Northern Lights Trilogy

by Lisa Tawn Bergren

  The cove reminded Elsa of so many others she had visited in her years upon the sea. Riley had fashioned a looking glass of sorts, in the middle of a floating wood frame. The glass cleared the water surface of ripples and let Kristian explore the sandy bottom as if there were no water at all. They had spent hours huddled over it in less than a foot of water, both staring down at fish every color of the rainbow, a sudden scuttling crab, perfect shells. It made the entire sea bottom a treasure trove.

  Elsa sat in the shade beneath the waving branches of a palm, taking a well-deserved hiatus from the Majestic along with half the crew. As Riley had predicted, they discovered a small stream that let them refill their casks with sweet, clear water while men trekked up the small mountain in search of a tree that would yield a decent mast until they reached Ramstad Lumberyard off the coast of Washington.

  Elsa didn’t have high hopes for a good match. Here, in this part of Chile, the trees were short and scrubby. They would most likely have to pray for amazing winds to power them northward on the sails of the two remaining masts, fore and aft. She dug her toes into the dark sand, thinking of many other sailing expeditions. “We have done it before; we’ll do it again,” she murmured to herself. Eve sat beside her, studiously pouring sand from a tin cup to a tin plate, then poking sticks and shells into the new pile.

  “Mama! A sand dollar!” Kristian shouted, holding the treasure up from a dripping hand.

  “Wonderful!” she called, thinking of the hundreds of others aboard ship. Every once in a while, she convinced her son to pitch his sea-birthed treasures over the side, relinquishing them to the sea bottom once more, oftentimes oceans from their origin. She liked to think of them making it to shore, puzzling the beachcombers there with the discovery of a shell they had never seen before. Peder’s old trunk was already full of them again.

  “You had better come out of the sun!” she called. Even with his bathing costume that covered him from neck to knee, she knew that his fair skin was susceptible to burning at the forearm and calf, not to mention his head and face. Kristian obediently turned and walked through the shallows toward her. His hair had been bleached from the sun, and he had huge freckles across his nose. Elsa knew that her mother would groan, especially if she saw Eve with her own brown skin and spotted face. But to Elsa they looked healthy and vibrant. Oh, how she loved them!

  Kristian drew near, his damp, small feet covered with a layer of sand. She greeted him with a towel she had purchased in Egypt, made of their finest cotton. The children sat on either side of her.

  “This is a great place, Mama,” Kristian said. “I’m almost glad the ship had to be repaired.”

  “Kristian,” she chastised. “Two men died in that blast.”

  He lowered his head in shame.

  “I am sorry,” Elsa said. “I know you were only talking about how good it was to swim and have fun again. But we must remember to honor those sailors’ lives.”

  “Yes, Mama. Mama,” Kristian asked, “are we going to sail all autumn?”

  “No. I am hoping we’ll reach San Francisco for a new boiler within a few weeks, then stop at Ramstad Lumberyard for a new mast.”

  “Can we go to the house in Seattle?” he asked hopefully.

  “We’ll stop there for a night or two and pick up Mrs. Hodge. Then we’re off to Alaska, hopefully in time for Auntie Tora’s wedding!”

  “Can I be ring bearer?” Kristian asked.

  “I know Auntie Tora would like nothing better.”

  “But first we pick up a new boiler in San Francisco,” he said.

  “Yes. First things first.”

  The Majestic’s carpenter had organized the sailors into two teams working ’round the clock, and within days the deck was sufficiently repaired to ward off any storm that might wash over it en route to San Francisco. The wind, as if divinely orchestrated, had picked up, and Elsa ordered all sails set.

  “All sails set!” Riley echoed.

  “All sails set!” returned the men, climbing masts and ropes to do as Elsa bid. Within the hour, they were underway. The ripple and whoosh of the sails as they filled soothed Elsa, and she found herself almost happy that the boiler was not churning out smoke and noise. She walked alone to the bow of the ship, welcoming the breeze upon her face as she retied the floppy, wide-brimmed Mexican sun hat to her head, and tightened a sloppily belayed line. She looked up again at the great sails that powered the Majestic toward home. It was glorious, being under tarp alone again, the only sounds being those of the crisp, taut sails filling with wind and the ocean beneath their keel.

