1799 February

The wind set the rhythm of Gertine’s stirring and humming – a melody she had learned from Ove. He was late. Very late. The soup was ready, stewing deeper into its juices. Not a bad thing, she decided. Outside, a gale took up her tune and she glanced towards the door. Trying to not worry about the tricks in the wind, Gertine breathed in a smile and bent to feed more wood into the stove’s glowing belly.

In burst Ove.

It was the way the kitchen door slammed shut behind him that told her something was wrong. Gertine started with surprise, bumping her hand against the hot iron side of the oven doorframe; the melody vanished.

“Ow!” The shock of cold that sprang in with him hung in the air as Gertine shook her hand, as though to scatter away the pain.

Ove went right back out the kitchen door and returned with some snow to soothe her singed knuckles. He closed the woodstove door with a still-mittened hand and led her to one of the rocking chairs in the corner. The snow slid off Gertine’s hand as it melted. Although the burn stung, she laughed as she looked up into his cold-burned face. She could see that his jaw was set, and the sternness in his green eyes left her confused, almost frightened.

“What is it? What’s happened?” she asked, her smile fading.

Ove’s eyes seemed to search for something in hers. Then he straightened up and paced the small room, pulling off boots and winter wrappings.

“Your mother.” Ove’s voice was ragged. 

Gertine cringed with a sudden defensiveness. “What? My mother?” She was afraid to guess. “Ove, tell me.”

He turned abruptly from his pacing and stared at her. No, not stared, he glared at her, she thought.

“She’s called it off!” Ove dragged his fingers through his short tawny hair, lifting if from matted to mangy. He hadn’t yelled, but it was the most she’d ever heard him raise his voice. For a second she felt wildly confused.

Then she knew.

“What? The wedding? No, don’t fool.” She forced a laugh. But Ove was not smiling. Gertine’s forehead crinkled in confusion. “No!” she gasped. Forgetting her burn and her now sopping sleeve, she shook her head hard, her long yellow braid whipping from her back around to her chin. Oh, Mamma, oh no. Poor Karen!

Ove sat down in the rocker next to Gertine and set his palms on his knees in what seemed an effort to put down his anger. He pulled his rocker around to face his wife and leaned towards her.

“Why?” Exhaling, he leaned back and lifted his palms. “Why?” His voice broke with a tired sadness.

Gertine shrugged. “As if I could ever understand what’s in her head.” Mamma, why?

Ove scoffed and Gertine felt her cheeks flush scarlet, feeling accused and somehow guilty. They faced each other, tense and still.

“But,” Gertine exhaled, “all the preparations! Most guests have already arrived! But Mamma seemed so pleased! I –” she could not stop shaking her head. Her sister Karen was marrying Ove’s father, Boye, this Saturday. Gertine had reveled in Karen’s happiness. Mette, their mother, by all appearances did as well. After all, Boye was affluent and important in the community. It was a good match! “I don’t understand.”

Ove reached over and took Gertine’s hand, inspecting her burn. Her eyes followed his, resting on the red line forming across her knuckles. Ove got up and went to the pantry floor where the cold food was stored below a hatch. He found the yoghurt and returned to Gertine. He sat down again and with his calloused fingers he gently painted yoghurt onto her singed skin.

Gertine’s eyes glazed, watching his face as he worked on her burn, his sharp cheekbones ruddy from cold, the smoothness of his forehead beneath the tangle of his hair, until her vision was unfocused and his edges blurred. The wind outside was moaning again, tuneless and mournful. Why must Mamma suddenly change her mind?

Ove got up from the rocker and poured the thick cow’s milk into the glasses set for dinner on the table. He put the soup, wafting of onion and boiled fish, onto the trivet at the table next to the rolls. He ladled their bowls full and gestured for her to join him. Gertine brushed a tear off her cheek. They sat, said grace together, and didn’t eat. He quietly explained how he had gone to his father’s farm to help with final wedding arrangements and found Boye in a stomping rage.

“His words were near nonsense, he was so upset. I didn’t know what to do, so I just listened. I’m glad Grandma Gjertrud was there, or I might be there as yet, trying to keep him from… from calling up Odin’s vengeance.”

Ove recounted the conversation. Gertine listened, intently, trying to understand. She shook her head again as Ove leaned his strong back against the rungs of the oak chair. The fragrant steam rose from the soup pot and from their neglected bowls. It curled and twisted and taunted at her hunger pangs after a long day of hard work. Ove clutched at his spoon, fiddled with it. 

