Two

Either the snows were early and heavy that year, or the boats were late returning, because the long meadows were almost impassable.

But no. It was the snow moon, I remember that, so it was the boats that were late. That was why it took the whole village to pull the long ships up onto the cold meadows, gray in the half-light.

Even Eirik and I helped, though we were less than ten winters, I’m sure.

We had been sitting on the Outlook, waiting and wanting to be the first to see the ships return after the viking was over for the year.

They were so late. So late!

And with every day that they did not return, the village became a more and more silent place.

It was simply not possible that every ship had been lost. That none would return. Of course, from time to time, an expedition lost one, or even more, boats; it was dangerous to go viking. But to lose the whole fleet of ships? Impossible!

And yet, as the days turned over, and the nights grew so long that they almost touched each other, unspoken thoughts became muttered words, which became cries of woe!

They have abandoned us!

They have been lost to the middle-earthers!

They have been swallowed by the Krake!

But Eirik and I did not believe these cries. The ships had returned every autumn, and they would return this one, too, even if autumn had become winter.

*   *   *

Finally, as we sat on the Outlook, watching the sun barely skimming the sea, Eirik saw the masts.

He tugged my sleeve and we stood, breathlessly, and counted.

We waited until they were closer, and then, still not saying a word, we counted again.

They were all there.

“Go!” I screamed, and I ran with my brother down the hill, and burst into the longhouse at the crossways.

“Mother!” we cried together, as we so often did, “Mother! They are come back!”

Our mother turned from her work at the fireside, among the other women, and stood, one hand holding a knife, the other the limp body of a hare, half skinned.

It took time for the words to mean anything to her.

I can see her lips now, in the eye of my mind, as I picture how she repeated the words we spoke, but without sound.

“They are come back.”

“Mother! Come on!”

By now others in the northern harbor had seen the masts, too, drawing in fast on a westerly wind. Shouts came from the lane.

Mother yelped then, as if she’d burned her hand. She dropped everything, and we all ran into the snow, joining the shouts and the cries of the whole village, the young, the old, and the women, as their men returned.

Then, there they were!

Father, standing on the prow of his ship, waving to us, to his village, as a chieftain should.

“Eirik!” his cry came across the wind, “Eirik! Melle! We are home!”

He was laughing.

We tried to call back, but the wind was against us, and he shook his head.

The keel scrunched on the stones, the hull breaking the ice-plates, the round beginnings of a frozen sea, swarming in the shallows.

Father leaped.

He leaped from the great height of the prow, down to the stones, and strode toward us.

“Bring the wheeled sleds!” he roared, but we had run to him, and threw our arms around him.

“My boy! My girl! How much have you grown!”

He laughed again, and we stared up into his eyes.

Eirik laughed back, I think.

I just smiled.

I know that’s how it was with Eirik and me.

Eirik’s tools were his hands, his legs, his arms.

My tool has always and always only been one thing, my thoughts.

And with that thought, I could see that although Father was laughing, something was bad inside, something that he did not want to be. And yet was.