#WTWIITM

[upthenorthmountain]

Where the World is in the Making - Chapter 13

I wrote this for the Summer 2021 Frozine, huge thank you to @punkpoemprose​ for putting that together! And to @karis-the-fangirl​ as always. Here we go

Previous Chapters

Chapter 13

The Solheims had been good people. Still were, Kristoff was sure. It was Mrs Inga Solheim who had nursed his mother through her last illness, who had said to Kristoff, after - Well, get your things together. Don’t you want to see what it’s like out West? And he had - not that he had anything else to do or anywhere else to go - so he’d pulled together the few things that he was sure were his and joined them in the back of their covered wagon. They’d inched their way across the country, along with the other two wagons of Solheims (all three were brothers, and each had a wife, and between them six children when they set out and seven when they arrived, not counting Kristoff), and he’d been quiet and anxious, desperate to prove he could be useful, that he was worth taking all that way. He’d worked hard for them and learnt a lot, and until the day he died he’d be overwhelmingly grateful for the chance they’d given him.

And now, for something else.

There was an interesting item in the newspaper last week, Mrs Solheim had written. An article about how there aren’t enough women out West. Good men with good farms who can’t find a wife. And some have apparently been placing advertisements in the newspaper to find one! What an idea! But it seems some have been successful. You should try it, Kristoff! I’m sure you must be lonely.

What an idea, indeed. He’d rolled his eyes and ignored it, but she’d mentioned it again, and again, and eventually he’d done it just so she’d stop. He’d never in a million years thought he’d actually get an applicant. He hadn’t thought he’d wanted one.

Anna was weeding the vegetable garden. The plants were all full-grown now, tall and green, and she was kneeling - she never had much regard for her skirts - between them as she worked.

With her help, he’d been able to repair the fields after the storm, and lost far less than he’d feared. With her help, the chickens were happy and gave plenty of eggs; the cow was happy and gave plenty of milk (and the goat was happy, too, though his high spirits were not usually a cause for celebration). With her help, the garden had flourished, and was producing enough that she and Elsa had already spent a day with Marta Ogg preserving and canning and would have plenty more to put up before the season was over.

Anna suddenly jumped back onto her heels with an “Ouch!” and Kristoff hurried over.

“Are you alright?”

“Oh - yes - thank you -” she peered at her finger. “A little bit of something just ran under my fingernail. But it’s not bleeding so I guess it didn’t go too far. Is it nearly dinner?”

“I’ve been out in the fields, you tell me.”

 “Elsa’s cooking. I keep thinking I smell something but I can’t work out what.” She waved her hands at him until he backed up, then shuffled along on her knees to the next section of the vegetable bed. “I like it when she cooks. She’s a much better cook than I am.”

Kristoff opened his mouth and then closed it again, choosing to kneel next to her rather than speak. Anna laughed. “Thank you.”

“I don’t mean - the two of you have different talents.”

“Okay.”

“You complement each other.”

“Well, maybe that’s true.”

“She wouldn’t have much to cook without you here, doing this.”

Anna sat back and hugged her knees. “Sometimes I still can’t believe I’m here,” she said. “Sometimes everything before seems like a dream.”

She looked at him, and no matter how muddy her skirts or how much of the dirt had found its way to her face, her eyes were always that same perfect clear blue. 

“And I’m glad,” she said. “I’m glad I’m not there any more.”

“Glad to be out of the city? Away from - people that were unkind?”

“No, you don’t understand. Before…” Anna sighed. “I didn’t do anything. I mean. I called on people, and I went out and danced and talked to more people, and I embroidered and I looked pretty and none of it had any point. Nothing I did made anyone’s life better, or easier. I was just - passing the time. My whole life. Looking pretty and passing time.”

Anna sighed again, then reached over and plucked another weed from the soil.

“There you go,” she said. “I pulled up one weed, and I’ve already been more useful than I would have been in a whole week back in the city.”

