To distract herself, Chloe pulled from her daypack the Høiegård file she’d borrowed from Ellinor’s office. She’d barely had time to peek at the contents, and she might as well put this interlude to use. She was reading a description of the årestove, the ancient smoke-house style with a raised central hearth, when the stairwell door nearby opened.
For half a second Chloe pictured Roelke’s faceless bad guy emerging with weapon brandished. The woman who stepped into the corridor was tall, thin, erect—and she had taken the stairs, which was more than Chloe could say. But she was quite elderly, and instead of bludgeon or blade, carried only a cane and leather pocketbook. Surely this woman wearing a white-collared blue dress with sensible black shoes hadn’t come with evil intent.
“Pardon me.” The woman spoke English with slow care. “Are you Chloe Ellefson?”
Chloe sat up straight. The woman’s thin white braids were pinned to her head coronet-style. Her eyes were a faded blue, her skin wrinkled. Chloe would swear that they’d never met before. And yet … something about the newcomer felt so familiar that a lump rose in her throat. Maybe I really am losing it, Chloe thought. “Yes, I am.”
“Oh, thank God I found you.” The woman’s thin shoulders melted with obvious relief. “I’m Helene Valebrokk.”
Roelke reached the open-air division just as a guide was pleasantly shooing visitors back to their bus. “Is it all right if I stop in there?” he asked the guide, pointing toward Høiegård.
“Sure,” the young man said. “Sonja will be up soon to lock up for the night.”
Roelke wasn’t used to walking into eight-hundred-year-old buildings. It wasn’t surprising that Chloe got overwhelmed here, he thought. In the empty space, devoid of tourists, even he sensed something indefinable.
A table sat against the far wall, right below the chalked designs. He pulled out his notebook and started sketching. None of the designs resembled the swirly heart thing, but maybe Chloe would make something of another symbol.
He was almost finished when he heard someone step into the entryway. “Sonja?” he called. He had no wish to be locked inside.
Torstein Landvik bent low and entered the main room. He still wore his old-timey clothes and looked right at home. But something made Roelke’s nerves prickle.
He kept his tone conversational. “Hey, Torstein. I figured Sonja had come to kick me out. What are you doing here?”
Torstein stared at the small room as if he’d never seen it before. “I needed to come to the place where Klara died. What are you doing here?”
Roelke gestured to the notebook. “Just making some sketches for Chloe.”
Torstein stepped closer and studied the drawings. His face was expressionless.
As a cop, Roelke had gotten pretty good at reading people. His read of Torstein said it was time to get the hell out of there. He stepped, ever so casually, closer to the door.
Torstein side-stepped too, keeping his body between Roelke and the only exit. He met Roelke’s gaze full-on. This was not the grinning, exuberant Torstein, or the grieving Torstein. In the gloom his eyes seemed dull.
Then his hand settled on the hilt of his ceremonial knife.
“You’re Helene Valebrokk?” Chloe repeated. Tiny fireworks exploded in every cell. “Do you mean … H. R. Valebrokk?” This was the person who currently owned Fjelland, the farm where Amalie Sveinsdatter had been living when she was baptized in 1905.
“You came to see me yesterday?” Helene prompted. “I found your note.”
Chloe slid over and patted the bench invitingly. “But how did you find me? Here, I mean?”
Helene sat. “The girl at the hotel said she’d heard you say you were on your way here.” She gripped Chloe’s hand with surprising strength. “When I came home this afternoon and found your note, I was …” She searched for the word. “Excited, yes? You see, I never heard from Amalie after she left for America!”
“So you’re related to Amalie …?”
“She was my sister.”
I am staring at a relative, Chloe thought, pressing one hand over her mouth. Helene Valebrokk was her great-aunt.
“Do you know Amalie? Is she still alive?”
“I don’t know. I’m sorry.” Chloe could tell Helene had hoped for more. “The only thing I can tell you is that Amalie Sveinsdatter surrendered my mother for adoption in 1920 at an orphange in Stoughton, Wisconsin.” Excitement bubbled inside. “It’s just wonderful to meet you! I have so many questions.”
