Bracelet of Bones Read Free Page A

him.”
    “Came? Who did?”
    “Harald’s men. Last night.”
    “But he’s . . .” The back of Solveig’s neck was freezing. “But he’s . . .”
    “Gone!” cried Asta, and she spit on the marl floor. “Gone to join Harald.”
    “Where?”
    “How should I know? East to Garthar. South to Kiev and Miklagard. That’s what they kept saying.”
    “But . . .” Solveig gasped. “He said . . .”
    “Since when,” demanded Asta in an acid voice, “were men and promises close companions?”
    He knew, thought Solveig. He knew. That’s why he took me to Stiklestad. That’s why he wanted me to sleep up on the hill.
    “How long?” she asked. “I mean, how long?”
    “Don’t ask me.”
    Solveig was wordless. She felt as if she had dissolved into a pile of dust.
    “Still,” said Asta, “I’ll be all right, won’t I? I’ll be just fine with Kalf and Blubba and you, Solveig, you dreamer.”
    Solveig walked out of the dairy. She walked away from the farm and down to the fjord. She sat cross-legged at the end of their little wooden jetty.
    He’ll send for me, she thought. Just as Harald has sent for him. He swore he’d take me with him. Didn’t he?
    But she began to shiver in the broad sunlight.
    To begin with, she choked back her tears. But then she began to sob. She sobbed—she couldn’t stop herself—and her tears dripped between the planks of the jetty into the salt water.
    All day Solveig kept going over everything her father had told her at Stiklestad. Each word. Each silence and gesture. His trembling.
    She understood why her father wanted to follow Harald. But what she couldn’t understand was why he hadn’t told her. All she felt was her own desolation and helplessness.
    That night, Solveig could see Asta sitting on her three-legged stool by the fire. Her sweep of copper hair glinted inthe flickering light. Her stepmother moaned, and then she began to pray and redouble her prayers.
    Asta prayed to Thor for Halfdan’s safety. She prayed to Freyja to give her strength of mind, strength of heart. She prayed to all the guardian gods for Kalf and Blubba. She even prayed for Solveig, and then she tossed her head, and hawked, and spit into the fire.
    Solveig lay as still as a stone seems to lie. Through half-closed eyes she saw her stepmother stretch out on her sleeping bench and heard her sigh as loud and long as a seventh wave breaking.
    Then Kalf and Blubba barged in.
    “Beware!” proclaimed Kalf in his high-pitched voice. Although he was fifteen, his voice was still breaking, one moment quite gruff, the next squeaky.
    “Beware of a creaking bow,” Blubba said.
    “And a yawning wolf,” said Kalf.
    “Beware of new ice.”
    “And a pretty girl’s pillow talk.”
    Both boys guffawed.
    “Kalf! Blubba!” Their mother’s voice cut through the darkness. “Enough!”
    “Beware of a stepfather,” Kalf went on, “a scuttling stepfather. Come on, Blubba!”
    But Blubba didn’t join in. He knew what Solveig must be feeling.
    “Blubba!”
    “Enough!” their mother cautioned them.
    Before long, both boys had fallen asleep, and so had their mother. Solveig lay in the thicket of their breathing, their growling and snorting, trapped and unable to escape.
    My father, she thought. My father. She moaned like a wolverine, one long, low warbling moan. Then she banged her head against her pillow sack.
    In the high skies, stars froze and the moon marbled. Then kind clouds closed the sky lid, and down came the rain.
    Solveig was first to wake.
    It was still raining. She could feel it without hearing it.
    She felt so drained. As if her head were too tired to think and her heart had run out of feeling. Then she remembered all over again. And as soon as she remembered, warm under her sheepskin, she shivered.
    Solveig put both arms around her pillow sack, drew it close, and buried her face in it. That was when she felt it. A lump. Hard and edgy, flat almost. She poked her fingers inside the