Page 40 of Daddy's Muse
“Ah,” he chimed, as though I’d mentioned a favorite dish.
I tried not to picture the bound figure from one of the slides. “So… did your family ever—” I stopped, feeling my neck and ears heat. “I mean, you’re not—I’m sorry, that stuff probably happened forever ago. Or—you know—stopped forever ago.”
He chuckled, low and warm, the sound brushing along my spine. “Yes, that was… a long time ago, and not as common as people think. Not as… barbaric, either. But most in Norway now are Christian or agnostic anyway.”
“And you?”
Bodin’s gaze held mine, steady and unblinking. “We keep the old ways—Norse paganism. My mother often makes offerings: small things—bread, mead, honey. We honor the gods, the spirits of our land. It is not… so bloody.”
Something in his tone was meant to reassure me, but my brain kept circling back to the part where he didn’tactuallysay it never got bloody. I swallowed and nodded anyway. “So… like… festivals? Prayers?”
“Yes. We mark the solstices and the equinoxes. We give thanks for the hunt, the harvest.” His lips twitched as though at a private memory. “Sometimes, we ask for guidance.”
“From…?”
He tilted his head, considering me. “From those who have always been with us.”
The way he said it—calm, sure, like there was no doubt someonewaslistening—made the back of my neck prickle.
I told myself not to think about the carvings, or the blood on the idols, or how easily I could imagine him holding a ceremonial knife.
And yet, the image refused to leave.
Bodin glanced down at me with a little smirk, like he could see the thoughts I was trying to shove to the back of my mind. “Maybe we should talk about something a little lighter,” he suggested, his voice calm but threaded with amusement.
I huffed out a laugh, relieved to steer away from the mental image of bloody altars. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”
We fell into step together, the late afternoon sunlight spilling over the campus in warm streaks. A gentle breeze tugged at my hair, carrying the faint scent of flowers from the planters along the walkway. I shoved my hands into my pockets, more to keep myself from fidgeting than from the chill.
“So,” I said after a moment, tilting my head toward him, “what do you miss the most from Norway?”
“Hmm… I miss the quiet. Where I’m from in the North, you can walk for hours and only see trees, mountains, maybe a fox if you’re lucky. The air feels different there—colder, sharper,cleaner. It cuts right into you, but in a good way. Invigorating? I think that’s a good word to describe it.”
I tried to picture it. My life had been spent in cramped spaces and creaky trailer floors, the air heavy with the smell of cigarette smoke or the too-sweet vinegar smell of my parents’ vice. “It sounds like a fairy tale,” I said, a sense of longing filling my lungs.
“It’s not always so romantic,” he said, but there was something in his eyes—soft and faraway—that made me think maybe itwasthat beautiful to him. “But I miss the winters where the snow is so thick it swallows sound, and the summers when the sun barely dips below the horizon.”
“Really?” I asked. “I’d probably mess up my sleep schedule so bad.”
“You’d adjust,” he said, glancing at me with a faint smile. “You’d like it there.”
The way he said it—like he was sure I’d end up seeing it someday—made something warm bubble up inside me. I looked down at my shoes before I could read too much into it.
We were almost to my dorm now, and I wasn’t sure I wanted the walk to end.
When we reached the dorm steps all too soon, I slowed my pace without thinking, dragging my feet a little, like I could make the walk last longer.
Bodin noticed. Of course, he noticed. His hand brushed my shoulder—not a push, not a pull, just a warm, steady weight. “I could come up with you,” he said softly.
I glanced up at him. The sunlight caught the edges of his hair, and for a second, I forgot to answer. “Oh… would you… would you want that?” I asked, my voice quieter than I meant it to be.
He looked down at me with that same calm, assessing gaze that made me feel both small and safe. “Ja. Yes.”
* * *
I swiped my keycard with hands that felt just a little clumsy, the soft click of the lock sounding louder than usual in my ears.
Inside, my dorm was precisely as I’d left it—bed unmade with Steve the Raccoon on my pillow, a stack of coloring books on my desk, and a pile of laundry I’d been pretending didn’t exist.