“But I can’t stay.” Helene made a helpless gesture. “The friend who drove me is waiting in the car.”
Chloe barely managed to swallow a dismayed wail. “Please, what can you tell me about the farm? Has it changed hands since 1920?”
“It has been in the family since 1838.”
“Oh.” This was better than Chloe had dared hope.
“You’ve been to see the house up the hill?”
“Um …” Chloe was confused. “Your house? Fjelland?”
“No, no.” Helene waved that suggestion away. “Here, at the museum. Up the hill. They use the old name, Høiegård. But the building came from Fjelland.”
“What?” Chloe struggled to keep up. “Are you telling me that Høiegård and Fjelland are two names for the same farm?”
“Yes!” Helene nodded. “Høiegård means ‘high farm.’ Fjelland means ‘mountainous.’ A farm in the mountains.”
“Oh, my, God,” Chloe breathed. Amalie Sveinsdatter, and the building restored at the Hardanger Folkemuseum, had come from the same farm. That explained a lot.
But there was still much to sort through. “Are you also related to Solveig Sveinsdatter? Her name came up in the search for my mother’s family.”
“Solveig was my other sister. I was the oldest, and left home to work when I was fourteen. There is so much I want to tell you! About the family.” Helene put both hands on the knob of her cane and pushed to her feet. “But not tonight. You will come back to the high farm? Tomorrow afternoon?”
“Of course.” Chloe would get to Fjelland tomorrow if it meant crawling through the damn tunnel on her hands and knees.
“Good.” Helene paused in front of a color photograph on the wall—part of the “Folk Art in Focus” exhibit Chloe had admired earlier. “Torstein’s fiddle,” she murmured.
“Torstein Landvik? You know Torstein?”
“I do.”
Helene used the clipped tone of polite elderly people who didn’t want to speak ill of someone. Had Torstein interviewed Helene for his folk dance project and let his enthusiasm override polite behavior?
“I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.” Helene disappeared into the stairwell.
Chloe got up to study the photograph that had given Helene pause. The close-up camera angle showed the musician’s left hand on the fingerboard, including the unusual forged ring on his fourth finger. Definitely Torstein, Chloe thought. But the real star of the shot was the fiddle itself, glimmering inlay and flowing inked scrolls.
… Wait a minute.
The design included two snail shell whorls presented as mirror images, creating a stylized heart. It was the same symbol she’d seen carved into a log at Fjelland. The one she was sure she’d seen elsewhere. The image here didn’t quite match her memory, but this had to be it.
Chloe wished she’d noticed the photo before Roelke had headed up to the old house to check for the same double-whorl in the kroting. Well, he’d be back any minute, and they could compare notes. And if Sonja was ever free …
The visitors in the auditorium burst into applause. The fiddler began yet another tune. Chloe stifled a frustrated squawk. She wanted to get Sonja’s take on the double-spiral heart.
Tipping her head, Chloe considered the design in the photograph. Something basic didn’t make sense. The symbols adorning textiles, fiddles, woodenware, an
d walls in Western Norway were rooted in antiquity. It was hard to imagine Vikings decorating their possessions with hearts, at least not in the modern romantic sense. It was hard to imagine Vikings honoring snails, either. What else could the design depict? A ram’s horns, maybe?
… Wait a minute.
Fragments of knowledge twirled through Chloe’s mind as if someone was frantically turning a kaleidoscope, trying to find the correct picture among a million possibilities. An ashy circle. Two carved spirals. Two inked spirals. Could interpreting that design as a ram’s horns provide the key to everything?
Chloe quivered with agitation as a possible answer emerged. She wanted to run her theory by Roelke, but he wasn’t back yet.
He should have been.
A sudden flash of panic overruled pain. She jumped to her feet and headed toward the nearest exit. A stand near the door offered loaner umbrellas for guests in need. Chloe grabbed the tallest one and banged out the door. Leaning on the makeshift cane, she hop-walked up the hill as fast as she could.
