I awoke sweating from a fever. I was in a bed in a strange room. A shadow reached towards me and I froze, not able to move or yell out.
“It’s okay, Angie,” Sarah whispered, “it’s just me.” She dabbed my forehead with a cool facecloth, then put her hand on my cheek. A night-light shone dimly from the wall, casting her face in shadows. We were in our room at Uncle Thordy’s house. “You’re going to be okay.”
My body wouldn’t stop shaking. My joints felt like they were on fire. “I saw Grandpa. And Andrew.”
I expected her to tell me I was crazy. “Good. That’s so good. I feel better, knowing he was able to help us one more time.”
“Where is Gunnvor? Did they find her body?”
Sarah looked at me. “No. No one found any body.”
My brain tried to understand this. Maybe she’d gotten away. Wasn’t dead. “Everything hurts,” I whispered.
“You need another treatment. I’ll get the others.”
And before I could ask her who the others were, she was gone. She returned with a middle-aged man and two women. They seemed familiar. One of them looked so much like my mom it was uncanny.
“Who are you?” I asked. My teeth were chattering.
“Don’t you remember?” Sarah said. “This is Uncle Thordy’s brother and sisters. You met them the last time you woke up.”
The last time? How long had I been out of it?
They circled me, spoke softly in Icelandic, and made me eat all this strange garlic-tasting stuff. They washed out my wounds with a liquid that stung ten times worse than iodine and smelled like stale beer. They didn’t tell me what it was, and I didn’t ask, but they hummed and whispered chants while they took care of me.
“You’re going to the hospital now,” Sarah explained, just before I slipped back into unconsciousness.
I woke up briefly on the trip to Hvammstangi. We were inside a large jeep, heading down the road. It was light out, but of course the sun was nowhere to be seen. I was leaning against Sarah; Michael sat beside me, clutching his arm. “Hi, Angie,” he said, “back from the dead, I see.”
I nodded. Turned my head. Mordur was laid out in the back; the woman who looked like my mom was holding him in place. “He’s okay, isn’t he?” I asked.
“Yes,” Sarah said softly. “Yes, of course.”
Then I was gone again. The next time I came to I was on a hospital bed and a doctor was bent over me, stitching my arm. It was frozen, of course. I watched a needle going in and out of the places where Skoll’s claws had torn open my flesh, sealing them up. The doctor saw I was awake and explained he wasn’t sure if my left arm would ever be the same. They would have to see after the swelling went down. I’d definitely have to go to a specialist back at home. My ankle was the only other major injury. All he could do was wrap it in a bandage and tell me not to go jogging.
I was given a room in the hospital and by the next day was feeling well enough to walk around. When Sarah and Michael visited me, Michael was sporting a cast from his wrist to his elbow. “Want to sign it? I’ve already got a great collection of Icelandic swear words.”
I did sign, using my awkward right hand. I’d have to learn how to do a lot of things with that hand now.
“After everything thaws, they’re going to hunt for Uncle Thordy’s body,” Sarah told me, “and then give him the funeral he deserves.”
Would they find anything of Skoll? I wondered. Just thinking of him made my bones ache. I pushed him out of my mind.
“Oh, by the way,” Sarah said, “Merry Christmas.”
“What?”
“It’s Christmas eve,” Michael said, “but we’re going to celebrate when our parents get here.”
I was stunned. I must have slept through a full day. A short while later Sarah and Michael took me to Mordur’s room and left me to sit with him. He was still unconscious, had not come to at all. I held his hand and spoke to him. I found myself telling him about what my house looked like back in North Dakota, where I went to school, what my favorite classes were, and what I was hoping to get for Christmas. It all just came pouring out of me. Finally, I told him how much I missed my grandpa and my brother. I began to cry.
Still, he didn’t wake up. Sarah told me they’d pulled a piece of what they thought was a claw from his neck, but it dissolved within seconds of being exposed to the air.
It was maybe the last little bit of Skoll left. The police only found ragged, torn clothes where he had fallen. There was no other clue that he had ever existed. They searched Gunnvor’s property, but both she and Onni were gone.
The next morning my parents arrived, along with Sarah and Michael’s mom and dad, and we began preparing for Grandpa Thursten’s funeral.