Northern Lights Trilogy

by Lisa Tawn Bergren

  “Until tomorrow, my love.” His eyes told her he wished they did not have to part.

  She turned and walked from the dining room, aware that he was watching every step and treasuring every second of it. My love. My love, she repeated silently.

  Karl took a sharp breath as he watched her emerge from her cabin the next morning. She was as lovely as he had envisioned when he first saw the jacket and pants on sale in the marketplace. The pants were slim and shamefully showed off her legs. He tried not to look. And the jacket clung to her curves, apparently meant for a more willowy Indian than Elsa Ramstad. She raised the hood and gave him an impish look.

  “You are beautiful, my princess of the Far North.” He bowed deeply.

  She held the small furlined hem of the jacket in a slight curtsy. “Let’s get on with it,” she said urgently. “If I don’t get into that kayak shortly, my insides are going to reach the boiling point.”

  He knew what she meant. His own Inuit sealskin coat had him uncomfortably warm this day. He eyed the glaciers in the distance. They were beautiful, and yet he knew their shifting forms could easily snuff out the life of the most experienced kayaker. Was it safe?

  “Come on!” she said, a girl in Bergen again. She tucked a strand of white blond hair back under her hood. Her cheeks were ruddy and her eyes alight. So different from almost three years ago when he had discovered her in the Skagit Valley mourning Peder.

  She made her way down the ladder, to where an old Hoona had pulled alongside, with two other kayaks in tow. “Be careful, Elsa. They are extremely tipsy. Toyatte, here, wished to bring his canoe. But I told him we’d prefer the maneuverability of the kayaks. Don’t fall.”

  “Like this?” She pretended to tip as she entered, sending tiny wakes away from the kayak on either side.

  “Elsa!”

  “Oh, come, Karl. I have walked lanyards a hundred feet above deck and shimmied up masts in storms around the Horn.” She scowled at him.

  “All right. You cannot blame me for caring.” He nudged her under the chin and then gestured toward the kayaks. “You’re saying you’ve been in a kayak before.”

  “Once or twice,” she quipped, gripping the tiny hole and gingerly stepping in. It barely tipped as she settled to the bottom and maneuvered the oilskin drop cloth about her waist to keep water out. The old Hoona gave her a rotting-teeth smile and a nod, then waited for Karl to enter his kayak. Once he got into his own tightfitting little kayak, they were off, skimming across the waters toward the glaciers.

  He could not stop smiling. An adventure with Elsa! As they neared the closest iceberg, he could not keep his eyes off her. She was gazing at it in childish delight, then squealed as she glanced down in the water. “Look, Karl, look!”

  Beneath them the iceberg spread out in ghostly, frozen waves, a monolith just beneath the surface. He nodded at her, and she looked at him strangely for a moment, as if she could sense his joy. He was transparent in his feelings for her, he knew. Perhaps it was a mistake, but he didn’t think so. From the start on the Majestic, he had been honest in his feelings for her, letting her proclaim them first, but never turning back. He wanted it all to be out in the open, this love he had for her. Besides, it was easier to enjoy it that way. There were no games, only pleasure and joy. It was as if God had ordained it himself.

  Like this day! The small steamer had entered Glacier Bay, or as the Hoona called it, Sit-a-da-kay, or Ice Bay, two days prior. Yesterday, past the smooth marble islands along the southwestern shore, they passed Geikie Glacier, the first of many. By late afternoon they had passed the Miller and later reached the head of the bay and the mouth of the northwest fjord. It was there that they had met Toyatte as they neared the Hoona sealing grounds. Above them rose the magnificent Hoona and Pacific Glaciers, named, as they all had been, by John Muir during his explorations of ’79.

  The Fairweather Mountains surrounded the fjord, like titanic sentinels standing guard. They were spotless white, from base to summit, making them appear all the more formidable. It was easy to see how they’d inspired the Hoona name of “Ice Mountains.” Karl ceased paddling for a moment and raised his face to the sun in a crystal sky, relishing the warmth on his face, the cool spray of the waves against the kayak on his hands, the sounds of the sea. He was startled when it sounded as if he had hit something.

  “Seals!” Elsa cried, ten yards ahead of him now. “They’re everywhere!”

