by Kim Wilkins
“I don’t know. Do you?”
“No. I don’t believe in anything.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Nothing I can’t experience with my own five senses. Nothing like God, or ghosts, or mind reading, or reincarnation.”
“What if you experienced one of those things with your own five senses?” he asked. “What if you saw God, or felt the touch of a ghost, or read somebody’s mind?”
“It’s never happened.”
“But if it did.”
A soft breeze caressed my face as I considered this. I tasted salt faintly.
“Then I’d reevaluate,” I replied. Strangely, I wasn’t irritated with him for pushing this point, nor was I disappointed that he hadn’t sided with my skepticism.
“I don’t think you would reconsider,” he said.
“Why do you think that?”
“Because I think you’ve already experienced something with your senses that is inexplicable, and you still hold that you believe in nothing.”
A frost of fear stole over my skin. “What do you mean?”
“Skripi,” he said.
“Oh, that.”
“Did he look as though his hair was made of twigs?” he asked, breaking off a twig to hold in front of me. “Were his hands and fingers pointed and pale? Were his eyes the oily black of a forest creature’s?”
“Yes,” I managed to gasp. “How did you know?”
“He’s a forest wight, I imagine,” Vidar said. “I know the lore of these parts. Forest wights are common in the local tales.”
I snapped my fingers. “That explains it. I must have seen something on television or in a book, perhaps when I was a child. If it’s a common tale, I’m more likely to have heard of it. And heard his name.” I was very satisfied with myself for reaching this conclusion, and it took me a few moments to realize that Vidar had been trying to prove quite a different point. “Sorry,” I said, “but I’m a fundamentalist atheist.”
“Never mind,” he said, not sounding troubled in the least.
We weaved through the dark trees, among the shadows, surrounded by the smell of pine needles and salt. Occasionally my arm would brush his, raising electricity. The cold sky above was indifferent to us, the last two souls for miles and miles.
“You believe in supernatural things then?” I asked.
“I have seen many strange things.”
“Like what?”
“They’re all tales for another time. You answered only one-half of my question earlier. Why are you here? Here with me?”
The question caught me off my guard and I lost my footing, stumbled, then quickly righted myself.
“Are you all right?” he asked, his hand under my elbow. We had come to a stop, facing each other in the shadowy forest. I looked up at him, he looked down at me. The breeze lifted his hair, and his eyes glittered in the dark. “Victoria?”
“Yes, I’m fine,” I said, finding my tongue. “I’m here because you intrigue me.”
“I do?”
“Yes. It’s completely out of character for me . . . I should warn you of that, so you don’t think I’m something I’m not.”
“I know you well enough,” he said, so softly the murmur of the wind in the treetops almost drowned it out.
A magical feeling stole over me, a feeling of anything being possible. I thought he was going to kiss me, but he stepped back gently, his fingers lingering, then grazing my elbow. I shivered.
“You’re cold,” he said. “We’ll head back to the fire.”
“I don’t mind,” I said, but he was already leading the way. I walked next to him in silence and we passed the instrument field. Magnus’s red flags were invisible in the dark. The anvil-shaped rock was ghostly among the shadows. The conviction that something bad had happened there walked my spine once more.
“We’re doing research in here,” I said, signaling around.
“In here?” There was a frown in his voice.
“To be honest, the place gives me a bad feeling.”
“Perhaps it’s a bad place.”
“Remember? Fundamentalist atheist?” I said dismissively.
“Of course.” Vidar was laughing as we moved on. “I’m sure it’s a perfectly ordinary clearing in a perfectly ordinary forest on a perfectly ordinary island.”
“Everything’s perfectly ordinary once you look at it closely,” I said, jolted by how sad that was. At the moment Vidar seemed like a romantic hero, but I expected that any prolonged contact with him would eventually reveal all his ordinariness. “Except the weather,” I added softly.
“Ah, the weather. You know, once people believed that the gods controlled the elements.”
