by Wendy Delsol
“I didn’t want to, hon. And it was a hard secret to keep.”
“That’s the thing,” I said, emotion building with every word. “It wasn’t yours to keep. It was mine.”
“I know that now. We didn’t handle it right. We let a doctor make decisions for us as a family. I never liked that. I should have insisted.” He pulled me close and rested the point of his chin on my head. It was heavier than I’d have thought it would be. “Can you forgive us?”
I liked that he said “us,” even though I knew it was too late for the “us” to have any real meaning. “You did what you thought best, right?”
“Always, honey. Always.”
“There’s still a piece missing about that day. Where were you? Mom said she and Amma were at the lake, and Afi was at the store. But where were you?”
“Well, I was at home in LA. Working. I didn’t make that trip with you two.” He touched my cheek. “I flew out the moment I heard, and was at your bedside when you woke up, but I’m sure you don’t remember any of that.”
“I don’t.”
I knew there’d be future discussions of the events, detailed accounts of sleepless nights at the hospital and doctor’s appointments. I wasn’t going to let him, or my mom, off that easily. For now, it was nice to know that my dad would come when I needed him.
After a moment, he lifted his head, put his hands on his hips, and looked around the room. “So this is the place, huh?”
“Temporarily.”
“Not too bad. At least it’s not decorated like a backwoods cabin.”
“It’s OK, I guess.”
“I called your mom when my plane landed. She told me where to find the extra key. She’ll be home later. I’d have been here earlier, but we had to circle the airport twice due to this freak thunderstorm.”
“Welcome to Minnesota,” I said.
He pulled me over to the couch. We sat quietly for a few moments. I never felt awkward around my dad. He had this great charisma that just blended with anything: a raucous party or a prolonged silence.
“What happened with your business deal?”
“On hold. We have a lead on an empty factory out in Palmdale.”
“And that’s really all you need? The finances are squared away?”
“The rest will follow.”
I traced my bottom lip with my finger. “Wind energy, huh?”
“Gonna be big, kiddo.”
Hulda had spent the past two days thinking over the wind symbol in my dreams. It couldn’t really be this, could it? That would be too easy, right? But why else would I be transported to this glacial outpost and drawn into the clutches of Hulda and her cronies? And Hulda owned an abandoned paper factory. Someone was spelling this out for me. Though just thinking about Jack made my heart heavy, it was also what he wanted for the town. Some way to preserve the place. New jobs would mean new families. The school district would see an increase in enrollment. It was at least worth mentioning.
“Hey, Dad. What if I told you there was a vacant factory here in this town?”
He gave me a look.
“I have a friend. She’s old, like Afi’s age, but we’re sort of friends. She owns the fabric and notions shop in town, but she inherited the paper factory from her father. It’s abandoned.”
“Oh, Kat, we’re not looking at Minnesota as a possible site.”
“Why not?”
“This far north, there’d be additional trucking costs. We’d also have to factor in weather delays for most of the winter. We’re concentrating our search out west. California, Nevada, or Arizona.”
“But would you at least look at it?”
“Aw, hon, what would be the point?”
I sighed. Hulda had talked about my powers growing. She had asked about fate and destiny. Sure, it was a little outside of my Stork duties, but the signs seemed significant — to me, anyway. Maybe I just needed a different tactic. “The point is I’d get to see a lot more of you.”
“You know I’d like that.” He ruffled my hair. “But I don’t think . . .”
“Would you just look at it, please?”
He exhaled a big puff of air. “Maybe. We’ll see.”
It was all I needed for now.
My dad and I had a quick dinner at the Kountry Kettle. Jaelle could only shake her head at him in wonder when he asked for a veggie burger with blue cheese crumbles, neither of which was on the menu. I could tell, though, that she thought he was cool — for a dad, anyway — and handsome. He wore Diesel jeans, a cashmere V-necked sweater, and Kenneth Cole shoes that had a slightly upturned toe. I wondered about the manicure. Not too many guys running around Norse Falls with buffed fingernails. Jaelle was very attentive to our booth. She was an excellent waitress, but still, it made me smile. More proof that my dad had mad charisma.
