Northern Lights Trilogy Read Free Page A

her.
    Elsa’s mother sighed as her father sat down heavily. “She’s a wonder, that one,” Gratia said, as if commenting on the impish tactics of elves instead of their daughter.
    “Perhaps I should allow her to go and sleep easier at night.” Amund glowered. “Is it my judgment that I should raise three daughters?” he asked, gesticulating toward the ceiling.
    His wife ignored him. “Come,” she said to both him and Elsa, “We must go if we are to make it to church on time. Now where is Carina?”

    “May I drive, Father?” Peder Ramstad asked, gently touching Leif Ramstad’s shoulder.
    Leif turned to regard his son, studying him eye to eye, and then nodded once. He immediately climbed into the elaborate surrey’s second long seat, ducking to avoid the fringed roof, joining his wife,Helga, and their daughter, Burgitte. All were impeccably dressed, as suited a wealthy family in Bergen on a Sunday morning. Peder’s older brother, Garth, heir to the Ramstad shipping fortune, took the front seat beside Peder. “Your last day at home, eh, little brother?” He clapped him on the back as Peder shook the reins, sending the matched span of geldings into a quick trot toward church.
    Behind them was the large family home that bordered the shipyard and faced the North Sea. Peder glanced back at the house, which had been built in the Italianate style after his father had returned from an inspirational trip to Europe. Peder had to laugh when he considered that at home he longed for the sea, and while crossing the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean, or elsewhere, his thoughts often pulled him home. At sea, he could mentally trace the low roof and overhanging eaves with decorative brackets, the entrance tower, the round-headed windows with hood moldings, the arcaded porch, and his bedroom on the second floor.
    It was from that bedroom, as a young lad, that he had watched ship after great ship, built and launched from Ramstad Yard, and longed to go on each one. Over the past decade, he had done just that. Now, at twenty-four, he had accomplished his second goal at an uncommonly young age: captaining his own ship. And he had done so by stubbornly refusing a position on any Ramstad ship; never did he want anyone to attribute his success to anything other than hard work and well-deserved rewards. The
Herald
, a bark-rigged clipper, sat proudly at Bergen’s docks, awaiting those immigrants who would accompany them in two days’ time to America. But the most important passenger would be his wife.
    He smiled as the sweet, warm coastline air filled his nostrils and the surrey glided over the macadam road toward town. She had never left his thoughts, it seemed. Like his childhood home, he was irresistibly drawn to Elsa Anders. In all his years away from Bergen, she had filled his nights with elaborate, fanciful dreams. At sea, facing the doldrums, Peder had filled his days with decisive plans for the future.On the still waters, safely past the Roaring Forties, Peder would stare out to sea and imagine his beloved as a mermaid, her corn-silk hair floating in exotic waves about her sculpted face, her blue eyes matching the water around her, beckoning him to join her. Long ago he had decided he would return to Bergen and claim Elsa as his own. But not until he reached a position of influence. Not until he was captain and could build her a decent home. How he had prayed that her heart would not, in the meantime, favor another!
    Peder had returned as often as he could, signing on for ships with routes that ported at Bergen. And each time he had found Elsa more beautiful, inside and out, than he had remembered her. He had last left her a year prior, promising to return for her as captain of his own ship. Others had laughed, but not his beloved Elsa. She had nodded once and said, “I will see you then, my future husband.” The secret had remained theirs until a fortnight past. Then, all of Bergen learned that the captain had