Welcome to Scarborough
Hold your grudges. Time passing is not an apology.
How those words came to bite Rosemarie in the rear! Katrine was following the GPS on her phone that was clamped to her car. Rosemarie only ever spoke about Scarborough with disdain and sadness. Katrine could neither get much information about Scarborough nor her parents' childhoods there. All she got out of them was curt, sour responses overwhelmed with condescension. Yet, here she was, passing the simple sign: Scarborough 3km. The wooded area surrounding the eerily desolate road was laced with a mist over the ground. It sent shivers down Katrine's spine.
She kept her pine-green eyes on the road ahead. Scarborough let them in. Well beyond the rooftops of town, were the other encapsulating mountains in all their grandeur. In the rear-view mirror, were the first half of the shrouding peaks. There was none of the city hustle, no cobblestone pedestrian streets. No luxurious flower stalls, no popular fishmonger markets. None of her history, none of her culture. Soren... her pet owl... also wasn't feeling it.
What they did feel, however, was this sudden burst of energy. The energy that pulled and pulled in Katrine's chest day and night like a pounding alarm. This gnawing feeling that was clawing its way out of their city. It was sharp and she couldn't ignore it anymore. It was passionate and building the more they followed the GPS and now it swelled and exploded! Every scent of spring blossoms, every animal they saw in the woods-- it was feverish! From the roots of her teeth to the beds of her toenails could feel this warmth from Scarborough.
They reached the main street and Katrine could feel the warmth coursing through her veins. She slowed down on her driving from the sensation making her feel lighter than air. Soren ruffled out his feathers, in the passenger seat, then hooted quizzically at her. Katrine cleared her throat then followed her GPS further across the small town.
It was shocking to her city-girl mentality how brief it was to get from one end of the village to the other side. Between the edge of the 'busyness' was more woods. A sense of skepticism filled the grey car from the directions the GPS was giving her. Not until she saw the Mortensen Husbandry sign on the clearing on the wooden corral fencing. The warmth was embracing Katrine, and it made her beam.
Unfortunately, it was also distracting. Katrine turned onto the gravel path and, in her rear-view mirror, she saw the naturally silver sheen of her hair growing back in. Soren flickered his wings to stablised himself from the uneven path that led to the house. Katrine turned off her engine before looking at her silver hair's reflection. She narrowed her eyes at her reflection. The fully head of silver hair tinted back to black.
That was one of few things Rosemarie taught her to do with the... unexplained gift... they shared. Rosemarie had the same natural head of silvery hair; the difference was that she sprouted black lowlights to make the silver more like grey hairs of old age. Katrine's dark green eyes relaxed on her reflection when her hair was back to black. Her whipped back out of her windshield when she saw movement from the house.
There he is, she gulped. The salt-and-pepper hair and full beard she had only seen on his Facebook. Don't freak out. He's probably just as nervous as you are. Katrine downed the lump in her throat as she unbuckled her seatbelt. She looked over to Soren. Soren is a young barn owl with golden, white and brown feathers and amber eyes.
Katrine stepped out of her car nervously. Soren glided out of the car and flew to do an aerial survey of the familial estate. Katrine's combat boots, along with Jakob's riding boots and those of the woman who fell in step with him crunched over the gravel path. Although, Katrine couldn't hear it from the blood roaring in her ears. Soren screeched before fluttering onto her forearm.
Jakob's next step hesitated from seeing the barn owl on her. The woman's already cold face curdled on Katrine and Soren. They were a fair few paces away, but Katrine heard the woman's gritted voice: "how is she doing that? You said she was normal."
"She is," Jakob whispered softly but had a growing smile pointed at Katrine. "Wow," he sang awkwardly to Katrine. "Look at you. You... y-you're here."
"It's nice to finally meet you, Mr. Jakob," she mumbled uncertainly, shaking his hand.
"You too," he grinned with more sincerity. Tears actually pooled in his eyes! "Ohmygod," he exclaimed. "May I," he asked holding his arms out for a hug. Katrine shooed Soren off her arm for the hug. Jakob combed over the back of her head. "Oh, I can't believe this is happening! You're real. You're here," he cheered holding her at arms' length. Katrine spluttered a laugh too with tears in her own eyes. "You're so beautiful. You look just like your mother."
Katrine smiled. Jakob stroked a finger across her temple to brush away stray hair. Katrine's pine green eyes shot to the woman with Jakob. She cleared her throat at the woman. The woman only sized up Katrine. The young woman has brown eyes, straight, long, light brown hair, and tanned skin. She wore a leather brown cropped top, two gray furry bracelets on each arm, and green pants with a beige cloth around her waist. If anything, the woman looked like she belonged among the Wildlings in Game of Thrones.
Jakob noticed how Katrine submitted under the cold contort of the woman. He turned on her, wrapping his arm around her waist. "This is Katja, my fiancée." Katrine did a double take; there was no way Katja was that much older than her. "And who's this," Jakob deflected to the barn owl landing on Katrine's shoulder.
Soren flared his wings and screeched at Katja. "He doesn't like meeting new people," she mumbled sheepishly, scratching his chest with a single nail.
