by Caroline Lea
‘Take my hand,’ Pétur calls.
Rósa doesn’t argue, but grips it as tightly as she can.
Páll and Katrín are nowhere to be seen. She shouts their names, but there is no response.
She is alone with Pétur and the snow god, Ullr, and she knows, deep in her bones, that one of them will kill her.
She cries out again but the snow smothers the sound. She must not weep: the tears will freeze, and if she brushes them away, the ice will flay the flesh from her face.
The cold seeps into Rósa’s dress and her shawl and insinuates itself beneath her skin, settles into her bones. Her teeth rattle. This is madness. She will tell Pétur that they must return to the croft, or they will both die.
Perhaps that is why he has brought me here. Perhaps Jón told him to take me out and kill me, and he will kill Páll and Katrín afterwards.
She stops walking and Pétur shouts something indecipherable at her, but she shakes her head. Leaden-eyed, he shouts again, but she doesn’t move. She will not walk to her death.
Then she hears a cry.
‘Stop!’ she calls. ‘What was that? Páll and Katrín?’ But it is coming from the other direction, from ahead of them.
‘I heard nothing.’
‘There!’ Rósa can hear the cry again. Insistent and regular, like the bleating of a sheep, but higher in pitch. The hairs rise on the nape of her neck. Pétur is stock-still too now.
‘You hear it?’ she asks, putting her hand into her pocket to feel the cold shape of the glass woman. It is calming, like placing her feet on the rock, which, long ago, must have been melted to make this perfect form. It has been shaped and transformed by fire, and has travelled over land and sea unbroken. And as fragile as it looks, it remains whole.
The cry rings out again.
Pétur wipes the snow from his face, then points towards the sound.
They run, the wall of white striking at them. Rósa’s skirts are heavy and wet; she falls, snow filling her nose and mouth. Pétur yanks her upright and pulls her after him.
‘Ég ríf ykkur í bita!’ Pétur shouts into the darkness, and Rósa’s scalp prickles at his words: I’ll rip you apart!
Silence. As if the cries have been stifled. Over and over, Pétur calls, raging at the empty blizzard, until his angry words sound like a spell in a foreign tongue. Rósa’s legs are burning and she cannot take another step. She falls again and again, and Pétur half drags her, grunting with exertion.
The snow groans beneath their feet, as if the earth itself is in the throes of some monstrous labour.
Then faintly, in the distance, that uncanny cry again.
For a moment, Rósa allows herself to imagine that the sound they heard is one of the huldufólk, leading them to exhaustion and death. In her hand, the glass woman is like ice, the burning cold throbbing through her mittens.
The call comes again, clearer and closer.
They run again, shouting as they stagger through the drifts – it is like wading through a river. Rósa stumbles, pushes herself upright and falls again, sobbing.
Pétur turns and scoops her up. ‘I will carry you.’
‘No! Put me down!’ Rósa tastes the sour metallic tang of blood, and her muscles blaze but she will not let this man – this monster – carry her. She forces herself forward. Just when she is about to collapse, Pétur stops.
‘There!’
A dark shadow stands in the veil of white. They could have run past it a hundred times, obscured as it is by the falling snow.
‘What is it?’ Rósa hisses. The figure is the height and shape of a man, but looks too wide to be human – it bulges alarmingly in the middle.
‘Þú ert dauður!’ Pétur says. You are dead! Rósa’s blood ices.
Pétur leaves her and approaches the figure warily. It doubles over, and howls. He pounces on it, wrapping his arms around it. It collapses, as if it were a spirit composed only of air. He scoops the figure up, grunting because his arm pains him. Rósa sees a spill of yellow hair, and a pale face, blue eyes half closed.
A woman.
She stares at Pétur in horror, because she knows the answer to the question that dies unasked on her lips. She knows the name he will say.
‘Anna.’
Jón
Near Thingvellir, December 1686
Sometimes, violence produces itself, like spores of mould that lie dormant, then multiply and consume. Anna invited her imprisonment, as surely as if she had put her hands in chains and locked herself into my loft space.
