by Arthur Slade
"Oh, I see ... I see it." Mordur grinned. "A t.v. would be great fun. But I find books far easier to carry."
A chill wind hit us suddenly, whistling over the rock formations and knocking back my hood, making my hair fly all over the place. I tugged it back into position.
"We had better get inside," Mordur said. He led us around a large pile of boulders. About twenty yards away, leaning to one side and looking like it had been through several different wars, was the legendary croft house.
14.
It was a lop-sided, two-story dwelling that had been built against a hill. The bottom shell was made of wood and slices of turf were piled against the walls. It looked barely big enough to fit five sheep comfortably. At the top was a rounded loft with a dormer window and a slanted roof thick with snow. Somehow this glorified bunkhouse had stood against all the snow, sleet, and wind nature could throw its way. Crags rose up behind it, dwarfing the place.
Mordur pointed at it. "Here lived one of the first crofters with his sheep, horse and dogs. And his wife and four children."
"It must have been a tight fit," I said.
"Everyone stayed warm in winter."
"This is what Grandpa wanted us to see?" Michael asked. "A sheep shack?"
Mordur pulled back his hood. "This sheep shack has bigger history than some castles. It is what Iceland is about — people working hard to make a living. Fighting against snow, rain, bad prices. The real Iceland heroes are the old crofters. They deserve respect. Your family is part of this croft house's story. Your grandfather spent his childhood summers up here."
"I bet all he did was talk to himself and make up bad jokes," Sarah said.
The wind had doubled, whipping my hair against the side of my face. I pulled my neck scarf tighter. "Will this place keep us warm?" I asked.
"It will block the breeze." If Mordur thought this was a breeze, I'd hate to see his idea of a storm. He led us closer. "I stayed up here most of last fall watching the flock. It is a good shelter." The front door was big enough for a cow to go through. Mordur yanked the door open and it nearly fell off. It was hanging by one rusted hinge. Michael and Sarah had dismounted and were about to tie the horses to an old post. "No, bring them in," Mordur said, holding the door wide. "This is where they stay."
We stooped over and led the horses into a cramped space that was half a foot taller than their heads. The air was stale; cobwebs hung down from the ceiling. Two stalls stood along one wall. Mordur gestured. "There were maybe twenty lambs and two horses here in the old days."
"They must have stacked them," Sarah said, pulling Nonni further into the stable.
"Stack them?" Mordur gave her a quizzical look. "Oh, I see, no — they just squish them together. They were plenty happy when spring came."
"Where's the rest of the place?" Michael asked. "You don't sleep on this straw in the summer do you?"
Mordur motioned above us. "Follow me."
He took the reins of both horses and tied them in separate stalls. The wind whistled between cracks, stirring the dust and the old straw. It was going to be a long, cold walk home. Of course, if it was gusting in the right direction it might push us all the way back to Uncle Thordy's house.
Mordur stopped at a seven-runged ladder that led to the ceiling. He climbed to the top, pushed on a corner and a trap door opened. "Climb up," he said.
Michael went first. Sarah brushed a cobweb off her shoulder. "This is not what I expected from a European vacation."
"I was hoping for a dip in one of those famous Icelandic hot springs, myself," I said.
Sarah laughed then turned and started up. By the time I got to the top, Mordur had already lit an oil lamp and had set it in the middle of the room on a metal stove. The place stunk of must and dry manure. There was a washbasin imbedded in one wall and three sleeping benches stuck out from another. There wouldn't have been much privacy. An old, lumpy-looking mattress rested on the middle bench. A table, slightly larger than a newspaper, was nailed below a windowsill. The shutters were latched closed, but the "breeze" was still trying to force its way in, rattling them.
Sarah sat on a bench. "A whole family would stay up here?"
"They must have been pretty short," Michael said.
"They were good benders." Mordur was hunched over, dragging a wood chair across the floor. "Icelanders are smarter than most people think. Let's lunch."
