Ransacker

by Emmy Laybourne

“Did you have a good rest?”

  “Yes,” Sissel said.

  “Sissel! How can you lie to me?” Alice said. Tears sprang to her eyes. “I had to run an errand at the livery, and Mr. Hennings told me you went riding with Mr. McKray!”

  “I’m sorry,” Sissel said. “It’s … I can’t explain it. I’m sorry.”

  Alice led Sissel away from the house. She brushed at her tears with the sleeve of her shirt.

  “That’s not all, Sissel!” Alice wrung her hands. “One of the housemaids from the Royal came in to the shop this afternoon. She burst into tears and begged my pardon, for stealing my combs. You can imagine my shock! I didn’t know what to say!

  “This girl stole from me, and you didn’t tell me. I don’t understand. Please, explain to me what is happening.”

  “Oh, Alice,” Sissel said. “I can’t. I can’t tell you.”

  “Of course you can! Aren’t we friends?”

  “We are. We are! You are my very best friend, Alice.”

  Alice’s mother opened the door to their home. She waved at Sissel.

  “Sissel! How lovely to see you! May I set a place for you at the table?”

  “Oh no, thank you, ma’am, I just came by to say hello.”

  “Are you sure? We’ve plenty.”

  “Yes, ma’am, thank you so much.”

  “Anytime!” Mrs. Oswald closed the door.

  Alice clutched at Sissel’s hands. She spoke very quietly. “Please, Sissel. I just don’t understand why you’re lying to me. Has McKray done something to you? Does Stieg know about this all?”

  “Please don’t tell my brother,” Sissel said.

  “Just tell me why you lied to me about finding my mother’s combs. That much you owe me.”

  “If you love me, you won’t ask,” Sissel said.

  “If you loved me, you’d tell me!” Alice said.

  Sissel turned abruptly and walked away.

  * * *

  SISSEL FORCED HERSELF to calm down as she walked back to the hotel. She had no right to feel angry, but that was how she felt. Cornered, defensive, and angry.

  She had found the combs! Why wasn’t that enough?

  And did Alice have to know absolutely everything about her life?

  Then there was McKray, tricking her into using her Nytte. It was a nightmare that he knew so much about her.

  Now it was getting dark and people were going home for a nice hot supper. The bell rang from the boardinghouse. If she hurried, she could make it in time for the seating. But she couldn’t stand the thought of sitting with all those dull workmen, alone.

  The anger was burning in her, and she got an idea—the gold in the graveyard.

  She walked toward the church, looked up and down the street to make sure no one was watching, and then ducked around behind the building.

  In the graveyard she opened her senses to the Nytte.

  Gold. There it was, warm, sensual, insistent. She was not sensing gold jewelry that the poor buried souls were wearing, but a large deposit of natural gold, lying in the rocks to the left of the grave.

  It felt so good to flood her senses with it, to give in to her power. She paced over to the mounded earth above the long grave. There had been a bit of rain since the burial. Some weeds and grass had taken purchase on the soil.

  Sissel walked a few paces in a circle, keeping her hands open to the spot, as if it were a campfire and she were warming them.

  She cast her eyes over the backs of the nearby buildings. There was no motion.

  She focused on the ground. There was a ledge over the gold. An outcropping of rock. The gold was deposited under this ledge. The vibration of the gold was coming sideways, as if it were spilling out from under something heavy and cold; that’s how she knew there was rock over it.

  She felt a few trinkets nearby. A silver square, maybe a belt buckle. Surely this was from one of the bodies buried nearby. Would she disturb the coffins if she went for the gold?

  Could she even pull it up? It seemed fused to the rock.

  She wanted to pull it all together. To let out a giant shout of effort and rip it from the earth—let the town see her. Let them all know what she was!

  She was breathless now.

  She cast her hands down at the gold and began to pull.

  Suddenly two hands seized her by the arms. She jumped, her heart jolted terribly.

