Sweat runs freely down Garm's forehead, pooling in the corners of his eyes before continuing down his face and dripping onto his shirt. He blinks rapidly, trying to make the itching stop as the salty stream assaults his vision. having dealt with this predicament for the past ten minutes, he’s slowly coming to terms with his uncomfortable state of being. putting mild aches aside, Garm continues to move his legs like pistons on a mad rush along the muddy road.

“Faster, kid! Move your legs!” Jason shouts through gritted teeth as he pushes off the ground, uncaring of the abuse he’s putting on his bad leg. His words are sharp and angry, but the tone of his voice has a pleading edge Garm has never heard before.

Hearing his father urge him on, Garm bites back a venomous retort and gets a firmer grip on the arm he’s supporting. He grits his teeth and pulls his hobbling father even faster. Despite the burst of effort, Garm and Jason are barely keeping up with Hannah and Harry Thompson senior, who sound like they are having a heated back-and-forth.

“...They are all at the house, ask them when we get there!” Mr. Thompson says defensively.

Hannah, clearly not satisfied by the answer, nearly shouts back, “But you were there, right? surely someone must have seen him?”

“Like I said…” Mr. Thompson begins to explain, not for the first time, “I came straight to fetch you after we got there.” The old farmer is sweating nearly as much as Garm, keeping up the pace while being questioned thoroughly by Hannah.

Garm hears the barely contained fear in his sister's voice. She’s keeping it together admirably, but only just. Through eyes swimming with pain, Garm sees there’s more than sweat running down her chin. He can’t blame her for the reaction, as it is only through the exercise of supporting his father while they run that keeps him from dwelling on the news.

A disaster has struck the Madsen’s home. That’s what Mr. Thompson had told them that morning. The way he told it his family had come to see off Mr. Madsen before he was to travel to Brunvik while handing over another delivery of dried grain. When they arrived the wagon had not been horsed yet and the family were nowhere to be seen. After that, Harry Senior, and Junior had started carrying the bags of grain to the mill, while Mrs. Thompson went to the house to ask the family if they needed help getting ready. Shortly after entering Gunnhilda, looking white as a corpse, returned and in panicked bursts told them there had been a gruesome accident. That’s as much as Mr. Thompson had been able to tell them, as this is where he and his son ran to fetch the neighbors.

At last, they are close enough to see their neighbors clustered outside the Madsen’s house. They get off the road, taking a shortcut through the garden, and soon they are standing in the yard huffing and puffing.

Standing there bent on their knees, the respite doesn’t last long as they can hear a loud commotion from inside the house, making everyone jump. Hearing what sounds like manic screaming, Mr. Thompson quickly accompanies the others inside, their father letting go of Garm follows shortly behind them.

Breathing in a lungful of air Garm gets up, ready to follow as well. “You coming?” he asks Hannah, whose look of worry and uncertainty makes Garm hesitate.

“In a second,” Hannah replies with a distant stare, “I just… need to gather myself first.”

Following his sister’s eyes, Garm spots the younger Harry Thompson bent over next to an apple tree in the garden. Holding onto a branch to steady himself, Harry looks visibly woozy, streaks of vomit painting the grass in multicolored sick. Seeing his tormentor in this state would normally bring Garm a degree of satisfaction, but the circumstances conjure nothing but fear at what he will find inside. What’s happened to the Madsen family to bring out this reaction? Is Grim alright?

Another ear-piercing shriek escapes the house. Garm steels his nerves and walks inside, mind spinning with images of what he will find.

Walking slowly into the foyer, Garm’s nostrils are immediately assaulted by a terrible scent. Ammonia and… something else? Covering his nose, he moves further into the house. Hearing loud discussion and boots on wood Garm enters the living room into a scent that takes his breath away. Another shriek rings out, and he sees the noise is coming from a restrained Sandra Madsen, who’s being held down on a table by Mr. Thompson, Widow Maria, and his father. They are struggling to hold the woman down as she fights against them, jerking violently from side to side, trying to break free. She looks to be in a blind panic as she cycles between screaming herself horse and staring manically around the room. The smell has only worsened and Garm sees the struggling Mrs. Madsen has soiled herself.

