Before sunrise the roof holes of the huts emit swirls of smoke. Elísabet wakes to the sloshing of hot water in a wide basin. Margrét negotiates the doorway, a cloth draped over her shoulder and soap in her pocket. Elísabet’s clothing has been brushed, her shoes cleaned.
The warm water soothes her and she takes her time, gently moving the cloth over her belly, which seems heavier than yesterday. Her back aches and she wonders at the fact that she is hungry. She dresses, grateful for the patience Margrét has shown in removing the tendrils of grass and the dirt smudges from her skirt.
Now Margrét prepares a bowl of fish and cheese in the small, raised kitchen while Elísabet paces near her.
‘There you are,’ Margrét says to Stefán when he appears, the morning mist beading his jacket. ‘You look as if you too need a hearty breakfast.’
‘I’ve eaten, Margrét. Thank you.’
‘You haven’t slept.’ Elísabet notices his weary, grey eyes.
He pulls a chair to the fire and waits for Margrét to leave the hut.
‘I feel that I am responsible for the death of your husband.’
She slowly picks at her bowl of food. ‘How so?’
‘You and Jón were the first people who did not join us. Both of you convinced me that you could live alone. You were a new breed of survivalists, I thought. Yet, you are the youngest among us and I made the terrible error of … I should have been more persuasive. And now, with your pregnancy … if you had been living here with us we could have …’
‘No. You cannot tell a man who is soon to become a father what is best for his child. Jón would never have listened to anyone else. We never expected a child – he was fiercely proud.’
Stefán cannot suppress a deep sigh.
‘What is it?’ Elísabet asks.
‘I ask that you listen to me – someone you hardly know – and heed my advice. You are right. I have not slept for thinking of any other way to keep your child safe. What we have, who we are now, is as dangerous as it is miraculous. But, Elísabet, I …’ Stefán stops. ‘Goddamn, I cannot do this.’
‘What? What is it that you cannot say?’
‘We must take great care to protect your baby, to hide the child …’
‘Yes, of course. I’m not an imbecile, I’m aware …’
‘No. You do not understand. Your baby will not be safe in this country.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘Your sister, in England … Koldís?’
Elísabet stiffens. ‘How do you know of her?’
‘When I realized my mistake … when I was unsuccessful with my plea for you to join us, I made an effort to protect you both. It involved asking questions about your families.’
Elísabet stands abruptly, her chair falls over with a loud crash.
‘Jón’s father and mine will come to collect my husband’s body.’ Her tone is harsh, her words clipped. ‘If you will please allow me to borrow a horse, I promise they will return it. Thank you for your kindness.’
‘Elísabet … wait. Please trust me when I say that I have no other motive than to keep you and your child safe. I can think of only one way, one choice that gives you and your baby a chance of escaping the fate of your husband.’
‘Why? Why are you and your community safe and I am not? Why is it that my husband, who is – who was – an intelligent and practical man, is dead and not one of you?’
‘For many reasons! We have been evolving, changing our habits for years now. You have no idea yet what it is truly like to live as we do.’ He lowers his voice. ‘I am sorry, that sounded harsh.’
Elísabet knows he’s right. Jón insisted they remain isolated from this farmstead and its people. He never really believed that what had happened to them was actually real. A new wave of fear washes over her. Feeling unsteady, she sits again just as the clang of the bell that signals meetings peels out a call.
Margrét comes again and informs Stefán that everyone is assembled.
‘I’ll leave you for now, Elísabet. If you need anything, Margrét will be here for you. Call upon her.’
The community of men and women are seated in the meeting hut. Under their feet, hidden beneath the table where they are now gathered, the entrance to the tunnel is narrow. One must crawl head first, forcing a delay in pursuit to anyone who attempts to follow them. The tunnel leads deeper into the ground, then widens, and it is there, stored in specially handcrafted casks, where their most precious contents lie. The Icelanders sit atop the stores of the iridescent liquid.
The woman named Pála pours the coffee, taking great care not to fill the cups to the rims. A superstitious act, but there has been trouble and now is no time to court bad luck.
‘Now,’ Stefán begins, ‘the child.’
