Sons of Blackbird Mountain

by Joanne Bischof

  “Aven. He can’t hear you.”

  She tried to twist free but his hold was solid. Haakon’s other fingertips grazed the side of her neck. “And I’m not gonna make you do anything you don’t want to do. I promise. But if you just took a minute to see . . .” He gripped her waist and kissed her again.

  Aven pressed her forearm into his chest, but all the force she bore didn’t nudge him, and worse than the clutch of fear was an emptiness of loss. Because her friend was gone. In his place was a being stronger than her and nothing more.

  Her heart and lungs fought like the crash of the sea and the beating of the hull into waves. Was she drowning? Had she finally fallen from the ship? Or perhaps the slam of thunder and the clap of sails in the wind was nothing more than Haakon’s charged breathing as he tugged his suspenders down. And here she was sinking farther. Losing all hope amid the waters where a thousand souls had been lost to this sea that only God could reach.

  She tried to gasp a breath, but Haakon was there instead, so she drew what she could into her lungs—the taste of his skin and her breaking heart. If he meant to entice her, then he knew nothing of a woman’s heart or where her own resided. If he meant to have whatever he wished . . .

  “The Lord is my shepherd,” she whispered when he pulled back to adjust his weight. She spoke the words for her own soul to take courage, but they seemed to touch Haakon because his fingers, which were easing the edge of her blouse from her skirt, stilled entirely.

  The next words ached from her parched throat. “He leadeth me beside still waters.”

  Haakon looked at her earnestly.

  If she could do nothing else in this moment, she would trust in truth. The cost of his wrongdoing, perhaps insignificant to him in this moment, was a surety to stand on even when she could not. This moment wasn’t her against Haakon. It was Haakon versus a God who was mightier than this man knew. “You may sit in His house and sing His praises, but He will know who you are if you do this,” Aven whispered. “And you should be terribly afraid of that.”

  Haakon pushed a lock of hair from her face. Head falling the tiniest bit lower, he looked at her, his mouth so near, she was certain he would lower it to hers again, but a different kind of intensity settled in his expression. He leaned back, and she peered up into the eyes she’d adored since the day she’d come here.

  “And from this moment, Haakon, you will be nothing to me.”

  He searched her face. “Aven.” He swallowed hard, then looked down at her, his gaze taking in the way he had advanced on her.

  Feeling the intensity gentle within him, Aven tugged her hand free. She shoved at his chest. “Get off of me!” She tried to yank her blouse down over her corset but it was wedged between them.

  He shifted himself farther back, allowing her to move. He grunted when her knee met his thigh.

  The door rattled. Then a knock sounded, followed by Al’s voice. “Miss Aven?”

  Haakon clamped a hand over her mouth.

  Al’s voice muffled through the door. “Heard you callin’ for Thor. You in trouble?”

  She cried for help, but it stifled against Haakon’s skin. Aven bit his finger. He jerked away, and she screamed. Haakon crammed his hand over her mouth again. The door rattled harder but wouldn’t open. Locked, then. When it silenced, Al hollered through that he’d be right back.

  Haakon shoved his fingers into his hair, holding them there. “You don’t know what you just did.”

  With the door only feet away, she lunged for it. He grabbed her around the waist, tugging her into him. His heart pounded against her back. Still kneeling, she tried to pull forward, but he held her that way until she finally stilled.

  Help was coming.

  “You have to listen to me, Aven. Please.” He shifted around her, blocking the way. He slid one of his suspenders up, desperation in his wide eyes.

  Sorrow rose with such a rush that she had to will herself not to cry. She wanted to strike him, but instead used what little strength remained to try and rise. Her feet felt like weights as she pulled her knees forward so that she might stand. Aven gripped the edge of the windowsill.

  He yanked up his other suspender so fast that the clasp snapped from his pants. “Please listen to me. I wasn’t going to—”

  Voices rushed near. Al. Jorgan.

  And Thor—so fiercely the door was rammed.

  Haakon cursed as his fingers fumbled to clasp the leather strap against his waist. He glanced around as if for a way out of this when a force slammed the door again.

  The pounding rocked so hard the house trembled. Then again . . . and again . . .

