“Mama says there gonna be dancin’ at the weddin’.” Georgie plucked up a downy gray kitten. “Seein’ as Mr. Haakon don’t have no one to dance with, I thought he might ask me. Or maybe Tess since she be taller. But I hope it’s me.” Her dark eyes glittered in the lantern light when she peered up at Aven. “You fancy I’m big enough?”
Was this what it was like for Aven’s mother? To face the tempests of life and weather them with courage so as to soften the winds for a child’s understanding? Aven dug deep for that courage, hoping she might guard the fractures of her heart—and yet give Georgie enough of the bittersweet truth so as not to be misled. Aven ran the back of her finger over Georgie’s silken cheek. “I think you’re perfect.” She slid her legs up, turning some to look the wee one square in the eyes. “But, Georgie, I don’t think Haakon is going to be at the wedding. He’s gone away for a time. Wherever he is, I’m certain he misses you terribly.”
“Oh, but he cain’t miss it. He ain’t never been away from home. He never been from his brothers . . . or even us. Why would he go and do such a thing?”
Aven looked to Cora for help.
Cora pressed a knotty scrap of pine into the potbelly stove and closed the door. “It’s time for you to head off to bed, lil missy, but when you say your prayers, I want you to say a special prayer for Haakon, can you do that?”
Georgie nodded, still looking grieved.
Cora freed one of Georgie’s little braids from the collar of her nightgown. “Sometime a body need to be away from their family for a spell. It give them a time to learn some things that they might’a missed otherwise. It give them time to remember what the Good Book say on the matter.”
Slowly, Georgie nodded.
“I’ll pray for Mr. Haakon. That he not be scared right now.” Georgie hopped down off the bed and sank onto her folded blankets near the stove. “And I’ll pray for the rest of us not to be so scared neither.”
THIRTY-THREE
Looking into the small mirror hanging beside Haakon’s bed, Jorgan tied back his hair. When he finished, he turned to Thor and held out his arms. “This alright?”
Thor stepped closer, flicked a finger against his brother’s beard, and bobbed his eyebrows.
“I know. Ida made me trim it some.” Stepping back, Jorgan adjusted his suspenders. He looked as nice as Thor had ever seen him, and if he was nervous, it wasn’t showing.
Thor glimpsed his own reflection in the mirror. He was a sight—fresh from seeing to the horses and tending the chickens so no one else would have to. It was time for his own bath, but he needed to wait until the water heated again. With time yet for that, Thor sat, pulled his boots nearer, and picked up the rag he’d fetched. He spit on the leather and scrubbed it. There was polish in the house, but it hadn’t been used for so long that neither he nor Jorgan could find it.
Jorgan sat on the other bed and looked from it to the wall, then around at Haakon’s things. Thor watched him, hating the twinge it brought. Haakon’s pile of laundry sat untouched. The map of the world he’d tacked up on the wall unmoving, all save a loose corner that fluttered beside an open window.
Jorgan spoke, but Thor missed all but the tail end. “So, about Aven. You do realize that the preacher is here today, right? On our farm. All day. A whole preacher. The kind that can marry people.”
Right.
Thor stood. He took up the clothes that Ida had pressed and headed downstairs. In the kitchen, he strode past the housekeeper so quickly that she thunked him with her spoon to get his attention.
“If you don’t hurry and wash up, I’m gonna do it for you.”
Thor held up the clothes, and she nodded her approval. He headed outside and around to the bathhouse. After bolting the door, he set his clothes aside. A turn of the knob on the hot water reservoir sent steaming water into the tub.
A rattling of the door caught his eye. He unlatched it to see Ida standing there.
“Use soap!”
Thor shut the door on her. He knew that!
When it rattled again, he gave her a stern look as he opened it.
“Did you ask her yet?”
After heaving out a sigh, he motioned to the filling tub, then out to wherever Aven was.
“Right. Might as well look your best.” She shut the door, and he waited to make sure she was done before locking it again.
When he finally braved the hot water, he dumped it over his head with both hands. Eyes closed, he scrubbed with more force than even Jorgan had used after that awful week in the attic.
Once dried and dressed, Thor combed his hair, then bound it back with its leather cord. At the foggy mirror he worked to get the collar of his shirt perfectly straight. Satisfied, he checked that his beard was tidy. Running a few drops of oil into it made it look rather fine. Soft to the touch and as well trimmed as Jorgan’s. One of his sleeve cuffs was more problematic when it wouldn’t fasten right. Something Ida would fix, but when his search for her unearthed an empty kitchen, Thor fetched his boots from upstairs so as to make the most of the time.
Coming back down, he crossed the length of the hallway. The girls’ bedroom door was ajar. Several women bustled about within, all working to right the hem of Fay’s dress as she stood there in the late-morning light. Thor glimpsed her in passing before a lady hurried to shut the door.
He smiled at how happy Jorgan was going to be. The moment his brother laid eyes on his bride, his knees would want to buckle. Not any different from how Jorgan had looked when he’d first spotted Fay that day in the kitchen. Thor had seen even then that his brother could hardly catch a breath.
He knew the feeling.
It had been the same sensation when Aven first walked into the orchard that day in her mourning gown and with more hope in her face than she probably knew. Her hands had trembled as she clutched her luggage. And he’d stood there, watching her pretty mouth move for the first time. Him struck dumb not because of a birth condition but because she was the one he had been waiting for. The sheer memory had him all the more eager to find her now. Thor pushed past the back door and onto the porch. His boots scraped the boards as he halted.
Tables and chairs sat scattered around. Lace cloths and jars of the late wildflowers as yellow as the meadow beyond covered rough surfaces. Aven and Fay had gathered enough that jars with flowers even gleamed along the porch banister and on the table where Ida’s cake had been freshly iced. But Thor’s attention wasn’t on the cake as he stepped across the porch. It was on the Irish lass who stood in the yard, working with Tess to tuck a few flowers into Georgie’s coil of braids.
“There.” Aven nestled a final stem into place. “You look like a wee sprite now.” When Aven spotted him, her eyes widened. She straightened the airy folds of her skirt as she rose, and the lace hem fluttered in the breeze. She spoke to him, but by the way her head dipped shyly, he wasn’t able to understand. He saw her pleasure with him, though, and that was enough.
He tugged at his collar some. It seemed too tight, but Ida said that it was the proper way. Since he was to stand with his brother, some suffering was only reasonable. While other folks would be in attendance, Thor was to be a witness for their marriage. Aven, the other. So it was no wonder that she looked as lovely as she did with her ginger hair twisted and pinned. Little wisps of it making her look like a sprite herself.
Remembering his troublesome cuff, he showed it to her. Aven’s brow pinched as she worked to slip the stubborn button into place, her small hand holding his as she did. His heart was banging in his chest because when she finished, he took that hand and led her across the farmyard. He didn’t know if he was ready for this, but one thing he did know—that even if he stumbled his way through, Aven would be there beside him.
She tapped his shoulder and spoke when he looked down at her. “Where are we going?”