The Search
Leif leans in the open doorway. It’s been four days since the end-of-season party and the lodge guests have thinned to a trickle.
The serious climbers will be flocking to warmer places to see out the winter in Greece or Spain, while the skiers won’t arrive until the first heavy snows.
Leif finds the lodge strange in the shoulder season; he misses the buzz and influx of newcomers.
The blue skies of a few days ago are gone. Now the wind is blowing hard, raking the lake into ridges. The mountains have been swallowed by billowing dark clouds. There will be poor visibility up on Blafjell today.
Autumn arrives early in the mountains, he thinks, noticing the leaves are already starting to fall.
As kids, at this time of year he and Erik would mess around in the long, browning grasses before school, the sweet smell of turning leaves filling the air.
Their mother would send them out to pick the final wild blueberries, ready to make jams to see them through the long winter.
They’d return, fingers stained purple, boots muddy, a bag of fruit swinging between them.
He can remember the sweet, honeyed smell of the jam bubbling on the stove in the lodge kitchen, the thick embroidered material of his mother’s skirt, his father coming in with the smell of the outdoors on his skin.
Those days feel like a lifetime ago—before their father died; before their mother’s MS had really taken hold; before Erik walked out.
He runs a hand down the doorjamb, reminding himself: We still have the lodge.
Lots of people his age move away. Go to Oslo or Bergen. Winter somewhere warmer. He tells anyone who asks that he loves this place—it’s home—and that’s the truth. But more recently he’s found himself fantasizing about leaving—that incomparable freedom of starting over somewhere new.
With Erik on his mind, he pushes away from the door and returns to the reception desk. Sliding the logbook toward him, his gaze travels down the short list of hikers out on the Svelle trail.
There. Erik’s name written in his loose, scrawling hand. He’s surprised he even signed himself out. Leif wishes he hadn’t gone—but what could he do? Chase after him? Say, Don’t go?
He lifts his gaze, looking through the open doorway, studying the green flanks of the nearest mountain.
The Svelle route leads through valleys and woodland to reach a remote section of coastline, before ascending steeply over a mountain ridge onto Blafjell—and then returning to the lodge. The route takes most hikers four days.
Typically, they liked to make an early start on the final morning, so they would be back at the lodge in time for lunch. He checks his watch. Midday.
All morning he’s had a strange plunging, lurching sensation in his gut—like he’s at the top of a roller coaster and is tensing, ready for the drop.
His knuckles move back and forth beneath his chin.
Leif knows these mountains better than most. Knows the switch of the weather.
Knows how fog can roll in and swallow everything that’s familiar.
Knows how the changing shadows of the mountains can challenge even the best navigators. Knows how panic can be fatal.
His gaze runs across the low foothills. For any hiker who has taken the Svelle trail and climbed Blafjell, this is the only route back to the lodge.
He keeps on looking, feeling the rising beat of his heart.
The path is completely empty.