Autumn Madness

       Emil was worrying about Lalli half the time in the next days. He might be worrying all the time, including dreams, but his new activity was distracting him quite successfully. After the chief skald lady, all other workers of pen and paper in the town hall, inn guests, and other local folk, all female, queued to him for hairdressing services, and Emil could not refuse them. First, he owed some to the skalds for combs, pins, and place, and second, he couldn’t leave the state of style as it was in this wild land. It was a Swedish man’s burden to carry culture eastward, and Emil felt himself truly in the vanguard of civilization. He was doing it in the skalds’ office, at the homes of the clients, in a tailor’s shop—anywhere with sufficient light. When requests went beyond the initial debt of gratitude, he set a price list. It didn’t disperse the queue. To stop walking all over the town to clients’ premises, he tried to occupy a corner in the restaurant, but the inn administrator didn’t like the idea of cropped hair and meals coming together and provided Emil with a screened-off corner in a reading room in return for a nice frizzle to make her look younger to date a younger man. Emil puffed with pride: he had driven home to Finnish ladies that the hair style depends not only on the hair and face parameters but on the purpose as well: for defence or attack, for meeting the parents of the darling, for career advancement, for self-esteem… But all the clients were asking for something stunning to captivate a guy, and some even described what sort of guy it was. The description was almost identical in all cases and reminded Emil of Lalli’s cousin. Next, it turned out that Emil did not need to hire Sigrun for safety, any tiny harmless skald was an excellent detergent. He glimpsed Onni just once or twice from afar, and every time there was someone of Emil’s clients nearby, finely coiffured, well-dressed, and overenthusiastic. Onni didn’t enjoy the sudden popularity and was constantly on the run. It was double good; first, Emil was still alive, and second, he did have a special magical talent to make people irresistible, no matter what Mikkel might say. The hordes chasing Onni were enough of a proof. On the other hand, none of them succeeded in catching the mage, no matter how exquisite their heads were. Maybe Emil invested so much magic in so many people that it was interfering with itself? In between clients, Emil entertained himself with thoughts about magic. Then he thought a bit more and panicked. If Tuuri had said the bird of fire in Denmark was her brother’s doing, while he had been hundreds of kilometres away, he could reach Emil at any distance! Emil checked himself in a small mirror. No, he was still not a frog. Early wrinkles from too much worrying haunted him in the mirror, but he shook off the fear of ageing to return to the embrace of other fears. Like, hey, wasn’t there a fairytale where a hero lost his magic when his hair was cut? What if this was the case with Onni as well? No wonder he was so pissed off, and no wonder Lalli was so pissed off. Emil groaned. He needed to talk to Lalli badly, and preferably in a dream, as their linguistic skills might not be enough for such complex matters. Oh, he’d gladly give away his newly found gift to return Lalli’s friendship and trust! He was jerked out of his musings by a polite cough. Mikkel was standing at the salon entrance. “No, you can’t look any better now!” Emil precluded any requests. “Or are you bothered by fans too?” “No,” Mikkel was not swayed. “I am here merely in the function of an interpreter.” And he stepped aside to give way to a very nervous Reynir. “He wants to talk to you.” “Just to talk?” Emil sighed. He had a moment of hope that he’d get to cut that offending mass of hair, second-worst in the world (and first-worst now, after Onni had been dealt with). Stop, that would take away Reynir’s magic, that stupid shepherd was a mage too! Stop. A mage. Hadn’t Lalli complained once or twice that the Icelander kept barging into people’s dreams without invitation? Then Emil did want to talk to Reynir. “Okay, what does he want? And ask him to drop into my dream tonight and bring me to Lalli’s dream area. Lalli has told me he can do that.” Mikkel did not ask anything because Reynir was speaking at the same time and volume of sound. “A funny thing,” the Dane answered at last to the air. “He asks you to explain how Lalli is getting into your dream, since Reynir wishes to discuss an important personal issue with you.” “What —” Emil tried to be indignant but was hushed by Mikkel, who provided Reynir with the translation first. As soon as he finished the last phrase, a “Va?” and “Hva?” sounded together again, and Mikkel had to moderate the discussion. This way, they found out much sooner