  Suddenly the door shattered open. And Haakon was gone from her. Nothing left but his shout as Thor slammed him into the far wall.

  Jorgan hollered Thor back, but it was for the sound of Haakon’s pain that Aven covered her ears. Too stunned to even cry, she simply tried to breathe. Tried to breathe and not shirk away from Al’s steadying hand to her arm. Not hear the slam of fists or see that it was Thor whom Jorgan and Peter struggled to hold down as they shouted for Haakon to run.

  Haakon finally did. That she knew. Because in a pounding of floorboards, he was gone.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Thor didn’t move from the hallway. Fearing Haakon would return, he sat there, facing Aven’s door well into the night, unwilling to go up to bed even when Ida urged him to rest. Grief and anger warred inside him, until sleep finally silenced them both. He woke to a gray light and shadows so cool that he feared for his trees. He needed to rise and tend them. To walk their rows. He needed to keep this place together somehow even as he was coming apart at the seams.

  Jorgan and Fay were marrying in two days. He had to rally. For them and for Aven he had to rise.

  Stiffly, he stood just as Ida was coming up the stairs. She leaned an ear to Aven’s door and gave a gentle knock. Thor stepped back. Ida slipped in and closed the door. It was a few minutes later that she came out again.

  “She’s wantin’ a bath.”

  Which meant he should make himself scarce.

  “And, Thor?” Ida stepped so near to him that he knew her voice was low. “Haakon brought her no harm past what you saw. Aven wants you to know that. She’s awful fixed I tell you.”

  Thor nodded. A relief. Not for himself, but for her.

  Gripping his arm, Ida led him down the stairs and out to the washroom on the side of the house. She turned a knob that released water from the stove’s reservoir and into the tub. As steam billowed, Ida drew Thor to the cabinet where she kept ointments. Those steady hands of hers pressed the warm cloth to his own. If she noticed the way his chin set to trembling, she didn’t let on. His knuckles were raw—bloodied— and he could still feel Haakon on the other side of them, because as they’d run over, Al had said that Aven had been screaming for him. That Haakon was there as well trying to keep her quiet. Everything beyond that was fragmented except for Thor and his brother and the door that had been standing between them.

  Ida shook his sleeve, so he looked at her. “You did what you had to do.”

  Though he tried to make peace with that, a wretchedness still splintered him from the inside. Knowing Aven would be down, Thor stepped out. She was safe so he need not worry, but it came anyway. She’d witnessed something fierce in him yesterday. Would she fear him? Be it protecting Aven or teaching Haakon a lesson . . . whichever way it was colored, he’d tried to tear his brother apart.

  Turning, he faced Ida. We lose Haakon. As a brother, a comrade, or as a part of this farm, he didn’t know. In some ways it felt like all of it.

  Her face shadowed with sorrow. “He made an awful choice, Thor. But let’s not discount what the good Lord may yet do.”

  Jorgan angry with me?

  “No. He as mad at Haakon as you. Said it was hard to hold you down.”

  Yanking the strip of leather from his wrist, Thor bound his hair back, knotting it tight. Before a response could come, Ida signed Aven’s name. She was coming, then.
Thor stepped away. With work to do for the wedding, he promised to return to help. He signed tree and house so Ida would know his whereabouts should Aven have need of him. Should she be ready to see him.

  It was hard not to glance over his shoulder as he strode away.

  The orchards were empty—no movement other than the flash of birds as they scattered from his path. The pickers were off for the week. With the coming wedding, they had all labored hard to rid the trees of the ready Foxwhelps. The next round of apples wouldn’t be blushing until then, and the boys would return. The scratter and press would be at work all over again. Next week the Roxbury and Sweet Coppin storers would be picked as was the way of mid-October. A cycle that would continue until the first snows came and everything was in crates and jars.

  When Thor reached the tree house, he sat at the base of the old maple and rested against it. A strength he needed just now. Arms folded on his raised knees, he lowered his head. He meant to keep a watch out for Haakon, but there was a knife at his waist and another in his pocket, so Thor allowed himself a moment of closing his eyes.

  Jorgan had said that Haakon looked up to him.