“You like to be useful.”

“I don’t like to be useless. Or pointless.”

They both sat there, among the green plants, beneath the endless sky. Kristoff could feel it, building, and he was leaning in towards her ever so slightly when Anna said abruptly, “I want to mean something,” and turned her eyes to his again, blue as the ocean and clear as the running stream.

It’s slow, sometimes, but it wears away bit by bit - or comes crashing through all at once - and nothing is the same after.

He leant towards her again, just as Elsa called them to the house for dinner.

-----

The narrow bed in the tiny room was familiar enough now. It almost felt cosy. Before coming here Anna had had her own bedroom for years, but it had never been quiet - there was always noise on the streets outside, or people passing in the corridors. Out here, being alone would have been deathly silent without the sound of Elsa’s breathing.

It wasn’t silent outside tonight, though. She could hear someone singing.

Or rather, not ‘someone’. It was a man’s voice, and there was only one man within miles, so it must be Kristoff singing. Anna couldn’t make out any words. She’d heard him whistling before, around the farm, but never singing.

She wriggled out of the bed. Elsa stirred and opened her eyes.

“I just need to, um,” Anna said, knowing that Elsa would assume she was going to the outhouse; sure enough, her sister gave a little nod and closed her eyes again.

The summer air was warm and Anna barely regretted not picking up a shawl. As she pushed the barn door open she felt a brief pang, remembering another night that she’d come out to the barn in her nightdress - but that quickly disappeared, replaced by the sight in front of her. Kristoff was sitting against the far wall, with his straw hat upside down in his lap, and the hat was full of kittens; and he was singing to them in the warm glow of a lantern.

Anna stood there for one long, breathless moment. She didn’t know the song. She didn’t even know what language it was in, although she could guess that it was Norwegian. It was a soft song; a lullaby. The kittens seemed to be appreciating it, cuddling up together in the hat, and for a second Anna thought she was going to cry. Then Kristoff finished his verse, looked up and saw her.

“Anna,” he said, and cleared his throat, sitting up straighter to a chorus of irritated meows.

“I heard you singing,” she said, walking all the way into the barn and closing the door behind her. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you -”

“You didn’t. What song is that?” she said, sitting down next to him and tucking her feet beneath her.

Kristoff looked at his hands for a moment. “My mother used to sing it,” he said.

“When you were little?” 

He smiled. “Yes.” He hesitated again, then said “I don’t want to forget it.”

Sometimes Anna got so caught up in the everyday that she forgot all kinds of things. Like, for example, the fact that they were both orphans. She knew Kristoff’s childhood had been very different to her own. If she tried, Anna could remember her mother tucking her into bed with a soft lullaby, but she could more often remember a nursemaid putting her to bed and blowing out the candle. A goodnight from her mother was usually a brief kiss; a goodnight from her father was a nod. And every day it grew fainter and her memories rearranged themselves to match the handful of photographs in the bottom of her and Elsa’s trunk.

It was better to think about the present and the future than the past. She knew that. And her mind obligingly presented her with an image - Kristoff singing that lullaby to a baby. Or maybe to an older child, as he tucked the blankets around them, and then he’d look at his wife and smile -

Anna turned her face away - she knew she was blushing. Now she remembered long ago asking a nursemaid where babies came from, and being given a confusing story about storks and cabbage patches and parcels sent directly from Heaven by God Himself. Now she was here in the warm soft lantern glow with her husband, and when she looked up he was watching her. He’d nearly kissed her in the vegetable patch earlier, she was sure. Not too far from the cabbages. The thought made her laugh and she swallowed it in a yawn.

“You should go back to bed,” Kristoff said. He’d put his hat down, and the kittens had escaped; one was sitting on his foot.

“I’m not tired,” Anna said, sitting up straighter. “I couldn’t sleep, actually.”

“Really? I thought I was working you hard enough. Obviously not.”

