The Silver Thread (38 page)

Strangely, even without his morning tea, and even though he was for the most part being ignored, Talvi seemed happy as a lark throughout their journey, humming every now and then as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. After the plane had landed in Sofia, they had taken a taxi north until they reached a gravel road in the middle of nowhere. From that point, they got out and walked, and walked, and walked through the foothills of the Balkan mountains until they reached a familiar waterfall just as the sun was setting. They stepped over the stones and behind the falls, into a cave dwelling that Annika hadn’t seen in the better part of a year.

“Runa…Runa lagoona,” Talvi called playfully, but there was no answer. The huge hearth hadn’t had a fire in it recently, either, though there were soft furs lying on top of the little wool mattresses. Talvi pushed them together to accommodate his height, but when it was finally time to go to bed, Annika found herself turning her back to her husband and inching closer to Finn.

They spent the night there and left right away in the morning. Other than beautiful scenery and miserable silence broken by Talvi’s cheerful humming, nothing exciting happened until midday, when a black raven came out of nowhere and landed on Finn’s shoulder.

“Cazadora,” he sighed in relief, nuzzling into her soft feathers. “Please, please fetch Asbjorn. Tell him to bring us three horses as fast as he can.”

It was the most he had said in days.

“Go on ahead. I’ll be right in as soon as I turn the horses out,” Finn offered as they arrived at the sprawling Marinossian hacienda.

Annika followed Asbjorn and Talvi through the yard, past the gardens, into the kitchen, down the hall, and into the round shaped conservatory, where Talvi’s older sister sat on a brown velvet chaise lounge, staring at a chess board on the coffee table. Next to the chess board sat a plate of cookies. Sloan was sleeping in the crook of one arm while she tapped her fingers silently on the velvet cushion with her free hand. Talvi’s mother was relaxing in the chaise lounge across from Anthea, tossing a ball of yarn back and forth with Stella. A pitcher of milk sat on a tray with some glasses on top of an empty wood burning stove.

“Who’s winning?” Asbjorn asked as he stepped between the arched windows and the chaise lounge, greeting his wife with a kiss on top of her head before starting to rub her shoulders.

“Who do you think?” Anthea grumbled as she frowned in concentration and moved a chess piece forward. Then she looked up and her irritated expression melted into a happy one.

“Annika, it’s
so
good to see you!” she exclaimed as loud as she dare, while Sloan slept on. “And Talvi, it’s good to see you too, but oh, Annika, I’m so glad you’re well.” She patted the empty space beside her on the chaise and Annika took a seat.

“We were so worried when the boys and Runa and Dardis returned without you,” said Althea, giving her a warm smile. “But you seem to be alright.”

“It’s been a little crazy, but I’m okay,” Annika said, grinning at Anthea and then at Althea. It was so nice to have someone kind talking to her for a change.

“What happened to your hair like the fairies?” Stella asked, frowning Annika with suspicious eyes as she clutched on to her ball of yarn.

“Oh, I changed it. What do you think, Stella? Do you like it, or should I go back to the way it was?” Annika asked, running her fingers halfway through her brown hair before they got stuck in a snarl. All that horseback riding had been unkind to her hair.

Stella pinched her little mouth from one side to the other, thinking hard.

“I like the red better.”

“I do too. I’m going to change it back as soon as I can,” Annika agreed, smiling as Stella put the yarn ball in her mouth and crawled towards the tall arched windows on her hands and knees. She looked like a little panther, prowling under the potted plants that sat along the windowsills. Annika had to admit, her niece was pretty adorable. And smart.

“Mother, do we have any of that jalapeño cheese left from last night?” Anthea asked. “It was so good, that I can’t get it out of my mind.”

“Is this what you were just asking for?” Ambrose replied, having just come into the room with a plate of sliced cheese.

“Yes!” she hissed. He handed his daughter the plate, and then looked briefly at the chess board before making his move.

“Checkmate,” he said, his eyes twinkling merrily.

“Really, Father?” she whined, frowning at him as he sat down beside his wife. Anthea took a slice of cheese, placed a cookie on top of it, and shoved it into her mouth, careful not to get crumbs on Sloan. The happy sigh that came out of her made it clear that this was a winning combination.

“I’ll warn you now,” said Asbjorn with a wry grin, still rubbing Anthea’s shoulders. “If anyone else wants a cookie, you better act fast.”

“Oh, there’s more in the kitchen,” said Althea, rising up from the lounge with a motherly smile. “I’ll go get them.”

“Is it really that good?” Annika asked, seeing how delighted Anthea’s expression was as she put another cookie on a second slice of cheese and ate it. Anthea nodded enthusiastically, and Annika reached for a piece of jalapeño cheese to see what all the fuss was about.

“Thanks,
sludoor
,” she said to Talvi as he offered her the plate of cookies. Seeing they were snicker doodles, she took two, and put the piece of cheese under one of them before eating it. It wasn’t anything like what she was expecting, but spitting it out wasn’t an option. She smiled at Anthea as if jalapeño and cheese flavored snicker doodles were the best thing since sliced bread.

“Oh, Annika, you’re learning Karsikko,” Anthea said happily. “How lovely to hear you speak it. Have you learned any other words?”

“Well, I know
slunchitse
means ‘little sun’, and I got called a
kotka diva
a couple times, but I don’t know what it means,” she said, with her mouth full of cheese and cinnamon goo. “Is that Karsikko?”

Ambrose snorted and stroked his beard in amusement, while Asbjorn stopped rubbing Anthea’s shoulders and said he needed a glass of milk. Anthea’s eyes were wide, and her mouth was pinched in a screwy, tortured smile.

