Maybe it was God’s mercy, but he sensed survival had less to do with holy sympathy and more to do with the fact that God wasn’t ready to deal with him yet. It would be a long recount—his sins—and surely the Maker of the earth had better things to do than stand with him in judgement.
The ship creaked. Hammocks shifted again. The air hung still and hot. Each awareness lay distant yet strangely comforting.
“Haakon, you’re dreaming.”
It was the same thing the woman in Norway had once whispered to him.
When he’d scaled the hill to see her again for the third time that week, she’d stopped her chores to warm for him a meal from her already scant supply. As generous an offering as a feast in a fortress. He’d sat down at her table, a dinner of mincemeat stew in hand, and so exhausted he’d been, so satisfying the fare, that he’d dozed there beside the fire. She’d come to his side and spoken in her gentle voice. Her calming him amid whatever heartache he’d been murmuring about in his sleep. A pain she’d probably understood even more than he.
What was her name?
She’d given it to him once, but to his shame he’d forgotten. Mrs. Jönsson, the villagers called her, and so such formality had sufficed for him as well. He’d been too ashamed to inquire again. The sound of it, he recalled, was a pretty one, yet he’d been careless to lose it. Just as he was with everything else in this life.
Sweat trickled down his temple. A groan rose in his sleep, coursing up from utter agony.
“Norgaard!”
Suddenly Haakon crashed to the ground as his hammock overturned. The memories slamming south of consciousness, he rose and grabbed the culprit by the front of his linen shirt.
Tate.
Haakon rammed him into the wall. “Why did you do that!” he shouted.
Tate tossed him off, tangling Haakon into the still swinging hammock. “Because you were shouting in your sleep again.”
That wasn’t what he’d meant. Haakon rammed him harder, this time slamming Tate into a barrel filled with dried peas. The racket was loud enough to stir more men from slumber. Instead of being his usually peaceful self, Tate scrambled up and shoved Haakon in the direction of the stairs. “So we could have this pleasant conversation!”
Haakon stumbled, but caught himself on a salted mutton leg that hung from the rafters, wrapped in cloth. Two mice scattered from between his boots, and the ship’s cat darted after them, making more crash and clatter.
With the groggy attention of their fellow crewmembers focusing in, Haakon stomped up the stairs. At the top, he opened the hatch and climbed out into the cold night. The stench of the living quarters fell away to a gust of salty air. Overhead, stars pierced the blackness, and water lapped against the hull. A still night that was nothing like the turmoil within him.
Fatigue threatening to buckle him, Haakon pulled a dried coca leaf from his pouch. His tin of sodium bicarbonate wasn’t near, so he crammed the leaf into his cheek without the powder that rendered the leaves potent enough to suppress hunger, thirst, fatigue, and even pain. He’d heard of men losing their minds for coca, and while the plant was different than those rumored to have been taken by the wildest of Norse warriors to chase away fear and even reason, he knew this dabbling was as reckless.
He meant to kick the habit, but with them sailing toward the Caribbean where the stimulant was easily traded for, the choice wouldn’t be so simple. Made harder every time memories stole his sleep and plunged him deep. Deep below the surface . . . so far and so fast that he might as well have been falling again. Might as well have plummeted into the black sea so needling cold it tore the breath from his lungs. Beyond that had only been pain as he’d rolled against the hull of the ship and a distant awareness that in those waters swam whales that would tear a man apart.
Death would have taken him then, and he’d been nigh unto welcoming it, but before his lungs could give out, two hands ripped him from the blackness, tugging him higher and higher and higher until there was air again. He’d gasped for it—clawing at life as if having awoken from Valhalla itself. Instead of Valkyries summoning him to an eternal feast, it had been the grip of the gospel ushering him toward a new dawn through the bravery of a single man, the creak of rope and wood, and a Christian’s prayer whispered into the cold as Haakon had fought for consciousness.
“I should have died then.” The words tried to cleave in his chest, but it was time he forced them out. Haakon might have come out alive, but as for Tate’s appeal to God that night, he still didn’t know if he believed in such sovereignty. “The night you jumped in after me.” The night he’d jumped in himself.
