The ferry ventured slowly forward until the thick coniferous forest came into view, materializing from the fog. We gathered our things and got off the boat, and as we walked down the long dock, the mist began to thin. By the time we stepped foot on the actual island, the mist had evaporated.
I looked back over my shoulder, watching the ferry disappear into the gray.
36
Island
“I’ve arranged a special treat for you,” Patrik announced, sounding rather excited, and I turned to see him walking toward a pair of Tralla horses hooked up to a carriage. “Since Isarna is free of motor vehicles, I arranged to have our two best Trallas take us to your hotel.”
Back in Iskyla we’d had a few Tralla horses, but nothing as big or as stunning as these two. Trallas were a type of draft horse, bred exclusively by trolls, and almost entirely by the Kanin. Occasionally they were gifted to other tribes, often from the King to other royalty.
Trallas were renowned for their size, since they were larger than Clydesdales, and for their plush satiny coats and very high tolerance of the cold.
Patrik walked to one of the horses, this one a lovely lavender-silver color, and her shoulder was well over a foot above the top of his head. She lowered her head so he could stroke her nose. “This beautiful girl is Agda.” He went to the other one, a charcoal dapple steed with big dark eyes. “And this is her nephew, Eldil. King Linus gave us these horses after he took the throne, as a coronation gift for the Trylle’s help in securing the crown for him.”
Eldil and Agda were a beloved King and a favorite Queen from the Kanin’s recent Strinne Dynasty. They were related to Pan, actually, through his father, and I wondered if he realized that as the big horse gave him a nuzzle.
I tried to give the horse a friendly pat, but Eldil decided he’d rather sniff and slobber in my hair. I laughed and ducked away from him, and then I climbed up into the carriage. It was a large open cart and looked suited for a Victorian hayride, with padded benches and seating for at least a dozen, but it was only the five of us.
Once we were all settled in, Patrik took the reins, and the horses pulled us up the hill. We moved slowly at first, as the road wound through the trees, but our pace quickly increased on a straight open stretch. There was a little bit of open land, a few acres set aside for gardens, pastures for the sheep and horses, and even an archery range.
“This the Trylle side of the island,” Patrik explained. “We don’t have any real divisions, everyone is free to live where they want, but we tended to group up together anyway. But it’s not that big an island. We’re a community at heart, and we intermingle often.”
The houses and buildings on this end of town were made with green shiplap and gray bricks. As we headed down the main street, we saw a few shops lining the road: a veterinarian’s office, a bakery, a flower shop, an apothecary. There were many small houses and cottages, and even a small apartment complex with a garden courtyard.
Right in the center of town was an old stone building with a vaulted roof and a bell in a tower. Patrik pointed it out, telling us, “That’s Öhaus, the town hall. I’m sure you’ll see a lot of it on your visit.”
“How come?” Dagny was sitting in the seat right behind him, a row closer than me, and I easily heard him, but she leaned forward anyway.
“That’s where we keep our records,” he answered.
She looked back over her shoulder, staring longingly at the building. “We could stop now. Since it’s on our way to the hotel.”
“Don’t you want to get settled in?” he asked.
“I would like to, yes,” I interjected before Dagny derailed my plans for a shower, getting something to eat, and then getting some sleep.
“We should rest up,” Elof agreed. “We can head to Öhaus first thing in the morning.”
Dagny scowled, but she relented and sat back on her seat.
Right after the town hall, the green houses gave way to blue; the floral vines proudly displayed on the shop signs turned to fish. The whole aesthetic had quickly shifted from country village to nautical seaside. Here there were no flower shops or vets, but they had a bait shop and a restaurant, and the Skojare had their own apothecary and market.
Patrik turned off the main road, taking us down a narrow dirt path that led to the shore. Boats and docks lined the rocky coast for half a mile, but that was soon replaced by seaside houses cloistered in trees.
