The Mist

by Ragnar Jónasson

There was no answer at first, which she found unnerving, then eventually Leó replied, his teeth audibly chattering: ‘Please let me in. Please. It’s so cold out here – it’s still snowing – and I need to talk to you.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘You know what, Erla. You know.’

  Her heart missed a beat and for a moment the walls seemed to be closing in on her. She had a vision that the snow had vanished, it was autumn, and a chill crept up on her, sending a shiver through her body. She shook herself.

  ‘What do you want from me?’ she repeated at last.

  Before he could answer, she was away, running out of the hall, taking care not to make any noise, determined to fool Leó into thinking that she hadn’t moved. She put the candle down on the coffee table, snuffed it out, then ran along the passage to the kitchen to fetch the spare keys that were hanging from the hook on the wall. She knew just where to lay her hands on them in the dark. Then she hared back through the sitting room, past the stairs, past the bedrooms, to the back door, where she had sat earlier, wishing she could wake up from this nightmare.

  Her mind was working furiously. There was no point trying to escape on foot and make her way to Anna’s house or the village beyond it, not in these conditions. He would easily catch up with her, and the poor old jeep, valiant as it was, wouldn’t be able to make any headway through the deep drifts blocking the road.

  She opened the back door with infinite care, half expecting Leó to materialize outside, having guessed that she might be planning to escape that way; terrified that she would run slap into him. She was breathing in shallow gasps but, to her immense relief, she couldn’t see any sign of him near the house. Instead, she was knocked sideways by a violent gust that swept a wave of freezing snow over her and into the house. The ferocity of the storm was incredible. No wonder the electricity had gone. In weather like this, something had to give.

  She closed the door noiselessly behind her, making sure that the lock clicked.

  No turning back now.

  Erla peered round the corner, screwing up her eyes against the blizzard, hardly able to see a thing but almost sure that Leó was nowhere near. He must still be at the front door, pleading with her to let him in, talking to her in the belief that she was listening just inside. She made a wild dash for the steps that led down to the cellar under the house. She could wait it out there. There were no windows, the door was thick and strong, and there were all kinds of tools and other implements that she could use in self-defence, if it came to that, and – most importantly of all – there was a supply of tins and perishable foods like potatoes.

  She picked her way gingerly down the steps to the cellar door. The last thing she wanted was to slip and injure herself now. She tried to close her mind to the images that flashed into it.

  Then she had to find the right key by feel; clumsy, fumbling in the dark, ready to cry with frustration. She snatched another look round before turning the key in the lock but, thank God, there was no one behind her.

  As usual, it required a bit of a shove to open the door. Only when it gave way, scraping back into pitch blackness, did she realize that in her hysterical flight she had forgotten to bring any candles or matches.

  Hell.

  She tried to weigh up the alternatives, aware that there was no time to lose. Either waste precious minutes going back into the house or wait down here in the darkness. Neither alternative was good. Desperately, she tried to think straight. She couldn’t rely on Leó to remain unsuspecting by the front door much longer. Any minute now, he was going to come hunting for another way in. No, it wasn’t worth the risk. Heaving a deep breath, she stepped inside the cellar and forced the door shut behind her.

  XXV

  This new predicament was like nothing Erla had ever experienced before. She stood there, clinging on to the door handle as if it was a lifeline, not daring to move, utterly blind in the pitch-black cellar.

  Of course, she had known it would be dark, but it was one thing to know something, another to experience it first hand. She was afraid of becoming disorientated the moment she let go of the handle. As long as she held on to it, she could at least be confident of the way out.

  As a child, Erla had been afraid of the dark, but as an adult she’d thought she’d got over it. Now, though, the unreasoning terror quickened inside her again, the fear of what was lurking in the shadows. For a moment, she even had the crazy idea that Leó might be down there too; that he’d got hold of a key somehow and was lying in wait for her. She began to whimper.

  Next minute, common sense kicked in. There was no way he could be down here. That was impossible. He would have had to move incredibly fast to get here before her, and there had been no footprints in the snow on the steps – unless there had been and she had failed to notice them? She forced herself to take deep breaths and push these foolish thoughts away. Of course she was alone down there. She mustn’t let herself get hysterical.

  Gradually, she noticed how dry and stale the air was in the windowless, enclosed space and wondered if this had been a terrible mistake. The spectre of claustrophobia began to raise its head. Erla had always had to train her mind not to dwell on the feeling of being trapped in winter when the farm was snowed in, but now the feeling of panic rose up to clutch at her throat. It was freezing down here too. She wouldn’t be able to survive long in this temperature, however much tinned food there was.

  Her fingers were numb and cramped from hanging on to the door handle in an attempt to master her fear. As long as she knew where the door was, she reassured herself, she could get out again any time she wanted to. What terrified her almost more than anything else was the thought of getting confused and lost in the lightless cellar.

  But these fears were foolish, she reminded herself, as long as Leó was still out there, hunting for her. He was the real threat. She must hold on to that thought. What would she do if he knocked on this door? If he tried to break in? She wondered how long she was prepared to wait down there. Until he left, she supposed. But where was he supposed to go? He was a prisoner of the snow too, no more able to leave than she was.

