Enigma of the Tomte
A story set in Emmy and the Four Winds (series and characters created by @pikablob)! <33
Words: 4.5k
AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/75601901/chapters/197701726
Summary: A cherished deck of tarot cards goes missing from Asta Tuijasdottir's bedroom, so she seeks the help of her friend, Emmy Norasdottir, to find them. Not long after Emmy is called, the girls meet an odd little creature responsible for the cards' disappearance.
Asta Tuijasdottir hurried to the door the moment she heard the bell ring. “Is that you, Emmy?” she asked aloud. The girl knew it was her of course; she had asked her best friend to come over earlier in the day when she wasn’t busy, but because Asta was always left alone in her flat, she had a habit of making sure who was really at the door before inviting them in. A loud, muffled and familiar-sounding Yep sung from the other side, making Asta unlock and open the door. Emmy Norasdottir was there grinning and slouching a tad as she waved hello; Asta smiled back, gesturing the girl to enter.
“I came here as fast as I could.” Emmy said, panting for a moment once she was inside.
“You didn’t have to,” Asta retorted whilst she closed and relocked the door, “You’re only a couple floors above me.”
“Still, I could tell it was urgent when you told me to stop by.”
“Oh, very.” Asta’s voice was solemn, her hands clasped together tightly.
Every living space in the housing block was designed in uniformity, hence Asta’s bedroom looked and felt a lot like Emmy’s, only with more furniture and décor as with the rest of the flat compared to Emmy and her mum’s. The girls stood by Asta’s desk, ornamented with books and stationery along with an array of gemstones and plush toys which Asta enjoyed collecting. The only thing that was unusual to find was a quartet of candles which had their wisps recently gusted off.
“So, I was planning on doing another reading with my cards once my parents had left,” Asta explained, picking up a small black box decorated with golden lines, “but when I was about to take the cards out, none of them were inside,” she opened the lid and brought the box closer to Emmy, revealing that the box was indeed empty. “They’ve gone missing, Emmy!”
“Oh no!” Emmy gasped. Asta had a strong interest in tarot reading for as long as she could remember, so much so that she already had knack for it; knowing just how much her best friend cherished her only deck of cards, the same feeling of grief Asta was suffering from her cards vanishing out of nowhere was felt just as harrowingly for the yellow-jacketed girl.
“Did you try remembering the last time you used them?”
“I did, oh but I’m pretty sure I still kept them in this box, and I only ever use the deck in my room,” Asta whimpered, “I tried checking everywhere else they could’ve been, but…” she paused, taking a seat by the chair behind her desk. Her back was slumped forward and her arms stiff as she clenched onto her skirt. “I don’t how I could’ve lost them, Emmy, and I don’t know what I’m going to do if I can’t find them at all.”
Emmy placed her hand on Asta’s shoulder. “It’s okay, I’ll spend the whole day helping you look for your cards. It’s what you called me here for, isn’t it?” The look in her eyes and smile comforted Asta. “We’ll double check where you looked last time, and then look through the places you hadn’t before. They’re probably—no, definitely just right under our noses, I’m sure of it.”
“Thanks, Emmy.” Asta wrapped her friend in a tight hug, and her best friend gave her an embrace back.
At that moment, Emmy noticed a peculiar-looking plush toy among the dozen others lying on Asta’s desk. It seemed no bigger than her palm, resembling a human garbed in a towering maroon hat and a tunic of the same color. She could not see its face; it was all covered in gray hair that was so overgrown that it formed a beard; a large round and pale nose was the only part of its complexion that was visible. It sat distantly from the rest of Asta’s other plush toys which were all placed into a neat cluster. But what’s more, Emmy could have sworn this specific plush toy twitched its head a tad.
“Oh, when did you get this?” she asked.
“Hm? Get what?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this one on your table before.” Emmy reached her hand out, approaching the little wooly figure. She lifted it from the desk, but as she did, the once limp plush toy raised its head and flailed its arms vigorously as it let out a piercing, panicking scream. It was so sudden, that the girls themselves started screaming—Emmy dropping it on the floor before she and Asta sprinted out of the room. The girls took refuge in the kitchenette; it was near enough to both the hallway and Asta’s doorway that even whilst they hid under the table, they could still take a good glimpse of the room.
“I didn’t just imagine that, right?” Emmy asked, her eyes still wide and full of bewilderment as her voice became higher in pitch than usual.
“Nope, th-that was real, I’m sure.” Asta quivered.
