Beyond the Skyline

SALTY AIR AND SCARS

If anything was well known in the Sverson foreldrelse house, as the village had long dubbed the home of orphans under the command of the Sverson family, was that keeping children from babies to more fourteen years kids was complicated. And noisy. Very noisy.

The people of Visithug Island had grown accustomed to that sloping old wooden cottage that was anchored on a hillside high among rocks and tall herbs a little removed from the village for generations, which always housed childish noises, laughter, crying, running and smell of bread and apple pie.

The five women who worked tirelessly in the house were well known in the village. Mrs. Brenda Sverson was a well-known retired midwife, already widowed and older who appeared to be younger than she really was, always with a straight back and a face as if she had just sucked a sour lemon furged with wrinkles.

She strolled through the village accompanied by a younger maid who helped her with shopping for the foreldrelse house, with an air of sufficiency surrounding her and the village dress she cared about keeping, neat and smooth without a stain.
The woman, Dahlia, a young redheaded and freckled woman with no surname of no more than thirty years, quiet and submissive, had proclaimed she himself the personal maid of Mrs. Brenda as she always accompanied her through the village. It was strange to see the old lady without Dahlia's sloping figure behind her.

Engla Gormsson was undoubtedly the most sociable woman in the Sverson house, that woman in her forties who seemed never to tire, with the strength of a bull and red apples on her cheeks, always walked between cheerful steps and a smile crowning her plump face, stained with flour and oil stains on her dress, shedding warmth and smell of baking. Engla was always chatting and you could hear her talking to her kitchen assistant Helga from the hallway, a low girl with pale blond hair picked up in two short braids pointed upwards, rolly and friendly, much like Engla , who could not formulate more than two phrases without stuttering between stockings.

And finally there was Ludmila Sverson, Mrs. Brenda's only daughter, a tracing of it, tall, stretched and quiet. She wasn't supposed to spend forty-five, but she appeared to be fifty because of her cinderella skin and poor, straight hair of a dull brown just like her cold eyes. 

The heiress of the house almost never let herself be seen by the village unless she was accompanied by her mother, and was in charge of the administration of the house and the etiquette classes of the girls. She was strict and jumped with almost nothing, and was not very popular with the children of the Sverson house.

Astrid had managed to her short seven years to off every woman in the house except Engla, who was the closest thing to a maternal figure she had. 

Between fires in the kitchen, dragons sneaked into the bedrooms, stolen tartlets from the kitchen, sheets full of mud on laundry days, forest or village getaways, Astrid had earned her reputation and name on pulse. 

She had been punished countless times with whipping on her hands, faces glued to the wall or holding books. None of them had stopped their adventurous and restless spirit by nature.

That day was a day like another in a winter that moved away with a clean sky and cold wind. It was early, but you could already hear life in the village beginning to wake up in the distance.

Astrid shuddered at the gust of icy air that came towards her as she ran down the slippery path of worn stones leading to the Sverson house. She regretted it distractedly that she hadn't taken her woolly coat before she left.

One of the things she liked about the Sverson house was that it was on a high hill and inclined like the building itself, so from the window of her own dormitory room or the front door of the house, you could appreciate a perfect view of the village