  James stood there, his mouth forming her name. Asking what she was doing here.

  The gold was so clear in her mind, the connection so strong. She had to close it off, and she didn’t want to. She wrestled with the power.

  The Nytte surged up, and she pushed it away, straining to close her senses to it. James still had a hold on her.

  His hands held her up, as the gold in the earth pulled her down.

  She felt dizzy, sick. Her stomach was roiling. All the blood rushed from her head, and she felt herself collapsing into James’s arms.

  * * *

  THE SMELL OF coffee woke her. She was in a room she didn’t know.

  She had been laid on a bench next to a table and covered with a woolen blanket. Sissel sat up, pushing the blanket aside.

  James’s back was to her. He was standing at a wood-burning cookstove, boiling coffee. The room was darkened, the only light coming from a lamp and the grates and cracks on the woodstove where firelight shone through.

  There were some rough shelves with food staples on them. A few cups and mugs. On the walls were nails with invoices and receipts stuck onto them.

  Sissel realized she was in the back room of the store.

  James had set some bread, butter, and honey on the table, near the lamp. He turned and saw she was awake.

  “Sissel,” he said. He came over to her. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” she said. What could she tell him? How could she possibly explain what she was doing in the graveyard?

  “Here’s coffee,” he said, putting a steaming tin mug down in front of her. “Do you like it sweet?”

  She nodded.

  He took a can of condensed milk down from the shelf and poured a thick swirl into the dark coffee.

  Sissel sipped it. It was sweet and good.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  She drank for a moment, shifting the mug between her hands when the handle got too hot.

  James spread a piece of bread with butter and honey.

  “That’s Mrs. Trowley’s bread and Mr. Fahay’s butter. And this is heather honey imported from England. Mrs. Denmead kept going on and on about it, and the Ladies’ Aid Society requested we order it. Have you ever tried it?”

  “No,” Sissel said.

  “I thought all honey would be the same, but it does taste different.”

  She took the bread and bit into it. The combination of crusty bread, salted butter, and fragrant honey was distinctly delicious.

  “This might be the best thing I’ve ever eaten in my whole life,” she said.

  James laughed. He was smiling at her in the lamplight. She was glad not to see a concerned frown on his face or a dozen unanswered questions in his eyes.

  If only she could sit here and eat and not have to talk. Not have to explain what had happened.

  “I missed my supper,” she said.

  “Do you want more?”

  “If it’s not too much trouble.”

  James studied her, then clapped his hands.

  “I have a better idea,” he said. He rose from the bench and crossed to the door that led into the store. “Come on. Bring the lamp.”

  The store in the nighttime seemed bigger somehow. Maybe it was that the packed shelves seemed to reach up forever, since the light didn’t reach to the top shelf.

  The barrels of sugar and wheat, the rows of cans gleaming softly in the lamplight, bottled medicines and tins of tablets, polished boots lined up on lower shelves, along with small farm equipment—all of it seemed magical in the warm light.

  “Let’s have a feast!” James said.


  Sissel looked at the loaded shelves.

  “Really?”

  “We’ve got pickles, soda crackers, salted peanuts in the shell.” He started taking down jars and tins, holding them in his arms.

  “Sardines! Do you like them? What about smoked ham?”

  Sissel laughed.

  “Won’t your father be angry?” she answered. “Where is he?”

  “He’s off playing cards at the boardinghouse. I don’t expect him home until late. And I’ll work off the costs of our feast. Don’t worry. Have a seat,” he said, waving to the checkerboard table near the woodstove.

  “We need biscuits. These are good. They’re from St. Louis. Do you fancy a cup of hot chocolate?” He reached toward a tin of cocoa powder. She shook her head.

  “Good,” he said. He set down the items he had gathered in front of Sissel. “Too much fuss, anyway. But we do need sweets. Candy! We must have candy.”

  James walked to the lidded jars of sweets set at the end of the counter.