“Did you find them?” Widow Maria shouts towards the kitchen.

“Got them right here!” Mrs. Thompson comes out of the kitchen with a mortar and pestle, grinding down several white pills.

“You didn’t use too many, did you? The baby’s already in danger as it is,” Widow Maria asks, strain audible in her voice as she’s barely able to hold down one of the arms.

Mrs. Thompson pours the content of the mortar over into a glass of water and brings it over to the table while stirring it with a spoon, “I know what I’m doing, now hold her still and open her mouth.”

A brief struggle to get Mrs. Madsen's mouth open ensues before Mrs. Thompson pours the content down her gullet. It’s wet and messy, much of the liquid ends up on the floor, but they successfully feed her most of it. It doesn’t take long before Sandra’s movements grow dulled, her screaming sounding distant and her eyes dazed.

“No. No. No,” Mrs. Madsen mutters between desperate gasps of air, tears streaming like rivers down her face.

Moments later, she’s completely knocked out, the people holding her down slumping tired to the floor or leaning back in chairs.

Garm’s been staring at the scene in muted horror. As the old-timers begin discussing what to do next, he moves slowly to the stairs and sits down, staring at the chest of the unconscious Mrs. Madsen rise and fall. His father says something about moving her, but Garm’s barely listening. Leaning back on the stairs, ignoring the pain as he props himself on the sharp edges of the fifth and sixth steps, he tries to center his mind.

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The chaos quickly proves too much to wrap his head around. None of this makes sense to Garm. How could any of this have happened? Where the hell is Mr. Madsen and Grim, and what’s got Mrs. Madsen like… this? Garm looks over to the table where the resting form of Sandra Madsen stirs in its forced sleep. The horrid smell makes its presence known again, and Garm considers making a break for fresher air. The terrible scent of waste makes him move to get up and leave the house when he notices something different about the scent. Bracing himself for the stomach-churning sensation, he opens his senses to the room and after a reluctant drag of air a second, stronger smell makes its presence known.

Garm is no bloodhound, but from his position, at the bottom of the stairs, there’s an unmistakable reek of something strong and putrid coming from the second floor. Thinking of little more than to escape from the terrible scene before him, he begins scaling the stairs. The curious scent is little better than the one downstairs, but at least this way he wouldn’t have to continue looking at the aftermath.

Emotions roiling in his mind, the implications of the scent don’t hit Garm until he’s at the very last step. The putrid stink has slowly been taking on an iron-like tang as he moved up the stairs, bringing Garm memories of helping his mother slaughter and gut sheep. As he looks at the door before him, images of what may have happened to Grim and his father roil through Garm’s head like a locomotive. Feeling hard of breath he sees the door is slightly ajar, leaving a small crack for the miasmic odor to waft through. Reaching for the handle with a trembling hand, he allows the need to know what’s causing this sensation to overtake his disgust and fear for what he might find. Like he’s ripping off a band-aid Garm takes the handle and tears the door wide open.

“Hey, kid, we need to… What are you doing?!” Jonas Helland says as he spots his son, but he has to step back as Garm bolts past him, seemingly blind to his surroundings.

Looking a shade between white and green, Garm bursts out through the door and throws himself on the fence by the flowerbed. Holding it in this long had been a herculean undertaking, but now that he’s outside his breakfast forces its way up and out, spraying the flowers liberally in bile. Feeling a lot more sympathy towards Harry, he hangs over the wooden fence for another minute.

Finally feeling empty, and no longer dry heaving, Garm wipes at his face. After most of the snot and tears are gone he slumps down heavily on the porch and stares off into space with an intensity like he can conjure an explanation out of thin air. After sitting for another couple of moments, no answers materializing, Garm notices that he’s hyperventilating. Trying to calm his mind enough to get control of his breathing again, he slaps his cheeks with both hands. The brief pain allows him to change focus, if only for a moment, but it’s enough to let him slowly return his breathing to normal.

