Daughters of Northern Shores

by Joanne Bischof

  “That’s four, then. Might there be one more?” Haakon rose enough to trudge over to a wide basket beside the goat cart. The thickly woven lid was ajar just enough that he was quite sure those were two curious eyes watching him. “It’s quite a large farm I live on, and would be awful empty without just one more.” He lifted the lid to find a wee stowaway peering up at him.

  She was the smallest of all, her blonde curls topped with a knit cap and her cheeks so rosy with cold they were as pink as the tip of her nose. Her dress was embroidered wool, same as her coat, and her brown stockings were wet in the knees.

  “I thought there had been five,” he said victoriously.

  She smiled at him, and he smiled back. She looked to be the same age as Bjørn, though not nearly as plump, and that alarmed him.

  “Now this is more like it.” Haakon crouched down to see her eye to eye. “Forgive me, I’ve forgotten your name, little one.”

  “Hana,” her mother said softly. “She doesn’t speak yet.”

  “No? It is lovely to see you again, Hana.”

  The girl bent down, picked up a rag doll, and showed it to him. He took that as the finest of hellos. Haakon touched the red-and-white plaid of the doll’s dress.

  “While I was hoping for more, I suppose only five will do.” He reached over to shake each of their small hands. Then he winked at the babe in the basket, who was lifting the front of her dress to try to show him her belly button. “Especially you.”

  He glanced back to Kjersti to see a wet sheen in her eyes, pooling liquid against the vibrant blue of them. He’d always been told his eyes were rather fine, but he’d known the moment he saw her that he had met more than his match.

  He thought of her that night—that night in the barn when he’d finally been alone with her. So frigid was the winter that she had fetched a pile of furs, causing his hopes to rise. But one had been for the young goat and two others for each of their shoulders. Kjersti’s children and nursing infant had been left in the cottage with an old neighbor woman for the evening, their young mother taking a few hours away to ensure another little creature made it until morning. Haakon had stayed, offering to help her, but ever since his wretched behavior with Aven, he always took great care not to coerce a woman beyond what he sensed made her comfortable. When Kjersti expressed her pleasure in his presence in no manner other than the brightness of her eyes and the depth of her kindness, his hope dwindled. As the hour wore late, she’d kept them both awake with conversation, pausing only to chafe the little goat or ensure it was able to feed from its mother. His disappointment mounting, he’d heard less and less of what she had to say.

  He meant to do better about that now.

  Haakon wiped dirt from another carrot and placed it in the cart. “I didn’t bring any gifts.” He had nothing to his name save the strength of his back and a proud piece of mountain. “And I will tell no stories if you wish it.”

  Her eyes filled with more tears as though she wished for quite the opposite. She was looking at him as if the man from Oslo had been insufficient for yet another reason. One she wasn’t about to admit. He hoped it was so.

  Looking at her now, he knew she would have done all she could to ensure her children’s survival. She was born and bred from the blood of Viking women and knew how to carve life from this land if it was the last thing she did. A woman did not grow up as a daughter of northern shores without such resilience in lands not beholden to mercy.

  He also knew that she would have married someone good and willing if it meant saving her children. But though she was strong, he meant to ease her burden and help to carry this load. As for his own burdens of heart, he hoped he might have someone to share them with. Someone to help shape them and spur him to press on with fortitude for this pilgrimage. If she might marry for love . . . if he could even hope that it would be him . . . “If you would allow this, I would like to take you home with me. You and your children. The voyage will not be easy, but I promise that I will be with you.” He would do everything in his power to see them safely to the other side.

  Wind hit cold from the east, the same wind that would bear them away from here if she was willing to bid her homeland goodbye. It was a lot to ask, and while he was prepared to pursue another way—a life with her here—he desperately wanted her to be a part of his family back home, and they a part of her. “I would like to give you my land and my home. My life and my name.” And most of all . . . “My heart. If you would have me.”

  She heaved in a shuddering breath, wrapped an arm around the girl beside her, and though uncertainty still wove within her every blink, there was a wonder and a yearning that brought him the first traces of hope. The lass beneath her mother’s cloak gave him a shy smile, and the lad on the wagon tongue inhaled a deep breath, his own hope abundant in the look of longing he gave Haakon.

  “Mor bedt for deg hver natt,” the boy said.

  Kjersti’s eyes went wide at her son’s bold announcement, then lifted to Haakon with the same vulnerability he felt in kneeling here.

  An understanding stirred in Haakon as he pieced together what the boy declared. “And I felt them,” he said in return for her prayers. Every night, her son had just admitted. Haakon recalled all the hours he had walked the dark mountainside in search of danger or sat up with a rifle across his lap beneath the stars. All the times he’d thought of her when he should have been dreaming. “Every one.”

  Haakon rose and stepped nearer to the boy. “Thank you for the picture you drew me. I’ve kept it close.” He pressed a hand to his chest to show how much. “It helped me find the way back here.”

  Though he didn’t know English, the boy’s chin trembled. To Haakon’s relief, Kjersti spoke in Norwegian, her voice tender and holding as much emotion as her son’s face did with each falling word. After she’d translated, the boy gave Haakon a valiant nod. He twisted his fingers together as if in effort to keep from crying. Haakon gripped them in one hold, squeezing assurance and warmth into them.