that neither knew how to do what they wanted. Emil’s opinion on Icelandic mages had improved after the trip to Silent Saimaa, but now it dropped back. What did the braid-guy mean, he could not get into a non-mage’s dream deliberately? Mikkel, way too solemn to be earnest, suggested that Emil relied on Reynir and let him talk to Lalli alone. And to Reynir, he offered something equally shady and risky, because the redhead hesitated, then nodded and stumbled through some rather long and desperate speech including Onni’s name, if Emil didn’t mistake some Icelandic word for it. Probably, Mikkel offered to translate that important personal issue for him. And indeed, the Dane said that Reynir wished for a haircut to look as good as Onni. Emil’s heart leaped with joy, but a tiny voice of conscience made him warn the redhead through Mikkel about the magic-cancelling effect of a haircut. Mikkel raised an eyebrow and spoke some Icelandic, Reynir raised both eyebrows and shook his head, and his incredulous reply was clear without translation. Emil sighed with relief; he hadn’t done much harm, after all. But still, he needed to know exactly what he had done wrong and agreed to ask Reynir to visit Lalli in a dream and find out what that wrong was. While Mikkel was explaining something suspiciously long about Lalli to the Icelander, Emil returned to the task at hand. What should he do with that haystack of red hair? Imagination refused to picture Reynir cut as short as Onni, it would be no better than a hip-long braid. Some of it had to stay. To make the process harder, Reynir was sighing, fidgeting, turning to Mikkel to ask or say something, and so on. Then, Emil started and barely didn’t cut a piece of Reynir’s ear when Sigrun stormed in and claimed her man for a serious business of rubbing her back in the sauna. Watching Emil’s efforts, she said, “Oh, you save Freckles from doldrums too? He’s quite sad these days.” But even without Mikkel, Reynir continued sighing, fidgeting, and hunching his shoulders. Emil commanded him strictly to sit still, but then he’d go too deep into his own thoughts about patching it up with Lalli. Maybe he’d be more forgiving if Emil brought him Reynir’s severed braid as a trophy? Lalli always looked suspicious of that braid. But Reynir didn’t let Emil use it for a good cause, babbled something and grabbed his former part. And he wouldn’t understand Emil’s polite pleas and explanations. Why didn’t this dumb redhead learn Finnish? But luck had pity with Emil this time, and he found two familiar girls in the queue outside his salon corner, the ones who had almost saved him from death by Onni’s hands the other day. They were skalds, sort of travelling data collectors, and knew some foreign languages. Liisa spoke Icelandic, and the second one, with a name too Finnish to be remembered, spoke Swedish, so Emil found out with double interpretation that Reynir intended to make amulets out of his own hair. Yes, out of all the two kilogrammes, and he seemed really no-nonsense about it despite short fluffy bangs and a tiny ponytail—or, rather, a bunnytail. Emil had copied Reynir’s childhood hair style from the joint dream. There was no way to make the Icelander look respectable, and between cute and savage, Emil chose the first. He hoped very much that Mikkel had translated the task to Reynir adequately, or at least close in sense. The hope was a bit shaky. *** Emil met next morning at Reynir’s room door in nervous anticipation. He fretted for a second about how they’d communicate, but the next moment he waved hello to the same two skalds he had used for talking to Reynir the day before. Nice haircuts, he noted to himself with well-deserved pride. Now they were trying their best to look like they just happened to walk in the inn hallway early in the morning and didn’t stand guard at the door of Onni’s room. They greeted Emil nonetheless and snickered to themselves at his guard duty. He snorted at their unsaid insinuations. Emil wasn’t there for Reynir, but for information in Reynir’s head. But still, he was relieved to have them there as a shield in case Onni appeared. Emil would barge in long ago but was afraid to wake Reynir in the middle of talk with Lalli, so he had to stand and listen to any tiny rustle of motions through the keyhole. Yet there was dead silence even when Emil’s stomach grumbled loud enough to wake a troll from hibernation. So he jumped out of his skin when Onni’s door opened. But instead of the angry Finnish mage, a quite happy Icelandic mage appeared, then turned back and leaned into the room for a couple of seconds, but Emil was too busy squeezing himself into a wall and didn’t see anything inside. Next moment, the door closed mercifully, but before Emil could call the girls for help, Reynir noticed him, sobered, spat something