Years (61 page)

“The land of the midnight thun,” Roseanne filled in.

“Right again. There were alder trees and birch woods and heather — always heather.”

Roseanne looked up and rested a hand on her grandmother’s neck. “Tell about the time when Grandpa brought you the heather.”

“Oh, that time... ” The old one chuckled low in her throat. “Well, that was when I was fifteen years old. Your grandpa picked me a bouquet so big a girl couldn’t hold it in both arms.
He delivered it in the back of a two-wheeled cart behind a jet-black pony—”

“I ‘member the pony’s name!” put in the eager child.

“What?” Nissa peered down through her oval spectacles.

“El-tha.”

“That’s right. Else. I’ll never forget the sight of your grandpa, leading that little mare up the lane, comin’ to call. Course he had to sit politely and visit with my family a long time. And Mama brought out thick curdled cream with grated rusks and sugar on top as if that was all in the world he’d come to do was have sweets with us.” Wistfully, Nissa rested her chin on Roseanne’s head while the child picked at a button on her grandma’s dress.

“He was a fisherman, like his papa. But the fishing off the Lofotons had failed four years running and there was talk of America. Sometimes in the evening when he’d come to call we’d sit in the door yard and talk about it, but, shucks, we never dreamed we’d come here.

“Oh, those evenin’s were fine. There’d be black cocks callin’ from the bird-cherries, and they’d be in blossom, and when the sun would set behind the snow-capped mountains the cottage windows would blaze like as if they was afire.” Nissa rocked gently, a wistful expression on her face. “The woods to the north opened onto a peat bog, and in the spring of the year the air was filled with the smell of peat fires and roasted coffee beans, and always you could smell the sea.”

“Tell about the grindstone, Grandma.”

Nissa pulled herself from one reverie to another. “There was a grindstone at the back of the byre where my papa sharp—”

“I know, Grandma,” the child interrupted again, leaning back to look up at the face above her. “Where your papa tharpened toolth and the thound wuth like the drone of a hundred beeth —
bth, bth, bth!”

Nissa smiled down indulgently, wrapped her arms more securely around Roseanne, and went on. “And I had a Lapland dog... ” She waited, knowing it was expected.

“Named King,” put in Roseanne. “And you had to leave old King behind when you married Grampa and came on the boat to America.”

“That’s right, little one.”

The name lit a warm flame in Linnea’s heart. Theodore had
called her by it at times, and she knew now from whom he’d learned it.

Sonny and Norna toddled out from their nests, and the old woman gathered them ‘round, taking sustenance from their sleepy faces. One by one they all came, beckoned by some call none could divine — much as the horses had appeared when the fields needed them — to leave their cozy beds and gather at their grandmother’s feet as she reached into the past for ease. They surrounded her chair, some sitting on its wooden arms, some sinking to their knees and resting their cheeks against her thigh. Nissa’s fingers sifted through a head of silken hair. Watching, listening, Linnea felt a lump form in her throat. She understood, as she never had before, the why and wherefore of family, of generation leading to generation, flesh to flesh, past to future.

Posterity.

She said silently to the child she carried, Listen now, this is your legacy.

The tale went on, laced with more mysterious words: bannocks and moors and bilberries and brambles.

Much later the lights of bobbing lanterns showed in the east. Linnea stood at the window with dread thickening her throat. It buzzed through her veins and popped out in liquid pearls on her forehead. She stared into the night, loath to tell Nissa they were coming, giving her time — she was old and had too little of it left — all the time it was possible to give.

No horses — where were the horses? — -but a pair of toboggans with two shadowed forms upon them, and downturned faces in the light of the gold lamps. Linnea despaired. Oh God, oh God, not both of them!

Nissa’s voice lilted on. “There were fires in the hills on Whitsuntide, and they burned long into the night... ”

Was it Linnea’s own voice that finally spoke, so quiet, so calm, when it felt as if she herself were dying a little as each second passed?

“They’re coming.”

Nissa’s story stopped. So did the rocker. Gently she pushed the young ones off her lap while her sons and grandsons trudged toward the house with their burdens trailing on the moon-washed snow. A blanket of dread worse than any she’d ever imagined pressed down on Linnea.

She opened the door and Lars came through first, his haunted eyes going directly to the rocking chair.