  “Yes, Peder,” she said under her breath, “I know. I know why you always loved sailing over steam. It is so peaceful, serene. We’re going home to Washington, darling. Then I’m taking your children to a place you always wanted to see, but never did. Alaska.”

  She walked over to the other rail. “You see? We’re doing just fine. All three of us. You needn’t have worried about us being at sea with you. We’re just fine.”

  She lifted her face to the breeze, trying to remember Peder’s touch as he caressed her skin. But the memory was fading. She frowned and looked down at the blue-black water. The realization that she couldn’t remember what it felt like to be touched by her husband made her melancholy. Bereft all over again.

  “Forgive me,” she whispered, suddenly feeling disloyal for forgetting. “Forgive me, Peder. I want to remember. I want to hold you close.”

  A Chilean seagull swooped low, barely five feet away from her, then over the waves of the sea. The bird looked free and light, undisturbed by the Majestic’s presence, or anything else for that matter. Elsa found herself yearning for the bird’s freedom, the ability to fly. Without the burden of sadness or guilt. Truly free.

  What happened next surprised her, took her breath away. Because suddenly, as she watched the bird, she became certain Peder would not be angry if he knew. He had loved her—he would want her to fly, to soar unchained to the sadness of the past.

  It was as if it was all right with him that his memory was fading.

  But not forgotten. Never forgotten.

  twelve

  September 1888

  Soren gathered Kaatje up into his arms and swung her around in a circle. “Kaatje, Kaatje, darling. It is you! It is!”

  “Soren? Soren! Please! Please put me down!”

  He did as she bid, and Kaatje backed away, kept backing away, until she bumped up against James. She could feel his warm, reassuring hands as they rested on her shoulders. But she could look nowhere but toward the man who claimed he was her husband.

  Who looked like her husband. Who was her husband.

  “Kaatje. I know this is a shock, but do you not know me?”

  Kaatje, as if in a dream, looked away from him, not willing to answer his plea. She looked at Juneau’s townspeople, some women covering their mouths in wonder at the drama before them, some men looking angry, ready to pounce. Then she looked back to him. To…her husband.

  Even with a closely trimmed beard, she would have known him anywhere. The curly blond hair, the mischievous eyes. He had aged in the years they had been apart, but, if anything, he had only grown more handsome.

  “Kaatje?” He took a step closer, and Kaatje leaned against James as if retreating. “Please, elskling.” When he lapsed into their native Norwegian, it robbed Kaatje of her last reserves. She started crying, so broken, so overcome, she feared she would never again be able to stop.

  That was when James intervened. He moved in front of her, between them, and held a hand out toward Soren. “Wait just a minute.”

  Soren ignored him, staring at Kaatje with pleading eyes. “My dyr one. Kitten. You know me, right? Right?” He tried to push past James, but James held Soren back.

  “Kaatje?” James asked over his shoulder. James shoved Soren away. Soren took several steps backward until he regained his balance. They were about the same height, Kaatje judged, with a similar build. Funny how one woman could fall for two men
so similar in stance, yet so different in countenance. She drew strength from James, his concern for her evident in his eyes. He stood there, her protector, ready to pounce if she so much as gave the signal.

  “Kaatje?” James repeated. He ran a hand through his hair, and for a moment Kaatje felt like her heart would break. He glanced down as if he knew. Something in her eyes must have told him, told him that this would be good-bye, that their love would never have a chance to bloom. “It’s him, isn’t it, Kaatje?”

  She didn’t remember nodding, but she must have, since James closed his eyes as if pained and then turned toward Soren. He leaned to him and said something no one else could hear. Then he raised his hands to the crowd and said, “Kaatje Janssen, after searching the length of the Yukon for him, has just been reunited with her husband. I think we should all head for home and give them some time alone.”