“And that the earth was flat, and that hysteria was caused by a woman’s womb moving about the body.”
“You mean it’s not?” I caught a glimpse of his smile.
I laughed. “No. And I should know, because of the hysteria I worked myself into the last few days.” The glow of the fire was visible again. I felt anxious and disappointed. I wanted him to kiss me, but he hadn’t taken advantage of the perfect moment. Did that mean he didn’t want to kiss me? “Vidar,” I said, “how long are you staying on the island?”
“I can’t say.”
“I think I know how you got here,” I ventured, thinking of my theory that somebody had dropped him off over at the beach.
“You don’t,” he said. “I can’t answer any more questions.”
“You’re being so enigmatic,” I teased.
He turned to me, the fire lit his face. His eyes were intense, his mouth firm. “I’m not doing it to entertain myself, Victoria. I really can’t tell you, not without risking . . . everything.”
The rebuke had been gentle, but still stung. “I’m sorry.” I scooped up my anorak. “I should go.”
“Victoria, don’t be angry with me,” he said, and his voice was imbued with sorrow and tenderness and it reminded me of something . . . something wonderful and just out of grasp of my memory. He picked up the Thermos and cups and handed them to me. “But you should go. You should get some sleep.”
“Not likely. I’ve got to send a balloon up at eleven.” I checked my watch. I didn’t want to go back to my cabin and sit there longing for him. “Let me stay until then.”
He motioned that I should sit down. “Certainly, I’d be delighted if you stayed. You can tell me all about your mother.”
So I shared with him some of my favorite Beverly Scott stories, and it was nice to sit and talk and laugh by the firelight. But it was odd, too, because the conversation was so one-sided. I didn’t dare ask him to repay me in stories about his troubled relationship with his father, and as I became more and more open to him, he became even more mysterious by contrast.
Finally, it came time for me to go. I tried not to look reluctant as I packed up my things. I still hoped he might kiss me. I had that fluttery first-date feeling. But he busied himself with the fire as I hovered uncertainly nearby, waiting for him to say good night.
“Good night, Victoria,” he said at last, glancing up from the fire. A strand of hair fell over his eyes.
“Come by for lunch again tomorrow,” I said. “I’ll cook for you.”
“I can’t. It wouldn’t be right.”
“I won’t tell anyone.”
“I don’t feel comfortable over at the station,” he said. “I’m sorry. But you have the map, you know where I am camped. If you wish to see me again . . . I’ll leave it to you to find me.”
“I’ll find you,” I said quietly.
He gave no indication he had heard. “Good night, Victoria.”
“Good night.”
All of my work the following day was impossibly mundane, devised by insipid morons for profoundly unexciting purposes. Despite his avowals, I still held out hope that Vidar might turn up at the rec hall for lunch. He didn’t. Time dragged. Clouds blew in and I worried about rain ruining my plans to sit by his fireside and be brave enough to k
iss him.
No rain fell, twilight came. This time he was lying beside the fire, staring up at the sky. “I heard you coming,” he said. “You’d never make a good hunter.”
“I’ve never wanted to be one.”
He pulled himself up and grabbed my hand. “Come,” he said.
“Where? I brought dinner.”
“We’ll have it later. Leave it here.” He smiled, and his bright mood was a contrast to the previous night’s intensity. “Come, I’ll show you how to be as silent as a hunter.”
I was swept up in his enthusiasm and let him lead me beyond the firelight into the dark forest.
“First,” he said, “you have to balance your body on your feet. Your weight can’t be any greater on one part than another.”
“Like ballet,” I said, remembering lessons I took as a child.
“Your feet have to be as sensitive as your hands,” he said. “If you were feeling around on the forest floor with your fingers, you’d be able to avoid loose rocks that click, or sticks that might crack.”
“Should I take my shoes off?”
“No, because you need your feet to be protected if you run.”
“Then how . . . ?”