indignant, and walked away in style. In Emil-made style! So much for the gratitude! “What did he say?” Emil asked the girls. They didn’t reply and just exchanged incredulous stares and quick whispers in Finnish. What, did their mastery of foreign languages take a day off? Well, now Emil was a polyglot too. “Mikä hän puhu, er, sanoo?” he repeated. They stared back at him and whispered something too quick to be understood but clearly not happy. No, that wouldn’t do. Emil beckoned them to go outside. Once out of the hearing range of a Finnish mage, the girls bracketed Emil with suspiciously cross miens, like Reynir did before. Emil gulped. He tried to remember what he could do wrong but failed. Owing to his efforts, they both were very pretty, a nice short bob and an elegantly ruffled fishbone braid. Then they talked. Together. Emil strained his brain but figured out from scraps of Finnish and Swedish that he was guilty of favouritism. He didn’t make them the best style possible and left a margin of perfection for his Icelandic friend, and now much more eligible Finnish ladies were left in the dust. But Emil had a more pressing issue to worry about. After his persistent questions about Reynir’s words, they said they didn’t care to listen because of what they had seen a second before—did Emil see it?! Reynir was in Onni’s room! Maybe even all night long! And he kissed Onni goodbye! Snorting at Emil one more time, Liisa and what’s-her-name left him to despair.The number of people disliking him had already exceeded his panic limits. And Reynir, of all people, Reynir, who hadn’t minded being treated like a prisoner! Sure, Emil might live without him, but Reynir’s good favour was absolutely necessary to get Lalli back. Well, at least Reynir was not hiding like Hotakainens and could still be caught in the restaurant. But first Emil had to find Mikkel as (presumably) the only Icelandic-speaking person who didn’t hate him yet. Since it was breakfast time, Mikkel was in the restaurant, with Sigrun, of course. Immediately, Sigrun disliked Emil for stealing her Bear Man all the time. Emil excused himself, saying that he wasn’t stealing, just borrowing for a few minutes. With a scowl, Sigrun lent Mikkel out to Emil until she finished her breakfast. The pile of bacon with eggs, toasts, buns, jam, and butter in front of her seemed worth an hour or two. Emil’s mouth watered, but first things first. Yet Mikkel did not hurry to follow him to where Reynir was picking his meals from the buffet. “I need to know why he’s cross with me and what Lalli has said to him. Quick, he can leave now!” “I can provide an answer to your first question even without asking Reynir.” Mikkel paused to bite into a potato omelet. “He believes that your treatment of Lalli’s cousin is illegal and dishonourable and disapproves of it. He accused me of being an accomplice, but I assured him that I had not been aware of the scheme or would have prevented your wrongdoing.” “Did you tell him that it was for Onni’s good?” “Was it? Didn’t you do it for yourself? You have been muttering constantly that Onni’s hairstyle irritates you.” “Well… Maybe. At first. But then I found my magic, and the cover story turned true!” “Oh, you are still under a delusion about that “magic” thing.” Mikkel shrugged. Emil decided not to judge him for such atheism. Maybe Mikkel was too busy with Sigrun to notice the truly magical events around. “It exists, and it works.” Emil declared. “Look at the hype around Onni after I made him look human. The swarm of women around him. He doesn’t take advantage of it, though. Do you know any other reason why he’s so popular all of a sudden?” Mikkel didn’t nod but looked too smug, like there was such a reason. Emil should have known better but still asked what it was. “It is the magic of a promotional campaign,” Mikkel answered, spreading butter over half a loaf. Emil waited patiently for an explanation and got one. “I was well aware that a mere decent haircut would not attain your claimed noble purpose of improving his love life, and I took measures of my own device. Namely, I advertised Lalli’s cousin among female skalds speaking Swedish or Icelandic when you brought me to the town hall.” Sigrun protested about something, but he had her mouth full of bacon, and no one understood her. “And they spread the news to their monolingual friends and relatives that there was a powerful mage, not too young or old, unmarried, with child-raising, farming, and military experience, and probably looking for a nice lady, because what else might a new haircut mean for a man? As you witnessed, it went too well in terms of attracting women, but I did not reckon with him squandering all the chances.” “Not all!” Emil would not let the Dane break his confidence once again, he had a trump card in his sleeve. “You