February 7, 2019
This time, Agnes rides into town in Nora’s truck. They might as well be flying for all they feel of the road, and Agnes, hazy and strange from a fitful night of half sleep, sips at the to-go cup of coffee Nora fixed for her. “You take good care of me,” Agnes says.
“What can I say? I’m a nurturer.” Nora guides the truck into town and finds the right apartment building without any help from the GPS. She parallel parks in front of the building as though she’s done it a thousand times before.
“This,” Nora announces, “is where Ása and her friends live.”
The morning is predictably dark, but the streets are lit up well, allowing Agnes a good view of the building. She likes it. Not for its anonymous modern design, but the personalities of those living inside. Each windowsill features some type of light, either an upside-down triangle of electric candles or stars or even a warm salt lamp. They’re fighting off the darkness. As though everyone were holding hands, shoring each other up against a strong current.
Nora hops out of the truck and Agnes follows, more carefully. Before they’d left, she’d swallowed two pills, not because she’d been thinking about it all night, she’d convinced herself, but to curb the pain rocketing up her leg. It’s not enough, not nearly enough, to ease her cravings. Just enough, she tells herself, to be a person. She waits on the sidewalk while Nora grabs her equipment from the trunk. Her equipment turns out to be an oversized backpack and a tote bag. It surprises Agnes, again, how little Nora needs for this award-winning podcast. No crew, no huge cases of machinery. One woman with a backpack.
“Listen,” Nora says, coming around the side of the truck, “I think it’s best if you don’t speak in there. Of course you can say hi, whatever, you’re allowed to be you, but you aren’t technically part of the show. Right?”
Agnes agrees easily. She hadn’t expected otherwise. This is Nora’s domain and, frankly, beyond a burgeoning curiosity to find out what happened to this student, Agnes doesn’t really care. She’s here for Einar, not Ása.
“Great,” Nora says. She fiddles with her belt. It takes Agnes a moment to figure it out, but it’s her microphone pack. She’s turning it on. This gives Agnes a jolt of pleasure. They hadn’t spoken much this morning over breakfast, but they had spoken. And it hadn’t been recorded.
Nora leads her to the front door, but a voice, loud and cheerful, stops them in their tracks. “Nora! Agnes!” It’s Thor, wearing the same thin snowsuit as before. He rushes up to them, grinning.
Nora’s delighted. “What are you doing here?”
“I have to help the search however I can.” He claps Nora on the back and nods a friendly hello to Agnes. “How are you liking the house?” he asks her.
“It’s fantastic,” Agnes says honestly. “That view.”
“Oh, yes.” Thor’s pleased. “That stretch of the river is something your grandparents and I shared and cherished.”
“So you really knew them well?” Agnes asks.
“I knew Marie best,” he tells her. “She spent more time in town. Einar, he kept to the university and his office.” He shakes his head, smiling at a distant memory. “I was so in love with Marie. But so was everyone. She was a bright presence in town, walking with her little students. She was an angel in charge of all the cherubim.”
Agnes hears herself laugh.
Nora interjects, “You said you’re helping with the search today? Did you not get the permission to restart work on the farmhouse?”
Thor clicks his lips in a dismissive gesture. “That was easy. They are eager for me to rebuild. I have restarted, so please, do not go in there. It won’t be safe to walk through while I work.” He pulls out his phone to check the time and groans. “Busy, busy, busy,” he says. He offers them both an apology. “I hate to keep running away from you two. When are we having dinner?”
“Soon,” Nora says. “I’ll get in touch with you later today or tomorrow, see what your schedule’s like.”
“Wonderful,” he says. He rushes through his goodbyes, then he’s off, racing down the street.
Satisfied, Nora returns to the apartment building, searching for the correct number on the buzzer to ring. “You don’t mind a dinner, right?” she asks Agnes, distracted.
Agnes doesn’t answer. She asks, because it’s been bothering her, “He’s fixing up the farmhouse, right? Why?” After all these years, why now?
This gets Nora’s attention. “Well, you know how he rents out the house we’re staying in? He’s restoring the farmhouse to rent it out, too, as a vacation home. He says he wants to build a series of cabins on the land. Bring some tourism dollars into the town and his own pockets, I guess.”
Agnes imagines staying in her family’s home, living among all the ghosts. For a moment, the image, though morbid, appeals to her. Until the other shoe drops. According to Nora, the farmhouse is already a pilgrimage for some true crime fans. Now they’ll be encouraged to visit. To stay.
The Bifröst Murder House will become a tourist attraction, after all.
If Nora notices Agnes’s horror, she doesn’t comment on it. She focuses again on the task at hand, finding the correct buzzer for Ása’s friends. She jams her thumb into one of the buttons and waits, tapping her foot impatiently.
With an effort, Agnes brings herself back into the present moment. “Do these students know I’m with you? Like, who I am?”
The door clicks open and Nora shoves her body into it. She doesn’t cross the threshold, though, not yet. “Do you want me to tell them?”
“I don’t know,” Agnes says. “No.”
“I haven’t,” Nora admits. “I might, though. In this conversation, your identity might be pertinent, it might not. In others, it absolutely will be. But you’re not going to be able to go incognito much longer. This is a small town. Word will get out that you’re here, and places like this … they have a long memory.”