by Arthur Slade
Fiona gasped. I turned to face my attacker, fists up and ready to fight.
It was my father. His jaw muscles were clenched, his eyes narrowed, and he looked about ready to kill me. "What the hell are you doing on this end of the island?"
"I—we—got lost," I stammered, moving a few steps away. Dad shook his finger. "Do you know how far you've come? I told you to stick close to home."
"We were but we just ... uh ... "
"We found some pretty cool paths," Fiona finished.
Dad ignored her. He crossed his arms. "Do you know how long I had to argue with your mom to get her to let you come on this trip?"
I clammed up, not sure what to say. I couldn't believe he was flipping out on me in front of Fiona.
"Don't you have anything to say?" Dad asked.
"I'm sorry," I mumbled. "We didn't mean to go this far. We did get lost, honest."
Dad let out his breath. "Where are your bikes?"
"Back there." I motioned over my shoulder. "On the other side of those rocks." I deliberately left out the fact that we'd crawled across the ravine on a tree. And traveled down a bunch of mountain paths.
"Well," Dad said finally, "you're here. There's not much I can do about that now." Was he cooling down? He stared at me, his face unreadable. Then he uncrossed his arms and his look softened. "I was going to show you this place tomorrow anyway."
"Why?" I asked, pretending I hadn't already figured out where we were.
"It's the settlement I was talking about. Or the remains of it, anyway."
"Really," I said. "That's cool." I wondered if he could tell I was trying to get on his good side. "How'd you get here, anyway?"
"I rented a boat." He gestured toward a tall finger-shaped cliff. "It's tied up in a bay over there. This morning I met Harbard and he told me about this place, but wasn't interested in ferrying me here. He said I'd already given him enough bad luck to sink seven ships. Then he warned me to be good and gone from this end of the island before dark, because that's when all the spirits from the underworld are loosed and Hel herself walks this valley." Dad shook his head. "I can't tell if he has a really strange sense of humor, or if he's just the most superstitious man in the world."
"Maybe it's a little of both," Fiona offered.
"I hope so. Harbard did mention he might come by this way to make sure I didn't drown. Then he went off, saying he had to work in his garden." Fiona and I exchanged a glance. We'd seen Harbard in his garden, alright. "Anyway, Drang is exactly the place I needed to see. It should really help me figure out the last story in my book. Harbard was kind enough to tell me a little of the island's history. All about the Icelanders who settled here and the hardships they encountered." He paused, then added. "And all the murders that took place."
"Murders? What the heck are you talking about?" Fiona asked. "Uh ... I mean, what murders?"
I waved my hands. "No! Don't get Dad talking about anything gory. He won't stop."
"You want to know what happened, just as much as she does," Dad said. I actually didn't, but I figured I was in enough trouble, so I paid attention. "It's an interesting, but strange story. Harbard said fifteen men, nine women and a few children, led by a man named Olavr Tryggvason, came by way of Victoria and landed here in the summer of 1896. They were all Icelanders and they had dreams of forming a new community on Drang. They had no idea how inhospitable this island could be."
"Did the weather drive them away?" Fiona asked.
"No," Dad said, "it was the Mórar ghosts. At least that's what the settlers said. When they first arrived this was a peaceful, warm valley. They knew they didn't have too many months of good weather left, so they quickly built these three longhouses to winter in." Dad led us over to one of the buildings, knocked at the wood wall. "Solid structures, with open hearths in the center to keep everything warm. The fall was rainy and miserable—nothing that would discourage an Icelander. But when the first major winter storm struck them, two of the women froze to death in a matter of hours. It was an unnaturally cold night. The settlers' wood pile was buried under ten inches of ice and their food supply dwindled along with their hope. The ocean was too rough to cross, so they were stuck here. Then the Mórar appeared.
"Apparently the Mórar would first just follow people around after dark, cracking branches and thrusting their ghostly faces in front of travelers. Then they became more aggressive, straddling the rooftops and slamming doors. They were led by an absolutely malevolent specter whom the settlers called Bolverk. They believed he was able to make the dead walk. That's dead animals and dead humans. One of the men was apparently attacked by his own dog who had died and been buried the day before. The dog still had dirt caked in his fur. It took three big men with clubs to kill the hound for the second time."
