Midnight Eclipse (Paranormal Viking Romance, Completed)

Chapter 6: Mountain Creek

Greenland, 15th century

If there's one thing Greenland doesn't lack, it's fresh water. Streams cascade down the mountainsides every spring when the snow finally starts to melt. Back in the homelands, from where my ancestors set sail many generations ago, the sagas tell that people had to dig down in the dirt to find something to drink, and even after all that work, the water was sometimes polluted.

Here, the water is always clear and sparkling. We gather it in buckets as it trickles down in crevasses and forms creaks. We use it to wash, cook, and clean.

Carrying water down to the village is one of the regular tasks of every morning. I do it, and my brother does it. Which is why I know I will find Ivar by the mountain creek. Here, we will be able to talk without my father's interference. Because back in the village his all-seeing eyes survey everything. He's like the almighty Odin from the old sagas that are told by the campfire at night. My father is everywhere and controls everyone.

Ivar sits on the gray rock, enjoying a brief moment of freedom. Sometimes, my brother still looks like a kid, even if he's seventeen and has been counted as a man for a couple of years now. But as his face relaxes in the morning sun, his youth is still very apparent. His beard is yet to grow in fully and his limbs don't carry the muscle of a grown man.

It's only us left now, out of all the children our mother Freja birthed. When I was born, I wasn't yet the oldest. I had a brother and a sister welcoming me. Ragnar and Hedda. I only have faint memories of them. Small glimpses of a childhood spent playing in the high grass and climbing knotted trees. Then, when I was about three, a ship sailed in from Iceland on a cold fall night. It brought with it provisions for our settlement to last for the winter, and it brought with it a terrible flu. The whole village came down with it. I remember waking after spending forever in a feverish fog and my siblings being gone.

Ivar was born the following summer. For the first few years of his life, I remember trying not to attach myself to my little brother, because surely he would be gone one day too. Everyone else seemed to perish around me after all.

There were more siblings born after that. None of them survived their first winter.

But Ivar was still there. I couldn't shield myself from him once he started to talk. Someone had to show him the ways of our world after all. Someone had to teach him to play in the field and climb trees. Someone had to listen to all my complaints about the unfairness of life. There is no one in this world that knows me better than him, except for Gudrun perhaps.

Then came Signy. Our littlest sister. She who also survived her first winter. For ten years, we were graced with her blossoming presence. My father adored his only daughter. My mother spoiled her rotten.

Life was at times, but we thought the worst was over. Spring started to come earlier each year. Shipments from Iceland gave us what our island couldn't.

That's when the world suddenly froze. Winter wouldn't end and thick ice sheets prevented any ships from traveling to or from our shores.

Mother died first, trying to find a way to escape the hardship. Signy died in the endless winter that followed, life sucked out of her from the relentless cold. My father's hope and kindness died with them.

It's only me and Ivar now. Our father may be alive but he won't protect us. And we're not children anymore anyway. We don't need him to shield us. We don't need him at all. We only need each other.

Walking down the path toward the creek, my feet lose traction in the loose dirt. I yelp as I stumble downward, grabbing a pine branch to catch myself. The parrying move is successful and I remain standing.