Death would have been cleaner instead of the alternative, bearing yet another burden on his back. One of a second chance he didn’t deserve.
Tate was hard to see in the dark, so Haakon didn’t try. Instead he just listened to the voice that he had come to know as steady and wise. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I can’t stand by and watch a man drown. None of the crew would. I went in because I got there first. Anyone would have done the same.”
Haakon wasn’t so sure about that.
Gone from mind was the young Sorrel girl. Even the woman he’d left behind in Norway. In their place rushed forward a face so familiar and so tender that Haakon nearly gasped with the ache of it. Aven—with her brown eyes and freckled cheeks. Just as staggering was the memory of her voice. Her gentle ways and her trust in him. The tender feel of her hands in his hair as she trimmed it or of how he’d kissed her in the pond that day, him hoping to awaken her to the possibility of something more than friendship.
Yet it was an encounter months later that haunted him. A rush of his desire that hadn’t been welcomed by Aven no matter how much he’d tried to coerce her.
Why couldn’t he have just given up after losing her to Thor?
Why had he sapped the light from her eyes—all for his own gain and to punish his brother? How hard she’d fought against him. How urgently she’d pleaded for him to let her free as he’d lowered his suspenders, him giving in to her cries only when he’d felt a jolt to his soul so icy cold he was certain he’d be barred from heaven forever. The empty, black sensation of God turning His face from him.
Which meant he had to believe. A man couldn’t feel that amount of dread otherwise.
Haakon’s throat clamped tight, and he looked to the sky studded with so many stars, such beauty would seem impossible had he not spent all these years discovering it was so. His gaze fell from the heavens to the abyss below. Would death have satisfied him? Even if that death led to darker shores? He didn’t know, but he was more and more tormented by the answer.
“I don’t know what to do.” It was the first time he’d admitted such a thing. Coca always made him philosophical, but he didn’t think this was the potion talking.
Tate swung on the coat Haakon hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Are you asking me?”
His most trusted friend? On a night as bleak as this? “Yes.”
Eyes adjusting to the scant moonlight, Haakon saw the way Tate braced both hands to the railing and lowered his head. The man’s voice rose strong over the chop of the current. “I don’t know what you should do, but I can tell you what I’m gonna do.”
A crisp breeze gusted against them, but to both Haakon’s relief and despair, the medicine was beginning to take effect. A numbing and a strength that he craved. He didn’t know how to make it through a day otherwise.
“I’m gonna go home,” Tate said. “I’ve been gone four years now and didn’t tell a soul where I was going. It was foolish and juvenile, and now I need to go back and make amends for that. There are people who are waiting for me.”
Though Haakon knew little of the woman Tate had left behind, he understood heartsickness when he heard it in a man’s voice.
“She may no longer be waiting, but I need to be brave enough to find out.”
Haakon leaned his forearms on the railing. Moonlit water churned against the hull like ink beneath a
lantern flame. “And what should a man do who has no one waiting on him?”
“You think you have no one waiting for you back home?”
Haakon surrendered a nod.
Tate thumped the toe of his boot to a post, then tipped his head back as if unable to bear Haakon’s foolishness for one more league. “Then I’d say you’ve never been more wrong in your life.” His gaze lifted to those stars. Ones that had been burning and guiding since the beginning of time. Finally he dropped his focus that was stern but threaded with faith. A hope that Haakon had long since lost but ached to recover. “Granted, they won’t be very impressed with what they see—I know I’m not—but that part will . . . as always . . . be up to you.”
Sigurd stood with his nose pressed to the window, watching a herring gull soar along the cloudy sky. ’Twas not uncommon for clouds to roll in from the coast, nor was it rare to spot sea birds on days such as these.
Sigurd hurried back to the dining table where Aven sat. He clambered onto the bench, returning his attention to the map spread between them. “And dis?” Sigurd asked as if he hadn’t just been distracted by the gull’s lonely cry.
“That’s Australia.” Aven skimmed her finger southward.
