The Number 7 Page 13

  “I do,” Gerhard confirmed. “And the tomte’s always come. So hurry home and do as we say.”

  The girl’s mother called to her from the back of the church and in an instant she was gone. Lasse and Gerhard gathered their coats and followed sleepily.

  “It’s not silly,” Gerhard defended himself.

  “Oh, come on,” Lasse groaned.

  “It brings good luck.”

  “It brings mice,” Lasse playfully shouldered his brother before jogging ahead.

  The crisp night air smelled bitter, like rust or iron. The cold made their bones ache and their limbs numb. Lasse shuddered and hopped twice to help his circulation.

  “Ready, Bror? We’ll race home.”

  But Gerhard just stared at the sky. It was too wondrous to go back just yet. There was still something magical about these early hours. Christmas morning.

  “Can’t we take the way by the shore?” he asked hopefully.

  “Helvete!” Lasse cursed under his frosty breath, and then remembered he was in front of the church. “Oh.”

  “It’s too beautiful to go back now,” Gerhard began, but Lasse held up his hand.

  “We’ll race to the shore, then.”

  “Let’s take our time,” Gerhard pleaded.

  “Oy, oy, oy, Gerhard. You really are something. I’m freezing like a dog!” Lasse looked annoyed while lighting a hand-rolled cigarette, but his tone softened as he exhaled. “Well, come on.”

  The two brothers rounded the path by the shipyards and strained to hear a low hum breaking the silence of the evening. Drums? Motors? No.

  Stallarna. The stables.

  Down near the docks sat a squatty old barn with a rotting wood door. The old horse stables. It’d been sitting there for two hundred years, and in the summer, the seamen could still smell manure when they walked by. Old barn smells had a way of lingering for centuries.

  “Should we?” Gerhard asked, but Lasse was already headed in that direction.

  A sign in the window read STÄNGT, CLOSED, but the penetrating sounds from within alluded to something else. Lasse reached for the latch, and the boys stepped inside.

  The room was warm; a fire blazed behind an iron grate. A weary fiddler played sadly in the corner. Twenty shipyard workers, brutish men with biceps the size of ham hocks, leaned heavily on each other. Pontus, with his deep, baritone voice, stood near the fire on a footstool, leading the men in Bellman’s “Epistle 72.” The twins sighed at the sight of him. One of the men toward the back of the crowd wept somberly as he remembered a woman he once loved. His salty tears mixed with the burning drink he lifted to his lips. Stallarna, where the spiritless found spirits to warm their souls. Lasse and Gerhard sipped slowly on mulled wine, listening to the sad song of the sleeping nymph. They waited until the end before pulling Pontus from his pedestal and away from his adoring audience. His hair, his pores, his breath smelled sweetly of brännvin, and the barkeep gave his singer a pint for the walk back. The uncle stumbled as his nephews pushed him out into the snow.

  The three men walked in silence as they passed the tall grasses on the shore. Glimmering waves crashed quietly on the shadowed sand. Pontus stopped to blow his nose in a dirty rag.

  “Nephews, let me tell you this now before I’m too sober. I don’t think I’d have the courage to say it without . . . ” He lifted his drink—a toast to the night’s sky—and gulped loudly. The twins stopped and stared at their red-rimmed, sad-eyed uncle. “Those words you heard tonight? The old man’s sermon about miracles and divinity? Don’t you believe it.”

  Pontus rubbed his nose with the back of his hand and sniffed. The twins exchanged unknowing glances. Their breath danced in the air before it disappeared.

  “There are no miracles in this world. There is only you and me. There is only this,” he reached into the snow and gave a handful to each brother. “Feel it. Is it a miracle?”

  Gerhard stared as the snow melted and dripped out of his hands.

  “Of course not. We make our own miracles, boys. Don’t let them fool you into believing we don’t.”

  XIX.

  I woke up to the smell of bacon. Someone clamored in the kitchen. The sound of pots, pans, and lids falling and cascading across linoleum penetrated the house. I pulled my cover to my chin and turned toward the dark corner of the wall. First day of Christmas break and I was awake at seven. Classic.

  I blinked my eyes and shifted to my back, staring at the ceiling. At least bacon was one of the best smells to wake to in the morning.

