February 9, 2019
They’re standing in front of a frozen pond. It came out of nowhere. Lilja’s been leading Agnes through the city, pointing out different shops and points of interest along the main street and they followed it down, down, down with the flow of the foot traffic, until suddenly they reached an open space. The air is brisk, the sky dark. Lilja’s fingers are laced through hers. Agnes keeps stealing looks at Lilja and finds her doing the same.
The city echoes with shouts of laughter and many overlapping babbling voices. Couples beckoning to each other. They’re walking on the frozen water, farther and farther out, their footsteps light on the ice. Agnes watches a child racing into the exact center of the pond. Her heart crawls into her throat, picturing the sudden drop. Imagining she can hear the screams as they all fall into the frigid water.
But the screams are victorious, mischievous. They’re all having fun.
“Do you want to try it?” Lilja asks her.
They choose a spot with heavy foot traffic, where the ice has been proven to be able to support the weight of an adult woman’s body. Under Lilja’s guidance, Agnes slides one foot forward, then another. There’s no noticeable difference that she can tell, through the soles of her boots, from the solid earth to the solid water. She grips Lilja’s hand tighter, feels the returning squeeze as though it were a blessing. Agnes should be used to this. The shock that life goes on, that miracles are not found in otherworldly feats but in moments of connection. She’s walking on water. She used to do this on her board, with her grandfather. Now she’s doing it on borrowed legs, with Lilja.
Lilja pulls her farther out, to the center of the pond. They hold each other and stare out at the city lights surrounding them. Lilja tells Agnes where she hopes to live, one day, when she moves here, and Agnes can see it all so clearly. Lilja will find another room to sleep in, another room to fill with more art supplies and legal textbooks and another woman to share it all with.
They find a restaurant nearby for dinner, then a bar for drinks. They wait out the night, both reluctant to reenter the world. They don’t talk about Ása or the past. They talk only of themselves. Agnes doesn’t feel like the granddaughter of an infamous murderer, and she doesn’t feel like a series of broken ligaments and hearts, either.
“I should go,” Lilja says, finally, her head in her hands. “Óskar’s holding an after-party. He says it’s a tribute to Ása. I should be there.”
Agnes leaves with her. The city glows with leftover Christmas decorations, the streetlamps radiating bubbles of light every few feet, and Agnes can’t help but think of bog lights, the supernatural lanterns that would lead travelers farther into the muck, to a horrible wet death. She tries to shake away the ominous feeling, the self-pity, now that her day with Lilja, alone, is over, now that they’re walking back into reality, but it’s too powerful.
She sneaks another glance at Lilja. The light washes over her face, hollowing her broad cheeks and dyeing her skin a lurid orange. Agnes should be sick of her by now. But she isn’t. She wants more time with her.
The bonfire is easy to find, once they reach the beach. Against the backdrop of the black water, lined in the middle distance with the streetlights of faraway roads and buildings, the massive bucket of flames sears Agnes’s retinas. Lilja nods hello to a few of the stragglers. She presses close to Agnes, diving upward to kiss her cheek and to whisper in her ear, “I have to talk to Óskar.” Then she’s hurrying ahead.
Agnes heads straight to the flames.
She scans the faces of those around her, but she can’t find Nora. Nora must be here, right? Agnes worries she didn’t get the invitation, yet again, to the party. Then she reaches the bonfire, and she’s distracted by the warmth.
There, on the other side of the flames, stands Óskar. He’s different this evening, looser. Lilja’s beside him, arms wrapped around herself again, like she’s holding herself together, but barely. Agnes can only make out the tone of their voices. Lilja, low and gentle compared with Óskar’s hoarse bites. Óskar leans into Lilja’s space, speaking into her ear, almost into her mouth.
Jealousy kindles somewhere deep in Agnes’s bones. She has no logical right to it. She’s wandered into someone else’s life, with no intention of staying long. But it’s there, building, and there’s no talking herself out of it.
She starts at the touch on her shoulder.
Behind her, finally, is Nora. “Got a minute?”
“Now?”
In answer, Nora points a gloved thumb in the direction of the city, away from the group, away from the warmth of the flames. Agnes complies, stumbling behind Nora’s nimble footsteps. They stop when they can only hear the vibrations of the group’s many jumbled conversations. Nora waits for Agnes to catch up, turning her body at an angle so Agnes can only see the profile of her face. The glint of the neon-pink glasses.
