Page 64 of The Storm
“Yes.” Max eased the car into a curve in the road. “Contentis a better word.”
Leo cracked open the window to smell the country air. It was night-and-day different from the dusty and spice-laden air of Istanbul. Latvia smelled of green woods and hay and the sea. “Did you call Malachi this morning?”
“I did. Nothing out of the ordinary at home. He says we can take as much time as we need.”
Leo was unsettled by the idea of an indefinite stay in Dunte. The farm they were going to had been his mother and aunt’s childhood home. There had once been a small community of Irin in the nearby village, which was known for excellent ceramics and ironwork. Their grandfather had been a respected sword maker and blacksmith.
There had been a farm with a large cowshed and many outbuildings, one of them an ancient forge. They grew vegetables. They tended apples. There was a great outdoor oven that his grandfather maintained with care, though it was barely used. Perhaps his grandmother had been a baker. Leo and Max had no idea.
They had no idea about any of their dead family. The dead were not spoken of. They didn’t know how or where their mothers had been trained. They had no idea how Lauma had met Peteris or Stasya had met Ivo. Leo knew his father was not from Latvia, but he didn’t know where he was born or who his people were. And Max’s father was a complete mystery; all they knew was his name.
Memories of the dead inhabited the farm like ghosts dancing in the corner of a vision. Leo had once found a pony carved into an old apple tree in the orchard. Max saw scribbles low on the wall of a closet. A forgotten note fell from the seam of a book.
The Irin village was long gone, but the ghosts of their mothers lingered in Dunte. Leo hoped they lingered because his mother and aunt had been happy. That was his hope. Whether he had any reason for it was debatable.
“Almost there,” Max murmured. “You might want to wake your woman.”
Leo reached back and rubbed Kyra’s knee as Max pulled off the main road and onto a track leading into a dense copse of trees. It was only wide enough for one vehicle and overgrown by weeds and spruce branches. As they bumped over the dirt road, he felt Kyra stretch and move.
“Are we there?” she asked in a sleepy voice.
“Almost.” Renata tucked her tablet in a backpack and leaned forward, placing her hand on Max’s shoulder. “So, is there plumbing in this place?”
“There’s a well on the property,” Max said. “Gustav said Peter has modernized it over the years. He did most of the work himself, but he’s very good with most machines, so there will likely be plumbing of some kind.”
“As long as there’s water, I can manage,” Renata said. All of them had been born before plumbing was common. She took a deep breath and smiled. “I smell the sea! And cows.”
“We’re close to both,” Leo said. “The Gulf of Riga is just past those trees. You can walk to the shore from the farm.”
“That’s so nice,” Kyra murmured. “I love the sea. I miss the beaches in Bulgaria.”
“It’s not warm,” Max said. “Not even in the summer. You’ve been warned.”
“That’s okay.” Kyra reached for Leo’s hand. “I can still walk on the shore.”
“And ride,” Leo said. “If Peter still has horses.”
They rounded a curve of the dirt track, and the farm came into view. Leo had thought he was prepared to see it again.
He wasn’t.
A large farmhouse with a straw-thatched roof dominated the yard. Across the mud-and-grass yard was a tall barn with a pen on one side. A horse was hobbled in the pasture, grazing on green grass while three cows meandered through an orchard in the distance, their bells tolling through the midmorning air.
Leo rolled down his window and was greeted with the familiar smell that took him directly back to his childhood. Sea air. Straw. A hint of manure.
“What a beautiful barn,” Renata said. “It must have been a sizable dairy at one point.”
“I think it was,” Max said. “But not when we were children. We only kept a few cows for milk and cheese. We didn’t sell anything.”
“Did you live here or in Riga?” Kyra asked.
“Both places,” Leo said. “Artis was always here. We spent the week in Riga with Peter, training at the scribe house. Then weekends and most of the summer here with Peter and Artis, learning how to forge.”
“And milk cows,” Max muttered. “And plant cabbage. And dig weeds.”
“You know how to forge?” Renata squeezed Max’s shoulder. “I didn’t know that.”
“I haven’t done it in over a hundred years,” he said. “Leo kept it up longer than I did.”