  Rising up from the sea came a rush of salty air—as cold with the season as it was with coming sunset. He turned back to Kjersti. “That’s a lot for you to hear at once, so if you’ll consider what you might say, I’d be grateful.” He had several weeks here and meant to grant her every moment to decide if she wished.

  Now it was her hand he took, this one with a different kind of touch. One that had her lashes lifting to his face and their different sides of broken meeting between them.

  “God dag,” she said softly, answering his earlier greeting.

  Haakon smiled. At the very beginning, then, as was a right and fair place for her to start. He deserved nothing more, and that a hope was rising inside him was more than he could ask for. And as for those words that fell from her lips just now, it was a good day. It was rather all kinds of perfect even as, with bone-weary hands, he unearthed another carrot. Despite his urging for her to go inside to warmth, she remained across the row from him—the spade passing between them until the soil was purged and smoothed. He didn’t push his desire on her further and instead relished her nearness until the cold of dusk had her coaxing her little ones indoors.

  He didn’t follow, as it wasn’t his place, but she returned a spell later with a lantern for his work, a slice of bread for his trouble, and a gentle smile that he savored on his walk back to the ship by starlight.

  Meaning to tend to all the chores he could, he came back the following evening and each one after until the weeks ashore had passed and he’d spent every waking hour hauling in cod and passing warm evenings in Kjersti’s cottage, eating the stews she served him and savoring the stories the children treated him to—each finer than his own.

  Until the morning came that the ship’s berth could hold no more catch. It was that same dawn that Kjersti stood beside him in a stone church. The children sat along a front pew, their polished shoes not touching the floor, as they watched their mother receive a ring onto her finger once more. Kjersti’s face was awash with joy
as Haakon slid the humble band into place. Wrought through him was all the gratitude a man could possess and the consciousness of just how many precious lives were in his care. As she accepted his own heart in return, it was an exchange more powerful than any he’d ever known. A changing inside him rivaled only by the forgiveness and hope that had come to him from above.

  In Kjersti’s promise lived her own kind of hope. One he meant to honor. And with her hand inside his own that day, so came into his life a Mrs. Haakon Norgaard. He scarcely knew how to reckon with that kind of blessing. A sobering gift it was, and one he meant to honor.

  In the cottage that night, he told as many stories of home that he could think of to blissful and bleary-eyed children. Kjersti listened on with a quiet contentment, and when the last child was well asleep, Haakon understood a cherishing with his wife that he would have missed in any other fashion. There, amid pine-drenched starlight, he discovered a wholeness that he hadn’t before comprehended. One that told him that life wouldn’t always have cause to bring them joy, but that it was worth finding and protecting all the same.

  The following day when she knelt beside a distant grave with five little ones, he waited . . . giving them all the time they needed. When she rose, she brushed soil from her hands and allowed him to walk her down the hillside where they both carried cherished memories for those lost. It was there that he led her onto the ship as his wife—a homebound future up ahead and their children following close behind.

  A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  MAY I TELL YOU A SECRET? NOW THAT YOU’VE reached the end of Daughters of Northern Shores, I have one more piece of the story to tell you . . . and it’s why this novel is in your hands and perhaps why your heart is beating with the same span of emotions as my own has been.

  Upon my first imaginings of Sons of Blackbird Mountain, before words were even on the page, I knew several things: Thor was going to love Aven. Haakon was going to think he loved Aven. And in the end, when it came to those bullets Jed Sorrel fired as young Haakon scampered up the hillside, Jed wasn’t going to miss. Instead, Haakon was going to fall and not rise. The boys were going to carry him home, and Aven would be there in his final breaths.

  I knew Haakon’s death as vividly as I knew the love story. I could see the scene in my mind, the heartbreak laced with redemption as he made amends in his final hour, ushering in healing and restoration for the hearts involved. It was the most vivid scene in my mind. There would be no real need for a second novel.

  But then something happened.

  As flames raged through the Sorrels’ barn, and as Jed fired that pistol in Haakon’s direction, that young man looked back over his shoulder, and I’m telling you, he looked right at me. It had nothing to do with his charm or even the color of those remarkable eyes. It was the raw and real peering into someone’s soul. A pleading—straight from Haakon—to have a second chance. That if I could trust him, and more importantly, trust the seeds of redemption within him, that something new, rather like the sun over that hillside, would brighten the land. And in that moment, I couldn’t let him fall. Because of that, he made it to the top of the hill, into the sun’s glare, and out of sight.

  I didn’t mention this in the author’s note of Sons of Blackbird Mountain because it didn’t seem the time yet. I tell you now because it’s what sparked the pages of Daughters of Northern Shores.

  When it came to this second novel, less and less went according to plan than ever before. Never—with any book yet—has there been such a glaring difference between my vision for a plot and the pages that you just ventured through. Stories have, for the most part, gone to plan, but not with those on Blackbird Mountain. I’ve spent nearly as much time trying to make sense of the why of this as I have in writing the books themselves.

