East

Neddy

IN HER LETTER ROSE had sounded different. Older, I guess, her tone more serious. And it wasn't the words of the letter but the new voice that made me feel sad, as though I'd lost the old Rose forever.

After Mother confessed her folly that day, she and Father had come back together. Widow Hautzig had been banished from the household, and Father set out on no more journeys.

Once we received Rose's letter, Father and I spent many evenings talking about what to do. Despite the few clues Rose had let fall during our conversations while she was at home, we were still no closer to knowing where the castle was, except that it lay across a body of water. Finally we decided that for the time being we would do nothing; we would trust Rose and rely on her to find her way back home to us.

Although Mother agreed with that, she believed she must do more than just sit and wait. It was she who made the effort to find out all she could about the disappearing merchant, the one who had sold her the candle and flint. There wasn't very much to learn, though there were rumors aplenty. There was one story going around that he had been spotted late one night by the Romsdal Fjord and, when he turned around, was seen to have no back at all, only a big hollow space where his back should have been.

The only facts that could be pinned down were that the merchant said he came from Finnland and that he had an aversion to very warm weather, although even on the hottest days he wore long sleeves and long pants, as well as gloves made of soft leather. He made no friends and kept very much to himself. The other interesting facts that Mother told us were that the skin on his face was odd, scarred and ridged, and that he had an unusual voice, rough and deep, as though he had a perpetual sore throat or cough.

One happy event that occurred at about the same time was that my sister Sara and Harald Soren became engaged to be married.

Sara told me that at first it was her gratitude to Soren that made her like him so well. But as her health improved and they spent more time together, the gratitude ripened into love, and though he was a good deal older, it became clear they cared very much for each other.

Sara didn't want to set a date for the marriage until Rose returned—which we all understood—but we also felt that Rose would want her to go ahead with her life.

"She'd hate to think that you are delaying your happiness on her account," I said to Sara.

Sara nodded, then replied, "What of you, Neddy? Harald has said that you only have to say the word and he will get you a position with one of the leading scholars in Bergen, or even Trondheim, which is not so very far away. What you have said about me is just as true for you."

Sara was right. I had put off deciding to go, because of Rose. What if she came to visit and I was not at the farm? But receiving her letter had changed things. I gave serious thought to taking Soren up on his offer.

The matter was settled when Soren convinced Father to move the mapmaking business to Trondheim. Though not as large as Bergen or Oslo, Trondheim would afford a larger market for the maps Father made as well as more people he could hire to do the work. In addition, Father and Soren had discussed building a printing press in Trondheim. Printing presses had come only very recently to Oslo and Bergen, and were thriving. Soren felt the time was ripe for the business.

I still had my doubts. A part of me felt that if we moved on, it was as if we were accepting that Rose was gone forever. But a bigger part of me knew that she was not. Rose was alive somewhere and traveling the path she must, the way she always had.