Yrsa Sigurdardottir - Last Rituals

"Yes. We're childhood friends," Dori said, and looked down. With a deft jerk of his head he let his hair fall down to avoid further eye contact.

"It must matter to you that we have a clear picture of what happened. One of your friends was murdered and another friend is suspected of killing him. I'd expect you to be eager to help us. Right?" Matthew smiled at Dori but it failed to penetrate his hair and reach his eyes. He turned to the others. "And the rest of youthe same applies to you, of course?"

They all indicated their agreement by muttering "yes" down into their chests or nodding.

"Good." Matthew slapped his thigh. "So we're all set. Apart from where to start." He looked over at Thora. "Thora, would you like to do the honors?"

Thora smiled at the students. "How about you tell us where you met Harald and explain the nature of this magic society of yours? We find it all very peculiar."

Everyone looked at Marta Mist, hoping that she would take the task on. But she passed the question on to Dori with a nudge of her elbow, which looked unnecessarily forceful to Thora. Dori grimaced, but answered. "How we met? I first met Harald with Hugi last year. They'd met at a bar in town. I thought he was a laugh and we started hanging around together, like you do. We went out to restaurants and bars and concerts and stuff. Then Harald asked if we were interested in joining a society he was thinking about setting up and we just said yes. That's how we met the others."

Marta Mist took over. "I joined the society through Briet. She'd met Harald in class and wanted me to see what they were up to." Briet nodded fervently in agreement.

"What about you?" Thora directed her words at Andri and Brjann who sat side by side, smoking.

"Us?" Andri coughed, choking on the smoke he had forgotten to exhale.

"Yes," Thora replied. "You two." She pointed at them to dispel all doubt.

Brjann went first. "I'm doing history and I heard about the society the same way as BrietI'd chatted to Harald a bit before and he invited me to join. I took Andri along for a laugh." Andri smiled sheepishly.

"And what was the point of this society, if I may ask? We understood from Hugi that it mainly involved orgiesdisguised as meetings of people who were interested in sorcery in the historical sense."

The three boys grinned while Marta Mist turned down the corners of her mouth and said in tones of outraged innocence: "Orgies? There were no orgies. We were learning about sorcery and witchcraft culture in ancient times. The old stories really aren't so dull after all, they're really interesting. The fact that we had a bit of fun after the meetings is irrelevant, and Hugi's got the wrong end of the stick as usual. He never had a clue what that society was about." She leaned back and folded her arms. Her frown stayed put. She glared at Matthew and Thora. "Of course you have no idea what it was about eitherI bet you think we were decapitating chickens and sticking pins in homemade dolls."

"Would you be so kind as to explain the world of witchcraft, then?" asked Matthew.

Marta Mist groaned. "I'm not going to play teacher with you. All you need to understand is that magic is just an individual's attempt to influence his own life in unconventional waysat least, unconventional to the modern mind. In its day it was very common and for those born into poverty at the time it was the only hope they had of possibly changing their circumstances for the better. It mainly involves performing acts that will twist events in your favorsometimes at someone else's expense, sometimes not. In my view, when you've made the effort to perform the charm you've taken one step toward a specific aim and you can focus on it better afterward, so you're more likely to achieve it than before."

"Can you give me an example?" said Thora.

"Winning love or success; healing; harming an enemy. There's no limit, really. Most of the old charms are connected with basic needs, thoughlife wasn't so complicated back then."

After reading Malleus Maleficarum, Thora begged to differ. To her mind at least, it was very complicated to try to defend someone in a judicial system that constantly bent and changed the rules according to the interests of the prosecution. "So what do you use in your spells?" she asked, and to get a rise out of Marta Mist she added: "Apart from headless chickens and homemade dolls?"

"Very funny," said Marta Mist, without a trace of a smile. "In Iceland it was mainly magical symbolsalthough they often had to do more than carve or draw them to complete the spell. We know of magical symbols from other parts of Europe, too, and the same applied to themit wasn't always enough just to draw them."

"Such as?" Matthew asked.

"Reciting a charm, collecting animal bones, human bones, the hair of a virgin. That sort of thing. Nothing serious," Marta Mist answered coldly.

"Yes, and sometimes human body parts," Briet interjected. The group suddenly fell silent. She blushed and clammed up.

"Really?" Matthew said with feigned surprise. "Like what? Hands? Hair?" He paused briefly. "Or maybe eyes?"

No one said anything until Marta Mist spoke up. "I've never read of any spell where eyes are neededapart from the eyes of animals."

"What about the rest of you? Do you know about any such spells?" asked Matthew.

None of them spoke, but they all shook their heads. "Nope," Brjann said eventually.

"What about fingers?" Thora asked quickly. "Have you read aboutor performeda spell that needs a finger?"

"No." Dori's voice was firm and he swept his hair from his eyes in order to press his point home by looking Thora and Matthew in the eye. "We want to make it perfectly clear that we haven't been doing spells that use human body parts. I don't know what you're insinuating, but it's ridiculous. We didn't kill Haraldyou can rule that out for a start. The cops have our alibis and had them checked out." Dori leaned forward and took a cigarette from one of the packets on the table. He lit it, took a deep drag, and exhaled slowly.

"So Hugi killed him, then?" Thora asked. "Are you saying that?"

"No, I didn't say that at all. You ought to listen more carefully," Dori said heatedly. He leaned forward as if about to say more, but Marta Mist put her arm out and pushed him back against the sofa.

Then she spoke, much calmer than Halldor. "I don't know where your logic is coming from, but just because we didn't kill Harald doesn't automatically mean that Hugi did. Dori was just pointing out that we didn't kill Harald. Basta ." Now it was Marta Mist's turn to lean back in the sofa. She plucked the cigarette from between Dori's fingers, took a drag, and returned it. Briet's face signaled annoyance; this obvious sign of intimacy seemed to jostle her nerves.

"Hugi didn't kill him. He's not like that," Dori muttered gruffly. He pushed Marta Mist's arm away and reached across the table to tap the ash from his cigarette.

"What about you? Are you like that? If I remember correctly, you didn't have as good an alibi as your friends." Matthew stared at Dori and waited for a response.

And it came. Dori's voice deepened in anger and as soon as he started speaking he shifted to the edge of the sofaas close to Matthew as he could get without falling off. "Harald was my friend. My good friend. We looked out for each other, did stuff for each other. I would never have killed him. Never. You're even wider off the mark than the cops, and you don't know what the fuck you're going on about." To punctuate his words he stabbed his burning cigarette at Matthew.

"What did you do for him, anyway? Apart from translating for him?" interrupted Thora.

Dori took his eyes off Matthew and glared just as vehemently at Thora. He opened his mouth as if about to say something, then stopped. After taking a last puff and stubbing out his cigarette, he moved back to his place on the sofa.