  Thor had always known it to be true, and it was like salt in the wound since the time they were boys. The years when Haakon followed him wherever he went, asking a million questions that Thor couldn’t really answer for him. So Thor had finally sat Haakon down and, along with Jorgan and Ida, taught them his language. Da learned a few signs but it was harder for him. Haakon had taken to it like a duck to water. If there was ever a word he didn’t know, he’d come and find Thor and learn it. Even help Thor make ones up if they didn’t know the sign for it.

  Until the day that Haakon was seven perhaps. He’d come and found Thor—all knees and elbows and pants that didn’t reach his ankles—and with a flick of his hands had asked Thor what a signal had meant. One he had a memory of.

  Thor had responded without thinking. Without remembering. H-A-T-E. Spelled nonchalantly in his hand as if he were spelling B-O-O-K or C-H-A-I-R.

  Haakon had blinked at him, a bleak confusion filling his face. He’d asked Thor if he was certain. It had to mean something else . . . so often Haakon remembered Thor using it with him.

  In his shame, Thor hadn’t known how to respond. He’d done what he could to try and make it up to Haakon, like hanging the rope swing. Thor even gave him the better side of the attic and later suggested they build a tree house. Thor had made certain his little brother got to be the one to hoist up the flag. But it had never been the same. Haakon hadn’t followed him around so much anymore. Hadn’t asked quite so many questions.

  Thor had sworn he would never use that word with his brother again. So it was all the harder to keep his hand still right now. To keep his fingers from shaping the sentiment. Arms still folded across his knee, Thor clamped one hand over the other to pin them both in place. But the sensation was still filling his heart. Flooding it because of the sight of Aven there on the floor, dust and tears streaking her cheeks.

  Had she walked there with Haakon thinking she was safe?

  Why had she gone at all? He fought back jealousy because it wasn’t warranted. Not for a moment with Aven. Guilt splayed within him, and his mouth watered for a drink. It had been for the last twelve hours, and he’d been fighting it every breath. He’d fight until he won because going back to that would only be another kind of misery. One that scared him more than facing this pain without a numbing.

  Help, Lord.

  Thor wasn’t much of a praying man, but the plea teemed within him. He pressed an unsteady hand to his chest, circling it in please. Surely God knew his words.

  A touch at his knee jolted him. It was Aven kneeling there, but so fast she’d startled him that he’d moved his hand to his knife. Hating the thought of instilling more fear into her, Thor released it just as quick.

  Her hair was damp from her bath. Braided and draping one shoulder, it was bound with a scrap of lace. He grappled for what to do even as she pulled herself nearer, touching the sides of his face in her small hands. Her fingers brushed against his beard. She gripped tight, lowering her head to press a kiss to his forehead.

  Though the burn in his throat was no excuse for not knowing what to say, he was silenced all the same. Fetching his notebook and pencil from his pocket gave him time to rally.

  He wrote, asking her how she was faring.

  “I am very sad.”

  I help you? How?

  Drawing nearer, Aven nestled into him. For the briefest of moments, Thor couldn’t move, then comprehending what she wanted, he wrapped his arms around her, gripping with more assurance when he felt her begin to cry. He smoothed a hand over the back of her head, kissing her hair.

  His arms around her made his writing sloppier. What happen—you and Haakon? He lowered the notebook so she could see it.

  While he’d had no doubt that Aven had wanted Haakon’s advance to cease, he hadn’t yet asked her how it had begun. Her brow furrowed with thought, then gently she spoke. He couldn’t see her mouth, so he touched her jaw, turning her face toward his.

  She started again—telling of how she had informed Haakon when they were last at church that she wanted to be Haakon’s friend and his family but nothing more.

  Her heart had to be all kinds of broken. Thor knew how dearly she’d cared for Haakon. How in a way she had loved his brother. Though Thor believed Aven’s affection and desire to be squarely his, there was a piece that she hadn’t quite been able to tug free of Haakon’s grasp.

  Haakon had that way about him, and Thor had watched her every day . . . working to put Haakon in the place of friend and brother. An effort on her part, but he thought no less of her for it. Love was not as simple as it was often made to seem.

