The Glass Woman

by Caroline Lea

  ‘Why –’

  He holds up a hand. ‘You said your mamma is well? She enjoys the meat I send? No need to thank me again. It is easy to be generous to such an obedient wife.’

  Her mouth hangs open. He presses his fingers under her chin and she hears the soft click of her teeth.

  He smiles coldly. ‘This way.’ He takes her hand and pulls her to the pantry, crammed with barrels of skyr, and the storeroom, rafters weighted with drying cod.

  ‘I will teach you how to gut and dry the fish, Rósa. And we are harvesting the hay now. Can you use a scythe?’

  She nods, imagining the gasp of the grass as the scythe slices through it.

  ‘Good,’ he says. ‘You will help us, once you have brought dagverður.’

  She nods again, her jaw aching. The list of tasks is dizzying: washing, cooking, cleaning, mending, gutting, reaping. And those locked rooms up the ladder . . . Exhaustion threatens to engulf her.

  Jón continues: ‘We also have a barn, and a pit-house for storing fishing and farming equipment. It is kept locked. Stay away from it.’ When her eyes widen, he adds, ‘I lock it against cord thieves. Besides, many of the tools are sharp.’ His hand upon her shoulder is heavy; he squeezes. ‘We are far away from the other crofts – no one would hear you cry out, if you were bleeding.’ His face is impassive, as if he is talking about the weather.

  She forces herself to nod. She feels like a marionette she had once seen in a trader’s cart, with no voice of her own, only the ability to nod or shake her head, senselessly, as her master dictates.

  Jón loosens his grip on her shoulder. His tone is suddenly brisk. ‘You will sweep every morning. You will bring food – dagverður at noon, and nattverður after sunset. Pétur and I take our meals in the fields or upon the boat.’

  Her legs are trembling. ‘Will you eat in the croft today?’

  ‘The hay needs harvesting but we will eat together now.’

  She shivers and tugs her shawl around her shoulders. ‘I am not hungry.’

  ‘You will eat now. With me.’ A muscle pulses in his jaw. ‘Tomorrow you will bring dagverður to the summer field, on the hill. Simply cross the stream behind the croft and follow the track.’

  ‘And am I to take my other meals . . .?’

  ‘As you wish.’

  Alone, then. She draws a shuddering breath and thinks of Mamma. Of Páll. She knots her fingers together to keep her hands steady. ‘I want to . . . please you.’

  ‘Do as I tell you, and I will be pleased.’ For a moment, it seems he might lean across and kiss her, but instead he takes her hand and presses his lips to the palm. His mouth is hot and wet.

  She resists the urge to snatch it away, then turns to cut thick slices of the dark rye bread while he watches. She can hear him breathing. Her heartbeat thuds in her throat.

  They sit and eat in silence – Jón watches her every mouthful. The bread is like ash on Rósa’s tongue; she nearly retches, but forces herself to swallow. Jón rips into his bread and chews methodically, devouring three chunks. While he is still finishing his last mouthful, he rises, wipes his hands on his tunic and says, ‘I will return late. Do not wait for me. You will sleep when it is dark. You must care well for yourself. Your life is important, now you are my wife.’

  Then he turns and walks out the door.

  Once the sound of his footsteps has faded, she leans her head on the low table. The wood is reassuringly solid. She closes her eyes and clenches her teeth to stifle her tears. Her husband is a good man: everyone tells her so. And yet, when he collects his scythe, he walks down the path to the barn, not towards the pit-house, where he had claimed his sharp tools were kept.

  For a moment, Mamma’s voice is as clear as if she were standing at her shoulder. Foolish girl, what did you expect? What would Páll have said about her husband? He would have made some joke, but she cannot summon his voice, can barely imagine his face. His features are blurred; he belongs to another life.

  She touches the glass woman at her neck. If she had seen another woman with such a prize, Rósa would have imagined her husband must love her very much.

  Rósa sighs and presses the cold glass to her forehead. Her skin burns.

  She sits in the kitchen and watches the shadows shift as the sun drops in the sky. Her muscles are rigid and her legs ache from the enforced stillness but, somehow, she cannot bring herself to move. It is as if a thousand eyes are watching her, as if the weight of Jón’s hand is still on her shoulder.

