Birch Manor -- Á Íslandi

Susan and Knud were waiting in the lounge at Copenhagen airport. Susan sat on the edge of the chair. “Relax!” Knud said gently, “we’ll board the plane in ten minutes or so.”
“I know,” Susan said, drawing a big shuddering breath, “But what with the spell thread, the books, and wands and magic paraphernalia in general, passing the customs gave me a major attack of butterflies in the stomach.”
“We got trough with no trouble,” Knud said grinning.
“And don’t tell me you had nothing to do with it,” Susan said more calm now. “It’s not totally unsuitable to use the ‘There’s nothing here-suggestions’ on unsuspecting customs officers. I’m more surprised that it worked. I always used to have everything checked when travelling in days of old.”
“Are you nervous?” Knud asked. “Most of our flight will be smooth, as we’re flying over the sea. No mountains or even high ground until we arrive.”
"No," Susan said. “I’m not really nervous; apprehensive describes it better. I do not like flying, and I do not like going north. You know my preferred holiday would be a slow, easy train travel to Italy in the summer time. But you can’t have everything. If we’re going to save the shattered remains and rebuild the school, we have to travel to Iceland and visit that museum for old Icelandic magic - even if it sounds like the phoniest thing north of Equator.”
“You nailed it, Susan, and I agree on all counts,” Knud said.

5 minutes later they boarded the plane, in the press to get aboard they got separated, but as the plane was not that full after all Susan quickly found Knud's lanky form over the seat rows. One of the assets of having a tall husband, Susan thought to herself, it’s quite hard to get lost. Knud felt her eyes on him, turned and waved at her, he had found their row.

The flight was totally uneventful, Susan dozed while Knud read a book, later he nodded off and Susan pulled out her sketch pad and drew Iceland as she imagined it would be looking, perfect with a smoking volcano in the background. Knud woke up and rubbed his eyelid. “Did you draw a plate of spaghetti?” he asked in a teasing tone.
“It’s lava, stupid,” she grinned, doffing his shoulder with mock blows. “I have no idea how it will be looking, this is my guess.”

Suddenly the plane lurched, the Fasten Seatbelts sign lit and the cardboard box containing Susan’s colours fell over and dumped its contents in her lap.

* * *

The plane fell and rose, but the oscillations grew steadily smaller. As they stopped, the comm system spluttered and the the captain's voice could be heard. "Sorry for the rough ride," he said, "we had a bird sucked into one of the engines. Luckily it was a small bird, so you, and I, will live to tell our grandchildren of this once in a lifetime accident."
"This is impossible," a lady in one of the first rows said ion Norwegian. "On my way to Copenhagen the very same thing happened! Did he not say once in a lifetime? For me it's the third such incident within seven days!"
"Let's hope it's trouble comes in threes," the stewardess said and the lady murmured assent.

(missing a part not yet written, where Susan and Knud spends two weeks travelling along the coast, brushing up their language skills and spells, getting used to Icelandic ways and car driving, visiting distant family and finally arrives at the museum)

Once there they accepted a guided tour, and volunteered to wait for the next tour, guided by a Rósa in Danish, as the first one was filled by a bus load of American tourists. Knud and Susan looked at one another and nodded. "We can have a cup of tea in the restaurant or the garden while we're waiting," Susan said. They had been warned from Icelandic coffee, had tried it once, and decided to stay away from it for the time being.
They had the guiding almost to themselves, as the Danish summer holidays had not began yet. There were a Norwegian couple, three young girls also from Norway and an old, Danish man, a former professor from somewhere in Jutland.It was a strange, yet really interesting museum. Most of the exhibits were phony, either just superstition, or copies of copies of something that might have worked once upon a time. The old professor was very interested in the necropants, which Susan found disgusting and Knud morbid, they did not feel the slightest spark of magic in those. But some of the old grimoires and some of the wands were another kind altogether, Susan asked for, and surprisingly got permission to take out of their display case wands that should have belonged to witches and wizards from the 17 century onwards.
"You do know that this one is a modern replica?" Susan said, as she gingerly replaced the last one on it on the hooks holding it.
"Yes we do, the original wand was stolen together with a few other object some time ago. But how do you know?"
"Oh" Susan said, "I am an amateur wood turner, and I can see the traces of modern wood turning implements. I could not be certain looking at it through the glass, but close up I was sure."
"Impressing," the lady said. "We thought it was a perfect replica, Could you show me what gave it away, probably after the tour has ended?"
"I'd be happy to," Susan replied.

