Unsure if she was daring him, Jannick hesitated. He glanced up at the steep, slick slope and thought of the deep ice caves and how easy it would be to fall into one. If he fell in, who would take care of his mother? But it wouldn’t do to back off a dare. “Maybe we could see our fathers’ boats from up there,” he said hopefully.
“No. My father’s boat goes very far from our islands. Too far to see.”
“Well, maybe some other day then.” Jannick nodded, relieved. “After all, that is where the Wind Barons live.”
“What? Who are they?” Hanna asked.
Surprised that she didn’t know them, Jannick repeated the stories of the Wind Barons to her. He told her of a Rasmussen ancestor who supposedly had become a baron when he had jumped off a ship to save a friend. And then, in whispers, of the distant cousin who had become one of the wind rulers after strangling her husband with a fishing line. He told her of how the barons often shirked their duties, and that this led to terrible disasters, like the sinking of an ocean liner a few years earlier.
The next day after school, Hanna seemed upset. When pressed, she admitted: “My mother says that she has never heard of the barons, and that the stories are silly.”
Jannick was stunned. “What do you think?” he asked.
She put her hand on her small chin, in the pose of someone deep in thought. Her hair shone crimson in the slanting sunlight and Jannick caught his breath, as if his whole future depended on this young friend’s answer.
“I like them,” she stated imperiously. “I think they are real. Maybe we could ask them to come down and talk to my mother about you.”
She put her hand on her small chin, in the pose of someone deep in thought. Her hair shone crimson in the slanting sun-