#alexsandra

Sasha chatted on the walk to the stones, telling Hubert about her aspirations of studying music at a conservatory somewhere in Europe and Thea could already feel a headache taking residence at the spot where her backbone met her neck. Sasha was a talented violinist, and she loved that her daughter wanted to study music, but the idea of anyone else sailing away from her was like getting kicked in the stomach.  

“My grandparents in Denmark said I’m welcome there anytime and they would arrange for private tutors. And Aunt Linnea in London has said the same. Perhaps mother will let me go this year.”

Hubert looked over Sasha’s head at Thea and raised his eyebrow in question.  Thea shook her head and felt the panic rise in her chest at the thought of her daughter leaving on a ship.

“I hope you’ll play for me while I’m here. Letters can’t convey the beauty of music, though your mother and your father both tried when writing of your talent,” Hubert said.  Thea was grateful for this change in topic even as the panic continued to vibrate through her.

Is that why Agnarr and Iduna were always so different? Why they closed the gates and kept their daughters hidden? They knew the cost life demanded. The scars it left on the living.

They stopped walking when they reached the stones, dark and bleak against the sky in the bright sun of the morning.  Thea saw Maddie and Ingrid holding hands at the stone bearing Iduna’s name and Henrik, Sigrid, Greet, and Oaken standing by Agnarr’s in a tight circle. Everyone with their partner, looking at death and huddling together, warding it away from their own homes.  Thea hugged her arms around herself as she neared them, feeling the loss of Elias’s guiding hand on her waist keenly.

The men shook hands and the ladies hugged and then they all stood silently for a while, staring at the stones.  No one seemed to know what to do or what to say, and Thea thought Agnarr or Elias would have known how to say the right words, to lead the right ceremony, to soothe and comfort and offer hope.

After a while, Henrik cleared his throat.  “Hudson’s? My treat.”

The group walked slowly back down toward the town proper and there was no chatter this time.  They made a somber procession.  The Market Square was still draped in black banners and the flag of Arendelle lay limply on the pole at half mast.  Thea felt a satisfaction in that, the entire kingdom mourning like she had been mourning since the king and queen came to her home in the fall of the previous year.  Both had looked so stricken that Thea knew what they would say even before they sat down with her in her own sitting room to tell her about the wreck of a ship that had been found, the pieces splintered and shattered among a skerry far to the north.

Iduna had hugged her and Agnarr had stuttered on words of promise about giving Elias the honor he deserved and setting up their children with a life-long pension.  Thea had only said “But he always comes back,” and hadn’t cried until they’d left, her hands on her middle where a new baby was growing.

Halima greeted them and brought drinks around even though it was still mid-morning. She put a hand on Henrik’s shoulder as she set a pitcher in front of him and he put his hand to hers and squeezed.  

“Thank you, Halima.  Join us?”

Halima shook her head. “No, they’re best remembered by their closest friends. Let me know if you need anything.” She walked to the front door and bolted it from the inside, then excused herself to the back rooms. 

Thea watched as she walked away, a sadness to the slump of her shoulders that had been there for many years. Once, Halima had spoken to her of a young man who had been lost in the Northern Expedition, who she hoped had somehow been able to survive within the thick mist that shut out the Northern lands. Looking at her, Thea wondered if that was a worse fate than knowing your loved one was dead - to have a small flame of hope burning up any ability to move on or find new love. She reached for Sasha’s hand and held it tightly. 

Henrik sighed. “Agnarr has the place cleared out for us one last time.”

Thea watched as Maddie brushed tears from her eyes and Ingrid put an arm around her.

“To King Agnarr and Queen Iduna,” Henrik said, raising his glass and standing up.  The others got to their feet and raised theirs as well.  

Their voices joined together in a “Skal” that was probably the least celebratory Thea had ever heard, but it seemed to cheer Henrik a bit.

“Do you remember my last night here before going to Oxford? When we had to rearrange the seating and keep refilling Agnarr’s glass in the hope that he would finally tell Iduna he loved her?” Henrik took a sip of his drink and then wrapped his hands around it, squeezing tightly.  Sigrid leaned into him and put her head on his shoulder. 

“I was not here for that, but I can see why it would have been necessary,” Hubert said, a fond smile coming to his lips.

“Oh, it was very necessary,” said Greet. “That man loved her so much, but could not figure out how to do anything about it!” 

“That’s not entirely fair.  All those elaborate gifts? He tried.  Iduna didn’t or couldn’t understand,” said Maddie, and then whispered something in Ingrid’s ear that Thea didn’t hear.  

“That was the first night I met some of you,” Thea said as she put her glass on the table.  “I remember seeing the king run his hand along Iduna’s back and hoping that he wasn’t ruining her reputation forever.”

Greet laughed.  “I tried to get her to do far more to him that would ruin her reputation.”

Thea shot a glance at Sasha, who looked slightly embarrassed to be hearing this about the king and queen. She put her hand back in Sasha’s as she spoke.  “I didn’t understand Arendelle then.  Or how they were together. But later I did. When we’d paint together and talk, or watch Elias and the king together doing their wrestling or swimming.”

