Page 32 of The Elves and the Shoemaker (The GriMM Tales #4)

Twenty-Five

Henrik

H

enrik woke to find Elias still sitting by the window as the rays from the rising sun slowly filtered in, lighting up the room with a soft glow.

“Why didn’t you wake us?” Henrik grumbled.

Elias smiled, looking a little sleepy. “The two of you looked peaceful, and you know me, Rik. I can sleep anywhere. I’ll catch up on my sleep today.”

Henrik was still scowling at Elias when he realised he was being ungrateful for getting a full night’s undisturbed sleep, so he tried to rearrange his features into something softer.

“Thank you,” he said, pecking a kiss to Elias’ forehead when he passed by.

Henrik headed for the cupboard where they kept their food, and a near-empty shelf stared back at him. They had enough to eat for two days tops, and even that would mean sticking to small rations.

Elias had made his way over to the bed and was snuggling up to Johan, who slowly stirred awake.

“Morning, kjaere,” Elias said.

“What’s… wrong?” Johan asked, spotting Henrik’s worried expression.

“We are running very low on food now,” Henrik explained.

Johan looked thoughtful. “Fishing?”

“It is our best option, I think?” Henrik replied. “Will you come, Elias? I don’t like the thought of you here alone.”

“Absolutely not,” Elias mumbled, already buried in the blanket with his eyes closed. “I cannot even fish, and I plan to sleep the day away.”

“What if those men return?” Henrik said.

“They are unlikely to return to cause harm in broad daylight. If they meant to harm us, why not just do it while they were here?”

Henrik didn’t like this idea one bit, but short of dragging an exhausted Elias all the way to the river so they could have something to eat, he didn’t have much choice but to concede.

“We… won’t go far,” Johan said, his voice raspy.

Elias began snoring softly, so Henrik kissed his stubborn lover on the forehead before getting wrapped up warm for the cold day ahead.

Elias was still dead to the world when Henrik and Johan were ready to leave, and Henrik had a pit in his stomach as they got on their way.

They walked together in near silence for around forty minutes before arriving at a spot along the river that Johan seemed satisfied would be a good place to try.

Henrik watched carefully as Johan showed him how to set up the lines and dropped a few nets into the fast-flowing water. While Henrik was an experienced sea fisher from his life before captivity, he’d never fished in rivers.

“The rivers have been overfished,” Johan explained. “Since the Great Famine. But folk tend to not bother with the smaller catches.”

“So, if we can catch enough of the smaller fish, we should be able to get by?” Henrik asked.

“For a while. I will need to try and hunt again soon, but I haven’t even seen a rabbit since we arrived.”

Henrik nodded thoughtfully. “I wonder if me and Elias can use magic to search the forest for animals. It’s worth a try, no?”

“Definitely.”

The temperatures had dropped even lower, so they were both bundled up on the riverbank as they waited and hoped for something to bite.

Henrik stood in front of Johan, who wrapped his arms around him in a tight hug.

“Henrik?”

“Hmm?”

“I… know you know. But I want… to say it. While I can”

Henrik smiled and twisted in Johan’s arms so he could gaze up at him.

Johan blushed. “I—I love you,” he blurted out.

Henrik stood on his tiptoes in order to reach Johan’s lips, stealing a kiss in the frigid air. “I love you, too.”

They kissed leisurely for a while, tasting each other and basking in the warmth of being completely in love until Johan said, “We should be watching the lines.” He spun Henrik back around, still keeping him in his embrace.

“It’s probably good that Elias didn’t come fishing,” Henrik said.

“Why?”

“It’s peaceful but nothing much happens. He would be bored within a few minutes and scare the fish off with his endless chatter.” They both chuckled.

“Yes, that is true.”

It took several hours before they finally got a bite, and Henrik was thrilled at what was a much bigger catch than he’d expected.

“Trout,” Johan said as he pulled the fish off the hook.

The top of the fish was sort of spotty, appearing almost covered in frogspawn with an orangey underbelly. It would be more food than the three of them had eaten in a while, and Henrik’s stomach grumbled in anticipation.