  “Horehound, peppermints, fruit drops, licorice whips, ribbon candy, peppermint humbugs. Have you had nectar drops?”

  “No, I haven’t, but come, James, you’re turning out the whole store for me! This is enough.”

  He waved away her concern. He scooped out candy into a little waxed paper bag and presented it to her with a flourish. Then said, “Wait, we need pickles.”

  Sissel tried to stop him, but he couldn’t be deterred. Soon they had over a dozen different foods on the table. Sissel began opening and sampling the items.

  “Ooh, these little crackers are good,” she said.

  “Oyster crackers. To lay on top of your soup. We’ve got smoked oysters. Want to try them?”

  “Cold? No!” Sissel laughed. “Anyway, how will we ever finish what we’ve got here?”

  James chomped down on a pickle. His face screwed up.

  “Gah, these are sour!” He took another bite.

  Sissel laughed. She felt better, so much better with the food in her, and with James clowning around.

  “So…,” he said after a few minutes of their happy eating.

  “Is there any way … is there any way you could not ask me about the graveyard?” Sissel said.

  James bit off a piece of licorice whip and chewed on it, thinking.

  “You can see how I’d worry about you, can’t you? First something upsets you at the dance, but you won’t say. Then I find you out at night, standing at the graveside, staring down into it.”

  Sissel stood up. She paced to the counter, brushing the crumbs off her fingers.

  “I have to worry, you see that,” he said.

  Sissel’s heart was pounding. What could she tell him? Anything but the truth. McKray knew the truth, and that was a disaster!

  “I feel I must talk to your brother about it,” James said.

  “No!” she said, whipping around. “Please don’t.”

  “Shouldn’t I, though? Sissel, why the graveyard? Please. Tell me—what fascination does it hold for you.” James was standing now.

  “My brother is overprotective as it is,” Sissel said. “If you tell him I was there … he’ll worry. He’ll watch me closer. And oh, James, I’ve so been enjoying my freedom. Can’t you see that?”

  “I just want … I want you to trust me. To tell me what’s happening. Please. Did you … were you grieving for your neighbors who died in the fire?”

  Sissel shook her head.

  “What is in the graveyard?” he asked.

  Sissel looked into his eyes. They were pleading. But if she hadn’t told Alice, her best friend, how could she tell James, who was not nearly as trustworthy, nor as dear to her.

  “I am sorry, James,” she said. “I can tell you this—I don’t need protecting. I am fine and I can take care of myself.”

  “But the way I found you—”

  “I would have been fine,” she said. “If you hadn’t come along, I would have been just fine—”

  “Sissel—”

  She held her hands up.

  “Thank you again for this feast. Should I go out the front door or the back—”

  James grabbed her arm.

  “Come, Sissel! All the time we’ve spend together. The places we’ve gone, the fun we’ve had. Can’t you trust me?”

  “Let go of my arm.”

  There was a glint in his eye. A look of desperation.

  James released her. He walked away, to the far side of the store, and stood looking out the window.

  “I don’t understand,” he said, drawing his hand through his hair. It made him look wild and worked up with passion.

  “I’m sorry, James. I’m truly thankful for all your kindnesses to me. And I know that I seem terribly ungrateful. If you don’t want to … take me to dances anymore, or to come visiting, I’ll understand.”

  “I don’t blame you. I know what I seem to be. A vain, shallow kind of man.”

  “No,” Sissel protested. “You’ve been very kind—”

  “I’m nothing to you, and why should I be? I’m not bright like your brother Stieg, or hardworking, like Knut. I’m not rich like McKray, that’s for sure. I must seem like a child compared to a man like that.”

  James turned around to face her.

  “Can I tell you something?” he asked.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  James could see Sissel’s reflection behind him, soft from the lamplight, wavy from the glass, but there was nothing soft or diffuse about Sissel Hemstad. She was hard as steel.