Thea had surprised herself by saying Elias’s name out loud and hated that the conversation, which had just been turning to happier memories, was newly awash in grief at the mention of her husband.

“Where are your children, Henrik?” Greet asked, after the silence had stretched out unbearably long.

“Home in London. The boys are nearly old enough to oversee the business now,” he answered.  “A little younger than you, Sasha.”

Oaken took an impossibly long drink from his glass and then wiped his hand across his mouth. “The business, it is good, ja?”

Henrik shrugged, but Sigrid nodded and added “Yes, very.  Ice exports are very much in demand.”

“Interesting,” said Hubert. “We should discuss it sometime.  I’m transitioning away from ambassador duties to the more sedentary life of growing the national rail system.  Which includes as a priority ice cars for transporting perishable goods.”

Henrik tipped his glass towards Hubert. “Certainly.  Perhaps another weekend in Paris?”

Hubert visibly paled and coughed before reaching for his glass. 

“No? Are you settled down then? Abandoning world travel for the delights and comforts of home?” Sigrid elbowed Henrik and Thea thought this was the best tribute to Agnarr and Iduna, for friends to be sharing stories and talking, instead of standing silently, paralyzed with grief. 

“No, I’m not so lucky as you. My sister Sara keeps hoping I’ll put an end to my days of being a bachelor.  And I should tell you, I had to avoid the attentions of a woman whom I think you are all very familiar with.  Unpleasantly so.”

“Who?” Greet asked, leaning forward. “A woman from Arendelle?”

“No, but one who made quite the impression on Arendelle during a certain birthday ball and garden party.”

“Lady Alexsandra?” Greet asked, and it was nearly a shriek.

“Worse,” said Hubert.  “She tried to arrange a match between myself and her daughter, newly eighteen.”

Sasha pulled away from Thea at that, straightening up. “Ugh! Eighteen! You’re past forty!”

“That's what I said, though far more diplomatically,” laughed Hubert.  “I can assure you neither Alexsandra nor her daughter are any more pleasant about being told ‘no’ than you would expect.”

“Did that work? Being nice?” Henrik asked, laughing.

“No.  It was more satisfying to be rude anyway,” Hubert said, laughing along with Henrik.

“And did that work?” Sasha asked, eyes wide in horror at this story of a girl her own age being offered in marriage to a man her father’s age.

‘No,” Hubert said, still laughing. “So I suddenly stopped being able to speak German.  Then French.  Then English.  They only stopped their pursuit when stymied by my Flemish.”

“She was the worst, I can well believe she’d try to arrange a match with little input from the groom,” said Greet.  “Thank goodness Iduna was our queen instead of her.”

“Quite the legacy she left, where we all shudder at her name,” said Hubert. “And you have her to thank that no one knows your full name, Sasha.”

Sasha sat up straight in her chair, aghast. “What?”

“We named you Aleksandra for my grandmother, but she was called Sasha.  And Elias and I vowed we’d never tell the king and queen your real name.” Thea said, raising her eyebrow at Hubert who shook his head and shrugged.

“But - but they’re my godparents!” Sasha spluttered, unbelieving.  “How did they not know my name?”

The rest of the friends laughed and Thea squeezed Sasha’s hand while Hubert looked at them both with an apologetic smile.

***

“Their twins are about Vadik's age.  They moved out of the town when they were born and further up in the mountains,” Thea explained later when Hubert asked about Maddie and Ingrid’s family.  Maddie had been even more reserved that usual and hardly spoken at all in the time the friends spent together. 

“Two at once? What a blessing.”

But Thea cringed, his words calling to her mind the double tragedy they had been observing that day. Two gone at once, beneath the waves, to be splintered and crushed in all the ways she had imagined Elias had spent his last moments. Maybe two at once was a blessing.

 But mostly it was nice having Hubert there, and so little had been nice lately.  When she hadn’t been tending to her own grief, wild and unruly like the cloudberries on a skerry, she had to tend to her children’s needs and to the elder Mr. and Mrs. Calder’s before their deaths.  Two at once.  A blessing.

Hubert led her and the children on walks to the waterfall and to the top of the clock tower.  He asked to be shown the aquaculture projects he had been instrumental in setting up a decade ago, and then withdrew his request without protest when Thea said “We won’t be sailing.”  

And then, a month into his stay with them, when she was starting to wonder if this was a permanent arrangement and realizing she didn’t mind if it was, Hubert proposed.

***

Hubert arranged everything.  He suggested they get married in Antwerp so Sara could be present and assured Thea that the ship would deliver them all safely.  As Thea packed trunks and asked servants if they preferred to travel with them or stay behind to keep the family home in good order, she tried to avoid thinking of being on a ship.  But it came unbidden: the water roiling below and the winds whipping the sails, cracks of wood splitting apart and masts torn in two.

The night before they left, she lay in her bed, sleepless and thinking of the first time Elias had taken her sailing.  They were officially courting by then and she no longer tried to disguise her appreciative looks at his form as he manned the sails on their small craft. When the wind blew sprays of water onto them, he had shaken his head  and whooped.  “Is there any better feeling than this?” He had shouted, and even though he was so close she could reach out and touch him, his voice barely carried over the wind.  

