Yrsa Sigurdardóttir - My Soul to Take

Thóra scrutinized the picture. It would have been by a child only slightly older than her daughter, Sóley, who was six. It showed a burning house, with thick flames climbing skyward through the roof. Roughly half the picture had been colored in.

“An odd subject,” Thóra said, putting it down. “Do you suppose it’s a drawing of this house?”

Matthew shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. Although it’s a child’s drawing, it clearly only has one floor.” He frowned. “The door’s unusually large as well.”

Thóra pointed to the window. “Are those eyes?” She stooped for a better view. “I’ll be damned. The kid’s drawn someone inside the house. Look, there’s an open mouth but no nose.”

Matthew bent down. “Charming subject for a picture. Maybe the child was a bit strange.”

“Or had seen something disturbing,” Thóra said, turning away from the desk. “I think we should find out about the family who lived here and why they moved away. I know the man who lived here was called Grímur, and I think he had only one daughter, who was so young when she died that she couldn’t have drawn this picture. Another family may have lived here after them.” She went over to a small door set into the wall. Opening it carefully, she saw that it was a closet. There were several hangers on the rail. Two still had clothes hanging from them, a small sweater and a thin cotton shift dress. Both were too large to belong to Edda, who had died in her fourth year, according to the album in the hotel basement. The dress swayed slightly on the hanger and Thóra took a step back. “Did that dress just move?”

“Looks like it. Maybe there is a draft entering from the back of the closet. What’s behind there?” Matthew asked, pointing inside the wardrobe.

Thóra stuck her head inside and noticed that at the back of the wardrobe there was a frame around a rectangular board, not quite flush with the wall surrounding it. She pressed the board and it fell inward. “Oh, look!” she exclaimed. “It’s a little door on hinges and there are some stairs leading up.”

They took turns peering into the dark hole and Matthew took out his car key. There was a tiny light on it that he could use as a flashlight. He illuminated the stairs. “Look,” he said, gesturing toward one of the steps that he had lit up, “a footprint in the dust. Someone’s been up here.”

“Birna. It’s bound to have been Birna,” Thóra said firmly. “She recorded the condition of the beams in her diary and wanted to see the state of the rafters. This must lead up to an attic. Shall we go up?”

Matthew looked amused. “Sure, just wait here while I go and fetch a knife. I just need to chop off my arm, and maybe the shoulder for good measure.” He pointed to the hole. “There’s no way I could get through there.”

“Give me your key, then,” Thóra said with more bravado than she felt at the thought of going alone into the attic. She put the key in her mouth while she clambered into the closet and squeezed from there through the narrow hole. Before heading up the steps, she turned to Matthew, grinning. “See you. I’ll kill you if I trip over a rat.” She went up the first step. Then a thought occurred to her and she leaned back through the hole. “Or a mouse. I’ll also kill you if there’s a mouse.”

The attic was completely empty. When Thóra aimed the weak beam of the torch along the floor, she could see Birna had been walking around up there. She was apprehensive about stepping on to the floor in case it wouldn’t take her weight; Birna was much smaller than her, judging by the clothes Thóra had seen in her room. Thóra would have preferred to examine the attic from the steps where she was standing, but when the light caught something glittering by one of the wooden posts supporting the beams, she couldn’t resist temptation. She inched her way cautiously out on to the floor. It creaked and groaned with each step she took, and she half expected to plunge through onto Matthew in the room below. Or, far worse, into the bathroom. She aimed the tiny torch farther across the attic and saw that Birna—or whoever’s footprints they were—had also been there. Thóra slowly began to make her way to the post but every step she took away from the opening increased her apprehension. It wasn’t so much falling between floors that caused her anxiety but a feeling of not being alone. A feeling she could not shake despite common sense telling her that no one was thin enough to hide behind the many slender posts that held up the roof. At one point she could have sworn she heard someone breathing behind her and the goose bumps that crept up her neckline into her scalp did nothing to dampen the effect. It was as if a tiny stream of cool air had been blown into her neckline. The breath of a dead child. Thóra froze in her tracks but did not dare turn around. “Matthew? Are you there?” She heard his muffled and puzzled voice call back to her. She relaxed a bit, mustered up the courage to peek behind her, and kept on going when she saw nothing.

When she finally reached the post, she breathed a sigh of relief. She bent down and brought the light closer to the object she’d seen.

Gold. Or gold-plated, anyway. With a smile, Thóra picked up a winged brooch. Thóra squinted at it in the dim light—it looked like it might be a pilot’s badge. She put it back and picked up a cracked china cup. Inside were a silver spoon that had turned black, two white milk teeth, and a crucifix necklace. A few curling photos of film stars lay in a neat pile nearby. Thóra began to straighten up but stopped dead half-way. She shone the light on to the vertical beam and leaned right into it. An inscription had been scratched into the wood. She twisted around to read it.

“Matthew!” she called out. “Kristín’s name is here!”

“What?” she heard him reply.

She bent down again to reread the inscription and memorize it for Matthew, since he obviously couldn’t hear her properly. It said, “dad killed kristín. i hate dad.” As soon as the words left her mouth Thóra jolted up ramrod straight. She could have sworn she heard a child’s giggling coming from the deepest and darkest corner of the attic. Even though she knew full well that her imagination was running away with her, Thóra made a hurried exit, not caring at all if she fell through the rotting floorboards.

Yes, they finally decided to remove that stuff, like I said,” said Jónas, leaning back in his chair. They were relaxing by the fire in an alcove beside the bar, where old pictures adorned the walls. Out of courtesy to Matthew they were speaking in English, and the hotelier’s almost accent-free pronounciation reminded Thóra that he had made his money abroad. “I asked Birna to inform them that work on the annex was pending, so they should take anything they wanted before construction began. In the end the plans for the annex fell through, but they started clearing it all the same. I have no idea what progress they’ve made. At least, no one has notified us that they’ve finished.”

Matthew took a sip of his beer. “Have they ever stayed here?”

“No, they’ve never asked for a room, but they’ve been here several times and dined in the restaurant.”

“Have they both been here to clear the farmhouse, or just Elín?”

“I have no idea,” Jónas replied. “I remember quite a few of them coming once, the brother and his wife, the sister and two kids, his son and her daughter. I don’t know whether they were just visiting for the day or if they stayed somewhere in the area. Vigdís told me the young girl had come to reception once or twice to ask us for cardboard boxes. They still own some land out here on the peninsula, I seem to recall, so they might have stayed there. I think they also own a house in Stykkishólmur or Ólafsvík, which they use as a summer house. Neither place is far away.”