There was no sign of the living plush toy as the pair kept their sights on the room. Perhaps it too had retreated somewhere to hide out of fear of Asta and Emmy, or maybe it stopped moving and remained on the floor as soon as Emmy let go of it. Eventually, the girls let out a gasp seeing the same wooly figure shuffling along Asta’s bedroom floor. At first, Emmy and Asta thought it was in search of the two, but it only kept moving back and forth, refusing to go anywhere else in the room nor beyond it.
It was in need of help; Emmy couldn’t help but think. “I should try and talk with it, see what’s going on,” she nodded, bemusing her friend to hear, and she crawled out from the table as she made her way to the bedroom.
“Be careful, Emmy,” Asta reached her hand out.
Emmy walked as slowly and sneakily as she possibly could, crouching and eyeing every corner of the area. When she noticed the plush toy had ended up on Asta’s bed, she ducked low enough to hide herself by the side of it. She peeped her head, watching the figure rummaging through the sheets and pillows. What exactly was it hoping to find there, Emmy wondered.
She wasted no time catching its attention. “Hello there,” she spoke; the wooly figure jumped and yelped before taking shelter behind the pillows. “No, no, no, don’t worry! I’m not gonna snatch you again, I promise,” Emmy tried to reassure. “I just thought we could talk, that’s all…”
The figure continued to hide in silence, “…Please come out?”
She waited patiently, her face still a safe distance away; she relaxed herself somewhat as she kneeled and laid her arms and chin on the mattress. “You’re not…dangerous, are you?” Emmy asked.
Suddenly, the wooly figure peered its head out from the pillow. “Not really,” a feeble voice responded whilst its head tilted, “do you think I am?”
Emmy gave a gentle grin. “No, not at all,” she shook her head.
Emmy had been in the room for quite some time, and Asta couldn’t see the girl from where she hid, only hearing muffled, back-and-forth rambling. She gulped, knowing she would have to follow her best friend back to the bedroom just to know what was happening.
“Emmy…?” she called, bowing by the doorframe. “Is everything okay?”
“Asta! Look!” Emmy sang. The wooly figure was no longer hiding, rather it sat much closer to the girl. “It wasn’t a plush toy after all, just a little guy in your room.”
“They call themself the tomte,” she continued, “Mum and I used to read stories about them, and they’re usually quite friendly,” she patted a space on the mattress next to her, “In fact, you should talk to them next. Turns out they’ve been living around the housing block for ages.”
“Oh, um, okay…” Asta was not quite sure how to respond. She was not well-adept to talking to creatures and spirits the way Emmy had a talent for doing, but she at least felt relieved that Emmy and herself seemed to be safe from the tomte. “Why—or well, how did you end up in my room?” she asked.
“Same reason I told Emmy,” the tomte answered, “I’ve been looking everywhere for your cards.”
“Wait what—” Asta’s eyes turned wide, kneeling together with Emmy and leaning closer to the tomte, “How do you know about my deck?”
“That’s because, well…” the tomte lowered their head, hesitant about what they needed to say next.
“Because…?” Emmy tried to break the silence between the three, for she too had not yet been told why the tomte was looking for Asta’s tarot cards.
“…I may or may not have been the one who took them,” the tomte lowered their head.
Asta went from looking shocked to dejected in the blink of an eye. Even the tomte could not help but feel remorse for admitting what he had done. Out of all the ways the girl could have lost her tarot cards, getting taken from a house spirit was the last thing she could’ve ever thought of.
“But why did you?” asked Asta.
The tomte sighed. “So, yes, while I’ve dwelled in this building for quite some time now, there are some rooms that I tend to watch over more than others, and one of the frequent ones being yours,” they continued. “I came upon your room one night and saw you arrange your cards around your candles, and I watched…”
The tomte illuminated his newfound fascination for tarot readings upon seeing Asta perform one. It was a kind of magic he had had never seen anywhere else before, and very quickly did they wish to try glimpsing into future events themself the way the little human could. So, the evening prior to Emmy’s visit, the tomte came out of hiding while Asta was asleep, and under the moonlight through the window did they navigate the bedroom, looking for where her cards were kept.
They sprang atop the nightstand where a small box with golden patterns and symbols etching the surfaces was found. As the tomte took out the whole deck and carried it on their way to the desk, they were unlucky enough to trip on their face midway, letting go and scattering the cards onto the floor.
But upon getting back up, they felt a sinking feeling in their chest, for the cards had completely vanished!
It was neither the evening darkness nor the overgrown hair covering their face; they scoured the floors and could not find a single card. They knew Asta would feel upset seeing that her deck was now lost, so the tomte began to search and ponder where the cards could have ended up before the girl could worry.
