by Caroline Lea
Once, she sees Jón moving among the people. She watches him walk down the hill to the village. Someone notices him, and a ripple runs through the villagers, like the wind sifting through wheat: as one, they all freeze and lower their eyes to the ground. Even the children stop playing and run close to their mammas’ skirts. Then Jón is among them. Even from this distance, Rósa can sense the anticipatory hum that moves through the people as he walks past them. Occasionally, he stops to pat a child’s cheek, or to speak to one of the women. He is huge: his great shoulders and meaty hands make the women and children seem even smaller. Rósa feels a stirring within her as she watches her husband: from so far away, she can imagine that he is offering them comfort or kind words.
Then Jón walks back up the hill, and the people scatter to their crofts, like startled birds taking flight.
Rósa turns back to her croft too, her loneliness a slow-forming ice in her gut.
After a week of solitude, Rósa feels close to screaming. She must see someone, talk to someone. She will go down to the village again, after she has done the washing. No matter if Jón is angry, she cannot be alone any longer.
She is arranging the bedlinen over the rocks near the stream to dry and practising what she will say to Jón if he sees her in the village when two women approach. They must be her age, or thereabouts – both have small children with them. They whisper between themselves and giggle. They stop ten horse-lengths away, then one pushes the other forward. The woman stumbles a little and hisses at her friend, who laughs in response and pushes her forward again.
Rósa calls out a greeting.
Both women jump and one of the children scuttles behind its mother’s skirts.
Rósa raises her hand. ‘I am Rósa. Jón Eiríksson’s wife. His . . . new wife.’
‘We know.’ The fairer woman pushes her cap back on her head and squints at Rósa. Her expression is guarded. ‘I am Nóra. This is Clara.’
Rósa knows her smile is too wide but she cannot help herself. ‘I have been . . . And Jón . . . I thought you might run away, like everyone else. It is as though I have the sweating sickness.’ Her laughter sounds high-pitched.
An unreadable look passes between the two women. The darker-haired one, Clara, says, ‘You would like company, then?’
‘Hush, Clara!’ says Nóra. ‘Remember . . .’
Both women stare at her, large-eyed, as if ready to bolt.
Rósa’s smile trembles. ‘I would be glad of company. I do not bite.’
They blink at her joke. ‘Keep to yourself,’ says Nóra, gently. ‘It is safer.’
Clara elbows her and hurriedly adds, ‘You must have plenty of food and a warm croft. I am surprised you come out at all.’
‘He does not want her to wander, like –’
‘Hush, Nora!’
‘Oh, hush yourself, Clara! We cannot be expected to pretend –’
‘Anna?’ Rósa tries to keep her voice light. ‘You speak of Anna?’
Both women look at the ground, at the stream, at their splashing children, anywhere but at Rósa.
‘Did you know her well?’ Rósa presses. ‘I heard, in Skálholt . . . Traders said that – that Anna went mad with loneliness?’
They exchange glances. Finally Clara mutters, ‘Katrín knows –’
‘Clara, hold your tongue!’ Nóra barks, real fear in her eyes.
Clara kicks at a stone. ‘She changed. Anna. She was . . . At first – Ask Katrín.’
‘For Heaven’s sake, Clara, hush!’ Nóra pulls at her arm, turning back towards the village. ‘We must go,’ she says to Rósa. ‘So much to do. You must understand. Come, children.’
They gabble a hurried farewell, and Nóra tugs at Clara’s hand. Ushering the children before them, the two women scurry down the hill, Nóra scolding all the way.
Rósa catches some of the words; most are to do with food.
Perhaps that old man, Egill, is right, and her husband has bought the people’s silence with food. But what can have been so terrible about Anna? Rósa cannot help thinking of the noises she has heard above her head and, for a moment, it crosses her mind that Anna might still be up there. Perhaps Jón has shut her away and only allows her out at night. But such thoughts are madness, surely.
She thinks of how Jón’s eyes darken at the mention of Anna’s name and how something in his face slams shut.
Rósa presses her palms to her eyelids and counts, slowly, until her breathing settles. She must talk to Katrín.
