They called it the Afterwarm.
That feverish quiet after a body had been worshipped — when the world felt brighter, crueler, impossibly tender. When the skin still smelled of another's mouth, and the air felt too soft on bare thighs.
Astrid walked through it now, barefoot across dewy moss, the taste of Linna still etched into the curve of her jaw.
She had not said goodbye.
She didn't need to.
In Løvlund, parting after sex wasn't rupture — it was rain moving on after watering the field.
The fjord shimmered in front of her, still and endless.
Down near the water's edge, she spotted a figure — one she hadn't seen since the week of the bonfire.
Ida.
Astrid's first kiss in the village. The one in the steaming greenhouse. The married mother of three who had made her knees shake just by holding eye contact over a tomato vine.
She stood with her feet in the shallows, her dress hitched above her knees, hands cradling her belly like it held something secret.
Astrid approached slowly.
"Too cold to be swimming," she murmured.
Ida smiled. "Not swimming. Listening."
Astrid tilted her head.
"To what?"
Ida didn't answer immediately. She dipped her fingers into the water, then brought them to her lips — not to taste, but to press the wetness onto her collarbones.
"The fjord remembers every moan. But sometimes…" she paused, "…it forgets who they belong to. So I come here and remind it."
Astrid's mouth went dry.
Ida turned to her — soft-eyed, sunlit.
"You're glowing," she said."Like you've been ruined gently."
Astrid laughed, then blushed.
"It was Linna."
Ida nodded knowingly. "She kisses like she's returning something you lost."
They stood side by side in silence for a long moment, the lapping water folding and unfolding their reflections.
Then Ida asked, casually: "Would you like to join me in the water?"
Astrid hesitated. "Naked?"
Ida smiled. "Not for seduction. For remembering."
They undressed slowly, reverently.
Astrid's body felt shy again, but not from fear — from reverence. She stepped into the fjord like stepping into a lover's story, the cold water wrapping around her ankles, then her thighs, then higher.
Ida held her hand as they waded deeper.
"Do you want to scream something into the fjord?" she asked.
"What would I scream?"
Ida's fingers brushed Astrid's wrist. "A name. A regret. A hunger."
Astrid swallowed.
Then whispered: "Stay."
The water carried it.
A single word, light and holy, echoed against the stillness — and vanished.
Ida turned to her, eyes bright. "You're ready."
"For what?"
"For the unmasking."
Astrid felt something tighten in her chest.
"What is that?"
Ida only smiled. "Come tonight. The Widow Åse's glade. Midnight. Wear nothing but a ribbon."
Astrid blinked. "Around what?"
Ida's voice was low.
"Where you ache most."
That night, Astrid stood in her cottage with trembling hands.
A crimson ribbon lay across her bed.
She picked it up, closed her eyes — and tied it, slowly, around her left wrist.
Not between her legs. Not over her heart.
But where Linna had kissed her first.Where Ida had pressed her pulse.Where Selma had once reached for her, and stopped just before touching.
Because that was the ache.
To be held.Not claimed.Not fucked.But kept.
At midnight, the woods were alive.
Women moved like shadows through the birch trees, ribbons fluttering against bare skin. The air smelled of cedar smoke, sweat, and something older than perfume — want.
No men.
No voices.
Only breathing.
The Widow Åse stood at the center, holding a bowl of crushed salt and wild honey.
And Astrid, trembling in her nakedness, stepped into the circle — her ribbon glowing like a wound kissed by candlelight.
Åse beckoned her forward.
And whispered:
"Tonight, we do not take lovers. We take our names back from the mouths that never said them right."
Astrid's body shivered.
Not from cold.
But from memory — coming home.