Upstairs were no wands or grimoires, it was dedicated to the stories of persecutions and genealogy of Icelandic witches and wizards. They were encouraged to try and trace their own families back, if they had any Icelandic forebears. Only the old professor wanted a go and Rósa showed him how it worked by tracing her own family tree back to a wizard burned at the stake in the 1670es.
Both Susan and Knud noticed with satisfaction that Rósa's father was Sigurd Yngvasson, which they knew to be the name and patronymic of "their" Rósa's father.

* * *

After the other visitors were left to their own device either looking through the genealogic files, having a coffee or even a three course dinner in the restaurant, Rósa bade Knud and Susan accompagny her to her office for a cup of tea and a talk. "I have a couple of other wands, both old and replicas in my office, no need to remove the exhibits from their showcases," Rósa said.
Of course Susan was easily able to pick out the old wands from the samples in Rósas office, with one exception.
"No? That one is actually an old wand. We found it in ... Let me see, yes Kaldrananeshreppur. Impressive name for a small village, " Rósa said smiling over the rim of her teacup.
"Very much so," Susan ansvered. "And don't expect me to repeat that. I remember the trouble I had with Eyafjallajökull."
"That was one of the finest samples of Icelandic pronunciation I ever heard form a Dane, your teachers can be proud of you. How long have you been studying?"
"I began as a very young girl, 13 or thereabout, but then I did not do anything about it for over 40 years, I just recently picked it up again, I was not a very good student, when I was young, Gilvi and Thora almost gave up on me," Susan admitted. "But I love languages, and Icelandic has always had a big place in my heart."
"Gilvi and Thora, you say. I think I knew them, or maybe it's from one of my dreams, or it might be another couple, Neither name are uncommon here," Rósa said, looking through the window, far out over the sea.
"Your dreams? Susan said, genuine wonder colouring her voice
"My dreams," Rósa said hesitantly, still watching the sea. "They have become more and more vivid, since I began working at this museum. They have to do with magic. In my dreams I go to school, I meet other magicians, I fly a broomstick, I do magic ... but it's a dream, just a dream. Only they are so vivid. Sometimes I wake up wishing it was true."
"But it is," Susna said quietly. "what I said about woodturning was ... well, not exacly a lie, but not the whole truth. I can see, in some of the new wands, the traces of newer woodturning tecniques, but only vaguely, I cannot tell with any certainty if they are old or new. But I can feel the magic in some of those wands. Magic really do exist. Not the supersticios kind, making that girl love you, or neighbour's cream not turn into butter variety, but real, honest to God, magic.
I know it's hard to believe. There's so much phony, so much wannabe magic around. Like the wand from Kaldrananeshreppur. Someone made the susceptible inhabitants of that hamlet believe that he or she could do magic, and as magic - the phony kind - is as much in the mind of the receiving part as in the practitioner .." Susan stopped and looked at Rósa, who sat still as a mouse, gazing out over the ocean. Susan continued: "Those sigils, staves, you call them, here in the museum are not true magic. They are some kind of sympathetic magic, more like a weak potion than anything else. But still they work ... You know, like ... like that unsecure boy, loving Miss Rigth at a distance, not believing that she even notices him. Then Mr. Shy goes to the local wise one, gets a stave, carries it to the next ball, and then, when Miss Rigth looks at him, which she will eventually do, if she's not totally uninterested, Mr. Shy then believes that the stave is working, self confidence growing - maybe aided by a drop of liquid courage - goes over and aks her for a dance, still believing tin the 'magic' and then, well nature will do the rest. Or let's take Mrs. Lazy not being able to make butter as well as her neighbour. Given a stave, and hiding it under the churn, she'll churn on energetically, on the lookout for glimpses of butter; which of course she will eventually see, as anybody who ever tried whipping cream and inadvertently making butter can attest will happen. Then she will happily churn on, seeing the results. Staves are means to overcome people's innate inhibitions or blemishes, not real magic."
Rósa turned to Susan: "Then what is?" she asked, her voice low and strained.
Susan looked at the wand in her hand, then back at Rósa and continued: "Flying broomsticks, brewing potions, calling animals, healing the sick ... Do you remember the 4H courses you participated in as a child?"
"What a strange question, but yes I do. I even sometimes talk about them with Finnbogi, we were there together. We have happy, yet strangely vague memories of those summers. We sometimes remember tiny details with great clarity. We both remember a spider, we found in a stable one summer, but we cannot remember what we were taught."
"Is Finnbogi at work today?" Knud asked. He had been sitting quetly next to Susan, and Rósa had almost forgotten that he was there.
"Yes, Knud, he is," Rósa answered.
"You know my name?" Knud said with a gentle smile. "I did not tell you."
Rósa looked at him in astonishment. "But you are Knud, aren't you? Knud from that 4H-summer school. I remeber you. And Susan ... It's all in my memories and my dreams, all wowen together, just like those old, magic knots wowen from multicoloured strands of thread."