Dad motioned at one of the openings beside us. "Later that night the two women who had frozen to death appeared and probably stood right here, scratching at the doors and windows, begging to be let into the warmth. No one dared open the door. The next morning they found their corpses outside. The settlers said prayers over the women's bodies, then took them out in a boat and dropped them into the wild, rolling ocean.
"But that was just the beginning. Bolverk sent a fetch into one of the settler's dreams. It drove the man so insane, he awoke, grabbed an axe and chopped several of his fellow sleeping settlers to death, then fled. Olavr called together all the men to go into the night and find the murderer, but no one would, so he journeyed out on his own and brought him down."
"Killed him?" I asked.
Dad was rubbing the top of his head, checking out his bald spot. "Probably. At least he was never seen again. When Olavr returned, the others held a vote and decided to leave, even though the ocean was nearly impassable. Olavr stayed on saying his work wasn't finished."
"What work?" Fiona had her arms crossed. I'd never seen her look so serious. She seemed older, somehow.
"I don't know. Harbard didn't explain any more than that."
"Well what about the ghosts?" I asked. "Where did the Icelanders think they were from? Were they Indian ghosts?"
"Exactly! What about the ghosts!" Dad pointed one finger in the air and waved it around to add emphasis to his words. "I had the same question. I found a couple things here that shed a lot of light on the story of the settlement. And maybe why it went so wrong. If you believe in bad luck, that is. Come here." He led us around the corner of the ruin. A part of the wall had collapsed and the earth had sunk down, almost like an underground chamber had fallen in. "I was snooping around here, just soaking up the atmosphere. And I found this." Dad knelt and pushed some of the dirt away from the side and revealed a line of disintegrated timbers below the longhouse. "This building was constructed on top of an older one. The settlers probably didn't even know it was there. Now, it's pretty strange that there was another house here. I know the natives didn't make homes like this. But there's more."
Dad led us back to the stone we'd been looking at a few minutes before. He adjusted his glasses, squinted down. "That rock has probably been here longer than the settlers' longhouses."
"Why does it have red marks on it?" I asked.
"Uh ... I'm not sure," Dad said. "The runes are the most interesting thing about it. I'm a little rusty at reading them, and many aren't familiar to me, but it looks like they're part of a prophecy. Or some kind of chant about the end of the world. It says: An axe-age, a sword age, shields will be bashed, then a wolf age, a fang age, and brothers will be drenched in the blood of brothers. Take this sacrifice, Father of wolves, Sire of snakes. Unleash your son, Jormungand. A new world will rise from the venom and fire."
Dad's last words echoed around us. "But people haven't written with runes for hundreds and hundreds of years," I said. "Did the Icelandic settlers make this stone?"
"No," Dad answered. "It wasn't them. If my guess is right, Vikings built the older structure and carved the runes, almost a thousand years ago. And those Vikings were called the Mórar ."
> "The ghosts settled this place?" Fiona was looking about as confused as I felt. "What do you mean?"
Dad gave her an almost wicked grin. He got a big charge out of reeling people into his stories. It was probably a genetic thing, passed down through generations of storytelling Icelanders. "They called them the Mórar, which means ghost. There were always lots of names for spirits depending on which part of Iceland you were from: fetches, afturganga, skottur, draugr. The more names you knew, the better. There was power in naming things. Sometimes that would be enough to dispel them.
"So Mórar was just another name for ghosts. But it's also the name of a group of Icelanders who, about a thousand years ago, were banished from northern Iceland near Reykir. In fact they were from the same area our family came from. It might even have been our ancestors who drove them out of Iceland. Kind of neat, eh? We drive them away, then a thousand years later we find their resting place."
Actually it didn't sound neat to me. I found it a little unnerving.
