VI
Elin and Hoss were walking in the soon-to-be finished house. The windows were open and the floors and walls set firmly together, and they were scanning the rooms and the dimensions, thinking who would sleep where and what kind of furniture would they set in certain places.
Hoss led Elin by her hand to the upstairs, and peeked curiously from under the hat's rim, biting his lower lip and letting his blue eyes be lit up in a shining dream of the future to come. The closure of the building project was making his heart pound in a completely new way, and the fingers of his wife felt so alive and throbbing in his own large hand, that he didn't know which way to hold them to calm down.
Elin was laughing, too, and touched all the planks and the logs and the details of the fine carvings that had been set here and there. "And this, here, will be our bedroom", she said, and let go of his hand. She stood in the middle of a large room and leaned backwards, her palms resting on her round hips. She changed her voice to a low crumble. "This is the place, where I will say I love you very much, Eilynn", she said, imitating Hoss quite poorly. Hoss laughed, and followed her performance, leaning his side and his elbow to the door frame and tilting his hat back. A chortle came out of his mouth through the gap of his exposed teeth.
Elin turned around, crossed her fingers under her chin, and fluttered her eyelashes. A lot of the whites were visible, when she rolled her eyes from one corner of the ceiling to the other. This time her voice was shrill and chiming. "Oh, but Erik", she peeped. "You look so strong and scary, do not make me afraid!" She pulled the ribbon out of her plait, making her hair unravel almost by itself.
Changing her voice back to the low imitation of Hoss, she continued. "You resent me, my wife? Let me teach you a lesson..." When Elin changed from high and pompous giant to a faint little china doll, her voice became shrill and shrieking again. "But, my husband, be gentle to me! I'm but a poor little girl..."
Hoss was laughing at her vivid performance and the mockery she provided with expressive eyes and exaggerated gestures, he laughed so hard that tears came to his eyes. He spread his hands out to block her way. "So you need a lesson, little lady?"
Elin bit her lip with a spark in her eye. Her hair hung open and waved down at the same rhythm in which she was twitching, trying to find a direction to distract Hoss and run away from his reach. After some jolts and moves, they both made a final jump to different directions and she was able to run through the doorway, down the stairs and to the kitchen, where her escape was blocked by a door that was nailed shut. She stood there, panting, and leaned her back to the wall and glowered at Hoss, but what he saw in her eyes was certainly not fear.