* * *

"Do you think you could make Finnbogi join us?" Knud asked. "We owe you an explanation, and it's easier telling the tale only once."
"I'll make him come at once," Rósa said and picked up the phone. She spoke in rapid Icelandic, and while she did so, Susan swung the old wand, she had been holding and cast the Mál Sameinast spell.

Finnbogi arrived, bringing his tea mug and sat down at the table.
"So as not to cause any misunderstandings I'm going to continue in Icelandic," Susan began when they were seated.
"Firstly, I'm Susan, and this is Knud. We know one another from Summer school long time ago. For many years we lived with the supposition that it was a 4H school, teaching us the care of bunnies and grooming of horses. Rósa said you have vague recollections as to what you really were taught there. No wonder you have, Unicorn Farm, as the place was called ..."
Finnbogi called out: "I knew it, there's magic in it somewhere!"
"Yes indeed there is," Susan said, "and much more than you suspect. Unicorn Farm was a school of magic."
"Susan," Knud said, "stop beating around the bush. Show them!"
"All right I will," Susan said. "I'm a bit nervous. I don't know how you'll react to this ... Oh darn it. Truth is the best way out!" Susan said, took a wand from the table and swished it through the air. Sparks stood in all directions and lit some of the papers on the table. "Slökkvið!" Susan said, pointing the wand and the flames died.
"How did you do that?" Rósa asked, nonplussed. "That is the real stuff!"
"Yes, indeed it is, and you were much better at it than me, Icelandic being your mother tongue and your family being witches and wizards way back!" Susan opened the small brown suitcase she had been carrying around all day.
"I want to test our new spell thread on you two if you dare," she said pulling out a brand new pair of pants and a skirt. They were subtly different from what they had had at the Unicorn Farm, colours and make were not totally the same, but still very close.
"That skirt ..." Rósa said in an awed voice. "It looks like the one from my dreams. Can I have it?"
"That was the idea," Susan said, extending the skirt toward Rósa, "and it should re-awaken your magic, if we did it right. Time to test, I think. Please touch it!"
Rósa did and as her eyes lit up, Susan smiled broadly, then laughed. She and Knud high-fived and laughed: "It worked!"
"Your turn, Finnbogi," Knud said, giving him the pants. And as Finnbogi took them he too smiled broadly.
The four magicians sat quietly for a short while, getting used to the strangeness of young friends having become old, basking in the knowledge of magic and the wonder of the moment.
Then Knud spoke: "But how come you remembered, half-remembered, dreamt about the magic. That spell the last day made all us apprentices forget. It was only last spring that Susan found her old skirt and had her memory jolted back. And none of the other, we have found had any idea of magic. Only a general unease, maladjustment or a sense of not fitting in. Do you have any ideas?"
"Maybe," Rósa began.
"I think," Finnbogi said
You first, Finnbogi!" Rósa said quickly.
"First of all," he said, we've been handling things of magic here in the museum, on an almost daily basis ..."
"No," Rósa interrupted him. "My dreams goes further back. Before I even heard of the museum. I think it's the Easter fires."
"The Easter fires!" Knud said. "Do you still jump through them?"
"Yes we do!" Rósa said, "compared to the fires on the Unicorn Farm, those fires are a lame show, but I still think they cured us at least partially."
"That was exactly what I was going to say next," Finnbogi continued unperturbed. Susan remembered him as a calm, reliable person, a stout supporter and a fairly fast thinker. The years did not seem to have changed him much. "Easter fires, and then of course living in Iceland, speaking the old language, it all helped, I think."
"To make a long story shorter, Susan said. "We need you at the Unicorn Farm. No," she corrected herself, "it's not the Unicorn Farm any longer. Our new place is called Birch Manor. But still we need every one of the old apprentices we can find, for teaching and doing things. We need you, Rósa as a wandsinger and as an accomplished animalist. You could take over Thora's old position? And you Finnbogi for the Easter fires, as you're the oldest male still alive, and also for help with the portals, and so much more. We've found Martine, Fiona, My, Heidi, Tage and Lis, and Sandra, their Mum."
