The Christmas Lights

by Karen Swan

  ‘No. Why would I have done?’ Sofie said tartly, resting one hand on her hip.

  Signy could only hold her gaze for a moment, certain the truth would shine in her eyes like a magical mirror. ‘Well I have.’

  She saw Margit come to the door of the storehouse and look down. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘We’ve lost two goats,’ Brit called up.

  ‘No!’ Margit wiped her hands on her apron and began walking down the path.

  ‘Signy’s still convinced it’s a wolf.’

  ‘I know it is,’ Signy insisted. ‘I’m not making it up.’

  The older girls exchanged looks.

  ‘If it was, there would be evidence – blood; bones,’ Margit said tactfully.

  ‘And there will be – somewhere.’

  Margit sighed. ‘Well, if there was a wolf out there, that would mean you couldn’t be up there alone. It’s too dangerous.’

  ‘No more dangerous for me than any of you,’ Signy said defiantly. ‘And, anyway, they’re my flock. They listen to me.’

  ‘Signy—’ Brit said as Ashi and Kari came over, sinking into cross-legged heaps on the grass, elbows on their knees, cheeks flushed and hairlines damp.

  ‘No. I can deal with it.’

  Margit’s eyes narrowed. ‘What’s that in your belt?’ she asked, walking over to her and pulling out the threshing knife. ‘What are you doing with this?’

  ‘It’s for if the wolf comes.’

  ‘Signy!’ Margit looked aghast.

  ‘What? It’s my protection if it attacks.’

  ‘Signy, there is no wolf.’ Her grip tightened around the knife. ‘And I’m taking this. You are not to use it.’

  ‘But it’s my defence!’ Signy protested, grabbing for it – but Margit stepped away.

  ‘This isn’t a game, Signy. You can’t be arming yourself with weapons, roaming around the pastures with knives! What if you fell?’

  ‘But I wouldn’t. I never fall.’

  Everyone’s eyes pointedly fell to the scabs on her bare knees. ‘Okay – hardly ever. And not when I’m carrying that. I’m extra careful.’

  It was the wrong thing to have said as Margit’s frown deepened. ‘Exactly how long have you been carrying this around for?’

  Signy bit her lip. ‘For a few weeks – since I first heard the wolf.’

  ‘Signy, enough! There is no wolf,’ Margit cried, raising her voice. ‘This has to stop. We don’t have time for your stories here.’

  ‘Why are you so sure I’m lying? The only person lying here is Sofie. She knows there’s a wolf out there. She heard it, I know she did.’

  Sofie gave a surprised splutter. ‘Excuse me? Why are you so determined to think that I heard it?’

  Signy stared at her, wanting to tell her – to tell them all – that she knew about her midnight assignations at the lake. But Margit intervened before she could summon the nerve. ‘This stops now, Signy. The kids are lost because you were distracted.’

  ‘Sleeping probably,’ Sofie muttered. ‘Or counting hawks.’

  ‘I was not!’ Signy said hotly, although she had pinpointed their nest after weeks of tracking and searching.

  ‘Enough,’ Margit said firmly. ‘I’m taking this –’ she held up the knife – ‘and you are on your final warning. Of course the kids will stray. They’re older and bolder now, you have to keep closer watch. Or these will be very expensive berries,’ she said, picking up the basket. ‘Lose any more of the flock and you’ll have to swap chores with Kari.’

  Kari looked as horrified as her. ‘But—’ Signy spluttered.

  ‘No buts, Signy. That is my final word.’ And she turned, walking back up to the stabbur.

  Signy watched her go, her hands pulling into fists of rage. Brit went back to shoeing the mare. Kari held out her hand and pulled Ashi back to standing – another four urns needed to be moved.

  ‘Signy, help me with this,’ Sofie said, turning back to the washing.

  Signy stood her ground for a moment, wanting to scream, to shout at them all. It wasn’t fair that she should be taken off her post on account of her age or size. She was the best with the animals and they all knew it.

  ‘Signy!’ Sofie barked.

  With a muffled cry of exasperation, Signy scuffed her way over.

