Birch Manor - 1 - The Finding Out

Denne historie ligger på dansk på min blog om Enhjørningegården.

This Wednesday's words is a compilation of funny-sounding words from Alex J. Cavanaugh, published at Elephant's Child's blog.
I'm proud to tell that I only had to look up two of them. But then I almost did not use any of them ... well this sounds good for a continuation of this tale at least.
  In the beginning, this instalment was named "Birch Manor 2". I have now renamed it and straigthened out all Blogger's messing with my post numbers. Thank you!

    Guacamole
    Ninja
    Lollygag
    Malarky
    Skedaddle
    Piffle
And/or
    Berserk
    Earwig
    Fiasco
    Gazebo
    Huzzah
    Nitwit
    Thingamajig
    Pandemonium

Oh you wanted to know which two I had to look up? - Piffle and Huzzah were new to me 😉

This story is a spin-off from The tales from the Unicorn Farm.

Birch Manor is the place Susan and Knud is going to move to upon retiring and re-discovering their magical identities. I had that chapter (Unicorn Farm - The Epilogue) public for a short while, but it has long since been taken down again. 
In this chapter - actually taking place the day after the Epilogue, they have not moved yet. They are packing and preparing for the move, but as you'll know upon having read this chapter, moving might just take a bit longer than planned.
I wrote a lot more, but I was afraid to scare you off with a wall of text. This is a small part of it. The finding out:

The alarm clock rang and Susan turned it off. Knud turned to her: "Good morning, darling!" he said as every morning and gave her a kiss.
"Good morning, my dear," Susan replied, as every morning. "You better brew some really strong coffee today. I did not sleep very well last night."
"No, I heard you. You tossed and turned all the time, and you even went downstairs in the middle of the night. Is something wrong?"
"No nothing's wrong with me, but I have been thinking. Now you skedaddle, and brew us some coffee, I'll be right down, once I have finished the morning gymnastics. I think best with some coffee inside."
"Yeah," Knud replied smiling as he pulled on his clothes and tugged downstairs to brew coffee.
"Downstairs ..." Susan mused. "At Birch Manor the kitchen and bedroom are both downstairs, it won't be 'down' just 'over'. I wonder how that will work out?" She reluctantly got up and did her morning gymnastics in front of the open window. She then brought her old, brown suitcase downstairs.
Over the day's second cup of coffee, Susan began to feel her brain functioning again: "Knud," she said, "I've been thinking ... most of the night ..." Knud nodded and looked interested. "Where have they gone?" she asked. "I mean, all the people from the Unicorn Farm? The only one we know positively where has gone is Gilvi, and he's dead. She read aloud from the yellowed newspaper clipping: '... further investigations have not clarified the cause of the fire, but the body of an old vagabond was found in the barn. The technical investigation also shows that the fire occurred in several places at the same time ... ' I am 100 percent sure that the vagabond was Gilvi. But what about all the others. What about Heidi and her family They were not at that pandemonium of a closing party, can they still do magic? What about Jon, and Birgitta, and worse, Torben and David and that bandit of Tristan from Holland. I would like to track them down."
"Belgium," Knud corrected automatically, "he was French-speaking. What about the Swedes, Helge and Bo and the others,"
"Oh, God yes, Helge" Susan said. "He always got off on the wrong foot, wondering how he got on without magic?"
"Facebook and Google are your friends," Knud replied. "I think we should maybe take a day off from packing down the house and instead go hunting on the internet."
"I agree," Susan replied, getting up. Together they cleared the table and Susan brought an extra cup of coffee and her brown suitcase in front of the computer.
"In order not to waste time on the same people, you take Heidi and family and the green team this morning? Then I take the blue one, I hung out with the Swedes a lot back then."
"It's a deal," Susan replied.

***

When it was coffee time, Susan had also baked scones, She needed to think of something else, "It's a little creepy," she said to Knud when he came in with the coffee. "Most of those I have been able to trace have been via obituaries. Thora's death is of course no surprise, she died full of days sometime in the late 90s. But the apprentices ... Veronika: Died 1982 in a solo accident on her first drive alone. Terje, died of an overdose in Oslo in 1981. Josta and Marja, the Birchsisters, died with their parents, and an aunt and her children when the family's cottage went up in flames in 1979. Kirstin: Drowned in 1979 on a swim after a high school party. I have had no luck tracking down Kalle and Anna yet." She sighed deeply. "And then the good news: Hilde is a head nurse at a hospital in northern Norway. It suits her perfectly. And Rósa, fortunately she is also alive. She is at some strange museum for Old Icelandic magic, it sounds like a lot of piffle, really. But she's alive. I've been pushing off looking for Heidi and her family, I was afraid of what I would find.
Knud shook his head: "Pretty much the same as you. Tähti and Taavi are obviously dead, they were almost 100 years old. But as you said ... the apprentices." Knud stopped and sighed as deeply as Susan. "Let me start with the good news. Helge is still alive. And so is My."
"Oh how good," Susan interrupted, "All the wand singers are alive so far. Me, My, Rósa and well, I have not found Anna yet. Sorry, just keep going."

"All the Eklund children, Bo, Britta, Harald and Lukas died, also in a summer house. They had turned on the stove, but they fumbled with the air supply. Carbon monoxide poisoning got them. Selma and Grani got married and died on their honeymoon. David is dead too He joined the squatters and suffered a cannabis psychosis. He jumped out the window one day the police stormed the building. I have not been able to find Sarah. And I'm going to look for Monica after coffee. Should I continue with the yellow team?"
"Yes, Heidi and the twins were on the purple team, so I'm already all set there. But, I'll come up with more people, where I'm unsure of both last name and age and so on, but that's how you feel about the yellow ones, right? "
"Yes, certainly," replied Knud. "So if you think of something, write it down, then we can compare notes after lunch."
"OK," Susan replied.

To be continued ...