“I’m surprised you can sleep out here at all.”

“I’m used to it.”

“It’s not fair. You work hard too.”

“I’m a man.”

“You’re a person.”

He smiled at her indignance. “Well, if we have a good harvest, maybe I can get some lumber.”

“Mr. Ogg said they’d help!”

“I can manage. I did the rest myself.”

“Mmhmm. Like you darned your own socks. A person can be too self-reliant.”

“What’s wrong with my house?”

“Nothing! Except -” Except we don’t have our own bedroom. No, she would never be bold enough to say that out loud, and now she was blushing again.

If he kisses me now, Anna thought, there’s no one to stop us. Every other person and animal within miles is sleeping. The thought made her heart thump in her chest, and she couldn’t think of anything to say to cover her embarrassment so instead she turned away, pretending she was watching one of the kittens.

She looked up when Kristoff put his hand on her left shoulder. “Anna,” he said, and ran his hand down her arm, stopping at her hand, raising it so that her ring shone in the light of the lantern. There was an ache in her chest when she met his gaze, and everything before this moment felt like a dream. The only thing that was real was right here and now, where all her choices had led her, to the perfect moment -

He kissed her. Anna knelt up, eager, and her slipper fell off and she caught her knee in her nightdress but Kristoff wrapped an arm round her waist and kissed her again. She still stumbled a little, and steadied herself with her arm on the floor; and then it only required Kristoff to make the smallest movement and they were lying on the blanket, side by side.

For a second they blinked at each other, his arm still round her waist, her hand on his shoulder. Then Anna pressed forward again, pulling herself towards him, kissing him with her whole body against his. She half-expected him to draw back, but he didn’t; instead he ran his hand up her back to her shoulders, holding her in place.

She felt giddy. There was no one to stop them and she didn’t want them to. Alright, maybe there was only a rough blanket over a dirt floor and whatever was in that sack Kristoff used as a pillow, maybe this wasn’t exactly how she’d pictured this, but -

But there was someone to stop them, and that was them. Kristoff pulled his lips from hers and rolled onto his back, exhaling deeply. He closed his eyes for a long second, then opened them and held out his arm. Anna hesitated.

“Come here,” he said. “You didn’t - do anything wrong. It’s just…”

Not like this, was what she knew he meant. As her heartbeat slowed back to normal, Anna realised she had a piece of straw poking her through the back of her nightdress, a kitten trying to climb her braid and a draught through a gap in the boards going places she wouldn’t care to mention. Much as she wished right now that her husband was slightly less considerate, he did have a point. She wriggled over to Kristoff and lay down with her head on his shoulder, smiling a little as she felt him pull the pointy straw off her back and throw it away.

He put his arm around her, his hand on her waist. Anna could hear his heart beating, feel his chest rise and fall with his breathing. It was so comfortable. 

She opened her eyes when Kristoff said “Hey. Anna. You don’t want to fall asleep out here.”

Maybe she did. “I‘m good.”

He opened his arm to release her. “Go to bed. It’s late.”

“You don’t want me to stay?”

He looked pained. “I want you to go to bed.”

So she left and went inside. But when she got into her bed, it somehow felt at once  both too small and too empty.

[karis-the-fangirl]

After submitting my personal version of Ollie the Goat,  here’s a blue-eyed kitty…Hope you like it !

——- Aaaw I love it!! Thank you! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ I was just thinking the other day that WtWiiTM could use some kittens...(@upthenorthmountain don’t you think we need to add kittens???)

[upthenorthmountain]

Yeee!!! I don't know how many times I've read chapter 13! He can't say he doesn't want her to stay because he does and I'm dead!! Lullabies to kittens. Thinking of babies. !!!!!!! She isn't useless and I'M DEAD!!!!!

