The Girl Who Died

by Ragnar Jónasson

  The attic flat wasn’t bad at all, she told herself firmly. It was small, with a sloping ceiling, but snug nonetheless, and although the house was old, it was in good condition and she had everything she needed up there: bedroom, living room, kitchen and bathroom. And it was possible to leave the house without having to go through Salka’s rooms.

  Perhaps that was what she needed to help herself unwind; to go outside, confront the darkness and fill her lungs with fresh air – that pure sea air that was supposed to be so healthy, far from the pollution in town. And if anywhere could be considered out ‘in the sticks’, it was surely this little village, located as far from the capital as you could get without dropping off the edge of Iceland.

  She got out of bed, feeling dog-tired but not letting that get in the way of her plan. Once she’d stretched her legs a little she was bound to feel sleepy. Slipping out of her nightie, she pulled on jeans, a white jumper and her thick coat, then tiptoed out of the door and down the stairs, along the hall to the back door.

  Una hesitated briefly, experiencing a moment’s trepidation before she opened the door. It was her first night in a new place. All she needed, she told herself, was to breathe in the atmosphere and clear her head a little.

  Outside she was met by the chill of a late-summer night. There was a light breeze coming off the sea, which seemed to have blown away the fog. The rain had stopped and the little settlement was engulfed in darkness. It was past midnight of course, but only now did Una notice that there were no streetlights. Apart from the outside lights twinkling here and there on the houses, the surrounding blackness was almost complete.

  Una found it oddly unsettling. Although not usually afraid of the dark, she felt suddenly vulnerable, as if anything could happen to her in the gloom. She started walking down towards the sea, passing the church and two houses, telling herself briskly that there was nothing to be afraid of. This was a peaceful little community and no one was going to jump out at her from a dark alleyway. The very idea was absurd. However unnerving the blackness might feel, she was unquestionably safer here, alone in the middle of the night, than she would have been in the brightly lit centre of Reykjavík.

  Once down on the beach, Una was lulled by the tranquillity into a calmer frame of mind. She listened to the sighing of the unseen waves as she inhaled the briny smell of the sea and tried to persuade herself that she had made the right decision, that this move was going to change her life for the better.

  After a minute or two, she turned up towards the building containing the Co-op, intending to walk there, then back to Salka’s house next door. It was hard to see where she was going and she kept missing the gravel path and stumbling into long grass. If it hadn’t been for the outside lights on a few of the houses, she wouldn’t have been able to make out a thing. There seemed to be the odd derelict building here and there among the inhabited ones and she was unnerved by the empty doorways and windows, which formed gaping black holes in the walls.

  A bird flew up out of a tussock right in front of her, giving her the shock of her life and making her gasp. Next moment she had almost collided with another person. Her heart lurched and in an instant of panic she thought she’d seen a ghost, though of course she didn’t believe in ghosts. She recoiled, peering at the shadowy figure, which seemed unreal, as if the darkness had taken on material form.

  ‘Sorry,’ said a man’s voice. ‘Sorry, I didn’t see you.’

  She took another step backwards and, mastering her own voice, said: ‘That’s OK, I didn’t see you either. I was just …’ She was about to apologize and explain that she was just going for a walk when she checked the impulse. She didn’t owe him an explanation and, anyway, it was obvious.

  She strained her eyes in an effort to see the man. He turned a little and the outside light on one of the houses dimly picked out his face, revealing that he was thickly bearded and wearing a woollen cap over his hair. Although she could make out little more of his features than the gleam of his eyes, Una sensed that he didn’t pose any threat. Once she’d recovered from her initial shock, she felt oddly as though she’d bumped into someone she knew, someone familiar and benign, though she couldn’t work out what had created this impression.

  ‘Anyway, I’m just on my way …’ he said, a little awkwardly, making as if to turn back.

  Acting fast, she held out her hand: ‘My name’s Una.’

