Chapter 14
1694 Words
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
While Loke finished his washing up, I got up from the table to wander around the kitchen. I looked at the rack of cast-iron cookware hanging over one of the prep tables and saw an inverted Fe in the oily sheen of many of the pots and pans. I looked down at the table itself and saw it again, flashing out at me from the woodwork.
It was there again, traced in the dust caked to one window like a child had traced it with a fingertip. It was in the paneling. It was worked into the pattern of the marble floor.
I stopped looking around, tilting my head back to press the heels of my hands into my eyes. I was probably just too tired. And too suggestible, just like Haraldr had said.
Perhaps after I talked with Loke, I should call on Haraldr. Now that I had something to tell him other than about my long day and night of failure.
"Ingrid?" Loke asked. I took my hands off my eyes to see him looking at me questioningly as he dried his hands on a towel.
"Just tired," I said. He gave me a skeptical look, but I ignored it. "Where's my cat? He came in here with me."
"Probably with Esja," Loke said with a careless shrug. "He comes here all the time, you know."
"Of course he does," I said. He had a more active social life than I did, that was for sure. "Ready to talk?"
"Let's go outside," he said.
"What about your sister?" I asked.
"She's resting," he said, glancing back towards the doorway she had disappeared through. "I'm not leaving. We'll just walk up to the road. That should be enough time to cover everything I can tell you."
"That doesn't sound like enough," I said, but he was already heading back through the dining room. I followed him. We both bundled up and headed back out into the cold, dry air.
"How much of this property is yours?" I asked as we crunched over the snow.
"None of it now except the house," he said. "But when this place was built, everything you could see all around here was my family's. They didn't sell it off all at once, but bit by bit it dwindled away. I suppose the cows you see now are descendants of my family's cows, once upon a time. But they aren't ours now."
"Do you go into town every night?" I asked.
"You know I don't," he said.
"Half the time in Runde?" I guessed.
"Not even," he said. "Look, I wouldn't go out at all, except sometimes I just feel a pull. You know what I mean." He gave me a sidelong look.
"I'm not sure I do," I said. "Are you talking about magic?"
He shrugged. "I don't label things. But sometimes, after Esja goes to bed, I just feel like there's a place I have to be. So I leave the house, and wherever I end up, I guess that must've been the place."
"Because you do something important?"
"Who knows?" he said. "Maybe sometimes. I doubt all the time I'm really all that needed. But I go out all the same. Maybe I'm just pretending there's a call because I need to get out."
"I don't think so," I said. "I think if you wanted to go out, you'd just say so. I don't think Esja would mind."
"You've just met Esja," he said, giving me another sneaking glance. "Do you think she'd object to anything I did?"
"No," I admitted.
"So clearly she can't be the guideline for my behavior."
"Is there someone else you feel you answer to?" I asked.
He gave a little irritated shake of his head. "We've gotten off track. You were meant to be asking me about last night. I went to the mead hall, as you know. I got there after the party was in full swing, Nefja even more so. I could see that Roarr was feeling particularly trapped. So I helped him out." He lifted his hands as if to say end of story, but there was no way I was letting it go with that.
"It was more than that," I said. "First of all, the mere presence of Sigvin is generally enough for you to flee any scene, and yet this time you intervened on Roarr's behalf knowing full well she was right there and you couldn't avoid her."
"You exaggerate," he said.
"Do I?" I asked skeptically. "Does Roarr need your protection? Because you came to his aid the other night when I was there, if you recall."
"I remember perfectly well," Loke said. "I do what amuses me. I don't care to ascribe motives to all of it, not in the moment, and certainly not after the fact."
"I would swear you don't want to confront the fact that you might be a nice guy," I said. "A good friend."
"Stop it," he said. His tone was joking, but I knew he was serious.
"You helped Sigvin get Nefja home," I said. "Nefja so far gone by that point that you were essentially putting yourself in a position to be alone with Sigvin."
"That's not as big of a thing as you seem to think," he said.
"She invited you to stay," I said.
He raised his eyebrows. "She told you that? But it doesn't matter. It was just an offer to crash on her parents' spare bed, and I turned it down. That's all."
"Where did you go afterwards?" I asked.
"I walked home," he said.
"Directly?" I asked.
He grabbed my elbow to drag me to a halt and turned to face me. "Ingrid, am I a suspect?"
"Should you be?" I countered.
"No," he said.
"Did you see anything on your walk home?" I asked. "Did you hear anything while you were out on the streets?"
"No," he said. "Nothing at all. I was home and asleep straight afterwards, and didn't know anything had gone amiss until Nilda and Kara woke me up pounding on my door this morning."
"There are only so many streets in Villmark," I said. "You were out walking them. Roarr was out walking them too. Neither of you saw each other, or Nefja, who must have left her parents' house at some point, or the person who I heard running away. Can you explain that?"
"You honestly think if I need a walk to clear my head that I only walk these streets? In this town? In this world?"
"You went north? Into the forest?" I asked.
He shook his head, giving me an irritated look. "I can walk in more worlds than you know, and when I'm in them, I never see the likes of Roarr wandering around with me." He looked away, pressing his fingers to the bridge of his nose.
He was wincing.
"Are you all right?" I asked.
"Fine," he snapped, which wasn't like him. I pulled back from him, just a bit, but he noticed. "I'm fine, Ingrid," he said more softly. "My sister isn't the only person in this world who's entitled to a headache from time to time."
"Maybe there's something wrong with your house," I said, looking back over my shoulder at the sorry-looking building. "The fire damage still smells like smoke; that can't be good. Or it could be black mold. Or radon gas even."
"It's not black mold or radon," he said. At first he sounded thoroughly world weary, but then he straightened his shoulders and gave me a look with just a touch of something merry back in his eyes. "Trust you to start with the mundane."
"Have you had it checked?" I asked. "We can get test kits. Maybe not in Runde, but I can mail order things for you."
"It's all right, Ingrid," he said. "My house is not your problem."
"So you're saying it is a problem?" I asked.
He laughed but shook his head. "Look, I have to get back. Did you have any other questions?"
I stomped my feet as I mulled it over. It was far too cold for standing about. "Báfurr," I said at last.
"What about him?" Loke asked with a frown.
"You saw he was there," I said.
"With some of his friends," he said. "They were behaving. Keeping to themselves."
"Báfurr approached Nefja at least twice and was rejected," I said.
"I didn't see any of that," Loke said with a shrug. "But he's a stoic type. He doesn't really have a temper to speak of. Not that I particularly like the guy, but that's my honest assessment. If she had pushed him to anger, we would've seen it there in the mead hall. It wouldn't have been something he nursed to act out on later."
"So you know him well?" I asked.
He shrugged again. "As well as anybody."
I frowned. That just wasn't good enough for me. But I had never met the man. I had no idea what my gut would be telling me if I did. Maybe it would agree with Loke.
"I should probably go talk to him next," I said.
"Sure. Maybe not alone, though," Loke said.
I frowned at him. "Thorbjorn said the same thing. And yet you just said he didn't have a temper."
"His thing with outsiders isn't really a blistering rage thing," he said. "It's more a part of his very soul. I'm not saying he would hurt you. I don't think he would. But if you really need to get answers out of him, bring someone with that he'll talk to. But not me. I've got to get back to Esja."
"How she was today, is that better or worse than usual?" I asked.
He thought it over. "Middling," he said at last. Then he turned to go, but before he was out of earshot he turned to shout over his shoulder. "Take a Thor with you to talk to Báfurr. Or at least a Roarr."
"I will," I said, but he just trudged away from me over the icy snow.
- Writer
