Page 31 of The Words We Lost

In what Cece suspected was a typical response from the gregarious sea captain to his daughter, he pulled her in and smacked a wet kiss to her cheek, followed by a lyrical-sounding string of words in Norwegian that seemed to soften Ingrid’s annoyance by half.

Cece watched the fascinating display with wonder. She hadn’t been around many father-daughter duos, and certainly none who lived the kind of life she’d been dreaming about since girlhood. Then again, she suspected there weren’t too many fathers out there like Captain Halvor Erikson. He was anything but predictable.

Captain Hal fit the snug skull helmet over his head and then brought the horn to his lips.

“Dad,pleasedon’t—”

The powerful tenor vibrated Cece’s eardrums while simultaneously muting every other sound in the marina. She glanced around at the repair men within earshot, each of them paralyzed by the alarming bellow coming from Ingrid’s father. An eternity later, when the sound dimmed at the end of his long exhale and he pulled the horn from his mouth, he smiled the kind of conquering grin she’d only ever witnessed in action movies.

“Now, do you know what that sound meant to my ancestors, Curly?”

Cece shook her head, her curls bouncing around her face as she did, smiling at the nickname Ingrid’s dad had given her when they’d first metduring a hotel staff meeting last summer. With a huff, Ingrid plopped on the bench beside her and rolled her eyes.

“That war was coming,” Hal said with an accent that seemed to thicken whenever he spoke of his homeland. “People lived and died by that sound.”

“Or were slaughtered in cold blood. ..” Ingrid muttered under her breath.

He held the war horn above his head like a victor’s trophy. “To hold this kind of power in the palm of your hands was among the greatest of honors. By a single note, boys became men and corrupt kings were conquered under new rule.”

“Bravo! Bravo!” Cece couldn’t help but clap at his enthusiasm, wishing she knew a few key phrases in Norwegian to express the depth of her appreciation for the time he’d offered her over these winter weeks when the charter boat was mostly out of commission. That was, other than the rare fishing excursion and the Santa cruises he chartered in mid-December, where Captain Hal hooked ornaments to his beard to match his flashing elf ears. His antics werealmostenough to convince her to shift her affections from pirates to Vikings, but her loyalty simply ran too deep. More than that, she knew Ingrid would never approve of such a major plot change at this point. They were much too invested in this storyline to start over now.

Captain Hal winked one of his sea blue eyes at her praise and then held up a finger. “Wait here.” He ducked inside the main cabin into the living room. Cece watched through the windows as he moved the sofa cushions to the floor and opened a storage container, pulling out a rustic wooden box roughly the length of his forearm.

When he emerged onto the bow again, Ingrid said, “Dad, Cece didn’t come for a show-and-tell of your superstitions. She’s here to write her own story, remember? The one aboutpirates. She has questions about the ships you’ve captained.”

“Exactly why I will show her a real piece of treasure.” The box itself looked to be ancient, with a rickety copper lock and faded nicks, symbols and carvings covering the outside, none of which she could decipher. But just to the right of the lock were a few initials she could easily make out.

HE + SE + IE = family

The initials of Ingrid’s father, mother, and her.

He opened the treasure chest to reveal a small hatchet of sorts—one that looked like it should be showcased in a museum and not on a boat docked in harbor. “This is the authentic bearded ax my great-great-great-great-grandfather Ivar passed down through generations. I’ve never sailed a day at sea without it. It comes with me on every boat I captain, just like it went with my father. It’s protected me, so I’ve protected it. And one day, it will be Ingrid’s to protect.” He winked as Cece touched the deep grooved marking on the ax handle. “Tell my girl to bring you by our place sometime, and I’ll show you some old battle maps you can use for yourresearch.” He said the word with an element of amusement that Cece didn’t mind in the slightest.

She wanted to jump at the opportunity to see more of his family heirlooms, but over the last eight months, Ingrid had never invited her over to the houseboat she shared with her father, despite the many times Cece hinted at wanting to visit.

Cece noticed Ingrid staring at her father with big, unblinking eyes until Hal finally cleared his throat and said, “If you have a list of questions ready for me, then fire at will, Curly.”

“I do have a list,” she said tentatively. “But I also enjoy hearing about your life in Norway.”

“He only lived there for ten years,” Ingrid supplied. “As opposed to the almost forty he’s lived in America.”

Captain Hal diverted his attention to his only child. “History is as permanent as DNA, daughter. And the Viking blood that runs through my veins is the same blood that runs through yours.” He pushed his shirt sleeve up his forearm to reveal the curious tattoo Cece had only ever caught glimpses of from afar.

“Is it a map?” she asked. Only her question wasn’t answered immediately, at least not by the captain. He was obviously waiting for his daughter to take the lead on this one. After a reluctant moment, Ingrid obliged.

“It’s the coordinates of his hometown in Norway. The small fishing village he grew up in with my grandma until they moved to the States.”

“Wow...” The uttering was more of a breath, and if not for Ingrid’s clear annoyance with how long they’d been hanging out with her dad today, Cecewould have asked to take a closer look. The ink was jet black against his fair skin, the coordinates small and the words underneath scripted in a language other than English. But even still, she understood what the map represented to him. Not an outline of a random location he once lived, but ahome.

Home was a concept she’d struggled to understand for some time now. Did she have a home? Was it the place she was born? The place she lived with her two parents before her father left? Or was it here, in the town she’d grown up treating like nothing more than an annual vacation spot to visit her only cousin at her aunt and uncle’s grand hotel?

Perhaps home meant something else altogether, something she hadn’t quite figured out yet.

The questions bobbed inside her head like buoys as she followed the captain around her uncle’s giant boat, ticking off each one of her research questions so she could write her next scene accurately. That was, as long as rule-follower Joel agreed to it. But she imagined her cousin would have little reason for pushback once she told him who would be involved. Because if Ingrid was to be her muse for Ember ... then she knew Joel would do whatever it took to become her muse for Merrick.

She had no doubt he’d be calling the second his shift was over at the front desk.

As Captain Hal answered the last question on her list today—the one having to do with storm protocols and procedures—she rubbed her lips and glanced at Ingrid, who was, once again, nose down in a fantasy novel.

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