  ‘Yes, sorry.’ He hesitated, then said: ‘I’m Thór.’ He shook her hand firmly. ‘Er, who are you?’

  ‘I’m the new teacher. I’ve just moved here from Reykjavík.’

  In the faint illumination she saw that he was smiling, an attractive smile. She guessed that he was a little older than her, perhaps in his mid-thirties. Una had turned thirty that spring, and had meant to hold a party for her friends but never got round to it. She had kept finding reasons to postpone it, pleading lack of money and time, but perhaps the truth was that she didn’t want to invite the girls round to her place. She had more or less stopped seeing them nowadays, except for Sara, of course. Nor was it a milestone she felt any particular desire to celebrate. Although she kept reminding herself that she was still young, it was a bit of a jolt to find herself entering her thirties.

  ‘Yes, so I heard.’ He still seemed reluctant to engage, as if he’d rather be somewhere else.

  Now that she was standing still, the cold began to penetrate her coat, but she ignored it, eager to spin out the encounter as long as possible.

  But before she could say anything in reply, he added: ‘I don’t really understand. Why on earth did you want to move to the back of beyond?’

  ‘Why not? I was fed up with the city and wanted to try living in the countryside for a change.’

  He was silent and she could sense his unspoken desire to get away. But eventually he replied: ‘Living in the countryside’s one thing, but living out here …’

  ‘What about you?’ she asked quickly. ‘What brought you here?’

  Again that hesitation, then he said: ‘I work on the farm up the hill. Have you been there yet? I live in the guesthouse and help out Hjördís, the woman who owns it.’

  Una shook her head. ‘No, I’ve literally just arrived this evening. I haven’t had time to look around yet.’

  ‘Well, to be honest, there’s not a lot to see.’

  ‘I was afraid of that,’ she said ruefully, wondering why she should feel instinctively at ease with him, despite his obvious reluctance to engage with her. ‘But I suppose I’ll just have to stick it out because I’ve taken a job here for the whole winter.’

  ‘Oh, it’s not that bad,’ he said, sounding a little embarrassed. ‘And you’ll have your teaching. That must be a great job.’

  ‘Oh, well, it’s not that bad,’ she said, deliberately echoing what he had said in an attempt to be funny.

  ‘I’ve always admired teachers.’ His teeth gleamed again in a smile.

  The way he said it, she wasn’t sure if he was just being polite or if there was a hint of flirtation there. Now it was her turn to feel embarrassed.

  ‘Anyway, I’d better get going,’ she said.

  ‘Sure. Good luck with settling in, Una. I hope you’ll be happy here.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, and opened her mouth to add some witty remark, but before she got a chance he was gone, striding away up the slope, presumably in the direction of the farm. She watched his vague outline retreating until he was swallowed up by the darkness.

  Afterwards she found herself wondering, ridiculously, if he had been a figment of her imagination. There had been something so dreamlike, so unreal about this unlooked-for encounter. Her first thought had been that she’d met a ghost, and now the thought returned and she shivered, trying to push it away. It was absurd. He had been flesh and blood all right. She wished they could have talked for longer, but no doubt there would be other chances to get to know him. In a village this tiny it would be impossible to avoid him. She realized she was looking forward with genuine eagerness
to their next encounter.

  VI

  She woke up drenched in sweat.

  Could she be coming down with something? A fever after her long drive? Then it came back to her: she’d had a dream, or a nightmare, rather.

  The girl in the white dress, who she had seen at the window, had appeared to her during the night. Salka’s daughter, Edda … She couldn’t quite remember her face, since the details had been vague and the dream was quickly fading from her consciousness; so intangible that it was more a sensation than a memory. The girl had been watching her through the window, just as she had earlier that evening, but this time Una had been on the inside and the girl had been outside in the darkness. She hadn’t spoken, at least not that Una could recall, but the experience had been deeply unsettling. It had felt as if the girl was summoning Una with her silence, trying to lure her outside, compelling her to leave the house and come to her.