  Soren heard what James had said, the word of warning and love and frustration in his tone, and he knew. The man was in love with his wife. Too bad that he had showed up in the nick of time, Soren gloated. He would be one to watch. No doubt Mr. Walker would be looking for any shred of evidence that Soren was less than he appeared.

  Now that they were alone, Soren stared at his wife. She had grown lovelier in the years they’d been apart, and a familiar desire stirred within him. He had been a fool to leave her. When he found out that she was seeking him in Fort Yukon, he had followed the trio, watching them from afar. It did not take long for him to discover how she had the means to hire Walker and his sidekick as well as offer a reward for information on his whereabouts. Days later, he learned that she had a serious investment in the Storm Roadhouse in Juneau, as well as in Ketchikan. It was that, coupled with the jealousy of seeing her with another man, that made him follow them along the river and to Juneau.

  “Kaatje? After all this time, can you not even embrace your husband?”

  She turned away, and he stared at her profile, that perfect nose, those wide eyes with long lashes. Only her slight lack of chin kept her from being beautiful. And he could see from the dress she was wearing that childbirth had spread her hips but left her waist trim, making her even more enticing. “No, Soren, I cannot. I must know why you’ve…reappeared. After all this time.”

  “I heard you were looking for me and came right away.” That much was true. “I didn’t even know you were in Alaska until someone told me you had been in Fort Yukon.”

  She whirled toward him. “I have been gone for months. I left our girls to find you. Just when exactly did you intend to come find me?” He hadn’t missed the fact that she had said “girls.” But her anger had to be dealt with first.

  “I kept thinking that I’d find my fortune and bring you up. I knew you were safe—”

  “No, Soren. I was not safe. Your family was not well. Did you even know that we left Dakota for Washington Territory four years ago? Did you know I had to scavenge for buffalo bones to sell for fuel in order to afford the train fare? Did you know I tilled twenty acres of soil in Washington by myself?” With each question she drew nearer to him, until she was jabbing a finger in his chest.

  She was petite, yet strong, and Soren fought the urge to gather her into his arms, to kiss away her questions. He was about to do so when she asked, “Did you know that Tora brought me a child that you fathered on the ship of our crossing? Left her for me to raise?”

  The others he was prepared for. This took his breath away. “She did what? She brought who?”

  “Your lover’s child,” Kaatje spit out. She took several steps away from him on the platform, and it struck Soren that they were performing a delicate dance. If he was not very careful, one of them would fall. “It is by God’s grace,” she said over her shoulder, her tone notably softer, “that I fell in love with the girl as if she were my own.”

  Soren carefully crossed the span between them and, with a shaking hand, touched her shoulder. When she did not flinch or move away, he placed his other hand on her other shoulder. Still she did not move. Then he wrapped her in his arms, feeling the warmth of her small, curvaceous body against his. Why was he such a fool? Why had he left this strong, courageous woman?

  “I thought you were dead,” she said in a monotone. “I was going to have you declared dead next week when the circuit judge came to town.”

  He leaned his cheek gently against her head, smelling the clean scent of her hair, the lavender perfume on her neck. “Sounds like I arrived just in time,” he quipped.

  She moved away then and whirled. Again Soren was reminded of a dance as her skirt flared and then fell. “This is no laughing matter, Soren.”

  “I know. I know.”

  “I do not think you do know. Abandoning the girls and me on the Dakota farm was one thing. Staying away all these years is another. You have created a crevasse I don’t believe can ever be crossed, Soren.”

  “Do you believe in love?” he asked softly.

  “What?”

  He took a step closer to her again and gently caressed her cheeks. “Do you still believe in love, Kaatje?”

  “I…I do not know if I believe in it anymore.”

  “I do. Kaatje. Kaatje, Kaatje.” He pulled her chin back toward him and waited for her eyes to meet his. “I do, elskling. You and I were born for each other. You cannot deny it. Behind the hurt and sorrow in your eyes, I still see the love.” He was lying now, desperately fishing for what he hoped was there.

