by Kris Tualla
“I suppose.” Her mom sighed. “Now that everything’s settled I’ll let you get back to work, sweetie. I love you.”
“Love you, too, Mom. Give my love to Dad. And my hearty congratulations.”
Hollis hung up and leaned back in her chair. She bought her Christmas ticket from an airline with no reservation change fees, so that was good. It was just a matter of changing the dates when she knew what the new dates would be.
“So I will not meet your family at Christmas, after all.” Sveyn leaned down so his head was at her level. “Are you saddened by this news?”
“Yes. And no.” Hollis set her phone on her desk. “My parents deserve this treat.”
“Perhaps I can show you a Norse Christmas.” Sveyn smiled. “Will you cook if I teach you?”
Hollis laughed. “Really?”
“Why not?”
That actually sounded fun. “Sure. I’d like that.”
Her office phone buzzed.
“Yes?”
“I have a gentleman at the front desk who wants to speak with you, if you have a moment.”
“What’s his name?”
“Matt Wallace.”
Hollis sighed. “Sure. I’ll be there in a minute.”
“I wonder what he wants of you now.” Sveyn did not look pleased.
“Heaven only knows.” Hollis stood. “I guess I’ll go find out.”
*****
Matt stood in the lobby, acting casual, looking at postcards. But when his eyes met hers, she saw the stark circles under them.
“Thanks for letting me interrupt your day, Hollis,” he said. “I’m on my way to the airport and I wanted to say goodbye.”
“Okay.” Hollis shrugged. “Goodbye.”
Matt glanced around the busy lobby. “Will you walk me to my car?”
“Um, sure.” Hollis had left her jacket in her office, but standing in the sun would make the sixty-degree December day tolerable.
Matt held the door for her and she walked in silence beside him to the public parking lot. When he stopped at a generic silver sedan, he turned to face her.
“I made a decision last night, Hollis. You were right. I’m going to file for divorce before Christmas.”
Hollis nodded. “I’m glad. As hard as that is, sooner really is better.”
“I’ll let you know how it goes.”
Hollis wasn’t sure why that was necessary, but she said, “Okay.”
Matt fiddled with a button on his jacket. “Once that’s done, I’m wondering if you’ll give me a chance to win you back from the Captain.”
Hollis honestly didn’t know how to answer that. “Back? What do you mean back?”
Matt looked contrite. “I know I hurt you, Hollis. I’m sorry about that.”
“He didn’t win me away from you, Matt,” Hollis stated. “You were already long gone.”
“I know—”
“So what you mean to ask,” Hollis interrupted, too startled by his suggestion to be polite. “Is would I consider giving you a second chance at being the kind of man I deserve?”
Matt blanched. “Um, yes. I guess that’s what I’m saying.”
To say yes made the most logical sense. Considering her long and familiar history with Matt, reconnecting with him should only be a matter of updating each other on their experiences while they were apart. With the lack of any viable future with Sveyn, she might be foolish to let this opportunity pass.
Still, her heart objected.
“Why don’t you call me once the papers are actually filed?” Hollis suggested, buying herself time. “Until then, all of this is moot anyway.”
Matt looked defeated. “I understand.”
“Besides, you don’t know how Suzan will respond. Maybe you can still work things out.”
Matt shook his head. “I doubt it.”
“She’s your wife, Matt. You have to try.” And if you don’t, how can I believe you’ll try with me?
Hollis stood on her toes and kissed Matt on the cheek. He hadn’t shaved today and his beard stubble stabbed her lips. “Thanks for coming to see me, Matt. No matter how this all plays out, it was good to see you again.”
*****
Stevie was driving her insane. Between her co-worker’s giddiness over her engagement to George and the resultant wedding planning, and her fascination with Sveyn and all which that situation entailed, the woman never stopped bouncing.
She slipped into Hollis’s office after she returned from her conversation with Matt and closed the door. “Is he here?”
“Stevie, you can’t do this. People will get suspicious.” Hollis reopened the office door. “And then we’ll end up having to create some big surprise to justify all the secrecy.”
“But is he?” Stevie followed Hollis to her desk.
Sveyn chuckled and Hollis sighed. “Yes.”
“Where?” Stevie turned in a circle.
“You won’t be able to see him because he’s calm.”
“Just tell me.”
Sveyn stepped up right behind the petite Stevie and grinned at Hollis over the blonde’s head. “How is this?”
Hollis rolled her eyes. “He is standing right behind you.”
Stevie whirled around. “Here?” She stuck her arms out then yanked them back. “Oh my god—I felt something.”
Sveyn rubbed his belly. “And I felt her. I think.”
“I don’t know what’s going on with any of this,” Hollis snapped. “But I do know that we have a job to do and enough of this day has been wasted.” She glared at Stevie. “Are you coming?”
With a glance around the office, Stevie hurried after Hollis. “That was so strange, Hollis. Can anyone feel him?”
“If they walk through him, I think.”
Stevie grabbed her arm. “Walk through him? Like, literally?”
Hollis pulled another sigh. “They can’t see him, and if he doesn’t move out of the way of course they’ll walk through him.”