“What’s going on?” Agnes asks.
“This is a delicate question,” Nora says, “but I have no time to be delicate.”
Nora looks to Agnes significantly, as though expecting Agnes to speak up. Agnes has no idea what she’s talking about.
“What’s going on with you and Lilja?” Nora asks.
Immediately embarrassed and immediately defensive, Agnes counters, “What does it matter to you?”
Nora tilts her chin upward, the realization dawning on her physically. “You’re sleeping with her.”
“How is that any of your business?”
Nora barks out a harsh laugh. “Are you kidding? This isn’t just some random person off the street. This is someone deeply, deeply connected to what I’m researching. Of course it’s my business. Of course it’s my place to ask. And of course you shouldn’t be sleeping with her. Jesus, Agnes, you just met—”
“No,” Agnes says, temper flaring, hot and fast, “this isn’t any of your business. You have no right to tell me who I can or cannot see. You’ve said it yourself. You aren’t a detective. You aren’t even a journalist. You’re just asking questions. You have zero say in who I talk to.”
Hands grab Agnes’s shoulders, hard enough to hurt. There’s a single, tough shake. “Agnes,” Nora says. “Listen to me. I’m not—”
“Don’t touch me.” Agnes pushes her away. “Please don’t put your hands on me when you’re calling me a whore.”
“Okay.” Nora runs a hand through her wild hair, regaining her composure. “I’m going about this all wrong,” she says. “I’m not slut-shaming you, Agnes, and I’m not trying to dictate who you can or cannot sleep with. It’s just—Lilja is so close to this. Don’t you get that? Don’t you see her, right there, with Óskar? She had Ása’s phone. She gave you her phone! She lied to the police. How do you know she isn’t lying to you? I’m not a detective, no, but if I were, those two would be my primary suspects. I’m sorry you think I’m being high-handed here, but I think it’s within my rights to mention that.”
“Why?” Agnes asks.
“Why what?”
“Why do you have to mention it? Because you’re concerned for me? Or because you want to know if Lilja’s told me anything more about Ása?”
This catches Nora by surprise. Frustration gives way to humor. “If I say ‘both,’ will that offend you?”
“You’re ridiculous,” Agnes says, but she feels her own anger draining away. She sighs. “She didn’t say anything you don’t already know. Ása was unhappy. Okay?”
“Sleeping with Lilja crosses a line, Agnes.”
“For you it would. But you’ve made it clear that I’m not part of the show, not in that capacity. I’m just me. I’m entitled to sleep with whoever I want.”
Nora puts her back to Agnes, puts her back to the entire crowd. She’s staring out into the glowing city. Agnes would like to cave, to smooth things over, to protect the fragile bud of friendship that has been growing between them.
But she doesn’t.
“All right,” Nora says, turning to face Agnes again. “I am sorry. For this and for my outburst last night. I’m not this way with many other people, believe it or not. I think sometimes you remind me of my sister. Chloe. Not the way you look, but the way you hold yourself. Chloe couldn’t connect very easily with other people. She used to tell me she was a freak because she could only understand me. It was like everyone else was speaking another language, and only I could speak English … Sometimes, when I look at you, I see her. And that makes me…” She casts about for the right words. She finds only “this.” Then: “We’re okay, right?”
Agnes says, “We are,” but wonders, truly, if they are. Since when did she become a Rorschach test? How many people have projected the image of her grandmother onto her these past few days? And now Nora’s sister? Since when did she become something that happens to people?
“I like Lilja,” Agnes tells Nora. “You don’t get to take her away from me.”
Nora’s opening her mouth to answer when a tremendous yell cuts through the air. It silences all conversations as completely as a gunshot. It’s Óskar, body slanted like a boomerang, arm raised in a salute. The bonfire’s glow flickers over him, lighting his red hair into a blaze. He lifts his rough, tired voice to cover the beach as he rattles off a long monologue in Icelandic. Even from a distance, Agnes is shocked by the force of emotion in his voice, his features. It contorts him, the rage and the adrenaline and the sorrow, into something other than human. He stops, suddenly, choking on his last words.
He takes a moment to collect himself.
“Ása,” he says finally. He repeats the name like an incantation. Raises his drink again into the night air. “Our Ása.”