  She looked away, obviously unconvinced. He needed something…more. It came to him in an instant.

  “I have come to know a greater love than ours, dyr one.”

  Her hazel eyes immediately met his.

  “Yes, Kaatje. It is as you prayed. God found me, and I welcomed him at last.”

  His heart sped up when he noted a flicker of light in her eyes. A warmth spread through his chest as he sensed her defenses faltering. “Is it not how you prayed?”

  “Soren. Oh, Soren, of course I prayed for you. That you would find the One who could bring you peace. But I never thought… I always wondered.”

  “If it were truly possible?”

  “Yes.” She gave him a searching look.

  “It’s possible.” When she said no more, he asked, “Where are my girls? May I see them?”

  “No,” she shook her head immediately. “No, it would not be good. I’m sure Tora took them home.”

  “Why? Why can I not see them?” He worked to squelch the flare of anger in his chest. He hadn’t seen Christina in six years and had never met—he didn’t even know his other daughter’s name.

  “Why?” she asked, her face portraying her exasperation. “You ask me why?” Her own anger grew. “You might think you can reemerge now, Soren, and resume our life together, but it is not that easy. I was ready to declare you dead. Now here you are standing before me, acting as if you have every right to see our daughters. You abandoned them. You abandoned us, Soren. No, you may not see my girls. Never. Not until I am convinced that you are home to stay. That you are home to stay with me. I won’t put them through what I have been put through with you. I will not risk their hearts.”

  “Kaatje, I am changed.”

  “Time will tell.”

  “Yes, it will. I am changed, Kaatje.” He reached out and stroked her shoulders. She was all lean muscle and bone beneath her gown. He hadn’t known she was such a woman before, a woman of strength and character. Her strength drew him. Challenged him.

  She shook her head and then her arms, turning away from him. “It is too much. I need to go away from you, to think.”

  “I understand. May I see you tomorrow?” She was scurrying down the stairs as if he was pursuing her. He was, in a way.

  “I do not know,” she said over her shoulder, dismissing him.

  It was odd that she didn’t welcome him back right away, he thought. After searching the entire Yukon for him. Soren had thought it would be much easier. That there would be some groveling, sure, but not this rebuff. Why, she had left him ou
t there in the streets! Without a room! The least she could’ve done was offer him a room at her roadhouse! He kicked the stage in frustration and paced, thinking. What would it take to win Kaatje back? To get his old Kaatje back?

  He turned and walked down the stage stairs, looking each way for the nearest hotel other than the Storm Roadhouse. Spotting it, he took his time in getting there, laying his plans to make Kaatje his own once more. He was at the hotel’s frosted glass door before the idea first struck him. Was Kaatje in love with James as he obviously was with her? Soren repeatedly slapped one fist into the palm of his other hand, turning away from the door as he thought about it. Never. Kaatje would never have given her heart away to another before she knew for certain that he was dead. Not his Kaatje. She was loyal to the end. He had come back just in the nick of time.

  “Kaatje.” Her name emerged hoarse from his throat. He had run after her, racing to intercept her before she went inside the roadhouse. She turned halfway, not daring to look at him, and the beauty of her profile made him close his eyes in anguish. “Kaatje, I must speak with you.”

  “James, we cannot. It is too much. I already have so much to think upon.”

  He sighed. “Yes. I know. I hate it that I am here, but I cannot help myself. I was about to tell you on that dance floor. I only wanted you to know.” He turned away, biting back his words. He could not tell her he loved her now. It wouldn’t be fair. She had to make her decisions about Soren first.

  When he turned back to her he discovered her on the stair, holding on to the rail as if she would faint at any moment. The sight of her made him want to weep.

  “I know what you were about to tell me, James.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “Because I feel the same.” There was no joy in her words, as there should have been. Only regret and sorrow. Only good-bye.

  He gasped for breath, feeling as if he were being held underwater. Once more he had found love. And once more, he was left alone.