"And Helge, Anna, Olav, Hilde, Monica and Jan," Knud continued. "and that's it, I think."
"We know that Aamu and Sarah are alive as well," Susan added, "but we have not yet found Aamu. Sarah is indisposed. But as most of us have had children and grandchildren, there's no lack of apprentices!"
"You're missing at least one," Rósa said. "My cousin Kirstin, she's also still alive, and she's living near here."
"Kirstin!" Susan said with a sad smile. "I remember her so well, as dark as you are blond and always positive, almost happy. But ... I mean ... we read in the papers that she died while swimming after her graduation ceremony."
"Well, no, she did not," Rósa said. "It's a misunderstanding. She graduated, she did go swimming with more of her co-graduates, there was an accident, but it was another Kirstin who drowned. My cousin was in hospital for a long time, and she ... but you can help her? Can't you?"
"Fiona can, I think, and Marit." Knud said. "Fiona worked wonders for Martine. But what's wrong with Kirstin?"
"As I said, she almost drowned, and her back was damaged. She is not as you knew her. Reduced would be the rigth word I think."
Finnbogi nodded.
"We've better start the setting up of a portal somewhere near," Knud said. "I would not dare give Kirstin her magic back without consulting with Fiona and Marit first, and preferably Martine and Sandra as well. They are our counsellors and old, wise persons. Ella - you remember Ella from Germany?"
"The girl without magic, she with the granny?"
"Yes her, she's in it too, she knows the magic society in Germany, even if it's small and partly esoteric, they exist!"
"A portal," Finnbogi sounded almost happy. "I think the old ones inside the mountain were never ruined."
"The old scary ones?" Susan asked. "Those where the cells are - those ghastly one-way traps?"
"How do ou know about those?" Finnbogi exclaimed. "I thought I was the only one. Gilvi showed them to me, Sif and Elvin one day in the week leading up to that ill-fated summer party."
"He knew." Susan said surreptitiously wiping away a tear: "That week was a busy, emotional week. We all learned lessons way beyond what we could do. He knew what was going to happen, not only at the party, but in the future. Now. As did Thora and the Kuusisaari twins. But how I know about the portals is not my story to tell. Me and another apprentice ended up there one day in the autumn before. Can they still be used and can you take us there?"
"Yes and yes," Finnbogi said simply. "But you'll have to trust me. I can - I think - teleport us there. and from there we can go anywhere portals still exist. Those are major portals, enabling you to go to any portal, not like the simple ones leading to Unicorn Farm and back. Where do you have portals still?
"Elsinore, my old one Oslo's old one is aslo still active, and connected to Birch Manor. Bergen, Tromsø, and of course Birch Manor have new ones. The simple variety to and from one another. I did not know of major portals at all. Tage and Lis sat up the three portals with help from us all."
"Me and Aamu and Jouka, we were taught how to make portals major in that week," Finnbogi said. "The purple team only learned how to make simple ones."
"Ah! that explains a lot," Knud said.
"We have to meet as soon as possible, all of us!" Rósa said.
"We could go to Denmark," Finnbogi said. "Now is the low season, only American tourists are here, mostly for the thrill of the necropants. Jonas and Frey can handle that alone. We have to go to Denmark to study something that you two - amateur magic sleuths told us of?"
"I'm a retired historian," Knud said, "I did some dabbling in witch processes in my time. Can you come and help me with that?"
"Nice one!" Finnbogi smiled.
"Take care," Rósa suddenly said, "the one who stole the wand and those other things are still at large. We do not know who or why."
"True!" Susan and Knud said as one.
Finnbogi rose: "Jónas and Frey are done with their daily chores now. I'll tell them of our plans."
Susan swished the wand and cancelled the Mál Sameinast spell: "No way our speaking perfect Icelandic will help further our plan!" Susan smiled.
Shortly Finnbogi returned with two youngish, very Icelandic looking people, almost too much so. Home knit sweaters, Jónas with a wild beard and Frey with two long buttery yellow braids. Behind their back Finnbogi gave the sign for caution.
Susan and Knud rose, shook hands with them and Knud told shortly of his worklife.
"Ahh, Jonas said, "You're the author of that book on Danish absolutist kings?"
"Yes," Knud said. "Pleased to meet you."

