The Raven Girl

Chapter 40

Another dream. Just when she'd believed them to be over, when she'd realised they were a creation of fear and nothing more, they appeared again and more confusingly so this time round. Yet, ever since Eirik's death, she had parted with fear. She had made a conscious effort to and now, when there was nothing but happiness, they still reappeared.

They were vivid, too; she could remember every second, every word and every feeling like she could remember the events of her own life. People she'd never known before enveloped her every thought, concepts she'd never heard of swamped her mind, hurt and betrayal were at the very core of her heart, though, for the life of her, she could not understand why.

She was Hillevi returned. Asta shook her head. She had been Katja, yes, for that temporary moment, but she had not felt as if she belonged there, in that body. During her meetings with Maja, she had been there, as Asta, though she'd not been known to go by such a name, whereas here she'd borrowed a body that did not belong to her.

This was all very well and worth mulling over when the day began but there was something else, something that required more thought than anything else: Katja's words. Those words she'd spoken, those words that had brought about Solfrid – Asta, even – from her lifeless state, those words that still felt warm on her tongue:

Where their breathing bodies fell, may they rise and breathe once more.

Sighing, she crawled out from under the weight of the furs and slunk over to the window. The day was nice enough and the clouds, though blanketing the entire sky, seemed vaguely transparent to the sun's rays. The morning dew and frost sparkled in the courtyard and, just beyond that, were the rolling fields and trees now open to her. When a servant called with breakfast and newly crafted clothes, she wolfed down the broth as quickly as she could and dressed alone to the maid's dismay, anxious to catch a glimpse of the morning's frost before it faded.

She hurried down corridors to make her way outside, politely declining anybody's offer to share their company for the morning. Of course, she hadn't meant it rudely – ask her any other time, and she would've smiled at their sudden, uncharacteristic display of hospitality. Now, though, with Katja's words running time and time again through her head, she couldn't risk it. She was bound to mess up and slip into her thoughts while they were talking, dealing more damage than good.

The fields outside the castle weren't as rugged looking as those Sigurd and neighbouring farmers of the north owned. They were neat and populated by sheep who kept the grass trimmed, lined with well-built stone walls and streams. It was picturesque, as she'd always pictured farming in the south, and seemed miles away from any type of blight or famine.

Watching the sheep trundle about distracted her for a minute at most, and even though she swore she'd never torn her eyes away from their pristine woollen coats, Katja managed to wheedle her way back into Asta's thoughts. Over and over again. It was as if dyed into the wool were the words she'd said, or that they'd been dug into the fields or written in the clouds. Somewhere, there was something reminding her of everything that had passed in that dream and, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't forget about it.

"Where their breathing bodies fell," she muttered, uncertainly, "may they rise and breathe once more."

She glanced around, unsure as to what she should expect. It was, after all, just a dream and dreams were known to be fooling and mischievous in nature; she remembered as an infant dreaming there was a wolf under her bed... how disappointed she'd been to discover only the corpse of an ugly spider, who'd likely been chased around by her maid and forced to take a refuge of starvation. Yet, this had felt so real. The wolf had been a product of hope, more than anything, and she had convinced herself that it might be real through hoping, but this was different.