Outside the meeting hut the weather takes a sharp cold turn. A gust of wind cuts through the unheated room and mocks their fortitude to think clearly and creatively. Margrét arrives with a bundle of sheepskins and they huddle under them warming their hands with steaming coffee cups.
Four hours pass. The chores of the day wait as the discussion continues until noon. This soul searching is not a simple one; after all, they have no claim to the child. However, they have scissored through the muck to devise a clear direction, and a plan, though incredibly complex, emerges. A proposal is agreed.
Afterwards Stefán pauses before entering his house, his forehead rests on the door as he takes a moment to prepare for his awful task. He finds Elísabet sitting in his common room. For a moment he is disoriented to see her knitting, her head bowed, exactly at the angle his wife used to find comfortable, and sitting a little sideways in the chair to face the best light. He winces, it seems like yesterday.
‘I hope you do not mind my boldness. It calms me … the needles were lying there as if …’ She looks up at him and sees that he has changed in some way. ‘I am sorry.’ She folds her hands over the needles.
‘No, it … my wife always struggled with the needles; unlike you, your fingers fly.’
‘Is she, did she … die? Apologies … of course she has.’ Embarrassed, Elísabet turns back to knitting.
‘It happened before we knew … before any of us changed … and began to form our group. I lost her and the children before I could begin to make even some small sense of all this … she never knew. This is why I come to you now.’
‘You have a proposition for me,’ she interrupts. ‘You, all of you, want me to live within your community. I guessed as much.’
Stefán sits beside her.
‘That is part of it, yes …’ He pauses. ‘First. Would you agree that the single most important task is to secure the safety of your baby?’
‘Of course. Please. Speak plainly. I am not a child.’
‘No, of course not. I didn’t mean … I am asking you to do the most difficult thing you will ever do.’ He pauses. This is a damnable job. ‘Give your baby to Koldís to raise, until it is safe to bring the child back.’
‘Please hear me out. We, all of us without exception, put it to you that when your child is born, the same group that murdered your husband will no doubt come for your child. Perhaps not right away, but one day they will come. There will not be a single safe haven in this country. We believe, temporarily, the best place for your baby is with your sister in England. We have the means for the voyage, and the child will want for nothing. It will give us time to plan for the future.’
Elísabet knows that what is important in this moment is to keep her composure; it is imperative to conceal the rage that immediately overwhelms her thoughts, and which threatens to overtake her entire being and become madness. She must make certain that not Stefán, nor any of them, later accuse her of that madness, though what she feels at his suggestion is wholly untethered.
‘Please. Listen carefully,’ Stefán pleads.
She strokes her belly and the baby that moves inside her and turns away from him.
‘We are a small country that sometimes seems vast. It is true that when the winter comes we are isolated on our farm, and we all know what it is to feel separated from the other farmsteads by ice and snow. There is a false sense of security in that. If our enemy discovers where your child is they will do anything to get to it. Your child would be nothing more than some living thing upon which to experiment. My God, Elísabet! I hate to think of what they might to do to the child. They have already spied on your husband, tracked him down and killed him – solely for experimentation. And due to their murderous act they have learned of one of the properties of the water – the most dangerous one.’
‘My husband is not yet a day dead and you ask this of me? No. I will protect my child. I will go away … to the north.’
‘Do you need any more evidence that you cannot cut yourself off from us entirely? Jón’s death is proof of that. And if both you and your child were to live here, it would no doubt bring danger to us all. Our plan, our suggestion to you is that you stay with us. We will care for you and protect you. And Koldís …’
‘Do not …’
Stefán sighs. Their acquaintance is a new one, but he has learned the story of her past and he is loath to broach it now.
‘It was a bad business,’ he says.
Elísabet’s hands tighten around the knitting needles.
For a few minutes they are silent until Elísabet responds in a soft, thick voice.
‘I was much happier and more fulfilled in my life with Jón than I ever could have been in England with the man that became my sister’s husband. They were both cruel to me. Sister or no. Lover or no. Jón was a patient man. He healed me.’
She stands and walks to the small hole in the wall, richly-covered with a pane of glass from which she views the jagged dark blue peaks of the glacier set against the sparkling, green grass.