Gertine glanced around aimlessly at her well-ordered home, usually such a comfort but now feeling false and vacant. She kept a tidy house; she had learned well from looking after guests her whole life.

Her mother ran a small farm and waystation. Mette and Erik Anker had set the place up together in Soratune. But then he had died, leaving Mette to run it and raise their three children alone. Gertine was the youngest. She didn’t remember her father.

“Mayhap their age difference?” Gertine offered. Her shock was subsiding, her mind grasping for reasons, searching for sense. “Karen is just twenty-five.” 

“Hmm.” Ove cocked his head to one side. He held his spoon in his lap. “That hardly seems likely. I’ve heard of larger differences. Your mother raised no fuss when we married.”

“But only five years separate us.”

“Even so, Gertine. It’s you who are the elder.” He took a bite, slurping the broth.

Not for the first time, she wondered if his being the younger of their union bothered Ove more than he let on.   

“How long since your mother died?” Gertine felt timid with the question.

Ove shook his head. “Long enough; you know that.”

She did know. Ove had told her that when he was fourteen his mother had died in childbirth; the baby boy died a few months later.

“I only meant –”

“No,” Ove said firmly. “He’s been blissful these past months, with Karen promised to him. No, Gertine. You know as well as I.” Gertine felt that Ove was pleading with her. His father’s broken engagement was as much a personal tragedy to Ove as to Gertine, she realized.

She finally picked up the spoon and stirred her soup, listening to the liquid-dampered clink of spoon on bowl. She thought of all the meals she had served to her mother’s guests over the years. The inn had been a wonderful place to grow up. People intrigued Gertine. She would watch guests, seeing every detail in their manner, and imagine their stories. Shy and curious, sometimes she even asked their tale, though not often. Her story-thirst was quenched mostly by the old hired man, Amos, whose storehouse of knowledge overflowed with “layers of ancient memory passing through generations of folk” as he had once put it. That thought had kept Gertine as spellbound as his stories did. 

“What if it’s Karen?” asked Ove, interrupting her erratic thoughts. She looked at him in surprise. 

“What do you mean?” Gertine said with caution, ready to be defensive again.

“Could it be Karen wants the marriage called off?”

“No! Sure not.” Of this Gertine was certain.

Growing up, Gertine felt close with her older sister. They even shared the same birthday: December 17th, and only one year separated them. Karen was always the proper lady, the perfect hostess who loved a house full of folk in a different way from Gertine. Closing her eyes, Gertine recalled how her sister would float around the dining hall nearly invisible, while refilling cups and clearing empty plates.

“It’s possible that Mamma needs Karen to stay and help at the inn,” she said.

Ove huffed. “Karen’s no child. No servant neither. And if they’re in love…”

Gertine looked at Ove across the small table and regarded him tenderly. He had begun eating, absently, and now was nearly done with the meal, sopping up the soup with the soft potato roll. She adored her young husband for his sweet romantic notions of love and marriage. From stories he’d told, loving partnership had been the model throughout his childhood. After his mother died, Ove had helped his father raise his four younger brothers and sisters. Marriage and family were revered, set atop a pedestal, and she knew Ove had every confidence in it. At eighteen he was ready for wedlock and had stepped in with both feet.

Gertine took small sips of her soup. Tastes good, she thought ruefully. They had been married less than a year and it often still felt like they were playing house. She delighted in pleasing him with her cookery, though tonight it seemed superfluous.

Her thoughts flickered back to when they had first met in the marketplace of the mountainous town, thick with noise and smells, more than three years ago. After her brother John left, Gertine was given the job of selling the chicken eggs in town on Saturdays. She’d had little contact with local folk until then; her mother was protective and kept the children close to home. Ove had been buying John’s eggs and now bought them from Gertine. She remembered how Ove had befriended her straight off and made her work much easier. 

“And what of the guests already come?” she asked. It was a question perhaps rhetorical. What of the guests? They would return to their homes, she supposed. They were mostly relatives from Boye’s side, many of the same that had come to witness her marriage vows to Ove. Her mother had no family. Gertine licked the yoghurt from her hand, savoring the bitter taste, and examined the red welted line on her knuckle half-heartedly.

Ove pushed back from the table. “Karen is ready for marriage; they both are,” he said, his voice strong and firm. “They are right together.” He had leaned back into his chair again and crossed his arms over his chest.  

The meal was finished, yet it felt as though they were both waiting for something. They sat there, face to face across the table, with no answers between them.

Finally Ove rose, stoked the embers in the woodstove, and started pulling on layers to go outside for evening chores.