Oh no I'm so sorry! Please don't be dead

(also thank you <3 )

[upthenorthmountain]

I don't mean to rush or pressure anyone, but I absolutely love the "Where the World is in the Making" story and I'm dying for more! Any chance we'll see updates soon? It's so wonderfully written and I really enjoy reading it.

Thank you so much!

To be honest, I don’t know when it will be updated, but I am also hoping it will be soon (casually tagging @karis-the-fangirl )

[karis-the-fangirl]

Omg I don’t even know what to say 🙊🙈❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ I’m so overwhelmed, thank you so much!! 😭😍 EMILY YOU ARE SO SWEET AND KIND ILU AJFRBFTH😭

although I do have to say, at least 70% of the credit for Wtwiitm being as great as it is goes to @upthenorthmountain! And 100% of the credit for it existing at all ❤️ plus the fact that she puts up with me playing in her Flatmates sandbox, which I love so much! ❤️❤️❤️

And really none of the stuff I’ve written would be half as good or mean half as much of it weren’t for this community as a whole ❤️❤️❤️❤️

Karis-the-fangirl 😘

Send me URL’s and I’ll tell you my opinion on them :)

@karis-the-fangirl

Honestly everyone needs a little more Charis in their lives. Let me just tell you how ABSOLUTELY AMAZING Charis is *clears throat* ahem…So not only is Charis one of the BEST WRITERS IN THIS FANDOM, but she’s also a literally beautiful human inside and out. Like to the point where a few of us took a day to stop making fanart of our ship and made fanart of her instead. Like literally that amazing and beautiful of a human. Where the World is in the Making and Flatmates and her Driver/Socialite AUand her Regency AU all make me FEEL THINGS. *whispers: conceal, don’t feel*Like there literally isn’t a single negative thing I can say about Charis because while she is Karis-the-fangirl I am A-Charis-Fangirl. I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again. If you are not following her, you should be.

[upthenorthmountain]

Where the World is in the Making - Chapter 11

Previous Chapters

For Kristanna Week, and the prompt: Learning. And not any other prompts anyone might have thought up. No. Just Learning. Enjoy!

Big thanks to Charis as always <3

Chapter 11

Kristoff had lived alone on his farm for two years. Just him, the horse, and the chickens for all that time, and it had never seemed as quiet as it did this morning. After finished her morning chores Anna had ridden out to visit Mrs Ogg, and Elsa had a headache and was lying down, so she might as well not be there (except that he was of course trying to stay out of the cabin, and trying not to make any loud noises).

He worked out in the field. It really was incredible how much more he’d been able to get done, now that he could concentrate on the farmwork. But then, he supposed, it had to support three people now instead of one.

At midday he sat by the side of the barn to eat. Everything was so still; even that goat was sitting peacefully at the end of his rope, chewing his cud. Kristoff thought about the long days and weeks when he hadn’t spoken to another single human being, and wondered how he’d managed not to go mad.

-----

Late afternoon Kristoff was surprised to see a farm wagon driving up from the direction of the Ogg’s farms. When it got closer, he could see that it was being driven by a young man he vaguely recognised as being Marta Ogg’s son Sean, and Anna was sat next to him, holding a basket on her lap. Sven was being led along behind on a long rope.

When they arrived Anna handed him the basket so she could climb down. It meowed, and when he peeked under the lid he saw several - three or four, they kept moving - kittens inside.

“I said to Marta that you thought we might have mice in the barn,” Anna said by way of greeting, “and she said what you need is a cat! And they have lots so she gave me these, aren’t they sweet? Wasn’t that kind?”

“Very,” Kristoff said.

“Five years ago you couldn’t get a cat out here for love nor money,” the other man said. “Now we’re giving them away.”

“Thank you for driving my wife home,” Kristoff said, untying his horse from the wagon.

“It’s no trouble. Knew she wouldn’t be able to ride home alone with all those kittens. They’re pretty lively.”

Anna had already gone running into the house to find her sister. “She loves animals,” Kristoff said, for want of better conversation. “Dotes on that goat, for some reason.”