Dad leaned against the longhouse. "The Mórar were the worst of the worst, accused of sorcery and unholy sacrifice and said to be closer kin to wolves than men. They worshipped Loki and his two giant sons, Jormungand and Fenrir. The Mórar's leader was a sorcerer named Bolverk." Dad paused. "Bolverk is another one of those names from the old days. Odin used it whenever he was going to do something bad."
"You mean Odin was a bad guy?" Fiona asked.
"He was both good and evil, full of pride and greed just like many people are. The Vikings believed Odin was the highest of the gods, but most of Norsemen worshipped Thor. They liked him because he was a tough, strong, honest god. Simple and straight forward. This meant a lot of tricks got played on him, but he was still the one all the gods turned to when they needed some extra muscle. But as much as the Icelanders identified with Thor, they never forgot to pay their respects to Odin, the one-eyed Allfather.
"Anyway, the name Bolverk means 'worker of evil.' And if the legends are even partly true, this sorcerer lived up to his name a hundred times over. Drinking the blood of snakes to prolong his life, sacrificing horses that had been run until they were slick with sweat, and other macabre stuff like that. The people of northern Iceland chased the Mórar away before they grew too strong.
"They fled across the North Sea and eventually made their way into what's now Russia. They plundered for a time, until their ships were sunk by Byzantine soldiers and they were forced onto the land. No one heard of them again, though there are legends that a few of them survived and were able to make it to the east coast of Russia and build a longship. From there they might have struck out to find a new home. And landed here."
"They came all the way from Russia?" I asked. "Isn't that a little far?"
"It's not entirely impossible. The Vikings expanded as far west as Newfoundland, as far south as Sicily and Greece and as far east as the Ural Mountains of Russia. They were amazing navigators and loved the ocean unlike any other race. The Mórar were among the hardiest of them all. But if they landed here they were likely only a few in number, with no resources. One bad winter would have meant the end of their food supply and of them. Or they may have died of sickness."
Dad fell silent. The clouds had shifted across half the sky, blotting out the sun. A cool breeze was snaking its way through the valley. I shivered.
16.
"Come this way." Dad led us into the one longhouse which still had its roof intact. We stopped a few feet inside the door. Gray light filtered through cracks in the wall, revealing a cobwebbed interior and a dirt floor. Another door, half disintegrated, was open at the far end. Two walls, which used to separate different parts of the building, were now collapsed.
"There ... it's a bit warmer in here," Dad said, then carried on like a teacher who'd been interrupted half-way through a lesson. "Whether the Mórar were here or not is a moot point. It'd take a team of archeologists to prove that. But the Icelandic settlers believed the Mórar ghosts were here. And that was enough to make them leave. I have no idea why Olavr chose to stay." Dad paused. "He was quite the man though. He lived on Drang until his death in 1947." Then Dad turned to me and said, "You've already met his son."
"I have?"
"Yeah. Harbard. Olavr married at an old age. Longevity was one of his family's traits."
I found it hard to imagine Harbard having a father. Had he been just as grumpy as Harbard? Thinking of his dead father reminded me of the cairns. "Did Harbard mention the burial mounds?"
"Mounds? Where?" Dad asked.
I told him. Then decided I should tell him about the dead goat, too. He listened intently. "The cairns must be quite old," he said when I was finished. "The settlers wouldn't have built them; they buried their dead in the sea because they feared their bodies would fall under the control of the Mórar. And I don't think the natives would've built mounds like that. I have no idea what the goat thing is all about. No idea at all. It does make me wonder about the runes on that stone out there and why it's been stained red, almost like it was part of some ceremony. Sure am curious about who dug up the stone in the first place." He paused and I saw the worry on his face. He glanced at his watch. "It's almost supper time. We should head for home." Then he looked at Fiona. "Were your parents expecting you to be away this long?"
"Well ... " Fiona started. She cleared her throat. "To tell you the truth, they actually don't know I'm even here."
It took a moment for the words to register with Dad. "What do you mean?"
"We had a misunderstanding. I kinda slipped away from home and came to Drang on my own."
"You've been here for almost two whole days? Won't they be sick with worry?"