  He laughed aloud. Seals had been hunted in this area for decades now, and it was unheard of to see more than one or two. Now more than ten frolicked about them, if he was counting right.

  Once ahead of them, their guide grunted and nodded, intent upon his task. They paddled along, watching as the seals dived and circled, coming alongside them again and again, all big brown eyes and long, stiff whiskers.

  After paddling for a mile up the fjord, they neared the Pacific Glacier, making their way through a tangled jungle of ice, taking care not to be squished between two of the slow-moving, bone-crunching bergs. When they had cleared the largest of the fields, Toyatte ceased paddling, gliding to a stop in the dark waters. Karl pulled alongside, while Elsa paddled on ahead in relaxed fashion.

  “Come, let us go to the glacier’s face,” Karl urged.

  Toyatte shook his head.

  Karl scowled. He had paid the guide with tea, rice, flour, sugar, and tobacco. The terms had been set then. So why was the Hoona being so stubborn? “We will beware of the calving.”

  “Not glacier,” Toyatte said in stilted English. He waved about him. “Weather no like. Bergs come.”

  Karl frowned. Toyatte’s hand motion was from the bottom, not from the top. He had been prepared for the tremendous separations of ice from the mother glacier that formed the floating icebergs around them. But from the bottom? It made sense, that icebergs would release from the bottom as well as the top. Karl simply had not thought of it. His head whipped around.

  “Elsa!” he called. “Elsa!”

  She turned and laughed, suddenly sprinting ahead with her paddle. She thought he wanted to race; she obviously had not heard Toyatte’s warning.

  “No, Elsa! Wait!”

  All he could hear was her mad paddling, and he assumed she could not hear him. Or she thought it a game and was ignoring him. “Elsa!” He put his shoulders into it, leaving Toyatte in his wake in the sudden urgency to reach her.

  By the time he caught up, she was staring up the face of the glacier, a frozen cliff of fifty feet above her.

  “Isn’t it remarkable—?”

  “Elsa, listen! We’re in danger. Come. Come away.” “You must be joking. Look how beautiful—” “Come away!” he demanded. She frowned and paddled after him.

  “It is the icebergs shifting from the bottom that Toyatte fears, not from the top.”

  Her eyes went out to where the old Hoona bobbed on the surface of the fjord’s choppy waters. “From the bottom?”

  “Yes.” He was not looking at her; he was looking down, searching the icy depths for any rising dangers. “We should not even be this close.”

  Elsa sighed, and his eyes met hers. “I understand, Karl. But look!” She pointed toward an icy glacier cave not a hundred feet above the waterline. “If we could make it to that, and inside—”

  “No, Elsa.”

  “Really, have you ever—”

  “No.”

  When she set her shoulders back and her chin rose, he knew he was in for an argument. “I have not made it across the seven seas and through hurricane-force winds without taking a risk now and then. This life is made for living, Karl. Yes, we ought to take care. But Toyatte is a superstitious old Indian who doesn’t like the smell in the air. He has probably seen comrades capsized and perhaps drowned, but he will not on this day. Come. Come, beloved. I want to see something new with you.”

  She gave him a lingering look and then turned to paddle toward the shoreline, to one side of the glacier. Knowing he could do little to stop her short of turning her over h
imself, he followed behind, scouting the waters below them. Every ten minutes the thunderous groan and creak of the glacier let yet another berg free of its boundary, allowing it to crash to the surface with a tremendous splash.

  “The sounds remind me of the storms around the Horn,” Elsa said.

  He agreed in silence. There was the same primal scream and groan that the Cape Horn skies gave passersby in fierce storms. Karl breathed a sigh of relief as their kayaks crunched along the sharp-edged shale of the rocky shore and they scrambled to get out of the kayaks. After a brief stretch, they began climbing.

  “Careful, Elsa,” Karl said over his shoulder. “Beware of crevasses.” But the ice seemed sturdy there, old. And the rock beneath could not be farther than ten feet below them. Karl made footholds and handholds where he could in the snow and ice, and Elsa followed at his heels. In minutes, they made it to the top. Elsa gasped when she saw it, and he put his arms around her.

  Carved into the face of the glacier was an ice cave, presumably cut by a warm spring waterfall above them that trickled through one end and out the other. The ice was a vitriolic blue, so smooth and hard that it resembled a metallic surface. “It’s unearthly,” Elsa whispered.

