Thief Eyes (26 page)

Ari looked up from the newspaper he was reading as we entered the room. His leather jacket was replaced by fleece-lined black nylon, along with a bleached wool cap almost as pale as his hair. “Hey,” he said in English. “It says here they found a staff carved with magical runes in the
Westfjords. Very mysterious, no sign of the owner. The people at the Sorcery Museum are looking into it.”

“There’s a
sorcery
museum?” I said, also in English, as I slid into my seat.

“Yeah. In Holmavik. Too bad we forgot to visit. Of course, we were a bit busy.”

“Just a bit.” I turned to the menu, which was written in both English and Icelandic. I read the English, then ordered in Icelandic, which seemed to startle the waiter. Even if I spoke the language, a million other small things gave me away as the foreigner I was.

“It’s going to take a while to get used to that,” Dad said. “I bet you could place out of your language requirement when we get home, though.”

I switched to English automatically. “Yeah, because that would make it all totally worth it, right?” I managed a laugh.

Katrin glanced at Ari’s white hair. “We all have things to get used to.” She spoke English, too. She sipped her coffee and looked at Dad and me over the rim of her cup. “You’ve decided to go back, then?”

Ari looked down, suddenly very interested in his napkin. I nodded slowly. “There still might be time to catch up at school. Keep me from losing the year.”
Give Dad and me a chance to learn how to live alone with each other
.

“I wish you would stay,” Katrin said. “Not all the stories
about Hallgerd and Thorgerd are written down. I’d tell you the rest of what was passed on to me.”

“Nah, Jared would be disappointed if she didn’t come home,” Ari said.

I looked sharply over at him. Ari met my gaze. “Hey, two days ago we were not sure we would make it back at all. It is good that you can go home.”

I kept looking at him. “Want to go for a walk?” I said.

“It is freezing out there. Why would anyone—I am being stupid again. Yes, I would love to go for a walk.”

I glanced at Dad, and he nodded. Ari followed me out.

As we headed across the parking lot and onto the path, something icy blew into our faces. I held out my hand, and a cold flake landed there. Snow.

Back home, they were still having hundred-degree days. Even without magic, I’d be warm soon enough. The thought wasn’t as comforting as it should have been. I missed the desert, but I was going to miss Iceland, too. Would it always be like this, wishing for whichever place I couldn’t be? “Dad says maybe we can come back for Christmas,” I told Ari in Icelandic.

“The weather’s worse at Christmas,” Ari said, also in Icelandic. “More snow, and it’s dark all the time. Of course you don’t want to stay.”

I stopped and stared at a cluster of bright red flowers. Didn’t they know that it was way too cold to bloom? “I talked to Jared.”

Ari didn’t look at me. “I’m sure he’s glad you’re okay.”

“Of course he’s glad. Jared’s my best friend. He’s been worried sick these past months. He wants to know what it’s like to be a bear, too, by the way. I think he’s a little jealous of you.”

Ari gave a wry laugh. “We’re even there, then.”

“You’re not listening!” Or maybe I wasn’t saying it right. “I told Jared how much I’d missed him. And I told him how much I was going to miss you.”

Ari opened his mouth as if to make a joke, shut it again. Around us the snow kept falling.

I drew a deep breath.
Either you loved someone or you didn’t
. But what if you loved more than one person? Or what if things changed? “We decided—we’re only sixteen, okay? Maybe in Hallgerd’s time that was old enough to be married off whether you wanted to be or not, but neither of us wants to live out some ancient tragedy. We’re not ready to decide about the rest of our lives, you know?” I was having enough trouble getting through each day right now. I’d had more nightmares last night.

“So you’re—”

“We’re not breaking up.”

“No, of course not,” Ari said, a little too fast. “I didn’t mean—”

“But we’re both going to see other people, too.”

Any clever comeback Ari had died on his lips. He stared at me in complete silence.

I was suddenly very aware of how close we were standing. “I mean, assuming you’re okay with that”—I was the one talking too fast now—“because maybe you’re not and I’d totally understand if—”

Ari leaned forward and kissed me.

I kissed him back. His hands were warm against my neck. I pulled off his hat, running my own hands through his soft hair. The
Star Wars
theme blared from Ari’s pocket, but we ignored it. His lips were soft, too, and his skin smelled faintly of snow and more faintly of bear, and the heat that rose in me had nothing at all to do with magic.

“Yes, Haley,” Ari said when we pulled apart at last. “I’m okay with that.” He smiled. No matter what happened a year, five years from now, I would always love that smile. “Are you leaving right away?”

“Next week. Dad couldn’t get a flight out any sooner.”