Katja folded her arms with her lips pulled aside, but she wasn't looking at Katrine. That distasted was pointed to Jakob. Jakob firmed his hand over Katja's waist. Katrine looked between them. "You must be hungry," Jakob deflected again. "There's a good restaurant-- the only restaurant we have. Wolff will get your bags."
Katrine was looking out the window at woods and feeling that swirling energy around her. The warm sensation was like a hug from a loved one she hadn't seen in years. It was familiar and welcoming, and she closed her eyes as she leaned into the headrest. On the other side of the road - on Jakob's side - was Scarborough in all its lifeless glory. The Toyota Hilux pulled into the parking area of The Lodge, which also had flickering, barely glowing red neon lights in the front window. Katrine pulled her lip up from the decrepit white farmhouse exterior.
That didn't stop it from being busy with the growing dinner rush. Jakob didn't bother to lock his truck when he gestured to the dark green door. Immediately the life was sucked out of the joint. Even the ambient music was snuffed out. Every single eye - patron, staffer, even the scruffy and muddied dog at the please wait to be seated sign - watched every step Jakob took, leading Katrine to a table.
Their waitress set the menus in front of them. She walked away from Katrine but was staring at the green-eyed young woman over her shoulder and blonde hair. Katrine pretended not to notice and looked at the bar, where angry hulking men were also staring at her. She tucked her lips then looked at the menu. A laminated paper with four options: breakfast, lunch, supper and dessert. Nothing more. After a furrow in her brows, she flipped the menu to see an assortment of teas, coffees, beers, wines and cocktails.
"Wha-what do you recommend," she asked, looking up to Jakob staring at her too.
His wasn't illegible or curious - like everyone else's - his was filled with awe. "I always order lunch," he stated.
Katrine glanced passed him to a family - parents and three young children - also halting their meal to stare at her. "Mr. Jakob--"
"Just Jakob is fine."
"Jakob," she corrected in a whisper, "why are they staring at us?"
Jakob didn't miss a beat or look up from his menu: "it's not us they're staring at. It's you. You're the splitting image of your mother. When Rosemarie ran away, Scarborough was never the same." Katrine scrunched her bushy eyebrows together, lowering the menu. Jakob peeped over his own menu to see the confusion on her face. Jakob sighed then leaned on the table with his fingers interlinked. "What do you know about Scarborough?"
"That it's impossible to find it on Google." He wasn't amused. Katrine shrugged a single dejected shoulder. "My parents don't like to talk about it," she answered. "This all kind of started in grade eleven, with my genealogy project. My father went as far back as my great, great grandparents but my mother..." Katrine brushed her hair over her shoulder to make sure it was still black. "She just said she was raised by your grandparents. She didn't want to talk about it."
Jakob nodded slowly. He flagged down their waiter and placed their order. The blonde wrote their order, but her blue eyes would sneak glances at Katrine. She walked away, tripping over her own feet. Jakob looked behind him to see the full extent of the restaurant looking at them. The lone bartender had been wiping down that glass steiner's handle since Jakob and Katrine walked into the establishment. Jakob faced Katrine then went on like it was nothing:
"Scarborough is really small. When our parents died, Rosemarie and I had to take over the family businesses."
"'Businesses'? Plural."
"Yes. In hand with horse breeding, the Mortensen family had a role in Scarborough with more..." Jakob shrugged his pensiveness "... antiquity." Their waitress laid down the cup of tea in front of Katrine and the glass bottle of Coca-Cola before Katrine could push for more questions. "Our grandmother had to take over from our mother in teaching Rosemarie about this line of work."
"What exactly is 'this line of work'?"
Jakob shook his head. "It's taboo for a man to talk about it," he confessed. "The just of it is this: this particular line of work came with a contract. A contract Rosemarie didn't want to fulfill. A contract with a family we grew up with. She realised that the only reason we were ever this close to the Winther family was because of this contract. She was in love with another man, and so, they ran away together."
"Wha-- wait, this contract was i-it... was this an arranged marriage?"
"Very un-Christian but very old-fashioned. Very Scarborough; yes, an arranged marriage." Katrine looked down at her steamy tea in front of her. "You really didn't know?" Katrine didn't react any more than a long blink. "Well, you said you wanted answers," Jakob went on and Katrine finally looked up. "Mathilde can give you all the answers on this. Just go easy on her; she holds a great deal of hate for Rosemarie."
"Why was she supposed to get married?"
Their waitress returned with lunch which was frikadeller on franskbrød with a tomato sauce. Frikadeller are meatballs and franskbrød just means 'French bread', which is baguette. Jakob didn't waste time putting a knife to the sandwich. Katrine - hanging on his every word - didn't even look at her own lunch Jakob ordered for supper. Jakob shook his head with a shrug while halving his meal.
"That's a question better suited for Mathilde."
The waitress' eyes went wide on Jakob then looked at Katrine with her expression doing a complete one-eighty. She gave a bright smile and a curtsy. "Welcome to Scarborough, Ms. Raun."
