She slowed down, unable to keep up the same pace, and halted for a moment, only for the cold to force itself on her consciousness again. Her fingers were numb, and she clenched her fists again and again to get the blood circulating, but it didn’t really help. She had to turn back; she couldn’t keep up this madness. It was then that she spotted the car.
There it was – their jeep, their old green jeep, hardly recognizable under its thick quilt of snow. Einar always left it parked some distance from the house in winter, since the last slope up to the farm was the most difficult stretch, where the deepest drifts formed.
She snatched a hasty glance over her shoulder, terrified that someone had followed her. Facing into the wind, she squinted against the snow, but couldn’t see any sign of pursuit, only a maelstrom of tumbling white flakes.
Erla didn’t have the strength to retrace her steps, not without a rest. Her whole body was racked with shivers, her teeth chattering. She started scraping frantically at the snow around the driver’s door of the jeep, then wrestled with the handle, her fingers painful with the cold, almost weeping with fear that the mechanism would be frozen. Thank God they never locked it. Finally, she got the door open, dragging it through the soft, piled-up drift until she could crawl in through the gap and get behind the wheel. It was dark in the car, with the windows crusted over with ice. She groped for the ignition, only to find that Einar hadn’t left the keys in it, as he usually did, so she wouldn’t be able to switch on the engine to get the heater going. Still, although the car was freezing inside, it did at least give her a respite from the storm. She sat there panting, getting her breath back, and closed her eyes for a moment, just to summon her strength, not to fall asleep – she knew she mustn’t succumb to the drowsiness that began to steal over her.
XX
Erla woke with a jerk to find herself sitting in the driver’s seat of the jeep. She must have dozed off, but had no idea how long for. Given the risk of hypothermia, she was lucky to have woken at all.
Had she heard a noise, or had that been part of her dream?
Stretching her cramped limbs, she peered out of the window to her left, only to come face to face with a pair of eyes staring in at her through a narrow gap that had been cleared in the ice.
She flinched away, breathless with shock, then stiffened with terror. She couldn’t see who it was standing out there, looking in at her, but knew she couldn’t escape; the jeep wasn’t locked and she was as good as trapped in the driver’s seat.
In a panic, she dropped her gaze to the door handle, avoiding those horrible eyes, scrabbling frantically to lock the door from inside.
Of course, it would give her just a few seconds’ respite, as she could only reach the driver’s door from where she sat. She couldn’t get to the other lock without crawling across the wide seat to the passenger side.
A tapping on the glass made her jump and she realized that it must have been this noise that had woken her.
Fighting back her dread, Erla raised her eyes to the window again, her heart pounding, determined this time to get a good look at whoever it was outside. It could only be one of two people: Einar or the visitor. She couldn’t let herself start believing in anything supernatural at this stage.
Oh God, she hoped it was Einar.
She strained to see his face through the narrow gap.
It wasn’t Einar.
She sat paralysed with fear.
The man tapped on the window again.
‘Erla?’ she heard him calling, his voice muffled by the glass. He rattled the door handle. ‘Erla? Can you open the door? I need to talk to you.’
She tried to answer but her mouth was dry.
‘Erla? Please will you come back to the house with me?’ This time, she caught the note of fear in his voice. That, in itself, was odd, because if anyone ought to be scared to death, it was her, not him.
Where’s Einar? she thought. Why hadn’t he come to look for her too? She tried not to let her imagination run away with her. Of course he was all right. Of course. They must have split up and come to search for her separately. Perhaps he had gone to look for her in the barn.
Goodness knows how long she had been gone. Letting herself fall asleep out here in the car had been a very bad idea indeed. It was still snowing and the rusty old jeep provided little shelter, with the cold air sneaking in through all the gaps in the bodywork.
‘Erla, please get out of the car. I need to talk to you!’ The man tore at the handle again, and she feared for a moment that the whole door would come off. But however old and rusty it was, it seemed the jeep wasn’t about to fall apart.
