“What the hell are you talking about?”
“In folktales a vampire couldn’t enter your home unless you invited him in. Without your consent the beast could never cross your threshold. Well, what do you think your computer is? Your phone? You live inside those devices so those devices are your homes. But at least a home, a physical building, has a door you can shut, windows you can latch. Technology has no locked doors.
“People share everything now,” Jorgen said in a marveled hush. “They share which playgrounds they visit with their children and at what times. They share when they’ve hired a babysitter. They share photos of the schools their children attend. They’re so proud of their children. They can’t help themselves. They want to share it all. But who are they sharing it with? Do they really know what they’ve invited into their homes? I promise they don’t.”
He extended a finger and wagged it at Apollo.
“And you, I know you. One of these special new fathers. You’re going to document every moment, every breath of your child’s life. You take videos of them while they’re sleeping and slap them on the computer before the baby wakes up. You think you’re being so loving. You’ll be a better father than the one who raised you! Or the one who was never there at all. But let me tell you what I see instead. The neediness of it. The begging to be applauded. As if the praise of a thousand strangers would ever make up for the fact that you didn’t feel loved enough as a child. Oh, you poor thing. You were begging to be devoured. Maybe it’s you your child needed to be protected from. You leave a trail of breadcrumbs any wolf could follow, then act shocked when the wolf is outside your door. So concerned about being the perfect father, you don’t even notice your child has been snatched away! Replaced in the night by the offspring of a troll, a changeling whose beauty is only a projection of your own vanity.”
Jorgen clapped his hands.
“Shall we go check on the sheep’s head?”
APOLLO PRACTICALLY CHASED Jorgen down. A short sprint from the den into the hall. The old man went to the kitchen, and Apollo followed.
“Why not say no?” Apollo asked. “That was Nils’s fucking daughter. Why not refuse!”
Before checking on the sheep’s head, Jorgen poured himself more to drink. He’d finished off the bottle of Brennivín, but no worries, he had more. He took a new bottle from the cabinet as well as another Ensure. After he’d made the mixture and swigged it, he checked the timer. Almost done.
“He tried that,” Jorgen said, leaning back against the sink. “That’s the first thing he did.”
Apollo pointed the blade at Jorgen. “And?”
Jorgen raised the mug and waved it from side to side. “That beast destroyed everything. I told you the Sloopers settled here for a short time? Well, that’s why they packed up for Orleans County.”
“So then they did know,” Apollo said. “If it destroyed their homes.”
“Do you know what those people said?” Jorgen asked. “Until they all passed on, do you know what those people said happened to their property here in Little Norway?” He closed his eyes and raised the mug high. “It was an act of God.” He laughed bitterly.
He drank slowly, but Apollo caught his eyes dancing over Apollo’s shoulder, down the hallway, toward that open front door. Apollo spun, expecting to find himself under attack. But no one was there. He turned back to Jorgen, who had finished the drink and held the mug tightly in two hands. The old man looked worn down, tapped out. His lips were shut tight but quivered with exhaustion.
“Why have you told me all this?” Apollo finally asked. “What’s the point? Confession?”
The lids danced on their pots. Jorgen turned off the fire under the potatoes and the cabbage. Only the pot with the sheep’s head rattled on.
“Why do you think I did it?” Jorgen asked. He opened another cupboard, above the fridge, and pulled down a silver serving tray.
“You feel guilty,” Apollo said. “For what you’ve done. For what the men in your family have done. And you should.”
Jorgen went back into the cupboard for the serving tray’s matching domed lid.
“You’re right about the guilt. I can’t deny that.” He set down the lid and tapped his scarred throat, proof of his previous suicide attempt. “I wouldn’t have done this otherwise. But let me ask you, and think about your answer, what would you do for your child?”
“I’d do anything,” Apollo said. “There’s no end to what I’d do.”
Jorgen wagged a finger. “Exactly. Exactly. This is what a good father must say. This is what a good father must do. The same for me as it is for you.”
Jorgen looked to the bottle of Brennivín again but could hardly raise a hand. The old man must’ve been drunker than he seemed. Instead of reaching for the bottle, he simply swayed in its direction, then gave up on the effort.
“My son saw what was left of the Knudsen line. Just me, this house, and all the debt associated with it. But he had a wife and two daughters of his own. A good job, working with computers, but it hardly made him enough. There was a time in this country when a man like him could be sure his children would do better than he had done. Once that was the birthright of every white man in America. But not anymore. Suddenly men like my son were being passed over in the name of things like ‘fairness’ and ‘balance.’ Where’s the justice in that?”
Apollo approached Jorgen Knudsen. “He’s your boy,” Apollo whispered.
“He believed that the troll wasn’t our burden but our blessing. That we had to go back to the old ways, before we abandoned our traditions. When we were great. He thought maybe things had been going wrong from the moment Nils refused to sacrifice one of Petra’s children. The troll brought us to these shores, and it could save us again. That’s what he believed. We could channel that monster’s power into our own deliverance. That was our right, our heritage. That’s why we came to America! That’s why we worked so hard. But to do that, we had to return to our origins with whole hearts. So he took it upon himself to honor the pact, as it was meant to be. He did exactly as Nils had done one hundred and ninety years ago. I admired his fortitude.”
“He left Agnes in the forest. In a cave.”
Jorgen slapped the countertop. “But his wife couldn’t understand his vision. She didn’t appreciate his courage, she scorned it. She left him. And took Grace with her. He loved them so much, he would sacrifice his own child—and Gretta abandoned him! That broke him. I saw it. My son lost his mind. I’ve been taking care of him ever since.”
Jorgen slipped down from where he’d been leaning against the sink. Fell right on his butt. Instead of trying to stand again, he went slack there on the floor.