Before going he paused, pondering, then reached for Gertine and drew her into an embrace. “Mayhap it won’t be so bad. Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow, Grandma Gjertrud always says.”

“Small thing?” Gertine felt the comfort of his strong arms around her, yet she was incredulous at his words.

He shrugged and smiled, drawing a finger tenderly along her jaw. “Mayhap it is righted already, Gert.”

She exhaled as she watched him leave. Is there something he isn’t telling me? 

While Ove tended the livestock, Gertine cleaned up from dinner and put the clothes away off the drying rack, then sat down to the mending. Ignoring the ache from the burn, she spent most of her time worrying about her sister and her mother.

When Ove came in, his mood had improved, yet he didn’t take up his fiddle. This more than anything told her how upset he was. Not one evening had passed since their wedding day that he hadn’t played for her.

It was a restless bed. Gertine tossed and turned over. Her knuckles stung. Ove rubbed the knots in her shoulders. They clung to each other and they whispered together. They made love and finally grew still. In the darkest part of the night Gertine heard again the whine of the wind through the trees. She could sense the disquiet of the fairy folk far off in the hills, a restiveness akin to her own. She closed her eyes and listened to her husband’s steady breathing and felt secure.

But she didn’t sleep.

*

Gertine could see her mother’s big house with its steep-pitched roof, the old brown barn, the long hay field, all under snow. It still felt like home to her, though life had changed mightily in the past year. Her gelding, Midler, a creamy fjord horse, stepped smartly on short legs down the dirty road that cut through the whiteness, packed and rutted from passing sleigh runners and other riders. To the road’s north was the river; it had been wide across to abrupt snowy hills, but here the river narrowed, the yonder hills even more sheer so that walls of bare earth showed. Evergreen trees nestled at hills’ feet and hid in nooks. On top, a few spindly deciduous trees stood resigned to their nakedness. The southern side of the road was trimmed by a long rock hedge, thickly frosted with snow, snaking past the many family farms with undulating fields and clusters of little store fronts set along this ancient trade route.  

Gertine yawned, lulled by the sway and rhythm of Midler’s stride. The hour to rise had come early, much too early after Gertine’s long fretful night. It was still dark in the late winter of this country so near the coldest northlands. The days were painfully short. Ove was out of bed first, a farmer’s duties calling loudly. Gertine had lain curled under the heavy blankets, hiding from the world. But the day couldn’t be denied for long. It was curiosity and concern that had propelled her up and into the cold darkness.

She was to spend the night with her sister Karen this eve of the wedding. At least that had been the plan. Now she didn’t know what to think, so she was coming anyway. She shivered despite the warmth of the beast she rode, the thick coat she wore over her long wool dress, and the knitted scarf wrapped snugly around her head.

The three-hour ride gave her time to ponder her sister’s situation and her mother’s reasons, and yet she found herself thinking mostly of her father. There was little she knew. Erik Anker had once been a pastor, and although that was before he and her mother were married, Mette had proudly claimed the title of Madam which was always bestowed upon pastors’ wives and widows. Madam Anker never spoke of her lost husband, not that Gertine could remember. She imagined he looked much like her brother John, handsomely chiseled, slight hook to the nose, only older and distinguished, perhaps with grey peppering a ginger beard. She could see in her mind her daddy’s kind eyes, blue like her own, certainly eyes that smiled and reassured. She imagined him a patient, all-knowing sage full of just the right thing to say and do. 

She knew growing up without a father was only part of her story. It was an identity, just as each traveler had a short explanation for themselves: merchant in search of trade partners or peddling his wares, grandparents traveling to visit young ones, young man seeing the mountainous country. Fatherless daughter of the inn matron. Not until she’d met Ove, and then his family, did she realize that she had always felt a loss. She didn’t even know what was missing, merely that she had grown up with an emptiness, in a small but important way.

Other than the smoke curling from the chimney, the place was as still as a drawing. It was dark yet, though barely, and unearthly quiet, as if even the air was holding her breath. But Gertine knew her mother would’ve long since been up to milk the goats and gather eggs before preparing and serving the breakfast meal for the guests. It was now halfway to the midday dinner, and few were likely to be leaving the inn today as most staying in it had come for the wedding. Gertine wondered if they knew the wedding was not to happen.

She suddenly felt silly. It must all be a mistake.

She stabled her horse and stepped quickly across the snow-deep yard. She eased warily into the kitchen, leaving her boots and overnight bag just inside the door. It smelled of nostalgia: a mixture of yeast and marmalade, cinnamon and cheese.