The next day Rósa lingers by the stream. She has no clothes in need of washing so has rubbed dirt into one of Jón’s tunics. She sees Katrín from a distance, but the older woman notices her and stops short, then makes as if to turn back down the hill.
Hurriedly, Rósa places the hood of Jón’s tunic over a rock, then tugs so it catches and rips. Jón will be angry, but at that moment Rósa doesn’t care. She makes a show of struggling with the tunic, mutters an oath and pulls harder.
Down the hill, Katrín is watching.
Rósa throws up her hands and wades into the stream, soaking her skirt, boots and stockings, but still the hood won’t budge. Briefly, she wonders how she will save the tunic if Katrín does not help.
Then, to her relief, Katrín calls, ‘Can you free it?’
‘No! It is stuck.’
Katrín hesitates, then trudges up the hill. ‘Let me help,’ she puffs. ‘You lift the stone and I’ll pull.’
Katrín heaves while Rósa pushes the stone. For a moment, she thinks the tunic isn’t going to shift but suddenly it comes free. Katrín whoops as she stumbles backwards, arms flailing, then trips and falls forward, boots and skirt in the stream. She laughs. ‘Well, my boots are clean now.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Rósa says, and reaches out to take Katrín’s hand.
Soon they are both sitting on a rock, dabbling their toes, gasping at the icy chill.
‘How do you like Stykkishólmur?’ Katrín asks.
‘It is not the welcome I had hoped for.’
‘It must feel very strange.’ Katrín smiles sympathetically. ‘And forgive me for sending you away from the village. I was thinking of your safety.’ She pauses, as if weighing something in her mind. Then she takes Rósa’s hand. ‘We should like to see you, Gudrun and I – and the other women. Gudrun is not as fierce as she seems. It is hard to be poor, when Jón is so wealthy.’
‘But he provides for the settlement.’
Katrín opens her mouth then shuts it and nods.
Rósa pulls at a thread on her tunic. Katrín seems so kindly – it is almost like sitting next to Mamma. ‘Was Anna lonely, too?’
Katrín’s smile fades. ‘Anna was . . . different from you. She was strong, in many ways. Of course, that brought its own problems.’
‘With Jón?’
Katrín shivers. ‘That wind. It will be winter soon.’
Rósa bites her lip, recalling the rumour that he had buried Anna alone and so quickly after her death.
Katrín squeezes her hand. ‘There are some things you would be better not to know. Seeds, once planted, are hard to uproot.’
Rósa waits for more, but Katrín’s tone shifts. ‘You must find company when Jón is not here. At the right time, when Olaf will not see you. Or Egill. Then you will be happier, I think. Nóra and Clara are kind. You spoke to them at the stream yesterday?’
‘They seemed pleasant, and I – I would like –’
‘Of course you would. We all know how lonely it can be when the men are in the fields or out at sea. And Jón is away more often than most.’
Rósa nods. She feels a crushing weight in her chest whenever she thinks of returning to the croft, the silence of her thoughts – and those noises. Still, she forces a smile. ‘You are all married, then?’
‘Yes. But my husband and Gudrun’s died many years ago.’
‘I am sorry.’
‘A fishing accident. A storm and some rocks. It happens here, from time to time. The sea swallows men whole.
We didn’t find the bodies, only some wood from the boat.’ Katrín looks at the sea, so flat and peaceful now, with its smattering of islands and scattering of birds.
Rósa almost places her hand on the older woman’s arm, but stops herself, unsure: she has never had a female companion. She says, ‘You must have been . . .’
Katrín inclines her head. ‘I was. It shattered my soul.’ Her eyes are bright with tears. ‘But I had no time to mourn. The land does not forgive idle hands, and that winter was hard. If I had wept in my croft, I would have starved – my daughter, Dora, too.’
‘Skálholt was the same. We were never short of food while Pabbi lived, but my mamma would have wasted away this winter, if I had not . . .’
Katrín gives a tight smile. ‘You exchanged yourself for food. No need for shame, I would have done the same. The winters were hard here too, until Jón brought the traders.’
‘How did you survive?’ Rósa asked.