nonbeliever, how’d you explain that Onni did fall for Reynir after I did him—Reynir, I mean—a better style? I saw this morning myself that Reynir was leaving Onni’s room and kissed him goodbye. Emil stretched the facts a bit. “But you could not advert—” He stopped. Suddenly he remembered that Mikkel was saying something long to Reynir during the hairdressing session. What if Mikkel was really promoting Onni to the Icelander instead of translating Emil’s request? “Did you tell him to visit Lalli at all?!” Emil loomed over Mikkel and hoped to sound menacing enough. “Okay, you might screw Reynir’s brain under my nose, but you couldn’t convince Onni to date him, Onni’d turn you into a frog in an instant!” Unphased, Mikkel sipped from his cup of chicory. “I did pass your request on, don’t you worry. And I do not need to convince Reynir of anything, he has been infatuated with Lalli’s cousin since our Denmark foray. I don’t know how you’ve missed all the times Reynir, all starry-eyed, was pushing me away from the radio unit to chat with Hotakainen or haunt him in Iceland. Or why do you think he joined our rescue raid in the first place? I guess, seeing a boost of competition, he decided to take proactive measures, and, believing in the mythical charms of your hairstyling skill, he asked you to braid him something fancy to impress Onni.” Emil noticed a fault line at once. “But you said yesterday, he wanted to look good like Onni! And a cut, not a braid! And why then did Onni f… liked him back? What was it if not magic?” “Did I say that?” Mikkel gave an innocent look. “Oh. My bad, my bad. A slip of translation, I guess. And as for Onni, he didn’t.” And he took another long, nerve-wracking sip. “Yesterday I provided our Icelandic friend with a tip on how to get into the hugging range of Lalli’s cousin.” “And how?” Sigrun chipped in gulping down a whole egg yolk. Emil felt like choking just looking at her. “Because even I could not get there, and no one escapes me usually. You know that firsthand,” she elbowed Mikkel and winked. Mikkel managed to look infuriatingly content without twitching a lip or eye. “It’s simple, dear friends—no magic whatsoever, mere logical thinking and rational use of circumstances. First, seeing Reynir, hmm, decapitated so ruthlessly, Onni would feel sympathy for him and be less prone to hide from him. I believe it also gave them some topics to discuss for a start. Friends by hardship, so to speak. Then, I suggested Reynir offer help to Onni to get rid of the unwanted suitors by feigning an established relationship. You know, Reynir is always enthusiastic to help everyone. Seeing Onni kissing and spending time with someone, the poor ladies will understand the trophy is already taken, and if that someone is a guy, they’ll realise they have never had a chance and leave him to be. The rest is up to Reynir’s communicating, flirting and kissing skills. If he succeeds in taming the Finn before local navigation resumes, hooray for him, though you might prefer him to fail. Then Onni will most probably flee from this island as soon as he can, and you will be safe.” “That’s all very fun,” Sigrun said clearly, and Emil noticed that her bowl of bacon and eggs was empty and half of the buns were gone, “but you’d better wind up.” Emil pulled Mikkel to stand up and go ask Reynir about Lalli’s answers. With the same effect, he could have pulled Dalahasten train. Mikkel bit into a giant sandwich with gusto and said he had already talked to Reynir about it. For the first time in his life, Emil considered murder, but then reconsidered it. Dead Mikkel would not tell the most important thing. “What? What did he say?!” “That he didn’t find Lalli in his… areal, whatever it means.” That was the end. Sigrun was finishing the last bun. Emil sagged on a vacant chair, his mind blank, his voice still functioning. “If you’re so smart, then tell me why Lalli is angry with me.” Mikkel was clearly enjoying himself, though nothing showed on the surface. “I cannot know firsthand for certain, but I have some reasonable guesses. For instance, like Reynir, Lalli may be offended by your violent treatment of his last living relative. I have warned you that it is extremely rude to intervene in others’ private lives without permission, and an appearance is certainly a private business. Or,” he glanced at Sigrun downing her tea and took one last big sip too, “he may be afraid for his own head. What if one day you trim him only because you feel it is becoming him? And what if he, like his cousin, is chased by crazy women then? Or—” But the crazy woman by his side stood up, wished Emil luck, and towed Mikkel away for a romantic walk under the drizzling rain. Emil stayed to digest Mikkel’s information together with his own breakfast but didn’t feel the taste of porridge with wild berries, or