The Viking Witch Cozy Mysteries Books 1-3

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Seeing my little yellow Volkswagen, all smashed up just about broke my heart. Then I remembered that someone had actually died, so maybe I had gotten off easy with a quick-healing head injury and some property damage.

Still. My parents had left Runde together in that Volkswagen, way back before they were even engaged. That little car had been witness to so much. Like my entire life.

I would've liked to have taken a moment to process my feelings, but my grandmother's impatience was getting palpable. I dug through the trunk and the back seat, pulling out what I needed most of all, like my clothes. I had it down to bare necessities and was about to shut the car back up again when my grandmother made a tisking noise and quickly shoved half of it back in the car.

"This will be enough for you to shower and change your clothes," she said, shoving one of the overly stuffed duffle bags into my arms. "I'll carry what your cat needs."

"But-" I started to say, reaching for one of the other bags. She slammed the trunk before I could quite touch it.

"You'll thank me later," she said. "I'll help with this load, but then I've got to get to the meeting hall. You'll have to fetch the rest on your own as you can."

I was afraid we'd have to cross the highway again. I had hated it a minute ago when we'd done it while carrying nothing at all. How was I going to attempt it this time with the bag in my arms blocking half of my vision?

But when my grandmother stepped out of the garage with the plastic crate holding cat bowls, a half-empty bag of food, a litter tray, and a mostly full bag of litter, she started walking to the far end of the service station parking lot, not towards the highway.

"Maybe we should trade," I said as I hurried to catch up. The shoes and clothes in the duffle I was carrying were bulky, but that bag of litter all on its own was quite heavy, especially for a...

It suddenly occurred to me I had no idea how old my grandmother was. In her sixties? Seventies?

"This is nothing," she said before starting down yet another steep path that zig-zagged under the bridge down to the river below.

By the time we emerged back on the dirt road, I was completely out of breath. She was right; small loads were all I'd be able to do.

"Come on," she said, pointing with the crate towards her cabin. She didn't even look out of breath. How was that possible?

Mjolner met us at the door. He moved out of my grandmother's way then blocked mine, yowling at me in a series of deeply irritated meows.

"Sorry," I said. "I'll get you food and water in just a second, okay? Stop yelling at me."

"Hopefully, it's not the litter box he was missing most," my grandmother said. I couldn't tell if she was joking or not.

I almost told her she didn't need to worry, that if Mjolner wanted to get outside, he would just walk through the walls until he was in her garden, but I bit my tongue and held the words back just in time.

"I have to get to the meeting hall," she said. "Get your cat settled in and take a shower. Leave those clothes in the cellar by the washing machine; I want to do them separately in case there is still glass in them."

"I can wash my own clothes, mormor," I said.

"Then do so," she said. "Come find me when you're ready, and I'll fix us some lunch. You remember how to get there?"

"Sure," I said. There was only one road in town and only one direction along that road we hadn't gone down yet. It ended at the meeting hall.

It was pretty much impossible to get lost in Runde.

"Good. Don't dawdle. You can make more trips up to your car this afternoon if you like," she said.

I wanted to groan out loud but mustered a smile again. By the time I had all of my things down to the cabin, I should be given a mountain goat merit badge or made an honorary sherpa or something.

After she had left, I filled Mjolner's food and water bowls and set his kitty litter down in the cellar. I put everything I was wearing in the washing machine then ran back upstairs to carry the duffle bag to my room.

I had forgotten about the smell of well water, earthy and metallic. It wasn't a bad smell, but it did bring more rushes of memory back to me. As a kid, I had been deathly afraid of spiders, and the murky depths of the cabin shower always seemed like they could hide dozens of them.

The next trip up to the car would definitely be for art supplies. I felt like I was letting all of this imagery just rush right by me, not getting any of it down on paper. But if everything I smelled, heard, or saw was going to trigger another tsunami of memories, I'd have plenty of opportunities to catch up later.

Once I was dressed with my long red hair loose so it could air dry, I made a quick pass through the cabin, just to be sure Mjolner hadn't picked some corner to use as a litter box in absentia. He followed me around, meowing at me questioningly as if he didn't know exactly what I was doing.

I checked everywhere except my grandmother's room. That door was still closed. He would've had to walk through that door to get in there, which he totally could do, but I was willing to bet if he was that desperate he would've just walked outside instead.

My hair was still damp when I put my shoes back on to go outside, but the day had gotten warmer since the morning walk when I had longed for a wool cap of my own, and I wasn't uncomfortable. I walked to the west along the dirt road, listening to the sound of the river I still couldn't quite see as it poured over rocks and into swirling pools, always in a hurry to reach the lake.

I shivered as I walked through the shadow of the highway bridge. It was cooler there, but it wasn't entirely that kind of shiver. It was like that bridge marked a boundary which I had just passed through, from one world to the next.

Which was silly, as I was still in Runde, which was far too small to contain two of anything. My imagination was clearly still in overdrive.

The road ended in the meeting hall's parking lot. It was large enough to fit several dozen cars but currently held only a single beat-up pickup truck that was parked next to the door. The truck looked like it had once been painted blue, but that had been long ago.