“Ma... ” he croaked softly, voice breaking.

Nissa sat forward, pain flickering through her eyes.

“Both of them?” she asked simply.

“No... j... just John. We got to Teddy in time.”

Nissa’s softly-fuzzed cheeks collapsed into swags of sorrow. Her cry keened quietly through the room. “Oh no... oh, John... my son, my son... ” She wrapped her body with one arm, covered her mouth with a hand, and rocked in short desperate motions. Tears rolled down, catching on the lower rim of her spectacles before finding the valleys of despair in her face and riding them to her chin.

“Ma... ” Lars managed again and went down on one knee before her. Clinging, they grieved together. Watching, Linnea felt gratitude and grief conflicting within her breast. Teddy was alive... but John. Gentle John. Tears streamed from the corners of her eyes and her shoulders shook. The children, silent and uncertain, looked questioningly from their grandma to their teacher. Some of them understood but were hesitant to believe. Some of them still thought the worst hazard of a blizzard was having to eat raisins.

The men came in, carrying the toboggans like litters. They set the quilt-wrapped burdens by the stove and Kristian entered behind them, his face gaunt and pale. His stricken eyes immediately found Linnea’s.

“Krist... ” she tried, but the word tore in half.

He lunged into her arms, closing his eyes and swallowing hard against the tears he could contain no longer.

“Pa’s alive,” he managed in a guttering whisper.

She could only nod yes against his shoulder, her throat too constricted to speak. Kristian drew himself from her arms and she found Raymond beside them, watching, looking as drawn as all the others. She hugged him hard while across the room Nissa cried softly and Ulmer knelt on the floor beside the toboggans.

“Somebody get the children out of here,” he ordered in a quivering voice.

Crushing back the need to see for herself that Teddy was alive, Linnea did what she knew was most needed.

“Come, ch... children... ” She dashed a hand beneath her
eyes. “Come w... with me upstairs.”

They balked, sensing disaster, but she herded them ahead of her, up the squeaking steps into the gloom overhead. “Wait right where you are. I’ll get a lamp.”

What she saw when she turned back to fetch a lamp made her freeze in her footsteps. Ulmer had rolled back the quilts, revealing Theodore’s body coiled into a fetal pose, his hands crossed and clutching his shoulders. His hair was plastered to his head and his clothes pasted to his body with a gruesome mixture of gore and entrails. On his face and hands was a film of liquid that looked like red oil. His eyes were closed and lips open as if in an eternal gasp, yet not a muscle moved. He looked as if he were the dead one.

A cry escaped Linnea’s throat.

Ulmer looked up. “Take the children upstairs, Linnea,” he ordered sternly.

She stared, horrified, her jaw working, mouth agape. “What—”

“He’s alive. We’ll take care of him, now get the lantern and go!”

With her stomach lurching she spun from the room.

Upstairs all seven children settled on her old bed, their knees crossed, their eyes wide and frightened. She fought helplessness, tears, and nausea. Theodore, oh dear God, what happened to you? What did you suffer out there in the wrath of the storm? Something more deadly than the blizzard itself? Something with teeth and jaws? She tried to recall where his skin was broken, but there’d been so much blood it was impossible to tell from where it had come. Shudders wracked her body as she hunkered on the edge of the mattress and hugged herself, rocking. What kind of animal stalks humans and attacks in the middle of a blizzard? Please, oh please, somebody, tell me what happened to him. Tell me he’ll live.

What brought her out of her shock was the touch of a small hand on her back and a tiny, frightened voice.

“Aunt Linnea?”

She turned to find Roseanne kneeling behind her. Linnea saw the fear in the wide brown eyes and the downturned mouth, saw it reflected in the circle of faces with their big, wondering eyes and their still poses. She realized they relied upon her to keep their world secure right now.

“Oh, Roseanne, honey.” She swept her arms around the child, kissed her cheek, and held her tightly to her breast, suddenly understanding even more fully why Nissa had welcomed having the children near during the last hour of her vigil. “All of you... ” She opened her arms to include them all, and though they wouldn’t all fit, they nestled as close as possible, seeking comfort, too. “I’m so sorry. I’ve been thinking only of myself. Of course you want to know what happened.” Her troubled eyes scanned the circle of faces. “Let’s hold hands now, all of us.” As they had on Thanksgiving when there’d been so much to be grateful for, they formed a continuous ring of human contact while she told them the truth.

