Binding Threads: A Short Story ✔️

III

Ville trudged down the path under the bleak winter sky. It was still so bright out though everything was frozen in slate and gray. He had two fish freshly caught from the Torneälve and a basket of walnuts Elsa's mother insisted that he have. He supposed he should make an occasion out of it and make something sweet out of the walnuts for Idunn to try since they had only a few days left before the day of her Binding. Elsa probably wouldn't mind the idea either.

"Ragna?" Ville called as he entered the shop. Her strange intuitions would know which of the nearby farmers would sell them some butter to make cookies, but the silence indicated she had gone elsewhere. He set down the walnuts and fish before going to the bedroom. "Idunn, do you know where Ragna went?"

"No." Idunn sat before a flickering hearth. Her face was curtained by pale hair as her bunad lay in her lap clutched between her fingers.

"Idunn? Is there something wrong?" Ville knelt down and pulled the bunad from her hands to inspect it. "Did you tear a hole by accident? What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong." Ville caught a glimpse of her face rife with unreadable emotion. She smiled softly and gestured at the nearly finished bunad. "It's already this pretty even though I'm not even finished yet. Gorgeous, isn't it?"

She thumbed over the happy floral details inscribed on the black wool, and Ville set his hand over hers. "Why do you seem upset?"

"Because it's so beautiful, Ville. It's so beautiful—wouldn't father be so proud!" Her smile dimmed. "That's why I can't bear to see it wasted."

"Idunn, what are you—"

"Oh, I'm being silly, aren't I? I'm being silly." She still smiled even though she was rubbing at her eyes. "Why am I crying over this again? It's pointless. Tell me I'm being silly, Ville."

Ville wanted to comfort her, but he fell silent.

"I'm being silly, right...?" She scrubbed harder as if to command her tears to halt their advance.

He grabbed her wrist to let her tears flow. "You're not."

Her lips pressed together at what was supposed to be a reassurance.

He didn't like the silence, so he said, "Tell me. What are you thinking?"

Idunn did not reply at first. It seemed she ignored the question until, "Ville, what happens if I'm not paired?"

A tense silence stretched between them. Instead of what he would usually retort, Ville could only give one answer. Not because he thought it was the nicest thing to say but because he believed it. "You will be. You worked too hard."

"I worked too hard? But what if this bunad isn't enough? What if all this work will be for nothing?" She flung the garment away from her, and her voice took on a bitter edge. "Odin knows the bunad is fake—it was always fake; my mother hadn't given it to me, and she never will. How can I ask for a husband with that—that thing?"

He retrieved the bunad and held it out to her. "You don't know for certain."

"Neither do you." She curled into herself. "You said it yourself; my life lay in the fickle hands of the Norns watching over me."

"Don't let your life start and end with marriage." Ville neatly folded up the bunad.

She sighed, and some of the anger seemed to have left with it. "We've had this conversation already, Ville. Let it end where it had."

He agreed with her, but Ville found himself pushing anyway, some unknowable force behind his tongue. "Haven't you considered that finding a husband may not lead to happiness?"