‘I gathered wool. I walked around the boundary walls in the snow, and collected stray tufts. I spun and knitted all winter and we lived – just.’
‘Your daughter was lucky.’
‘Perhaps. For a while. She is . . . gone too, now. The snow . . .’
Katrín’s mouth folds and, for a terrible moment, Rósa fears that the older woman will begin to sob, and that she herself will say something foolish or callous. She places a tentative hand on Katrín’s shoulder.
Katrín wipes her eyes, then peers at Rósa. ‘When I first saw you, I thought you were nothing like . . . But there’s something . . .’ She cocks her head to one side. ‘I wonder if he’s noticed.’ Before Rósa can ask what she means, she stands and brushes off her skirts.
‘I would like to talk more.’
Katrín holds up her hand. ‘We have spoken too long already. I would not risk you. You must go now. But . . .’ She pauses. ‘. . . you are growing thin. You cannot –’ Her mouth twists. ‘Remember that my croft is not far. Don’t risk yourself, but . . . I’d not have you weeping and starving.’
Rósa’s smile is tight. ‘I . . . rarely weep,’ she lies.
‘Good. I’d thought he’d crushed the spirit out of you already.’
Rósa waits.
Katrín seems to weigh her words. Finally, she says, ‘You remind me of – Let Anna’s fate be a warning to you.’
Rósa shivers. ‘But Anna died of a fever?’
Katrín takes her hand. ‘Do as he bids you. Or, at least, let him see you doing so.’ Before Rósa can ask any more, Katrín mutters, ‘I must go.’ She picks up her basket of washing, which is still dry, and walks down the hill. Rósa watches her and, for a moment, she cannot catch her breath.
How can she be more careful than she is already? There had been real fear in Katrín’s eyes when she spoke of Jón. And something else . . . A tightening around her mouth that spoke of rage.
Rósa feels as though she is on the lip of a volcano and must balance on the precipice, ignoring the heat, while the lava bubbles beneath her.
She should take her husband’s meal up to the field, but she cannot bear the thought of sitting next to him, smiling, talking about the hay and the sea, and pretending that there is no shifting darkness in the silence between their words.
So she hefts her own basket, and in spite of the height of the sun, urging her to the field, she does not fetch Jón’s food. Instead, she sets off up the hill, searching in the grass until she sees it: a little wooden cross. Anna had died on a summer’s night, so the rumour went, and Jón had buried her immediately.
Had he wept as he did so? She has not asked him about Anna. She can voice none of the questions whirling in her mind.
She examines the cross. Something is scratched into the wood. Rósa squints. Proverbs 12:4. No doubt a verse about dutiful wives proving a blessing.
Rósa marches down the hill to the croft and finds the Bible in the baðstofa, next to where Jón sleeps. She flicks through the grubby, well-thumbed pages until she finds it. As she expected: An excellent wife is the crown of her husband. Then she reads the other half of the verse: but she who brings shame is like rot in his bones.
She snaps the Bible shut and places it on the bed, then paces back and forth, walking through to the kitchen and then the storeroom, trying to steady her breaths.
She finds a quill and ink, and starts a letter to Mamma, but she does not know what to say: she has never lied to Sigridúr before. She crosses out line after line, then folds the piece of paper, with its blots and scratched-out suspicions, into a tiny square and hides it in a gap between the wooden boards.
Then she pauses, standing in the silence, ears straining for a sound from above. She remembers her ridiculous suspicion earlier: that Anna was still alive, shut up in the loft. Madness, surely. Suddenly she is filled with a hot rage: against her husband, against this place, against this suffocating silence.
Rósa strides to the ladder and pulls herself up, rung by rung. She slaps her hand against the locked door of the loft room, which rings with the sound – as if the dead trees are singing.
‘Who’s there?’ Her voice echoes in the gloom.
All in your head. Fool!
Rósa is about to descend again when she hears it: a sound like an exhalation, half suppressed, as if the croft itself is breathing. A chill needles Rósa’s skin – the hairs on her arms stand to attention. Some age-old animal instinct tells her to run.
She ignores the trembling in her legs, and rattles the door handle, pushing her weight against the solid wood. Nothing. No movement. And then, when Rósa presses her ear to the door, no noise except the gasp of her own panicked breaths and the blood thudding in her ears.