  If marriage were easy, there wouldn’t be vows.

  Writing swiftly, he put all that to paper. Aven watched, and when the last was before her, a tear slipped and fell. She sniffed and wiped at her eyes.

  Aven gripped his neck, bringing herself high enough to press the side of her face to his own. When she looked at him, he watched her speak. “Such a vow is one that I long to make to you, Thor.” Her brown eyes searched his, urgent and honest.

  Sitting outside her door last night, he’d ached for the very thing. To be able to hold her close, watch over her in slumber, and not have a barrier between them. While the yearning was a fire inside him, so startling was the wish upon her own lips that he responded in Sign before he realized his error. He took her hand, spread open her palm, and used his finger to slowly draw out the letters. S-A-M-E F-O-R M-E.

  She smiled as joy filled her face. Aven burrowed into him and moved his arms around her so she was wrapped up. Thor closed his eyes and lowered his forehead to her shoulder. Briefly he clutched tight—and it was a satisfaction unlike one he’d ever known. For it to be just the beginning was a goodness he didn’t know he would find.

  He ached to ask her now, but he wasn’t ready yet. This wasn’t the kind of question he wanted to write on a woman’s palm. If God could strengthen him through another few nights away from her, he would have a way.

  There was a softness to this quilt that she hadn’t noticed before. Aven gripped an edge of the calico backing and nestled it beneath her chin. Lying here in bed, she didn’t need to turn away from the wall to know that Ida had placed a tray of tea on the nightstand. The aroma of peppermint and honey was as gentle as Ida’s footsteps had been.

  Warm and purring, Dottie lay against her side. Such comforts. Last of all, the necklace in hand. Aven twirled her mother’s delicate chain around her fingertip once more, then let it unravel. It spilled like a dull gray puddle on the crisp sheet and Aven plucked it up. She rose slowly, stiff from having lain still for so long. The light from the window told her that it was nearly midday. Aven slipped the necklace back on and snapped the tiny clasp into place. Ida had told her to rest all she needed and for now, these hours abed, laced with thoughts and prayers, had infused her with a gentle dose of stre
ngth.

  Sounds and murmurs filled the house below—the planning and preparation for the wedding tomorrow. So as not to be seen by her groom, Fay was to stay with Cora for the night. Aven had volunteered to spend this day at work with Ida in the kitchen. A fine feast there was to prepare, and Aven had been looking forward to the baking of breads and the roasting of meat. She glanced to where her apron hung beside the dresser. To simply rise and put it on shouldn’t be so hard. Which made it all the more difficult to keep tears in check when Fay entered, knelt beside the bed, and took Aven’s hand in her own.

  “I ask you to come with me, Aven.” Her blue eyes brimmed with gentleness. “It would be good for you to get out of this house, and I would dearly love your company tonight. Come with me to Cora’s. I know it’s not so easy to leave troubles behind, but if you let us, we will spoil you fiercely.” Fay rose enough to sit on the bed beside her. “And before you fret, Ida has insisted that she has a handle on everything.”

  Fay went on to explain that Ida had enlisted a crew of neighbor women to help her with the preparations. “There are so many women coming I think Ida might be at a loss for how to keep busy.” Fay winked.

  These dear women.

  Fay slipped a strand of hair behind Aven’s ear. “Please come?”

  ’Twas quite the coaxing . . . one that spurred Aven to dress and, with Fay’s help, tuck a few overnight items in her carpetbag. Spread across the opposite bed was Fay’s dress for tomorrow, fresh white stockings, new garter ribbons, and her finest shoes, newly polished. All would be waiting for her return in the morning.

  Aven had much healing to do yet, but she sensed the first step on that road was to follow Fay out of doors and down the lane to Cora’s. To loop her arm with the bride-to-be and see what fancies the evening held. A little merriment would surely do her spirit good.

  Thor saw them along, as much for his assurance as Aven’s own, she suspected, and when they reached Cora’s quaint cabin, the very woman was standing on the porch, waving. Tess and Georgie were at her side. Al had made himself scarce, so it was the happy chatter of women and the smells of a cooking supper that greeted them.