  Sighing, I pulled myself up and sat on the side of the bed, shuffling into my sheepskin-lined moccasin slippers. I wasn’t used to cold, bare floors. Slippers in North Carolina were for show. Slippers in Pennsylvania were a necessity. They were the first thing I put on in the morning, and the last thing I took off before sliding into bed.

  Finding the strength to stand, I pulled on a pair of red pajama pants Dad had found in a box in the attic. I stretched and then bent down to look at myself in my vanity mirror. Smeared mascara under my right eye and a messy ponytail stared back at me.

  So this is what late-night make-out hair looks like, I smiled smugly recalling the previous evening.

  I wiped away most of the makeup smudge and pulled my arms through an oversized button-up cardigan. I closed my bedroom door behind me as I sleepily made my way down the steps. Passing Greta’s bedroom, I gave the door a quick rap. She groaned from behind the door, but she’d be joining me in the kitchen soon enough. I knew her too well. Once awake, Magnussons couldn’t go back to sleep. Dad called it “work ethic.” I called it “insomnia.”

  I was happy the phone calls from my grandmother had—presumably—resumed. I marveled at Grandma’s storytelling. It was less than a week before Christmas, and this last phone call’s wintry setting seemed appropriate for the season. Did Grandma know that? Could she see my calendar, from wherever she was calling? Could she tell the holiday was approaching? Could she see me?

  “Morning, kiddo!” Dad greeted me from my reminiscent stupor, swinging his spatula and nearly dropping a pancake to the floor.

  “Morning.” I hitched up a pant leg to scratch an itch on my ankle, yawning.

  Dad stared at me, the pancake still on the end of the spatula. “You’re getting taller every day. Long legs. Just like your dad.” He turned back to the stove. Flipped the flapjack and let it sizzle on the skillet.

  I slumped into a chair at the kitchen table with one leg up, resting my chin on my knee. My eyes closed involuntarily.

  “Sleepy?”

  “Dad, it’s Christmas break. This should qualify as child abuse, truly. You’re lucky you have bacon,” I said, grabbing a slice from a plate on the table and waving it at him accusingly.

  “Here.” He set a mug of steaming coffee in front of me.

  “Ah,” I happily inhaled. “The addiction continues.”

  “Is Greta awake?” he asked, finally acknowledging her existence.

  “Yeah, but not voluntarily. You might be able to shut me up with coffee. But Greta—”

  “Heads are going to roll!” Greta announced on her entrance into the kitchen.

  She and I glanced quickly at each other, but even more quickly we glanced away. Dad didn’t even notice the tension between us.

  “Greta needs something stronger than caffeine,” I sneered.

  She ignored me, unwrapping a Lady Grey tea bag and tossing it into an empty mug.

  “I don’t want to hear it, girls,” Dad warned. How did he not see it? “I’m in a good mood. The sun’s out. It’s going to be a good day!”

  I leaned back in my chair to look out the kitchen window. Just as I’d expected: overcast, like the usual Pennsylvania-in-December gray day. Dad was giddy. I eyed Greta suspiciously, but she was consumed with pouring hot water into her mug.

  “What’s with today?” I plucked a slice of bacon from where it sat on a grease-soaked paper towel.

  “Today,” Dad waited with a dramatic pause and place
d his hands on his hips, sticking out his chest to make a proclamation. “Today, Greta gets a set of wheels!”

  My eyes darted to Greta just in time to see her choke on her first sip of black tea. She set the mug on the table, dabbing her mouth with a napkin.

  “Excuse me?”

  Dad walked over to her, placing his hand on her shoulder. “It’s long overdue, Greta. It’s something we should have done a long time ago.” He placed his other hand on my shoulder.

  I rolled my eyes. I crunched my bacon while Dad had his moment of paternal joy. Greta was speechless. So he was just going to buy her forgiveness? Or her love? Or whatever it was he thought he was missing. It all made me a bit sick. What we needed was to talk about us. Not cars. Not Christmas. Us.

  “Seriously? I don’t have to drive the station wagon anymore?” Greta asked tentatively, as if Dad could take back the offer at any moment. She didn’t trust him completely. I didn’t either.