The open-air division looked deserted. There was no sign of Roelke. Chloe opened her mouth to holler his name, but a sudden inner voice urged caution. Silence was best. Stealth was too.
She faced the back of Høiegård, where a wooden hatch had once been used for removing the dead. Some later generation had replaced it with two nine-paned windows—the only ones in the house. Chloe didn’t want to be seen, so she circled wide and approached the house from the side.
At the back corner she pressed herself against the log wall. Was she being ridiculous? Was Roelke going to emerge any minute, grumbling that it had taken forever to sketch the chalked designs, and what on earth was she doing up here anyway?
But the inner voice was insistent. Chloe simply knew that Roelke was in trouble.
She slid along the back wall toward the window. Before daring a peek she heard Roelke speaking deliberately: “… telling you, this is a big mistake.” Pause. “No, it isn’t too late.”
Chloe’s heart plummeted.
“Let me talk to the cops with you,” Roelke urged. Then his voice rose to a sudden bellow: “Drop the knife!”
Chloe looked through the glass. Torstein, a knife clenched in his right hand, gathered himself for a mighty vertical spring. Once airborne, his left leg shot out and caught Roelke in the shoulder.
Roelke went down. Torstein leapt on him. All the air disappeared from Chloe’s lungs.
When Torstein scrambled away, his knife was bloody. Roelke was on the floor, leaning against the raised hearth, both hands pressed against his right side. His chest was heaving. Blood leaked through his fingers, staining his shirt.
Rage seared away Chloe’s fear. Torstein Landvik had just stabbed Roelke. She believed that Torstein had killed Klara in this same room. Torstein had to be stopped.
But how? She couldn’t take him down with an umbrella. She cast frantically about, and—there. The replacement slate shingles Klara had mentioned during their tour were still stacked nearby.
Chloe needed both hands to heft one of the heavy stones. As she hurried to the cabin door, something crashed inside. She hoped that meant Roelke was still fighting.
She stepped silently into the narrow entryway, heart slamming against her ribs. If she waited here with slate held high until Torstein bent over to leave the main room, she could brain him. But Torstein wouldn’t leave unless Roelke was dead.
Grunts and thumps and a wooden clatter suggested that Torstein hadn’t won yet. Chloe scrambled through the low door. The two men were grappling on the floor, rolling back and forth. Torstein saw her over Roelke’s shoulder. For an instant he froze.
That let Roelke stagger to his feet. One shirt sleeve was stained with blood too, now.
“Move!” Chloe shrieked. He was between her and Torstein.
Roelke stepped back and Torstein bounded to his feet. Roelke kicked at Torstein’s right hand. Torstein twisted away from the blow. Roelke wrapped his arms around the fiddler and made a half-turn before letting go.
Now. Chloe heaved the slate sideways, Frisbee-style, with all her strength. It slammed Torstein in the back. He howled and staggered to one knee. The knife clattered to the floor and skidded out of reach beneath the table.
Chloe stood panting. She had no idea what to do next.
“Get out of here now, Chloe!” Roelke gasped.
She didn’t want to, but she did back away. Roelke threw himself at Torstein. They fell against the hearth, wrestling, punching, making furious animal sounds.
Chloe bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. Roelke was bigger than Torstein, but he’d suffered at least two knife wounds, maybe more. And Torstein had a dancer’s agility. She didn’t think Roelke could last much longer.
Frantic, she snatched a pewter candlestick and raised it high. But with the men writhing violently back and forth, she’d be just as likely to hit Roelke.
Help me! she begged silently of whomever might be listening.
The kettle. A heavy iron kettle hung from the ceiling over the hearth. She ran to the far side, grabbed the kettle’s rim with both hands, and pulled it to her chest. “Hold him, Roelke!”
Slowly, painfully, Roelke managed to pin Torstein against the hearth, head and shoulders above the stones. Chloe shoved the kettle forward. It hit the back of Torstein’s skull with a sickening thud. He crumpled like a stringless marionette.