Holding out his hands, Garm sees, to his frustration, that they are shaking uncontrollably. Denying the little voice in his mind that tells him this is a perfectly rational reaction to what he’s just seen, Garm instead allows the anger to take hold, if only for a bit. Images from the bedroom threaten to worm their way to the forefront of his mind, but Garm does not let them linger. Staring at his hands, he finds sanctuary in the anger and bitterness he feels while looking at the evidence of his weakness.

Voices are coming from inside the house, loud discussion, and after a while, shouting and screaming. Minutes go by on the porch. Eventually, Jonas comes outside looking as pale as Garm feels.

“Find your sister, we’re leaving,” Jonas says in a dry monotone. “The Thompsons are taking care of Sandra, now move!” he continues in a stricter tone.

Garm does not answer, but gets up and walks towards the garden. It doesn’t take long before he spots a bush of orange curls poking out from behind the outhouse. Moving with a bit more haste he wonders distantly what his sister’s been doing all this time.

Garm turns the corner and a knot in his stomach unfurls as he sees his sister sitting next to a familiar form.

“Grim?” Garm whispers, holding back a tide of emotions.

Neither of the two speaks a word, but Hannah gestures for Garm to come to sit with them. Making no move he simply stares at his large friend, curled into a ball behind the outhouse. Garm had secretly always been a little jealous of Grim’s size, being a head taller than him and nearly twice as wide across the shoulders. Now though? Grim looked small and frail, huddled next to Hannah. He had a thousand-yard-stare and his swollen eye sockets spoke of hours spent crying. Looking at his friend in this state only made the torrent of emotions worse, uncertainty and anger taking up most of his mind. Garm wants to help, but with no means of doing so, he eventually settles next to Grim, him and Hannah forming a wall on either side of their friend.

“Do you remember the summer I turned thirteen?” Hannah eventually says in a musing tone.

Hearing the unconvincing calmness in his sister's voice, Garm takes a deep breath and matches her tenor, “You mean the one with the heatwave?”

“Yes, that one. It was after we got back from swimming in the Grime.”

“And Mrs. Madsen had made carrot muffins for Harry’s birthday, I remember. She’d put them on the veranda to cool off.”

“So you suggested we steal them for ourselves.”

“Harry was an asshole, even back then. He had it coming.”

“And the possibility of tasting Sandra’s baking got me and Grim on board real quick.”

“You were so easy to convince,” Garm shrugs.

“We were, weren’t we?” Hannah says with a smile that’s only slightly misshapen. “Anyway, we ran over and stole the tray, and, not knowing where to go next, we ran here, behind the outhouse.”

“I still remember the taste of those muffins. How much did we eat? Two, three each?”

“Three, before the guilt kicked in. You were crying like our little heist hadn’t been your idea.”

“I don’t remember that part,” Garm mumbles.

“You did,” Hannah nods, some of her usual warmth returned to her, “then Mrs. Madsen found us.”

“The nicest stern talking to I have ever received.”

“How could she be angry when you looked like such a sobbing mess.”

“Hey, it’s not like you were any better. Little Miss Prim and Propper committing such a terrible crime? You were at least as soggy as me.”

“Grim though? Not a tear in sight. You were standing there looking sullen, ready for whatever punishment you’d get,” Hanna says while gently stroking Grim’s arm.

Garm nods and gives them a brief smile, “Good thing she only had us help bake a fresh batch.”

A brief silence falls over the trio where they sit behind the outhouse, feeling the moist morning air blow past them. The cheer feels forced, but at least for Garm, it helps keep his mind from being overwhelmed by today’s horrors.

“I…” Grim starts in a dry whisper, “I found them,” he inhales sharply, “Dad.”

That is all Grim can manage before a sulk escapes his mouth. Having already spent his tears he simply clutches his legs tighter, knuckles white with strain, and sits there shaking. Hannah takes the large bulk of Grim and gently leans onto her neck, supporting him as best she can.