Giants of the Frost (13 page)

I guessed that depended on how much more frightened I became, alone on Othinsey. No matter what imagined bogey lurked outside ready to spring forward and eat my brains, the balloons had to go up—twice a day, twelve hours apart, eleven o'clock Greenwich Mean Time—as they did all over the planet. This necessitated my being over at the hydrogen chamber, then the control room for about an hour. By Sunday morning, I was growing bolder, facing the outside world as though it didn't frighten me. I was out on the observation deck, getting a fix on the balloon with the radar, when the phone started ringing. I finished what I was doing, then raced to scoop it up.

"Hello?"

"Victoria, it's Magnus. What's the matter?"

"Pardon?"

"You sounded frantic on the answering machine." He chuckled. "I knew if I left you alone for long enough you'd revert to a frightened girl. All that bravado—"

"I'm not frightened and I wasn't frantic," I said, anger heating up my voice. "I just wanted to ask you about the instruments at the research site. We've had a lot of rain. Do you need me to check on them?" It was the best excuse I could conjure on short notice. It made me squirm with shame that Magnus believed, even for an instant, that I'd succumbed to superstition and hysteria like Maryanne.

"Actually, Victoria, that's a wonderful idea. You can take a set of readings for me."

"Fine. I'll do that." Damn me for a fool.

"The folder for the readings is on my desk. It has a blue spine."

"Consider it done." Alone in the forest. I needed to
think
before I opened my mouth.

"Are you sure you're not frightened out there in the Norwegian Sea?" He was teasing now. "The ghosts not bothering you?"

"No, I'm fine," I said tersely.

"I'm glad to hear it. I look forward to seeing you on Wednesday. Good-bye for now."

"Bye."

I replaced the phone in the cradle and checked the balloon's progress on the computer. I was annoyed. Not just by Magnus's ill-natured teasing, but by the realization that they would all be back on Wednesday and I hadn't had any fun alone on the island. Rather, it had been a torture, ruined by sleep deprivation and hysteria. I drummed my fingers on the table. The phone rang again. I assumed it was Magnus with more mockery.

"Hello, Vicky?"

"Oh, Gunnar."

"You sound surprised. You did ask me to call."

"Yeah, yeah I did." I had called everybody, hadn't I? Gunnar, Magnus, my mother. God,
my mother
.

"Thanks for calling back. How was Amsterdam?"

"Great. Mor said you sounded anxious when you phoned."

I dropped my head on the desk. "Yeah, I was a little panicked. I've hardly slept at all, and weird things have been happening since I've been alone."

"Really?"

"I had that nightmare… the hag."

"It's isolated sleep—"

"Yes, yes, I know. But I had two huge bruises on my ribs afterward."

"Are they still there?"

I sat up and pulled up my pajama top. "Um… no."

"You could have imagined them."

"I didn't, Gunnar."

"Anything else?"

"Thursday night, somebody knocked on my door. The next morning, I found a rune stone outside."

"How do you know what a rune stone is?" he said.

"I looked it up.
Eolh
."

"Protection. Well, that's a good thing."

"But where did it come from? I was hoping it was yours."

"No, not mine. But Nils, who used to live in your cabin, he was interested in historical reenactment, like I am. He probably left it behind and you never noticed it before. And as for the knocking, you said you were low on sleep. You could have—"

"I know, I could have imagined it. What if I didn't, Gunnar? What if I'm not alone on the island?" Gunnar chuckled. "Didn't I tell you that Othinsey would challenge even the most hardened skeptic? Don't worry. You're alone, Vicky."

"How can you be so sure? What about thieves? And I saw the aurora…"

"Let's think straight. First, you don't fear anything supernatural, do you? Really? You told me when we first met that you don't believe in ghosts."

I thought about the hag and the bruises: scary, but probably explainable. "No. No, of course not."

"Second, could there really be somebody else on the island?"

"That's what I'm afraid of."

"It's not possible. You would have seen or heard them if they'd come up the fjord, and I don't believe they could land on the beach."

"Couldn't they?"

"When you get off the phone from me, I want you to walk through the forest and over to the beach. Have another good look at it. There's no way somebody could land there in a small vessel."

