? All that way?"

  Elfin nodded. "Sofia will come with us once she gets used to the idea."

  But Kirsten didn't want to leave home, either. She couldn't leave Tor. If she stayed, though, how could she face him in church and on the village streets, day after day, for the rest of her life?

  ~idffer 7 ree

  SOFIA CARLSON AWOKE at dawn on that fateful April morning to a fog so thick it shrouded their farmyard in a soggy gray blanket. She pushed aside the curtain to look out of the loft window for the last time. The barn's familiar silhouette looked smeared and misshapen. Beyond it, their tiny herd of cows had vanished from the pasture as if forest sprites had stolen them. This was the last morning she would ever peer from her dormer window. She would never see this view again. In time, the land's familiar contours would fade from memory, just as Mama's familiar face had.

  Elfin had told Sofia to dress nicely for traveling. As Sofia stepped into her petticoat and skirt and buttoned up her starched Sunday shirtwaist, she kept hoping that this was just a nightmare, that she wasn't leaving for good. Please, Jesus, let this just be a dream.

  But it wasn't a dream. Elfin and Kirsten had made up their minds to go to America, and they were making Sofia go with them. Their trunk was packed. Today they were leaving home, forever. She wondered what Elfin and Kirsten would do if she decided to dig in her heels and grip the doorposts and refuse to go. Would they drag her away to America by force?

  But no, Sofia would go with her sisters wherever they went. She had no other family except them. Elfin and Kirsten had been by Sofia's side for as long as she could remember. No matter how frightening her circumstances or how dark the night, she could get through anything if they were beside her. Elfin always seemed to know when Sofia needed her, and she would silently reach for her hand and take it in hers. Elin's fine-boned hands were no larger than Sofia's, but once they were joined she felt safe, protected. Bring on the bullies, the barking dogs, the boogeymen in the dark of night. Elfin would take care of her. Sofia's sisters were older and smarter than she was, and much more courageous. She wished she were more like them.

  Nevertheless, Sofia was very angry with them for making her decide between two impossible choices. She didn't want to leave home, but she didn't want to be separated from her sisters, either. It was bad enough that Mama and Papa and Nils had all left her. She couldn't bear it if Elfin and Kirsten left her, too.

  Much too soon they were ready to go. Sofia's three little cousins scrambled onto the back of Uncle Sven's farm wagon for the trip to the train station, but he shooed them off again. "Why can't they come along?" she asked him.

  "I'm afraid the roads might be muddy after all the rain we've had. Your trunk already makes a heavy load for the horses."

  Sofia suspected that the real reason was because Uncle Sven was angry with them for leaving. Who would do all their chores from now on? He resembled their papa but he was nothing like him. He sat sternly on the wagon seat in Papa's place, a grim reminder that the three of them were orphans, passed from uncle to uncle like an unwelcome fever.

  Sofia hugged Aunt Karin good-bye and felt the same breathtaking grief as on the day Mama had died. She hugged her three little cousins tightly, knowing she would never see them again. Kirsten was crying, too, but Elfin strode toward the loaded farm wagon without even looking back.

  "Why don't you climb up here, Sofia," Uncle Sven said, patting the wooden seat beside him.

  "No," Elfin replied before Sofia could. "I want her to ride back here with me." She offered Sofia her hand and pulled her up onto the wagon bed beside their trunk. Sofia rode facing backward, her eyes fixed on the faint, comforting light that glowed from the cottage windows. But the lights vanished in the fog before the wagon had traveled two hundred meters, as if Aunt Karin had doused all of the lamps.

  The fog merged with Sofia's tears, blurring the journey into town, making everything seem unfamiliar and menacing. She had grown up in this forest, and the tall, silent fir trees had always seemed like friends. Now they towered in sullen silence, hiding behind a veil of gray mist as if mourning her departure. Invisible crows shrieked at her from the shrouded treetops.

/>   No one spoke, and even Kirsten seemed unusually subdued, her legs dangling from the tailgate as the wagon traveled the familiar road into the village. She hadn't behaved in her usual bold, boisterous way since agreeing to move to America. In fact, Kirsten had acted as gloomy and nervous as Elin usually did. But suddenly, Kirsten slid forward and hopped off the wagon.

  "What are you doing?" Elin demanded as the vehicle rolled away from her. "Get back here this minute!"

  Sofia held her breath, hoping that Kirsten had changed her mind and had decided not to go to America after all. If Kirsten stayed behind in Sweden then Sofia could stay, too. She inched toward the edge of the wagon bed, ready to hop down and run home with her sister.

  Please, Jesus, let her change her mind.

  But Kirsten crouched beside a clump of spring wild flowers and began picking a bouquet of them. Uncle Sven didn't even slow down the wagon, as if not caring that he'd just lost a passenger. Kirsten had to race like a schoolgirl to catch up with them, lifting her skirts as she leaped back on.

  "You'll break your leg someday doing that," Elin scolded.

  "Who cares?" Kirsten brushed the loosened strands of hair off her face and handed Sofia the wispy flowers. "Here, I picked these for you. You can press them flat inside a book to remind you of home."

  Sofia swallowed a lump of grief. "Aren't there any wild flowers in America?"

  "Of course there are," Elin said. "Stop pouting, Sofia."

  She gazed down at the delicate blossoms that had been ripped from the soil alongside the road, then lowered her face to her lap and cried.

  Ever since Mama died five years ago, sorrow and fear had crouched in the shadows of Sofia's heart like wolves waiting to pounce. They had doubled in size when Papa followed Mama to the grave less than a year later, becoming huge, voracious animals that threatened to swallow Sofia alive, especially if she faced anything new. She had learned to hold the beasts at bay by doing everything exactly the same, day after day, never straying from the familiar.

  The beasts had tamed down a bit after Aunt Karin and Uncle Sven had moved to the farm, but the moment Elin had shown her the tickets to America, Sofia felt her fear and sorrow growing into giant monsters that followed her everywhere with their bristling claws and jagged teeth. She wished she knew how to make them go away.