December 8
Nana Borghild took a sip from her cup of coffee and set it down on the tray with a faint clink. She stared into space. Barry
watched them from his nook by the fireplace.
Ingrid looked at Nana Borghild’s neatly arranged hair and the exhaustion in her body that she couldn’t quite conceal despite
her upright posture. Her grandmother suddenly seemed so old, Ingrid thought. She was eighty-three, but amazingly, Ingrid had never thought of her as old before.
What had changed? Was her grandmother getting worn down from all of the work and practical problems at the hotel? Ingrid felt
a tenderness for her and a pang of guilt for not having come back sooner. Her grandmother had always taken care of her. Maybe
she should have realized long ago that she was the one who should be taking care of her grandmother.
They’d sat down in the library that morning to discuss the plans for the coming days, but Nana Borghild seemed a bit distracted. Ingrid reached out and took her grandmother’s hand. Her hands had always been so small and delicate, but now the joints were more prominent than before. Her wedding ring, which she’d kept wearing for decades after Grandpa Christian’s death, had recently been coaxed off and moved onto a long gold chain that Nana Borghild wore around her neck along with a small key.
Ingrid closed her eyes and squeezed her grandmother’s warm fingers. She missed the intimate moments they used to have when
she was younger. They still talked a lot, but now it was mostly about practical things. Ingrid wasn’t sure why this had happened,
but she somehow didn’t find it as easy to open up to her grandmother anymore. Her life had changed while living abroad. She had changed. She wasn’t the same girl who’d sat with her grandmother, drunk hot chocolate, and chatted about school and climbing
and the stupid boys at school. She’d been through such dramatic things since then—and what could her grandmother understand
of such things? After all, she’d only experienced a sheltered life here at Glitter Peak.
Ingrid was about to ask whether Nana Borghild had anything particular on her mind today when they heard a loud, peppy voice
from the doorway behind them.
“Good morning!”
Ingrid pulled her hand away.
Mrs. Wilkins came striding in. She had a cup of coffee from the buffet in the dining room and was walking toward them with
quick, purposeful steps.
She was dressed in jeans and a green wool sweater. Her wavy blond hair was gathered in a braid at the nape of her neck, and she looked younger than when she’d arrived yesterday in her bearskin hat and full getup. I wonder how old she really is , Ingrid thought. Somewhere between fifty and sixty, maybe . She had a fresh complexion and few wrinkles, but there were remedies for that. And there was no way of knowing whether her
hair color was real.
“How lovely to be able to chat with you a bit,” Mrs. Wilkins said as she settled into one of the big leather chairs without
any kind of invitation.
“Good morning, Mrs. Wilkins,” Ingrid said.
“Please call me Freya. It’s wonderful to be here! I feel so at home.”
“That’s nice to hear,” Ingrid replied.
Freya Wilkins set her coffee cup on the table. “I’ve been looking around the hotel. This lovely building, the smell of wood.
These mountains around us. It’s all so real , all of it. I feel like my roots are here, even though I’ve never been here before. It’s in my blood.”
Borghild nodded thoughtfully but didn’t say anything.
“So you have Norwegian roots?” Ingrid asked.
“Yes, my parents were Norwegian.” It looked as if Freya was about to say more before she changed her mind and took a sip of
coffee instead. “But what were you two talking about?”
Nothing , Ingrid thought, because we were interrupted before we could get started . She and her grandmother hadn’t had more than a few minutes in peace. Ingrid noted that they’d have to move their private
talks to one of the apartments in the future. They couldn’t chase the guests away from the common areas, after all, and now
they had no choice but to include Freya Wilkins in the conversation.
As briefly as possible, Ingrid told her about the flooding on Friday night and all of the extra work it entailed. Not her favorite topic, but with workers coming and going, there was no point in pretending nothing was happening. Mrs. Wilkins also seemed to be the sort of person who generally found out whatever she wanted to if she set her mind to it.
“How unfortunate!” Freya Wilkins exclaimed, leaning forward.
