Up and up they rose. The world paled beneath them.

Astrid buried her face in her book. She almost couldn't bear to look at him, he
was so elegant, so...

Something was deeply troubling him, tears shimmering at the farthest fringes
of his eyeliner.

What could be so troubling to such an otherwise untroubled person?

"Are you ready to see it?

I know it's close, based on my research, but I daren't look any closer without an
expert hand."

He unpacked the item from his sturdy hiking bag. He'd carried the satchel for
five years now. It looked undamaged and fit everything about him - immaculate
- the bag still all brilliant blues and tawny browns despite its years of good
service. It was almost as if he treated it as an extension of himself.

"Do you think it's the real thing?" she whispered.

"Do you?" he mischievously replied.

Astrid accepted the psalmodikon reverently from Almond. At least (she thought
anyway) the nickname was better than Call-EE-fore-NEEAHHH, or worse,
Caligutt, the fashionable legume with which the townsfolk had associated the
wispy newcomer.

He was Californian so it followed that he must surf, and he must be a massive

consumer of almonds.

Humorously deeper talk of avocados and their uses remained clandestine. The
villagers may have been a touch juvenile in their japes and jests, but they were
touchingly discreet and meant no harm.

He was a shy boy just short of seventeen, but he seemed genuinely happy with
his allergic moniker. Perhaps it uniquely anchored him in a strange land
populated by even stranger people.

He did, after all, represent the absolute minority in the village.

His real name was Elvind.

The boy's curious legal status was a census afterthought of Norwegian

descendants who had...repatriated...no...that wasn't right. Nationalised?
Returned to the land of their forebears?
There were maybe two other such individuals living in Nordsk. It was
instrumentally coincidental, but she had worked on both of their pianos. There
were probably more such folk of which she wasn't aware.

Maybe with more instruments.

Regardless, they would all be much older than Almond, and none with the
musical marvel that was the psalmodikon.

Nordsk was isolated, thusly close-knit, and not exactly an obvious destination.

Unless you were a baby, new in town meant instant curiosity. Heck, Nordsk
babies were curiosities for longer than average since the little joyous nuggets
were already rare in such a tiny population. Almond's arrival had been a
sensation.

It had been Almond's parents' parents' parents' who had possessed a boldness
in their foresight in leaving early on for a voyage to the New World. Some of
the old folks still told stories about them.

But these were just stories built from other stories, most likely as well built
from memory rather than fact. Nevertheless Almond's family was, and now
with his appearance continued to become, a part of Nordsk's pivotal role to
play in the near future.

The Koppen family tree, just like their fortunes, had flourished after their
Norwegian departure.

Being American and three generations adrift, Almond was more than a few
branches removed from looking like a true Northman.

To put it bluntly, the Koppens had gotten around.

He had Japanese, Slavic, and Pacific Islander blood in him. Given a look at the
rest of the descendants, his was a comparatively mild case of admixture.

Almond's DNA bespeaks the beauty of a world that's slowly but surely
coalescing. Perhaps a word not in English could explain all the gorgeous helices
and hellmixes that spawned the young man.

The strange (and very true) name of Elvind Koppen, a gift from his historically
enthusiastic father, had not served him well in the States.

He explained (not complained mind you - Almond was ever more perplexed
by the world than he was vexed), that in school he was often ridiculed as
resembling an elf. Though couched in undertones of cruelty, the observation
was not entirely inaccurate. Sorry buddy. You do look like an elf.
There had been another unexpected gift from his family of which Astrid was
aware.

Being as ensconced as possible in Nordsk, with over nine familial generations

recorded - there wasn't much she didn't know about nearly everyone in the
village. And she was the only person in town who could fix a broken guitar.

But this second gift had come at a terrible price. It was the reason Elvind had
come to Nordsk.

His history buff father had taken it upon himself, with gusto, to study the
genealogical chart of the Koppen fjerne slektninger - the extended family.

Thus came the remarkable discovery of the flourishing Koppen varietals.

Bill Koppen found that many in the bloodline had grown absurdly rich from
farming, logging, fishing, ranching, and land acquisition in the first and second
generations.

This was as they broke the frontiers of a still quite Wild West.

Others were or became well-known in their respective fields of finance,

industry, and education, or revered as pioneers in various capacities.