I made up a story about a study date at seven. I didn’t dare break my appointment with Hulda. My dad had a twenty-minute drive to his hotel, anyway, and had some phone calls to make for business, so was fine with the early dinner. Jaelle returned hawking dessert. She recommended the apple crumble, which my dad took along with — although reluctantly — a cup of coffee.
“Who is this study date with?” he asked.
“A girl.” Which technically would be the category Hulda fell into — sixty or seventy years ago.
He seemed kind of disappointed, or unconvinced. “Your mom said you were with the kid from the . . . incident. The Snjosson kid.”
“He’s a friend.” My dad seemed to buy this line, though I squirmed and looked away. He had never been as skilled as my mom at factoring body language into a conversation.
Jaelle dropped off my dad’s pie and my personal fave, the chocolate fudge cake, and two steaming mugs. After Jaelle was out of hearing range, my dad looked at the coffee suspiciously. “At least it’s hot.” He took a sip and scrunched his nose. “Blah.” He then reached down into his leather briefcase and extracted two small cans of Starbucks espresso. He held them up for me to see and winked conspiratorially. “Emergency supplies for the morning.” He tapped the can affectionately. “My faithful Ariel”— his nickname for the mermaid on the Starbucks logo.
I looked at the familiar image. I’d never really studied it before. It was a mermaid, with a split tail and crown. Such a curious choice. Though I supposed it symbolized something.
I glanced down at my watch — just a few minutes to seven. “Yikes. Gotta go.” I stood and kissed my dad on the cheek. “So you’ll take a look at it? Yes?”
“At what?”
“The factory.”
My dad sighed. “Listen, Kitty Kat, I’m not setting up shop anywhere I can’t get a decent cup of coffee.”
“But you said you’d look.”
He sighed. “OK, but don’t expect much.”
I used my key at Hulda’s back door. Again she emerged from the office-which-wasn’t-an-office door. We nodded silently at each other and proceeded to the dungeon. I settled into the robin’s chair, whose carvings had taken flight.
Hulda sat back in her seat, steepling her hands below her chin. “I have been thinking on this wind symbol.”
“Me, too,” I interrupted.
She cocked her head to the side. “Tell me.”
“My dad arrived today. Unexpectedly.”
Something sparked in Hulda’s pale blue eyes. “An unforeseen visitor? Is an omen. Go on.”
Maybe I was onto something? “He’s an entrepreneur. And his latest business venture is wind energy.”
“Wind energy?”
“Wind turbines, technically. He’s been pulling together a deal to produce small wind turbines for residential application.” I guess I’d heard my dad pitch the idea a time or two. I had the spiel down.
Hulda closed one eye and looked at me suspiciously. “What’s it to do with our duties?”
“His company needs a factory. Their contract on a site in California fell through at the last minute. I never knew you owned the old paper factory in
town until this weekend. I mean, it seems too much of a coincidence, doesn’t it? It has to be a symbol.”
Hulda was quiet for a long time. A very long time. I took it as a thumbs-down.
“Would you at least think about it?” Even I could hear the whiny ping in my voice.
“If it’s important to you, I will,” Hulda said. “But tell me, why such sadness about you today?”
Dang, her perceptiveness was eerie. “I now know what you meant when you called me ‘the girl of the lake.’”
“This is not making you sad.”
She had a future in interrogation if the whole first-chair-Stork-thing didn’t work out. “It’s Jack Snjosson. We’ve kind of gone back and forth on being friends.”
“Ah.” This she said as if it explained everything, which helped nothing, and may have only made me sadder. “Snjosson is an ancient family with roots that trace back many years, before the Icelandic sagas even.”
Whose don’t, around here?
“Their lands rose out of the farthest north,” Hulda continued. “Legend has it they were a nomadic clan of Veturfolk, arriving every spring with white furs and eggs of the geirfugl, the great auk, to trade.”