apple tart, or tea with milk. How did Mikkel do it? The logical reasoning of his? When explained, it sounded easy-breezy. Emil decided to try it, because, what else? So, where was Lalli? He could be anywhere, literally. In any tree, roof, cellar, or barn. Emil could not look through the whole island alone. And even if he found Lalli, say, under the table of the chief skald, the little scout would run away before he understood Swedish or before Emil wrestled Finnish into submission. No, it had to be in a dream. And the right question was, Where did Lalli sleep? Emil thought again. Could Lalli sleep in a tree? Maybe in the summer, but not under freaking freezing rain while there were dry, warm places. In someone’s barn or antic, where other people could run into him? Hardly. In a place where no one, especially Emil, would go? Maybe, but what was it? Well, Emil would never get under the restaurant terrace out of disgust and into Onni’s room out of mortal fear. The terrace was easier. Cobwebs, nettles, and dirt could hurt Emil’s pride and aesthetic sense, but didn’t threaten his life. In half an hour, Emil was properly hurt, but in vain. He found only a network of well-trodden paths. Hotakainens seemed to move around here quite a lot but didn’t stay for long. Emil crawled out and looked around for signs of danger. No Onni nearby. But far down the hill, halfway to the harbour, a familiar sturdy blonde figure walked with another familiar stalky redhead figure. One moment they stopped, turned to face each other, and leant really close. Wow. Mikkel’s plan worked. Some sighs and gasps sounded from the terrace canopies above Emil. Mikkel’s plan worked. And it also meant that Onni wasn’t in his room. Emil hurried to the inn part of the building. Lalli ought to be there; to avoid meeting his treacherous friend in dream or real life, he should have returned to the night scout schedule. Hey, maybe that’s why Reynir didn’t meet him at night! No, stop, Reynir was at Onni’s, so… Obviously, he didn’t tell it to Emil or Mikkel out of sympathy with Hotakainens. Emil’s imagination reached the right door long before himself, he was sure that Lalli was there, and would scramble from under the bed, hiss and throw a bowl of fish soup at the intruder. Emil stopped in front of the real-world door. He didn’t know where his imagination took the fish soup from, but a cornered Lalli would not be cooperative. Emil recalled the sharp knuckles of his friend. Ouch. Would Lalli fail to notice Emil and continue sleeping? Naw. Would Lalli agree to fall back to sleep side by side with him? Definitely not. Right within a couple of metres, Lalli was still out of reach, like on a quarantine ship. Wait. The quarantine ship. They had a common dream even through a glass wall! Here, the walls were not transparent, but the general layout was the same. And Onni’s room was between someone else’s and Mikkel’s. And Mikkel was out with Sigrun right now! Emil just had to get into his room and fall asleep there. He pulled the door, but it was locked, as many real-world doors tend to be. The key was walking with Sigrun in the town. And Emil did what he knew best. He fretted. What should he do? Run and look for Mikkel? Steal spare keys from the administrator? Wheedle the spare key legally by some lie? Pick the lock? The older Cleansers in his unit had been boasting that picking a lock of cupboard where Major Karlsson kept his liquors was easy with pins. And Emil just so happened to have some hairpins with him from his hairdressing work. In a minute, he knew for sure that hairpins break or bend easily, and he suspected that his comrades had been exaggerating a bit. Wait, another famous lockpicking method involved disengaging a lock catch with a knife. A combat dagger lying in peace in Emil’s room should do. Emil fumbled in his pocket for the key and, still high on brainstorming, tried it for Mikkel’s room. The door opened. Sure, it should mean something disquieting, like, were they using identical keysets everywhere for lack of mass crime? But now Emil was glad and tiptoed inside. Locking the door back, he wrapped himself in the bedcover and rolled under the bed to the wall adjoining Onni’s room. The next problem was to fall asleep at will. He did wake up quite early to ambush Reynir, but now his heart was pounding, his nerves electrified with the longing to talk to Lalli. And what if dreamsharing did not happen? He wanted to pray but did not know how or to whom. After all this time since he had witnessed supernatural stuff, he didn’t even bother to learn more! Emil promised himself to ask Reynir about gods and then pleaded with all deities in gross. Let Lalli be there. Let their dreams blend. He breathed slower and deeper and counted sheep. Nasty sheep like at Reynir’s home. One, two, three. Vile animals, even