  “Yes, really. The Outback is a sports utility wagon, a four-wheel-drive sports utility wagon that’s been good to you. Show a little respect to the old girl.” Dad smiled, dishing up a pair of blueberry pancakes and setting them on the table.

  “I’ll pay whatever respects I have to, as long as I don’t have to drive it anymore,” Greta said, hardly able to contain her excitement. I guess his strategy worked. They were acting perfectly happy with each other.

  “My only restrictions,” Dad held up a cautionary finger before turning back to the skillet to pour some more batter. “Used, under fifteen thousand, any color other than red, and you promise to always come home.”

  “Of course!” Greta exclaimed before adding, “But Dad, red is my favorite color.”

  “A favorite color of the police, too. Red cars are magnets for speeding tickets. How about gray? It’s a nice, sensible, mature color,” Dad nodded approvingly.

  “Gray,” I joked. “To match her hair color?”

  Greta kicked me under the table. She wasn’t going to let me ruin her chances of getting a car. So I shut up, and ate my blueberry pancakes with extra syrup. Neither of them fooled me. Whatever it was Dad was doing was only masking the truth. It’d all come to a head eventually. I figured I’d just sit back and wait.

  After breakfast, we picked Rosemary up on the way down the hill. It seemed like she and Dad couldn’t get enough time together. Since the move—since meeting Rosemary—Dad had exhibited a new happiness. It wasn’t something I could wholly attribute to one thing: the new surroundings, the new love interest, or something else. And in the end, I didn’t mind.

  We pulled into the first car lot. Greta’s foot tapped anxiously on the Outback floor. I supposed she was nervous about making such an important decision: choosing a fashionable, safe, reliable, affordable car. Fashionable being the highest priority, reliability being the second. We got out of the car and, as she and Dad ventured down a row of sedans, Rosemary and I stayed back, letting the two of them have their room to privately discuss options.

  “So, how’s it going?” Rosemary asked casually.

  It was something I admired about her: her perceptive ability to know when there was something bothering me. She’d come to me, but I never thought of her as meddlesome.

  “It’s okay,” I replied. “I got another message last night. It was a story about Christmas. Kind of appropriate, I guess.”

  “You’re getting closer, Louisa. It’s like you’re about to collide. Whatever it is, it’s going to be big. I can feel it. Just be patient.”

  “Yeah. I still wish I knew my role. She’s set me up for a lot of questions and not a lot of answers.”

  “They’ll come.”

  “How can you be so sure?” I stopped walking.

  Rosemary turned to face me. “Things like this don’t happen without a reason,” she shrugged.

  “I’m not so sure anymore.”

  “Just wait, Louisa. The answers will come.” She started walking and I followed. Up ahead, Dad and Greta were peering into the window of a blue Toyota Camry. “If you don’t mind me asking—and let me know if you do—how are things going with you and Gabe? He seems like a nice young man,” she leaned over and knocked her shoulder playfully into mine.

  “Oh, Rosemary, I’m going skiing with him. As in ‘meeting the parents’ skiing. I’m kind of nervous,” I admitted. “I like Gabe because he’s upfront with me, even though I didn’t think he was in the beginning. With Gabe, I kind of feel like what you see is what you get. It’s refreshing.”

  “But?” Rosemary raised an eyebrow, hearing the uncertainty in my tone.

  “Is there a ‘but’?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Well, there’s this other guy, Chris—”

  “I knew it!” Rosemary clapped her hands animatedly. “The Leo.”

  “What?”

  “That time you came to my house for the almanac report? I didn’t tell you, but there was something with the August tenth birthday guy. Like a spark from a piece of flint, but I couldn’t get a handle on it. That’s how it works, sometimes. Just a little flicker of light letting me know that there’s something more there.”

  She paused, letting me revisit that moment on her couch when she first described Chris. It seemed like a lifetime ago. I knew so much more now. I knew more, but also less. Everything seemed muddled. Chris and Gabe. Greta and me. Leif and Lasse. Dad and everyone—and everything—else.

  “I got that from you the first time I met you, too,” Rosemary continued. “When you came to my house for dinner, there was this glow around you. I still see it sometimes.”