  He had envisioned the moment of her confession so many times—Sissel clinging to his chest, tears rolling down her face, the secret spilling out of her. Somewhere in her story she would reveal there was a warrant for Knut’s arrest. She’d tell about the murders that had been committed back in Norway. Then somewhere in the story James might learn who the Baron was to them and why he had come to protect them.

  He had seen the scene in his imagination, but Sissel held out and held out and held out. But no longer. He hardened himself to the task—tonight he would have her story from her, whatever the cost.

  “You remind me of my sister Clara; did I ever tell you that? She was slight, like you. And did not suffer fools. If I tried to get away with something, she put a stop to it.”

  “James,” Sissel said, stepping toward him, her voice overflowing with sympathy.

  Tears came up in his eyes, and he let them come.

  “The reason we left Chicago … It wasn’t to follow opportunity. I lied to you. I’m sorry. We came to get little Clara here, to the clean air.”

  “You never mentioned—”

  “She died one week before we were to move. She just … she got weaker and weaker. In the end, she was coughing blood.

  “Father insisted we go through with the move. We had our passage booked, had already bought this place. I didn’t want to leave. Our rooms, they weren’t much, but she had lived there. Laughed there.”

  James was laying down story as fast as he could, and she was drinking it in.

  “She wasn’t tough, like you. I think it’s why I was drawn to you: You never let your sickness bother you. I never saw anything like it. And look, now you’re better. You made yourself get better, somehow. I wish Clara had been more like you.”

  Sissel put her hand on his arm. James half turned his torso from her. He swiped at his watering eyes with the back of his hand. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s come over me.”

  “I’m so sorry, James,” she said. “I didn’t know.”

  He waved it away.

  “I didn’t tell you because it’s too hard to talk about her. Ah, forgive me.”

  He shook himself and straightened his posture.

  “Listen, Sissel, if you don’t want me to call on you, I understand. But I want you to know that I do care for you. That I truly admire you.”

  Sissel placed her arms around his shoulders and hugged him. James thrust his head forward gently, bringing it next to her ear.r />
  He breathed onto her pale neck, let his lips rasp against it as he said, “Oh, Sissel. I know I am going to lose you.”

  She pulled away, just a fraction, and he slid his arms under hers, to encircle her waist. She leaned back, unsure, and he tilted his face to look her in the eye.

  “I don’t blame you for not wanting to tell me your secrets, but I promise, I would have kept them for you.”

  He had his hands at her hips, and he brought her in closer to his body. Her slender, corseted form pressed into him.

  “James,” she said. “If you promise not to tell…,” she began.

  He had her.

  He did not say a word, just let out a long breath against her neck.

  “There is gold in the grave,” she said. “There is a deposit in the ground, maybe ten feet down. That’s why I was there…”

  She bit her lip, possibly regretting her confession. He wouldn’t let her stop. He gently pressed his fingers into the sweet place where the corset ended and the hip began.

  “But how could you know that?” he asked.

  “I have an ancient gift. A talent. It’s hard to describe, but I can tell where gold and silver are buried. I know it sounds crazy. I don’t blame you if you don’t believe me.”

  “So you tried to throw yourself into the grave to get buried gold?”

  “Not exactly,” she said. “The funeral was the first time I felt my gift. The Nytte. It’s difficult to explain.”

  Then she spoke for a few minutes, spinning out some unfathomable foolishness about Old Norse Gods and powers that ran in her bloodline and this Nytte thing.

  “You must promise you won’t tell?” she said once she had finished.

  James nodded absentmindedly. He had her secret, but what to make of it?

  “James! You must promise!” Sissel said.

  James looked down. He saw his own face distorted in the wide, shining pupils of her eyes. He suddenly felt bad. Very bad.

  “I promise,” he said.

  The tension went out of her body, and she melted into his chest. He held her tight.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for trusting me, Sissel.”

  She should not feel safe. Not around him.

  “This means … this means I can still call on you?” he asked.