“Well, she wants what all women want,” Sean said.

“Pets?”

Sean laughed. “No, a baby! So she has to baby the animals until one of those comes along.”

Before Kristoff could think of a reply, Anna stuck her head out of the cabin. There was a kitten sitting on her shoulder. “Oh, Mr Ogg,” she said, “Won’t you come in for some dinner before you go home? Or a cup of tea at least?”

“No thank you, Mrs Bjorgman,” he said. “I’d best be getting back for my own dinner.”

“Oh, yes - well, thank you ever so much!”

Sean nodded at her and went to turn his wagon around.

“Kristoff,” Anna said at the door, a different kitten on her shoulder now, “you can’t come in here, Marta taught me how to make something new so it’s a surprise for dinner! Stay outside.”

“Alright,” he said. “Well, thanks again,” he added to Sean once Anna had disappeared once more.

“It’s no trouble. Oh, and Bjorgman,” Sean said, “If you want any help with any building work round here, after harvest, have your wife let Ma know. She’s taken a real shine to her, Ma has, and we - my brothers and I - we’d be glad to do it.” Then before Kristoff could say anything, he drove away.

-----

When Anna finally called him into the cabin, Kristoff found the table neatly set, with three bowls of stew and a big plate of warm, golden biscuits. Anna was standing by the stove, grinning at him.

“That smells wonderful,” he said, and it really did. “Mrs Ogg taught you how to make this?”

“Mm-hmm! And I wrote it all down for Elsa. Because she likes things written down.”

Anna poked her head into the bedroom. “Are you hungry?”

“I wasn’t,” Elsa said, sitting up slowly, “But that smells so good that I will try it. Why are there cats everywhere?”

---------

When Kristoff came back to the house at noon the next day he could only find Elsa, sitting at the table finishing some mending while she waited for the others. After a few minutes he found Anna just inside the barn; she was sitting on her haunches and digging wildly with her hands through a pile of loose earth, where Ollie had dug up the hard-packed dirt floor.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I’ve lost it, I took it off because it was dirty and I wanted to wipe it on my handkerchief but then I dropped it and it’s gone -” she looked up, despairing.

“Lost what?”

“My ring, my wedding ring.” Anna stood, and pushed a stray lock of hair out of her eyes, leaving a smudge of dirt on her cheek.

“You dropped it right here?”

“Yes.” She went to bend over and look some more, but Kristoff held up a hand to stop her and crouched down himself.

“You can’t just rummage about, you’ll bury it even more,” he said, looking closely at the patch of ground, then running his fingers through the dirt very slowly and gently. Anna watched him anxiously, twisting her hands together.

“Oh, I can’t believe I dropped it,” she said. “Oh, I hope it isn’t lost, it was -” he waited for her to say ‘my mother’s’ but instead she finished “my wedding ring…”

Finally, after a couple of minutes, he saw a glint of silver, and held up the ring in triumph. Anna clapped her hands and grinned at him. Still on one knee, Kristoff turned, took her left hand and slid the ring into place on her finger.

Then he looked up, still holding her hand in both of his. Anna was watching him, still, and when he met her gaze he couldn’t move for a long moment. He stood, slowly, only letting her hand drop when he was on his feet, and how had he never noticed how blue her eyes were? When he brushed the dirt from her cheek with his thumb she leant into it, just slightly, and his chest was tight, his hand almost trembling as he ran his finger down to under her chin, as he lifted her face to his.

Anna closed her eyes and stood, waiting. He kissed her lips, gently, then pulled back to see her reaction; it was to push up on her toes to follow him, her eyes still closed, her brow furrowed, so he slid his hand round to the nape of her neck, and kissed her, over and over as she clung to his shoulders and tangled her fingers in his hair.

Then, suddenly, she dropped back onto her heels and pulled away. It took Kristoff a second to realise that someone - Elsa - was calling their names from back at the house. Right. It was noon. If they didn’t go back to the house, Elsa would come looking for them.

