West Read online

  When I was younger, I did love stories of derring-do and longed to be out in the world having adventures. But after my maman died, I was not so sure. And now that I have been on a ship and thought I would die of the mal de mer, I realized I was happier staying in one place, especially one with shops and nice people smiling at me on the street.

  Neddy

  CHARLES’S SHIP WAS LATE by two days. All of us, except perhaps Rose, were worried. And in fact it was not unusual for ships to be a day or two late, since so much depended on the prevailing winds. But there had been much talk about the fearsome storms in the east.

  I went down to the harbor as I had the previous days and was in time to see a tall ship docking. It was not Charles’s ship but looked as if it had been through stormy weather, with sails tattered and one of the midmasts partly broken off.

  I approached one of the sailors as he disembarked and asked if there had been any news of the ship called Hynde bound from Sverige. He appeared to be exhausted, but looked me in the eye, a grim expression on his face.

  “The tidings are ill,” he said. “We heard that the Hynde, along with several others traveling in that part of the sea, sailed straight into the center of the storm. It is said that it was wrecked, with very few survivors.”

  A cold feeling spread through me. “Where did it founder?” I asked.

  “Off the coast of Fransk, near a town called Etretat.”

  “So far west?” I said in surprise, thinking hopefully that perhaps it was not the same ship.

  “The winds were immense,” the sailor said. “No one had ever seen their like before. Many, many ships were blown off course. Our ship caught only the tail end of it, and I hope I never live through winds like that again. No, I’m afraid it was definitely the Hynde that was wrecked off Etretat.”

  I closed my eyes. Charles, I thought.

  Mother

  WHEN NEDDY RETURNED from the harbor, I saw at once something was very wrong.

  “It is Charles,” Neddy said, his voice cracking. “His ship was wrecked. Off the coast of Fransk.”

  “Fransk?” Arne said in disbelief. “But—”

  “Yes, I know,” Neddy said. “I thought the same. But I checked with one of the sailors whom had weathered some of the same storm, and the word up and down the coasts is that this was a most unusual storm and that it pushed the Hynde through the southern end of Njordsjoen down into the straits of Dover. There are said to be very few survivors.”

  “My dream,” I whispered. “Not Rose, but Charles.”

  “Eugenia,” Arne said, his tone firm.

  Just then Rose, Sib, and Estelle all came into the house. Estelle was chattering about the delicious solskinnskringle pastries they had gotten from the boulangerie they had visited in Trondheim, but Rose stopped abruptly when she saw us huddled in the great room.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  Neddy went to her. “It’s Charles. We’ve just learned the ship he was traveling on was wrecked.”

  Rose went pale. She handed Winn, who was half asleep, to Estelle, asking her please to take the bairn upstairs and put him down for a nap.

  Estelle looked frightened, but she did as Rose asked.

  “Go on,” Rose said to Neddy, and he recounted to her all he had learned.

  She listened closely, then said, “He is not dead.”

  “I hope he was one of the survivors,” Neddy said, “but—”

  “No, I know he is not dead,” she said. “We must go to him, to Etretat.”

  “Rose,” I said, rising and going to her, putting my arm around her shoulders.

  “Yes, Mother,” she said calmly.

  “It may be that . . .” I started, faltering. “You must prepare yourself.”

  She looked at me straight on, her eyes bright. “Mother, I would know. Here,” she said, laying her hand over her heart. “I would know if my white bear were gone.”

  Rose

  I WENT TO MY ROOM TO PACK. Opening the cupboard where I had stored some of my old cherished belongings, I pulled out the cloak with the wind rose design, the one I had made what seemed a lifetime ago on Widow Hautzig’s old loom.

  The cloak was fraying at the hem and some of the stitching had come loose, but the wind rose design that I had copied from Father’s artwork was still easy to make out. It was also easy for me now to see the lie as well as the truth in the design.