“Uh. That’s interesting,” I said.
“But do you understand, they’re Veturfolk — Winter People?”
“No.”
“Of arctic descent. Far above the timberline. A cold and unfriendly place.”
So a lot like here.
“A warning,” Hulda said in a grave tone. “Ice is at the core of their being.”
Yowzer. Not exactly a stamp of approval. I guess grudges and legends chiseled in cold, hard stone stand the test of time.
“Is there possibly another who claims your affections?” she asked.
“Hardly one who claims my affections.”
“A distraction, then,” she said.
“Wade Ivarsson.” I wanted to be careful. Wade was, after all, a relative of Fru Dorit. “I turned him down for the dance.”
Hulda scrutinized me for a moment. “He was a mischievous child. Always clamoring for ways to be noticed. The Stork lineage can be difficult on boys. And a family with much sorrow.” Hulda pressed her fingers to her temple. “But today we have other, more pressing matters at hand,” Hulda continued. “Have you had another dream?”
“Yes. One.”
“Explain.”
Nobody economized words like Hulda. Maybe I could learn something from her. I hoped to make quick work of this nightmare naming my own mother a potential vessel. “It’s always the same. I struggle to get to the clearing, because there’s something holding me back. This time it’s the wind itself. It won’t let me advance. In fact, it spins me around and steers me in the opposite direction.”
“Once more the wind.” This seemed to trouble Hulda. “What happens when you get to the clearing?”
“The baby is there. Happy as always. And then I watch as someone else appears. She sits in one of the chairs and pulls a cloak of grass and dirt over her shoulders.” I paused, still unsure how to proceed.
“Go on.”
“She is an older woman, late thirties. Recently returned to the area and newly divorced. She’s in a new relationship, but who knows if it will last?” I sounded way too much like Fru Dorit at that first meeting. I momentarily considered foretelling that she’d soon dump him and his dishpan hands.
“Tell me something of her mind.”
“Uh. She’s a math teacher. Very analytical. Very exacting. In fact, she arrives with her hair tangled, presumably by the wind, which bothers her sense of order.”
“Always this wind,” Hulda said with a shake of her head.
“And then she, too, settles into some sort of dreamlike state to watch the child,” I continued. “So I guess that makes three. Three potential vessels now.”
“But you say there are four chairs.”
“Yes.”
“Only the water element remains?”
“Yes.”
“So many dreams.” Hulda rocked back and forth, talking more to herself than to me. “Is unusual.”
Naturally.
She pursed her lips. Deep vertical lines wrinkled the skin above her mouth. “This is important, Katla; think very hard. There must be someone else present.”
I shook my head in bewilderment. “I don’t think so.”
“Time is such an important factor in our decisions. We must follow the laws of nature. The child must be placed very soon.”
“I can’t think of anyone else.”
She continued to look at me coaxingly, as if leading me to some sort of revelation.
I started to get nervous. I was already on shaky ground, having suggested that my dad’s business venture was fated for her old factory and concealing that my mom was the third vessel. I’d never been the halfway type.
“Hulda, I just thought of something.” Acting had never been my thing. I just hoped spontaneity made up for lack of natural ability. “There is someone else present in my dream.”
That got her attention. “Tell me,” she said.
“You’re going to think this is very strange. And it happened so fast I hardly thought it was worth mentioning.”
She wanted a fourth, right?
“Go on.” There was something eager and youthful in her voice.
I remembered the icy chute of the dream. My stomach relived it as I plunged onward with the fabrication. “At one point in my dream, I’m falling down a sort of frozen waterfall. I look to my side, and there, sitting on a rock, caught in a sort of wind tunnel, is . . .” I paused, desperately trying to think of something.
“Is?” I noticed Hulda’s bony fingers gripping her chair.
“A mermaid.” Oh, God. I’d panicked and the first crazy thing that had flashed through my mind had been my dad holding up his little can of coffee, but no way would Hulda fall for anything so absurd.