  I could feel blood rushing to my cheeks. I wasn’t used to this type of attention. The way Rosemary characterized me, surrounded by the glimmer of the supernatural, made me shiver. Anytime I let my mind wander, or really dig deep into the stories from Grandma—the stories about Grandpa—a knot clenched in my stomach. It wasn’t an ill feeling or nervousness. It was just perplexing: something there I couldn’t see, something I couldn’t hold on to.

  “It’s unsettling.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  Rosemary put her arm around me. The gesture felt natural. I reached up and grabbed her hand and we walked, in mutual appreciation, to join the others. By one-thirty, we’d exhausted four of the five used-car lots in town. Discouraged and hungry, both Greta and Dad were getting punchy with salesmen, with Rosemary and me, and with each other. It was time to take a break.

  “So,” Rosemary interjected, cutting off one of Dad’s protests, energetically clapping her hands together, her elbows sticking out parallel to the ground. “Who’s ready for lunch?”

  With relief, I eagerly held up my hand.

  We drove to Weaver’s after Rosemary swore on her life that the Weaver’s deli sandwiches were without equal in all of Pennsylvania. Dad and Greta were too hungry to care, and I wasn’t about to forego a trip to my favorite neighborhood grocery store.

  The four of us sluggishly stood in front of the deli counter. Dad scratched his head in contemplation at the menu on the white board. Greta crossed her arms in frustration, and Rosemary nervously beamed a peace-making smile.

  “I’ll have the roasted red pepper on focaccia, Ned,” she ordered first, pleasantly paving the way for the rest of us.

  The stocky man behind the counter pulled a pencil from behind his ear, scratched out the order on a slip of pink paper, winked at Rosemary, and then looked back at the rest of us. Rosemary turned toward me, silently pleading for me to place an order so Dad and Greta could take our friendly lead.

  “The avocado and feta, please. In a pita. With sprouts.” I smiled at the man.

  “Mayo?”

  “Absolutely.”

  The man looked at Greta. “How ’bout you, sweetheart?” Ned asked while adjusting one of his rolled sleeves, exposing more of his beefy left arm. He reminded me so much of Brutus from Popeye. The hefty chin and shaggy black beard. Dad’s head immediately jerked up in response to Greta’s new nickname.

  �
��I’ll have the tuna on rye, Ned,” Dad remarked, giving Ned the good old fatherly once-over and looking none too impressed. He then put his hand around Rosemary’s shoulder as a public declaration of ownership. I scoffed at the blatant testosterone, slightly amused that it was coming from my father.

  “Turkey club. No mayo, no bacon, no tomato. On wheat,” Greta finally decided. “Toasted.”

  As Dad paid for the sandwiches, my eyes darted around the store for Gabe.

  “Excuse me,” I called after Ned, who was slicing turkey on a meat slicer behind the counter. He lifted his head in acknowledgment without turning around. “Is Gabe working today?”

  “He’s on the register.”

  Rosemary took a seat with Dad and Greta at one of the three round tables next to the deli. Dad eyed me suspiciously when I told him I’d join them in a moment. Greta began working on a crossword in a newspaper someone had abandoned. It was obvious she was frustrated with Dad but didn’t want to come off as ungrateful. Over the morning, she’d found several cars that piqued her interest: a canvas-top Jeep that Dad had deemed “impractical for Pennsylvania winters,” a Ford Mustang that Dad labeled “too sexy,” and a Kia Sportage, which Dad also refused, declaring it “a tin can.” So much for his three limited restrictions. Greta was getting impatient. I was glad to step away from the table for a minute to find Gabe.

  At the front of the store, I saw him bagging groceries for a middle-aged man. His blue eyes met mine for a split second before he returned to finish his conversation with the customer. From what I could overhear, he was giving the man advice on compost bins.

  “You always want to rinse out the eggshells before adding them to the pile,” I heard him say.

  The man seemed genuinely grateful to Gabe for the tip, thanking him before leaving the store with groceries in hand.

  “Another happy customer?” I said in greeting, finding a lull in the checkout line.

  “As always,” Gabe folded his arms casually. “What brings you in?”

  “Deli sandwiches.” I tossed my head toward the back of the store. “My family’s exasperated as a result of starvation. The usual.” I shrugged playfully.