The matter was soon settled, Finnbogi an Rósa were given two weeks off to go to Denmark and see if there was anything of interest in Knud's notes. 

* * *

Some days later Rósa, Finnbogi, Susan and Knud met at a parking place near a lookout over the lava fields in the middle of nowhere. It was a beautiful day and Susan and Knud had enjoyed the ride there. After parking the car, they decided on stretching their legs as they were a bit early. An elusive smell hung in the air, not quite sulphur, not quite ozone, but a chemical, not unpleasant smell. New to their noses.
Rósa and Finnbogi arrived in Rosa's car, at least she was the driver. Susan and Knud got into the car. They drove on in silence, deep into the lava fields, that looked like solidified black rivers. After a while Rósa stopped the car and bade them get out. The silence was total, and the air was thin.
"Susan," Finnbogi said, speaking in a voice not much more than a whisper."Could you please use the person-detecting spell? I want to be absolutely sure we're not followed, and the teleportation spells later on will tax my magic endurance to its limits."
Susan nodded and drew her wand. "Nobody, not a living thing is near us," she said in a subdued voice. "It is as if we were all alone in the world."
"That's good!" Finnbogi said "I looked at the people on the museum and I did not like what I saw. Some of them are a bit aware of their magic, and two of them had a distinct evil tinge."
"I have a suspicion," Susan said, now a bit louder. "I have no reason to doubt that you well remember Tristan and his plans." Rósa and Finnbogi nodded. "We have found that he was not the mastermind behind the magical takeover. His sister was. And she was not at the ill-fated party, and she died some years later, and she had a child, a daughter. We, or at least I suspect that she was the one stealing the wand and what else was stolen. I think she had help - maybe from your colleagues."
"But why?" Rósa asked.
"Revenge," Susan said. Torben's sister worked with great determination on the subversion of the society. She wanted the magic segment to rule. When we stopped Torben and Tristan from taking over Denmark - and drove them to semi-madness, I'm afraid to admit, she saw it all. She knew who was behind it all. She was determined to ruin our lives, but she died from some disease, but not before giving her lust for power and revenge to her daughter."
"Why did Eileen's daughter not just use her mother's wand?" Finnbogi asked.
Susan and Knud looked at him, "Yes why not?"
Rósa spoke: "I know. Thora told me, us?" She looked questioningly at Susan, who shook her head, "that wands are personal. You can use another person's wand, as you did at my office, Susan, for simple spells or for a short time. Longer use will kind of wear out the wand, make it unreliable, accident prone. She probably was in need of a new one."
"Accident prone!" Susan said, her voice shrill with fear. "That lady on the plane, she was extraordinarily unlucky.
She could be Terese's daughter returning for yet another wand, and maybe to find you two!"

"She spoke Norwegian." Knud said, and at that time I had a feeling I had heard the voice earlier. Now I know .. Hilde's youngest son's wife. That's her!"

* * *

That is a tangled tale," Finnbogi said. "And we have to untangle it. But right now we're going to get to those portals to get anywhere. We're now as close to the underground caves as a car can take us. We could walk there, but it would take a day or two. Do you see the cream coloured stones on the ground?" Susan, Knud and Rósa looked down, saw the stone and nodded. "They are wayfinder stones. If you look underneath, you'll see the vegvísir rune from the museum on them. Pick up one of them." Susan did as she was told, and like when she was little she felt hot on one side. "It's like playing Hide and seek on Unicorn Farm" Susan exclaimed. The stone pulls me that way," she said pointing to where the low mountains lay on the horizon.
"And that's where we're going." Finnbogi said. "Susan I take you first, close your eyes, think of nothing and hold my hands."
Susan did as she was told, and the long-forgotten, but still well known dizziness enveloped her. As she steadied and opened her eyes, she saw the gloomy cubicles she clearly remembered from her visit those many years ago. "Yes," she said. "This is where we went."
"I thought as much after your description," Finnbogi said. "Now I go back for Knud" And with a deft movement of his wand he was off.
Susan waited, tense in the room where she and Helge had eaten together with Gilvi and Thora after their adventures in Sweden. The wait felt long, but in reality it was only a few minutes before Finnbogi reappeared with Knud. While Finnbogi was away, Susan pulled a cake and some thermos from her backpack. When Knud saw what she was doing, he shook his head and steadied himself with a hand on the back of a chair: "Phew, I hope this gets better with practise as you once said it would," he said shakenly and proceeded by pulling cups and plates from his backpack.
Rósa and Finnbogi appeared, Finnbogi looking grey and Rósa less shaken than either Knud or Susan.
"You're true visionaries!" Finnbogi said appraisingly. "You know what a man needs after a hard mornings work."
They ate the cake to the very last crumb and drank all the tea. The Finnbogi declared that he was once again ready to continue.
"Let's go exploring, and let's keep together, at least two and two. There was a fair amount of portals in the different rooms. Only the portal in the room with the volcano symbol on the door is out of bounds. It led to a sister place in Eyafjallajökull, but it was flooded by lava long ago. If you'd try to go there, you'd be squashed to death. I - or maybe we - will have to deactivate that one. Don't try the portals as of yet, but see if you can find out where they lead."

