Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow - Jessica Day George [48]
She told herself that she had trouble getting to sleep because this bed was narrower than she was used to. The sheets were coarser, and the furniture made different shadows.
She refused to admit to herself that she was waiting for a familiar weight to settle itself in the bed next to her. For familiar breath to blow softly against her cheek. In the end she made Rollo get in the bed, where he proceeded to snore and kick and keep her awake until dawn, when she finally gave up and got dressed.
Chapter 18
Three days passed in a blur. The lass spent most of each day in her father’s room, holding his good hand and talking to him. She “invented” stories about creatures called fauns and salamanders and selkies that inhabited a fantastical palace of ice. She described books she had read in the palace library. She said she was trying to teach herself a new language, but when he asked what it was, she hastily said, “Fransk.” She didn’t want him to know that she was learning troll.
She sent Einar to the nearest bookstore to buy a stack of popular novels, and she and Tordis took turns reading to Jarl. They left his side only when the nurse changed his bandages or bathed him, and even then it was a wrench for the lass to be parted from her father.
The day after her arrival, Hans Peter hitched up the reindeer and returned to their old cottage. Everyone had begged him to stay, but he refused. He said that he had things to do (“Ha!” was Frida’s response to this), and that Jorunn would be frantic with worry.
“I wish I had brought my little book, so we could have written to her,” the lass said, stroking the nose of the white-faced doe while Hans Peter put his small bundle of clothes and a large hamper of food into the wagon. “Then you could have stayed.”
“I wouldn’t have stayed anyway,” he said tersely.
“I need to talk to you,” she insisted. She had been insisting for the past day and a half. She wanted to talk to Hans Peter, alone, and ask him about the ice palace and the enchantment.
“No, you don’t,” Hans Peter said. Then he sighed and sat down on the driver’s seat. “All right, dear little lassie, listen well. You are right: I was there. I have seen the great snow plain and the palace of ice. I know Erasmus the faun, and the salamanders that make such fine meals. But I also know the mistress of that house, and the extent of her designs on those who dwell within. Which is why I say to you: be careful, wait out your year, and come home.”
“But I think that I can—”
“Be careful. Wait out your year. Come home,” he repeated. He gathered up the reins and released the brake on the front left wheel. “You can keep the parka for now, but I would like it back when you return.”
He shook the reins and whistled, and the lass hurried out of the way as the reindeer set off. Hans Peter looked back briefly when he reached the end of the street, and waved. His hair shone almost completely white in the sun, making him look like an old, old man.
“Well!” Frida came down the steps and glared after the wagon. “Is he gone, then? And not even a good-bye to his mother, or the brother whose hospitality he took advantage of?”
Her mother’s shrewish voice set the lass’s teeth on edge. “You know that Hans Peter isn’t much for goodbyes. And neither is Askel. It would have only embarrassed them both.”
Her mother merely sniffed. “I’m going back inside. It’s chill out.”
All too soon the end of her visit came, and the lass found herself packing her knapsack one morning. Askel said that he would drive her outside of the city to meet the isbjørn at dusk, but Jarl was taking a nap and no one else was around, so she began to stow her things. She wore a pretty blue dress for now, but had left out her trousers,