The three-year-old traced the wobbly outline of its coast. Upstairs, Fay was settling Bjørn for a nap, so Aven had offered to watch her fidgety nephew, who smelled of sunshine and who was curious enough to have found a map that morning. While searching the house for a missing marble, he’d scoured the floor in Aven and Thor’s room, spotting the map beneath a bookshelf on the side of the room that had once belonged to Haakon.
The paper must have fallen and furled from sight in the wake of Haakon’s leaving. With Sigurd’s help, Aven had blown off the layers of time and, to the boy’s delight, brought the map down here for him to explore.
While she was much less fascinated by Haakon’s keepsake than her nephew was, it had captured his interest, and she needed to rest her feet.
“Where No-way?” he asked.
“Norway?” Aven guided Sigurd’s small finger nearer to Scandinavia as a hint.
He touched England, and when she shook her head his search moved to Germany. “Closer. That’s where your mama’s parents came from.” With a smile, Aven touched the northern shore that sat just below Norway. She slid her finger across waters where the Vikings had once sailed their dragon ships to raid for riches, power, and even brides from the countries surrounding the North Sea. She showed him where Ireland was, just a short boat ride away, and a land that Norse raiders had plundered for the same goods.
She told Sigurd all of this, wanting to keep the history of their homelands alive, and when his eyes widened in shock, she added, “I’m sure your da and uncles are very sorry for that.”
He looked relieved. “We should tell dem dats not nice.”
“Yes, we should,” she said gravely, then with a wink spoke an assurance that neither she nor Fay had been plundered.
He smiled and she voyaged her fingertip to that stretch of land along the North Atlantic. “Oh . . . what might this be?”
“Da!” Sigurd cried. He touched Germany again with a tender-sounding, “Ma.”
“Aye, that is where your ancestors come from.”
With a shuffling that always followed her limp, Ida stepped into the great room and set aside a basket of folded laundry.
“Nanna?” Sigurd asked.
Aven nestled him closer on their shared bench. “Before being here in Virginia, your nanna came from Louisiana. Which isn’t a country. It’s a state. Though I’m afraid . . .” Her brow puckered. “I’m not certain where it is.”
“Just down south there.” Ida limped nearer and pointed a gnarled finger to the bottom portion of the United States.
“And before that?” Aven asked. “Your kinfolk?”
“Just here.” Ida’s voice held a touch of pride as she tapped a string of islands near the Caribbean Sea. “Long before my own mammy was born.”
Aven’s gaze roved the map. She studied both land and sea, and a twinge of wondering arose as to where on the surface of this printed paper Haakon roamed. Was he well? Was he alive? Had he a wife and children to bear his name and bring him joy?
Or did he live free and alone?
All those questions were compounded by a more desperate one. Did he regret his actions? She’d never seen him again after that awful hour, and even though his brothers had glimpsed him at the Sorrel farm days later, sentiments hadn’t been swapped amid the chaos. The letter he’d mailed home after his leaving had indicated regret, but had been so brief and so hurriedly scrawled that it did little more than place a tiny flame under hope. It was barely enough to light the darkness of their last encounter, but might Haakon have learned a lesson of how people were to be treated? She hoped no others would be harmed by his choices. Especially those weaker than him as she had been.
Wherever Haakon was—be he a vagabond or a family man—what mattered most was that he was living wiser now.
While she might never know, that was what prayers were for.
Sigurd stood on the seat of his chair and reached for Ida.
Ida scooped him up. “We all came awful far.” She kissed his forehead where a blond curl always dangled. “And look where we ended up. Here. Together.”
Sigurd wrapped his arms around her neck. “I’m hungry, Nanna,” he said matter-of-factly. Something he announced at least once an hour.
“Then we need to fill you up.” Chuckling, Ida toted him into the kitchen. “But I best hear a ‘please’ first.”
“Please. And thank you.” Sigurd giggled.