  Because I had been born to replace my sister Elise, an east-born, it had been imperative to my mother that I too be born facing east. But the circumstances of my birth during a violent storm in Askoy Forest were such that I wound up being born north. My father told me that was the reason he had always called me Nyamh in his heart, though Mother insisted I was in fact east-born and would be Ebba Rose. Father at least prevailed when he said I would go by the name Rose, for the center of the wind rose.

  When he designed my wind rose, something he did for each of his eight children, he mostly used the symbols of the east direction (hourglass, bees, herbs), but he had also slipped in one representing the north, hidden in the clouds. It was a white bear. And little did he know as he drew the lines, that one day a white bear would become the latitude and longitude of my life.

  In the cupboard I also found the candle Mother had given me, the candle I had used to light the unlightable darkness of my bedchamber when I was in the castle in the mountain, the candle that had led to such a catastrophic outcome. There was a time I had thought to get rid of it because of all the unhappiness it had brought about, but the practical side of me reasoned that such a candle might well come in handy. I also had the flint, and I packed both in my knapsack.

  At the bottom of the cupboard, I found Sofi’s map, the one she had given me at the beginning of my journey to the land that lay east of the sun and west of the moon. It was much the worse for wear, torn and frayed and water-stained, but still mostly decipherable. And I also found the leidarstein that Thor had given me. These I put into my pack as well.

  And last, I lifted out the story knife, the beautifully carved blade that Malmo had given me, with which we passed the long days telling stories inside the ice house we built, the blizzard Negea raging outside. I had also used it in the ice palace to tell my story finally to Tuki, to ask his help in freeing my white bear from the Troll Queen. I shivered, thinking of the terrible moment when Tuki had been destroyed by the queen’s rage.

  I already had with me the echecs piece called Queen Maraboo that Estelle had given me back when I first set out on my journey to the land that lay east of the sun and west of the moon. Unlike my mother, I did not have many superstitions, but Maraboo was my one lucky talisman, and I always carried it with me on my wanderings. As I stowed it in the pocket of the cloak, I realized that by taking with me the story knife, the map, the leidarstein, and Queen Maraboo, I would have something from each of the friends who had helped me on my last journey.

  * * *

  I was dismayed when I learned we could not book passage to Fransk for more than a week. The shipping lines had been much disrupted by the storm.

  “It will give us time to prepare,” said Neddy, seeking to comfort me. But I would not be comforted until I had gotten to Etretat and found my white bear.

  Neddy

  ROSE WAS IN AN AGONY of restlessness, which I well understood.

  Unlike her, however, I was not optimistic about the outcome of our journey, but I believed she must see for herself. And it would give us the opportunity to honor Charles there in the place where I felt almost sure he had lost his life. A marker or grave of some kind.

  Of course I confided none of these feelings to Rose, but Father and I discussed it several times, and he said that both he and Mother were in agreement with me.

  It was a difficult time. Only Estelle, and of course little Winn, seemed unaffected.

  Then our departure got pushed back even further, and I thought Rose was going to explode with impatience. She threatened to find a boat of her own and paddle herself to Fransk.
She asked our sister Sara’s husband, Harald Soren, who was a merchant, if he could help, if he had a ship to spare, but much as it saddened him, he could come up with no ship that would get us there any sooner than the one we already had booked our passage on. His small fleet of ships had also been badly affected by the storms.

  One afternoon, five days before we were due to sail for Fransk, a ship came into harbor. It had come from Le Havre, but I learned that it had made a stop near the town of Etretat to see if it could provide any aid to the town and any survivors of the wreck of the Hynde. I was closely questioning one of the sailors of that ship when the captain himself approached me.

  “I understand you are the son of Arne the mapmaker?” he said, and I nodded. “I have a packet here addressed to him.”

  My breath caught in my throat, and I took the packet with trembling hands. I did not recognize the handwriting on the outside, but was fairly certain it was not Charles’s.