  Eventually a grainy grey dimness seeps into the croft. What if Jón returns after all? What if he wants to share her bed? She clutches her tunic with both hands and presses it against her legs, as if she could seal herself off.

  The shadows press in on her. She hears a footstep behind her, jumps and whirls around. No one is there. She is alone, still. Outside, the wind scrabbles against the walls of the croft and, in the distance, the sea sighs. It is as if the rest of the world has ceased to exist. Her eyes burn from straining to peer into the gloom and she forces herself to stand and light a candle. The flame makes the darkness leap up and, for a moment, Rósa is convinced she sees a pale face in the corner, staring at her. She gasps and nearly drops the candle, but when she looks more closely, the shape is not a face but a rolled-up blanket.

  She pulls it around her shoulders. Still, her muscles will not stop shaking.

  As she tugs the blanket tighter, Rósa’s fingers brush against something dry and crisp. She holds the candle close to the blanket and sees, caught in the weave of the fabric, a tiny brittle head of latch herb, tied to a thread.

  Surely not . . . Not here. She peers more closely. Definitely latch herb. If it was dried in the shadows, then tied to a silken thread to be worn around the neck, it would open any locked door. But the very existence of such a necklace would be enough to raise an accusation of witchcraft.

  Again Rósa hears a footstep behind her and whips around, stuffing the blanket and the herb beneath the kitchen bench. But, once again, there is only darkness and the wind. She retrieves the blanket and carefully pulls the latch herb free. Thinking of the loft and the pit-house, she puts it into her pocket. But then her hand brushes against Pabbi’s wooden cross. She draws the herb out again and rips the leaves from the stalk, then throws it into the glowing embers of the hloðir.

  When she brushes the hair back from her face, her cheeks are wet, although she doesn’t know when she began to weep.

  Exhausted, she sits at the table and waits for her husband to return.

  When she wakes, it is morning; the croft is hushed and still. She blinks and rubs her eyes, then springs upright. Had Jón returned and found her asleep? He will be furious.

  She hurries through the kitchen and out onto the hill. There, coming up from the pit-house, are Pétur and Jón. She drops her gaze to the ground and curtsies.

  He takes her hand and pulls her upright. ‘You look tired, Rósa. I told you to rest.’

  ‘I . . . I rested,’ she whispers, not daring to ask where he slept.

  ‘Bring our food to the field today. Don’t forget your other duties.’

  She nods, remembering the endless list of tasks.

  ‘Come, Pétur,’ he says, and they turn and walk back down the hill.

  After the men have disappeared from sight, Rósa trudges back to the croft and allows her fixed smile to fade. Her cheeks ache.

  ‘Courage, Rósa.’ Her words hang on the empty air like dust motes.

  The croft creaks in the wind. She peers into the dark recesses of the baðstofa, to where the ladder stretches up into the yawning space above. Then she remembers Jón’s hand on the back of her neck, warm and weighty. She shakes her head and turns back to the kitchen.

  She hacks four chunks of the dense, hard bread, and spreads each piece thickly with some grease from the storeroom, which she thinks is rancid butter, but when she touches it experimentally with her tongue, it tastes fishy.

  Whale fat.

  She recoils and inves
tigates the other shelves of the storeroom. Mostly dried fish and strips of dried mutton, but there are some bowls of skyr and a jug of beer. She also finds a leg of smoked mutton. She cuts thick chunks of meat from the bone and lays them on the bread: white fat, glistening jelly and all.

  She loads everything into a wooden pail, but the little package looks a pitiful amount for two grown men. She cuts more bread and layers it with skyr.

  Still not enough.

  Perhaps if she can impress Jón, he will not scowl at her so. She rummages through the storeroom until she finds a pot of something solid and yellow. Again, it looks like butter which has melted and solidified. She shaves a little off with the knife and lets it dissolve on her tongue. It tastes like sunlight. She has to stop herself gorging on it in great spoonfuls. She has read of honey being exchanged illegally – any trade must be done with the Danish alone – although she has never tasted it before. She slathers it generously on the last two pieces of bread.

  Then she wipes the board clean and stands in the squeezing silence, tapping her knife against her teeth. The sun isn’t quite at its zenith; she has some time. A slippery newborn curiosity pulls her into the baðstofa.