  The more she thought about it, the more inevitable the outcome seemed: sooner or later she would have to face a reckoning with Leó.

  But she was going to do everything in her power to avoid it.

  XXVI

  Erla was sitting in a huddle now, her back pressed against the door, arms hugging her knees in a futile attempt to keep warm as she stared unseeingly into the blackness. She was losing track of how long she had been down there. It was as if time itself had got lost in the dark.

  She couldn’t hear the wind any more. Perhaps the storm was subsiding. All she knew was that she was safe for now. She was alone down here, Leó was nowhere near and he didn’t know where she was. Unless, of course, he saw her footprints leading from the back door to the cellar steps, but hopefully they would have been blurred over by the blowing snow.

  When she had made the snap decision to take refuge in the cellar, she’d been thinking of the cans of food stored down there, but now she’d realized that she hadn’t even thought to bring a tin opener with her. So much for a long-term solution. Sooner or later she would have to go outside and confront not only Leó but her husband’s death; the knowledge that he was lying in a pool of his own blood in the attic.

  The thought came to her like a vague echo of something disturbing, horrifying. But she felt bizarrely detached. It seemed so unreal. Her mind couldn’t comprehend it.

  Had Leó killed Einar?

  Had she really seen his body?

  She remembered their first meeting so well. She had been nineteen, no more than a child, but her future had been decided then and there. He had been so handsome – he still was, to be fair, though in a different way. A charmingly innocent, mild-mannered country boy in the city. She had fallen head over heels for him that first night, at the dance at Reykjavík’s famous Hótel Borg. They had spent all evening dancing with each other, while h
e told her about life in the countryside, painting a beguiling picture of the moors and mountains, the birds and sheep, and in those days she’d still had a romantic streak, though that had disappeared long ago. Even at twenty he had talked seriously about the importance of keeping the remote farm going, about his sense of duty to the land. She had listened, entranced, and at once started imagining what it would be like to live out there.

  It seemed strange to remember how enthusiastic she had been about the idea of moving to the countryside. She supposed it had been partly from a youthful desire to rebel, to do something that would shock her parents.

  They had objected all right. It wasn’t that they had disapproved of Einar; that would have been unthinkable since he had been such a likeable young man. They’d been impressed by his good manners, and he had come across as well read too. Her parents had certainly appreciated that. But they had kept harping on at them both, repeatedly asking Einar if he wouldn’t like to see what it was like to live in the city for a change. Try something different. Erla had known from the first moment, though, that his mind was made up, and she herself had made no attempt to persuade him to change it. Ironic though it seemed now, she had actually been eager to move to the farm.

  Since then she had developed a love–hate relationship with this place. However desperate she was to get away, she couldn’t leave Einar and Anna behind. They were all held together by such unbreakable bonds. And she could feel the tug of this lonely spot too; without wanting to, she had put down roots in the soil here. Some things couldn’t be changed. Perhaps the truth was that she would never get away. In fact, she had long ago become resigned to the fact, even as she suffered torments from the solitude.

  This was their home; hers, Einar’s and Anna’s. The family belonged here. There was no getting past that fact.

  She had closed her eyes. That way she could shut out the darkness and let the scenes play out vividly in her mind.

  Her thoughts drifted. The mist had descended again, making it so hard to distinguish what was real from what was imaginary. God, she hated the winter. Why did a blizzard have to blow up on Christmas Eve, of all days? Anna must be stuck at home. Unless Leó had harmed her somehow? The thought was so unbearable that Erla did her best to push it away. She had to make herself believe that Anna was safe and sound at home. It was sad to think of her there all alone, but she had always been so independent and self-contained, like her father. Erla hoped she’d at least treat herself to a good meal. A storm like this could last several days before it blew itself out.

  Erla would just have to hang on until Anna could get through to the farm. The smoked lamb could wait. It would keep.

  She had definitely bought Anna’s present, hadn’t she? And wrapped it up? Einar’s present was in the sitting room, she was sure of that. His book. And then there was her customary novel, her gift from Einar, of course; she couldn’t wait to get her hands on that.

  If only she had a book to read now – and a little light of course – things wouldn’t seem quite so bleak. She didn’t need anything else, just to escape for a while, steal away from grim reality into a fictional world. Tomorrow was the twenty-fifth. She would have time to read then, though naturally she would steal a peek at her book tonight, as she always did.

  She was so terribly cold. She couldn’t stop shivering, couldn’t stop her clenched teeth rattling. It was foolish to sit still like this. She should be pacing about to keep warm. And yet she stayed put, too afraid to relinquish her contact with the door, the one fixed point in the lightless world. She kept her eyes tight shut, but the silence was menacing. She had to focus on something positive. Again, she guided her thoughts back to those early years with Einar. She had been captivated the first time she set eyes on this place, thinking to herself: I want to live here for the rest of my life.