  “Aye,” he whispered back. The icy dampness emanated in waves off the walls, as if it were actually water, moving so slowly one could not see it, only feel it.

  She turned within his arms and bent her head for a kiss. He gladly obliged, relishing the cool smoothness of her lips and the warmth behind it. “I love you, Karl Martensen,” she said, her eyes shining.

  He took a quick breath. They had hinted at it, both knowing this was coming. But he could have never said it first, not with their past. And the words—to him they signified commitment, a future. It was true! She loved him! Him!

  “I love you too, Elsa Ramstad.” He bent and kissed her again, pulling her closer, not able to get close enough. When he released her, he stared into her eyes. “Do you think Peder would approve?” It was the question that plagued him, rode him every day like a cougar on a deer’s back.

  Her eyes never left his. “I think so,” she said, and smiled on the last word. “After all this time, after all we’ve been through, it simply seems right. Even Peder, in all his stubbornness, could not deny it.”

  He laughed, the sound of it sharp and then soft in the echoes of the cave. Despite the warmth of the moment, a shiver suddenly went down his back. He looked to the deep blue ceiling of the ice cave, ten feet above them. It was then they heard the groan, closer than any before them. “Elsa—”

  Karl was cut off by such an ear-splitting creak that both covered their ears with mittened hands and winced. But they had no time to comment. Beneath them, the ice shook and groaned as a portion of the ceiling splintered and fell toward them. A shard cut Karl’s cheek. He grabbed Elsa’s hand, intent upon making their way out of the cave, when the bottom gave way beneath them.

  Elsa screamed when the crevasse opened to her left, and she felt herself lean perilously close to the edge. Only Karl’s hand on hers stayed her fall for a moment, and it was as if time was suspended. She looked over her shoulder, watched his frightened expression, glanced to her hand, and gazed as only her mitten was left in his hand, and his hand was sliding away, away.…

  She fell for ten feet, grunting as her back hit an icy edge, and then her forehead another. Thankfully, her body came to a stop as her thighs and hips became lodged in the triangular opening. And the groaning had stopped. For the moment.

  “Elsa! Elsa!” She became aware of Karl, high above her.

  “Oh, Karl,” was all she could mutter, wincing as she moved one of her feet.

  “Are you hurt? Can you move?”

  She took a moment to take stock. “I’m in a bit of a spot. I seem to be wedged down here, and my right ankle is somewhat hurt. Sprained, maybe. I don’t think it’s broken.”

  “Can you move?” His tone gentled, as if he were trying to calm himself in order to calm her.

  She reached about, searching for any strong handhold, but there was nothing other than an inch of leverage here or there. “Thank you for the sealskin.”

  He looked upward and then down at her, shaking his head. “You can thank me later.”

  “No, I’d be much more cold if I hadn’t this to wear.”

  “You wouldn’t be down there if I hadn’t suggested an exploration.”

  “I wouldn’t be down here if I hadn’t insisted upon the ice cave.”

  “No matter. How do we get you out?”

  Elsa sighed and again examined her predicament. She could only look up and to one side, her head kept from looking straight on by the closeness of the icy wall. “I’m pretty well wedged. We’ll need rope.”

  Another tremendous groan and tremor within the glacier caused Elsa to raise desperate eyes to Karl.

  “I know, darling. I know. Hold tight, I’ll be back in a moment.”

  He left her then to find the rope, and Elsa never felt so alone in her life. She remembered the day after she lost Peder at sea, awaking to an empty bed, with no hope of him ever returning. “Oh, please, Lord. Please. Forgive me my foolishness. I call Peder headstrong, but it was I who was headstrong today. Please, Father in heaven. Allow me to return to my children. Allow me to return at Karl’s side.…” She shut her eyes and leaned one cheek against the hard ice.

  “Ayee,” Toyatte muttered lowly, suddenly high above her and staring down. Karl appeared on the other side. She watched as they stared at each other, chin to chin, without another word, then let down a short length of rope. It teased Elsa’s fingertips, dangling just shy.

  Karl let out another few inches. “That’s all I have, love.”

  Elsa could hold it then, but not with any of the strength she needed to pull her out. “It’s not enough. It’s not enough!” She could hear the desperation in her own voice.