Madam Mette Anker didn’t even look up. Tall and lean, she was busily kneading the bread for the supper meal, always looking ahead to the next task. Suddenly quite happy to be there, Gertine pulled off her hat, scarf, coat, and picked up an apron. She tied it on, rolled back her sleeves and washed up in the basin. Still Mette didn’t speak.

“Good morning, Mamma. Are you well?”

At this, Mette peered at her sideways, measuring her youngest daughter with her smart sea blue eyes. She wiped floured hands on her apron and came over to hug her, an earnest embrace, but at the same time removed and brief.

“Fine, dear. We are all well here.” She went back to her work.

Gertine stood perplexed. Then she fell into step with Mette, helping to flour the boards. They went on working until the loaves were all placed. Mette slid the thick oak boards into the oven, and Gertine deftly closed the heavy metal door with a practiced hand. 

“And what is Karen needing yet, before the wedding tomorrow?”

Mette stopped in her busyness, not moving for several moments. Gertine waited, trying to be brave but sensing mostly the strange quietness of the air again – and feeling like a child who had overstepped her place. Mette turned and, same height as Gertine, looked her full in the face, eyebrows raised and lips pursed thin.

“Karen is fine. There will be no wedding, tomorrow or any other day. That man is not a fit husband. He’s neither honorable nor decent, and I cannot allow it.” Here Mette paused as though waiting for Gertine’s shocked reaction. When none came, Mette understood that Gertine already knew. “And he’s much too old for our Karen. It is what be.” She nodded and her face settled into a mother-knows-best look that Gertine recognized well. Gertine was speechless and Mette started in with the meats.

The inn was alive with the normal hum of guests going about their day. Gertine was swept into the familiar work. It was no longer her work, but the rhythm of routine was like a comfortable sweater. In the strangeness of a broken family engagement, Gertine yearned for some comfort.

Their hired man, Amos, came in with an armful of wood. Gertine followed him and hugged him tight when he’d put his load down beside the fireplace. His smartly trimmed beard scratched at her face. Old Amos had lived in the shed house beside the barn for as long as Gertine could remember. He was like a grandfather to her, she imagined, not having anything to compare it.

“Be there for yer sister, little Gert. ‘Tis a pattern, this, but one that can be broken,” Old Amos murmured to her, “and then fixed.”

She smiled at him with a question in her eyes, but he was off, on to his other duties. 

The day went on like that, troubled, but fine. They were not preparing for the wedding, as they would have been, the whole reason that Gertine had returned. Instead, this was the regular busywork of running a waystation. Mette said nothing to guests, who apparently did not notice. Gertine inconspicuously searched for Karen as she swept along preparing and cooking.

But Karen was not to be seen.

Then the mood of the inn changed abruptly. A rider arrived. Gertine recognized Lars, a cousin of Boye, who sought out Mette. He delivered the note solemnly and quite publicly. Gertine watched her mother tuck it away in her belt, not even looking at it, not even looking at him. Mette stepped back and stood staring stiffly out the window, waiting for the young man to leave. Lars was pulled away by another relative staying at the inn. There was a brief exchange and Lars was gone. But there was a buzz of energy in the room now that had the intensity of scandal.

Uneasy now, Gertine finally put down her mother’s work. She sidled up to her mother’s elbow and started, “What was that all…?” 

But Mette turned away and headed for the kitchen door, leaving her daughter with her unfinished question. Gertine watched in surprise as Mette pulled on her boots and cloak and went to find work to be done outside.

*

Balancing carefully, Gertine carried a plate of bread and cheese in one hand and a tumbler of milk in the other as she climbed the worn wooden stairs, steep and narrow. She paused at the top to set the glass on the floor, then knocked gently on the door. Without waiting for a response from inside, she turned the handle and eased the door open.

“Karen?”

The room was dark and familiar. It had been her room, too, and she was surprised to feel sentimental as she peered around. Oh, the time they had spent here, mostly in quiet companionship slipping into sleep after a long busy day, but sometimes they would tell secrets, exchange dreams, and make plans for their lives. Those intimate sister-moments were what the walls whispered to Gertine on this winter afternoon.

She retrieved the milk and went in, shutting the door behind her. Karen was there, in the little room chiseled into the roof space above the kitchen. She looked small on the bed they had shared, her legs concealed beneath the old knit blanket, pink and fraying. It was as if she were tucked away from the world.

“Hungry?” asked Gertine as she set the snacks on a little table beside the bed. Karen shook her head. Gertine sat down with Karen and took her hand. But Karen pulled it away.