“Your uncle John is dead, and your uncle Teddy is... well, he’s very... ill. They were caught in the blizzard yesterday on their way home from town. Now we’ll all have to be very strong and help Grandma Nissa and Kristian and all of your papas and mamas. They’ll be v... very s... sad.”

But she could go on no longer. She let the tears roll unheeded! down her cheeks, holding two small hands that felt like lifelines. She watched their faces change from fearful to respectful, and understood that most of them were dealing for the first time with death. What came as the greatest surprise was how they dealt with their sorrowing teacher. Their first concern was for her. Seeing her crying and in the throes of near shock frightened them worse than anything so far. In their inexperienced way, they tried to comfort. And during those minutes while they huddled on the bed, the bond of love among them drew even tighter.

Downstairs, Nissa staunchly set aside her grief and attended to the living. She insisted on bathing Teddy herself, washing his hair, while he lay on the toboggan beside the stove. Only after that did she allow his brothers to dress, lift, and carry him to his own freshly made bed. Throughout it all he remained unconscious, sealed in the protective security of natural escape.

It was near dawn when Kristian went upstairs to fetch his young cousins. In Linnea’s old room a jumble of sleeping bodies huddled on the bed, leaning, tilting, curled together like a ball of spring angleworms. At their core sat Linnea, with her back to the bedstead, ear to shoulder, limp arms circling Bent and Roseanne, while the other children tangled as close as they could get.

He felt awkward waking her.

“Linnea?” He touched her shoulder.

Her eyelids flickered. Her head lifted. She winced and let her head ease down at an acute angle and slept again.

“Linnea?” He shook her gently.

This time her eyes opened slowly and her head stayed up. Disoriented, she looked into Kristian’s eyes. Slowly things began to register — Kristian’s hand on her shoulder, the children slumped around her, the pale light of dawn coming in her window.

She jerked to life and tried to get off the bed. “Oh, no, I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I should have been down there—”

“It’s all right. Grandma took care of everything.”

“Kristian,” she whispered, “how is he?”

“I don’t know. He hasn’t moved. They washed him and put him to bed. Now Ulmer and Lars are doing the milking, then they have to go home. Helen and Evie will be worried about the kids.” He straightened, then glanced at the sleeping children strewn about her lap.

“I want to go see him.”

Kristian sat heavily on the edge of the bed. “He looks bad.”

She felt the same hideous fear as last night, but she had to know. “Kristian, what happened to them?”

He sucked in a deep, shaky breath and ran a hand through his hair. When he spoke his voice reflected the horror of the past night. “When the blizzard first hit they must have overturned the wagon and laid underneath it to get out of the wind. When that wouldn’t protect them enough they... ” He swallowed and she reached for his hand, clasped it tightly. “They shot the horses and g... gutted them and c... crawled inside.”

The horror on his face was reflected in hers. “C... Cub and Toots?” Theodore’s favorites. “Oh no... ” Her stomach suddenly churned. A myriad of images flashed through her mind — the horses nodding along on their way to town on a mellow Arbor Day morning, the entire herd prancing away to freedom while Cub and Toots trumpeted to them from inside the pasture fence, the countless times she’d seen Theodore rub their noses. Oh, what it must have been like for him to slay the beasts he loved so well, and for Kristian to find them. She pressed the boy’s cheek. “Oh, Kristian, how awful for you.”

He sat perfectly still, tears coursing slowly down his cheeks,
his eyes fixed on a point beyond her shoulder. She stroked the wetness with her thumb. In a choked voice, Kristian went on. “It looked like Uncle John must’ve b... ” His Adam’s apple bobbed twice. “Been in... inside T... Toots, but he must not’ve b... been able to st... stand it, because we f... found him sitting beside her in the snow as if... aw, Jesus — ” Sobs overwhelmed him and he hunched forward, burying his face in his hands. He sobbed brokenly, shoulders heaving. Linnea was crying, too, as she dislodged herself from the sleeping children and struggled to the edge of the bed. On her knees she circled Kristian from behind, pressing her cheek against his trembling back, holding him tight.