“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.