  ‘Peg that for me,’ Sofie said, thrusting her favourite yellow dress at Signy.

  ‘Why can’t you do it?’ Signy demanded, fed up with being pushed around by her, of her bare-faced lies. There was a wolf out there and Sofie knew it.

  ‘Because I’ve asked you to,’ Sofie snapped.

  ‘But I’ve done my duties for the day.’

  ‘Not well. You just cost your father two goats.’

  ‘That’s a lie!’ Signy roared, letting the dress fall to the ground and feeling her self-control desert her. ‘It wasn’t my fault. There’s a wolf out there and I know you know it,’ she hissed, dropping her voice and advancing with a snarl. ‘Because I know what you’ve been doing. And who with. And when.’

  There was a short pause. ‘. . . Oh yes? And what have I been doing, then?’ Sofie demanded, looking coldly furious. But if there was threat in her voice, there was fear too. Her coolness was a bluff.

  ‘You’ve been sneaking around at night with Rag, behind Margit’s back.’

  The silence that followed was thunderous and Sofie’s eyes glittered like black diamonds, boring into hers, before suddenly Signy saw a white flash – stars – her cheek stinging madly.

  ‘You hit me!’ Signy gasped in disbelief, her hand flying to her cheek and feeling the heat there. She looked to the others for help but no one was around. Brit had finished shoeing the horse and was leading her down to the bottom field, Kari and Ashi were up by the ground cellar, Margit was stocktaking in the stabbur.

  ‘That’s right and I’ll do worse than that if you ever repeat such a filthy lie about me!’

  Signy backed away from her, tears streaming down her cheeks now, fury and indignation a combustible mix in her blood. ‘I don’t need to,’ she whispered viciously. ‘Everyone’s going to work it out for themselves soon enough anyway. I can already see it.’ Her eyes fell pointedly to Sofie’s belly – no longer flat but softly rounded below her skirt – and Sofie’s arms automatically wrapped around herself, trying to shield her secret from Signy’s laser gaze. ‘You can’t hide it for ever! Everyone’s going to know what you are and what you’ve done.’ A rictus smile twisted her mouth as the sobs and laughter heaved through her. ‘I don’t need to say a word.’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Bo stood in the cabin, looking around – at the ridiculous tree half hidden in the loft cavity, needles already dropping onto the floor; the coffee pot cold but still half full on the stove; Lenny and Zac’s socks stiff from where they’d air-dried drooping over the backs of the chairs. Everything was exactly as they had left it and yet in the space of twenty-four hours, the world around them had changed. She had changed.

  Anders was in the other cabin with his grandmother. From the air, as he had expertly brought the helicopter down to the ledge, Bo had taken in the sight of the remote homestead – the honeyed light glowing from its windows, the silhouetted tree, the puffing chimney – and she had felt a pang of homesickness that bordered on the violent. And standing here now, in this matching cabin that had all the same elements but none of the same feelings, tears streaming down her face, she felt it again.

  She had never been more alone, more unrooted in this world. What was home, anyway? Anders had returned to it, here, after tragedy struck his life, but she had done precisely the opposite: when the car had come off the road, turning over seven times, and breaking her legs and rupturing Jamie’s spleen, she had thought at first they would make it, that help would come. But there had been no witnesses. No phone reception. And the trees had screened them from the road. He had suffered slowly, haemorrhaging internally as she held his hand, trying to keep him awake; and when he had died, she had felt his hand become coo
l in hers, unable to move herself away. It was the horror of being stuck, of being in one place, that had stayed with her. It was why she had had to move, to run; it was why it had been four years since she had been home. But now, the thought of going another week without walking through her old front door and seeing her parents sitting at the kitchen table, felt unbearable. Suddenly she couldn’t understand the drive, the determination that had enabled her to walk out the door and not look back, to think she could mask her pain with the studied pursuit of happiness.

