Chapter 2
Whittling knife in hand, Leif Arnesen chipped the start of a wolf’s snout out of an oak block. The shavings fell to his feet. He was sitting in a chair in front of the kitchen fireplace built by his great-great-grandfather, and out of habit he kicked the shavings into the fire.
The moments before dawn were Leif’s favorite time of day.
This was when he carved wolves, ravens, serpents, flora, and fauna, all from images culled from the dozens of books he’d collected on Viking art.
He’d whittled every morning over the last twenty-six years, since he was a boy of eight, and his guardian, Erik Olsen, first placed a knife in his hand.
Erik was now his boss over at Lyng?r Boatyard and Marina, and they were close, but Leif really wanted to design and carve wooden boats rather than work as Erik’s number one boatbuilder and mechanic.
He hoped that someday Erik would finally see him as an artist and let him take on design jobs.
The clock chimed eight. Leif had twenty minutes to meet Oskar, the fishmonger, on the water near Ringpynten to pick up his twelve kilos of fresh cod.
He’d never hear the end of it if he didn’t bring his fish cakes to the annual summer party, as he’d been doing faithfully for the last ten years.
His friends kidded him that tradition was his middle name, but that was a nicer way of noting that Leif hated change.
He pocketed his boat keys. His socks, Chucks, and sweater—all blue—lay in a heap on the reindeer pelt beneath his feet.
Leif’s father, Bjorn, had died in a boating accident when Leif was five, leaving him an orphan.
Even though the color was pleasing to Njord, the god who protected seafarers, Bjorn hadn’t had a stitch of blue on him when he’d taken the boat out, and Leif had vowed to never make the same mistake. He’d worn blue ever since.
The Lyng?r folk politely continued to call it an accident, but the awful truth was that Bjorn was drunk and lost control of his boat, killing himself and two men, out-of-towners, who were visiting from up north.
Bjorn’s best friend, Erik Olsen, had barely survived.
After the accident, Erik raised Leif. It was just the two of them because Leif’s mother had died from meningitis when he was only two years old.
He had no memory of her, but his father’s death still haunted him.
He often thought of the bedtime stories Bjorn had told about the importance of respecting the deep blue sea and protecting all the travelers on it.
To this day, a sea of grief still sloshed inside him, and he wondered how his dad could’ve been so irresponsible.
A small part of him had never forgiven Bjorn.
Setting aside his carving, Leif decided he needed more coffee.
He still felt groggy; the day before, he’d had to fetch a couple of fiberglass skiffs and a red dinghy from a manufacturer in Oslo and haul them to the Lyng?r Boatyard, where they’d be put up for sale.
It had meant a late night. He refilled his blue thermos, which had been a recent gift from Erik in honor of Leif’s thirty-fourth birthday.
He grabbed his wallet from the kitchen table.
Next to it lay a business card from a prestigious shipyard known for its talented boatbuilders.
The owner had offered him a boatbuilder position yesterday.
He’d applauded Leif’s strong work ethic and attention to detail, even called him a brilliant craftsman.
Leif tossed the business card into the kindling basket.
The recognition felt great, but he wouldn’t accept the job, not in a million years.
Sometimes Erik could be difficult to work for, but Leif had no interest in changing bosses or moving to a different place.
He liked his life exactly how it was. On Saturdays he played poker with his childhood friends at the local clubhouse.
Once a week he bought skolebr?d, a cream pastry, at Lyng?r Bakery, a tradition established by Bjorn.
The bakery owner shared Leif and Bjorn’s love of Norse mythology, and Leif always looked forward to chatting with him.
Leif yanked the blue sweater over his shaggy blond hair. It stretched tight across his broad shoulders and strong biceps. The baker always insisted that Leif looked like a Norse god, but Leif didn’t see himself as good-looking. He didn’t waste time looking in the mirror.
Pulling the door shut behind him, Leif jogged down the two long flights of stairs to his dock.
He’d built the two wooden boats that were tied there.
The smaller of the two was an open twenty-foot double-ender with wolves and leaves carved into her railing.
Leif had christened her Skadi, the Norse goddess who married Njord, the god of the sea.
Leif’s larger boat was a thirty-two-foot cabin cruiser with tendrils and serpents carved into the trim around her windshield and on her railing.
He’d christened her Rán, the goddess of storms and the drowned.
As Leif stepped onto Rán, the boat dipped under his weight.
He went to the helm and fired up the engine.
Steering past the grocery, the sailmaker’s workshop, and a couple dozen white clapboard cottages, and around the tip of Lyng?rsida, he headed for the waters just offshore from Ringpynten.
Ten minutes later, he dropped anchor in the narrow channel near the old Nilsen cottage.
Small, rocky islands dotted water as blue as Leif’s clothes.
Oskar was late, as usual. Leif prided himself on his punctuality.
Thinking to kill the time by doing a little fishing, he grabbed his pole from the deck just as a flash of color drew his gaze to Ringpynten.