It was there, when we rounded the final bend, that we finally arrived at the Grand Bottenviken Hotel. It was a fairy-tale lodge, with the shiplap painted cornflower-blue, and the pillars supporting the porch decorated with flowered vines twisting around them.
Inside, Patrik and Elof checked us in, while I paused to admire the fish swimming in the long tank in the small lobby. The hotel stay, like the rest of the trip, was covered by the Mimirin, and I felt a twinge of guilt about this until I remembered that I was actually working here. They expected me to spy.
Finally, Dagny handed me a big brass key to my room, and I headed upstairs. I glanced around my room, taking in the sparse, rustic space. The big bed with a down comforter was my main concern, but the blackout curtains were also appreciated and a definite necessity. In the summer this close to the Arctic Circle, it was the land of the midnight sun, as the signs at the airport had frequently reminded me.
I closed the curtains, blotting out the sun and the view of the blue waters lapping against the shore beyond the hotel walls. Then I stripped down to a T-shirt and underwear and climbed into bed. Before dozing off, I tapped out a quick message on my phone to Hanna. I’d told her what we were doing before we left for Sweden, and she’d been worried, so I wanted to put her mind at ease.
Hey Hanna—
We just got into the hotel, and we’re all doing fine. It’s really beautiful here, and Isarna seems like a really interesting place. I’ll try to take pictures tomorrow to show you.
On the way here, I’ve been reading a book about Jem-Kruk, and it sounds a lot like the one you mentioned in your other messages. What’s it called, and where did you find it?
I hope you’re having a fun summer and helping your mom and dad around the house.
Talk to you soon, Ulla
I hit send, and within seconds I was asleep.
37
Displayed
In the morning, I met Dagny, Elof, and Pan in the lobby for a breakfast of hard dark bread and bitter tea. When we finished, we headed down to Öhaus to meet Patrik. He’d offered to send another carriage, but it wasn’t far, and after days cramped in flying tin cans, it was nice to get out and stretch our legs.
Or at least that’s what Dagny said, and I went along with it. The morning air wasn’t cold, exactly, but it was crisp and cool enough that my hooded sweatshirt barely kept it at bay. Isarna was a very quiet town, especially compared to Merellä. As we walked, the only sound was our feet on the ground and a few seabirds calling each other.
We made it to downtown only passing two other trolls—both of whom were distinctly Skojare, with bright blond hair and visible gills. There had been half a dozen cats, though. Lounging about or strolling casually. I’d stopped to pet a particularly large fluffy tabby that crossed our path, and it seemed friendly enough.
From the outside, Öhaus looked like a much, much smaller and older version of the Mimirin. Troll architects definitely had a style.
Pan held the big double doors open, and as we went inside, I found Öhaus was not at all what I was expecting. The hardwood floors were covered in antique Swedish rugs with geometric patterns in bold blues and stark whites. Framed art and documents hung on the walls, and there were glass display cases set up all around the room.
Instead of the usual government offices, this was a museum.
On the back wall was a massive tapestry, nearly floor-to-ceiling. It depicted five ships on a violent sea, and under the crashing waves a water serpent chased after them. Patrik stood in front of it, using a waist-high display case as a table. Papers a
nd old books were piled up around him, and a stack of file boxes was on the floor beside him.
“It is so nice to see you all again.” Patrik stepped out from behind the case to greet us. “I presume your stay at the hotel has been pleasant so far?”
“Yes, it’s truly lovely here,” Elof agreed warmly.
Dagny had already stepped away, peering into a glass case that contained what appeared to be an emerald-encrusted animal skull. “What is all this?”
“Ah, you’ve discovered Safri. She’s a local favorite,” he said as he went over to join her. “Safri was an artic fox that used to belong to a former Marksinna Ansvariga, and she was beloved all around the island. After she died, the Marksinna chose to honor her memory this way.
“Isarna has a rich and unusual history, and we want to keep it alive by having it on display in the Öhaus showroom,” Patrik explained. “That’s why I thought this would be a perfect place for us to find what you’re looking for.”