As I stepped from road to parking lot, I finally got a glimpse of the river itself, the water brown and foamy like nature's root beer. Despite my grandmother's admonishment not to dawdle, I found myself crossing the parking lot not to the hall but to the edge of the river. What was its name? Runde River, maybe? No, that felt wrong. I'd have to ask.

I stood at the edge, just letting the sound wash over me as well as the occasional cold cloud of spray blown up the river from the lake that sat flat and gray in the distance to my left. I could see the edge of river water that marked the top of a falls, but where the river met the lake was too far away and just a touch below the level of where I was standing for me to see it.

Then I looked to my right and had another one of those rushes of memories. I had spent a lot of time here that summer, playing near the river bank. This view was seared in my memory, the bluffs on both sides of the river that were wider near the lake but narrowed to something like a canyon deeper inland. And at the end of that gorge was a much taller falls. As if it sensed me looking at it, the falling water caught the sun and threw up a shimmering rainbow.

I had drawn this so many times. A thousand times in crayon when going to art school hadn't even yet been a dream of mine.

How had I forgotten everything? It was crazy. That summer had clearly been seminal in forming who I was, and yet until my grandmother called me, it had been nothing more than blank pages in my mental diary.

The sun went behind a cloud, and the rainbow disappeared. I lingered a few minutes longer before finally leaving the shore and heading towards the meeting hall.

This was not a bit like I remembered it. I would almost think it had been rebuilt since the last time I was here, but no one renovating a building in the 90s would've gone with such a bland 70s look. It was just a boxy building like a thousand others seen from the freeway; basically, just a pole barn with walls only thick enough to keep out the wind, the paint of no defined color that was always peeling, the neon sign a game of hangman with only half the letters guessed so far.

I stopped and closed my eyes, trying to summon up what I remembered from before, but nothing would come to me. Clearly, I wasn't in control of this process at all. Which was maddening; it was my brain, wasn't it?

I walked past the pickup truck and pushed open one of the two heavy fire doors. As gloomy as the day outside had gotten, it was still brighter than this space, and I blinked as I waited for my eyes to adjust.

As details emerged, my heart sank further. The ceiling tiles were a patchwork of water stains, the tables were all tilted at angles on wobbly legs, the plastic cushions on the chairs sporting a variety of tears and worn patches, the floor was scuffed and torn linoleum.

This was not how I remembered it at all. I tried to force a memory again, but the closest I got was something I had drawn once in pen and ink, a Viking longhouse filled with people drinking and telling tales as they waited out the winter.

Nope. Not remotely what I was looking at now.

I heard my grandmother's voice, then a man's. I looked, but I couldn't see anyone around. The chairs were drawn up neatly to the tables, and no one was manning the window where the neighbors picked up or dropped off the mail. The shelves of the general store were fully stocked but lacking in customers, and the lights weren't even on in the far corner of the room where local meetings were held.

Then my grandmother emerged from the very last place I looked, the bar. Or, more specifically, from a door behind the bar. She was carrying a wooden crate, but it was empty. The man with her looked to be in his seventies but with a full head of silver hair that had been almost too neatly combed. It looked like he had consulted a straight edge when he had combed that part, and his flannel shirt was neatly buttoned all of the way up to his neck. He was also carrying an empty wooden crate, and as they came around the counter, he reached to take the other from my grandmother.

"I can take it out to the truck for you," she said.

"No need, no need," he said. "You're busy. I can tell."

"No more than usual," she said. Then she saw me standing in the doorway. "Here's help for you. Ingrid, come over here and help Tuukka with these crates."

"Hello, Tuukka," I said as I took the crate from my grandmother's hands. "That name sounds familiar?"

"You don't remember me?" he said. He sounded so sad.

"I'm sorry," I said. Then added, "I got hit on the head last night. I think that's muddling things."

My grandmother made a harrumph sound, but when we both turned to look at her, she pretended like she hadn't. "You used to help Tuukka on his farm. He keeps bees."

"Oh," I said. Was I remembering something? Fields of clover?

Fresh honey still dripping from the comb. That I definitely remembered.

"Ah," Tuukka said happily, and I realized my thoughts were showing on my face again. "She remembers. Jakanpoika Farms. And of course, you're always welcome to visit me again."

"I remember the honey," I said. "I don't think I've had anything like it since."

"Not in the city, no," he said. "And of course, your grandmother here transforms it into the finest mead on any continent."

"Like you've been to any other continent," my grandmother scoffed, but not in a mean way.

I followed Tuukka out to his truck and helped him load the wooden crates into the back. I was just waving goodbye when I saw another car pulling into the parking lot. A car from the county sheriff's office. It pulled right in front of me into the space Tuukka had just left. I took a step back as the door opened, and the officer climbed out. He looked young, but I couldn't see any details past the hat and sunglasses. Which was probably intentional on his part.

"Ingrid Torfa?" he asked.

"That's me," I said. Apparently, everyone in this town was just going to know me on sight. But I really didn't look anything like my grandmother.

"I have some questions for you about what happened last night," he said.

"Questions?" I said. "About the car crash?"

"No," he said, scowling at me. "About the murder."