Fiona couldn't meet his eyes. She looked at the ground, her jaw muscles clenched. "Yeah, probably by now. I guess I was too mad to really care." She fell silent.
No one said anything for a few uncomfortable moments. But I heard something. A familiar sound was beginning to register in my brain.
Footsteps. Outside. Soft, determined footsteps.
"Close the doors," I whispered.
"What?" said Fiona.
"Close the doors!" I yelled. I ran to the front of the house. A light, misty rain had just begun turning everything outside to silver. I yanked on the door, but it wouldn't budge.
"Michael! Have you gone off your rocker?" Dad was a step behind me. "What are you doing?"
Then a wolf's howl cut through the air. Just a few feet away.
It was a long, mournful wail, reverberating through the air, drawing some secret hidden panic and fear from deep inside me.
"A wolf?" Fiona whispered, her voice shaky. "But there aren't any wolves on Drang Island."
17.
We stood, paralyzed by the sound.
A second wolf answered the howl. Their voices overlapping.
"They're right outside!" Dad stepped past me, grabbed a hold of the door and yanked it shut. Part of it came away in his hands. "Quick, close the other door!"
Fiona was the first there, tugging at the door. I dashed across the room, joined her, pulling until the door was shut as tight as possible. The wood was flimsy. I found a long piece of half-rotted timber and lodged it across as a brace.
We gathered in the center of the room. I picked up a stone that had fallen from the hearth. Fiona dug in her pocket and pulled out a jackknife. She opened the blade. It was about three inches long.
"If we just stay still," Dad whispered, "they might go away."
None of us moved. We breathed in and out as one.
There was growling. Then a gruff word was spoken by a man and the wolves fell silent. I strained my ears, but all I heard was the wind whistling through cracks in the house. A pitter patter of soft raindrops on the roof. Water dripped down onto the floor.
There was a two inch wide hole a few feet away from me that looked out to the front of the longhouse. I crept up to it and put my eye to the opening. Outside it was dull, misty. Lightning flashed in the distance, back lighting the trees.
Then something moved, covering the hole. I was suddenly looking into a large eye, a human eye sunk into a pale mottled face, the color leeched from the iris, the pupils black. An eye that blazed with anger and power.
The stone I'd been carrying slipped out of my fingers. I couldn't back away or cry out: the eye held me in place, silenced me. Strength drained from my body straight into that glowing orb. Never to return. Even my heartbeat slowed, the blood in my veins seemed sluggish.
Something huge exhaled on the other side of the wall, its breath a thick, ice-cold vapor wafting in through the cracks, chilling my skin. A scent of sweet decay followed, like it had been eating flowers. The shape leaned closer against the wall. A low creaking sound came from inside the wood, the timber was bending slowly. The eye neared. Grew larger.
"Chose you," an eerie voice rasped, "I chose all three of you."
I tried to open my mouth, but it was frozen shut. A new break appeared in the wall, directly across from my throat. White, thin fingers wiggled, slowly reaching in, quietly pushing aside the rotted wood.
"What do you see?" Dad asked. His voice came from a great distance, almost another world. "Is there anything out there?"
I sucked the slightest bit of air into my lungs, tried to force it back out in the form of a word. Failed.
"Michael?" Fiona asked. "What's wrong?" Her questions echoed around me.
The hand was getting closer. Grasping at the open air, fingers brushing my Adam's apple.
"Michael," Fiona's voice floated nearby. "Are—"
The hand grabbed a hold of my neck, yanked me against the wall, trying to pull me through the wood. I found some last bit of strength and pushed back, struggling against it as the fingers tightened around my windpipe, cutting off my air. Fiona yelled something, clutched my shoulder and heaved. Dad did, too. Still, we weren't strong enough.
The man on the other side began to laugh, a deep rumbling guffaw that shook the longhouse.
Then metal flashed, the laughter was cut short, and I was free. I fell back, gasping for air. I glimpsed a white, long fingered hand with the jackknife embedded in its wrist. There was no blood. The hand was yanked back through the hole.