“You seem to have prepared,” Pan commented. He’d made his way over to the materials first, taking a cursory inventory of what was laid out for us.
“Yes, we went into our storage and our archives looking for anything we have that references Áibmoráigi, the Lost Bridge, or the Älvolk,” Patrik said in his clipped, cheery tone.
“To be safe, we even included the records on the Vígríðabifröst.”
“The Battle of the Bridge?” I translated.
He nodded once, a quick, efficient gesture. “That’s the war in which the bridge became lost.”
Dagny eyed the piles, and she sounded impressed when she said, “You’re very thorough here.”
“Thank you.” The Markis’s smiled widened. “We have a saying around here. If a job cannot be done correctly, it should not be done at all.”
“Isarna really seems like your kinda place, Dag,” I teased, but she nodded readily.
“Where should we start with all of this?” Elof asked.
“I compiled a list of the known Älvolk.” He reached for a stapled set of papers, and when he held it out, I saw the letters indented the paper, like it had been written on a typewriter. “These are the ones that we know by name and see around town from time to time.”
He handed it to Elof, and I read over his shoulder, scanning until I saw a familiar name—INDU MATTISON. It wasn’t until I saw it, and a wave of nausea rolled over me, that I realized I’d been hoping he wouldn’t come up. That my trail wouldn’t keep leading me toward the weird creep hell-bent on impregnating trolls around the world.
But here we were.
I stopped reading the list and pretended to be very interested in a display of stony gray jewelry, which was made entirely from beach pebbles.
“Wait, you have records of the Älvolk?” Pan asked. “Like a list? How’d you manage that?”
“Like I said, they come and go,” Patrik reiterated. “They’re not here often, but I wouldn’t classify it as infrequent either. We suspect that they live somewhere nearby.”
“Don’t they live in Áibmoráigi?” I asked.
“That is what they claim, yes,” he replied.
Pan stepped away from the display case, moving closer to where the rest of us stood around Patrik. “Have you followed the Älvolk to see where they live?”
“We have,” Patrik said, conintuing his trend of cagey answers.
“Is it Áibmoráigi?” Dagny asked bluntly.
“I can’t say for sure, but I think perhaps it is, yes,” he allowed.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “So where is it?”
“You mistake the truth of the First City,” Patrik answered cryptically. “It is not that it cannot be found—it’s that we can’t remember when we do.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“The Älvolk that guard it have honed a very specific telekinetic power,” he elaborated. “Yes, they cloak the city so it can’t be seen by hiking humans or from overhead planes, but if it is spotted, well, then they remove the memory of it. You can’t remember where it is, how to get back, or even anything about your time there. You blink, and it’s gone.”
“That is some real Men in Black–type shit,” Pan said when Patrik finished.
I looked over at him. “What?”
“Come on, you guys had to have seen that movie,” he insisted, and when we shook our heads, he rolled his eyes. “Whatever. It’s just after somebody sees something they don’t want them to see, they erase their memory.”
“I didn’t know that the Älvolk were that powerful,” I said.
“It seems to be the only power they truly have,” Patrik replied, sounding more subdued.
The Trylle had the strongest telekinetic abilities, and some of them could be quite dramatic. The former Queen created precognitive paintings, a Marksinna kept flowers in bloom in winter, and there were others who could move things with their mind. Most of them had some form of mild persuasion, but I’d never heard of anything like this.
Erasing memories? Playing with our thoughts? That was terrifying.
“Do you think we’ll be able to find Áibmoráigi?” Pan asked.
“You very well may,” Patrik responded indifferently.
“But you don’t think we’ll remember it,” I said.
“That is how this usually goes, yes.”
“Then why help?” I asked in dismay. “Why even do anything at all? If you know it’s a futile pursuit.”
Patrik smiled again, but this time it was dulled. “Because I don’t know it’s futile, and the Korva of the Mimirin told me to help you.”
Elof clapped his hands together. “Let’s get to it, then.”