Every month I did not put a babe into her belly, her resentment grew. Katrín believed she longed for something to nurture after the wasteland of her own childhood. I knew better. She craved a creature she could rule entirely.
I wanted to love her. I tried so hard to make myself sit with her, hold her hand, embrace her. But the longer I lived with her, the more I saw touches of cruelty in her nature. So often damaged people turn their rage upon others, as if the years of fear fill them with a poison that slowly infects all around them.
I saw the swift kicks Anna aimed at the sheep, the way she tugged on the hens’ tail feathers when she thought no one saw. She would have held our children close and kissed them, even as she pinched the soft flesh on their fat little legs.
I do not believe she was wicked, only that she knew no other way to show love than by causing hurt, then trying to soothe it.
At first, I did not mind her wanderings, solitary as they were. I would have allowed her to circle the settlement all day, had it brought her some comfort, but her behaviour as she walked grew strange. She carried a staff and muttered under her breath. People stared, then ran to tell me that my wife was summoning spirits.
My guts roiled. Egill would destroy me if he saw but a trace of the old ways under my roof. Already I could feel the heat of his gaze, like an open flame beneath my feet. I knew he was spreading word in the village that Anna had cursed Birgit somehow, causing her to sicken and die.
When I asked Anna what she had been whispering as she wandered the land, she said, ‘Oh, only a song I learned from Katrín.’
Katrín swore blind she hadn’t taught Anna any spells. That woman could teach the changing moon to lie.
I took Anna’s hand. ‘You must not go out, elskan. It is dangerous for you . . . for all of us.’
But Anna wandered further still, and left little piles of herbs in mounds, next to pieces of driftwood arranged in patterns.
Egill delivered her to my door, a triumphant smile stretching his mouth wide. ‘Runes!’ Egill crowed. ‘The goði’s wife is muttering spells and covering the land with runes. I will ask the Althing how we can follow a man who cannot govern his own wife.’
‘How like you to delight in misery, Egill. Anna is . . . unwell and needs to rest. But she is a godly woman, and would not dabble in witchcraft.’
‘I see runes, Jón.’
‘And I see them not,’ I snapped. ‘It is your imagination.’ I tried to smile; my jaw ached. ‘Why does your mind see runes? Perhaps we should ask the Althing that.’
Egill glared but said no more – that day, at least, although the next morning Olaf delivered a letter from Egill, threatening to report Anna’s behaviour to the Althing and telling them that she had cursed Birgit.
I tried again to explain to Anna the danger she brought to us all.
‘Egill will watch you burn, Anna elskan, if you but give him the chance. He will be crueller to you because he seeks to harm me – you must see that.’
I took her hand, those little fingers, her bones so delicate I could have snapped them. ‘Stay in the croft. You are safe here.’
She snatched away her hand, as if my affection seared her skin. ‘You care nothing for me,’ she hissed, her eyes burning. ‘You want to keep your name pure.’
‘Be careful, Anna. Don’t say what you may regret.’
‘If your precious people knew that you are a shrivelled worm . . .’
I drew back my hand, imagini
ng the thud of her flesh, the hot burgundy of her blood – I stopped myself, horrified.
‘Strike me,’ she sneered. ‘Perhaps you will feel more the man for it.’
I turned away, slapping my palm against the driftwood walls, time and again, so the whole croft rang with the sound. I did not even feel my hand bleed.
Afterwards, as Pétur bound my hand with linen, he murmured, ‘She is dangerous, Jón. She will destroy herself and take us with her. And she will laugh as we all burn.’
The next night, Pétur found Anna wandering on Helgafell, chanting her three wishes to the grave of Gudrun Ósvifrsdóttir. He returned her to the croft, grim-faced. ‘She says she wants to talk to Egill. Alone.’
Pétur helped me fashion a lock from smelted pieces of bog iron; we settled Anna in the loft, with a mattress and a chamber pot – she was like a lost child, allowing us to lay her down and swaddle her in blankets.
I agonized over whether to leave the crib in there. Surely the sight of it would taunt her. But then I decided that taking it from her would be a final blow: confirmation that I would never get her with child.