“It’s practice. Go on, take a step and don’t put any weight on your foot until you’ve felt the ground beneath you.”
I did what he said, and a stick broke with a loud pop.
“Oops,” I said.
“And if you do make a noise, you have to disguise it.” He crouched and grabbed a rock the size of a fist and sent it skittering along the ground. It sounded exactly like the footsteps of an animal running away.
“That’s amazing.”
“I’ll show you.”
For the next half hour Vidar had me practice silent steps and animal impersonations. I’d never been the outdoorsy type, so I was surprised by how much fun we had. The dark and shadows made it thrilling; Vidar was by turns patient and playful. Finally, he stretched his arms over his head in a tired gesture.
“Practice it when you can,” he said. “You’ll become good at it very quickly. You’re graceful.”
I felt a rush of pleasure. It was perhaps the only spoken confirmation I had from him that he might be attracted to me. “I will,” I said, “but I don’t think I’d ever hunt. I prefer my meat already dead. It takes the guilt out of it.”
He smiled. “It’s useful for hiding as well as hunting,” he said. “Now, stand here a moment. Let me show you how quiet I can be.”
I laughed. “Why?”
“Because I want to show you. Because it’s something I’m proud of.” He squared up my shoulders, and said, “Stand here, and close your eyes.”
I did as he asked and waited for him to leave. I didn’t sense him move, so after about ten seconds I opened my eyes.
He was gone.
“Vidar?” I called, still amused but also a little disturbed. I strained my ears, but could only hear the sounds of the forest, the breeze and the sea in the distance. I turned to look around me. Was that him over to my left, a shadow among shadows? I felt very alone, deserted in an empty place. I peered into the gloom, toward the movement I thought might be him. “Vidar? Is that you?”
A hand grasped my right shoulder and I shrieked before I could check myself.
“Sorry,” he said gently, “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
I laughed loudly. “God, I nearly wet myself.” I instantly regretted saying that, but he was laughing too and it was a lovely sound, warm and humble.
He backed off and gestured toward his campsite. “It grows cold,” he said.
We returned to the fireside to eat, then he sat cross-legged while I lay on my side on the folded quilt. The flames were hot and bright; I felt mellow and besotted. That ache of desire had returned, the space between us grew magnetized. We were silent for a few moments, considering each other in the firelight.
“How much longer will you be alone here?” he asked.
“Until tomorrow,” I said.
“Tomorrow?”
“The Jonsok comes back. The rest of the staff will be on it. Don’t worry,” I said, “I won’t tell them about you.”
“I’m not worried. Not about that.”
More silence. I locked my gaze on his and was certain that I saw in his black eyes the echo of my own desire. I rose and started across the space between us.
He dropped his gaze and said, gently, “Victoria, it grows late.”
“But I—”
“You should go.”
This was hellishly embarrassing. I hovered in the seasick space between him and where I should have remained. “Yes,” I said meekly, “it’s late and you’re right. I should get back for the . . . balloon . . .”
“Good night,” he said. His voice was infinitely tender, giving me pause.
“Good night,” I said, making myself busy packing up the Thermos and cups. “I’ll see you soon.”
“Good night,” he repeated, and he seemed forlorn and uncertain and even afraid to be alone. “Good night, Victoria.”
I went back to my cabin, my face hot with embarrassment and my mind in a turmoil of incomprehension. I had misread him somehow. I had failed to understand some nuance in his words or actions. I had been certain that he was falling for me, but I was wrong. Or was I? Perhaps he was married, or engaged to somebody back home. Perhaps that’s what he was running from. And now he had met me and wanted me instead and . . .
I checked myself. I would ask him the next day. No matter how embarrassing it proved to be, I would ask him what barrier existed for us, because I knew that he felt as I did.
So, the following morning, I psyched myself up, rehearsed a speech, put on a little too much mascara. I wound my way through the woods toward his campsite, tense and uncertain. I found his fire, extinguished now. I found the linen I had loaned him, folded neatly. I found Gunnar’s clothes, washed and hung over a tree branch to dry.