It could altogether be taken as if the family had been preternaturally blessed

with prowess for success rooted both in salt-of-the-earth pursuits, as well high-
flown flights of fancy among the intelligentsia.

The Koppens and their offshoots represented baseline social bedrock in their
communities (labor union civil rights cutters and grinders, alongside
government officials and infrastructure revolutionaries), as well as dreamers
and aspirational figures (from research doctors to cutting-edge musicians,
historians all the way to geo-spatial engineers and quantum physicists).

Almost all represented primary cogs in the best of human intentions driving
the engines of our world.

And this wealth of human achievement and potential - all of it ground in one
fell swoop to a fateful halt.

Elvind's father, William (Big Bill) with his discoveries (facilitated by the infinite
Internet which he so loved), had endeavored to unite the clan under one
wonderful umbrella of communication, connection, and mutual embrace - a
massive FAMILY REUNION of people who had never met and most often,
never even been aware of each other.
He managed to gather them from every corner of the globe all to meet in Oslo.
Their song of familial fabularity that toed lines of legend, if not lore - it would
be the centerpiece.

Bill's was a discovery that had delighted nearly all of the descendants. The
overwhelming majority had been thrilled to post their assent to attend and
intent to drag every family member along.

Astrid shook her head at rapid-fire thoughts and the epic tragedy behind the
boy across from her. Almond's naturally lavender, and (incidentally) almond-
shaped eyes cautiously stared at her.

She struggled to juggle the bloom in her cheeks while authoring some astute
observations regarding the sublimity of what she was holding. She tried to
focus as hard on the potentially mind-blowing piece of history he'd just
proffered, as he was focused on her.

"What do you think?" he asked.

She turned the instrument over and over in her delicate hands, hardly
believing it.

It seemed all too large in her tiny lap. "It looks mid-to-late eighteenth century,
but I think it could be older. I will require my tools to tell for sure. And your
permission. I know your aunt. She is not a person to trifle with."

She paused. He kept gazing silently.

"You see, many distinctive toolings and maker's markings are typically on the
inside portions of the instrument. They cannot be seen without disassembling
it, which will require considerable care and precision. As well as patience. You
will have to be patient with me, Almond. Whatever its provenance, I cannot
damage this instrument, nor taint the purity of its musical acuity. It is too
precious."

They were riding the cable car, breathing out cold plumes, rather than sitting
in her warm shop which also served as her tiny home.

Each little shudder of the car made her afraid she would drop the psalmodikon.

He had specifically asked her to meet him at the funicular, and she still couldn't
tell if he'd been asking her out. As in a kind of date.

When she had questioned him as to why there, he replied sheepishly that he
had an errand to run at around the same time he'd be able to sneak the
gleaming item from his aunt's home.
His aunt was an extremely punctual woman, so the planning hadn't been
difficult. It was just that it coincided with this apparent cloak-and-daggers
mission.

Astrid did not know what to make of this.

"Of course. Jeg kan være tålmodig, he replied without blinking, in his formal
Norwegian. He was trying to keep in practice. People here tended to speak to
him in English all the time even though he was completely fluent in
Norwegian.

The irony was that Norwegian was all they had spoken in his home in
California. It was at his rather strange father's request. Big Bill had wanted to
preserve a primary piece of their heritage.

Sometimes not hearing it throughout the day made him sad.

"Hum?" she asked, still distracted with wondering about Almond's oddities and
this underlying distress of some kind which he had not communicated.

"Patient, Astrid. Of course I can be patient." He smiled his 'I should be ashamed
of smiling' flirty smile, and pulled his baseball cap down in an effort not to be
seen.

Almond was normally a book that, at times, seemed wide open enough that the
spine ought to have been cracked and well-worn. The opposite was true,
however, Astrid thought.

Every new experience hurt or thrilled him. This kid was as fresh as a spring
daisy. So the reticence about his side mission was more than a curiosity to
Astrid.

Somehow this felt like a moment to her, and she didn't want to ruin it by being
scatterbrained as she often was.

A few months ago, in the early AM (at the time Almond had just begun
delivering milk to the locals out of a baskety-cart contraption he'd made from
recycled sundries into a little trailer for his bike), he'd openly cried in front of
her.

This had endeared him to her in ways she couldn't put to words.