“’Tis always been like this with her. Have you never wondered why we have no cousins, no grandparents, tantes or uncles? I so much wanted to be part of Boye’s big, happy household. Oh, Gertine,” Karen sighed, and sighed again.

“What happened?”

“All I know is that they quarreled, Boye and Mother. He’s offended her and now she’s offended him. They’re both bullheaded!” She paused and then added quietly, “I haven’t seen him since two days back.”

“Did you try to talk to her?”

“I pleaded with her,” Karen said, suddenly exasperated. “But you know Mamma. Once she’s made up her mind, that’s it.”

Yes, Gertine knew this was true. As Mette would say, it is what be. “What will you do?”

At this, Karen did not answer. They sat together, in denial really, not quite grieving nor willing to believe this fate.

“But what could have possibly changed her heart against Boye?” Gertine asked. Then when Karen didn’t answer she leaned in, and in a low voice said, “‘Tis as if the trolls have whispered unrest into Mamma’s ear.” They smiled at each other despite everything.

Although troubled, Karen seemed strong, which calmed Gertine. In the corner sat Karen’s bags and satchel, packed and ready to go to the church tomorrow, and then on to her new home. She made no move to unpack them. Gertine did not suggest it.

“I wish John were here. He’d talk to Mamma all right.” Gertine sighed.

“And it would do no good. She’d not likely listen to him either. Remember when he left? How Mamma kept on as if he’d never been. Her own son! She never has mentioned it. Don’t know if she’d let him in the door if he came back now, let alone listen to what he may say.”

“Oh, she would. She might,” Gertine said quietly. She felt broody and pensive. “I miss him.” She sat with her hands in her lap, studying the welting red burn line on her knuckles. Then she laughed. “John always was leaving, seems. He was always riding off on the old work horse.”

“Yes and they would meet up in the woods and smoke their nasty cigars, John and his crew. Did you ever smell one of those? Oh, foul things. Mercy.”

“No – I don’t know. Where’d they get cigars from?” Gertine reached for the tumbler and drank. The goat’s milk was sweet and launched familiar sensations through her body, having had only cow’s milk for months.

“That boy Gaard would pick leaves from a certain brown plant, he called it tobacco weed. They’d sun-dry them and then roll ‘em in paper. Uff! Bad enough to chew the stuff.” Karen shivered, momentarily removed from her present predicament. “And Mamma knew, of course, and she worried about them starting the woods on fire out there.” The mantle of turmoil was back on Karen’s shoulders as her thoughts turned to her mother. “They did once, too. Don’t you remember that? All the neighbors were rounded up to fight that fire. They put it out, right, or it would’ve gone much worse for those boys. I’m sure it shamed Mamma.”

“Yes, I recall the fire in the woods.” Gertine remembered worrying terribly about the little wood elves until Old Amos assured her, weeks later, that those elves have all manner of tunnels by which to escape just such a disaster. She had not known her brother had been part of the cause.

Outside it was dark already. Gertine lit the tallow candles and after a while she took up one of the few books. Karen sat on the bed by the small window, as though keeping vigil. After reading the same paragraph over several times Gertine realized she could not concentrate well enough for books, so she set it aside and picked up one of Karen’s embroidery projects. But it sat idle in Gertine’s lap as a memory took hold of her. 

“Remember when Stormy came to us that Christmas Eve? I still think about that cat arriving at the kitchen door, and with a tiny puppy carried in her teeth like a Christmas present. Stormy was the most beautiful cat I’d ever seen, all sleek and black. Mamma was so angry at her for stealing that little pup, remember? Strange about the puppy. But I always imagined Stormy had saved him from some terrible fate; she was such a good cat. I wished the puppy had lived more than a few days.” Gertine leaned back with the bittersweet memory. Karen said nothing for a long time, still staring out the small window into the dark.

“You always did that, Gertine, believed the best in anyone, even when it wasn’t there.”

Gertine had picked up the embroidery again and was making tiny expert stitches.

“At least Mamma let us keep Stormy.”

Karen turned to look at her. “And there you go again.”

Gertine stopped and returned her gaze. “Come on, Karen. Mamma’s only meant what’s good for us. My head’s full of the memories of her hugging us and loving us.”

“Gertine, those hugs were full of nothing but grief. Stop pretending.”

Surprised, Gertine said nothing more. She watched her sister staring out the window again and felt her disappointment. Karen was not one to choose the positive side. But she couldn’t blame Karen for this, not tonight, on the eve of what would not be her wedding day. She considered it, but in the end Gertine refused to revise her happy memories of cuddles to include Karen’s heavy notions of sadness.  