when healthy. Ten, eleven. Ever hungry like Rashed beasts, with teeth like mills… Twenty-two, twenty-three. The beasts he was counting now wore sheep skins like capes over roasted mutton bodies. Pork is better anyway. Forty. A wolf in sheep skin, people say, why is a sheep in sheep skin any better? Sixty three. Food, they were bleating, surrounding him to chop off his cape or hair, and the only way out was to count them. Then they’d pop and vanish. So Emil kept counting until he noticed a grey wolf hide, and stumbled. Should he cry wolves or maintain a separate count for different species? The wolf then turned and appeared to be Lalli in his dream-clothes. What, was that a dream already?! Well, Lalli was real because he sprung to his feet and scowled. No, Emil had to stop him really fast before the dream dissolved! “LalliI’msorrydon’tgoplease! Iwon’tcutyourhairIpromise! AndIdidn’twanttohurtyourcousin! Ithoughtit’llbegoodtohim!” Thank all gods, Lalli didn’t go. But he was still squinting at Emil, tense and ready to run away. “Stupid,” he stated surly. That was a good sign. It meant Lalli might actually talk. “It was not good at all! Weird women chase him and chase me to ask where he is!” That was worse than Emil expected. He imagined all those noisy skalds surrounding, patting Lalli, chatting with him… It should be close to Lalli’s personal hell. “I know, I regret it, but we—me, Mikkel, and Reynir—are working on making things right again, so the girls will soon leave you both alone, I promise. And,” it didn’t feel quite right to use the legend he contrived for Sigrun, but hey, who cared if it turned true in the end? “Look, it did make Onni feel better. Please listen to me for a few seconds, I’ll explain. You saw Onni was depressed after this whole… Saimaa travel. Do you agree that it’s not good for him?” Lalli nodded, still wary. “And now he is angry, he is vexed, confused—but not sad. He just doesn’t have time to sulk. It’s better than before, right?” Lalli knitted his brows but didn’t say anything. Emil could almost hear gears turning in his friend’s head. At last, Lalli nodded, sat on the grass, and slumped a bit. Whew, a victory! “But will he stay like that for long?” Lalli asked suddenly. It came out almost pleading, and Emil’s heart twinged. “Well, that depends now on Reynir. And… You know, you may help him if you tell Onni that Reynir is a good guy in general and that you like him. He’s really not that awful, right? Especially now, without that dumb braid of his.” In a heartbeat, Lalli leaned forward in excitement. His own tiny, barely visible excitement, but Emil saw it nevertheless. “You did.?” “Yes, but he asked me himself to cut it! I did not trick him!” That seemed to set Lalli at ease, and Emil hastened to drive one more positive thing home to him. “By the way, don’t you think that a new style suits Onni better?” Suddenly, Lalli was up on his feet, bristling with anger again. “That!” he spat. “The worst!” Emil didn’t understand. He thought they had shared general notions of aesthetics—they both were irked by Reynir’s braid, for example. Why would Lalli object to a nice, manly short crop? Or did he mean something different? “I’m sorry,” Emil hurried to add for a good measure. “Please tell me what exactly you didn’t like. I want to understand you.” “Stupid!” Lalli growled, but then suddenly went almost sad. “You… I… I didn’t recognise him! He was always looking like he looked. Even when I was little. Always! And when I came to his room, I saw a stranger, and I was scared that Onni fled again without telling me anything. It was like losing him again!” Emil did his best not to laugh out loud. And Lalli looked so miserable that Emil managed to switch into a serious mood. “But then you recognised Onni, right?” “Yes, I did. And each time I see him, I have to remember that it’s him. And he is hurt when I don’t recognise him.” “Oh. I’m sorry, I’m really sorry! But… You know, hair grows back. In half a year, your cousin will look as before,” Emil barely smothered a sigh. If only Lalli forgave him, he was willing to sacrifice his nerves and suffer from Onni’s mullet again. Or… “Or, you can get used to the new—” The mountain under their feet shuddered. What, a famous Icelandic volcano? No, it was a dream, it couldn’t… Emil felt unstable and floating, and before he woke up, he shouted to Lalli to meet him at lunch, and one more “Please forgive me!” Waking world was dark and full of rustles. And of whispers, low feminine laughs, thumps of boots kicked off… It took Emil a few seconds to clue in. Mikkel and Sigrun returned from the walk to make some children, okay. But what should Emil do? Stay put or get out? They’ll kill him either way. Any second of stupor made his coming-out more and more embarrassing. But the prospect of spending all the time till… lunch