She looked helplessly around the gloomy interior, then plucked up the courage to meet Leó’s eye again. What do you want from me? She tried to convey the message wordlessly. Didn’t trust herself to speak.
He seemed frightened. Yes, there was no doubt about it. Yet at the same time he terrified her. Both of them scared out of their wits – that was a recipe for disaster. He scraped the window clear so he could see her better and now she took in the fact that he wasn’t wearing a coat; like her, he must have charged out into the blizzard without pausing to pull on his outdoor clothes, and his hair and jumper were now plastered with white. He must be freezing too, yet a desperate energy seemed to be driving him on. Erla needed to know what lay behind this, but at the same time she dreaded the truth.
Next minute, he had let go of the handle and was wading as fast as he could round the car. She tried to reach across to the lock on the passenger side but was hampered by being so weak and stiff from the cold.
He got there first and wrenched the door open.
XXI
Never in her life had Erla been so petrified.
She stared at the man, at the intruder who had spoilt their quiet Christmas … who had turned up armed with a knife, who had lied to them. No one should have been able to get here at this time of year; they should have been safe, cut off, miles from the nearest settlement.
There was a wild intensity in his eyes, yet for a moment neither he nor Erla moved. Having got the car door open, he didn’t seem to know what to do next. Erla shifted almost imperceptibly away from him. He remained quite still, showing no sign of being about to lunge into the car. She began to inch her hand towards the lock on the driver’s side, keeping her gaze riveted on Leó all the while.
Then he spoke, his voice hoarse: ‘I need to talk to you, Erla. It’s urgent.’ She didn’t say a word, just stared back at him, and after a pause he added something, his words barely audible over the fury of the storm, but she thought it was: ‘I’m not going to hurt you, I promise.’
Erla’s blood ran cold at the words. Reacting instinctively, she flung open the driver’s door and clambered out of the jeep.
Without so much as a backward glance, she set off at a stumbling run, keeping her gaze trained on where the house ought to be. But again, she found herself moving with a dreamlike slowness; the snow was even deeper than it had been earlier and she was almost blinded by the flakes.
At least she intuitively knew where she was going, though, and headed up the familiar slope, as she had countless times before, though never before in such desperate haste, her life depending on it. She was seized by a premonition that something terrible had happened and that she was in real danger, despite the man’s assurances to the contrary.
I’m not going to hurt you. She didn’t dare look round, didn’t want to know how close he was behind her. Didn’t dare slow her frantic pace.
As she waded through the drifts, she shrieked into the void as loudly as she could, calling her husband’s name, though she knew the sound waves would quickly dissipate among the wildly swirling snowflakes and her despairing cries would be smothered at birth by the gale.
Worse than that, she had a horrible foreboding that there was no one there to hear her call. That something had happened to Einar. She refused to believe it. It couldn’t be true.
Where the hell was he, though? Why wa
s she alone, fleeing a dangerous intruder, on Christmas Eve, of all days?
‘Einar!’ Erla would never have believed that she had it in her to screech like that. Terror was clearly a great source of strength.
She was dangerously cold in her thin, indoor clothes, but that didn’t matter now. The only thing that mattered was to get into the house before Leó and lock the door behind her. She had to lock him out and make sure all the windows were secured as well. Then she could behave as if nothing had happened, as if it was just a normal day.
A blackness developed at the edges of her vision and began to close in like a tunnel, but she fought against it. She wasn’t going to faint; she was so nearly there. She was going to make it, and no one was going to stop her.
She was terrified that any minute now Leó would catch up with her and she would feel his hand grabbing her shoulder, shoving her down in the snow, and … and then what? However difficult it was to fight a path back through the drifts to the house, he must surely be able to run faster than her. So why hadn’t he caught up already?
She longed to look round and see how much of a head-start she had on him but couldn’t bring herself to turn, just kept going.
