The storm came just after midnight.
Not from the sky — but from inside Elise.
Astrid had known touch. She'd known hunger, lust, even something that mimicked love. But this—this was different. Elise didn't take her. She opened her. Like an instrument tuned for a sound only Elise had ever heard.
They made love on the floor, the table, against the cottage windowpane, where Astrid's moans fogged the glass and Elise's teeth left pink crescents along her ribs.
There were no candles. No speech.
Only names.
But not Astrid's.
Elise whispered others.
"Marta..."
"Lina..."
"Solveig..."
Each name was a bruise pressed gently.
Each one not Astrid.
By dawn, Elise was asleep, tangled in Astrid's sheets like driftwood pulled ashore.
Astrid sat at the edge of the bed, knees to chest, watching her.
Tracing the curve of her shoulder. The bite marks on her thighs. The shadowed places under her eyes that told stories Astrid hadn't yet earned.
Who were those names?
And why had Elise spoken them mid-climax, voice trembling, chest heaving like memory had become orgasm?
She stood, naked, barefoot, and padded to the kitchen for water. Every part of her ached. But beneath the ache: a tightening.
The kind of jealousy that felt older than reason.
Later that morning, Astrid found Ase tending the herb garden behind the communal kitchen.
The Widow Ase didn't speak much, but when she did, it was with a clarity that sliced like moonlight through pine.
Astrid knelt beside her, helping weed the mint.
"I need to ask you something," she said.
Ase didn't look up. "You're already asking. Your body's humming."
"Who was Solveig?"
A pause.
Then Ase turned, and her gray eyes went deeper than time.
"Elise's wife."
Astrid froze.
"She was married?"
"Yes. Here, that word doesn't mean what it means in London, Astrid. But yes. They were bound. Loved. And lost."
"What happened?"
"She drowned in the fjord. Three summers ago. On Blotnatt."
Astrid's throat closed.
"Elise doesn't speak of it," Ase added, softer now, brushing dirt from her palm. "She only moans her name. When she forgets you're not her."
Astrid walked back to her cottage alone.
The clouds were low, heavy with sea-light. Her skin still carried Elise's scent, but now it felt like another woman's perfume had been worn too long.
Inside, the bed was empty.
Elise was gone.
No note.
Just a warm indent in the pillow and a red hair tie on the windowsill.
That afternoon, Astrid wandered to the carpenter's shed at the far end of the village.
Leif was there, shirtless, planing wood. His body was slow, focused. Beautiful without trying.
He didn't look up when she entered.
"Did you know about Solveig?" she asked.
"I helped build her coffin."
Astrid exhaled, as if she'd held her breath since sunrise.
"Why didn't anyone tell me?"
"Because Elise is still choosing whether to stay alive."
He set the tool down and wiped sweat from his brow.
"Desire is sacred here, yes. But grief lives in it too."
That night, Astrid did not light candles.
She did not open the window.
She lay in her grandmother's bed—alone—and listened to the fjord outside.
It whispered, She's not yours.
But Astrid whispered back, She will be.
Even if she had to learn every name Elise had ever mourned.
Even if she had to drown to become sacred too.