As the pair busied themselves in the pantry, Aven rolled up the map. She climbed the stairs for the third floor. There she rifled through the box of important matters Thor kept on his dresser—coins, old keys, and other odds and ends. She shuffled to the bottom, finding a key that was slightly bent. A chill slid across her skin as she freed what had once been in Haakon’s care. Wearing one of Thor’s old shirts atop her mounded patchwork skirt, Aven slipped the key into the chest pocket. The slight weight of it was unsettling, so she squared her shoulders, inhaled a dose of courage, and headed back downstairs.
With Thor’s insistence she not venture away from the farmyard alone, she searched for Jorgan, since Thor was looking in on Cora and the girls. She was grateful he wasn’t around to accompany her. To spare him the unease of returning to Haakon’s cabin made the missing of him worth it. As Aven ventured across the farmyard, the white mass of clouds tinged the air with a hint of the sea. Though sunlight was sparse today, she recalled the lace-trimmed parasol he’d brought her. Both the babe and sunnier days would be here soon, making his thoughtfulness all the more cherished.
Aven found Jorgan in the horse barn shoveling the remains of last winter’s hay into the nearest pen. “Might you be able to accompany me to the west cabin?” She felt silly disturbing him for something as trite as the map curled in her hand. “’Twill only take a few minutes.”
Jorgan pitched another scoop of hay into the pen, where just beyond, two of Dotti’s kittens scampered along the storage loft. “Certainly.” He heaved the last of the dried grass over the side, then leaned the pitchfork against a wall.
After snagging his hat from a corner of the nearest stall, he used it to swipe hay from his wool pants. Sliding the hat on, he gestured for her to step out first. Together they aimed for the narrow patch of woodland that separated the great house from the west cabin that was Haakon’s inheritance. Aven meant to make polite conversation with Jorgan as they walked, but all sensibility lodged in her throat as they reached the first spread of trees. She hadn’t walked this portion of Norgaard land in years. Though she was hesitant in crossing it now, ’twas time.
The last she had stood on Haakon’s land, autumn winds had swept through with a promise of winter, and the man himself had regarded her with those piercing blue eyes. Now his face was one she could scarcely conjure. Instead, it was the wildflowers feathered about
that filled her senses. Not the fair-haired Norseman with a smooth voice and cunning ways.
Jorgan was steady at her side as they passed through the trees. When she glimpsed the cabin in its sweeping meadow, Aven slowed. ’Twas a quaint dwelling, with a humble lower floor that, while meagerly adorned, housed the makings of a kitchen and living space—both of which had been left in progress. Above that rose a loft that she’d never been up to.
Still holding onto the map, Aven forced herself to cross the yard that spread overgrown and empty. As she climbed the porch steps, old boards creaked a welcome that might as well have been a longing for life in this place once again.
“Do you want me to go in with you?” Jorgan called from where he’d halted in the yard.
“I’ll just be a moment,” she called back gently. Aven freed the key from the shirt pocket, pressed it into the lock, and turned it with a click so soft that it shouldn’t have heralded in memories of the man who had once been so dear. But as rusty, forgotten things had a way of doing, it sounded an alarm that she hadn’t anticipated. With a trembling hand she pressed her way into his cabin.
The air inside was dim and stagnant. Ripe with the scent of musty wood. A fresh leak had blossomed in the far corner, and sunlight hadn’t been kind to the curtains hanging on the windows. Aven stepped to them and fingered a hem just as she’d done when Haakon had stood beside her. He’d raised the curtain rod into place, giving her that boyish smile as he did, then the back of his hand had touched her arm. A coaxing—a pleading—for her to choose him.
A would-be lover who had lost her to Thor, losing his own way in the aftermath.
With a shuddering breath, Aven set the map on a wobbly table and turned away. Not wanting to linger, she stepped out and bolted the door before pressing the key back from sight.
Turning, she spotted a flash of white overhead and shielded her eyes to spy the lone herring gull dipping beneath the spread of clouds. She walked back toward Jorgan, still watching the sea bird that arced down to soar over the treetops of this land. It let out an urgent call, a cry for waters to rest upon, as it curved in a slow circle above towering pines.
Daughters of Northern Shores Page 7