A dark shape loomed through the whiteness. The house. She was nearly there … so very nearly there.
XXII
A carol was playing on the radio in the background, but there was silence at the dinner table.
Hulda had, from habit, laid it with its seasonal finery: a red cloth and plates to match, the best crystal glasses. The malt brew in its crystal jug and the pièce de résistance, the gammon, growing colder with every minute that passed.
Hulda and her mother had both helped themselves to food, and the older woman was busy piling her fork with meat, gravy and caramelized potatoes. Hulda hadn’t touched hers.
There was no sign of Jón and Dimma.
‘He must bring her through soon,’ Hulda muttered, staring unseeingly at her plate, more to herself than to her mother.
‘Hulda, dear …’
Hulda glanced at her mother. After pausing to take another mouthful of ham, the older woman repeated, still chewing: ‘Hulda, dear, I don’t know how you’re bringing her up or how you and Jón usually do things, but it’s disgracefully rude of the child not to come to the table for Christmas dinner. I haven’t seen her at all yet, and it’s Christmas Eve! Behaviour like that would never have been tolerated when I was young – and we’d never have put up with it when you were a girl either.’
‘Mum …’
Her mother took a swig of malt and orange. ‘Shall I go in and try to talk her round? Dimma and I have always been so close.’ She smiled a little smugly.
Unlike us, Hulda wanted to retort. But all she said was ‘Leave it to Jón,’ adding: ‘It’s all right.’ But she didn’t believe it herself any more.
‘You must both be spending too much time working, Hulda. I’m sure that’s what it is. Jón’s always flat out and you’ve got such a demanding job with the police. I just don’t think it’s right. In my opinion, you ought to pay more attention to the poor child and find yourself an easier way of earning money. Why not get a part-time position, from nine to twelve, or something? After all, I get the impression that Jón brings in more than enough for the whole family.’
‘Don’t interfere, Mum,’ Hulda snapped. Rising from her chair, she called into the hallway: ‘Jón, Dimma, are you coming?’
‘Well, if you ask me, it’s lack of discipline. Sometimes you just have to put your foot down.’
‘Put your foot down?’
‘Yes, that’s what I think.’
‘And who do you suggest puts their foot down, hm?’ Hulda asked angrily. ‘Us? Or you, maybe?’
Her mother was a little flustered by this attack.
‘Well … don’t get me wrong … But it’s my right as your mother to take an interest in my grandchild’s upbringing. I do have a bit of experience with childrearing, after all.’
‘Oh, you do, do you? Is that a fact?’ Hulda blurted out with sudden venom, only to regret it immediately.
There was a shocked silence. They heard Jón calling: ‘Just coming, love.’
‘What do you mean by that, Hulda? Just what are you implying?’ Her mother sounded near to tears and Hulda sent up an exasperated prayer for patience.
Getting her temper under control, she said quickly: ‘I didn’t mean anything by it, Mum. Sorry. It just gets on my nerves when you start criticizing us. I know you mean well, but we’re having a tricky time with Dimma at the moment and we’re doing our best, but it really doesn’t help when you interfere.’
This was met by an offended silence and Hulda knew that her mother had heard, behind the innocuous words, an echo of the chasm that had opened up between them over the years; that unbridgeable chasm that Hulda had learned to live with but her mother apparently never had.
Her mother lowered her eyes to her plate and took another mouthful of food.
‘You know, Hulda,’ she said after she had swallowed, ‘that we … I tried my best with you …’ She faltered and her words trailed off, drowned out by the choir on the radio singing ‘Silent Night’.
Shortly after this, Jón appeared, frowning heavily, and at first it seemed he wasn’t going to say anything at all. He was all too inclined to withdraw into himself and refuse to be sociable in company.
Hulda fixed him with a stare, trying to compel him to tell her what was happening, as it was all too obvious that Dimma wasn’t coming out to join them. She thought about the unopened Christmas presents lying under the prettily decorated tree and foresaw a miserable ending to what should have been a happy evening. How she wished her mother would take the hint and leave, but she knew that wasn’t going to happen, and they could hardly throw her out, today of all days.