Susan and Knud opened all the doors on the left side of the corridor, while Rósa and Finnbogi tackled those on the right side. Most of the rooms held portals, but most of the portals were extinct, grey and not a bit shimmering. A few of the doors led via narrow corridors to a cell like the one Susan had sat in. She could not now remember which one it was.
There were two still working major portals. They were not larger, but their colour was deeper, purple rather than blue. The normal, live portals led to small towns in Sweden and Norway, one led to Mývatn, and one sttill to the Unicorn Farm. The last one - and the only non-Nordic one to be still alive - led to Schiltach "That's Ella's town!" Susan said
"Is it, really?" Rósa said. "I remember Ella from the Christmas party. I always thought it was strange that a non-magician was even invited. And maybe I was a bit jealous of her. You and her and those Japanese having experienced something during your stay there, We all knew, but none dared to ask."
"And Gilvi swore us all to secrecy after I told them what happened, and gave them that old magic book. What was it now .. someone's Grimoire, I think they called it. It was dangerous. The recipe for Mondrian came from it."
"Not Griffon's Bestiary?" Finnbogi asked.
"Yes, that was what they called it. He and Thora and Taavi and Tähti all were crazy about that book. Even I understood that it was something special"
"Something special," Finnbogi said, almost sputtering. "I dare bet! It is a legend, like a black unicorn, like the pot of leprechaun's gold. We all hear about it, covet it, and you ... you just gave it to those four?"
"Those four being the best wizards ever living. You would have done the same," Rósa said sternly.
"I ... yes I suppose so," Finnbogi said, "It was ... only ... I have heard so much of this book I would like to see it, to hold it. I don't suppose you know what happened to it?"
"No," Susan said honestly. "Gilvi suggested it should be burned, annihilated in some ceremonial way. But if he ever did it - if he found the time to do it properly, I don't know."
"The vistas this opens are scary," Rósa said, sounding like a frightened little girl. "Do you remember the verse about Mondrian?" Rósa said and began:
"Mondrian is brewed in moonlight,
brewed in hope and love and fear."
And together, she and Susan, supported by Knud recited the rest of the lines:
"Are you bitten,
moonstruck, smitten,
Mondrian will set you clear.
In your greed you'll be forsaken,
Mondrian in excess taken
make you lose what you hold dear."
"In reality," Susan said, as much to say something, to lighten the tense mood, "it should be said in German, which was the language of the grimoire, but I can't remember more than the beginning line: "Mondrian, gebraut im Mondlicht, Hoffnung, Liebe, Furcht und Not ... and then something, something ... Tod!"
Finnbogi looked shocked: "I see now why you gave the book to Gilvi. Those childhood fantasies about being the mightiest wizard ever, have to remain just that, fantasies, dreams." He looked as if he woke up from sleep. "Now I know how Torben felt when Tristan talked to him about power, glory and mastery."
"I lost all of my family to those 'childhood fantasies'," Rósa said.
"Childhood dreams are often unhealthy for grown-ups," Knud remarked. "We all know what Tristan and company did, as we were part of the Summerparty crew. Or, no, you were not, Finnbogi. How come?"
"Yes," Susan added. "You knew all about the Conspiracy at the broom race after all. You knew what David stood for, and I remember you hurrying the Opposition's flyers along when they became suspicious. I remember you saying 'no' to David's openings - more than once."
"I tried to remain neutral," Finnbogi said, his voice and head being equally low. "I just hoped that if we played possum it would pass.Thora and Gilvi, Thora mostly, tried to enroll me in the anti-David group, as I thought of it. David tried to win me over to his way of thinking, but as I knew you and Veronika and Fiona. I could not seriously say that only those with magician parents were destined to do great things. I thought it was child's play. Only slowly that last week, or rather really only that last day did I see the seriousness in it, almost too late. I hope that I redeemed myself for my reluctance by grasping Birgitta's hand as she tried to slip away when we formed that final circle."
"Well done!" Susan and Rósa said in unison, and Knud nodded.
"But you're one of the red ones," Knud persisted. "You should be able to sense people's disposition."
"I was, and I am - that's why I warned you from speaking in Rósa's office. I'm not going to repeat my mistakes. As I said I did not think David meant what he said, or let me put that in another way. Because, obviously he meant what he said, but I did not believe that it was more than big talk, boasting, mere words. Only that last week ... I heard of Rósa's family, I heard of the magician's family disappearing and their house burning down." Susan realized that he spoke about Heidi and her family. "I heard a lot, but I still believed - wanted to believe - in coincidences and accidents." He fell silent, turning over a carrot in his hands, as if it held the answer. Suddenly his head shot up: "And I'm about to repeat that same mistake over again!"
"What do you mean?" Knud asked.
"That lady. You showed me her photo. Now I know why I thought I knew her. She was at the museum a few days ago. I felt her presence. And again I thought that she would not do anything untoward. She felt the same way as David did back then. And she has been here earlier. Your suspicions are correct, Susan. I'm fairly sure she stole that wand."
"Now what?" Knud said.
"Now we go to Tromsø, you said a portal was made there?" Finnbogi answered. "We've got to speak with Hilde concerning that daughter in law of hers."

