31
The world finds its pace again as the evening loosens around the fire.
Seemingly.
Until I stop trying to understand it and simply listen.
I keep thinking about the word – choice. How small it can be. A hand offered. A silence allowed. A monster stepping back when every old wound tells him to lunge.
The worst part?
None of it makes me feel safer. It only makes him harder to hate.
Joik spreads across the clearing, the voices rising and falling through the cold until even the snow seems to cradle it. Others move slowly, boots scuffing packed snow as a loose circle begins to form near the fire.
I lift my camera but hesitate.
Sunna catches the movement and gives me a small nod.
Pointing the lens warily to make sure no one else minds it, I steal a glimpse of firelight on wool and a blur of colour turning around the bonfire.
At some point, the cadence gives way to a modern tune, picked out on the guitar in the hands of Markus – Sunna’s youngest. I inch closer to the bench where Elias watches it all from a short distance.
Two women break from the circle and start towards him with cheeks flushed from the fire, movement and drink.
Their hands reach for Elias, calling him to join.
He goes rigid.
The breath he takes is too quick and his fingers dig into his own leg.
Before I get a chance to argue with myself, I step across their path, putting myself between him and the reaching hands. ‘You can’t have him. I’m afraid I’ve claimed this one.’
Somehow, though, the words turn jagged inside me even as I smile them outwards.
My hand opens behind me, palm turned towards him in an offer I’m not sure he’ll take.
The women burst into knowing chuckles, wave us off in mock scandal, and drift back towards the circle.
Just as I start withdrawing, his hand catches mine.
I spin just as he takes the other and drags them around his waist, pulling me down beside him.
‘Your touch,’ he says hurriedly. ‘I choose yours.’
I notice the way he stills as if the decision has startled him too.
Easing into him carefully, I keep my hold soft, let my cheek come to rest against the hard slope of his shoulder where I sit at his side.
He stays rigid against me. But gradually, his breathing deepens, his weight eases back until some of the strain leaves his body.
His chin turns, breath stirring my hair near the temple before I lift my gaze to his.
His heavy-lidded eyes, unguarded for one damning second, fall to my mouth before lifting back to mine.
My heart misses its next beat.
‘Not to sound ungrateful, but you don’t have to do this,’ he whispers.
Suddenly, a flash bursts white across us both.
We turn at the same time to find one of the unfamiliar faces lowering a phone, smiling far too brightly. The woman winks. ‘Now give us a kiss for the camera!’
Elias’ face tightens in slow disbelief.
His lie has come back to bite us in the arse. Everyone believes we’re a couple.
‘Come on, Siv,’ he mutters, voice rough with warning and embarrassment. ‘We’re not twelve.’
Her grin only widens. She raises one fist into the air like a menace in wool. ‘Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!’
Beyond the fire, Inga’s grin dies as her eyes cut to Elias, then to Sunna. Sunna follows her gaze. They both stiffen.
Inga opens her mouth, already taking a step towards us, while her mother raises one hand in a modest attempt to kill the chant before it gathers any more weight.
Someone near the fire laughs and joins in. Then another voice rises. Then the circle catches it, clapping it out until the word rolls through the space with the buoyant certainty of people who think they are blessing something simple.
Heat crawls up my throat.
Beneath my arms, Elias turns into a statue again, so I flatten my palms over the hard muscle at his side, reminding him I am there. He sucks in a short breath. Holds it.
Neither of us moves. The chanting rises but it’s swallowed by the pulse suddenly beating too loudly in my ears.
He looks to the side and down at me. Unease passes between us, and neither of us is able to settle on the next breath.
But as the will of the crowd spreads and suspends us in the middle, his eyes begin to search mine. The panic leaves his face by fractions until there is only an unfortified rawness beneath it. One that also lives in me.
And we’re no longer performing. There are no prison shackles between us, no guard to mock him. No book to stand as a buffer, and no threat in the role of instruction.
Just my fingers resting against him, his forearm covering mine.
And the terrible knowledge that we both understand what happens if one of us leans in.
His eyes lower to my mouth. Mine drop to his.
And the world falls into a hush.
He bends slowly, giving me every second to turn away.
A choice.
The terrible thing, though?
There’s but one.
He stops a breath before our lips meet.
And I close the remaining distance.
My mouth touches his. The barest press of warmth against the cold – so careful that the tenderness of it is nearly unbearable.
