few days ago.”
“You…you called her? On the phone?”
“I did.”
“But you two haven’t spoken in—”
“A very long time.”
“She hasn’t said a word to me about it.”
“I don’t find that in the least surprising.” Her father’s voice wasn’t as icy as a moment ago—but there remained a distinct chill in it.
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s quite simple. I called your mother. I asked that she send you and your sisters for a visit. She refused. I tried to get through to her. I pointed out that I’m your father, that I’ve waited all these years and I have a right to know my daughters. She wouldn’t listen. She told me that you and your sisters wanted nothing to do with me, that I was to leave you alone and stay out of your lives. And then she hung up on me.”
Elli knew for certain now that she wouldn’t leave Sacramento before she’d had a serious talk with her mother. “Father.” The word still felt strange in her mouth. “I’m an adult, past the age when my mother decides what I can or can’t do. I make my own plans. And I plan to come and visit you. It’s Monday night. Give me two days. By Thursday morning at the latest, I will be on a plane, on my way to Gullandria.” She added, with a meaningful glance at the Viking sitting still as a statue across from her, “You have my word of honor on that.”
There was a silence on the other end. Even the static stopped. And then her father said thoughtfully, “Your word of honor…”
“Yes. My word of honor.”
“Put Hauk on.”
She felt irritation rising. “Why do you need to talk to—”
“Please, Elli. Put him on.”
Elli marched over to the Viking. “Here. Tell him my word of honor can be trusted.”
He took the phone. “Yes, my lord…yes…yes, I do…” He listened. His face remained expressionless, but something in the set of his jaw told her he didn’t much care for whatever he was hearing. “Yes, Your Majesty,” he said at last and gave her the phone back.
She spoke to her father again. “Satisfied?”
Her father answered calmly. “I think we have an agreement.”
“We do?”
“That’s right, my daughter. Speak with your mother if you must. And be on that plane by Thursday morning.”
Elli smiled. “Great. Thank you, Father. I’m looking forward to seeing you at last.”
“And I’m looking forward to seeing you.” His voice was tender again. “So very much.” Then he added offhandedly, “Hauk will stay with you. He’ll see you safely to my side.”
The Viking was still staring at her. Elli spun away from him, stalked back to the couch and plunked down onto it. She sent a fulminating glance across the room before she muttered into the phone, “You have my word. There’s no need for—”
“Elli. He stays with you.” Her father’s tone was flat. Final.
She could speak flatly, too. “You know what this tells me, Father? You don’t trust my word.”
His tone softened and acquired a wheedling note. “Humor an old man. Please.”
Her father was in his early fifties. Old, by Elli’s standards—but not that old. “Oh, stop. I know you’re working me.”
“This is one point on which I cannot back down.” He was all firmness again. “Accept it. You will have the time you want to do whatever you say needs doing—including visiting your mother. But Hauk will not leave your side until he’s delivered you safely into my presence.”
“You think Mom is going to talk me out of coming, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“She won’t. I swear it.”
“Better safe than sorry. I do, after all, know your mother.”
She looked across at Hauk again. Till Thursday—and beyond—with him right there, watching, every time she turned around. “I’m really not happy about this.”
“It’s my only condition.” He said it as if it were a tiny thing—something so inconsequential, it meant next to nothing. “Accept it and we’ll find ourselves in perfect agreement.”
Elli said goodbye to her father and immediately called her mother. She made that call brief. She wanted to speak to Ingrid in person about her trip—and about the call Ingrid had received from her father, the one Ingrid had failed to mention up till now.
“Are you all right?” her mother asked. “You seem…pensive.”
Elli glanced across the room. Hauk was still there, in the chair, looking on.
Might as well get used to it, she told herself. She reassured her mother that she was fine and made a date with her—dinner at Ingrid’s house in Land Park the next night.
After her mother, Elli managed to reach her principal at home. She spoke—somewhat vaguely—of a family emergency, said she had to leave within a couple of days. Her boss was far from pleased. Elli was in her first year with her own classes and didn’t have a lot of leave built up.
He said that yes, he would call the district for her and get someone to start tomorrow. Then he asked the logical question, “How long will you be gone?”
Unreality smacked her flat again. She hadn’t even considered how long her trip might last.
But it couldn’t be that long. It was a visit. A visit lasted… “Three weeks,” she said, getting up and going to have a look at her kitchen calendar. “I’ll be back and in my classroom by the twenty-seventh.” At least that way, she’d be there for the final two weeks of school. She reassured him that her lesson plans were all in good order. The substitute should have no troble figuring things out. But should a problem arise, Elli would be in town for a day or two. The sub could give her a call.
Somewhat grouchily, her boss wished her well. She realized, as she hung up the phone, that this trip could possibly cost her her job.
Elli was fortunate, and she knew it. She didn’t need the money. Her mother was, after all, a Freyasdahl. And anyone with any awareness of who was who in California knew that being a Freyasdahl meant you had money—and lots of it. Elli could live quite comfortably on the proceeds from her trust. But she loved teaching and she took pride in her work. It bothered her to think she was letting her school—and especially her two classes of kindergartners—down.
She glanced over, saw Hauk again, huge, bemuscled and implacable.
Well. She’d made a promise and she would keep it. Might as well put a bright