  His parents had welcomed her with open arms. And she had felt at home with them right away, accepted as one of the family, taking part in all the chores, learning about the farm, the animals, enjoying the closeness to nature. Then winter had set in, that first winter, and she’d had a taste of the suffocating claustrophobia that would later come to dominate her existence, though she had tried to ignore it. She’d learned to distract herself by keeping busy, retreating into books and taking refuge with Einar, who knew the land, knew the weather, knew how to comfort her and reassure her that everything would be fine. He had always looked after her, all these years – decades now. Of course, she could never leave him, never abandon him to his fate.

  Then, the following year, Anna had come along. Although it hadn’t been the plan to have children straight away, it had been a nice surprise and the little girl had immediately become the focus of her parents’ and grandparents’ existence. To begin with, Erla had pictured them always living there, but later she had grown increasingly determined to get Anna away, help her set up somewhere else. Though in that, alas, she had failed.

  Erla could feel herself becoming drowsy but knew she mustn’t fall asleep, not here in the freezing cold. She might never wake up again. Had she been dozing? She was confused and opened her eyes, but there was no change, just another, much worse, almost tangible darkness. This wouldn’t do. She couldn’t feel her fingers or toes. She rose stiffly to her feet, deciding she must walk around the cellar to get her circulation going and prevent her thoughts from wandering but, above all, to keep herself awake. She took a few wary steps, keeping a hand on the wall, not daring to venture too far from the door.

  She had the feeling that she was waiting for Einar. But she didn’t know why. Could he really have told her to wait down there? In the dark cellar?

  She took a few more tentative steps and next minute something soft brushed against her face and she screamed, raising her hands to fight it off, feeling something moving, swinging against her. For an instant she was sure it was alive and screamed again, only to realize a moment later that it must be the brace of ptarmigan Einar had shot last week and hung down here in the cellar. But by then she was no longer sure where the door was, couldn’t feel the wall any more, was completely disorientated, couldn’t tell how long she’d been down there, couldn’t breathe. She was lost in the dark, shut in, a prisoner … She stood still for a moment, fighting the rising hysteria, then started moving again, too fast, only to bash her head against some unseen object. The pain was agonizing. She clasped her hands over her skull and felt, or thought she felt, blood oozing from the wound. Damn it.

  She squatted down on the floor, closing her eyes again, emitting a low moaning. The world began to spin. She couldn’t catch hold of her thoughts. What in God’s name was she doing in here?

  Where was Einar?

  Why hadn’t he come?

  And where was Anna?

  Erla struggled to think what to do. Should she go out and search for her husband? He must be up in the house, in the sitting room. Or in the barn, perhaps. Maybe it was feeding time. Did he know she was in the cellar? Had she somehow locked herself in or could she get out if she wanted to? She was feeling so muddled that she wondered vaguely if she might be concussed.

  Better to stay where she was for now. Keep her eyes closed, take deep, slow breaths and imagine that she was somewhere else.

  But one thing she was sure of: it was Christmas Eve.

  Then she heard music. Or thought she did. Yes, surely it was the carol service? The church choir singing the Christmas service on the radio. The sweet notes of ‘Silent Night’ – she could hear them loud and clear.

  When she opened her eyes, the music was abruptly cut off and the darkness, the screaming darkness, closed in on her. The world started spinning again and she felt sick. She was losing her grip, losing her balance, suffocating in the airless cellar.

  Oh God, where’s Einar? she thought. He must be coming soon, to open the door and let her out into the fresh air.

  There’s nothing to be afraid of.

  She waited for a while, shivering, crouching there in this strange, lightless limbo. She didn’t kn
ow how long for. Then she stood up, cautiously, to avoid banging her head again, her breathing coming in fast, shallow gasps, her mind filled with a single thought: she had to get out. She started moving fast, blundering, confused, then slowed down, but still managed to crash into something. She was lost in a rectangular labyrinth.

  She held out her arms in front of her, feeling for the way out. What was that? A shelf. And that was some kind of tool, yes. Concentrate. That meant the door must be on the other side. She had to get out, had to get some air, whatever happened. She felt her way cautiously along the wall, knowing that this way she would find the door in the end.

  Erla wished the music would come back. She couldn’t understand how she could have heard the carol so clearly, couldn’t understand anything any more. All she knew was that she had to get out. ‘Silent Night’ was such a beautiful carol; it had always been a great favourite of hers. She stood still, closed her eyes, and there it was again, the singing. She smiled, though she couldn’t really work out what was happening. Surely the service had finished hours ago? It must be night by now.

  How she longed for tomorrow morning. After this horrible experience, she was going to take it easy, put her feet up and read the books that were still lying unopened under the tree. There was the lamb too, they still had that, and some malt brew to drink and a whole box of chocolates. She smiled again at the thought and felt herself growing calmer. After a moment, she started moving slowly, tentatively, her numb fingertips brushing the wall, knowing that any minute she would feel the door.

  Then a man’s voice called out: ‘Are you in there?’ The words smashed into her thoughts, shockingly loud and real, followed by a rattle, as someone took hold of the door handle. Someone wanted to get in, but now she remembered that she had locked the door from the inside.

  Einar. He’d come for her at last.

  She took a couple more steps, felt wood under her fingertips, gripped the handle and turned the key.