The chanting is gone. The music. The fire. People. It all hangs in a silence too complete to belong to reality.
My hands flex and tighten at his hip to remind me I haven’t floated away.
When he draws back, I am not sure where we are.
In the next blink, the world rushes back in a symphony of voices, the crackle of fire and boots on snow. I realise Siv is no longer standing in front of us. No one is watching any more.
Except Inga and Sunna. While they’ve settled back into a seemingly easy conversation, neither has taken her eyes off Elias.
His face changes as our gazes collide.
The softness goes first.
Then the colour.
His fingers loosen and he moves out of my hold. His eyes find my mouth, then turn away as if the kiss has cut open a wound inside him.
He angles his head towards the night beyond the fire.
It’s enough for the worry to stab clean through my chest.
Once the family begins to depart and the snow starts falling in thicker layers, Marét and her little family are bundled into the night beneath a mound of blankets, gifts and advice.
Anders and Sunna move the rest of us indoors just as the wind picks up, and I’m grateful to lose the outdoor layers.
My cheeks sting as they thaw when I settle into a couch too soft to hold me.
My fingers ache around the strap of my camera, and I – reluctantly – abandon it on the side table next to my elbow.
Elias chooses a spot close to me, and I somehow hate the way my body naturally leans towards him even though unease at his proximity still grips me. He’s stiff and uncomfortable, but he keeps up the pretence until the sight of it ferments and starts eating at me from the inside out.
Mid-conversation, an ominous whistle rattles the windows.
‘Shit!’ Elias growls, cutting through Inga’s warm recount of her new animal-shelter initiative.
All heads turn. He is already at the window, both hands on the sill, face all but stuck against the glass.
The wind has changed direction – I can see it even from halfway across the room. Snow is no longer falling; it is driving sideways, hard enough to erase the black line of trees beyond the yard.
‘Don’t be so dramatic,’ Anders mutters with a lazy grin, pushing his chair back. ‘You know weather turns fast here. We’ve got spare rooms.’
I nearly choke on my own damned spit.
‘Why would we need one?’ The words leave my mouth too fast, slightly too shrill.
‘Perhaps the Old Ones – as my grandmother called them – want to keep you under this roof tonight,’ Sunna says gently, peering out the window with that serene smile she seems to always wear. Then her eyes slide to Elias, teasing. ‘Or maybe they might be angry with you.’
They’re angry all right.
Elias lets out a grunt. ‘With all due respect, the spirits need a new hobby. The weather wasn’t meant to turn this badly until late morning!’
I rise and tread lightly towards the window.
Sure enough, snow hurls sideways as if being whipped into the ground, the trodden paths thickening rapidly beneath its assault.
Oh God. This agony isn’t ending tonight.
Elias catches my eyes through the reflection in the glass. And I can tell by the tension in his jaw and the twitch of his brow – he’s thinking the same thing I am.
We’re stuck.
Together.
Again.
Only this time we’re stuck in this pretence of engagement.
‘Well, truth be told,’ Anders starts casually as he stands, groaning under the weight of wine and comfort, ‘you’ve had enough to drink for me to keep you here anyway.’
His own cheeks are flushed, his movements looser.
Elias’ are not.
My gut knots.
I saw Elias drink once – maybe twice. Not enough to make him careless, but Norway’s limit is low enough that Anders doesn’t need much of an excuse.
I nearly snort at myself. Apparently, I can’t speak the language, remember the name of the village or identify half the food put in front of me, but I did research the legal drinking limit.
Priorities.
Nonetheless, my eyes begin to scan the demon beside me. The set of his mouth, a delay in his eyes, anything that tells me how much those drinks changed him.
Because however strong this storm is outside… it won’t compare to the one I’m most afraid of in this moment.
As if on cue, Sunna is already pulling her colourful jumper closer as she yawns against the back of her hand. The clock beyond her shoulder shows nearly ten in the evening.
We should have left much earlier.
My gaze falls to my feet.
Elias is very strict with the way things are done in this frozen wilderness. He rarely slips up.
So…
Is this a slip-up?
Or intentional?
No… He was rattled earlier. He’s been distraught all evening.
My eyes search his face. He seems too agitated for it to be staged.
Nevertheless, however my mind flips it, this is inevitable.
Glancing back into the night through the window, I observe the snow cover disappearing beneath it.
‘We should wake up very early because of the chickens,’ I note.
Elias nods when Sunna beckons towards the hallway.