21st October—evening
Shadow and I left the Karrðarskogur behind and headed into the fells. A rough road wound its way up into the mountains north of the village, which I followed until it petered out—likely it was only a track used by sheep farmers. I carried on, though the ground was boggy in places from the melting snow. Eventually my determination was rewarded as I crested the summit of one of the lower mountains.
Beyond, my view was largely obstructed by another, much higher range of mountains, a great convocation of them jutting messily from the green earth brandishing their glacial raiments. Ljosland is a labyrinth of mountains, you’ll understand, as well as fjords and glaciers and every other sharp-edged formation most hostile to Man. Between the peaks, the landscape was crushed down into what I supposed were valleys, chasmed and boulder-strewn.
I paused at the summit—partly to bask in a sense of accomplishment— to write in my journal. The Folk do not confine themselves to forests alone, and I know from my correspondence with Krystjan that many Ljoslanders believe the volcanic boulders that jut out of their landscape serve as doors to their realm. I recorded the largest of these as well as those that piqued my interest for sundry reasons, whether by dint of their elaborate peaks or the telltale presence of running water or fungi.
The day was done. I was muddy, chilled, and thoroughly happy. I had established what I considered a useful boundary within which to conduct my research and made contact with one or more of the common fae. It was, of course, possible that the brownies of Ljosland subsisted entirely off sea
salt and leaves; found the sight of jewels as offensive as iron; hated music with every fibre of their beings. But I theorized that this was unlikely, and that furthermore they would share commonalities with the Folk of other northerly latitudes—the mountain alver of Norway, for instance. Bambleby was sceptical on this point. Well, we will see which of us is right.
I would gladly have sent my excuses to Finn and the headwoman, but my rambles had left me very hungry. And so, my happiness dimming somewhat, I directed my steps towards the village.
The tavern was well-situated in the heart of the village, though this characterization was debatable given the jumbled nature of Hrafnsvik, its dishevelled scatter of homes and shops. A group of men clustered outside, smoking. Two of these were Krystjan and Finn.
“Voilà!” Krystjan said, which drew a laugh from his compatriots. “Good evening, Professor Wilde. On the hunt today, were you? Where is your butterfly net?”
More laughter. Finn shot his father a dark look. He gave me a smile and guided me through the doors.
The entire village of Hrafnsvik appeared to have crammed itself into the tavern. Children tore through the establishment, half-hearted reprimands following in their wake, while the aged clustered about the enormous fire. It was cosy in the manner of all such country establishments from England to Russia, a wash of shadows and firelight, crowded with bodies and cooking smells, its ceiling held up by what looked like driftwood logs. Above the bar, where one might find a pair of antlers on the continent, there hung instead the tremendous mandible of a whale.
Finn went around the room, introducing me, which was easily accomplished as most faces had turned from their conversations to stare at me the moment I entered. I was unexpectedly grateful for Finn’s presence— I despise the awkwardness of approaching strangers, even without language barriers. I had, of course, been teaching myself as much Ljoslander as possible over the past year or so, but one can only progress so far without the tutelage of a native speaker.
“This is Lilja Johannasdottir,” Finn said. “Our woodcutter. She has an alfurrokk behind her house—a door to the faerie world. Several of the little ones have been seen passing in and out.”
The maiden smiled at me. She was broad-shouldered and beautiful, with round red cheeks and a cascade of flaxen hair. “Pleased to meet you, Professor.”
We shook hands. Hers was large and covered with innumerable calluses.
I asked after the location of her abode so that I might investigate the feature.
She looked startled.
“Aud won’t object, I don’t think,” Finn said quickly.
I was puzzled. “Surely there’s no reason why she would?”
“It’s fine, Finn,” Lilja said. “I’d be pleased to welcome you to my home, Professor.”
I encountered similar reticence from several other villagers, though in each case, Finn, smiling and polite, smoothed the waters. I wondered if the locals had not fully understood the purpose of my visit, though it was clear that Krystjan had not hidden the details of our correspondence.
Eventually we came to the table of the goði, Aud Hallasdottir, who looked up from her conversation with two rough-looking women to smile at me. I found myself abruptly caught in a tight embrace. Aud stepped back, her hands still on my shoulders, and informed me that I would dine at her home at my earliest convenience. I acquiesced, telling her that Finn had notified me of her expertise where the Hidden Ones were concerned, and expressing my gratitude for any information she could share.
Finn’s smile took on a fixed quality, and Aud blinked. She was a short, broad woman with two deep lines between her eyes, the only visible sign of her age. I had only a moment to wonder where I had gone wrong before she nodded and said, “Of course, Professor Wilde. Please, sit down, and allow my husband to serve you. He makes an excellent mulled wine—you must take a bottle home with you. I’ve been in that cottage of Krystjan’s, and find it very drafty.”