  The beds are large, but the blankets are made of the same thick wool as those in Skálholt. She holds a blanket to her face and inhales.

  Could she leave now? Take one of the horses and ride home before the snows? But no. She would be returning to watch Mamma starve and sicken and die. Rósa bites her lip until she tastes blood.

  She perches on the edge of the biggest bed, then lies down. Her marital bed. Again, that urge to run. She closes her eyes and exhales into the smothering silence, then turns to look at the wall, wondering if Anna had stared at the same boards. Had she felt scared too? She shifts closer to the wood, traces the outline of the grain, runs her fingers over the whorls. As she moves, she hears a rustling sound, as if her weight has moved something under the mattress. She lifts the corner and sees that, underneath, there is a sheet of paper with a large, looping sign on it. She reaches out for it, disbelieving. But, yes, it is written on the paper: the runic symbol for assistance . . . a cry for help. Rósa studies it, her thoughts whirling.

  Why?

  Suddenly the wood above her head creaks – as if under the pressure of a moving body.

  She bolts upright and stuffs the paper back under the mattress, her heart vaulting in her chest. ‘Who’s there?’

  The floorboard creaks again. Rósa strides to the base of the ladder. ‘Hello?’

  A yawning square of darkness stares back, unblinking.

  Nothing. No one. Silence.

  Blood beating in her ears, she climbs. The black mouth swallows her, and she can see only shadows. She leans in close: a bulky metal bar is attached to the door handle, as if in warning.

  She pushes on it but it doesn’t move. She shoves her shoulder against it, heaving with all her weight, but the door might as well be a rock. When she presses her ear to the wood, it is warm – as if it is still part of some living, breathing life from a far-off land, where trees creak in the breeze.

  Then she hears the whispered whistle of a breath, carefully repressed.

  She scrambles down the ladder, falling over the last rungs and scraping her knees – one of her stockings rips, but she ignores it. She runs through the baðstofa and tumbles into the warmth of the kitchen, where she stands, doubled over and gasping for air. As her heartbeat slows and her breathing steadies, the silence of the croft closes in on her once more. No sound from above.

  Fool! She scolds herself and tries to laugh, but her mouth trembles and the sound emerges as a sob.

  Then something on the floor catches her eye: mixed with the dirt and the straw there are some wisps of blonde hair, fine as a spider’s silk. Rósa picks them up and twists them between her fingers. The hairs are long and straight; she brings them close to her face. They are stained with a brownish rust, which flakes off onto her fingers.

  Blood.

  Rósa recoils and throws the hair into the hloðir, where she had stuffed the latch herb the night before. She is pushing it into the flames with the iron poker when she hears it again: a breath or a whisper behind her. She drops the poker, which clatters onto the floor, but Rósa doesn’t care.

  She snatches up the basket of food and runs towards the fields, not daring to look over her shoulder. There is a moving, breathing creature in the croft. A rat, perhaps. But a rat heavy enough to make the boards creak?

  Seabirds wheel and scream overhead. Rósa shakes her head. She must have imagined the noises in the croft: her tired brain has conjured sounds from thin air.

  She squeezes the glass woman for comfort. It is cold and bloodless.

  Gradually, her breathing slows. She focuses on the rippling musculature of the fields, the protuberant bones of the mountains and the blank gaze of the sky.

  Down at the bottom of the hill, the little village buzzes with life. Women bustle back and forth between crofts, calling to each other; two men are holding a sheep between them and attempting to tether it. The animal bucks and both men fall; a watching child roars with laughter, then runs away when the men shout and raise their open palms in threat. But then the child stops and points. Straight up the hill. Directly at Rósa. And, one by one, like flowers turning to the sun, the villagers angle their pale faces to stare at her.

  Rósa lifts a hand in greeting.

  As one, every single villager turns away and resumes their tasks. Not one person even glances back at her. It is as if she has been transformed into some mountain spirit.

  Then there is a shout from her left. Rósa jumps and turns.

  Two women stand on the path, skirts snapping in the wind, hands raised in greeting. They smile and Rósa’s stomach unclenches. She must have imagined the villagers’ strange behaviour.

