‘I can’t believe it,’ said Lady P. ‘Yesterday, when you mentioned the fidgeting hands, Freja, I did think of Jane. It gave me quite a turn. But it seemed so crazy. Impossible. I thought she’d have stolen Lord P’s gift and fled the country a week ago. But you are telling me that Jane has been here in Lucerne the whole time.’
Freja nodded.
‘And now she’s in jail!’ cried Lady P.
‘Well, sort of,’ said Freja. ‘She’s handcuffed to a hospital bed until they can plaster her leg. And then they’ll take her to jail.’
‘It’s justice,’ said Tobias, ‘that Jane should fall from the turret. Now she might understand a little of what she did to you, Lady P.’
‘You’re right, Tobby!’ said Freja.
‘And Jane never found the key?’ asked Lady P.
‘I wouldn’t tell,’ whispered Freja. ‘It was your key, Lady P. Your safety deposit box. Your precious gift from lovely Lord P.’
‘So brave,’ murmured Clementine. Her eyes remained closed, but she squeezed Freja’s hand.
‘A real live heroine!’ cried Tobias, his eyes shining with pride.
‘Our heroine,’ added Vivi.
Reaching into her pocket, Freja pulled out the little key and pressed it into Lady P’s hand. ‘Safety deposit box number 1054A, Barclay’s Bank, Zurich.’
Lady P stared at the key.
Finnegan, who was lying at her side, licked the key.
Lady P’s mouth opened and closed several times before she could speak. ‘Oh, Freja,’ she whispered. ‘Such a gift!’
Freja blushed and smiled. ‘And I have something for you too, Mummy Darling Heart,’ she said, suddenly remembering.
Clementine opened her eyes.
‘I was going to bring the chocolate family,’ said Freja, ‘but you know what happened to that. So instead, I’ve brought you this.’ She drew her wooden seal from her pocket. ‘I thought you might like to hold it. I thought it might bring back memories of all the special times we spent together in the Arctic.’
Clementine smiled and brushed her fingers across the smooth timber. ‘Your father made it for you when you were a baby,’ she said.
Freja’s eyes darted to Tobias. He pressed his hand to his heart and shook his head, ‘No, old chap. Not me.’
Freja’s heart sank. She had hoped so dearly, for so long, that Tobias might be her father.
‘Svend,’ murmured Clementine. ‘Your father was Svend. A Norwegian biologist with a kind heart, blue eyes and wild golden curls.’
Freja reached up and touched her own curls and tried the name out. ‘Svend.’
‘And your mother,’ continued Clementine, ‘was Anna, a Norwegian photographer with a brave heart, hazel eyes and a smile that sparkled like the sunshine on the fjords.’
Freja’s ears filled with a whooshing sound. Her head began to spin, and she felt dizzy and scared and sick, all at the same time. It was like being pushed out of a turret. She was falling, falling, falling.
She flopped down and pressed her face into her mother’s side.
No! Not her mother!
She pulled back, confused and angry.
Her muscles tensed. Ready for action. Ready to leap from the bed, run and hide.
But she had declared, just yesterday, that she would never run away again. She would be there for Clementine. No matter what.
So she stayed.
She shivered . . . and took a deep breath to make herself still.
‘Svend and Anna,’ Clementine whispered. ‘They were my dearest friends in Norway. They died, tragically, in a scuba diving accident, but left the very best part of themselves behind.’
‘The wooden seal,’ whimpered Freja.
‘No!’ gasped Clementine. ‘You, Freja . . . their beautiful, darling two-year-old girl . . . And I had the honour . . . the joy . . . of taking you into my life . . . into my heart . . . into my soul . . .’
There was a pause and Freja wondered if Clementine had fallen asleep once more. How could she fall asleep at a time like this?! Surely, any minute now, her eyes would snap open and she would laugh and say that she had been confused and this was all nonsense.
But suddenly, Freja recalled something she had overheard when Tobias first came to London to take her away.
‘She’s just like us,’ Tobias had said.
‘Please don’t tell her,’ Clementine had replied. ‘Not yet.’
Freja had thought the ‘just like us’ meant that Tobias was her father. And, of course, she’d never questioned the idea that Clementine was her mother. Why would she?
But now, with a jolt, she realised that ‘just like us’ meant that Freja was an orphan. Just as Tobias and Clementine were orphans.
Freja stared as wet drops fell from her cheeks and darkened the linen of her smock. ‘But that makes me nobody’s child,’ she whispered. ‘Not Tobby’s. Not yours. I am nobody.’
Clementine smiled. She actually smiled!
‘Oh, Freja,’ she sighed. ‘You are my child! You are my precious girl. Don’t you see? I chose you.’ She reached up to press her hand against Freja’s cheek. ‘Remember the Arctic fox pups with the reindeer mother?’
Freja nodded.
‘They didn’t start life together, and yet, they became a beautiful family. A happy, loving family. But they were more too. They were a miracle.’
‘A Siberian miracle,’ whispered Freja. She couldn’t help smiling at the memory. It was, perhaps, the most wonderful thing she had ever seen.
Clementine smiled back. ‘We are a miracle, Freja . . . You . . . Me . . . Us. And nothing, absolutely nothing, can ever take that away.’
Freja stared into Clementine’s loving blue eyes and saw that it was true. What she and Clementine had was a deep and perfect love. She had never questioned it before, so why now? Did it really matter where that love had begun, or that Freja’s blue eyes had not sprung from Clementine’s? What mattered was that the love was real and deep and lasting. That love had made Freja’s childhood rich and beautiful. That love had sustained her, even when she and her mother were far apart. And now, at this late and difficult hour, that love was the most precious thing in this room.
Freja nodded. ‘Mummy Darling Heart,’ she whispered, and she and Clementine moulded into one. They lay arm in arm, silent, soothing, loving and, finally, sleeping.
Sometime during the night, Freja woke. Clementine’s head was cradled in Tobias’ lap, her left hand wrapped in Vivi’s. Finnegan lay at the foot of the bed, silent and still, his nose pressed against the sole of Clementine’s foot.
Something had changed.
Freja sat up.
Clementine whispered, ‘I’m going on a new adventure now, Freja.’
‘No,’ said Freja. ‘Please, Mummy Darling Heart. Not yet!’
‘It’s okay, precious girl. I’ll see new tundras . . . new fjords . . . new forests . . .’
Clementine now looked up into Tobias’ face. ‘Hero Boy . . .’
Tobias stroked her cheek. ‘It’s all sorted, old girl,’ he whispered. ‘Freja is already as much a part of my life, my heart, as she is yours. I will be proud to call her my daughter.’ He reached out and touched Vivi’s shoulder. ‘And Vivi will be proud to do the same.’
Vivi nodded and smiled and began to weep.
And, even though Freja realised that the worst thing of her life was about to happen, she knew that the best was also here.
Love.
Family.
Eternity.
Because love and family have no limits.
As morning approached, Vivi drew back the curtains and Tobias pushed Clementine’s bed to the window. The girl, the dog, the writer and the pretty chef watched the sun rise over Lake Lucerne and the Alps. And as the light fell on Clementine’s face, she stepped silently, peacefully, out onto a new wide tundra.