Two throw rugs were draped over the low rock wall, and the front door stood ajar.
He wondered who was there. Everyone knew that Mia, who oversaw the cottage rentals, had canceled all visitors after hearing from the lawyer in charge of Mrs. Nilsen’s estate.
He ruled out his oldest friend, Inger, knowing she’d be at work at the post office.
A passionate gardener, Inger was thrilled when Mia agreed to let her work the small plot of land at Ringpynten.
She planted peas, rhubarb for her wine, and gooseberries for her jam, with the understanding that she must respect the privacy of any renters.
Both Mia and Inger were as close to him as siblings.
But while Inger was his oldest friend, Mia, who also owned Lyng?r Grocery, was his best friend.
He scanned the property and saw a laundry tub out on the slate terrace. Perhaps Mia had hired a handyman to clean and make repairs. Several tiles definitely needed replacing on the cottage roof.
Fifteen minutes passed before Oskar approached in his trawler, throwing a sharp wake that sent Leif’s skiff rocking. Bald, wind-burnt Oskar was the king of fishermen, and he talked up a storm. He pulled up alongside Leif, threw over the fenders, and dropped anchor.
“Trying to check out the new Nilsen tenant, are you? No families this time around. Just the lone American woman. Arrived yesterday.”
Oskar grabbed five large fish from the catch bin on his deck and began passing them over the railing to Leif. Leif dumped the cod, one by one, into his marine cooler.
An American woman? Why hadn’t he heard? He’d been in Oslo, that was why.
“She’s a real knockout,” Oskar persisted. “An answer to a lone boy’s prayers.”
“Right.” Leif wasn’t looking for a girlfriend.
He was content with his life just as it was.
And if he were looking, he had no intention of chatting up an American.
They were an odd lot. Loud talkers. They put ice in their water and clothes on their dogs.
And all that nonsense about inches and ounces instead of the metric system, like the rest of the civilized world.
Oskar slid a pouch of tobacco from the inside pocket of his grubby slicker.
“Yesterday my wife’s knitting club was on the ferry.
The girl there was on board.” He pinched out a spot of tobacco and rolled it in paper.
“The ladies figured she’s one of those eccentric artist types, like you read about in the sladder rags.
You know, gossip magazines.” He chuckled open-mouthed, revealing crooked brown teeth.
“The gossip made my wife so excited she came on to me last night.”
Leif cracked open a snail with his fillet knife and slipped the jellied meat onto his fishing hook. He didn’t want to think about Oskar and his wife fooling around.
Smoke streamed from the fishmonger’s nostrils. “Why would a young American woman pay to rent a cottage in Lyng?r? Any guesses?”
“Oskar, can you give me some space? You’re frightening the fish, and I want to catch dinner before I head to work.” It was Monday, which meant a fish supper. Nothing was better than fresh grilled fillets, but if he didn’t land anything now, he’d have to buy days-old mackerel in Mia’s grocery.
“Suppose I better be off.” Oskar flicked his cigarette butt into the water.
“Come on, don’t litter!” Leif snatched his minnow net from the bucket on the deck and scooped up the butt before it floated away.
“Good luck with your cod cakes. Look forward to tasting them at the party,” the fishmonger called back as he motored away.
· · ·
A half hour passed and Leif still hadn’t caught a single fish, but he decided to give it another twenty minutes. Then he needed to get to work. Mia had bought a new red dinghy, and he promised to deliver it to her today.
As Rán drifted offshore from Ringpynten, he balanced his pole against the gunwale and grabbed another snail.
Faint music came from the cottage. A woman strumming a guitar and singing was sitting on the stone wall that skirted the dock.
Russet ringlets tumbled over her shoulders and chest. She didn’t look like the usual summer visitor; she wore a bright-yellow dress with a bold pattern and a big, floppy cowboy hat.
It was exactly like the hats he’d seen on people in travel advertisements for America—ads that promised rodeos and steakhouses and balloon rides.
With that type of excitement, why would American tourists ever choose to come to Lyng?r?
It was known, if it was known at all, for being an idyllic village on the sea.
The natural surroundings were incredible, but not much happened there.
Life revolved around the water, and the everyday routine was about as bland as boiled parsnips.
But that was just fine with Leif, who adored habits and custom.
Sticking to his schedule gave him some sense of control over what had always felt, to him, like a chaotic and unpredictable world.
From what he could see from his boat, the woman at Ringpynten looked like a trendy city person. Mia, who was obsessed with movies set in big cities, would have loads to say about this.
The breeze picked up. The tourist took off her hat.
Wisps of hair flew about her face, like the coppery threads on a red sailcloth.
Oskar was right; she was attractive, and Leif liked what he saw.
He recast his line with a steady flick of the wrist, willing his eyes to stay on the water, not on the woman, whom he could now only think of as Sunna, the Norse goddess of the sun.