When they tied up the boat and walked along a skerry, she ran her hands under his loose shirt and he took it off in a swift motion.  “Better for sailing anyway,” he said, and winked at her. He dipped his head low to kiss her and his lips tasted salty with the sea. 

Her hands trembled to touch the bare skin of his back and at her light touch, he gasped.  “I was wrong, this is the best feeling,” he said and Thea agreed, telling him so with her hands splayed out and pressed more firmly into his back and then daringly dipping further down to feel the curve of him rather than only the hard planes of his back.

***

She woke without realizing she had slept, and already felt sick with nerves at the thought of her whole family on a ship together.  Sasha boarded first, running up the gangplank with Vadik close behind.  They had missed this, she knew.  They loved sailing with their father and had been excited at this change they were making as a family.  Thea held little Elias but Hubert took him from her so she could walk unencumbered across the gangplank, and then the nursemaid took the baby from him.  Thea gripped the railing and stared at their home on the waterfront until it was a speck in the distance.

What was hard during the day was unbearable at night.  Sasha and Vadik loved sleeping in the hammocks on board, and though Hubert had given her the largest quarters, all Thea could do was pace and pace.  The baby had never slept so soundly, lulled by the rocking, and she knew she didn’t need to be holding him for his sake.  But she clung to him, reminding herself why she couldn’t fly apart into a thousand pieces, like Elias’s ship had, flung across miles of shoreline and skerries. 

A light rap on the door drew her out of her macabre thoughts and she crossed the room to open it.  Hubert was there, holding some wine.  

“I thought you might like a drink?” He drew out another bottle, this one small.  It looked medicinal, though Thea couldn’t read the label. “Or perhaps something stronger? This would let you sleep.  I can be sure the children are cared for.”

Thea allowed him to take the baby to the nursemaid and by the time he returned she was sitting on the edge of the narrow bed, clutching herself tightly and rocking in motion with the ship.  He sat down next to her, leaving space between them. 

“I know this is hard. I wish there was another way to get where we’re going.”  He placed both bottles on their sides on the bed and she wished he would just make her drink something.  Deciding was too much right now. 

“I think I might go mad.  All I can think about is all of us sinking to the bottom of the ocean.”

“And you don’t want that?”

Thea looked up sharply, surprised.  “Of course not.”

Hubert shrugged.  “Sometimes people want to die after their loved one does.  I know Sara had that despair for some time. She was widowed after only two years of marriage to her love.”

“No,” Thea said.  “I want to live,” and she was somewhat surprised to find it true.  

The ship pitched forward suddenly and she began to tumble off of the bed, but Hubert’s arms caught her around the waist and then pulled her back onto the bed, against himself.  

“Easy, easy,” he muttered, in the same way Thea might have calmed a horse or a colicky baby.  He took one hand off of her to reach for the smaller bottle.  

“Drink this.  I’ll stay with you and make sure all is well.  The nursemaid has the children.”

Thea opened her mouth as he poured the contents of the bottle in her mouth and she swallowed, tears coming to her eyes as another swell pitched the ship forward and the sound of creaking boards brought goosebumps to her flesh.

“It’s too hard, it’s too hard,” she muttered and Hubert held her tightly, telling her of his parents and how they had sailed from Prussia to Antwerp following a fast courtship and then lived happily for years in the home they were sailing to now.  She fell asleep with his mouth inches from her ear, his arms around her waist.

***

Thea woke and saw Elias sitting across from her, in the chair she knew was left behind in their family home in Arendelle.  He was smoking a pipe but the air smelled like saltwater.  The smoke from his pipe was turning into crocuses that lost their petals as they slammed to the floor and shattered.

She tried to sit up but her head weighed too much and she could do no more than roll to her side.  Elias took the pipe out of his mouth and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.  “I know you miss me, but you can’t come here.” 

He stood up and walked towards her, each step sounding like cannon fire.  He put his hand on her cheek but she couldn’t feel it and she moaned and closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, Elias was standing in front of her, frantic.  

“You shouldn’t be here! It’s too dangerous!” Rain was pelting him and his coat was torn at the shoulder. “The ship is falling apart!” 

Again, she tried to sit up but this time her legs wouldn’t move and when she looked down at them and then back up, Elias was gone. 

“Elias? Where did you go?”

Hubert answered.  “He had to go, but I’m here.  I’m here.”

Thea closed her eyes again. “Will he come back if I close my eyes?”

She felt Hubert’s hand on her cheek and it made her cry.  If Elias had been real, she would have felt him.  Wouldn’t she?

“He can’t come back.  But he loved you very much, and he loves you still.”

***

A letter wouldn't have arrived faster than their passage, so when the family arrived in Antwerp, Hubert’s sister Sara met them at the pier, surprised and happy.

“Hubert, are those your children?” she asked, incredulous.

“They will be,” he answered, and Thea knew she had done the right thing. 

***