Roelke’s knees buckled. He sat down hard on the edge of the hearth, his breathing loud and ragged. Clamping a hand over the side wound, he bent double. There was so much blood now—on his shirt, dripping through his fingers.
Chloe whimpered, but just once. Roelke needed her.
His daypack was on the floor. She scrabbled inside for his first-aid kit, then crouched beside him. “Let me see.” Blood flowed from the slash wound. She ripped open paper packages, layered bandages over the hole, and applied pressure with both hands.
But should she stay with Roelke, or go for help? The wrong choice could cost his life.
Then footsteps sounded in the entryway. Sonja bent low and stepped into the main room. She surveyed the scene with shocked horror.
“Call an ambulance!” Chloe implored.
Sonja gave a sharp nod, whirled, and disappeared.
“You’re going to be okay,” Chloe told Roelke. He managed a short chin jerk—trying, Chloe knew, to pretend that he believed her. She sent up a prayer to God, and to all the women who’d once lived in this house, that he wouldn’t bleed to death before help arrived.
Thirty-One
Solveig—June 1920
“I’m worried about you.” Helene put water on the stove to heat for washing the breakfast dishes but kept her gaze on her sister. “What if the bleeding starts again and there’s no one to help?”
“I’ll be fine,” Solveig insisted. She had no choice. Since giving birth she was always tired, and sometimes blood still spotted her undergarments. But nothing would keep her from attending the Midsummer dance. Jørgen would be waiting.
“Perhaps I should come with you.”
“You need to stay here with the baby.” Solveig glanced at her infant daughter asleep in a cradle nearby.
Helene sat down and put one hand on Solveig’s arm. “You know you both are welcome to stay with me. You don’t have to go to America.”
The offer was sincere, for the sisters had shared a pleasant winter. Helene was a tall, capable woman who’d managed to hang on to her home and apple trees after her husband’s accidental death. She hired help during busy times, but Solveig had watched Helene work the cider press, cook huge batches of apple butter and jelly and seal them in jars, and prune the trees with skill. Since Solveig didn’t want anyone to know she was staying at the orchard, she rarely left the house and talked to no one else. She and Helene had grown closer as winter winds pummeled the house and blizzards packed snow almost
to the eaves.
But Solveig couldn’t consider changing plans. “I will go to the Midsummer dance and find Jørgen. Then we’ll come get the baby and leave for America.”
“But …”
“I can’t hide here forever,” Solveig said gently. “Besides, I love Jørgen. We want to be together.”
Traveling to Kinsarvik took more of a toll than Solveig cared to admit. But she was offered a ride up the mountain to Tollef’s Danseplass in a crowded wagon, and her heart was light. She’d always dreamed of attending such a dance, of listening to music without fear of reprimand.
And somewhere, just ahead, Jørgen was waiting. She knew he was there, sensed his nearness. Heard him silently calling her name.
By the time she reached the clearing, festivities were underway. Some people were resting on blankets, nibbling treats from picnic baskets. Young men were arranging wood for the bonfire they’d light when dusk finally, reluctantly, descended. The floor was already crowded with people whirling and stomping, attired in their best traditional clothing.
But the four fiddlers and two accordion players sharing the musicians’ platform were all strangers. Where was Jørgen? Solveig eeled through the crowd, jostled this way and that. He must be here, she thought. He must.
When the polka ended, the kjøgemester held up his hands for attention. “Friends, I’m happy to welcome a fine fiddler, Jørgen Riis, back to our Midsummer dance.”
Solveig stood on tiptoe—and there he was, stepping up to the musicians’ dais. Her knees went soft. Her eyes misted. She and Jørgen had known each other only briefly before their months-long separation, but he was her other half. She would always be incomplete without him.
Jørgen closed his eyes and launched into a tune. The piece he’d chosen was wistful, even melancholy. Tears flowed down Solveig’s cheeks, coming from some well deep inside. The haunting music perfectly expressed the longing she’d felt since she and Jørgen parted.
Fiddling with Fate Page 28
