Dawn's Rising

Chapter 20; Unexpected Visitors

The next morning Kristina descended the stairs and joined her family for breakfast with the shine of the Lord's joy returned to her sweet countenance. Everyone again clasped her in loving arms and whispered their greetings into her ears before she sat down to break her night's fast with them.

But in the middle of taking another bite of her bread and cheese, a cloud passed over her face and caused the hand holding her breakfast to stop before it reached her mouth. Without following through with its intended action, the hand set the bread back down on the plate in front of her.

"What is it, Kristina?" Karl asked softly.

"Where did you bury him?"

Distressed at such a subject being mentioned during a meal, Silje was about to voice a complaint until Karl's hand settled lightly onto her arm and stopped the words before they could leave her mouth. Karl shook his head slightly at his wife with a loving smile on his face. Kristina needed to know this, and now was as good a time as any. "Yes, Petter and I did burry him and we both prayed over him too."

"Where?" Kristina looked up into her father's eyes with pleading written over her entire face.

"Right where he fell."

"I want, no need to see his grave."

Reaching a hand out across the table, Karl encompassed Kristina's small hand inside his own. "Alright, dearest. Petter and I will take you out there after breakfast."

"Please, can I go alone?"

Karl was about to deny his daughter's request, when the unvoiced cry emanating from her eyes cut off his words. "Please pappa, I need to be alone with him and say good bye. I also have to return this." Her other hand sank into her dress pocket and began to retrieve the leather pouch that had remained there since the accident.

Knowing what it was that Kristina was about to retrieve, he shook his head and smiled. "I believe that he would have wanted you to keep that to remember him. But Kristina, after all that has happened I do not want you to go alone."

Kristina's countenance fell momentarily, until a solution presented itself to her young inquisitive mind. "What if I take Bart with me?" Jarle's huge thick pelted husky was an avid watch dog, though he was climbing up in years. But even so Karl had no doubt that the brave and intensely loyal dog could stand his own even against a wolf.

Though Karl's instincts cried out no, he heard that still, inner voice that he had come to know and obey telling him to say yes. With a deep sigh, Karl turned away from what his flesh was crying out and accepted the guidance of the Spirit within him. "Alright," he declared to Kristina as an overjoyed smile broke out onto her pale face. The shocked intake of breath from the rest of the table's occupants hastened him to continue his conditions for the granting of Kristina's request. ",only if you will bring Bart with you and be gone for no more than a quarter of an hour. Petter and I will accompany you out to the old stump that is in the center of the meadow, which is about the half way mark between here and there. We will then wait for you there. And if we hear Bart start barking continuously, then we will come to you immediately. Is this acceptable to you?"

After thinking it through for a moment, Kristina nodded her acceptance of her father's terms. All returned to the consumption of their momentarily neglected breakfasts without further discussion.

Kristina left her father and brother to wait for her return at the old gnarled stump of the ancient oak tree that marked the center of the land they owned, and continued on with old Bart leading the way. The aged husky pulled the little girl behind him in increasing impatience.