“A mermaid?” Hulda slowly bent her head from one side to the other, lost in thought. Finally she said, “A very powerful symbol. The mythological siren. Dating back as far as the goddess religions themselves. A creature of Vatnheim, the water kingdom. Describe her.”
Oh, crap. “Uh. Long hair covering her breasts. Two tails.”
Hulda gasped. “Split-tailed? Is certain?”
God help me. “Yes.”
“What else?”
“She wears a crown.” Drinks a lot of coffee. Sometimes answers to the name of Ariel.
“A crown?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure of it?” she asked, trembling like a bobblehead.
“Yes.”
Hulda sat back in her chair as if exhausted, as if exhilarated. She leaned over and patted my arm. “You go home. Get some sleep. Tomorrow is big day.”
“How is it a big day?”
“Tomorrow, after school, you start scratching.”
“Oh! Are you sure?”
“Yes. Though you may not realize it, Katla, your timing coincides with a day of great portent. Tomorrow is the autumnal equinox. Know that the changes of seasons are days of great significance and powerful magic. The signs are all there. Aslendigas Storkur Society meets tomorrow night.”
Hulda rushed me up the stairs and gave me a big hug like something really special had just happened. I left her store feeling seriously guilty and hoped I hadn’t done anything really stupid, especially considering that — dear God — there was a soul at stake.
I let myself in through the garage door. The house sounded empty, though I knew my mom was home, since her umbrella was lying on the floor.
“We’re in here,” my mom called.
I followed her voice to the family room. She and Stanley were snuggling on the couch. She had her head dipped down in the crook of his shoulder, and it looked like it was a pretty good fit. I remembered the way my head had rested on Jack’s arm during the car ride back from the hiking trip. It had been a nice feeling, both soft and solid.
“I talked to your dad,�
�� my mom said. “He said you two had a nice dinner.”
I took a seat in the chair facing the couch. “It was great to see him. Thanks for calling him.”
“Of course, honey. Your father and I are still friends. And when it comes to you . . .” She turned and faced Stanley. “We’re still partners. And we both want to help you deal with any recovered memories you may have.”
“How did you feel at school today?” Stanley asked.
“Good, I guess. Pretty normal.” If getting a boyfriend by first period and then getting dumped after school was normal. And the whole mermaid thing — I wasn’t about to go there.
“You’ve always been strong,” my mom said. “When you’re ready, there’s a scrapbook that Amma kept with all the newspaper clippings. I put it on your desk.”
“She made a scrapbook?”
“It was a really big story. Some believed it a sort of miracle. The scientific explanation has to do with the cold actually plunging the two of you into a sort of deep freeze, preventing your brain cells from dying. It’s really a fascinating survival mechanism.” No mistaking which version she believed.
“Still sounds impossible to me.”
“Not impossible.” My mom beamed at me like I’d just handed her a Valentine dripping glue and glitter all over the carpet. “Your dad and I have you to prove it.”
Stanley squeezed my mom’s knee after she said this. “I’m glad Greg’s going to stick around for a few days,” he said. “I’m looking forward to meeting him.”
I felt kind of sorry for the guy. Their meeting would be rough on him. It would be hard to live up to my dad. I excused myself and headed up to my room.
It was not an easy night. I couldn’t stop thinking about Jack. I wanted him to call. Even if it was to break our date, I’d know where we stood. And the idea of a photo was stressing me out. Did Wade really have one? Would he broadcast it? And on top of all this, I had my first Stork meeting the next day, a responsibility that triggered a nervous burn in my gut. Now that it was upon me, the decision seemed huge. I sat at my desk with my arms wrapped tightly around my shoulders, reading and rereading, unsuccessfully, an English assignment. The only thing that kept me from falling apart, literally ending up with body parts strewn about like dirty laundry, was puzzling through some of what Hulda had said. I focused on our discussion. And though I could feel myself almost choking with stress, and though I felt more alone than I ever had, I concentrated on Hulda’s cryptic words.