  I was sorely tempted to open it, but holding myself in check, I hurried home as fast as I could.

  When I got there, I found Father and Mother in the kitchen. Rose had gone for a walk with Winn and Sib. Estelle was with Gudrun at Willem’s home.

  Father hesitated a moment, but opened the packet. When he pulled out the paper inside, a small silver ring fell out. It landed on the kitchen table with a ping, spinning around until it fell on its side. I reached for it, my heart pounding. It looked exactly like the ring Rose had worn for so long, while she journeyed to find the white bear in the land that lay east of the sun and west of the moon. The Valois ring that Charles had put on her finger when they wed. But that made no sense, since I had seen that ring on Rose’s finger just this morning.

  And then I remembered. Rose told me that she had had an identical ring made for Charles, which she gave him after the birth of Winn. It also had the word Valois inscribed inside.

  Father was reading the paper that had come in the packet, and his face had gone very pale.

  “What is it?” Mother asked.

  He looked up at us, tears pooling in his eyes. “It is from a friend of mine, a mapmaker who lives in Fransk. He used to reside in Paris but had retired and is now living in the country­side near Etretat. He had heard of the wreck and traveled there to see if he could offer assistance. When he arrived in town, he learned that Rose’s husband had been one of the passengers.

  “He tracked down all the survivors,” Father continued, “but could not locate Charles. Finally he found a badly injured man, a soldier by the name of Julien, who had been with Charles on the ship and was with him when he . . .” Father’s voice broke.

  I took the letter from Father and began to read out loud the words of the soldier who had been with Charles.

  “. . . a mortal wound to the head. I tried to stanch the blood, but I knew he was dying. He knew it too, and he pulled a ring off his finger and handed it to me. ‘Give this to my wife, Rose, from Charles,’ he said. He made me swear an inviolable oath. Then he died.”

  “No,” came a voice loudly from the doorway. It was Rose.

  Rose

  I WENT TO THE KITCHEN TABLE.

  I had recognized the ring from across the room, but I picked it up anyway, my eyes searching for the word Valois.

  I found it, and my mind was flooded with the memory of the smile Charles had given me when I put it on his finger. Radiant, matching my own.

  “Thank you, Rose,” he had said. “I will wear it always,” he added, his voice solemn. “Until I die.”

  I didn’t remember any superstitious shiver at those words, only joy. Because it mirrored exactly the way I felt about the ring he had given me.

  “Rose?” came Neddy’s voice, gentle.

  I looked down at my hand. I had been clutching the ring so tightly that it had left a mark in my palm. A half circle. If what the letter said was true, then the half circle was me. If Charles was gone, I was half, and would never be whole again.

  A shudder went through me, but I straightened. “No,” I said again, even louder. Because in spite of all I had heard, despite the ring I held in my hand, I could not accept that Charles was gone. I would not accept it.

  “Show me the letter,” I said.

  Neddy passed me the page, his face etched in grief.

  I read it through closely. It was signed by the soldier Julien. The words sounded true, plausible. But there was something about it that didn’t seem right to me. Why would he have called himself Charles? I rarely called him that. He would have said, Give this to Rose, from her white bear. I was sure of it.

  But there was something else, something I could not put my finger on, that bothered me about the letter. It had to do with the wording, the language used. It sounded stilted somehow.

  “What nationality is this soldier?” I asked suddenly. “Does it say in the cover letter, from Father’s friend?”

  Neddy looked down at the first page of the document. “He describes the soldier as Spanien.”

  Maybe that’s it, I thought. It was stilted because he was communicating in Njorden, which isn’t his language.

  “Though it also says here that he spoke Njorden quite fluently,” said Neddy.

  I read through the letter again. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me. I could also feel their pity, their belief that I was clutching at straws.

  And then it came to me. It was the formality of the language.