“Yes, and I suppose you heard that from my darling brother,” she said, glaring up at Talvi, before looking down at Sloan, who was resting peacefully.

“Mmm hmm,” Annika nodded; her mouth still full. With trembling hands, Talvi shoved the plate of cookies into her lap and left the room in a hurry. Anthea shook her head and looked at her father for help.

“You may as well tell her what it means, since you two seem to be enjoying those disgusting cookies so much,” Ambrose said, grinning mischievously.

“It’s a very crude term for a lady when she’s ovulating,” Anthea explained quietly, leaning closer to Annika so Stella couldn’t hear. “It translates to ‘wild female cat’, but it refers to when they come into season. They yowl and carry on, and rub up against your legs constantly, because they are so desperate for…for kittens. They are unbearably annoying until they get what they want from the male cats. Why ever would Talvi call you such a name, unless you had your three days with him? Are you not telling us some rather exciting news? Am I finally to be an aunt?” Anthea’s brown eyes lit up while she cradled Sloan close, waiting for an explanation.

It
wasn’t Talvi who called me a kotka diva.
Annika thought, panicking as she struggled to swallow the disgusting jalapeño cinnamon mush in her mouth.
It
was Finn. He called me that when we were in Paris together, before Talvi came to
get us!

“No!” Anthea cried out, startling Sloan awake. “Oh my gods,
no
!”

Meanwhile, Talvi had stormed out towards the stables in a fury, and met his brother halfway across the back yard.

“Is it true, the reason why you didn’t answer your telephone for three days?” he demanded, his voice shaking. A wild, fierce look had overtaken him, and he looked like a black panther ready to pounce. “What did you
do
to Annika in Paris?”

“I slipped up, Talvi. I made a mistake,” Finn admitted in a calm voice, trying to avoid looking into his brother’s furious eyes. “I know I never should have done what I did to her, but there was no other way around it. I had no choice. I swear I didn’t hurt her. I was as gentle and careful with her as I could possibly be. She wanted more…she begged me for more, but I only gave her as much as I thought her body could safely tolerate…”

“Anthea, what’s wrong?” asked Asbjorn, rushing to her side immediately. “Is it the baby?”

“No,” she said, still looking at Annika as if she were about to cry. “Not
ou
r
baby!”

“Oh, no, no, no, I’m not pregnant,” Annika said quickly, wishing she had a glass of that milk. She was positive it wasn’t the cookie she’d just swallowed that made her feel like throwing up. Anthea still appeared astonished as she tried to coax Sloan back to sleep.

“But you and Finn were together for your entire three days…” she pointed out weakly, unable to comprehend what she had learned. Ambrose and Asbjorn shared an astounded glance before resting their eyes on Annika.

“Yeah, I know,” Annika replied, studying the plate of cookies in her lap to escape their stares. What a lovely, normal conversation to be having with her new in-laws. She looked at Stella, who was peeking out the window with the ball of yarn still in her teeth. How best could she answer everyone without saying it out loud in front of the children? How best could she answer without unintentionally revealing a play-by-play of that week? They didn’t need to know about her waking up naked in Finn’s arms. They also didn’t need to know about the blue paint, and everywhere it had been.

“We found a way around it,” she said, still staring at the plate in her lap.

“There is no way around it, Annika,” said Asbjorn, sounding doubtful. “Not if you were together. You wouldn’t have been able to keep your hands off each other. You can’t even sleep through it. The pull is too strong.”

“It turns out that morphine is stronger,” she whispered, afraid to look up at him. She stretched out her left arm and pointed her right finger toward her inner elbow, making a motion like she was shooting herself. Anthea’s worried eyes softened, and the tension in the room eased up.

“So
that’s
why you came to visit so unexpectedly…to make certain that Finn wasn’t left alone after such an ordeal,” Ambrose sighed, stroking his beard again. “I’m amazed that it worked. He had a long, long battle with that after his polo accident, you know.”

“He mentioned it, but he didn’t go into much detail,” said Annika, feeling relaxed enough to look at him.

“He would have healed faster if he wasn’t out of his mind for so long, but we had no idea how bad it really was until I relocated the herb garden.”

Annika wrinkled her forehead in confusion as she looked at her father-in-law.

“I don’t understand how that helped you find out about Finn. Did you dig up a bunch of poppies?” she asked. Some of the seriousness left Ambrose’s face as he helped himself to a snicker doodle from the plate in her lap.

“Well, at one point they were poppies. I had the horses all hitched up, thinking it was going to be a simple project, and then the plow turned up a crop of something I’d never seen in the soil before,” he explained. “I discovered that Talvi had been burying all of Finn’s empty morphine bottles under a clover patch on the edge of the gardens. He spent the rest of the spring digging glass out of the dirt, and I’m certain that’s why the herb garden thrives where it is, along with getting better sunlight. I made him sift through the soil until there wasn’t so much as a pebble left in it. I couldn’t have the horses stepping on that, let alone anyone digging in it. But I’m just grateful that he was too lazy to dig much deeper, or we might never have realized the extent of Finn’s addiction until it was too late. He nearly died in the polo accident…we certainly didn’t want to lose him to something that we could have prevented.”

“When he finally got the morphine out of his system, he swore he would never do it again,” Anthea added, “but of all the reasons to risk walking among the poppies, I don’t believe I can think of one so understandable, dire as it is.”

“Mummy, look at Uncle Talvi and Uncle Finn!” Stella giggled as she pressed her hands and nose against the window in between two huge ferns. “They’re hugging!”

“That’s nice, dear,” said Anthea, playing with Sloan’s curls as she shifted him on her lap. She turned back at Annika, looking quite stern.