Hanna #3
Then I noticed Dr. Williamson waiting at the door to accompany me to one of the wooden pews, where we sat side by side, our hands almost touching but not quite, as we sang the hymns and listened to the sermon.
I think we were both aware that the war—and the roles we had to play within it—were boundaries that kept us apart, despite the strong tide of attraction that flowed between us.
My grief for Per was still a deep wound.
He was my first love, irreplaceable and unforgettable.
But as my shoulder healed, somehow my heart seemed to begin to do so, too.
Shetland—and the care Euan had shown me—had smoothed the jagged edges of my pain just a little.
In learning how to operate the wireless, knowing I’d be playing my part in the fight for my country, I was able to focus my anguish into something more purposeful.
As the weeks passed at Lunna, I felt less helpless, nurturing my emotional strength as well as regaining strength physically.
By the end of August, as the season tipped toward autumn, there were proper sunsets over the hills again and darkness at midnight.
I knew that meant my days in Shetland were numbered and, although I still longed to get home to Norway, I felt a new ache in my heart at the prospect of leaving the sanctuary of Lunna.
Perhaps it had something to do with relinquishing peace and safety for the dangers that awaited me at home, and perhaps it was partly the usual sinking in the pit of the stomach that I always felt as summer drew to a close, facing the prospect of a long, dark winter ahead.
Mostly, though, I knew it was because of how much I would miss Euan Williamson.
He must have known I’d be leaving that night, because he appeared at the farmhouse as I was packing.
Not that it took me long. I’d wrapped the Morse key for the wireless in a woolen scarf to disguise it, along with the headset and a couple of spare tubes, tucking them well down at the bottom of my bag.
I covered the bundle with the few clothes I’d brought with me, patched and faded now after being worn and washed time and time again over the past three months.
The farmer’s wife had given me a box of provisions to take with me, too, containing slabs of the salted lamb they call reestit mutton here in Shetland and a fruitcake called a huffsie, made with thick black treacle and eggs from her chickens.
As Euan and I walked along the shore together for the last time, a fishing boat with a Norwegian registration painted on the bow chugged into the voe and moored alongside the jetty.
“That’ll be your Bus, then,” he said. His tone was deliberately lighthearted, although he didn’t smile.
As he turned toward me, I saw his eyes were filled with sadness.
“Tonight, you’ll be gone. The Storm Petrel will take flight across the sea once again, and it will be as if Miss Hanna Kristiansen was never here. ”
I wanted to tell him how much he’d helped me heal, how much I’d miss him. There was so much more I wanted to say. I yearned to stay, to have the time to get to know him better. But time was a luxury we didn’t have, so my words remained unspoken.
We walked on a little way, skirting the bay, away from the flurry of activity on the jetty as crates and barrels were loaded onto the boat.
I knew what they contained. There were guns and ammunition, as well as mines, explosives, fuses, and detonators.
And in a battered leather suitcase, there was the OLGA two-way wireless set I’d be using to pass information back and forth between Milorg and the British Special Operations Executive.
At the far end of the beach, Euan stooped to pick something up from among the stones.
It was a sliver of blue sea glass, worn smooth by the waves.
He dropped it into the palm of my hand, and I carefully closed my fingers around it before slipping it into my pocket.
It was worth more to me than a diamond would have been.
Then he placed his hand against my cheek. “Stay, Hanna,” he said. “You don’t have to go back, you know. You’ll be safer here. I don’t want to lose you, having only just found you.”
A powerful wave of sadness washed through me. A shake of my head was the only answer I gave, because I longed to say yes, and I thought that if I spoke, that word might escape.
He sighed. I think he’d known what my answer had to be. “I wish things were different,” he said, “but if they were, I might never have met you. I’ll be thinking of you. If you ever change your mind about coming across, get a message to me. I can help arrange it. We can bring your sister, too.”
The thought of bringing Liv here to safety was tempting.
But she would never leave Erik, and I knew he wouldn’t leave his parents and his country.
And if I told her about the Shetland Bus and the fact that this place existed, it could expose many others to danger.
The need for absolute secrecy was one of the most important things my instructor had impressed upon me during my training.
“When the war is over, things will be different,” I replied, finding my voice again at last. “We’ll meet again someday, Euan.
” I folded my fingers around the sliver of glass in the pocket of my coat as a reminder of this place and this moment.
A reminder of this man, who’d mended far more than my injured shoulder, with his quietly assured skill and his calm, solidly comforting manner.
I brushed my lips against his, soft as a bird’s feather, that fleeting kiss all we could permit ourselves.
“I hope so,” he said gently. We both knew the dangers involved in the role I’d be playing. Death was the inevitable outcome if I was caught, and death might not be the worst thing I’d face.
I was worried for him, as well. After I’d shown him on the map where to find the Grouse Tree, something in the way he’d folded it and put it into his pocket had made me realize his own role in those operations might not necessarily be confined to these Shetland shores.
At dusk, I walked down the jetty and stepped onto the deck of the fishing boat. The skipper started the engine, and Euan cast us off, throwing the rope to the deckhand.
I clutched the sliver of sea glass in my pocket to give me strength and tried not to look back as we maneuvered out into the voe.
But when I allowed myself to take one last glance over my shoulder, he was still standing there, silhouetted against the final flames of sunset that tinged the western horizon, a lone figure in a landscape of darkening sea and sky.
I was heading back to my kingdom, east of the sun and west of the moon, a land now occupied by demons and trolls.
But, I wondered, could he or anyone else ever come to free me and my people?