The cheese and bread lasted them through the evening since they had little appetite, so they did not leave the room and the deep darkness of the long night enveloped them, claiming them, body and spirit. 

*

Gertine didn’t remember when she had finally laid down to sleep. Someone was shaking her gently. Gertine was groggy and she mumbled as she pulled herself towards consciousness.

“Hush, sister. Come,” whispered Karen as she grasped her bags and satchel, wrapped in a cloak over layers of dresses and a traveling shawl.

They left the room in silence, Karen leading the way down the stairs and out through the kitchen, both instinctively avoiding all the squeaky spots in the wood floor. Karen gathered Gertine’s traveling wraps and her overnight bag, still at the kitchen door, and handed the pile to Gertine, who took it and stood still, in quandary. 

“Wait, what’s happening?”

“Shh. Come and I will explain later. Right now I need us to hurry.”  

“But… why? Karen, please…” Gertine was wide awake now. The silence of the night rang in her ears. 

“Hush. It’s the only way.”

The sisters stood staring at each other, both willing the other to be reasonable. Gertine saw such hope and certainty in her older sister’s eyes. Such life.

Karen pulled on her boots, Gertine did likewise, and they left their childhood home.

The crescent moon looked sly and gave poor light. The snow sparkled with color from the aurora, billowing and flickering in the sky from the north; long dancing fingers and wide shimmering curtains quickly flashed from bright to extinguished, then lit again, peek-a-booing over hills.

Gertine was surprised to find Boye waiting outside. The dark strange light of night made the big man look shadowy and massive. He took Karen’s things and led them to the far side of the barn where Ove was with their horses, saddled and waiting. Midler neighed softly as Gertine approached.

Never had she felt so glad to see her husband. They exchanged a quick look that spoke of love and danger and fear. There was hardly time to think as the four mounted and rode out in a line, led by Boye. Gertine watched the back of her sister, Karen’s delicate frame sitting tall and determined in the saddle as she followed her would-be-groom. She felt suddenly grateful that her own marriage to Ove had been blessed by both families, something she had taken for granted.

They rode north towards the river and the road. No one spoke. The cold air made Gertine alert with anticipation, but it was laced with concern and confusion. She could hear the far-off footfalls of trolls in procession. She glanced guiltily back towards her mother’s home.

Gertine could guess the plan, and it tore at her heart.

They came to the main road and turned the horses to follow it west, the waystation now hidden by distance and a row of snow-laden evergreens. As they moved swiftly past the stone terrace on the pale road’s left edge, it began to snow lightly, reflecting glints of color in the air surrounding them, dreamlike. The mist was moving in, doing its selfish best to cloak the sparkling aurora. The black river was placid, silently widening as they moved along, until the far edges were lost.

When they arrived at Steile farm, the rest of the household was long asleep. Karen and Gertine were given Boye’s bed. They climbed in, not wanting to wake anyone. Karen hugged Gertine and thanked her and turned over to sleep, huddled under blankets.

“Karen?” Gertine whispered to Karen’s back, looking for the promised explanation. Perplexed, she waited in the darkness for a response. None came. Karen’s slender shoulders rose and fell slightly in the rhythm of rest. Gertine lay listening to the low murmuring of their men at the fireplace and felt heavy. Conspiratorial.

*

When morning came, with its bustle and rush, Gertine had intended to find out what Boye had said to her mother that so offended. She held this need for secrecy, their sneaking away, against him in part. She felt timid of him, and thus had found no opportunity to ask before leaving in separate sleighs.

And now she rode at Ove’s side, escorting the sleigh of the forbidden bride to her cancelled wedding. Ove drove this first sleigh, with Gertine in it and Ove’s four younger brothers and sisters. Not far behind, Boye drove the second sleigh with his bride and his parents, though Gertine couldn’t see them for the fog. It was late morning and the reluctant winter sun was barely rising to their left, though the mist, thick and dreary, held the world in dimness.

They had left the river road – the trade route that wiggled from the sea to the land’s middle, connecting all their homes and the small township – and was on a smaller road traveling south. Gertine could not see the church, but knew they were nearly there. 

Despite the greyness, the mood had been brightening, slowly and surely, like yeast rising the dough, as they made their way to the church. Even the oppressiveness of the fog eased into a cozy cloak. Despite being tired from the subterfuge of the night before, Gertine found herself humming along with Ove’s whistled tune and thinking back to her journey to the church for her own wedding there. That had been a bright sunny day in the long warmth of early summer. She closed her eyes and conjured the memory, a smile playing on her face. 

