Brooke: Sigridur

“How shall I know that I am home?” asked Sigridur

Her face was tilted in the lamplight—partly obscured in the shadows like a flickering half-moon. She sat in a nest of soft blankets, bunched and tangled about her feet. Her eyes were wide and questioning, her hair in a knotted halo around her face. With her tattered nightdress her mother thought she looked rather like a poor starved bird.

“You’ll know,” her mother assured, “home is something you can feel.”

She reached out for the lamp, ready to shut it.

Sigridur scrambled from her perch atop the thin blankets and pulled them over herself.

“Mother,” she called, “let your hair down.”

Her mother moved softly, her head tilting forward just slightly as one hand reached for the knotted bun at the base of her neck. Her sheet of long golden hair tumbled down.

“Goodnight my star”

She shut the lamp, and climbed into the bed beside her daughter.

“Mother, what if I can’t find it?” asked the girl. The night was dark tinted with her fear.

The mother turned to her, and stroked her pallid cheek.

Sigridur grabbed for a handful of that soft hair and pressed it to her face. She squeezed her eyes shut and breathed in its gentle scent.

“I already told you my love. It is not something you can find, it is something you must feel.”