In truth, in two years the thing (the basket) was only worth a darn for barely a
few weeks, if not just days a year - snow, obviously being a less than minor
hindrance. He liked it though. It was something he'd fashioned himself. It was
an offshoot of a hobby he more often employed in hopes of gaining the favor
of his reluctant neighbors (with respect to acceptance about town due to his
strange appearance). Almond was a rather skilled woodworker, craftsman, and
engineer. And he donated his inventions freely.

No, no, Astrid told herself. Perhaps more of a...role he sought...no...she couldn't
find the word. Aside from practical items like the cart, he made other things.
He was a Twinkler. A Tinker! This was it. He created small, mechanical toys
from discarded items - strange little dolls and landscapes, like...amusement
parks - that seemingly moved of their own accord. He distributed them to
people he came in contact with, without any sort of plan or expectation. He
made solar-powered tools that would last for decades. He re-purposed so many
items, it on occasion seemed that he was forwarding nothing less than Tesla-
based progress on the entire town of Nordsk.

Sometimes wandering endlessly on beautiful peaks on trails in the woods just

outside of town, he lost himself. Astrid had seen him do it. She was a runner,
and she never acknowledged him. It would be a violation of his privacy, and it
seemed that he merely enjoyed the delight that came with such tiny, selfless
acts.

But anyway, to continue the story, Almond had opted to go down the main
street using the sparse wheel ruts run in from the few cars in town. The Padre
made his fateful turn, and not recognizing Almond's new contraption, severely
swerved and accidentally slid into the faithful dog happily trotting behind the
boy.

Astrid saw the accident and ran out. She ran to Almond, sobbing in the street,
blaming himself. He was the unknown commodity on the road. The Per was
hardly a drinking man, much less a morning drinker, and the boy and his cart
had been the only unpredictable elements. Astrid could literally see the agony
ripping through Almond in that moment. It was a heavy and palpable pain, and
in that moment she knew that he felt the world in a way that very few people
could.

"Astrid?" Almond asked carefully. She raised her eyes to meet his, glistening
with tears over the memory even though she wanted to hang her head and
hide them the way he was hiding behind his hat and pointless sunglasses.

"Astrid, why are you crying?" Almond reached out to cup her elbow, his
concern so immediately evident it made her blink back a deluge.

"Elvind, have you ever thought about a flower in the woods? A beautiful flower
that works so hard to exist. To live, to feed, and eventually to bloom so
perfectly. And I suppose the bees, and maybe some of the other woodland
creatures see it, but does anyone or anything ever see it that can really
appreciate it? Is the world so full of beauty that it's not concerned with being
recognized?"
"Yes, Astrid. Things are beautiful of their own accord, through design,
necessity, or longing. I believe that lonely flowers in the forest are wondrous
because of all three forces - design, necessity, and longing. Is a particularly
exquisite blossom not so different from a delicate person from an isolated
place, who simply strains to know more of the world? To ascertain what is
notable in so fleeting a state? We have two choices in the world: To recognize
beauty, or abhor it in the belief that we're ugly. You could never, ever, be ugly
in my eyes."

"Almond, what are we doing up here," Astrid asked, her vertigo, nausea,
anxiety, depression, loneliness, and fear, all culminating in what she assumed
was a decisive moment.

"We're seeing the world from a different place. And you've told me what I need
to know about the instrument. Do you think you can deconstruct it in a night?""

"I'm not sure. It could take two to three days of intensive work." She knew this
was an expansive amount of time, but she also knew in her heart, this was not
something she could fuck up. Time and care would be required, and she
wouldn't rush herself with such an event.

"Aunt is going abroad in five days. For two weeks. We can make this happen."

"What is your interest here?" Astrid asked. She was still unsure what to make
entirely of Almond, and this could be a national treasure.

"I only wish to know its provenance. I will not sell, or dispose of this within my
own lifetime."

"What will you do with it?"

"Give it to you, and hope you can play me a song that might put me to sleep
someday."

"What are you going to do today? Why did we have to take the funicular?"

"I've been hired to murder a woman after we go back down the mountain."

"Almond?"

"I will need the psalmodikon back for today. I will understand if you cannot
progress with this project any further."

"Almond....?"

Up and up they rose. And the sky above them darkened.