Free Sigrun's Secret by Marie-Louise Jensen

his hand briefly to my father at the other end of the ship, and then jumped off the side onto the rocks at the edge of the bay. I watched him run up the first few roughly-hewn steps leading to Ulf’s house on the barren mountainside that rose sheer out of the sea. Our ship manoeuvred back away from the shore, and headed out into the bay again, this time towards the open sea. Ingvar turned and stood waving to me. I waved back frantically, leaning over the side of the ship. His words went through my mind again and I realized he’d been asking for a promise.
    ‘I’ll wait for you,’ I called to him. The wind whipped my words away, and I wasn’t sure if he’d heard me over the surging of the sea against the rocks.
    We rounded the watery foot of the next mountain and Ingvar was lost to sight. I sank back onto the narrow wooden bench feeling more alone than I’d ever felt before.

CHAPTER EIGHT

     
    How could I exist away from my home for three long years? That was the anguished question that occupied my thoughts as the ship slid out of the huge bay into the open sea, tiny and unstable in such a vast expanse of unruly water. How could I bear to be parted from Ingvar for so long? And from my mother? In three years’ time I would be old ; I would be eighteen winters. I tried to imagine spending such a stretch of time away from my home, amongst strangers, and I couldn’t. I touched the horse amulet, remembering how Ingvar had kissed me and felt my heart quicken. For some reason I couldn’t explain to myself, I tucked the amulet inside my kirtle. It was Ingvar’s gift to me, and I didn’t want anyone else to see it.
    I looked at my father and brother who were busy setting the huge sail. What did they feel about this exile? The answer came to me with unsettling clarity. My father was in a state of shock and grief and my brother was furious. How did I know that with such certainty?
    I’d never sensed anyone’s mood before this. My mother had tried to teach me to read auras, but I’d never become adept at it. I struggled to even see them unless I concentrated hard, and their swirls of colours were an impossible language. But this … Where had it come from? What had changed in me? My thoughts turned to the amulet. Ingvar had said it had powers.
    I looked around the ship and focused on the different men on board. To my amazement, I could sense fear, dread, anger, excitement all around me. Erik and Geirmund were distressed about leaving their loved ones; the other men were excited at the prospect of travel. In a rush, I turned back the way we had come, reaching out to see if I could feel Ingvar’s mood again, as I had earlier, longing to sense him one more time, but there was only emptiness there. Perhaps we were already too far away.
    I knew my mother would scorn the notion that the amulet could bring me new abilities. She had no time for magic, believing it was used too often instead of sound medicines and good nursing. All gifts came straight from the gods, she said. But I wondered … I decided I had done right to hide the amulet. It would be my secret.
    My thoughts were distracted from my new-found ability by my father’s voice calling me. I went to him, unsteady on the heaving deck that seemed in one moment to drop away beneath my feet and at another to rise up hard to meet them, making me stagger.
    ‘Sigrun,’ father said, ‘I’m putting you in charge of the food stores. Will you familiarize yourself with what we have brought, and be in charge of handing out rations twice a day, please.’
    It was an order not a request. To my dismay, I realized I was the only female on board. ‘Father,’ I said. He was already walking away from me, but he paused. ‘Please, father,’ I said. ‘Why are we leaving? Where are we going?’
    ‘Not now, Sigrun,’ said my father firmly.
    I soon learned that one day at sea is very much like another: too many waves, too much wind, and too vast an expanse of salt water for comfort.