Chapter 16

-Not over there! The ghosts set up camp over there.
In his grief, Reynir had thought of telling Mikkel this in Norwegian, so Sigrun would know exactly what was going on. Sigrun ordered him to listen to Reynir on the subject of the "spirits". Considering that he was alone with a couple of grieving religious people who hadn't had any sleep the previous night, he decided that it was best to humor them for the evening.

Hildur wrapped her arms around Reynir the second he appeared in his dream safe area.
-Here you are! Why didn't you sleep last night? Did something happen?
Reynir burst into tears and collapsed into her arms:
-Tuuri. She...
-Started showing symptoms?
It turned out to be far worse than Hildur had imagined. The she realized that Onni probably knew on some level. He had woken up from his coma in the early morning, but had spent the day in a daze. Siv, to whom the coma had come out of nowhere, had started to suspect a stroke. Hildur decided that she was going to be the one find out what, exactly, Onni knew, and to fill any blanks there still was in his understanding of the events if he let her. Unfortunately, Reynir had more bad news. They were now journeying on foot, and they had left Lalli and Emil at the funeral site, expecting to have them catch up later. They hadn't come back when they had all gone to bed and Sigrun was planning to backtrack to look for them the next morning. Hildur suddenly realized something quite worrying. She had chosen to wait near the edge of Reynir's dream area that was the closest to Lalli's so she could look out for the young Finn as well. Of the two, only Reynir had shown up, and it was already quite late. In the best-case scenario, Lalli was running on dangerously little sleep. In the worst one... she didn't want to think of it right now. And she'd have to tell Onni about that, too. Not only she couldn't afford to lie to him anymore, but either his family link to Lalli or his brand of magic could possibly give Onni a means of finding him that neither she nor Reynir had.

Pieces of a giant, and no sign of Emil nor Lalli. Probably a mutual kill of sorts. Looking for them had tired Sigrun out, to the point that she had collapsed in the middle of the road to their next camping spot. The very person she had tried to protect by incurring the wound responsible for her state was now dead, in addition to Tuuri. As for Lalli, Reynir had dreaded his next conversation with him just the day before. Now, he was ready to give everything to be able to actually have it, even if it was to be angrily shouted at for wanting this expedition to happen, and that neither he nor Onni wanted to have anything to do with him anymore. On that matter, Onni had probably already had such words for Hildur and Bjarni, by now. Was Onni going to care about their father's henchmen anymore, now that neither of his two remaining family members were coming back from the expedition? Only the sight of Sigrun's body precariously balanced on top of the supplies and the refusal to be an extra physical burden to Mikkel on top of everything else, were keeping Reynir from letting himself collapse. "We need to deliver the boy and the research material to the pickup site" had been Sigrun's words. Reynir hadn't failed to noticed that she had mentioned neither herself, nor Mikkel. If he ended up being the only one alive, he'd consider putting his back-up plan into place. He was fine whether said back-up plan ended up being necessary or not. But as long as Sigrun and Mikkel were still alive, he could at least give them the satisfaction of feeling they were doing their jobs protecting him correctly, and not do anything that would make them uselessly risk their lives; travelling on foot without Emil and Lalli was more than dangerous enough on its own. Out of nowhere, Kitty gave him that characteristic cat look that gave the impression of knowing one's deepest and darkest secret. He gave a faint smile back at her. She, at least, would do fine on her own if the worst he was currently imagining happened.

Sigrun, at least, could share her thoughts with Mikkel without mentioning the ghosts, and hence have Mikkel actually listen to her. Maybe he could at least tell Mikkel about his more mundane trouble, once he was done with Sigrun, starting by the fact that he wasn't sure he'd be able to return to his home even if he managed to get rid of the ghosts. Even if his father was in jail, how could he be sure he was going to be safe in the family estate, or anywhere in the Known World for that matter? How could be he ever be sure any new person he met wasn't a friend of his father's he had yet to meet, or a hireling of any of them, sent to finish the job? He heard a gun fire, and promptly flattened himself on the ground, accidentally knocking the pan containing their dinner off the fire in the process. It quickly turned out that Sigrun had pressured Mikkel into demonstrating his shooting skills, without any idea that Reynir had been having thoughts that made nearby gunfire one of the last things he needed to hear. After that, he preferred going straight to bed.