With a substantial catch already, they lifted the nets that had a few smaller fish in them and packed away their things.

“We should make Elias gut them when we get back since he didn’t have to spend all day in the cold,” Henrik muttered, shivering now.

His nose was so cold he feared it might turn black and fall off. He wasn’t convinced he had the features to remain beautiful without a nose.

They returned to their home in companionable silence, their breaths turning to vapour in the icy-cold air. Their little meadow was so still and quiet, and Henrik could hardly believe that Elias had remained asleep the entire time they’d been gone.

He wouldn’t be for long, though, because Henrik was excited to show Elias their trout, and so he bounded off ahead of Johan and burst through the door.

Only, Elias wasn’t inside.

“Eli?” he yelled. “Elias??”

He wasn’t sure why he was yelling. It was a small space and he could see with his eyes that Elias wasn’t there, but panic had taken hold of him too fast to be rational.

Henrik stepped outside and continued shouting. At the alarm in his voice, Johan dropped all the fishing gear and ran towards him.

“He isn’t in there, Johan,” Henrik whimpered. “There’s no sign of a struggle, but he isn’t in there. He wouldn’t have gone for a walk, would he?”

“To fetch water?” Johan asked.

“Let’s go look.”

They practically ran and made it to the spring in less than twenty minutes but there was no sign of Elias, and the panic overwhelmed Henrik. They were breathless and already out of places to look for him.

On the return home, they shouted Elias’ name over and over again, listening out for any sign of their lover in the forest, but nothing except the birds tweeted back.

Henrik collapsed to his knees on the mattress when they got home, despair weighing him down more heavily than the irons they’d been kept in during slavery.

“What if they came back and took him?” He sobbed.

“They didn’t,” Johan replied.

“We cannot know that.”

“He left this.” Johan reached for something on the small table and passed it to Henrik.

“A feather?”

“A kingfisher’s feather.” It was mostly a stunning blue with a little orange, but the meaning of it was lost on Henrik.

“What does it mean?”

“He left on his own… but he will come back.”

And then Johan didn’t speak again.

J

ohan was there, but Henrik had never felt so alone in his life. They slept each night with a space between them, as though their bodies knew Elias was missing and they must preserve his spot should he return in the dead of night.

Three days.

Three days had passed since Elias went missing and Johan had stopped speaking. Henrik didn’t even know why Johan had assumed the feather would assure Elias’ return. Personally, he was growing less convinced by the day.

Henrik had barely been able to eat; he was so sick with worry. Even if Elias intended to return, anything could have happened to him in the Dark Forest. It wasn’t safe. And where would he have gone, anyway? Henrik had wracked his brain to think of anywhere and came up with nothing.

The forest was still and near silent as Henrik walked to the water spring. He came here every single day like Elias would miraculously appear and they’d just not spotted him before.

When Henrik had finally accepted that Elias was missing, he’d searched through Elias’ belongings and found a bag, Elias’ warmest clothes, and one of the blankets missing along with a meagre amount of food.

The only reassurance Henrik could take from it was that it did make it more likely that Elias hadn’t been taken.

Reaching the spring, Henrik cupped his hands under the small waterfall and brought the near-freezing water to his mouth to drink.

Where are you, Eli?

Why would you leave us behind without a word?

What if you don’t return, and Johan never utters a single word to me again?

Henrik plonked himself down on a mossy rock and held his face in despair. He wept until he could hardly breathe. When he finally managed to clear his vision through the tears, a little bird had landed on the rock next to him.

A blue and orange bird. A kingfisher.

“Is it you who gave your feather to Elias?” he asked the bird. “Did he tell you where he planned to go?” Henrik sniffled.

The bird obviously didn’t reply, it just stood there and cocked its head to one side curiously.

“What do your feathers mean, little bird?”

At that, it tweeted and flew away, leaving Henrik all alone again.

He trudged back home to a place that didn’t feel much like home without Elias in it.

When he returned, he found Johan outside working on the house like he had done tirelessly every moment since Elias left.

The first day, Henrik had spoken, and Johan had responded with head shakes and nods, but the second day, Henrik had stopped bothering. Other than a sanity-questioning conversation with a small bird, Henrik hadn’t uttered a word in days, and he was beginning to feel as though he might explode.