“I spent the whole night looking, but with no luck,” the tomte was nearing the end of his account. “Next thing I knew, I was resting up on your desk after all the searching I was doing.”
“Though I don’t quite understand.” Asta lamented. “How could my cards have just disappeared after you let them go?”
“I have a theory,” the tomte declared. “It’s hard to explain, but we tomte travel through the empty spaces of rooms, be it the gaps between bookshelves or behind the sofa, just to get around people’s home quickly. Some of these spaces are like gateways where if we, or anything else enters through them, they come out somewhere completely different, and part of what we do is familiarize ourselves with which space is a gateway or not.”
“What I’m saying is, your cards might have slipped into these spaces. It’s just that…”
“You don’t know where exactly they slipped into when you tripped.” Asta said, the tomte nodded.
“Hmmm, why don’t we help retrace the tomte’s steps?” she proposed. “If we have them repeat everything they did up until they tripped, we could look around where they fell and find out where in the area is one of these gateway thingies they talked about.”
“And then they could enter through it to see where my deck had ended up,” a smile was finally returning to Asta as Emmy’s plan gave her the streak of hope she needed. “That’s a good idea!” the girls held their both hands together, Emmy chuckling and smiling back.
“Well…I guess we can try,” the tomte got up, adjusting their long floppy hat.
Emmy and Asta stood by the center of the room, the tomte was atop the nightstand ready to reenact how they took Asta’s deck.
“Shouldn’t they be holding something to stand-in for my cards?” Asta asked.
“Hmmm,” Emmy looked around the room. “Would it be okay if they tried one of your books?” she pointed towards Asta’s desk.
“The brown book that says Flora Och Miljö will do.” Asta said, choosing a schoolbook she did not mind disappearing if their plan worked.
Emmy took the almanac and gave it to the tomte to hold over both their little hands as they did with the deck. “Okay, and…go!” Emmy signaled a thumbs up, and she and Asta watched as the wooly spirit hopped out of the nightstand and ambled onto the floor. Suddenly, they stood still, halting from tripping onto the floor. “Everything okay, tomte?” Emmy asked.
“Sorry, I don’t know how to get myself to trip on purpose,” the tomte answered.
More thinking-of-ideas for Emmy, but luckily, being a quick-thinker was one of her greatest strengths when she felt determined to help others. “It’s okay, let’s try again.” Emmy gave out her hand for the tomte to hop onto and be lifted back to the nightstand. “Before you go, that part is where you tripped last night, right?” she pointed at where she picked up the tomte, to which they nodded. With another thumbs-up, the tomte leapt and ambled like before, but out of nowhere, Emmy moved her foot in front of the little creature, just in time before they could notice what was going on. The tomte fell face-first upon bumping into the girl’s foot; the book was let go off along with their cap separating from their head, and the girls could have sworn they heard the tomte groan a strong Ooft as they hit the floor.
“Emmy, that’s rude!” Asta gasped.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,” Emmy squirmed, “It was the only thing I could think of to get them to fall.”
The tomte raised an okay-sign with their hand, their whole body still laying face-down on the floor. “No worries, she’s right,” a muffled voice reassured. “It did the trick.” Emmy and Asta helped the little spirit back on their feet, Asta aiding to put their hat back on. “I hope you’re not hurt, Mr. Tomte,” she consoled.
“It’s all good, Asta, I promise.” The tomte spoke in their kindest tone to prove it. As they dusted their gown and fixed their floppy hat on their head, they realized that they had just lost something once more. “Say, where did the book go?”
The trio looked around the floor, but indeed the schoolbook was not anywhere it could have landed after the tomte tripped. They looked under the drawer storage and beneath the desk, yet they found nothing but empty space. “Strange, it really did just disappear…” Asta expressed, bemusement in her voice.
“But I think we’re onto something now.” Emmy, in contrast, spoke with a more optimistic tone. “Since it vanished, all the places we checked has to be one of those gateway thingies, right?”
“Quick, have me hold another thing,” the tomte raised and shook their hands high up. “I will give retracing my steps one more go, but you two have to pay more attention to the thing I let go off this time.”
“Does that mean I should…”
“Yes, I need your help making me fall again, Emmy.” The tomte nodded.
With no time to waste, Asta gave yet another schoolbook to the tomte, and the wooly creature reenacted how he stole the tarot cards for a third time whilst Emmy readied to place her foot in front to tumble onto yet again. The moment of truth came as the girls kept their eyes on the book; when the tomte tripped, the book had slipped underneath Asta’s drawer storage, and Asta herself rushed to check the slim space while Emmy helped pick the tomte back up.