Despite her protests, we sent Katrín away ‘in case of infection’ and told her to tell the village that Anna was ill. ‘It would shame her to be seen like this,’ I said. ‘She is not herself.’
In truth she was not: once her reverie had broken and she found she was confined, she clawed at her face and growled like a savage animal. Then she beat at the door and howled to be released. Whenever I felt I might relent and let her go, Pétur was quick to remind me why I could not.
‘Egill would warm his hands on the fire he made of her. And us.’
When she ceased shouting, I thought she might grow calmer and more biddable. I hoped we might be able to free her.
But when I opened the door, I found her sitting in the corner of the loft, scratching the wood with a stone. She did not stop when I called; I had to clutch her arm before she would look at me. Even then, she only stared at my hand around her wrist, as if both belonged to other people.
‘How are you, husband?’ She wore the same fixed grin I had once seen on the face of a hanged man.
I studied the marks she had made in the wood. Bile rose in my throat.
‘What have you done?’ I gasped. Was this a curse upon me? An incantation to summon dark spirits? Or had she scrawled secrets of mine upon the floor?
‘What does this say?’ I demanded.
‘Only the truth,’ she whispered, a faint smile playing on her lips – and I knew then that she would kill all of us. Containing her here wasn’t enough. She would destroy everything. And Pétur? The villagers would blame him for witchcraft without hesitation.
I could not help thinking how much easier it would be if she . . . ceased to be. I loathed myself for the villainous thought, which must surely come from the devil. Yet there it lodged, in the corner of my mind: the desire to snuff her out like a candle.
The next morning, when I entered the loft, she was squatting against the wall; she smiled at me and looked almost peaceful. My heart lifted. I crouched next to her and stroked her cheek. ‘You seem better, my love.’
‘I am much better, Jón.’ She leaned close to me, still smiling. I went to stroke her hair and she turned her face to nuzzle my palm, then shifted her whole body so that she was sitting in my lap.
‘Anna.’ I tried to shift from under her and push her away. ‘I cannot, while you are so . . . You are still unwell.’
She snaked her arms around my neck and put her lips on mine. ‘I am much better. You have said it.’
‘Anna.’ I tried to push her away again. ‘Anna, stop, I cannot –’
She fell from my lap onto the floor, then leaped up, her eyes flashing. ‘No, you cannot! I want a child and you cannot give me one.’
‘I will not take you while –’
She screeched with uncanny laughter, lay down on the mattress and spread her legs. ‘Take me, Jón. I am yours.’ She laughed again.
I shook my head and turned away, sweating.
‘No.’ She jumped up. ‘I know what you are. Egill suspects, but he will be happy to know what I have seen.’
‘You have seen nothing,’ I gasped. ‘You would not –’
‘I have seen the look on your face. I see where your eyes go, and they do not fall on me.’
‘Damn you, woman!’ I lunged at her, but she stepped backwards out of my reach, then yanked her shift over her head and stood naked before me.
‘Come, Jón.’ Her voice was suddenly soft and lilting. ‘Show me I am wrong.’ She stepped towards me.
I turned away. ‘Cover yourself! I will not lie with a madwoman who –’
‘You will not lie with a woman!’ she spat. ‘I will tell the whole village that you are a miserable worm. You and he both! You are a big man, but your neck will snap just the same as his when I tell the Althing –’
I grabbed her by the throat and lifted her off her feet. She gasped and choked and raked her nails down my arms. I dropped her, then stared at my hands, shaking.
She sprawled on the floor, spluttering and clutching her neck.
I knelt and embraced her. ‘Forgive me, Anna. Forgive me, I . . .’ I kissed her cheeks, her eyelids, her lips ‘. . . I wouldn’t hurt you, but you must understand –’
She turned to me and, with her naked body in my arms and the heat of fury still humming in my veins, for the first time in so long, I felt . . . aroused.
I lay on top of her and she kissed me. I closed my eyes and tried to maintain my desire. She wrapped her arms and legs around me. I kissed her neck.
But it was no good. Before the end, I felt myself shrivel inside her. I pulled away from her, slumping onto the floor.