It was her mother who broke the tense silence: ‘What’s the matter with the child? Shall I go and talk to her?’
Jón hesitated, then sat down at the table.
‘Thanks for offering, but it wouldn’t do any good.’ He poured some malt from the crystal jug into his glass. ‘She’s not coming out. She doesn’t want to.’
‘Why not?’ Again, it was Hulda’s mother who wouldn’t let it go.
‘I’ve no idea, I’m afraid. I wish I knew what we could do.’ He seemed uncharacteristically despondent. ‘It’s some kind of obstinacy, some kind of … well, teenage rebellion, but on a whole different level. I suppose it’s … it’s … the weight of tradition she’s rejecting, or something like that – Christmas and all the trappings. I can’t explain it.’
‘Then you need to shake that nonsense out of her,’ Hulda’s mother said, rapping the table for emphasis. ‘More discipline, that’s what’s needed.’
‘Mum!’ Hulda shouted. ‘Will you just shut up! This has nothing to do with you. Leave it to Jón and me.’
‘Well, then, I suppose you’d rather I went home? In the middle of Christmas dinner?’ her mother retorted. ‘I’ll go, if that’s what you want, Hulda – if you’d kindly call me a taxi.’
Hulda would have given anything to agree and ring for a cab, but she forced herself to say: ‘Of course not! Don’t be silly, Mum. Let’s just enjoy the food. Try to have a nice evening and open our presents as usual.’ She felt a tear running down her cheek. Turning her head away, she wiped it off with the back of her hand and tried to pull herself together.
‘Dimma will get over it,’ Jón said at last, helping himself to ham.
‘She won’t get over it, Jón,’ Hulda replied sharply, momentarily forgetting her mother’s presence. ‘She won’t get over it. The instant Christmas is over, we need to talk to a doctor or a psychologist or something. I won’t listen to any more excuses.’
Embarrassed, Jón glanced first at his mother-in-law, then at Hulda: ‘I don’t believe that will solve anything, but now’s not the moment. We’ll discuss it later, love.’
XXIII
Erla grabbed the door handle with both hands. Thank God, it wa
s unlocked, as always, since there had never been anything to fear in this remote, peaceful spot …
Opening it, she almost threw herself inside, over the threshold, into the house.
Home and dry.
All she had to do now was lock the door. She could do that by clicking the latch before she closed it. She had to act quickly. But that meant turning round and facing the unseen terror behind her.
She snatched a glance over her shoulder, but Leó was nowhere to be seen.
It took all her willpower to force her numb, white fingers to obey, but after a moment the lock clicked. Then, just as she was about to slam the door shut, she caught sight of him.
He was coming all right – she could make out his shape through the driving sheets of snow – but he was further away than she had expected. This meant she had time to pause for a second look. It was odd, but there was no doubt about it: he was walking, not running. Although he was drawing inexorably closer, he didn’t seem to be in any hurry.
The realization overwhelmed her with dread. She slammed the door with all her might, testing it to check it was definitely locked, then heaved a deep sigh of relief, feeling safe at last.
Why the hell wasn’t he hurrying?
What did he know that she didn’t? That Einar wouldn’t be coming to her rescue?
Still panting, she shouted out Einar’s name, then caught her breath, trembling with reaction, trying to slow her frantically beating heart and think rationally.
The windows – they were all shut, weren’t they? Yes, they must be, in this weather. And anyway, she doubted Leó would be able to squeeze in through any of them, as they were all so small.
The back door?
She dashed through the sitting room and along the dark passage, her arms outstretched to avoid colliding with the walls.
It was locked.
Almost sobbing with relief, she leaned against the wall, briefly closing her eyes. Now that she was safe she became aware of how cold she was, her whole body racked with shivers.
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