* * *

"How do we do that," Susan asked. "You're the specialist in portals. I never tried a major portal before."
"Oh, yes, I think you did, but not alone. Think back on your last stay here. How did you return home?" Finnbogi asked.
"Not by any portal, Gilvi teleported us back home to my place," Susan answered.
"He did? Fantastic. I would not be able to teleport me and you all the way to Elsinore, not now, not ever I suspect," Finnbogi said.
"But that does not answer my question. How do we go to Tromsø?" Susan asked.
"You have made a portal there?" FInnbogi asked, and Susan nodded. "Then it's easy. Step into this portal while speaking the name of the place, where the portal is. I can do it first, if you're afraid. Count to 50 after I have gone through That'll give me time to move over, and even to return, if the portal should not be safe."
Finnbogi went through the portal, loudly saying "Tromsø!"
Susan counted to 50, and did the same. She was more dizzy than ususal, and when she opened her eyes, it was dark around her. She called softly and Finnbogi answered her: We forgot about the time, it's still spring, we're far North, and also travelling eastwards going to Norway did not help. I'ts near midnight and pitch dark, move away from the portal, please"
Susan quickly walked some steps toward Finnbogi's voice. Slowly the darkness grew less impenetrable, and she could see the trees around them. Rósa came through, and Susan guided her away from the portal. Knud was last, and came loaded with their picnic baskets.
"Now what? We forgot the time, being inside a mountain, and late evening turned to nigth with an hour more going east," Finnbogi said.
"Could we go back and sleep?" Rósa asked.
"Couldn't we stay here?" Susan asked, "I'm not sure I want to brave those portals back. Maybe they're still a trap upon our return."
"No, they are not," Finnbogi said. "But I too have had more than enough of portals and teleportations for some time."
"I have to agree," Susan said. "We could either find a hotel or why not just stay here?
"Yes why not," Knud said. We're in this small forest outside Tromsø, almost nobody ever come here, and Susan and I brought tents and camping things in our backpacks." As to prove his words, Susan opened her back pack and pulled out a small chrome yellow bag.
"Is that a tent?" Rósa said. "They sure have grown smaller since last I went camping."
"You forget I'm a witch," Susan teased Rósa, "but yes, tents have sure gotten way smaller since we were young!"
They slept in the tent, which was not as gaudy as the bag, but a soothing blue inside and a camouflage green on the outside. Rósa cast a do-not disturb spell on it before they slept.

* * *