"What about a large vessel?"

"They'd have to leave it where they landed, so if there's a boat there, at least you'd know for sure there's someone about. Then you can call Magnus and go into lockdown."

"With the hag."

"It's just a dream, Vicky. You know that."

He was right, I did know. For the first time since everyone had left, I felt like I might be able to return to myself. Rational, fearless Victoria. "Thank you, Gunnar," I said. "Thank you for letting me be so…

vulnerable. And thank you for not teasing me about all this."

"You're welcome. I can't imagine how lonely you must be."

"I don't know if I'm lonely, I'm just—"

"You can call me anytime, Vicky. Even in the middle of the night. I'll be here until Tuesday morning, then I'm heading up to Ålesund to catch the
Jonsok
."

"It'll be nice to see you." It was true, and I didn't care if it gave him faint romantic hope. "I'm going to do just what you said. I've got to check on Magnus's instruments, then I'll go out to the beach. An act of boldness will be therapeutic."

In this renewed spirit of self-assuredness, I moved out of Gunnar's cabin, decided that my pajamas were becoming a little grubby, and changed to day clothes. In my jeans and black turtleneck, with my anorak tied about my waist, I gathered Magnus's folder and a pen from his desk and headed out into the mild, clear day with a sense of purpose.

As I left behind the concrete, civilized space of Kirkja and moved into the forest, with that mild, clear sky obscured by dark trees, my sense of purpose faltered. The haunting familiarity returned to me. I bent my mind toward remembering what trigger linked my memories to this place, but the search pulled me so far back that it felt like I was falling out of time. I concentrated instead on counting my footfalls, making them rhythmic. An acute awareness of my own vulnerability seized me. I was alone, on an island, in the middle of nowhere. Completely defenseless wasn't a feeling I was used to. I usually felt capable and robust. But there, in the deep forest on Othinsey, it seemed I was so transparent and flimsy that a gust of wind could knock me over. Was this at the root of my recent hysteria? I had thought being left alone would be thrilling. Was Magnus right? Had the solitude caused me to revert, in some primitive biological way, to a frightened girl?

I banished the thoughts and kept counting, dividing footsteps and spaces, making rudimentary calculations that meant nothing. Twenty minutes later I arrived at Magnus's instrument enclosure. The big, anvil-shaped rock jutted out of the ground like a crooked tooth. I leaned back on it and looked up at the sky. A black feeling swooped down on me.
Something bad happened here
. I shook my head, straightened up and glanced around. Nothing bad was happening. It was a soft spring day. I could hear the ocean in the distance and I was surrounded by cool green colors, fresh air and the scent of pine needles. Weak sunshine formed a pillar down into the clearing.

Magnus had marked the transpiration monitors in the soil with small red flags on posts. I flipped open the folder and found his pen inside. With a squirm of guilt, I realized it was one of those expensive Mont Blanc pens, probably worth a small fortune. I held it very tight, afraid to lose it, as I went from one red flag to the next, taking readings and writing them down. My handwriting looked childish and loopy next to Magnus's neat, spare marks. Concentrating on the work helped me to relax. I found a spot in the sunshine and sat down, flicking through Magnus's folder and notes. Most were in Norwegian. It was growing warm, so I rolled up my sleeves. As I did so, I glanced up and saw a dark shape moving among the trees in the distance. My heart started; I leaped up. Was it just a trick of the light? I strained my eyes, but could see nothing more than shifting shadows. I listened into the distance, but could only hear the sea and the wind.

This was becoming tiresome.

Gunnar was right I needed to go out to the beach and see with my own eyes that I was alone. I packed up and headed away from the clearing, following my ears to the beach, hoping the wind off the Norwegian Sea would blow away the fog of silly fears.

As the trees thinned out, the wind pulled my hair into tangles. The ocean roared, the beach was flat and grey. I pulled on my anorak and walked right to the edge of the waves, where they sucked and crashed on the sand. I cast my eye along the beach to the north and the south. It was empty, vast and empty. Where the sand ended, rocks took oven nobody could land a boat on rocks. Watching the wild water, I doubted anybody could bring a boat anywhere near this beach. I felt relief; it was abundantly clear that no thieves and brigands had arrived on the island.

