Thor didn’t move from the hallway. Fearing Haakon would return, he sat there, facing Aven’s door well into the night, unwilling to go up to bed even when Ida urged him to rest. Grief and anger warred inside him, until sleep finally silenced them both. He woke to a gray light and shadows so cool that he feared for his trees. He needed to rise and tend them. To walk their rows. He needed to keep this place together somehow even as he was coming apart at the seams.
Jorgan and Fay were marrying in two days. He had to rally. For them and for Aven he had to rise.
Stiffly, he stood just as Ida was coming up the stairs. She leaned an ear to Aven’s door and gave a gentle knock. Thor stepped back. Ida slipped in and closed the door. It was a few minutes later that she came out again.
“She’s wantin’ a bath.”
Which meant he should make himself scarce.
“And, Thor?” Ida stepped so near to him that he knew her voice was low. “Haakon brought her no harm past what you saw. Aven wants you to know that. She’s awful fixed I tell you.”
Thor nodded. A relief. Not for himself, but for her.
Gripping his arm, Ida led him down the stairs and out to the washroom on the side of the house. She turned a knob that released water from the stove’s reservoir and into the tub. As steam billowed, Ida drew Thor to the cabinet where she kept ointments. Those steady hands of hers pressed the warm cloth to his own. If she noticed the way his chin set to trembling, she didn’t let on. His knuckles were raw—bloodied— and he could still feel Haakon on the other side of them, because as they’d run over, Al had said that Aven had been screaming for him. That Haakon was there as well trying to keep her quiet. Everything beyond that was fragmented except for Thor and his brother and the door that had been standing between them.
Ida shook his sleeve, so he looked at her. “You did what you had to do.”
Though he tried to make peace with that, a wretchedness still splintered him from the inside. Knowing Aven would be down, Thor stepped out. She was safe so he need not worry, but it came anyway. She’d witnessed something fierce in him yesterday. Would she fear him? Be it protecting Aven or teaching Haakon a lesson . . . whichever way it was colored, he’d tried to tear his brother apart.
Turning, he faced Ida. We lose Haakon. As a brother, a comrade, or as a part of this farm, he didn’t know. In some ways it felt like all of it.
Her face shadowed with sorrow. “He made an awful choice, Thor. But let’s not discount what the good Lord may yet do.”
Jorgan angry with me?
“No. He as mad at Haakon as you. Said it was hard to hold you down.”
Yanking the strip of leather from his wrist, Thor bound his hair back, knotting it tight. Before a response could come, Ida signed Aven’s name. She was coming, then. Thor stepped away. With work to do for the wedding, he promised to return to help. He signed tree and house so Ida would know his whereabouts should Aven have need of him. Should she be ready to see him.
It was hard not to glance over his shoulder as he strode away.
The orchards were empty—no movement other than the flash of birds as they scattered from his path. The pickers were off for the week. With the coming wedding, they had all labored hard to rid the trees of the ready Foxwhelps. The next round of apples wouldn’t be blushing until then, and the boys would return. The scratter and press would be at work all over again. Next week the Roxbury and Sweet Coppin storers would be picked as was the way of mid-October. A cycle that would continue until the first snows came and everything was in crates and jars.
When Thor reached the tree house, he sat at the base of the old maple and rested against it. A strength he needed just now. Arms folded on his raised knees, he lowered his head. He meant to keep a watch out for Haakon, but there was a knife at his waist and another in his pocket, so Thor allowed himself a moment of closing his eyes.
Jorgan had said that Haakon looked up to him.
Thor had always known it to be true, and it was like salt in the wound since the time they were boys. The years when Haakon followed him wherever he went, asking a million questions that Thor couldn’t really answer for him. So Thor had finally sat Haakon down and, along with Jorgan and Ida, taught them his language. Da learned a few signs but it was harder for him. Haakon had taken to it like a duck to water. If there was ever a word he didn’t know, he’d come and find Thor and learn it. Even help Thor make ones up if they didn’t know the sign for it.
Until the day that Haakon was seven perhaps. He’d come and found Thor—all knees and elbows and pants that didn’t reach his ankles—and with a flick of his hands had asked Thor what a signal had meant. One he had a memory of.
Thor had responded without thinking. Without remembering. H-A-T-E. Spelled nonchalantly in his hand as if he were spelling B-O-O-K or C-H-A-I-R.
Haakon had blinked at him, a bleak confusion filling his face. He’d asked Thor if he was certain. It had to mean something else . . . so often Haakon remembered Thor using it with him.
In his shame, Thor hadn’t known how to respond. He’d done what he could to try and make it up to Haakon, like hanging the rope swing. Thor even gave him the better side of the attic and later suggested they build a tree house. Thor had made certain his little brother got to be the one to hoist up the flag. But it had never been the same. Haakon hadn’t followed him around so much anymore. Hadn’t asked quite so many questions.
Thor had sworn he would never use that word with his brother again. So it was all the harder to keep his hand still right now. To keep his fingers from shaping the sentiment. Arms still folded across his knee, Thor clamped one hand over the other to pin them both in place. But the sensation was still filling his heart. Flooding it because of the sight of Aven there on the floor, dust and tears streaking her cheeks.
Had she walked there with Haakon thinking she was safe?
Why had she gone at all? He fought back jealousy because it wasn’t warranted. Not for a moment with Aven. Guilt splayed within him, and his mouth watered for a drink. It had been for the last twelve hours, and he’d been fighting it every breath. He’d fight until he won because going back to that would only be another kind of misery. One that scared him more than facing this pain without a numbing.
Help, Lord.
Thor wasn’t much of a praying man, but the plea teemed within him. He pressed an unsteady hand to his chest, circling it in please. Surely God knew his words.
A touch at his knee jolted him. It was Aven kneeling there, but so fast she’d startled him that he’d moved his hand to his knife. Hating the thought of instilling more fear into her, Thor released it just as quick.
Her hair was damp from her bath. Braided and draping one shoulder, it was bound with a scrap of lace. He grappled for what to do even as she pulled herself nearer, touching the sides of his face in her small hands. Her fingers brushed against his beard. She gripped tight, lowering her head to press a kiss to his forehead.
Though the burn in his throat was no excuse for not knowing what to say, he was silenced all the same. Fetching his notebook and pencil from his pocket gave him time to rally.
He wrote, asking her how she was faring.
“I am very sad.”
I help you? How?
Drawing nearer, Aven nestled into him. For the briefest of moments, Thor couldn’t move, then comprehending what she wanted, he wrapped his arms around her, gripping with more assurance when he felt her begin to cry. He smoothed a hand over the back of her head, kissing her hair.