“No book.” Asta declared, turning to her best friend and the little spirit. “So, maybe this is where my cards and books had entered through?”
Emmy grabbed a pillow from Asta’s bed. “May I?” she asked, a now curious and willing Asta nodded. The yellow-jacketed girl flung it towards the gap below the drawer storage, and to the amazement of all three in the room, the entire pillow, too big to completely slip beneath one’s drawers, was completely sucked into the empty space.
A gateway thingy, just like the tomte described.
One more questioned loomed in the minds of Emmy and Asta: just where did the objects get transported to?
BRRRIIING BRRRIIING, a telephone outside blared, startling the girls and the tomte with each one letting out a squeal. “Excuse me, everyone.” Asta sighed; she was so focused on the mysterious space that made her belongings disappear that she wished she could ignore whoever was calling, but she knew it would be improper to keep the phone ringing while she was around to hear it. On a countertop dividing the kitchenette from the living space, Asta picked up the handset of the telephone. “Asta speaking.” Adding to her surprise, on the other end of the line was another familiar voice.
“Hello, Asta, it’s Emmy’s mum,” the amiable voice of Nora Torvaldsdottir greeted. “Is she still in your flat? There’s something I have to tell her; I promise it will be quick.”
“Oh, yes ma’am, just a moment.” Asta covered the receiver with her palm as she turned to face the doorway of her room. “Emmy, it’s for you! Your mum wants to talk!”
“Oh, alrighty,” Emmy hurried and took the handset from Asta. Hm, why is she calling exactly? Emmy thought. “Yes, mum?”
“Hey, sweetheart. Now, I’m not sure exactly how to put this, but something odd has been happening in your room lately.” Nora began.
“What do you mean?” Emmy tilted her head.
Back in Emmy’s flat, Nora took a sip from her peppermint tea before continuing. “I was doing a bit of vacuuming in your room, until right out of the blue, something had popped out of your closet,” she recounted, “When I checked, well, it was just a brown book. I thought nothing of it but right when I was about to leave, another book had flung out, and after that, a pillow flying across the room, as if someone was just throwing all these from the closet. I even check if there was actually someone inside but other than your clothes, there was genuinely nothing.”
Nora cleared her throat, adjusting her tone back to composure as her voice was growing more and more perplexed as she went on. “It’s all a bit confusing, but I just wanted to let you know so maybe we can find this out together once you are home.”
Emmy could not believe what she was hearing. “So that’s where they go…” she gasped, her eyes growing wide.
“What was that, Emmy?” Nora’s asked through the receiver.
“Mum, I promise I’ll explain later, but thanks very much for telling me all that,” she expressed. “I’ll see you in a bit, love you, buh-bye!” she quickly placed the handset down, practically slamming it against the telephone, and rushed back to Asta’s room to explain what she had discovered through the accidental help of her mother.
“Asta, tomte, I know where the empty space leads to!” Emmy blurted out. “It’s the closet in my bedroom!”
“Wait, really?!” Asta covered her mouth with both her palms.
“Come on, we ought to check my flat for your cards next.”
“Let’s take the faster way there then, shall we?” the tomte proposed, gesturing towards the drawer storage.
“You’re suggesting we go through the empty space?” Emmy pointed towards the space beneath the drawers.
“Is…Is that even possible?” Asta followed up with.
“If objects and tomtes can transport through them, so can humans; you will be okay,” the tomte affirmed. “It’ll be you girls’ first time entering through one of these, so I’ll have all three of us travel through at the same time, but I don’t know how smooth our landing will be on the other side because of it.”
Emmy turned to Asta, whose eyes were locked on the floor and her hands anxiously clasped together again. The yellow-jacketed girl brought her close and patted her shoulder. “If the tomte says we’ll be okay, then I’m sure we’ll be okay,” she reassured, getting her best friend to look up at her instead. “Look, I know today wasn’t exactly how you were expecting it to be, and everything keeps happening so quickly. But we’ve been getting so close to finding your tarot cards, and you’ve been handling everything so well since we met the tomte.”
And what had felt like the hundredth time this afternoon, the heaviness in Asta’s heart had lightened all thanks to Emmy. “Well, this was definitely the most fun way to be looking for something, I suppose,” the two girls chuckled softly.
“Then I think we’re ready now.” Emmy nodded.