As he wrapped the blanket around his shoulders and sat by the window, he wondered who Elias was talking to right now. Henrik knew that Elias would befriend a tree before he’d go this long without speaking, and at least that thought made the corners of Henrik’s mouth tug in the whisper of a smile.

O

n the fifth day, Henrik woke up angry.

Angry with Elias for departing without a word. Angry with the Queen for leaving them no choice but to live in the middle of nowhere. And lastly, he was angry with Johan.

Henrik woke up alone again, the sun hadn’t even risen yet and he could hear the hammering of wood outside that told him Johan had already started building for the day. He wondered if Johan had even slept for more than a couple of hours before he’d got back to work.

What was even the point of building a new home without Elias? Henrik could hardly stand to look at the new structure, resenting the space he feared would never be filled by his larger-than-life love.

After grabbing his clothes from nearby and tugging them on furiously, Henrik stomped outside.

“What if he never comes back?” he yelled. “What if he’s hurt, or—or—or dead, do we just wait here forever?”

Johan stared at him startled and used the back of his hand to wipe some of the sweat from his brow. He looked pleadingly at Henrik before wordlessly turning away and picking his hammer back up, continuing on with his job like Henrik hadn’t uttered a word.

Henrik lost it.

“Maybe I should leave too, then! You do not seem to care if I am here or not!” Henrik’s entire body was trembling.

Johan shook his head. He stopped what he was doing but just sat there, appearing frozen to the spot.

“So, what? You will just never speak to me again?”

Johan glared at that.

“I don’t even need your voice, Johan! But you do not speak to me at all, not with your eyes, not with your hands. You have both left me! Only your body is here, haunting me.” Henrik collapsed to the ground, all the fight leaving him like water spilling out of a cup.

Chest heaving, Henrik dug his fingernails into the frozen earth below, begging for it to open up and swallow him because he could not do this anymore.

He’d endured slavery for Elias, he would have endured the loss of the elf who owned half his heart for Johan, but he couldn’t endure this.

Heavy hands landed on his shoulders, and when he glanced up through wet lashes, Johan was kneeling in the mud in front of him, his face showing so much anguish that Henrik could barely stand to look at him.

Pressing their foreheads together, Johan wrapped his arms tightly around Henrik much like he had when they’d first met, and Henrik had had a fear attack that he was certain he’d almost died from.

Much like before, Henrik found it a little easier to breathe with the pressure of Johan’s strong arms squeezing him.

“Please don’t leave me too. Please, please, please,” Henrik begged, his words barely coherent.

Johan didn’t speak, but he did hold him a little tighter, he did run his fingers through Henrik’s tangled hair and stroke his head, and he did offer Henrik everything he could in that moment, and for that Henrik was grateful.

They remained that way until they were both shivering and needed to go inside to warm back up again with some hot tea. Johan still couldn’t speak with his voice, but Henrik soaked up even the simplest brush of Johan’s fingers against his own when he handed him his mug.

Later that day, once Henrik had done his daily walk to the spring and circled a wide perimeter of their home, he put his resentment to one side and joined Johan working on the house.

They worked in silence, but Henrik no longer felt ignored, so it was okay.

As okay as it could be given the circumstances.

The following day, once the sun had set and Henrik had come inside after relieving himself, he found Johan sitting at the table and spinning the kingfisher feather between his fingers.

Henrik approached him from behind and rested his chin on the shoemaker’s sturdy shoulder.

“I wish you could tell me what the feather means,” he whispered.

As Henrik expected, Johan didn’t reply at first, but then he cleared his throat and Henrik’s heartbeat sped up. “If—if—if I were a kingfisher,” he paused, coughing again as his voice was so raspy from disuse, “I w-w-would always come back to you.”

Henrik stared again at the spinning feather. “He said that to you?”

Johan nodded and reached to grasp Henrik’s hand from where it rested on his chest.

“Where are you, Elias? It’s time for you to come back to us,” he whispered into the air like magic herself might deliver his message to their love.