Anna gave him a shy smile, but she didn’t say anything, just turned and walked away. As she went through the door to the cabin, he saw her pause and put her fingertips briefly to her lips, the silver ring glinting on her finger as she smiled to herself. My wife, he thought, and it hit him somewhere in the chest.

-----

Kristoff didn’t come into the house that evening. He worked all afternoon in the farthest field, and after dinner he said goodnight and left immediately. Anna had been dreaming all afternoon of the kiss he might give her before they went to bed, and then he just - left. What did that mean?

“Wind’s getting up,” Elsa said as they were preparing for bed. “You didn’t leave anything outside, did you?”

“No - no, I don’t think so.” Anna peered out into the yard. “D’you think it’s going to storm?”

“Maybe. We need the rain, anyway.”

“That’s true.”

-----

And it was the rain that woke her, a few hours later. It drummed loudly on the wooden roof and walls of the cabin, and Anna could hear how the wind was gusting, throwing the rain in sheets. The wind seemed to find every tiny crack and seam in the building and she huddled under the blankets, hearing it whistle through the stove-pipe. She hoped that the walls of the barn were at least as strong as those of the cabin.

She couldn’t get back to sleep. She whispered her sister’s name, but got no reply, and was resigning herself to waiting for the storm to blow itself out when she heard a shout and a crash from outside.

Immediately Anna was on her feet. Elsa stirred. “Go back to bed, Anna,” she said. “It’s just a storm.”

“I heard something,” Anna said, rummaging for clothes. “I’m just going to check he’s alright -”

Elsa sighed, but then there was another shout, and Anna threw on the clothes she could reach and ran out of the door.

The rain was stinging and cold. The wind blew her skirts in every direction and tried to rip away the shawl she’d tied round her head. At first she couldn’t see anything, but then she saw the glimmer of a lantern and stumbled towards it.

Kristoff was standing at the top of the path towards the creek, holding up the lantern. She wasn’t sure if he’d seen her until he shouted over the wind, “I opened the barn door a crack to check the cabin roof hadn’t blown off and your goat ran straight out. Hasn’t got the sense of a dead bug. Think he went this way. Go back inside.”

“Ollie?”

“See, this is why you don’t give farm animals names,” he said. “Go back inside, woman.”

“You’ll find him?”

“I’m not staying out here much longer, and you definitely shouldn’t. Go inside before you catch cold. You’re soaked.”

“But Ollie - you know he likes to play in the creek, what if he -”

Kristoff made an exasperated noise and turned back towards the barn. And Anna grabbed the lantern out of his hand and ran.

——

She’d barely gone fifty yards before she regretted her impulsiveness. Anna could barely see, and she was soaked through, and the wind was blowing her this way and that, and she’d taken Kristoff’s lantern, oh, he was going to be so mad -

She couldn’t leave Ollie, though! He’d be so scared, and lost, and alone. She pushed on along the path until the sound of the running water told her she was near the creek.

Then - a flash of white, and had she imagined she heard something? Anna took another step forward, and another, holding the lantern above her head. Yes! There was Ollie, on the other side of the raging torrent.

“Come here, you naughty goat!” she shouted at him. “Come back over here! Time to go home!”

But still he wouldn’t come any closer. So she had to try and get to him.

——

Anna huddled in her bed, under her blankets - and half of Elsa’s blankets, for that matter. She was forbidden to leave it and she didn’t dare, even though she was plenty warm, especially with a hot iron wrapped in cloth by her feet.

She didn’t think she’d ever been gladder to see Kristoff than when he had come running out of the dark and dragged her out of the creek. But then he’d been so angry that she’d half-wished he’d left her there. She didn’t think she’d heard him say so many words together as she did as he carried her back to the cabin, though it was mainly repetition on the theme of What had she been thinking? Did she want to drown, get pneumonia, get carried out to sea (a little fanciful, Anna thought, but she didn’t feel she could argue) over a goat? Really, what had she been thinking, had she even been thinking at all? And so forth.