The tomte reached for Emmy’s hand, her other still clinging onto Asta’s hand. The trio inched closer and closer to the drawers until the tomte leaned his head downwards and his free hand reaching into the space below. As if sucked in by a vacuum, the tomte’s body was pulled into the space by an invisible force, and joining them were Emmy and Asta, feeling a sensation akin to a gust of wind raging against their faces. Everything went black, Asta’s bedroom was now left empty. Barely a second had gone by until the girls and the wooly creature were swiftly flung out of the other end of the empty space, indeed being Emmy’s bedroom closet. The folding doors were smashed open, and everyone had an equally brief moment to scream as they flew in the air. The trio had a bouncy landing on the bed; the tomte unscathed while Emmy and Asta’s tied hair were loosened into flowing frizzy strands.
Emmy let out a groan. “Is everyone okay?”
To the girl’s surprise, a disheveled-looking Asta grinned brightly as laughter grew. “Again, again!” she exclaimed happily, and Emmy could not help but laugh along.
Emmy’s bedroom door opened as a frightened and confused Nora rushed to check the commotion. “Emmy? Asta?” she asked. “Where did you two—”
“Oh, mum!” Emmy exclaimed, “Look, we’ve made friends with a tomte! See?”
But the tomte was not where they landed on the mattress. When she glanced yonder from the bed, the wooly creature was shuffling towards the open, now cluttered closet.
“Quick, your cards could be right here!” the tomte gestured the girls to follow them.
“Oh, yeah—” Asta got up from the bed. “May we, Emmy?” she asked out of courtesy, which her best friend mouthed Yep whilst giving a thumbs up. Nora walked up to her daughter and combed her hair with her fingers as to fix the strands sticking out.
“I must’ve missed out on a lot, have I?” the woman asked, for many questions were now circling her mind about her daughter’s afternoon.
“Quite a bit, yeah,” Emmy grinned at her mother, “but no worries, mum, I’ll catch you up on everything.”
“Looks like they could use your help first, sweetheart.” Nora pointed towards Asta and the tomte searching through the insides of Emmy’s closet. “Oh, right,” the yellow-jacketed girl rushed to assist them.
Then, at long last…
“Guys, I found one of my cards!” Asta gasped, showing off a card baring the upright artwork of the sun dominating the frame.
“There’s one right here, too!” Emmy picked up another card near her knee.
“Found another one as well,” the tomte emerged from the pocket of one of Emmy’s coat.
With every second of searching, more cards were discovered and piled up on each of their hands; they never expected that so many individual cards would be scattered into countless different places in the closet, all because of the way the tomte tripped. But when no more cards could be found, the ones recovered were given to Asta to count, whispering numbers as she focused. She checked not count once, nor twice, but thrice to make sure she was truly reunited with a complete deck.
“Seventy-six…Seventy-seven…” the girl’s eyes grew wide in excitement. “Seventy-eight! We found them all!” Asta squealed and leapt for joy before Emmy could bring her in for a celebratory hug. “Emmy, thanks so, so much for helping, I don’t know what I’d do without you,” she embraced her best friend back as tightly as she could.
“No problem, Asta, I’m just glad you can do your tarot readings again!”
Asta glanced down to see the tomte sitting back against the closet doors. “You, too, mister tomte,” she kneeled down and shook their hand. “Thanks for all your help as well.”
“Yeah, but had it not been for me, you and Emmy would not have gotten into so much stress…” the tomte sighed. “I’m sorry for taking your cards away, Asta, and for the trouble I caused.”
“It’s okay, you’re forgiven already.” Asta patted the tip of the tomte’s hat. “Just promise you’ll remember to ask for things you’d like to try out next time, alright?” Then, the tomte raised his pinkie finger. “Promise,” they chirped, which Asta smiled brightly to and locked hers together with the tomte’s.
“You know, you said before that you were interested in tarot reading…” the girl then placed a card on the ground, showing art of two angles on each side with a large wheel of symbols on the center. “Would you like me to teach you how?”
“You mean it?” the tomte covered their mouth (or at least where it should be) with their palms.
“Why don’t we all head over to the living room?” Nora suggested. “It’s the perfect time to have some mellanmål, so I’ll whip something up for you two girls, and for our tomte guest.”
”Yeah!” Emmy raised her fists in the air, Asta chuckling softly to her enthusiasm.
For the rest of the afternoon, Asta and the tomte sat across each other in the kitchenette, with the little girl explaining what the artworks on her cards meant and the wooly creature listening attentively. By the stove, Nora heated a kettle to get ready tea and hot cocoa, while Emmy stood next to her mum as she helped mix the batter for potato pancakes on the countertops, cheerfully recounting the day from when she entered Asta’s flat to when they met the tomte for the first time.