I headed towards one of the wood benches, avoiding the grungy mattress. My foot kicked a small object and I looked down. A dead mouse. "Gross," I said, jumping away. I knocked over something. It was a slim wooden box about ten inches long. It broke open on the floor and three rolled up pieces of paper fell out.
"What're you doing, Angie?" Michael was sitting on a three-legged stool, one hand under his chin like he was thinking real hard. "Some kind of new dance?"
"I just about stepped on that dead mouse."
"There are a lot here." Mordur didn't sound too worried. "They like this place."
I was going to be extremely careful where I sat. But first, I picked up the paper scrolls and partly unrolled one, revealing lines of writing. The paper was quite thick and felt rough around the edges. "What are these made of?"
"Calf skins," Mordur answered.
"Yuck!" I dropped them right away. This place was a junkyard. I'd probably caught a hundred diseases in the last few seconds. "What on earth are they doing here?"
He grinned. "They belonged to my father. In the old days the Icelanders would not have much paper — not enough trees — so they wrote stories on dried and stretched calf skins. Dad liked to study history of crofters, so he made these on his own. This is how sagas were preserved."
I picked one up gingerly and looked at the words. "They're in French. Are they ... uh ... a diary?"
"I cannot read it. Dad spent some years working on a French fishing trolley and lived in Paris. He met my mother there. These letters might be to her, but he and her were — uh — how do you say it? Not good company together."
"We know what you mean," Sarah said softly.
"If they're not for your mom," Michael asked, "then why are they in French?"
Mordur shrugged. "Maybe he wanted to keep them secret. Not many Icelanders know French."
"What are they doing in the croft house?" Sarah asked.
"They were a big hobby of my father while he watched the sheep. I found the skins last fall in the walls when I set mousetraps."
"I don't think they're a diary," I said, scanning them over. "They might be a story."
"Why?" Mordur asked.
"I recognize one word: loup-garou. It means werewolf. Was your dad a writer?"
"He did tell tales. Maybe he wrote some down." Mordur took the calf skins from me, looked at them for a moment then rolled them back up. "There is another thing," he said and reached into a corner of the box and pulled out a long slender metal object. It had four sharp edges that tapered down to a point and was about twice the length of my index finger.
Michael brought his chair closer. "Is that a spearhead?"
"Yes. There are tiny figures carving into it. I think Dad made it, too. There is a drawing of the spearhead on one of the calf skins."
"He was a talented guy," I said.
"Yes," Mordur agreed, "he had lots of big projects. He wished to be known as the crofter who made the old days come to life."
"'Cattle die,'" I quoted, "'kinsmen die, I myself shall die, but there is one thing I know never dies, the reputation we leave behind at our death.'"
"Why did you say that?" Mordur asked.
"It's something our grandfather taught us, from a story about our great grandfather," I explained. "I guess I just wanted to say it looks like your dad succeeded. He created some real beautiful things. I'm sure people around here remember him as a historian. This stuff should be in a museum."
Mordur nodded. "You are right. One thing we Icelanders worry about always — what people will think about us after we are gone."
"I
bet Grandpa can read the calf skins," Michael said. "He's from Canada. I'm sure he knows a few words in French. I remember him translating the French on a cereal box for me once."
"I will show him then." Mordur carefully placed the calf skins and the spearhead inside the wooden box and clasped the lid shut.
The gusting wind picked up outside, rattling the sides of the croft house. Drafts of cold air crept across the floor, rose high enough to make the flame in the oil lamp flicker. The place wasn't exactly wind proof.
Michael opened up our lunch and grabbed some hardfiskur. He passed the bag to us. I took an apple and a strip of the dried fish. Even in the dim light of the oil lamp, the fish didn't look all that yummy. I handed the remainder to Sarah. "I have a question," Sarah asked Mordur. "It's about Uncle Thordy. And if you don't want to answer it, I'll understand."
Mordur was silent for a few seconds, his face serious.