I felt sick to the pit of my stomach. She crawled away from me and curled in the corner, trembling. She had cut her lip when she fell from my arms. Now she touched it and smeared the blood over the runes, then reached for me and painted it over my lips.
I flinched.
‘You are a monster,’ she whispered.
I retched, then spat out blood and bile. I wanted to beg forgiveness, but how could such a thing be forgiven?
We sat in the baðstofa all that day, Pétur and I. What could be done? I couldn’t confess to him how I had used her, only that she was truly mad and daubing the loft with her blood. Pétur was in favour of returning her to Thingvellir.
‘I cannot take her back to her uncle, as if she is a horse I have purchased, then discovered to be lame.’
‘No,’ agreed Pétur, bleakly. ‘A lame horse would present an easy resolution: slit its throat and hang the meat in the storeroom for winter.’
Neither of us laughed.
That night, my dreams were sweat-rimed, full of whispering: I was a monster. My pabbi’s face hung before me; his laughter filled my ears as he hissed, Miserable worm.
I woke early, my eyes gritty, my thoughts clear. I would unlock the loft. I would return Anna to her uncle, no matter the gossip.
But when I climbed the ladder, I found the door open, the room empty. The only sign that Anna had been there was the scarring of the runes, scored deep into the wooden floor. And, glittering in the dim light, I saw the tiny figure of the perfect glass woman I had once given her as a token of my love.
Pétur swore blind he had no knowledge of when she had disappeared, or how, or where she could have gone. He set off on Skalm and searched the settlement and hills, trying not to draw attention.
For two days he searched, but she was nowhere to be found.
‘Perhaps she drowned after all,’ he said, taking a long draw of ale. ‘Tried to swim to one of the islands, and the sea took her.’
‘She could not swim,’ I answered. ‘She would not have risked herself so.’
‘Pity,’ Pétur muttered.
But, watching Pétur gulp his ale and eat, as if the land had not seemingly consumed my wife, I could not shake the conviction that he knew something more of Anna’s whereabouts. I was certai
n I had locked the loft door. I remembered doing so.
After three days with no reports of Anna, Pétur suggested we tell people she was sickening.
Katrín wanted to see her, of course.
I tried to keep my voice steady. ‘Pétur and I have both felt unwell. We fear smallpox – Anna has a terrible rash. Do not risk yourself.’
Katrín’s mouth folded tightly. I remembered her lost daughter, Dora, and felt a twist of guilt.
‘Here.’ She pressed a bundle of herbs into my hands. ‘Make sure Anna has these, and I will gather more for you and Pétur.’
Two nights later, I dug Anna’s grave.
Rósa
Stykkishólmur, November 1686
As soon as Rósa says Anna’s name, the woman’s eyelids flutter. She has wide blue eyes and is full-lipped – she should be beautiful. But her sunken cheeks are blackened with mud and her blank eyes roll in her head. She coughs and Rósa flinches.
‘Rósa, take her arm,’ Pétur puffs. ‘We will take her to the pit-house.’
Rósa feels simultaneously rooted to the spot and overwhelmed by a dizzying vertigo – as if the world has been yanked from under her feet and now she is dangling over the edge of some yawning precipice.
‘Now, Rósa!’ Pétur snaps.
She shakes her head. If she touches this thing, it will all be true, all real. The draugr from her dreams: this thing that has haunted her and stood over her while she has slept. This is the spirit that has driven her to the point of madness: it will devour her soul, leaving the hollow coffin of Rósa’s body for the ravens.
‘She is human,’ he growls. ‘Now, help me lift her.’
Anna collapses again, nearly dragging Pétur into the snow, and it is this movement, and the grunt of pain the woman gives, that breaks through Rósa’s reverie. She rushes to support her head, and Pétur puts one of Anna’s arms around her shoulders.
Rósa exhales to steady herself, then concentrates on placing one foot in front of the other. Too many thoughts clatter in her head. When she was a girl in Skálholt, a travelling trader had juggled onions while everyone watched, agog. He added more and more onions, until eventually, to the children’s delight, the vegetables rained from the sky, smacking him on the head. Rósa feels that the spinning revolution of one more fear might cause her whole world to collapse.