The only thing he said in the cabin - and to Elsa, not to Anna - was “Get her dry,” then he’d stomped back out. To the barn, presumably, and who could blame him.

Elsa had helped her undress, and put her in a clean nightdress under this heap of blankets, and then despite herself Anna had fallen asleep, and now it was morning. She was pretty sure she hadn’t caught cold, but her arm hurt where Kristoff had grabbed it to pull her out of the water. He’d really wrenched it, and she understood why, but it still hurt.

The door opened and Elsa came in. “I brought you some hot tea,” she said. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine. No, really, I am, I could get up -.”

“You’ll stay there. And drink this.”

Anna sat up and took the cup obediently. “Is Kristoff alright?” she said after a moment. “He got pretty wet…”

“He says so. I made him take the other iron and he promised me he’d put on dry things straight away so hopefully he won’t get sick.” Elsa sat on her bed and gave Anna a Look. Anna sipped her drink. Neither of them needed to say that if he did, it would be her fault.

“He’s already gone out, anyway,” Elsa continued. “Trying to see if there’s any damage anywhere. And I think he walked over to the creek.”

“Did he find Ollie?” Anna said in a small voice.

“Yes,” Elsa said. “And he asked if I knew how to make goat stew. But he was joking.”

Anna scrunched up under the blanket.

“I think,” Elsa said. “I think he was joking.”

[upthenorthmountain]

I was rereading When the world is in the making…

---

This is so cute! I saw it when Charis posted it but I’ll happily have a friendly goat on my blog as well :) Thank you!

[upthenorthmountain]

If you could have someone write you any KA fic, what would it be?

If I have to pick ONE I’d go with fake relationship/arranged marriage with a lot of pining. Like, a lot.

[upthenorthmountain]

Where The World Is In The Making - Chapter One

So this is an idea that @karis-the-fangirl was talking about the other day, and then I was talking about it with her, and we decided to write it together! And I am very happy because I love writing with Charis. :)

When homesteader Kristoff Bjorgman advertises for a wife, the woman who arrives is not what he expected. Rated K for now.

Chapter One

“Are you sure we’re in the right place?”

“Just as sure as the last two times you asked.”

Elsa gave her sister a reproachful look.

“I’m sorry,” Anna replied, “but we’re definitely in the right place. He’ll be here soon.” She hoped, she really hoped.

There wasn’t even a proper station. They were sitting on their trunk, in the shade of a piece of fence, an hour after the train had left. They’d received a few curious glances, but no one had spoken to them since the conductor had taken their luggage off the train and left it here.

Ready to face the enemy, Anna thought, hearing it as she always did in their mother’s voice. She remembered her saying it before they went down for her first ball, an evening that seemed much further away than the length of the train journey, or the two years that had passed. Her parents had hosted the party. A month later they were both dead.

“What if it’s awful?” Elsa said now, twisting her handkerchief in her hands.

“Then we’ll leave.”

“You won’t be able to leave, if you’re married to him.”

“I’ve got legs, haven’t I?”

Elsa pulled a face. Anna bit her lower lip over a sigh and scanned the horizon. There was a farm wagon heading towards the little cluster of town buildings, but she had no way of knowing if that was who they were waiting for.

“It’ll be fine,” she said, as confidently as she could manage. “I’ll scrub the floors and you’ll darn socks and get well. It’ll be perfect, this is just what we needed.”

Elsa pursed her lips again and looked straight ahead. Anna knew she was just anxious and fretting but at the same time she wanted to shout, I am TRYING, what else was there to do? Watch you fade away to nothing in that crowded, choking city? Starve in genteel poverty, but at least I wouldn’t ruin my complexion?