maybe, under the bed was lame too. Emil drew one last breath, rolled out from under the bed, and dashed to the door with a mortified “I’m sorry!” It seemed to be his motto of the day. Of course he didn’t manage to open it in 0.01 seconds, and while jerking the handle up and down, he explained himself in order not to be shot on the spot or taken for pervert. “I was talking to Lalli!” The door let him out at last, and as he flew stumbling along the hall, he heard Sigrun’s worried and loud “The kid’s gone nuts—” In his corner of the reading room, Emil paused. That had been a disaster, a complete madness. He wouldn’t mind going insane to save himself from worry, shame and anguish. And uncertainty. Did Lalli forgive him? Because if he didn’t… The thought stopped. Emil had no idea what to do if. Lunch and answer were still a couple of hours away. Some scissors work would be nice to take his mind off the anxiety, but nobody was waiting in his impromptu salon. Nobody human, at least. *** Emil did not sob and just hissed and swore each time he touched his hurting nose and lip. Each time, there were new blood stains on his palm. Now he’d have an ugly scar on his face for the rest of his life and maybe lose control of a hand for a month. But if that was the price fate had taken for returning Lalli, then let it be. Lalli was dabbing deep cuts on Emil’s left hand with a pad soaked in disinfectant, eating through the flesh like hydrochloric acid, or so it seemed to Emil. He endured. “Not touch!” Lalli snapped at him and slapped away his other hand reaching for the face. “Stupid.” Emil nodded and smiled, which was indeed stupid and painful to disturb fresh scratches. “You cut cat — cat cut you!” Lalli added with glee. “I didn’t!” Emil protested quietly, not to stir wounds. “Well, not for beauty, at least. Kissekatt had a burdock head stuck in her tail, I only wanted to cut it out. Silly animal, she shouldn’t fight me!” Really, she wouldn’t even notice if he cut a tiny tuft of fur with the burr and trimmed the rest of the tail so that it didn’t catch any more burrs. But Kissekatt had woken up and turned suddenly into a whirl of meows, paws, and claws, and plummeted away right over Emil and his face. Of course, Lalli didn’t know the Swedish word for burdock, and Emil had a hard time explaining it with a few Swedish and Finnish words and a one-hand pantomime. Maybe the mean little Finn even understood that but continued grumbling (and bandaging). “Kisu is good. Smart Kisu. Kisu… kosti Onnin puolesta. Bad Emil.” But it didn’t sound angry at all, and Lalli’s touch was swift and light. When the hand torn by Kissekatt was band-aided properly, he moved closer to scorch tender face skin with the same disinfectant. Emil prepared not to flinch away, and Lalli grabbed his head to keep it in place. At that very moment, shoe heels clattered closer to the hairdressing area, and a female voice exclaimed in accented Swedish, “Oh, sorry! I… I’ll come later! I didn’t see anything!” Screened by Lalli, Emil caught a glimpse of a grey dress and loose blonde hair disappearing behind the corner. Oh, a client. What did she “not see”, he tried to guess, and guessed to his terror. Oh crap. The fate took away not just his good looks and magic but his reputation as well! Now nobody would believe that he and Lalli are just friends. “You know,” he shared his fears, “now everyone will think that we’re a couple.” “We are,” Lalli decided to finish him off. “No, I mean, a couple like Sigrun and Mikkel, like… like lovers.” “We not,” Lalli said plainly as he applied a smaller band-aid to Emil’s nose. “Who think, is stupid.” Emil could neither nod nor smile, so he exhaled slowly. If Lalli didn’t mind, he shouldn’t either. The world was crazy, and one more bit of madness wasn’t a big deal. P.S. Lalli stayed. Who else could protect stupid Emil from cats? Emil stayed. Who else could make the whole metropolitan population look decent? Haircuts needed to be refreshed, you know. And for entertainment, he volunteered to cleansing raids. And his scars healed completely in about three weeks. Onni stayed. Who else could save one stupid Icelander from trolls, beasts, and mosquitoes? Reynir stayed. Where else could he join the military? (Even if he was mostly assigned to fight insects and sheep footrot on farming islands.) Sigrun and Mikkel (and Kitty) stayed, but only till international navigation resumed, and then till Sigrun was travel-fit (the baby-making exercises proved effective), and then till Kitty’s kittens were at least two months old to be given away to trusted owners, and then till Sigrun completed her training course for local hunters in Norwegian kill’em-dead tactics she had started out of boredom. The Eide family left Finland with the next last ship only. And of course, Mikkel still works as a babysitter.