“That is so weird…” Stevie murmured.
Welcome to my world.
Hollis walked into the Kensington wing, which was packed with sixth graders on a school field trip. Several of the group were clustered around the Blessing—of course—talking about Vikings.
“They were a bunch of brave warriors,” one boy stated.
“They had women warriors, too,” a girl added.
“Yeah but they robbed and killed everyone wherever they went,” another girl snipped. “They were barbarians.”
“I like the helmets with the horns.”
“I wonder why they don’t have one here?”
“You know they discovered America, not Christopher Columbus.”
“Nuh uh.”
“Yeah huh.”
Stevie nudged Hollis. “Can he hear all of this?”
Hollis glanced at Sveyn who was standing behind the case with a bemused look on his face. “Yep.”
She then stepped into the fray. “So you all are interested in Vikings?”
Heads turned toward her and the commentary halted.
“Did you see the Viking sunstone?” Hollis continued, pointing their attention toward the next case. “This rectangular piece of calcite allowed the Vikings to navigate by the sun even on cloudy days.”
As the small herd of students flowed toward the next case Hollis added, “And that was how they discovered North America five hundred years before Christopher Columbus found the islands south of Florida.”
One boy elbowed another. “Told ya.”
“Shut up.”
Stevie grabbed Hollis’s arm. “I have an idea!”
Hollis glanced at her and tossed off one last bit of info before allowing Stevie to pull her away. “And we don’t have a horned helmet because the Vikings never wore them.”
Hollis followed the registrar out of the wing and into the much quieter lobby. “What?”
Stevie spun around to face her. “Let’s write a kid’s book. For the museum to sell. About Vikings.”<
br />
Hollis thought she was following Stevie’s train of thought, but still asked, “Why?”
“So we have a reason to be talking about you-know-who.” Stevie’s eagerness was palpable.
“You do realize that we would have to produce an actual book at some point,” Hollis warned.
“I concur with Stevie.” Sveyn stepped around Hollis and faced her. “The amount of misinformation these children have about my life and my people is appalling.”
“We can do it. Or at least claim to try.” Stevie spread her palms and stated the obvious. “We do have a legitimate source, after all.”
It wasn’t a bad suggestion, Hollis realized. Not only would it be a cover for her to talk about the apparition with Stevie, but they might actually end up writing a decent little book.
“Who would do the illustrations?”
Stevie clapped her hands and started bouncing. Again. “We could hold a contest! Ask students to submit drawings for each chapter.”
Hollis was getting behind the idea now, and not only as an excuse. “If we covered—I don’t know—say twelve common ideas about Vikings, we could even make a calendar.”
“I love it!” Stevie twirled in a circle.
“Okay, then. I’ll dictate his answers, but it’s your baby to organize. You handle the actual contests and production.” Hollis started walking toward their offices. “I have to deal with the ghost people starting on Monday, so I’ll be losing a day of work every week until they stop coming. And the hoard isn’t adequately sorted or catalogued yet.”
As they entered the back hallway, Stevie asked, “So how did things end with Matt?”
Chapter Seventeen
Hollis felt the need to get out of buildings for a while, so when she left the office she drove to a nearby park. Even though the sun had set and the air had grown chilly, she wanted to go someplace outside of her normal routine and think.
Sveyn had been quiet most of the day and Hollis assumed it was because he was either thinking about ideas for the Viking book, or he was contemplating her conversation with Matt.
Either way, she switched on the Bluetooth earpiece and got out of her car. “I just want half an hour of fresh air to clear my head.”
Sveyn moved through the passenger door and walked around the car to her side. “I understand. I do miss feeling the wind and the cold. They do refresh the soul.”
Hollis stuffed her hands into the pockets of her jacket in part to keep warm, and in part to keep from reaching for Sveyn. Taking his arm or holding his hand felt obvious at the moment and the reality of that impossibility irritated her.
“What weighs on your mind, Hollis?”
She walked in silence for a while before answering him. So many thoughts were charging around in her mind that she was having trouble organizing them into any sort of coherent statement.
She finally settled on, “Matt.”
Sveyn nodded, his sober expression barely visible in the low lamps along the gravel walkway. “As I suspected.”
“Did you hear the whole conversation?”
“I came out and stood behind you when I heard you say that I didn’t win you away from him.” He turned his head to look at her. “At the least, I assumed you meant me.”
“I did.” Hollis sighed. “Before that, he said he’s not going to wait and he’s going to file for divorce now. Then he said he wants another chance with me.”
Sveyn stared at his booted footfalls and clasped his hands behind his back.
“I would be a fool to go back to him…” Hollis left the sentence hanging.
Sveyn’s voice was stern. “From what you have told me, I believe that to be very true.”
“But we have so much history together. So much time invested in each other’s lives.”
“And yet, he left you to marry someone else.”
“The grass looked greener,” Hollis countered. “And now he knows it wasn’t.”
Sveyn’s brow twitched as if he was working out the idiom. “And what happens when another field of grass looks greener?”
“He’ll remember this disaster, of course.” I hope.