They slid along with purpose throughout the forty-or-so-minute ride to the church. The four children, at first quiet, now chattered away under woolen shawls and fur blankets. Gertine turned on the front bench to check on them. Nils at fifteen was practically a man now, and the oldest son still at home. Trond was eleven, growing eager to impress as he neared manhood. Trond and Dorothy were a year apart but were inseparable. Smart and sassy, Maren measured her long seven years as a deep reservoir of experience. She had been two when her mother died. The children were shy with Karen, but had grown used to Gertine from all her visits with Ove. Gertine peered behind them, trying to see Karen’s sleigh but failing. She could not even hear it over the noise of the children and the horses. She faced forward again. 

The horses pulled the sleigh around the corner and started up the final grade, and they finally glimpsed the shadowy outline of the old stav church standing solemnly atop the wide hill in the fog. Gertine had spent little time here as a child. Her mother had kept them home for prayers and worship on Sundays. Gertine had never questioned why.

Still, the ancient building held a reverence for her, almost an enchantment. Her father was buried in the graveyard behind it. One slow summer Saturday she had come here on her way back from selling eggs in town, though the church was in the opposite direction from home. She remembered how guilty she had felt, stealing time to gaze at her father’s stone marker. She didn’t want to leave and so had dawdled and explored the place thoroughly. She remembered the mottled goat grazing the grass around the gravestones and wondered where it went when its services weren’t needed. 

The tall birches stood back from the buildings, in fear or respect, she couldn’t decide which. It was a wood thick with fairy folk, she knew. One could feel it.   

The church itself was square at its base, a walled-in walkway with high windows encircling the entire first level. To its right was a wooden bell tower four stories tall, scarcely higher than the church itself. Gertine remembered the inside of the church, cavernous with arching woodwork and delicate carvings, though simple as churches go. There were two long flagstone steps up to the wide double doors, and a stacked-rock wall as tall as a man surrounded the whole thing.

Most of the roofline was as yet shrouded in fog but they could see some figures milling around on the steps and outside the gate, still some distance away.

The mist started lifting somewhat in front of the church, revealing a near throng; Gertine was shocked. She had thought this was a secret wedding since it had been called off. Gertine scanned the crowd with a grateful heart, all the dear town folk here to state their support of Karen and Boye’s union.

At the gate into the churchyard stood Mette with seven uniformed and armed soldiers.

Gertine felt frozen and could only stare. Ove must have already seen, for he’d been slowing the horses and calling back to his brother Nils. He leaned over and whispered to Nils, who then ducked out of the side of the sleigh and disappeared into the woods, lithe and unnoticed.

They could see Mette’s pinched face now as she stood with her arms crossed. She seemed to be staring right into Gertine’s treacherous heart, which abandoned its rhythm for clatter. The captain was motioning for them to stop and Mette looked away. Gertine looked away too, searching, and at last letting her gaze fall to the safety of her lap. Her breath misted down her scarf and over her fingers.

The sleigh swished to a halt, disturbing the fog, and the children all hushed, staying seated. There was a buzzing in Gertine’s limbs that was nearly audible as every bit of her being listened for the imminent approach of Karen and Boye’s sleigh. She wondered if Boye would do something rash when his bride was repossessed and get himself arrested. She had great respect for her father-in-law, but found him at times an overwhelming man, so different from her Ove.

Ove nodded to the captain and looked over at Gertine, who felt his gaze but could not move to return it. He put the reins into her hands and climbed down.

“Well, Captain, good morning, sir,” he said as he strode over to where Captain Bekk stood.

“Ove.” They shook hands. Ove surveyed the soldiers guarding the gate.

“Madam Anker.” Ove nodded to his mother-in-law, who did not acknowledge the gesture. Mette was staring past their sleigh, down the road into the blankness of the mist.

Ove shifted his weight as he gazed at the crowd, kept outside of the gate by soldiers. Only the mist was moving, all human attention given to the recently arrived. He nodded amiably at familiar faces; then turned back to Captain Bekk.

 “What’s this, then?” There was no fear or disrespect nor anger in Ove’s voice.

“Kidnapping of sorts, Ove. We’re here to put a stop to things and make them right. Take young Karen back home.” The captain shifted uncomfortably as Ove nodded. 