  Perhaps this had to do with the characters—their hearty spirits and vibrant passions. The bold way these men walk their land and protect their families. The courage of the women who share life at their side. Even the dangers that have come their way.

  Perhaps it’s had to do with the wilderness and the vast terrain that breathes from its very center a place known as Blackbird Mountain. A place where legends ring true in a way that permeates every rise and hollow of a farm that few have ever ventured to.

  Or perhaps it’s the fact that I intended for this novel to be so, so different. The plot I had conjured up for this second installment? You read only fragments of it. Most elements changed course with the same energy that lifted the sails of Haakon’s ship. The determination that stirred the grasses and had Aven lifting her eyes to the sky, wondering what might be coming.

  As an author, this was a difficult place to be. To admit to that is probably harder.

  Deep down I have craved safety. Yet it has been the tumultuous waters that asked to be sailed instead. The call of adventure is not always an easy one. As the pages of this novel unfolded, I felt like Bilbo in my hobbit hole, not wanting to step away from the calm. But in that is where the abundance lies. I am so thankful I did not write the story I had planned. It would have been gentle, yes, but I don’t believe it would have been as honest.

  As for those daughters of northern shores, I have come to realize that perhaps the reason this season has been so challenging is so that I get to be one of them. It’s very likely that you are there, too, in a place of uncertainty. Perhaps we’ve watched the sea together, awaiting that ship to come in. Perhaps we’ve knelt in our garden as a storm raged all around, determined to make beauty come from dust. Perhaps we’ve said goodbye to the gentle, easy way, and have come to know the need to draw courage up from the wellspring every hour of every day.

  Perhaps you know, as I now do, the meaning in Cora’s words: It a gusty place to stand, but it only mean that the Lord be all the nearer.

  The Lord be all the nearer.

  Perhaps that’s why this book took the twists and turns I never saw coming. So that it could be not by my strength but by His. That in my uncertainties, the Lord is all the more able to fill the gaps with His glory. That by changing course, by seeing the world through new eyes, by laying dirt on Peter’s grave, God is more present. His goodness is here, even in the hurting or the frailty.

  To all His daughters and sons, let us hoist the sails into the grand unknown. May we hold sweet memories in our hearts while facing the vast waters with hope. May we love much and believe deeply and sacrifice well.

  To each of you who has journeyed with me to these shores, I thank you.

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  1.Which original characters from Sons of Blackbird Mountain were you most excited to see again in the sequel? Of the brand new names and faces, who did you most enjoy meeting?

  2.This book traveled to several distant lands by way of Le Grelotter and her brave crew. Of the different places that Haakon and his fellow sailors traveled, which place would you be most curious to visit? Any stops you’d wish to make along the way?

  3.How did you see Thor and Aven, the leading characters in the first book of this series, grow over the last four years and during this second novel? Which traits of theirs did you find lasting? What elements of their love and personalities seemed new or different?

  4.When Haakon returns to the farm after four years away, he anticipates change within the family, including the possible passing of loved ones. What do you sense life was like for people in this era before the ease of communication with modern technology? What would it have been like to harbor uncertainties or longings when word between loved ones was sparse?

  5.The plot of Daughters of Northern Shores takes several twists and turns along the way. Were there moments when you thought the story was going to turn out differently than it did? In what ways?

  6.When Thor opened the letter from Washington DC, were you surprised it was sent by Alexander Graham Bell? With Blackbird Mountain having hinted at tension between Thor and this notable forerunner of Deaf education, how do you think this strain might have changed after Mr. Bell was the one to respond t
o Thor’s inquiry in Northern Shores?

  7.Of the three brothers, Jorgan leads the most discreet and stable life within the pages of this series. But what sort of issues do you think arose for him during the story? What conversations do you think he and Fay might have had behind the scenes? What sort of courage or determination do you think Jorgan was leaning on when facing the final scenes of this book?

  8.When Peter goes to battle against his father, uncles, and grandfather, what do you think this meant for him? With similar instances of family division having arisen during the Civil War some forty years prior, do you think this was an unexpected concept to Peter, or do you feel it was a choice he was prepared to make long ago?

  9.There are several women who have small but significant roles within this novel including Tess and Fay, as well as Mrs. Sorrel and Sibby. Which of these women stood out to you, and what types of character qualities did you most admire within them?

  10.Depicted on the cover is the young widow, Kjersti Jönsson. With her only present in two chapters, did it surprise you that she has such a prominent place there? In what ways, do you see her as a quiet heroine of this novel? What purpose did she serve in Haakon’s life while he was in Norway? How did this compare to how she affected Haakon while they were apart?

  11.For Sigurd, Bjørn, Tusenfryd, the children sailing in from Norway, and those yet to be born, what do you think life would be like for them growing up as children of the Norgaards in Appalachia? What do you think their heritage will mean to them? Their home on Blackbird Mountain? The freedom their fathers fought so hard for?

  12.The title Daughters of Northern Shores is meant to symbolize not only the women who love and care for the men in this novel but how the Sons of Blackbird Mountain have vowed to protect them. Though immersed in a rugged environment, these women embrace life and care for others with courage and grace. In what ways did you see this reflected? Were there additional ways that you saw the title symbolized?