  Even more disturbing, Una had felt drawn to obey, as if she had actively wanted to go with the girl out into the night, into the unknown. It had been cold too; she had felt an icy chill during the night, although it was quite warm in her bedroom now.

  Then the child had held up her hands with the palms facing outwards, as if to say: this far and no further. Una wondered if it had been a warning to leave the village; an omen that she should never have come there.

  She got out of her sweat-soaked bed. It was still dim in her room but when she switched on the light she saw from the clock that it was morning, although few would be awake yet. She would have liked to have slept for a couple more hours as she needed to be on the ball for the first day of her new job, but she was unlikely to drop off again now.

  She wondered if her dream had simply been a sign that she was tired from her journey and apprehensive about starting teaching, or whether it had been caused by something deeper in her consciousness; whether the fear that was always lurking inside her had reared up its head again.

  It left her with an ominous sense of dread that she couldn’t shake off.

  VII

  The tiredness was still there later that morning when Una entered the classroom, which wasn’t really a classroom so much as the dining room in Kolbrún’s house, which could be closed off with an old-fashioned sliding door to make an area where they could study undisturbed.

  The two girls, Kolbrún and Edda, were both sitting waiting for her. When Una saw Edda, her first thought was that she looked quite different by daylight, her features much clearer and her whole demeanour brighter and more animated than it had appeared when seen through the window the evening before.

  Una hadn’t brought any textbooks along for this first lesson, having decided to use the time to get to know her two pupils instead. With the dream still impinging on her thoughts, she found it all the more important to start by lightening the atmosphere, in the hope that this would take the edge off her lingering sense of unease.

  ‘Hello, girls. My name’s Una. I’ve just moved here from Reyk-javík and I’m going to be your teacher this winter.’

  Edda nodded, but Kolbrún’s face remained impassive.

  ‘I’ve been so looking forward to coming here and teaching you that I even dreamt about you last night.’ Una smiled. ‘Well, about Edda, anyway, because I met her briefly yesterday.’

  Edda frowned. ‘You didn’t meet me yesterday,’ she said flatly.

  Una smiled again. ‘I didn’t mean I literally met you, but I saw you when I arrived. You were standing at the downstairs window, remember?’

  ‘No. I didn’t see you,’ the girl insisted. ‘I always go to bed early.’

  ‘But your mother said …’ Una stopped herself; there was no call to get off on the wrong foot by arguing with her pupil, though the girl was obviously lying.

  ‘What are we going to learn today?’ Kolbrún asked.

  ‘I thought we’d just chat and get to know each other,’ Una said.

  She proceeded to tell them a bit about herself, then tried to encourage them to do the same. It proved much easier to persuade Edda to talk than Kolbrún. Edda was chatty and easy-going, like her mother, whereas Kolbrún said little, mostly answering questions with a monosyllabic ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

  Edda was quick to disappear at the end of the lesson, but Kolbrún remained sitting at the dining table, writing in her exercise book. She was tall for her age, with strong features and black hair, which she wore loose over her shoulders. Her expression was absorbed and she was bending over her book, lost in her own world. She had been scribbling on and off all morning, sometimes drawing, sometimes writing, as far as Una could see, though she had tried not to pry.

  ‘Thanks for today, Kolbrún,’ Una said, collecting up her things to leave. Of course, it was Kolbrún’s home, but Una found it a slightly odd feeling to leave the classroom before her pupil. ‘We’ll get going properly tomorrow.’

  Kolbrún didn’t react.

  ‘Were you happy with this morning’s session?’

  Kolbrún nodded without looking up, still focused on her exercise book.

  ‘What are you writing? A story?’

  After a pause, the girl muttered: ‘Yes.’

  ‘What’s it about?’

  This time the girl looked up and met Una’s eye, and there was no mistaking her expression: it was none of Una’s business what her story was about. Without a word, she lowered her gaze and carried on writing.