  Losing Jamie so young, she had felt almost like she had to live for the both of them. Life needed to be an adventure, didn’t it? Working to pay the rent, a wage slave living for her annual holiday was a waste of time that she was lucky enough to have – and which Jamie wasn’t. So she’d launched herself into a life of travel: new horizons, new adventures, new faces; and when she’d met Zac, he seemed to embody the heady, happy free-spiritedness she felt obliged to find on her brother’s behalf. She was drawn to his zest, his happy-go-lucky easy manner. She needed it. He had shone light into her during her darkest moments and she realized now that at some level ever since, she had been afraid of falling back into the shadows without him.

  But living in perpetual sunlight was exhausting too. Draining. It was true what she’d said to Signy: more people went mad under the midnight sun than the midday moon. And that was exactly how she had begun to feel. She had been slowly going crazy living in Zac’s non-stop sunlight, the Wanderlusters’ persistent spotlight, and it had taken a man who had retreated to the shadows to show her that.

  Trying to rub the tears away, she looked across the path and saw Anders moving past the window, bringing in more logs, talking to his grandmother. But he was going through the motions, doing what had to be done. He looked as desolate as she felt.

  Already their night together felt like a dream. He had been quick to bring her back here, citing it as safer than staying at his house – the man asking after her wouldn’t ‘happen’ upon this place, he wouldn’t be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of her out here and he couldn’t get to the farm without Anders’ rib or skidoo. No one – apart from Stale – knew she was still here. It was the safest place for her to be right now.

  She hadn’t dared look in on Signy with him. Somehow, she feared the old woman would see what had changed between them. It was the same reason Anders had said he wouldn’t look in on her here either: if the others were back, they couldn’t trust their eyes not to betray them. But Zac wasn’t around to wonder about anything. He was seemingly still in Alesund, in a sulk with her and no doubt hungover to hell.

  It felt like a temporary reprieve, a chance for her to recollect herself. She wasn’t ready to say hello again to Zac when it felt more than she could bear to say goodbye to Anders. She didn’t want to deal with the inevitable confrontation when he got back, either, and she certainly didn’t want an apology from him – for even if his and Lenny’s behaviour last night hadn’t been feral, what about her own? She had chased after Anders. She had forced things between them to a head. She was no injured party. She was no innocent. She wanted something Zac could no longer give her – what had once felt like freedom now felt like asylum and it was too big to wrap her mind around yet. She had sabotaged her own life and she wasn’t even sure she was sorry about it.

  She shivered, only now realizing how cold it was in the cabin, and she walked over to the stove and set it, crouching down on her haunches for a few minutes as she blankly watched the stripling yellow flames begin to dance. She washed out the coffee pot and made some fresh, looking in the cupboard for food. Pasta. Rice . . . She closed the cupboards again, her appetite utterly gone. Like Anders over the way, she was going through the motions.

  The sound of footsteps outside made her look over to the window and she saw him walk past. But true to his word, his head didn’t turn even fractionally in her direction and she too stayed where she was in the middle of the room, not daring to stand by the glass in case Signy should be watching.

  She felt every sinew tighten and stretch as she braced for the sound of the rotors beginning to spin. The drone grew louder and louder, the timbers of the building vibrating gently and dislodging rivulets of snow from the roof, before whipping up a mini blizzard as the helicopter took flight. Bo felt her heart constrict as he rose higher, further and further away from her, before he slipped around the corner and out of range, leaving her and his grandmother alone on the snowy ridge.

  ‘Anything?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Is he back?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘. . . Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes. Thanks.’

  ‘Sleep well.’

  ‘There.’

  Bo stepped back and admired her handiwork. The tree wasn’t big – barely bigger than her, in fact but she had chopped it down using the axe she had found left on the log pile from where Zac hadn’t chopped wood the other day, then dragged it back here all by herself. It had been exhilarating going up into the woods alone, cathartic – she had tied some orange nylon rope, found in the stables, around the trees as markers to help her find her way back and now she had decorated it, hand-tying red velvet bows on the ends of the delicate fronds and hanging the wooden decorations from the Christmas market at the windows and on random old nails knocked into the beams. The presents were wrapped and lay in a heap at its base; she’d forgotten to buy wrapping paper but had used old newspapers that were kept for setting the fire and leftover red ribbon for bows. It wasn’t the grandest tree by any means, but its pine scent filled the cabin, wafting every time she walked past, and she kept looking over at it from her cosy spot on the sofa where she had curled up beside the fire.

