Bright Midnight

A knowing smile tugs at her lips. She remembers. “You sound like you could write tourist brochures for this place.”

“If I ever need a third job, I’ll keep that in mind.”

The farm is located on the south side of the fjord, past a smattering of houses that line the shore. Shay stares out the window, oohing and ahhing over the things I take for granted every day: flower-filled window boxes, houses painted marigold and cherry, fragile attic windows tucked away under ornately carved archways. The houses then give way to forests with mossy floors, streams of gold light coming through the tops of the trees. For once I feel my surroundings, just by seeing it through her eyes. It seems like a land Tolkien would have dreamt up.

I also feel this strange surge of pride running through me, like I’d just slammed back a shot of it. I guess this is the first time I’ve shown my home to anyone, let alone anyone whose opinion I care about.

“Oh wow,” Shay says as we pass by a farm that slopes to the sea, tiny red huts with moss-covered roofs. I slow down so she can roll down the window and take a picture with the mountains reflecting on the fjord and cows at the water’s edge, even though I know she’ll have plenty of opportunity later to walk down this road and take a million photos to her heart’s content. I can’t wait to give her one of my cameras and see her really come alive with it.

“And here she is,” I tell her, parking the car alongside the fence. “Home.”

The farm is at the very end of the road, the house a giant two-story plus attic, painted white for as long as I can remember, with rust-red trim and an overgrown roof. If the whole mowing the roofs thing were true, our house could use a trim.

To one side of the house is the lawn sweeping to a small beach, bands of aqua and turquoise in the shallows before the sea floor drops off into murky dark depths. To the other side, the mountains rise up like soldiers on guard. When I was a kid, that’s what I always likened them to, like the earth was watching over me. Though I have to say that when times got tough, it wasn’t hard to imagine them as menacing giants, waiting to crush me in my sleep.

Finally, beyond the house are the barns where we keep the dairy cows and the sheep, not that there’s a lot of them. That’s primarily our source of income, farm-wise. There are a lot of sheep and dairy farms in the valley, but I guess because my family has had this farm for over a century, we’re still able to have some influence on the community. It doesn’t pay all the bills—hence my fishing boat—but for now we’re getting by.

“I can’t believe you live here,” Shay says, taking it all in as she steps out of the car. “This is like…something from make-believe. I expect a troll to pop up behind those rocks at any second.”

“Hey,” I say sternly, trying not to smile, “don’t say anything ill about the trolls. They can hear you.”

She sticks her tongue out at me playfully and laughs.

I’d forgotten what a gorgeous sound that was. It ruptures something hard and black and dark inside me.

“There you are!” Astrid says, running out of the house. Lise is behind her, throwing a scarf around her shoulders and sipping on a mug. “We thought you’d never come back.”

I jerk my head at Shay. “I took her to Hilde’s for early dinner.”

Astrid raises her brows, incredulous. “Hilde’s?” She shoots Shay an apologetic look. “How romantic, huh? He takes you to dinner at four with all the old farts. What did you have to drink? Coffee or water?” She giggles and comes over to Shay, pulling her into a quick hug. “Glad you have you here.”

“All right, Astrid,” I tell her, making a shooing gesture with my hands. “Go run along now.”

“I don’t think so,” she says, coming over to smack me on the arm. I can smell beer on her. She and Lise have probably cracked open a few bottles already. “She needs a tour. And not the Anders tour which is just grunting at objects and kicking stuff over.” I frown at her, completely befuddled. “Come on Shay.” She grabs her arm, leading Shay off toward the house and Lise. Shay looks back at me and shrugs.

I sigh, running my hand through my hair, and get Shay’s stuff out of the trunk.

The house is old but beautiful, and if you’re into history and the way things were, especially the way things were made, then it’s practically a treasure chest. Luckily, Astrid knows her stuff about the house and is filling Shay in about my grandparents and their grandparents and so on as they go from the foyer to the mud room to the kitchen to the dining room to the living room to the sitting room. I trail behind with the bags, catching snippets of Shay’s laughter and her impressed comments over the handmade tapestries on the walls, to the rugs on the floor, the lace curtains and the wood carvings and everything that makes this house what it is.