  “I’m coming down.”

  “No! No, Karl. You can’t do that.” The glacier groaned and trembled about her. “Do you hear that? This crevasse could close any minute. Then we’d both be lost. And there’s nothing here to hold, so you’d simply get in your own predicament.” She swallowed past the lump in her throat, willing the ache in her stomach back until she could cry in private. “You have to go, Karl. Back to the ship. Bring back more rope.”

  His eyes screamed in fear of leaving her, but acknowledged the cruel truth of it. “I will move faster than any Hoona and be back as soon as I can. Toyatte will stay here with you.”

  She nodded slightly, unable to say another word, afraid she would break down.

  “You hold on,” he said firmly. “You understand me? You hold on!” His voice broke on the last word, and she watched as a tear left his eye and dropped toward her like a raindrop from a forest tree.

  That was all it took. The ache moved from her stomach to her throat and she stared up at him. “I will. I will, Karl.” She was saying good-bye. Chances were good that she would die before he returned. Good-bye! After they had just said hello! Just professed their love! O Lord! She cried silently. O Lord!

  “I love you, Elsa.” He wept openly. “Hold on to that.”

  “I love you too, Karl.”

  He rose, and a sudden thought came to Elsa. “Karl! Karl!” He knelt by the edge and waited. “Karl, if… Karl, take care of the children.”

  He stared at her for a moment. “I will. With you. With you, Elsa.” He left then, and the crevasse grew colder.

  Karl practically tipped over the kayak as soon as he was in the water, so great was his urgency. He left the tears streaming down his cheeks, not wanting to take even a moment away from his deep digs into the water of the fjord to wipe them. He cursed the icebergs that blocked his way drifting back and forth. What was once a playful labyrinth now kept him from the rope aboard ship, from the life of his beloved.

  “Please, Father God,” he prayed, gritting his teeth as he cleared one of the last fields of icebergs and gave all he had to getting to the ship. “Please don’
t let me lose Elsa now. I beg you. Please.” He dug into the water again with his paddle, ignoring the slow burn in his shoulders and across his upper back. He had crossed a hundred yards of water when another field of icebergs closed in. Forced to stop and consider the most expeditious path, he screamed to the sky, shaking his paddle at the ice mountains with the fury of a foiled warrior.

  Unable to pause for yet another second, he paddled toward the first opening he saw. As soon as he passed the first berg, he knew it was a mistake. He looked over his shoulder, intent upon backing out, but another iceberg had blocked his path. He was stopped on all four sides, unable to go anywhere, in danger himself of being crushed. He screamed out his fury again. “God! Lord! Where…are…you?”

  He panted, his chest heaving with great effort. “Where are you?” he screamed again.

  Be still and know I am God.

  “Father, I—” he panted.

  For I know the plans I have for you. Be still.

  Karl suddenly knew the meaning of stillness. It was quiet where he was, completely quiet. The outside fjord’s wind was blocked by the bergs about him. His vision was of nothing but white to the side and blue above. Beneath him, there was little of the open sea, just the haunting blue iceberg bottoms, scraping here and there as they passed. There was naught he could do but sit and wait upon his Lord.

  “I love her, Father. Please help me. Help her to live. We have made just a beginning. I want a whole life with her. Please, Father. Please.”

  He waited and knew to the marrow of his bones that he had been heard. A moment longer, and the icebergs journeyed on in their own directions, opening a path to Karl that led nearly straight to the ship. He took a deep breath and then paddled onward.

  “You not cry,” Toyatte said, high above her. “Strong,” he said, clenching his fists as if the vision of him would shore up her dwindling courage.

  There had been two more frightening moves of the glacier. One had squeezed her tight, so tight that she could barely breathe. She’d thought all was lost. The other had released her, just as she neared fainting from lack of breath. “My children, my children,” she had moaned in the beginning. As the ice’s frost pierced even her sealskin coat and wool sweater, she began to detach, to feel apart from her body. She was tired, so tired. Her mind, her soul, she supposed, began to contemplate death. And not what she left behind. What was ahead. Would there be the magnificent blue of the ice about her? Of course. Along with the rubiest of reds and sapphire blue the color of her father’s eyes.…