“Good,” Ari said. “Because your song, it isn’t finished yet.”

My
song? “You didn’t have to write something new for me.” But I smiled, too.

“No, I wanted to, only—I don’t like the ending anymore. Too much of that ancient tragedy stuff. I want to change it, but I wasn’t sure you’d be here long enough.”

The snow fell harder, white flakes landing on Ari’s pale eyelashes. His cell phone rang once more. I put my arms around his neck and looked right into his bright green eyes.

“I have time,” I said.

Author’s Note

Hallgerd, Gunnar, Thorgerd, Svan, Hrut, and Hallgerd’s father, Hoskuld, are all found in the pages of
Njal’s Saga
, one of the best-known and best-loved of the Icelandic sagas—medieval stories about Iceland’s early inhabitants. It is likely Hallgerd and her kin really existed, but all the rest is uncertain. Although
Njal’s Saga
took place a thousand years ago, it wasn’t written down until the thirteenth century, and as a result it’s hard to know which events are real and which aren’t, or exactly where history ends and fiction begins.

Many of the details in
Thief Eyes
come directly from
Njal’s Saga:
that Hallgerd’s uncle Svan was a sorcerer and her uncle Hrut could see the future, that Hrut said Hallgerd had the eyes of a thief, the deaths of Hallgerd’s husbands,
and—most memorably—Hallgerd’s refusing Gunnar two locks of her hair. Other details are my own invention: that Hallgerd studied sorcery with Svan, that Thorgerd inherited Hrut’s gift of prophecy, and that Thorgerd had any daughters, let alone daughters whose descendants live on today. None of these things directly contradict the saga, but none of them appear in its pages, either.

Berserks get little mention in
Njal’s Saga
, but
Egil’s Saga
features a shape-shifting wolf. In general there are more references to berserks turning into wolves than into bears, but as Freki says, no wolf has ever set foot on Iceland’s shores. Many of the sagas mention sorcery, but they give few details about how it was practiced. The Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft has more extensive records of spells and spellbooks from later times, though. Hallgerd’s spell was inspired by these records, but it, too, is ultimately my invention.

Freki, Muninn, the fire giants, and the mead of poetry come not from the sagas but from Norse mythology. Freki and Muninn are companions to the Norse god Odin—their master, whom Ari refuses to name—and Freki, too, is traditionally a wolf. Muninn has always been a raven, but I invented his mountain—although there
is
a mountain in Iceland’s Westfjords—Kaldbakshorn—into which
Njal’s Saga
says Svan may have disappeared when he died. The voices in Muninn’s mountain are loosely based on several other sagas, as well as (once Haley and Ari begin to climb)
a few bits of later Icelandic history. The woman whose lover refuses to take her abroad is Gudrun from
Laxdaela Saga
.

If you’d like to read
Njal’s Saga, Egil’s Saga, Laxdaela Saga
, or any of the other Icelandic sagas, I recommend finding a relatively recent print translation; in my experience, contemporary translations tend to be more accessible and readable than the older public domain translations available online. For
Njal’s Saga
, I enjoyed both the Robert Cook and Lee M. Hollander translations.

Finally, most of the places Haley and Ari visit are real, and many still bear the names they held a thousand years ago. Hoskuldsstadir, Hrutsstadir, and Svansholl are all named for their original owners and remain working farms today. Hlidarendi, the hillside where Gunnar died, also kept its saga-era name and is now the site of a parish church. And Thingvellir, the original site of Iceland’s Althing, or parliament, probably appears in more Icelandic sagas than any other location.

This book began at Thingvellir. As I walked through that rift valley for the first time, a half-read copy of
Njal’s Saga
in my backpack, I heard a woman’s voice whisper in my head, low and full of rage,
“I will not allow it.”
Later, I would wonder where that voice came from and whether it was real. Right then, I knew only that I had to stop, sit down, and write down Hallgerd’s words and the opening scene of
Thief Eyes
.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to:

Sigurður Atlason, manager of the Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft, and Björk Bjarnadóttir, environmental ethnologist, for answering my many questions and making me feel welcome in the Strandir region. Lárus Bragason, for a tour of the
Njal’s Saga
sites in the south of Iceland, where Hallgerd, Gunnar, and their neighbors lived. Matthias Johannsson of the Hótel Laugarhóll for the best meal I had in Iceland, with apologies for sending an earthquake to his hotel in return. Wildlife biologist Andrew Trent for answering my questions about polar bears. Stephanie Rosas, William Winhall, and Kelly Terry of Sea-World San Diego for not only answering my questions but
also letting me visit with their resident arctic foxes, Boris and Natasha.