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Chapter 15 - Våtnatt

The invitation came without warning.

A folded linen napkin on Astrid's doorstep, still damp from Elise's hand. No name. Just a pressed sprig of elderflower inside.

And one word.

Våtnatt.

Wet night.

The village didn't speak of it, but Astrid had heard it in murmurs — Våtnatt was not a celebration. It was a rite. A washing of grief and hunger, done together and in silence, beneath the full moon. No clothing. No candles. Just bodies and water and whatever could be let go.

The moon was already rising when Astrid walked the forest path toward the lower sauna.

The moss was soft underfoot. The pine trees breathed beside her. And the fjord… the fjord waited.

The sauna sat like a secret at the water's edge — half-buried in stone, its wood silvered by wind and time.

Astrid could hear breath before she saw bodies.

Soft moans. Wet skin. The creak of heat-swollen boards.

She stepped inside.

Steam hit her in a wave, and then came the scent: birch, salt, sweat, and longing.

Elise stood at the center of it all — naked, glistening, her red hair pinned up with a single wooden stick.

She looked at Astrid the way a flame looks at dry grass.

And then nodded.

Astrid undressed.

They did not speak.

No one did.

Twelve women. Three men. All stripped of names, titles, jealousy.

They passed birch branches — vihta — over each other's bodies. Gentle strokes. Then firmer. Welts bloomed like kisses. Backs arched. Moans escaped and were swallowed by steam.

Astrid sat between Elise's legs. Elise's hands ran down her arms, her thighs, her ribs.

They weren't lovers here.

They were offerings.

One woman — Astrid didn't know her name — began to cry softly as someone kissed her spine. The others did not look away. They leaned in. Pressed foreheads to her belly. Held her as her sobs melted into quiet breath.

Våtnatt was not erotic in the way Astrid had known eroticism.

It was sacred, soaked communion.

And when they emerged — dripping, naked, glowing under the moon — the fjord was still.

Waiting.

They entered the water together.

No hesitation.

It was cold, but not punishing. It wrapped them like memory.

Astrid floated on her back, eyes open to the stars, body bare between Elise and Ase, as fingers — she didn't know whose — touched her collarbone, her ribs, her inner thigh, not to take, but to know.

A slow touch. Then stillness.

Then another.

Elise took her hand.

Their fingers tangled.

And Astrid whispered the names back — not aloud, but through skin, breath, pulse.

Marta.

Lina.

Solveig.

And then her own name.

Astrid.

Spoken not as a question.

But a becoming.

When they came back to shore, no one dried off.

They sat on moss-covered stones, steam rising from their bodies in the moonlight, and drank from a shared bottle of something bitter and wild.

Elise leaned her head on Astrid's shoulder.

And for the first time, didn't flinch.

The next morning, Elise was still there.

In the bed.

Not as a storm.

But as warmth.

As skin.

As the quiet after grief finally lets go.

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