My heart fell all the way to the forest floor.
I crouched to pick up the linen. A wooden carving lay on top, about as big as my hand. It looked like one of those Viking carvings, a bird curled over on itself to grasp its feet in its beak. Vidar had said he was a woodworker and I wondered if he had carved this himself, for me. Nobody had ever made me anything.
I noticed a black smudge on my finger and looked closely at the carving. Around the edge, written in charcoal, was one word.
“Good-bye.”
Twelve
A quarter of an hour before the Jonsok was due to arrive, I pulled on warm clothes and wheeled the pallet down to the jetty to wait. I sat on the rough wood and breathed the clear air. The water of Hvítahofud Fjord was very still and very dark and very deep, like the calm eye of a stern parent. The sky was the color of slate, and periodically a gust of wind and a shower of drops would buffet me. I pulled up my hood and curled my fingers into my gloves and watched the space between the two tall cliffs where the supply boat would eventually appear.
It was just as well that Vidar was gone, I told myself. It was a good thing, because hadn’t I come here, to this remote place, to escape from matters of the heart? Wasn’t the whole idea to give myself some breathing space after the twin disasters of Patrick and Adam? In daylight, grey though it was, memories of Vidar grew mysterious. His black eyes and his soft voice in the dark; his refusal to speak of himself; the odd clothes he had been wearing when we first met. He was too enigmatic, simmering with secrets and contradictions and tensions. I needed none of it. I wanted none of it.
Despite all this rationalizing, I had never ached like this for someone before. It was all-consuming and it hurt all over my rib cage, made me want to cry and close my eyes and think of nothing but him, but I couldn’t succumb to those feelings because I wasn’t a teenager anymore. I was a grown woman with two degrees and boundless common sense and many responsibilities. So I sat in the cold and waited for company, for conversations and jokes and bottles of wine to take my mind off the strangest week o
f my life.
It was with an odd mix of relief and disappointment that I finally spied the boat in the distance, a white dot against grey sea. As it motored up to the jetty, I calculated its lateness as a percentage of the total journey and wondered why I hadn’t done a single sum while in Vidar’s company. I climbed to my feet and stretched. Gunnar was on the deck, waving to me. I waved back, forcing a smile. The boat docked and the sailors tied it off and brought down the gangplank. They loaded our supplies onto the pallet. Maryanne charged down the gangplank in a huff. Magnus rolled his eyes at me and made no movement to catch up to her. I figured their new romance had foundered. Magnus turned and called belowdecks, and two children—a boy and a girl—came up, all agog and dressed in warm coats.
“Victoria, meet Matthias and Nina,” Magnus said, introducing them one at a time.
“Hi, nice to meet you,” I said, offering what I thought was a child-friendly smile.
“They’re a bit wary of speaking English,” Magnus told me, when the children had worn speechless blank expressions for longer than was comfortable. “They’re here for a week, hopefully to improve their English if you wouldn’t mind helping them.”
“Um . . . I suppose not,” I said, and thought about saying my one much-practiced Norwegian phrase, but changed my mind when I spied Frida.
“Magnus, I found your pen.”
“Mmm, good.”
Magnus said something to the children and they ran off down the jetty shouting to each other, Magnus trailing them. Carsten and Frida got off together and I noticed a shiny new ring on her engagement finger. Josef, Gordon and Alex were arguing with one of the sailors over his rough handling of a carton of “expensive Swiss brandy.” Gunnar ambled down the gangplank and I thought he might give me a hug so I turned my shoulder and pretended I was watching Maryanne run away from Magnus and his children.
“All is not well,” I said.
“They had a fight when we were boarding at Ålesund. It’s been a long ten hours.” He touched my shoulder lightly. “How are you?”
I shook my head. “I’m . . . I can’t even describe it. I suppose I’m all right. It’s been a very strange week.”