‘Koldís …’ Stefán attempts the subject again.
‘She is no longer known by that name. She is called Clovis now. And she takes the name of her husband, as they do there. Fowler. Clovis Fowler.’
‘Ah. That is in our favour,’ he says. ‘They will search for Koldís Ingólfsdóttir.’
‘What do you mean?’ she turns to him. ‘Do you expect they would go all that distance to find my child?’
‘Yes, of course. Eventually.’
Elísabet is stunned, grasped by a new awareness that ripples through her and leaves her weak.
‘Leave me to think on this,’ she whispers.
Stefán brightens at this first hopeful sign that she may change her mind. ‘Of course. I’ll go now. Please let Margrét attend you. She is fond of you.’
He lingers at the door and turns to her again.
‘It is with great regret that we ask this of you. There is nothing we want more than to have you and your baby live here with us. I promise that we will devise a way to watch the situation carefully. It will be difficult to manage, Elísabet, but we will manage it.’
‘Am I to lose everything I love?’
Her lovely eyes seem to bore straight into him and he is taken unaware by the lump of emotion that lodges in this throat. He knows what it is to lose everything.
‘You will know your child one day,’ he promises.
Her face holds the kind of sorrow he has witnessed too often in his long life. Sometimes the others knock on his door in the dark hours when the nightmares come. It is not unusual to find one of them out walking before daylight in an effort to shake off their demons. They come to him begging for some kind of understanding of what they have endured. The anguish of losing his own wife and children has not provided him with any answers regarding the deep well of grief from which they are all forced to drink. So he listens to them, unable to offer much advice; as the years march on there are times he feels he may die from the exhaustion of it – if only he could.
When he looks to Elísabet for a small acknowledgment that she will co-operate, something changes in her. Her eyes grow wide with hope; her face transforms, and a wild, frantic woman looks back at him.
‘I could go as well! I would endure anything. Yes. I will.’ She is already planning the voyage. ‘Why did I not think of it? We could leave soon after the birth.’ Her whole being expands with hope.
‘We did discuss that possibility as a solution, but can’t you see? They will expect you to take that course. What they will never believe is that that you would part from your baby.’
‘What kind of mother would?’
‘A mother who wants to save her child from some unspeakable horror.’
The next morning when Margrét brings Elísabet’s breakfast bowl to the room, she lingers, hesitant, but clearly wanting to speak.
‘What is it Margrét?’
‘There is something the others have not been told. Something only Stefán knows. He chose not to alarm the others at the time, and I agreed with him. But you should know. I understand the decision facing you. I speak to you as a woman, but also as someone who has seen the unspeakable … evil … of the Falks.’ Margrét’s voice cracks a little as she loses composure.
‘Margrét, here sit beside me.’
‘No, please, do not be kind to me, I will not be able to speak.’
She reaches in her pocket for her handkerchief and mops her damp face.
‘My husband and I. We were blessed with a child very late in life. It was before … before we changed. Such a loving little girl, she made me ache with joy. She was with us the day we drank from the pool. I was going to give her a sip from my travelling cup, but the Watcher appeared. He frightened me so that I dropped the cup. He was kind. He told us to bring her back when she was older. Then he directed us to Stefán. But on the path, when we were almost a day’s ride from the pool …’ Margrét stops.
‘You do not have go on. It’s all right, Margrét.’
‘No! It is not all right!’ She lowers her voice. ‘The Falks. They rode it seemed out of the sky, suddenly four of them surrounded us. They said nothing. They asked no questions. And before we could get our bearings they took her.’
Elísabet gasps. Instinctively her hand clutches her belly.
‘The Falks were just guessing, we had seen them before, but they had no way of knowing if she had changed, or anything at all. My husband found her discarded body in the following spring’s thaw. He refused to let me see her. What they did to her body, the experiments, haunted him. My husband drank the contents of his phial a year later. Your child will not be safe here, Elísabet.’
Elísabet bows her head, her tears stream down and fall into her lap; tears shed for Margrét and for herself.
‘How old was your daughter?’
‘She was in her sixth year.’