If you had asked Svea what the hardest thing in the world was even a few weeks before, she wouldn’t have had an answer. Sure, things had been hard, but there was never one thing that was worse than anything else to her. Now she knew. Waiting was harder than anything. After days of looking for her ward without sleep, Nana, her familiar, had insisted on returning home. At some point while the pair was out searching for Jorg, the fire in the hearth had died out, and left the home cold and dark. Svea didn’t notice. She ached all over from her efforts, compounded by the lack of sleep and the energy that had been drained by fear and grief. Once she’d curled up on the couch, she was frozen.
How much time passed with her like that, staring at the wall, she couldn’t say, and Nana had trouble understanding the clock on the wall. Still, the only movement was the slow breathing with occasionally sobs interrupting it, although the woman had long since run out of tears. She didn’t notice the pain in her stomach or the face in the window. She didn’t sleep, even though that had been the purpose of lying on the couch. The only thing that roused her was the knock at the door, and even that hadn’t been quite enough. It was Nana. Somehow, Nana’s voice had crawled into Svea’s head and the woman knew who was on the other side of the door. She could just… smell it.
The blanket was thrown off and the door opened, and the woman pulled Jorg into a tight embrace. Part of her mind reasoned that if she never let him go, he couldn’t get lost or run away ever again, and she’d never be in this situation again. That part wanted to keep him locked up inside the cottage, just as his parents wished, but it was no longer just for them. And yet, as she held him, she knew he was growing up. He’d survived his adventure and seemed none the worse for wear. And he was getting bigger too; eventually Jorg would want to spend less time around the house and more time playing with children his own age. And there were none around. But that would come in time. Right now, she just wanted to kiss him and hug him and let him know that everything would be okay now.
Nana ran circles around them, looking for the perfect place to jump into the embrace and give the young boy a piece of her mind (naturally in the form of as many kisses as she could fit into the time it took him to push her away) but Jorg complained of his hunger before she got the chance, and Svea finally noticed just how dirty he’d become.
Quickly, he was undressed and warm water was filling the tub and Svea left her familiar to supervise as she began to prepare supper. Naturally, she would make Jorg his favorite meal as a welcome home gift, and soon she had buns in the oven and bacon on the stove and was cutting some vegetables (whether he liked them or not, they were a part of supper) before she realized that her own hunger was gnawing at her. To quite the cramping, she grabbed an apple and took a bite as Nana came trotting out of the bathroom to sniff at the cooking meat.
Before she got there, two floating lights glided through the glass of the window and into the cottage. With a growl, Nana pounced on one, which, almost intelligently, retreated into Svea’s lower back and disappeared. A moment of confusion gave the second a head start before Nana spotted it floating toward the bathroom. She growled, and Svea turned and saw the light too. Neither had been made aware of the battle with the creature, and too few fairies lived in the henge to have attracted many of the orbs; neither knew what they were. All Svea knew was that it was heading for Jorg and she was going to protect him.
She reached out and, Nana sensing Svea’s alarm, which mingled with her own, snarled and leapt forward at the same time. In a flash, a spear of ice appeared and knocked the dog toward the empty hearth and away from the orb and the hall and the bathroom and the boy. It floated freely through the open door and into the young boy. Svea, startled by the ice, startled by the return of her curse, stared for a moment at what she’d created again before the sharp sting of pain hit her consciousness, and she rushed over to Nana to see if she was okay. Bruised ribs and a bruised ego caused the Samoyed to whimper rather pitifully and curl up on the couch without a word to her fairy.
Consumed by all the guilt that had sent her running from home herself, Svea sat back on her heels, quietly apologizing to her familiar, who wanted none of it. The splashing from the bathroom was, at first, brushed off as simple child’s play in the bath, but when Jorg actually called to her, Svea squeezed past the ice, thawing it into a puddle as she did (causing her to pause a moment in yet another shock), and into the bathroom where the tub had become as choppy as the Icelandic seas in a storm, and Jorg didn’t seem to be doing anything to cause the turbulence. Convinced that she was the cause of this magical disaster as well, Svea pulled Jorg from the tub and wrapped him in a towel before draining the water. Supper was effectively finished and too much had already gone wrong on such a happy occasion. She didn’t want to mess up anything more.
“Get ready for bed,” she told him, speaking in her native Icelandic, “and I’ll start the fire and we’ll eat and forget about the sea for tonight.”
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