"I answer what I can. But remember, he is my boss and my friend. He has done much for me."
"I understand," Sarah said. She bit her lip, thought for a second. "When we first arrived, he seemed ... I don't know ... frightened. Like he expected something bad to happen. Do you know why?"
"He has not been good since Kristjanna died. It is over a year and a half. Before that Thordy made the jokes and would whistle while he worked. He is all nerves now. He ... I don't know how much I should let spill."
"He's family," Sarah said softly. She briefly held Mordur's hand, which made me raise an eyebrow. "We want to help him if we can."
"Well, he sometimes goes into deep sadnesses. He stays in the house for lots of days, leaves the lights off. He told me I was never to go in, unless he lets me in. Other times he leaves for a week without telling me. It is like he is trying to go away from everything. And I do not complain, but I do most of the work now. I rounded up all the sheep on my own last year. And there are troubles with money."
"Is that why he's going to town today?" Michael asked.
"Yes. Thordy wants another loan to keep the farm going on. He is not good with the books. He used to be most good. But what is going on in his head is what really bothers me. Sometimes I see his shadow in the window, staring out at the yard for hours, waiting for something to appear."
"But maybe there's some other reason for it. Did someone rob the place?" I asked.
"No, nothing like that. Part of it is a little — uh — bad thing we have been having on the croft. It started after Kristjanna's death. We lost two kids."
"You mean kids have died?" I asked.
"He means baby goats, Einstein," Michael explained, rolling his eyes.
"Uh ... I'll shut up now." I took a nervous bite of the hardfiskur. It was as hard as it sounded, but not bad once you chewed it for awhile. I swallowed, the lump scraped its way down my throat.
"These goats disappeared without trace. We knew they were gone, because their mothers made such a noise. It is a terrible sound when a mother goat loses her kid. It upsets the whole flock.
"Thordy and I split up and looked low and high for them. My dog Tyr and I stumbled across their remains. They had been dragged onto a rock shelter high above the plain, their bones spread across the ground and broken in half. All the marrow was sucked out. The flesh was eaten."
I felt cold. I slipped my hands inside my jacket pockets. Mordur was staring into the flame on the lamp, looking hypnotized. "Thordy was not happy. We called the local constable and tried to figure what did this. Not a fox. And men are the only other meat eaters on Iceland. There were rumours about a mountain man — a criminal who lives in hiding — but the tooth marks were too sharp."
"Nothing more happened for months, and we got the sheep safely home, but that winter was fellivetur, a slaughter winter. Deep snow. Very cold. In the old days they had to kill all livestock because they would have nothing to feed them.
"On one evening when the moon was high and bright, I was out shovelling off my roof. It had just snowed. I stopped to rest and heard Tyr bark a warning. I climbed down and real fast made my way out into the deep snow. But his barking got far and farther away. Then it became growling and yelping and finally he was silent. I ran quick through hip-deep snow, the moon showing me my way. I rounded a corner and saw a big, grey thing feeding on the body of Tyr. It looked up at me. Its eyes glowed with orange light. They held me and I could not move, a cold chill going through my bones. The creature backed away, seemed to almost smile. Then it ran off into the night."
He stopped. The wind continued to buffet the croft house, shaking the shutters. It wasn't getting any warmer inside.
"Has anything else happened since?" Michael asked.
"Two more lambs died. We did not find their bones. But they were safe in the barn before they disappeared."
"What do you think it was?" I asked.
"Maybe just a wolf that rode an ice flow here. About every twenty years one shows up. I do not know how it got in our barn, though. There are no holes wide enough. Thordy and I spent the summer patching. And it could not open the latch, you would need hands for that."
"You didn't want to bring us out here, did you?" Sarah was using the stare, the one where she knows there's an answer, and if she stares long and hard enough you'll spit it out.
"What?" Mordur looked stunned by the question.
"That's what you and Uncle Thordy argued about before we left." She kept staring at him.