Patrik started by breaking down the information he’d gathered into categories—modern records, ancient records, and rumors/legends. Dagny jumped at the modern records, and I gravitated toward the legends.
We’d only been at it for a short time, maybe twenty minutes, when the doors opened and a man strode inside. He wore a long indigo jacket, like a trenchcoat caftan, with an embroidered Nordic pattern on the edges of the sleeves and collar. His coal-black hair was silver at the temples, and his face was lined like that of a man in his midforties, maybe older.
Patrik leaned over to whisper to Elof, “That’s one of the names from the list,” and I was close enough that I overheard.
The man looked over at us, and he walked right to Dagny. “Hello. This will sound strange, but I am your father.”
38
Relations
“I know my father, and you aren’t him,” she replied without missing a beat.
“Ulla?” he asked her, sounding very confused.
“No, that’s me.” I raised my hand weakly, and I couldn’t even force a smile. “That’s me.”
“Oh.” He narrowed his eyes at me, then glanced back over at Dagny. “You’re Ulla Tulin?” I nodded. “Sorry about that.” He shook his head, then smiled and walked over to me. “She looked more like me. It doesn’t matter.”
He waved it off, but he wasn’t wrong. Both he and Dagny had black hair, compared to my dirty blond; darker olive skin compared to my pale tan; and dark eyes where mine were amber.
“This isn’t exactly how I pictured this would go.” He sounded kind of rattled, but his mouth seemed fixed in a permanent smirk.
“I can’t say it’s picturesque for me either,” I muttered.
“My name is Indu Mattison, and I believe that I am the father of … of you. Ulla.”
“Um.” My mouth felt dry, and I swallowed hard to see if that would help. “Okay.”
“Should we go somewhere to talk?” he suggested. “I’m sure you have a lot of questions, that we have a lot to discuss. There’s a nice tea shop down the road.”
“I can go with you, if you want,” Pan offered.
“Sure. Okay,” I said, not because I wanted to go, but because I didn’t know how to say no. And even if I didn’t want it to be the truth, if it was I needed to face it head-on. And Pan’s presence wou
ld help.
We walked a short way down the road, Pan and Indu amiably carrying on mundane chatter about gädda fish, which I was grateful for because it kept the silence from closing in. Thankfully, Tella’s Te’Butik was only a few doors down from Öhaus on the Trylle side of the island, and it was a cozy little tea shop/café.
We sat at a little table by the door, me and Pan on one side and Indu across from us. Folk music with too much flute and twangy lyre was playing softly on the stereo, and the whole place smelled like stale potpourri.
Indu ordered us a small pot of white tea for the table, and a small tray of finger sandwiches he called “sweet jam breads.” The way the waitress talked to him, I gathered that he was a regular, and I couldn’t believe how enmeshed the Älvolk had become on Isarna, despite how little anyone really knew about them.
“Violetta Indudottir,” he said, beaming down at me. “That was what your name was to have been.”
“Violetta Indudottir,” I repeated, and it felt strange on my tongue. Not like a sting, but not like a butterfly. Something sharp and sweet, something that made tears form in my eyes, but I blinked them back. “Why after you? Why not my mother?”
“They don’t use surnames in her tribe.”
“What tribe is she?” I asked.
“She’s—” He started to reply, but the waitress returned with a ceramic teapot, delicately painted with blue vines, and a small platter of dark rye-bread triangles layered with a cloudberry jam.
Once the waitress had gone, he finished, “Well, she’s álfar.”
“What? No.” I shook my head, but he poured the tea into our cups, unfazed. “If you’re Älvolk, my mother is Omte.”
“Why? How are those two things connected?” he asked, incredulous.
“I did a blood test. Elof told me that I’m Omte.” I motioned toward myself, my mismatched eyes. “And, I mean, look at me. I’m Omte.”
“It’s all understandable, and try the tea while it’s still warm,” he directed between bites of his jam sandwiches. Pan did as he was told, sipping the tea and making an audible mmm afterward.
The Morning Flower Page 18
