Yrsa Sigurdardóttir - My Soul to Take

The album was not full. The last two snaps of Gudný showed her standing up against the wall of the farmhouse, which was apparently the family’s favorite spot for posing for photographs. She was well into her teens, a shapely girl with fair wavy hair. Thóra could well imagine that she would have been considered beautiful; she was easily as attractive as the handful of film stars Thóra could remember from that era. Both photographs were from 1941 and would have been sweet if they had showed Gudný alone, but they didn’t; on either side of her was a young man, each standing bolt upright with a somber expression. It was not the boys’ stiff posture that made the photographs look odd, however, but their clothing. They were both wearing plain dark trousers and white shirts with swastika armbands. They wore strange belts with straps at the side, and each rested one hand on a large flag-pole beside them. The flag drooped lifelessly down against the pole, but it was obviously a Nazi flag; the pole was topped with the swastika that Thóra had found in the first box. The socket was clearly designed to fit on the top of a flagpole. The young men’s names had not been written on the back of the photographs, only Gudný’s and the year.

There were no more photographs, only three empty double pages. A photograph had undoubtedly been removed from the first one: the dark space where it had been mounted stood out on the faded page, and the little corner mounts were still stuck in place. Thóra shook the album, hoping the photograph had been slipped in between the pages, but nothing fell out. She put the book down.

Thóra stood up. The light in the basement was dim, and she would be able to examine the photos better in her room. Also, she wanted to ask Jónas if the little deceased girl Edda from the album was the “ghost.” Every step of the wooden staircase creaked as she made her way up and Thóra was glad she wasn’t any heavier. On her way back up to the hotel, she took a deep breath, relieved to be free from the smell of rising damp. After savoring the fresh air for a moment, she headed for the lobby.

Outside one of the corridor windows she noticed Sóldís, the petite girl who had shown her to her room when she arrived the previous day. She was outside, smoking. Thóra decided to make a detour to discuss in a little more detail the stories that she had hinted were connected with the farmland or the farmhouse.

“Hi, Sóldís.”

The girl turned around. From her blank expression, Thóra could not tell whether she was pleased or annoyed to see her again. At least she didn’t run away. “What?”

Thóra walked over to the girl. “Hello again. Do you remember me?”

“Yes, of course. You’re a guest here. One of Jónas’s friends.”

“Right,” Thóra said, smiling warmly. “Listen, yesterday you mentioned some old stories about this place that you said you’d tell me later. It would help me a lot if you could fill me in now.”

The girl frowned, avoiding Thóra’s eye. “I’ve got to get back to work.”

“It would help Jónas out. I’m trying to assist him with something and, strange as it may seem, the local stories about this place might make it easier for me to help him.” Thóra waited.

The girl thought it over, then shrugged nonchalantly. “Okay. I don’t mind.”

“Great,” said Thóra. “Maybe we should go inside?” The weather was still overcast, although the fog had lifted. In fact, it only seemed to have lifted up a few meters, because all that could be seen of the nearby mountains was the lower slopes.

The girl gave another shrug. “Okay. Like I said, I don’t mind.” Thóra followed her through the staff entrance to a large kitchen, which presumably served the dining hall. Sóldís sat down at a little table reserved for the staff and gestured to Thóra to take a seat too. Then she reached over for a huge thermos flask and took two cups from a mismatched collection at the end of the table.

“I was brought up here, see, and my granny told me all sorts of stories from the countryside around here. Trolls and stuff, you know. Most of it was crap, of course, but she said some of it was real,” Sóldís began as she handed Thóra a cup of piping coffee.

Thóra nodded. “Like what?” She took a little carton of long-life milk and added a dash to her coffee.

“Well, like the land here. Granny said there was a curse on it.”

“A curse?” Thóra could barely stop her eyebrows from shooting up.

“In the old days, this lava field was famous for abandoned babies. Local women who couldn’t provide for their children used to leave them to die of exposure, here in the lava.” She shuddered. “Disgusting. You can still hear them, you know? I’ve even heard them myself.”

Thóra almost choked on her coffee. She leaned closer. “Are you telling me that you’ve heard crying babies who were left out here to die hundreds of years ago?” she asked.

Sóldís gave Thóra a scornful look. “I’m not the only one who’s heard it, if that’s what you think. Most people here have heard the crying. It’s been getting worse recently, actually. No one ever heard it when I first started working here.”

“Why would that be?” wondered Thóra aloud.

“I don’t know. Granny told me it comes and goes. She remembers stories about awful crying that was heard here around 1945. One of the farmers came looking for it because he thought it was a real child, and he heard a weak voice crying right beside him but couldn’t find a child anywhere. He rushed off home and never came near the farm again. Granny said that the war came to an end soon after and the abandoned children might have sensed that and been letting people know they were happy. Or annoyed. Maybe there’s something bad in the offing now. Or something good.”

Talk about covering all bases, thought Thóra. Things were always happening, so obviously there was always something in the offing. Regard less of whether the news was good or bad, it could always be used to explain why the dead babies started crying again. It was hardly surprising that the story about the ghost had spread among the staff like wildfire, if it could be used to explain pretty much anything that happened.

“Have you seen one of these abandoned children?” Thóra asked. “Or has anyone else at the hotel?”

“Christ, no,” Sóldís said. “Thank God. They’re horrible, apparently. I reckon it would drive me nuts, you know?”

“I doubt it,” Thóra said reassuringly. “This story about babies being left to die in the lava field—does everyone know it?”

“Totally,” Sóldís replied. “They say no one can raise a child to adulthood here. Everyone around here knows that.” She could see that Thóra was skeptical. “Look in the cemetery. Read the gravestones. You’ll see it’s not bullshit.”

Thóra’s thoughts turned to the photograph of the little dead girl, Edda Grímsdóttir. “Let’s say the hotel’s haunted by the dead children,” she said. “How do you explain the ghost that Jónas has seen, and apparently other people too? That ghost wasn’t a baby.”

“That ghost isn’t an abandoned child,” Sóldís said. “It might be the mother of one of the children, condemned to look for it forever.”

“I see,” Thóra said. She pondered for a moment. “But is there no story about a local ghost that was a child? A young girl?”

Sóldís considered the question, her brow furrowed. “You mean the ghost that the hotel staff are talking about?”

“That’s the one,” Thóra said hopefully. “What do you reckon about that ghost? Has your grandmother told you anything about it?”

“Well, I asked her and she didn’t know anything about it, but I heard from another woman that it might be the daughter of the farmer who lived here before. His name was Bjarni, I think.” Sóldís paused before continuing. “That woman said it was common knowledge that Bjarni abused his daughter. Incest.”