He pursed his lips. "Yes, we had a disagree. I ... I wasn't sure if it was safe. He said it was daylight, there was no thing to fear ... "
The window shutter banged open as if a fist had struck it. A blast of snow and biting wind swept over us. Mordur struggled towards the window. He grabbed the shutters and was able to close one, but not the other. Michael jumped up beside him, pushing on the second shutter until Mordur could latch them both shut. With Michael's help he jammed a post against them. "It is really storming big. I could not see much past the window. This was not in any of the radio forecasts."
The sudden chill had knocked the last bit of warmth from my body. "Let's go home. I don't want to be stuck out here for Christmas."
Mordur peered through the cracks. "We had better wait. It is a whiteout. The paths would be very not good. It will blow by soon. Of course, if you do not like the weather now, just wait five minutes, it will get worse."
"What?" Michael said.
"It is a saying. A joke. We will be okay. And Thordy knows where we are. The world would not end if we stayed the night."
"It'd be pretty close," Sarah whispered. I wrapped my arms around myself.
"Why not start a fire?" Mordur opened the grate on the stove. He carried an armful of what looked like brown squares from a pile by the wall, and threw them in the pot belly. Then he took a hand shovel full of grey black chunks from another pile and tossed them inside.
"What's that?" Michael asked.
Mordur lit a match. "Peat. I dug it up from the marshes east of the house. And dried sheep's dung. It burns good." He tossed the match in and seconds later a fire appeared. "Logs are hard to find up here."
"Is it gonna stink?" I asked.
"You will get used to it."
Yeah right, I thought. At first I stayed as far away as I could, but soon the stove began to cast off heat, so Sarah and I edged closer, holding our hands near the stove, letting our palms grow warm.
There was a grating sound from downstairs. Then a slam. The horses whinnied loudly and banged around inside their stalls.
Michael looked up from the fire, eyes wide. "What the heck was that?"
15.
We listened for what seemed an eternity. The wind continued to hiss through the cracks, but I couldn't hear anything else. Michael took a step towards the trapdoor and the floorboards creaked below his feet. Mordur motioned him to be still.
The beams that held up the croft house began groaning. The sound became louder and harsher and I realized it wasn't the beams making the noise. It was something else. A growl reverberated somewhere below
us.
"There's something down there," Sarah whispered.
The growl grew deeper. It was unlike anything I'd ever heard. It worked its way into my nerves, my bones, my spine so that I couldn't move.
The others were frozen in place too, all straining to hear the next noise. The flames in the stove died down and a coldness crept into the room. Even the oil lamp grew dimmer.
The horses had remained silent and I imagined them pressed up against the sides of their stalls, tied tightly, eyes wide with fear, not wanting to attract the attention of the intruder.
Mordur reached for the fire poker and gripped it tightly. "We should not have come here." He took a step towards the trapdoor, then stopped as if he wasn't sure what to do next.
The growling grew louder. The support beam in the centre of the croft house creaked like a weight had leaned up against it. A heavy hissing noise drifted through the floorboards.
I came slowly out of my shock. There were cracks in the floor, so I knelt and looked through one. It was dark down there, except for a frail band of light.
I could make out a thin shape next to the support beam. It wasn't that large, maybe four or five feet tall. It was standing on its hind feet and appeared to be covered with fur. Its head was hidden in shadows. It was definitely some kind of animal, but not one I recognized.
"I ... I think I see it," I whispered.
It turned towards me, as if it had heard my voice, and revealed a long snout.
"What ... " Michael began. I looked up, motioned him to be silent.
I peeked back down and the thing had moved out of the pale light.
One of the horses neighed sharply, then the other. A board snapped. A roar, this time so loud it drowned out the horses' cries, echoed through the floor. A second timber broke, then came the clomping of hooves, a crash.
A large dark blur shot through the band of light — one of the horses. He smacked into the side of the croft house. The neighing of both horses became louder, higher-pitched, so that they weren't even the noises of horses anymore. They sounded almost human, like they were being tortured.