She slumps back and covers her face with her hands. No one is there. Nothing and no one. Even a ghost would have been company. She squashes the thought – Pabbi would be horrified.
Another sudden sound – like the snap of linen sheets in the wind.
Rósa bolts upright, then scrambles down the ladder and out of the croft. Cold air stings her face. She leans on the wall, clinging to the stone so tightly that it sinks sharp teeth into her skin. The pain is a relief. The pain is real.
She rubs her eyes. Her hands are shaking. She is weary, so weary. That is why her mind is conjuring these noises. Except . . . she hears them. Truly, she could swear she hears them.
She looks at the rumpled face of the sea – wind-darkened and sullen today.
Rósa feels she will never become used to the size of it, the overwhelming feeling that even as it encloses her in an icy fist it also stretches endlessly away into an unguessed-at number of lands and infinite other lives, each full of its own troubles.
But there is no escape. Every heartbeat feels like the tightening of a rope, binding her to this body, this place.
She cannot even write to Mamma – what could she say? That her husband is cold and strange? That she fears the croft is haunted? That she hopes it is haunted, for if it is not, she is losing her mind?
When she takes Jón his dagverður, part of her wants to fling her arms about his neck and cling to him: he is solid and sweating and real. She resists the urge. If he pushes her away, she will be truly alone.
‘Do you believe in ghosts?’ Rósa asks him.
Jón’s expression darkens. ‘Why?’
‘I read a passage in the Bible earlier and –’
‘The devil distorts our understanding of God’s Word. What passage were you reading?’
‘I cannot remember.’
‘Perhaps it was the disciples meeting with Moses and Elijah, long after their deaths. But that was a transfiguration – a vision Jesus granted them. They were not ghosts. Don’t be foolish, Rósa.’
Rósa stares at her hands in her lap. ‘But as the spirit doesn’t ascend to Heaven until Judgement, might some spirits be . . . wakeful? If they were unhappy?’
‘Who has filled your head with such corruptions?’ Jón’s eyes are wild now. ‘Was it Katrín? I have told you to stay away from her. The wom
an is poisonous.’
‘No! Not Katrín. I – I simply thought of –’ Her vision blurs.
‘Ah.’ His expression softens. ‘Your pabbi? What a brute I am. Here, stop weeping.’ He presses a linen cloth to her cheeks, and seems so contrite that she thinks she must have imagined his savagery.
He dabs at her tears. ‘No talk of ghosts, Rósa. Your pabbi would not approve. You sound like a child! I cannot have a child for a wife.’ His smile is rigid.
She looks out at the sea, blinking the heat from her eyes.
He turns away from her then, and goes back to hefting the bundles of hay. His face is like a desolate rock.
With a creeping nausea, Rósa remembers the chill she had felt when walking over Anna’s grave earlier. As if something had infected her. She presses her fingers against her throat, counts out the flurry of life, then shudders.
‘You are cold,’ Jón says. ‘You should return to the croft, before you catch your death.’
She starts. He presses a kiss into her cheek; her skin crawls.
As she trudges down the windswept hill towards the croft, which squats like a hunched beggar against the bleak weather, Rósa takes with her this knowledge: if ghosts do not exist, she must be going mad.
The feeling of being tugged apart at the seams intensifies – Rósa can feel the yank of hysteria tightening around her chest on every breath. She focuses on small tasks: gathering the scraps of wool caught on the beams of the barn, carding and spinning – she drags the spindle outside, as if sunlight can shield her from the dark, gasping presence in the croft – or is it in her mind? She can no longer tell.
She starts letter after letter to her mother, but she cannot write more than one or two lines: Things are so very strange here. I wish I could return to you. I think of you often. Sometimes I hear noises and I remember the stories you used to tell me of draugar, those spirits of the dead who drive the living mad, then drink their blood . . .
Each time, she crumples the paper, or folds it into a tiny square and hides it beneath the bed or between the cracks in the wood where Jón will never find it. She will finish the letters, one day, and she will send them south with a trader. She needs only to find the right words.