The wagon was definitely coming this way. Squinting, Anna could see that its only occupant was the man driving, but she couldn’t make out his face; it was in shadow below the brim of his hat. Heart hammering, she stood and waited for him to approach.

-----

Up close, the man looked both better and worse. He was young, as she had known; and he looked healthy, and from his build, hard-working; but he also looked tired, and in need of a shave, and his clothes were worn and not particularly clean.

“Miss Rendell?” he said as he climbed down from the wagon seat. Then, “And Miss Rendell, I assume,” and he looked them both up and down.

“Yes,” Anna said, “How d’you do? You must be Mr Kristoff Bjorgman - I assume - I mean, no one else knows we’re here so you must be - anyway. I’m Miss Anna Rendell and this is my sister. Elsa. Hello!” She smiled, but didn’t receive a smile in return. Elsa was standing now, and he just kept looking from one of them to the other, brow furrowed. Then he turned to Anna.

“Miss Rendell - what are you doing here?”

“I wrote, we wrote - what do you mean?”

He took her hand and turned it over to look at the palm, the skin pale and soft and unblemished. Anna snatched it back again.

“Go home,” he said. “I don’t know what you’re looking for but you won’t find it here. This isn’t the place for you.”

“There isn’t any other place either. We don’t have a home, we’re orphans. I told you that.”

“With the greatest respect, Miss Rendell, that isn’t my problem. I need someone who can help me. You assured me you were prepared to do farm work, and run a home, and it doesn’t look to me like you know much about either of those things.”

“I can learn. I will learn.”

“Ha.”

“Well, did you have any other replies to your advertisement? You must have, there’s quite a line of women here, waiting for this opportunity, isn’t there? We could hardly move for them, on the train.”

“Anna,” Elsa said under her breath.

Kristoff looked them up and down again, but now there was a smile, just on the very edge of his lips.

“I told you when I wrote,” he said, “I can’t take two women back to my homestead if neither of them is my wife.”

“I know. I understand.”

“You’re sure?”

Anna nodded firmly. “Yes.”

He nodded, and turned away without another word to lift the trunk and throw it in the back of the wagon. “Come on, then. The judge is expecting us.”

[upthenorthmountain]

I want you all to know that I’ve written one paragraph of the next chapter of WTWIITM but I have nearly finished the illustration

[karis-the-fangirl]

Together They Keep Warm, WTWIITM, Harbour, that’s off the top of my head but tomorrow it might be different xxx

💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖

[upthenorthmountain]

WTWIITM: Ohhhh...i LOVE it! It's like the Hallmark movie Love Comes Softly. I cant wait to see where you and Charis bring it. Lots of Love! KP

I don’t know that one! But thank you KP, I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes too :D

[upthenorthmountain]

The picture on the Where The World Is In The Making post was bothering me so I had to redraw it 

Here’s that goat again

[annaofthenorthernlights]

Ohhhhh so you did!!!! Love you 💞

Where the World is in the Making - Chapter 13

I wrote this for the Summer 2021 Frozine, huge thank you to @punkpoemprose​ for putting that together! And to @karis-the-fangirl​ as always. Here we go

Previous Chapters

Chapter 13

The Solheims had been good people. Still were, Kristoff was sure. It was Mrs Inga Solheim who had nursed his mother through her last illness, who had said to Kristoff, after - Well, get your things together. Don’t you want to see what it’s like out West? And he had - not that he had anything else to do or anywhere else to go - so he’d pulled together the few things that he was sure were his and joined them in the back of their covered wagon. They’d inched their way across the country, along with the other two wagons of Solheims (all three were brothers, and each had a wife, and between them six children when they set out and seven when they arrived, not counting Kristoff), and he’d been quiet and anxious, desperate to prove he could be useful, that he was worth taking all that way. He’d worked hard for them and learnt a lot, and until the day he died he’d be overwhelmingly grateful for the chance they’d given him.

And now, for something else.

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