The fog wisped about and chilled Gertine despite her lap blanket. She clutched the reins tightly, as if they would tether her to consciousness. She heard the quiet murmurs of Ove and Captain Bekk’s conversation but words blurred in her ears, too distant for her numb mind. Her eyes still stared into her lap, at her hands clinging to the reins, seeing the rest of the world in periphery. But her mind’s whole attention was on her mother. Gertine’s gaze went there now too, no longer able to avoid it.

Mette seemed taller as she stood in wait, as if her determined energy inside had magnified her, so that she filled Gertine’s vision. Mette didn’t join the men’s conversation or even move. She was a statue, angry and rigid, staring down the road. Waiting. Gertine felt like a naughty child, caught in mischief. She wanted to cry as they all waited for the second sleigh to arrive. Time stretched past its limits with the weight of the wait. Not even the children moved. Ove and Captain Bekk continued to confer.

She’d received some punishment in her youth, same as any child. Once, Gertine had broken an heirloom serving dish and received six lashes from her mother. There were other times and other whippings. But every time, the worst part of the punishment was the dark look of utter disappointment, betrayal even, on her mother’s face. It was there now.

Still, the fog waxed and waned; the front of the church was like a cave. There were snowshoes and skis piled by the church wall, horses saddled and some hitched to sleighs at the far edge. Mist rolled through, changing the number present, adding to the unreality of the day.

“… her influence over men. Like a witch casting spells, she’s ensnared the captain now.”

“Yeh, bewitched him all right, to make a show of himself like this. Same as before.”

Gertine heard the two old ladies’ hushed exchange as they hurried past and felt a whole new sense of shock. It must be her mother they were talking about. Same as before? She felt a rising defensiveness for her mother, bridled only by her confusion. She looked again towards Mette and felt like she was seeing a stranger. 

At some point Ove had climbed back onto the bench of their sleigh, though she hadn’t realized he was beside her until he set his hand on her knee. She thrust the reins at him, which he calmly took back. Gertine was suddenly aware of her heart thudding in her chest, pumping blood through her body. She simultaneously felt the boundaries of being in her skin and a sense of being untethered, floating. She wished she still held the reins, something to clutch.

They could hear the sleigh before they saw it. She turned with the others to watch it arrive. In the lingering mist it looked ghostly. She imagined the thin fog was the rolling breath from trolls hunching over the group, watching their pitiful human drama.

The three children were the first to realize and they started murmuring in agitation. Their father was missing from the other sleigh. Karen as well. Only their grandparents could be seen, the old man on the bench handling the reins, driving the horses as it drew up the road behind them. It came along, but not at a quick pace, and they could all see that Grandfather Ove was quite strained by the effort.

Where is Karen? Where is Boye?

Gertine started to get off the bench, but Ove stopped her, pulling her gently and firmly to him. “Let off me! What are you doing?” she said, shaking free.

“It’s worked out, Gert. Be still and trust me,” he said softly.

She shot an incredulous look at him. What in the world is happening? Isn’t it over? It is certainly ruined! She wanted to shout at Ove, or at her mother. Or leastways run away into the woods, away from the oppressive troll fog breath. Though she didn’t like to be given orders, she did trust Ove, and his honest eyes steadied her. Gertine let him hold her hand while he shushed and reassured his brother and sisters behind them.

The young captain saluted the old captain. Grandfather Ove had retired many years ago due to his health, but still held the respect due an officer. Captain Bekk motioned two soldiers to take control of the horses as Grandfather tried to pull them to a stop. There was much bustle now. Gertine could hear Mette hissing angrily at the captain. She was no longer the statue but was gesturing and looking around wildly. Grandfather Ove was talking loudly to the soldiers, giving direction. The children could not be hushed. Maren started to cry and climbed into Ove’s lap. Mette steered the captain to the gate. The soldiers posted there opened it and stepped aside to let the two pass, then fell into step behind them. Townsfolk and guests also followed them into the churchyard and up the cold steps.

But they could not open the church doors. Mette was shouting now at the captain, frantic to get inside the church. She pounded at the doors; then clawed at them. It seemed she would tear them down. But the church kept its arms folded and didn’t give in to her ranting. It stood as detached as before, and locked tight, bolted from the inside. Mette swept her arm wide. Captain Bekk pointed, and two soldiers hustled around the side, heading towards the back of the building.

Finally, the large doors did swing open. Mette lost her balance, tipped backwards, and was caught by Captain Bekk. Someone was coming out of the church. There was a scatter of surprised or nervous laughter and then cheers offered from the crowd, as Boye and Karen appeared at the top of the steps hand in hand, married.