  It was the kind of language the Troll Queen used, at least as Charles described it. I remembered him telling me of the conditions the Troll Queen’s father had set when he turned Charles into a white bear, the Troll King had called them “inviolable.”

  But both the Troll Queen and her father were dead.

  I got a prickling feeling along my skin. And I knew. The letter was a fake. It had been written by a troll. The queen might have been dead, but it was likely that not all the members of the Huldre race had perished in Niflheim.

  And one of them had written that letter.

  Mother

  ROSE WAS DETERMINED to go to Fransk, especially once she was convinced the letter was not real. And as much as Arne tried to convince her that his mapmaker friend would not be fooled, that events must have happened as this soldier described, Rose would not listen.

  I was glad when Neddy insisted on going with her, along with Sib.

  Arne and I were happy to watch over Winn and Estelle, and Willem and Sara both offered to help as well. Estelle and Gudrun, Willem’s middle daughter, had become close friends, and Sara’s youngest was the same age as Winn, so she was well prepared to care for a bairn.

  Rose, Neddy, and Sib were to leave two days after Midsummer, and I think the solstice celebration provided a welcome distraction from the looming journey, as well as what all of us, except perhaps Sib, who was hard to read, believed to be Rose’s stubborn and mistaken belief that Charles was not dead.

  I knew that my dream of the ash-Rose and the raven had portended ill and hoped that Neddy was right, that seeing the wrecked ship and speaking to the soldier who had been with Charles when he died would finally convince Rose. And though the pain would be immense, in time I prayed that she would heal.

  Estelle was very excited about Midsummer. She said they did not celebrate the solstice in Fransk as we did in Njord. She had brought a dress with her that her mother had made for her before she died, which Estelle said was parfait for dancing.

  She was not disappointed. The weather that night was perfect, with a soft, fresh breeze blowing off the sea. The women and girls wore flower wreaths in their hair and everyone danced around the maistongen, a tall pole with a crossbar that had been draped in wreaths and flowers.

  When it was finally dark and Winn was fast asleep in Rose’s arms, I smiled to see the awestruck expression on Estelle’s face as the bonfires all along the Nidelva River were lit. They burned fiercely, dazzling our eyes and leaping high into the night sky with orange-yellow flames. The reflections of the bonfires in the water made the sight doubly beautiful.
>
  “C’est magnifique!” Estelle said, her eyes aglow.

  Winn woke up just as the fires were beginning to flicker and flare out. He fussed a little, but I quickly passed around our traditional Midsummer pancakes spread with sweet butter and sprinkled with sugar, and all was well again.

  I thought of my dream and of Charles, of the terrible way he had perished. I thought too of Rose heading off on this fool’s journey to find him, and for a moment I worried that nothing would ever be well again.

  Then Winn let out one of his sweet laughs, reaching happily for another pancake. Someone started singing the traditional “Sma Frosker” song, and Estelle got up and started acting it out, pretending to be a little frog, which made Winn laugh even louder. I exchanged a smile with Arne.

  It was Midsummer, and there were pancakes and songs and dancing. In this moment we could set aside our troubles and be content.

  Rose

  FOR JUST A FEW MOMENTS during the Midsummer bonfires, I was able to forget about the journey that lay ahead. But as I gazed down at Winn’s sweet face laughing at Estelle’s capers, his chin shiny with butter, I remembered. I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving them both behind.

  But I must find my white bear.

  Once before, I had journeyed to find him, and I had succeeded at great odds. I refused to believe that I could not do it again.

  Unless, a small voice in my head whispered, unless your family is right, that the letter is real and your white bear truly is in the land of the dead. In stories you could journey to that land. But in real life there was no such pathway.

  I shook my head fiercely. No. It was not true. The letter was a fake, and Charles still lived. Somewhere. And I would find him.

  I wore both rings now. Charles’s original ring, which had been my wedding ring, and the one I had given him. I had tied silver thread around it so it would not slip off my finger. I wore one on each of my thumbs.