Sveyn stopped walking. A pair of joggers trotted by them, nodding a greeting. “And what if your grass is not as green as he remembered?”
Hollis glared up at him. “My grass is actually way greener now.” Crap—that sounds like a personal issue. “I mean I’m a better person than I was when he left me. I’ve grown.”
Sveyn’s expression twisted. “And what if he is not happy with how you have changed?”
The Viking’s questions were infuriatingly obvious. “So what are you saying? That I should let this opportunity go?”
He folded his arms. “What do you think?”
Hollis stomped further down the trail. “I think you don’t trust me to make a good decision.”
Sveyn followed her. “I am only pointing out the situations which are possible. Or probable.”
“Of course you are,” she snapped. “But everything you said was a question. How do you expect me to find the answers if I don’t explore the possibility?”
Apparently, he didn’t have an answer for that.
Hollis halted and looked up at him. “What if I miss the best thing that ever happened to me because I was too scared to risk being hurt again?”
Sveyn stared down into her eyes, his darkened by the night. “Was he truly the best thing that has ever happened to you?”
Hollis felt the Viking’s words like a spear through her chest. “Sveyn… That’s not fair.”
He shook his head. “No. It is not fair. Not for either one of us.”
Hollis rubbed her eyes before tears could form. “What do you expect me to do?”
“Expect? That I cannot say.” He paused and drew an impossible breath. “But what I desire for you to do is not fair either.”
Hollis stepped into the breach. “Tell me what you desire, Sveyn.”
His gaze fell away. “I believe you know.”
“Tell me anyway. I need to hear it.” She wiped her eyes again. “I can’t make a decision without it.”
The apparition walked into the glow of the next footlight and turned to face her. “I will be fully honest, Hollis. No matter how hard this might be for you to hear.”
“Please do.” She wrapped her arms around her waist. “I’m ready.”
He nodded. “I want you entirely to myself. I do not want your attentions pulled away from me by any other man who walks this earth.”
Hollis’s pulse sped up.
“In all of my experiences—and I have had many centuries of them—I have never come to know a woman like you. You are so intelligent. And kind. And brave.” He wagged his head. “And I am wholly immersed in my admiration and love for you.”
Now her palms were sweating. “Oh, Sveyn…”
He put up one hand to silence her. “Because we can come together in your dreams, those nights are what keep me from going completely insane. I ache for you, Hollis. I want to father your children. I want to grow old with you.”
The soft breeze chilled Hollis’s wet cheeks. “I want that, too, Sveyn. You have no idea.”
His gaze flicked aside briefly. “If you feel but half of what I do, then I am sorry to have brought this upon you.”
“No. Don’t apologize.” She sniffed and wiped her cheeks. “I can’t imagine my life without you now.”
Something in her words caused a sudden shift in Sveyn’s demeanor. His cheeks hollowed and his eyes widened,
“What is it?” she asked.
He dragged his hands though his long hair. “I am being far too selfish.”
“No, you’re being honest,” she objected. “And I want the same things you do.”
“But they can never be!” Sveyn turned in a tight angry circle. “Do you not see that?”
Hollis scrambled unsuccessfully for a response.
He stilled and pointed at her. “I will never change. I will never age. You know this!” he s
houted. “But if I somehow remain with you for the rest of your life, you will. And in the end, you will hate me for it.”
“I could never—”
“If you never marry, and never have children, you will end up alone, Hollis.” Sveyn shook his head fiercely. “If I truly love you, I cannot condemn you to that.”
Hollis desperately wanted to argue the point but she couldn’t. The future he just outlined was realistic. And what if he stayed with her for less than her whole life—say thirty years and then disappeared? She would be a single, sixty-one-year-old woman, deeply grieving a lost love that no one could understand.
She sank to her knees on the path, the crumbled granite pressing sharply through her jeans. “What do you expect me to do?” she asked again.
Sveyn squatted in front of her. “As much as it angers me, I must expect you to continue your search for a husband.”
“In spite of how we feel about each other?”
Sveyn wiped his eyes, though the apparition couldn’t actually produce tears. “Because of how we feel about each other. This love we share must not ruin your life.”
Her brow plunged. “What if I fall in love with another man?”
Sveyn touched the bloodied gash on the side of his vest, as if it pained him anew. “If he makes you love him more than you love me, then it was meant to be so.”
Hollis reached for Sveyn’s cheek, and felt the faint tingle when she touched it. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
He laid his hand over hers. “I came to you unbidden, Hollis. You did not ask for, nor desire, my presence in your life.”
“But that’s not your fault.”
“Neither of us is at fault. My singular situation was created by God, and will only be resolved when He allows me to die.” Sveyn’s expression begged her understanding. “Until then I am at His mercy.”
Hollis dropped her hand back into her lap. “So… Matt.”
“What do you want to do about him?”
There it was. The million dollar question.
She heaved a resigned sigh. “If he actually files for divorce, and Suzan-with-a-Z doesn’t contest it, then I guess I’ll let him try and woo me.”
Sveyn stared at his hands, his laced fingers twisting together until his knuckles were non-apparition shade of white. “You must understand that I deeply and violently despise that idea.”