I told her politely that she was very kind, but that I insisted upon paying for my refreshments. As a rule, I avoid accepting favours from the locals
while conducting fieldwork, as I dislike the potential for partiality it produces. Every village has its share of scandals where the Folk are concerned, mysterious pregnancies and the like, and my job as a scholar is not to censor but to decide upon the inclusion of such accounts in my research—with names redacted, of course—based on scientific merit.
Aud nodded and excused herself to discuss something with her husband, Ulfar. I had not been introduced to him yet, though I was constantly aware of him looming at the back of the tavern. He was not a tall man, but something about the heavy brows and sharpness of his countenance, which created little peaks and valleys of shadow, gave him the quality of a brooding mountain. I at first thought him to be glaring at me as he moved about the room, serving up platters of fish and bread or a nearly solid dark stew, until I noticed that he looked that way at everyone.
Finn seemed oddly flustered after my conversation with the headwoman, and I began to worry that I had given some offence. However, Aud reappeared with a smile and a table prepared for me—close to the fire, a position from which she had needed to evict a trio of sailors, who complied without noticeable objection. One woman remained at the table, and I sensed that no command, from a headwoman or otherwise, could move her from her preferred spot. As I seated myself opposite, she smiled at me.
I smiled back. She was a woman of advanced years—so advanced, in fact, that I felt momentarily as if I had never truly known old age. Her eyes were mere slits within that wrinkled countenance, her hands a riverbed of spots. But the eyes were a vivid green, the hands moving rapidly through the wool hooked around her fingers, which she seemed to be knitting without the aid of needles.
“Thora Gudridsdottir,” Finn said, before retreating towards the bar.
Shadow tucked himself under the table and contentedly worked at a mutton chop.
“They’re laughing at you,” the old woman said. “They’d never do it to your face. Well, Krystjan, maybe. They call you a—you don’t have a word for it in English. It means something like library mouse.”
My face heated, though I kept my voice even. “There are worse epithets, I suppose.”
“They also say you are a silly foreign girl who lost her head over some faerie back home and now trots round the world on her parents’ penny looking for a way back to his world. They can’t fathom another reason why you’d be doing this. Makes no more sense to them than a sheep taking it into its head to look for wolves. If you make it through the week, you shall astonish them. Bets have been placed.”
This speech concluded, she went back to her knitting.
I had not the least idea how to respond. My stew steamed before me, my spoon held foolishly in my hand. I set it down. “Do you agree?”
Thora Gudridsdottir’s bright gaze was wholly focused on her knitting. I almost disbelieved that she had spoken at all, so intent was she on her work, her person butterfly-fragile but eminently well cared for, the picture of a beloved grandmother in her dotage. She didn’t look up as she let out a rude sound of disbelief. “Do I agree? Why would I be telling you any of this, if that were so?”
I appreciate blunt people. It takes the guesswork out of conversations, and as someone who is terrible at guesswork and always putting her feet wrong, this is invaluable. I could only say with perfect honesty, “I don’t know what to make of you.”
She nodded approvingly. “You’re clever. And how do I know?” She leaned forward, and I found I had to do so too, all my supposed cleverness bewitched by this strange old woman. “Because you’ve seen them, and lived.”
I gazed at her, stunned. “How do you know that?”
She made that rude noise again. “I’ve a grandniece at university in London. When Krystjan told us you were coming, I wrote to her and she sent me some of your papers.”
I nodded. “Well, my successes with other Folk may have little bearing on my fortunes here.”
She gave me a pitying look, as if wondering why I’d bothered to say something so obvious. I felt the need to keep talking, for some reason, to
justify myself or perhaps my presence. “And, of course, most of my interactions have been confined to the common fae. I’ve studied the enchantments left behind by the courtly fae—the tall ones—as well as numerous firsthand accounts, but I’ve never met one.” Besides Bambleby, perhaps. “May I ask if you’ve encountered the Hidden Ones yourself?”
She picked up her knitting. “My money is on a month. Krystjan gave me poor odds. Please don’t disappoint me—I need a new roof.”
“Here we are,” Finn said, setting a bottle of mulled wine on the table. “I hope this will do, Amma.”
“Idiot,” Thora said. “Ulfar’s stuff tastes like piss. How many times have I told you?”
Finn only sighed and turned to me. “Aud would have me ask if everything is to your liking.”
“Thank you, yes,” I said, though I had not yet tasted the stew. “Thora is your grandmother?”
“She’s grandmother to half the village, give or take.”
Thora made that rude sound again.