  One of the women before her is white-haired beneath her cap, and leans heavily on the arm of the other, who is, Rósa sees, also well past youth: she has a smattering of silver in her hair, but she is tall and broad, and there is a bright intensity to her gaze.

  ‘Sæl og blessuð!’ she calls. Her voice is light, sing-song.

  ‘Sælar og blessaðar,’ Rósa replies.

  The old woman mumbles, ‘Blessuð.’ She has a face like rumpled knitting and her mouth is a badly darned sock, the slash of lips barely visible.

  The younger woman beams. ‘I am Katrín Sigúrdsdóttir. This is Gudrun Pétursdóttir. You are Rósa?’

  Katrín has very light blue eyes, which could make her look hard and cold, but an open smile softens her face.

  ‘Yes. Rósa Magnúsdóttir.’ She smiles shyly. ‘I arrived only yesterday.’

  ‘Was the journey hard?’

  ‘It was long and I am a little tired.’ Rósa reminds herself that she mustn’t seem too morose. She gestures at the mountains and the sea. ‘It is so beautiful here.’

  As if she is half a field away, Gudrun shouts, ‘You’re very young, child. Thin too.’ She turns to Katrín. ‘The girl looks as if a strong gust will carry her away. But Anna was thin also. Jón likes ’em all bones beneath –’

  ‘Gudrun!’ Katrín snaps.

  Gudrun’s mouth twists sourly and she mutters something incomprehensible.

  There is an awkward silence, which Rósa breaks. ‘I am twenty-five.’

  ‘Twenty-five and not married until now? But you are not particularly ugly, although my eyes are cloudy. Is she very ugly, Katrín?’

  Katrín tuts. ‘Not at all. Forgive Gudrun. She thinks that each winter she survives grants her the right to be even ruder.’

  Gudrun grunts. ‘I say what every soul will be thinking.’

  ‘Remember that those appear wisest who stay silent.’ To Rósa, Katrín murmurs, ‘Gudrun likes to stir the pot. If you ignore her, she’ll lose interest.’

  Gudrun shouts, ‘Stop mumbling, Katrín!’

  ‘She is also a little deaf. So you may say anything you please about her, as long as you whisper.’

&nbs
p; Rósa smothers a giggle. ‘Forgive me, but I must take this food to Jón.’

  ‘Are you not going to welcome us into the croft?’ Gudrun cries. To Katrín, she mutters, ‘I thought this one might be different.’

  Katrín says, ‘For pity’s sake, Gudrun, hush. Perhaps we may visit when Jón is fishing.’

  Rósa’s chest tightens. ‘He does not like people in the croft?’

  Katrín’s eyes are suddenly anxious, as if she is trying to warn Rósa of something. ‘He likes to keep his home private.’ She reaches out and squeezes Rósa’s arm – Rósa could almost weep at the sympathy in that touch, the feeling of being unexpectedly understood.

  Katrín looks at her through narrowed eyes, as though reading her thoughts. ‘You haven’t looked after a croft yourself before? No time for rest.’

  Rósa’s throat aches too much for words. She nods.

  Katrín smiles. ‘You must come to the village and bring your mending. We often knit together, while the men are out on the sea or in the fields.’

  ‘Jón won’t like that either,’ grumbles Gudrun. ‘And shouldn’t you be staying away from the wife this time, Katrín?’

  Katrín glances sideways at the older woman, then mutters to Rósa, fast and low, ‘You must come and find me, if you notice anything strange. Promise you will do that. There is darkness in being alone here.’

  Rósa backs away from what sounds almost like a threat.

  Suddenly Katrín freezes: her eyes are fixed on the glass woman at Rósa’s throat. Her mouth hangs open, as if someone has struck her. Rósa tucks away the ornament.

  Gudrun snorts suddenly, breaking the silence. ‘Well, at least if you read and write, you won’t cause trouble by scrawling on stones like An–’

  ‘Did Pétur bring you here?’ Katrín cries, falsely bright.

  Rósa nods, but instinctively clutches the runestone in her pocket.

  Gudrun leans in close. ‘Egill grieves that he could not tame Pétur, but I have told him many a time, you cannot break the devil.’

  ‘I do not think Rósa needs to hear –’

  ‘Put Pétur before the Althing and have him strung up, I say. He’s a violent beast. Why Egill should still care for him, after everything –’