I really was alone. Not just on Othinsey, but in the vast incomprehensible space of existence. I was born alone in my skin and knew I would die that way too. It was so awful and tragic that I wanted to cry. What use were scientific explanations? They were great for chasing away imagined spectres, but provided no comfort in a sudden moment of mortal dread. Not a scintilla of proof existed that a spirit inhabited the body of man: when we die, we die.

I turned my back on the sea and began the return trek to Kirkja.

At ten-thirty on Sunday night, I dutifully left my warm cabin and went to the cold lino-floored storeroom to assemble a weather balloon, then out into the crisp darkness to load it into the hydrogen chamber. As it filled, I did a quick check on all the equipment, did a visibility check and worked out the angle of the wind (it was a very still night), then launched the balloon and fixed it with the radar. By then, these tasks were becoming so familiar that I could do them without thought, and yet I concentrated on them very hard. Thinking about what I was doing kept me from falling down the neurotic rabbit holes in my head. I fussed around a bit longer in the control room, then left just after midnight (that made it Monday, it happened on a Monday) and went downstairs to lock up.

My hand was falling away from the door, the keys returning to my pocket, my breath fogging in the still night air, a chill on my cheeks, a warm fulfillable desire to return to my cabin, the smell of pine and faraway sea, a susurration in the treetops. I seem to remember holding my breath, or perhaps that's one of those false memories, perhaps I am holding my breath now.

I heard a sound. I turned. The dark figure of a man stood directly before me, tall and broad, his face in shadow. My heart leaped into my throat and I opened my mouth to scream.

He grabbed my wrist and said, "Please, please, don't scream. I couldn't bear to hear it."

I screamed anyway. Not the bloodcurdling scream you might hear in a horror film; more a cross between a shout of shock and a moan of helpless terror. Here was the nightmare made manifest, the stranger on the island that I'd been trying to convince myself was not real. I tried to wrench away but he had me firmly by the wrist. My heart and lungs were bursting and a million scenarios played out in my head in an instant.

Then he took a step forward and the light from the station fell across his face. And everything changed.

"You're…" I opened my mouth to say his name, but I didn't know it. Though I was sure I must. He seemed so very familiar to me.

"I'm sorry that I frightened you."

He released my wrist and I took a step back, knowing I should run, knowing I should lock myself in the station and call Magnus. I stood before him, breath held, and merely stared. He was overwhelmingly attractive. Dark brown hair swept away from his broad forehead and fell in waves to his shoulders. His eyes were almost black, wide-set and feline; he wore an untidy goatee. His height and breadth made him appear very masculine, but his movements were agile and lithe, his hands pale and long. His physique betrayed both an athlete and artist, both power and patience. An ancient and unutterable longing drew up through me, gathering me like a needle and thread gathers silk.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"My name is Vidar," he said, his voice faintly accented like Magnus's and Gunnar's. "Don't run away. I promise I won't hurt you."

"I know," I said.

He smiled, and the keen stab of familiarity stole my breath again. I knew that I had never met this man, but some long-buried spark in my heart ignited in response to him as though he were deeply significant to me.

"I'm glad you know," he said, relieved.

"How did you get here?"

"To Othinsey? I have been here for a number of days. I can't reveal how I came to be here, I'm sorry." His reluctance to explain made me suspicious. Had he stowed away on the
Jonsok
and been hiding in the forest? Gunnar had said it would be a good place to hide. Perhaps he was running from the law.

"Are you in some kind of trouble?"

"Don't ask me any more, I can't explain further. I know it's difficult to trust me when I say so little, but you must trust me."

I smiled. "At least you're not a ghost."

"No, not a ghost." There was no return smile; his eyes were fixed on my face and he struggled with some inner distress. "Your name is… ?"

"Victoria."

"Victoria," he said. "That's a pretty name."

"Thanks." I noticed, for the first time, the clothes he was wearing beneath his cloak. A brown tunic to his thighs and trousers with leather straps crisscrossed up to his knees, similar to the costume Gunnar was wearing in the photo over his desk. "Are you a friend of Gunnar's?"