Her eyes sparkled in the morning light. Ingrid hadn’t noticed them before, but she now saw that they had a unique play of
colors: deep gray with golden flecks, like polished granite.
Nana Borghild also seemed to have noticed them. She sat there, staring at Freya without a word. What kind of strange behavior is this? Ingrid thought. Her grandmother wasn’t normally impolite.
Freya Wilkins was still looking at Ingrid, wanting more information. “How could it have happened? The leak, I mean?”
“It was strange, really,” Ingrid replied. “We think a water pipe may have burst when one of the guests drained the bathtub.
It’s not the kind of thing that normally happens here. Just bad luck, really.”
“Yes, that’s for sure,” Freya Wilkins replied.
Nana Borghild stood up.
“I have to go speak with Maja,” she said. “She wanted to discuss something about the menus for the coming weeks. You’ll have
to excuse me.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean to be a bother!” Freya exclaimed.
Ingrid was perplexed. It was obvious that her grandmother had just made up an excuse to leave the room. She and Freya sat
there for a while without saying anything while Barry watched them from his nook.
***
Borghild stopped on the landing and leaned on the banister. The stairs seemed particularly steep today, even though she normally
scaled them with ease. She felt that her breathing was heavier and her heart was beating faster than usual.
She realized that it must have seemed odd that she left the library so abruptly, but she had to get away—to think in peace.
Could things really be connected the way she suspected?
She felt dizzy just thinking about it.
She had a strong feeling that she was now going to have to deal with what had weighed upon her so heavily all her life. What
she’d told herself was over, a closed chapter.
But it wasn’t over. Of course it wasn’t.
She’d been so naive to believe that the mistakes of the past would stay there—in the past.
***
Dalen, Spring 1962
The bells echoed across Dalen. From the tower of the old brown church, the deep sound resonated over fields and meadows, over
farms and forest. Come-come, come-come, come-come, they rang.
And people came. They flocked there from the big farm up the hill and from the gas station by the main road, from neighboring villages, and even from Glitter Peak. People came dressed in their finest, driving and walking, some on bicycles, between the birch trees in all their spring glory down the avenue, through the big gate and up the gravel road across the churchyard, and through the church doors, which were wide open—because there was going to be a wedding in Dalen today.
The bells went silent for a while. The priest stood ready in his cassock in the sacristy, going through the day’s sermon in
his head. In the doorway, the usher was handing out programs with ornate lettering. There was muffled chatter and creaking
as the narrow old wooden pews were filled with people in bunads, people in dresses, people in suits. At the very front of
the church, by the altar, the groom and his best man stood sweating in their finery. Their new suits were itchy, and it was
unusually warm for so early in the spring.
The bells rang for the second time. Ribbons of multicolored sunlight stretched across the wooden floor from the tall old windows.
A newly awakened fly buzzed woozily through the gallery, and the organist absentmindedly waved it away as he flipped through
his notes.
The bride’s maid of honor came through the door and walked up on the left side of the pews. The young, dark-haired woman seemed
to be deeply affected by the occasion, greeting friends and family sitting in the pews with a serious face. The sunlight made
the silver on her bunad sparkle, spreading small flashes of light throughout the church as she sat down on one of the chairs
by the altar rail.
The usher closed the doors from the outside and stood on the church steps, ready to open them again shortly. After a few minutes, the chiming of the bells stopped. An expectant silence settled over the congregation. Soon, the doors would open, and the bride would enter, surrounded by sunlight and the majestic chimes of the organ.
But nothing happened. The silence was deafening at first, but gradually, people started to turn toward the door and one another,
exchanging glances and hushed murmurs. The benches creaked uneasily. A minute passed. Two minutes. Then the door was opened,
but only a crack. The usher slipped inside and motioned to the best man, who gave the groom a pat on the shoulder before walking
down the aisle. By now, the murmuring in the pews had developed into nervous chatter.
“What’s going on?” the best man asked as he entered the porch. “Why aren’t you sending the bride in?”
“There’s no bride to send in,” the usher replied. “She isn’t here.”