The trail led nowhere.
And everywhere.
Naked under her linen wrap, Astrid stepped barefoot through moss and branch, past the creek that glowed faintly with reflected stars, into the birch grove the villagers never spoke of, only gestured toward.
There, in the half-moon hush, sat the Widow Ase.
She was older than any woman Astrid had seen — older in the way mountains were old. Hair silver like ice melt. Skin leathered with years and salted moans. Her body was not hidden, but honored — long breasts resting against her chest like sacred cloth, hips wide like storybooks opened too many times.
And her eyes: unblinking.
"You came," Ase said.
Astrid nodded, breath visible in the cool hush. "I followed."
"You weren't meant to." She smiled. "But that's how it begins."
They sat in silence for a long while.
The moonlight carved Ase's features into something mythic. The trees barely moved. There was no breeze, only breath.
Finally, Ase spoke again. "Has anyone taught you how to watch yet?"
Astrid tilted her head. "Watch what?"
"Desire," she said. "Before it becomes touch."
Ase stood, her body unapologetic in the moonlight, and walked to the center of the grove where a stone ring circled a flattened earthen bowl — an old ritual space, Astrid sensed.
"You London women," Ase said, gently, "you know how to perform. How to pose. How to orgasm. But you've forgotten how to witness."
Astrid swallowed. "Teach me."
Ase smiled. "Good girl. Sit. And do not speak."
The first couple entered minutes later.
Young. Barefoot. Beautiful in the raw, unfiltered way people are when they're seen too much to pretend.
Kari and Emil.
Astrid's breath caught.
"They know we're here?" she whispered.
Ase gave her a single, warning glance.
Astrid silenced herself.
The teenagers didn't hide. They didn't hesitate. They moved to the center of the grove, kissed like bees sipping the same bloom, and lay down in the ritual bowl, limbs slow and sinuous.
Astrid felt the heat rise in her belly. The shame, curiously, did not.
Ase leaned in, her lips close to Astrid's ear. "The body is not just for being touched. It is for being seen. Admired. Held — by eyes."
Astrid nodded. She kept watching.
Kari rode Emil like breath over flame, moaning into the night air, her hands in her own hair. Emil gripped her hips and whispered things Astrid couldn't hear but felt — like tides below the surface.
It wasn't pornographic. It wasn't even seductive.
It was... worship.
Astrid's thighs squeezed. She felt her own pulse. Her hands stayed folded in her lap.
She watched.
And she learned.
After they left, the forest stayed silent.
Ase lit a small candle beside her knee.
"It's time you understood," she said. "What Siv is."
Astrid turned, heart racing. "Please."
"She was born in this village. Her body — like yours — could open others. But she wanted more than mortal skin. She let the fjord take her. She walked into the waters and never came back the same."
"She drowned?"
"No," Ase smiled. "She ascended. She became part of what moves through all of us here. The yearning. The ache. The permission. That voice you hear? That moan in the lake? That's not memory, child. That's invitation."
Astrid shook. "I... I feel her. Even now."
Ase took her hand.
"Then you're already hers."
They sat like that until dawn — knees touching, silence stretching, breath in unison.
When the sun began to break through the birch branches, Ase finally stood.
"One day," she said, "you'll watch a girl as she watches you. And you'll know — she's ready too."
Astrid nodded.
"I'll stay in the cottage today."
Ase turned back, smiling. "No, my darling. You'll go to Mattis."
"Why?"
"Because," Ase said, "he's ready to give you his wife."