The New World (The Mikaelson Brothers)

Chapter 4

The first night in the village had been a pleasant one. The members of the Marwick family had slept like a rose because all of them had been exhausted. Freya was the first one to wake up and quickly dressed into the lilac dress he wore yesterday. She walked outside into the dim light of the setting sun and admired its beauty.

 Freya collected six eggs, each for one of her family members and carefully placed them in a stone bowl where mother would be able to see them and start preparing dinner immediately. All sisters knew their mother was very impatient and when nerves start taking over, she would channel them into anger.

 With a small sack hanging from her right shoulder, Freya left the house behind and tried to find her way back to the place she had lost her family. From there on it would be easy to find the brook where the lady had been bathing her son.

The trees grew dimmer again and Freya knew she was getting close. After saving herself from walking into the last tree - she had tripped over a small branch – she put the sack down and undressed herself. Calmly she stepped into the cold water and was able to walk in knee-height. She bent down and started rubbing her skin carefully, trying to rid it of the dried mud. Yesterday she had been too tired to bath herself before going to bed and did not regret waiting until now. The sun’s red light hit her skin soothingly and Freya found herself enjoying the ticklish feeling of the water.

After she dried herself she pulled on a white dress, her favorite, and did not bother to dry or braid her dripping wet hair. Contently, she hummed a song on her way back to the hut and was about to approach her house when she noticed a man in front of her house. He stood with his back towards her and held a sack in his muscled arms.

Freya tried to approach him quietly, hoping she would be able to enter the hut via the backdoor, but the man had already faced her when she was about to deviate to the back of the hut.

“Hello”, the man’s deep voice greeted her. His smile faltered when his eyes met hers and she instantly felt enchanted. She knew those deep brown eyes from the day before. The man that she had bumped into, the man so handsome that she could not speak anymore.

Freya approached him, fully aware of her messy appearance and had trouble swallowing. Her cheeks burnt up and she did not dare look at his eyes again.

“I came to bring you this”, the man said and held out the heavy sack with one arm. Freya focused her gaze on the sack and tried to grasp it with one hand and dropped the heavy weight to the floor. Her arms were weak when he was around, her voice gave up on her when he spoke to her and her eyes did not dare to look into his. What was going on with her?

Freya lifted the sack with both arms onto her back and nodded at the man before heading towards the front door. She heard the man’s heavy footsteps as he started walking away from her. Within a second, Freya had turned around again and for the first time her voice seemed to have returned.

“Thank you”, she called after the man. He looked back, clearly surprised and made somewhat of a bow. It was just a small boy but it had made Freya’s stomach flutter.

Only a true gentleman would bow for a woman and not just any woman, but a woman of importance. In her old village, the only men that bowed were suitors of certain women. These women were beautiful and desired by every man in the village.

Did the man think that Freya was beautiful? Did he desire her? Or was he just polite? One thing that Freya knew certain was that she felt important for the first time in her life. She had not been in Isibel’s shadow for the first time since Isibel became of age. Isibel, blessed with her exquisite beauty, had many suitors in the Old World, but never was there a man good enough for her. She did not want to attach herself to one man, for she was only nineteen. She was young and wanted to enjoy her life and that was something Freya admired the most about her.