  Home? No. But it was something. A start.

  After her strenuous activities, she had rewarded herself with a bath, boiling up the water and carrying it through in numerous pans to the bedroom until eventually it had been deep enough for her to soak, drift, wallow. Now she was scrolling again. There wasn’t much else to do – the three books left by previous visitors, seemingly, were all in Norwegian – and though she hadn’t posted a single thing all day, not even a picture of her toes or toast, she couldn’t stop herself from clicking on the Wanderlusters’ hashtag. The fact they’d lost two-hundred thousand followers overnight told her the videos from onlookers last night had been posted and – like the victim in any horror story, always walking towards the unlocked basement door – she had to look, to know what was out there. Because she knew He was.

  She bit her thumbnail as she watched through slitted, grimacing eyes. Several people had recorded the fight, Zac and Lenny swaying and jeering like barbarians, her, shell-shocked and recalcitrant as she stood primly by the cab, hiding behind the door. She stared at her own face, looking in it for signs of what she was about to do – and finding none. She had been blind to her own heart.

  The fans were decidedly unhappy with the scenes, scores of thumbs-down, split heart and crying-face emojis in the comments section. There was lots of ‘disappointment’: ‘So sad to see this’; ‘Thought they were better than this’; ‘When your idols fall . . .’ He had weighed in of course, as she had known he would: ‘You looked fuckable in those jeans tho.’

  As comments went, it was one of his more innocuous ones but the fear still lead-lined her stomach as it had since they had left the store. Was he still in Gerainger? Still looking for her? Had it just been coincidence he had asked for her there and he’d moved on already?

  Shaking him from her thoughts and taking a deep breath, she found Ulla’s account and clicked on her stories, seeing the live footage she had posted last night too – she felt a wave of nausea surge as the chaos in the club played back on a loop: the besuited Halling dancers squaring up to the quickening fiddles, the cheering rowdy crowd, her own face as she laughingly stuck out her tongue, the dancers beginning to show off and then . . . Anders. His angular, haunted face squarely in camera, blatantly uncomfortable as Ulla positioned her screen straigh
t on him, the picture blurring slightly as they awkwardly shook hands . . . the cheers as he easily caught the hat . . . and then the music cutting out. ‘. . . you killed that guy! . . .’ The deafening silence.

  Bo closed her eyes, reliving it all. The horror. The shock. The judgement. People thinking they knew . . . This was what he had to live with, always—

  She opened her eyes again, realizing suddenly something was wrong. Something didn’t fit. It was like a tap on her heart, making her squirm, wriggle away.

  But what . . . ?

  Squinting, concentrating closely, she replayed the footage but she couldn’t see . . . couldn’t pinpoint what was niggling her. What was it? She went back to the Wanderlusters’ hashtag and brought back the other videos – Zac jabbing the air, Lenny sneering, her behind the car door . . .

  And then she saw it. Or rather, she didn’t.

  Only her upper body was visible in this film. And just her face in Ulla’s.

  She felt a shiver down the full length of her spine, the implication becoming clear. His comment hadn’t been innocuous at all. It was another clue. A signal. A direct message hidden in plain sight – because none of that footage showed her in jeans. Which meant he had seen her himself. He had been there. Right there.

  A sound outside made her startle. And now He was here.

  Lodal, 13 September 1936

  The sound woke her with a gasp. It had been close – right here – and she turned to wake Margit, to prove to her once and for all. But the bed was empty.

  Signy stared at it, blinking hard several times, as though she might still be dreaming. But the image remained unchanged and she threw off her covers, reaching across the narrow space between the beds, feeling the sheets. They were cold.

  She would be in the outhouse, Signy knew, but with the wolf out there, the one that no one else believed was real . . . She got up, quickly pulling on a sweater and a pair of socks. One was scrunched up under Margit’s bed from where Signy had kicked it off last night and as she reached under to get it, her fingertips brushed against something smooth on the sheets – something that wasn’t cotton.