The door swung open, admitting a swirl of cold, and a dishevelled figure stood framed against the darkness. It appeared roughly woman-shaped, but it was difficult to tell given the many layers of coats and shawls. The figure did not proceed further, but simply stood upon the threshold with the night billowing at her back.
“Auður,” called Aud, then she went to the stranger’s side, murmuring something. The firelight fell upon her face, revealing a young woman in her middle twenties, her mouth slack, her eyes darting ceaselessly without appearing to see. She gripped Aud’s arm tightly, and when Aud directed her to a chair, she sat in a boneless slump.
Curious, I drifted to the woman’s side. “Is she well?”
Aud stiffened. “As well as can be expected.”
Ulfar set a bowl of stew before the girl. Auður did not look at it, or him.
“Eat,” Aud said in Ljoslander. Auður picked up her spoon and mechanically filled her mouth, chewed, and swallowed.
“Drink,” Aud said. Auður drank.
I watched them with growing confusion. There was something both uncanny and abhorrent about the way in which Auður responded to Aud’s instructions, like a puppet on strings. Aud saw me watching, and her face darkened.
“I would ask that you refrain from including my niece in your book,” she said.
I understood, and gave a slight nod. “Of course.”
I know of several species of Folk who are in the habit of abducting mortals for the thrill of breaking them. In truth, it is something most of the courtly fae are given to on occasion. I once met a Manx man whose daughter had taken her own life after a year and a day spent in some horrific faerie kingdom so lovely that its beauty became as addictive as opiates.
Others have endured torments and returned so changed their families barely recognize them. But in Auður’s manner and expression, its scrubbed-clean quality, I found something I’d never encountered before. And for all my expertise, it sent a shiver of foreboding through me, a sense that perhaps, for the first time in my career, I was out of my depth.
“Does she live alone?” I enquired.
“She lives with her parents, as she always has.”
I nodded. “May I call upon her?”
“You are a guest here, and are welcome anywhere,” her aunt said, lightly and automatically, but there was a brittleness in her smile that even I could recognize, and so I retreated to the fireside. Auður continued to eat and drink only when instructed to, and when the meal was complete, she sat with her head slumped and her hair in her face until her aunt took her home.
“Is she always like that?” I said.
Thora gave me a brief, sharp look, then nodded. “That child would carve out her own heart if someone ordered her to.”
There was a cold sweat upon my brow. “What did they do to her?”
“What did they do?” Thora repeated. “Did you not see? She’s hollow.
There’s less substance there than the shadow of a ghost. But at least she returned.”
The words had an emphasis that made me swallow. “And how many others did not?”
Thora did not look at me. “Your dinner is growing cold,” she said, and there was something beneath the pleasantness in her voice that I did not dare challenge.
When Shadow and I returned to the cottage, we found the embers still hot in the woodstove, a fact that filled me with an ill-fated pride. I decided I would read for a time at the fireside, if only to put Auður from my mind, for she had unsettled me more than I cared to admit. Reaching into the wood box brought me swiftly down to earth, though, for I found only two logs remaining.
I chewed my lip, shivering lightly. I recalled Krystjan’s reference to the woodshed, and wished, abruptly, that I had taken Finn’s advice and “settled in” instead of spending the day charging hither and thither about the countryside. There are times when my scholarly enthusiasm gets the better of me, but I have never had cause to regret this so deeply before.
Well, there was nothing for it. I lit the lantern and thrust myself back out into the snow. Fortunately, the woodshed was easily located, tucked beneath the eaves. My heart sank, however, when I looked within. The wood had not been cut into logs, but piled up in huge chunks that would never fit into my humble stove.
I was shivering in earnest now. Shadow, perfectly comfortable in his bearish coat, grew anxious at my distress. Correctly intuiting the woodshed as its source, he proceeded to attack the door.
“Stop that, my love,” I admonished. I hefted what appeared to be a whole segment of trunk and grimly set to work. I took up the axe set atop the woodpile and placed the trunk upon a stump. Then I swung.
The first time, I missed. The second too. The third, I buried the axe in the wood, where it stuck fast and would not be dislodged.
I wrenched on it. I stuck a foot against the stump and wrenched again.
And though I am not usually the sort for cursing, I’ve no doubt I withered a few weeds with the stream of filth that fell from my lips.
Eventually, weary and cold and aching in my shoulder from the reverberation of the axe, I gave up. The axe I left in the shed stuck deep into the wood, projecting what I imagined was a kind of sadistic triumph. I went into the cold cottage, added the remaining logs to the fire, and draped all the blankets I could find over the bed. I did not wish to finish the day’s entry, but habit lent me the necessary fortitude. Now to sleep.