  ‘Well, see you tomorrow, then,’ Una said, with no expectation of a reply. She closed the door behind her and walked slowly across the hall, thinking. Just as she reached the front door, it opened.

  ‘Hello, Una.’ It was Kolbrún’s mother, Inga.

  Although Una had met her briefly that morning, she hadn’t had a proper chance to speak to her yet. Inga had made a rather forbidding first impression, with her dour face and remote gaze. Like her daughter, she was tall with black hair.

  ‘Have you finished already?’ Inga glanced at the clock, her mouth turning down with disapproval, then asked: ‘How did it go?’ But it didn’t sound as if she had any real interest in hearing.

  ‘It was great,’ Una replied, with a quick glance over her shoulder to make sure that the door was shut and Kolbrún couldn’t hear. ‘By the way, do the girls play together at all?’

  The question seemed to take Inga by surprise. ‘Play together? No, very little. Kolbrún prefers to spend her time with me and Kolbeinn. We’re a very close family.’ She stressed the last two words. ‘I really can’t imagine why Salka moved here with her daughter – a single mother bringing up a child like that.’ Again, she radiated disapproval. She stood there, blocking the doorway, her arms folded across her chest. ‘I must ask you to treat my daughter with respect. She’s used to being talked to like an adult; to being trusted.’

  ‘Of course,’ Una said, rather taken aback by this conversation. ‘I treat all children with respect.’

  ‘I don’t know what kind of children you were teaching in Reyk-javík, but my Kolbrún is highly intelligent. She needs to be challenged in her schoolwork.’ Inga tightened her lips, then added, as if compelled to: ‘Kolbeinn and I – our family – are moving away soon. We’re just looking for the right house.’

  ‘Oh, that’s good to hear,’ Una said, then realized it could be taken the wrong way.

  ‘Our house is on the market,’ Inga went on. ‘I’m not expecting it to sell, not immediately, but that’s not a precondition for moving. Not for us,’ she said, rather smugly.

  ‘Well, anyway, thanks for letting us use your house for our lessons.’

  Inga sniffed. ‘What else are we supposed to do? Though of course they ought to pay us something for the trouble. But, like I said, the arrangement’s only temporary, because we’ll be leaving soon.’ Although she didn’t smile, her eyes held a glint of satisfaction at the thought.

  She stepped aside. ‘See you later, Una.’

  VIII

  The note was lying on the kitchen table in the attic when Una got home after her second day of
teaching.

  Would you come round and see me at five.

  Gudfinnur

  It made her feel distinctly on edge. Partly, it was the fact someone had entered her flat without her permission. Of course, it wasn’t her house, or attic, but she still had a right to her privacy. And it occurred to her that Gudfinnur could have left it there himself; a complete stranger invading her space. It wouldn’t seem quite so bad if it turned out that it was Salka who had popped upstairs with the note.

  The message was clear: a full stop rather than a question mark. This was an order, not a request, and although Una was affronted by the high-handedness, she didn’t dare disobey. There was no doubt about who ran the show in Skálar, and common sense told her it was better to avoid falling out with the big man.

  Nevertheless, she made a brief detour on the way, as if asserting her independence, and scrambled down to the shore to breathe in the sea air and put herself in a better frame of mind for the coming encounter. The beach was covered in smooth, grey rocks, which were pleasing to the eye but difficult to walk on, and here and there she saw piles of bleached driftwood lying along the high-water mark. The truncated remains of an old concrete pier towered above her on one side, while beyond it she could see a modern jetty, but no sign of any boats. Sunlight flashed and danced on the gentle waves and the ocean stretched out in all its glory. To her right, a rocky headland reared out of the sea, and far away in the distance there was another long, blue line of land. Nearer at hand, on the other side of a small cove, rose an impressive line of sheer cliffs, with the white shapes of seabirds wheeling around them.