Yrsa Sigurdardóttir - My Soul to Take

She stood up, tidied her desk, and sighed. She wondered if her main problem was the desire for a better life, free from debt and untimely grandchildren, but realized that it was much simpler than that. She was depressed purely because she now had to walk past Bella on her way out. Bella, the secretary from hell, whom she and Bragi had been tricked into taking on as part of the lease agreement when they opened their office. Thóra steeled herself and hurried away.

“I’m off, then,” she said as she walked past the reception desk. She wondered fleetingly if it might be possible to raise the desk higher, to show less of the unattractive young woman behind it, then with a pang of guilt flashed the secretary an unconvincing smile. “See you tomorrow!”

Bella raised a heavy eyebrow and squinted at Thóra. She added a scowl to complete her look of displeasure. “Are you still here? Huh.”

“Huh? What do you mean, huh?” replied Thóra, confused. “Where else am I supposed to be? You saw me come in after lunch and you haven’t seen me leave. I don’t make a habit of jumping out of the window.”

“Pity,” Thóra thought she heard Bella mutter, but she couldn’t be sure. In a much louder voice the girl said, “Your ex phoned about something, but I said you weren’t in. He wouldn’t leave a message.”

Thóra was pleased, because Hannes’s telephone calls were seldom a source of joy. She certainly did not want to give Bella the chance to gloat about the negative aspects of her life. She decided to let it go, long resigned to the futility of arguing with this creature, so she smiled again at Bella and took her coat from the cloakroom. She was poised to escape, standing by the door with her hand on the handle, when the girl cleared her throat to indicate that there was something else.

“Oh, yes, and the leasing company phoned. You’re behind on your installments on the trailer.”

Thóra did not even turn back, just strolled calmly into the corridor and closed the door behind her. At that moment she would gladly have accepted the massage that Jónas had promised her, with or without hot stones.

Birna looked around her and took a deep breath. She peered through the thin fog hovering above the water and watched a pair of seagulls plunging to compete for food. Neither bird won and they rose back up with a great fluttering of wings. Then they vanished into the denser bank of fog that hung a little farther out. It was low tide and wet seaweed lay spread across the rocky expanse. This was an unusual beach: no sand, only boulders of all shapes and sizes, their surface smoothed by the passage of a million tides. The position of the beach was unique, as well: a small cove surrounded by high cliffs of columnar basalt, which could have been custom-designed by the Creator as a high-rise dwelling for seabirds. Every ledge was occupied, with a corresponding volume of noise. Birna walked over to where the cliffs formed another cove, leading on from the one she was in now. The tide flowed in through a stone arch, and the cove was completely enclosed by cliffs. It could only be seen through the narrow gap between the high walls of rock, but the squawking of the birds inside nonetheless resounded along the whole of the beach.

Birna stopped. The fog had suddenly thickened, reducing her visibility to just a few meters. She inhaled deeply again, this time through her nose, savoring the scent of the sea. If she could, she would sleep out here in the open, wreathed in fog. She had absolutely no desire to go back to the hotel. It should not have been that way. She had loved that building and swelled with childlike pride every time she saw it, even while it was still under construction, the barest bones of what it would become. She had even liked the hole that had been dug for the foundation. The site of the hotel had somehow captured her imagination the first time she visited. The land overlooked the open sea on the southern shore of Snæfellsnes. In this it was like most other farms in the district, although slightly more remote; the farmhouse only came into view when one had walked almost right up to it. It had been built on a grassy patch in a rough field of lava that reached almost to the water’s edge. The dramatic scenery inspired her. So did the old house. She had been commissioned to design a gigantic annex, which must not overwhelm or smother the main house. This had caused her a lot of worry—modesty was often the greatest challenge; grandeur, that was a piece of cake.

The sensations that the project aroused were unfamiliar to her. Much as she loved architecture, the other buildings she had designed had not made her feel this way, but she knew exactly why. This hotel was far and away her most successful project. From the moment she began sketching the first draft at her studio in Reykjavík, she had realized that she was on the right track. The building was so much better than all her previous efforts. She realized that she would make a name for herself at last. She would become sought after.

She had often wondered why this project had seized her imagination so immediately and why the outcome had been such a success. There was nothing remarkable about the old house or the land, although the house was unusually grand for its age. It had also been exceptionally well maintained, considering no one had lived in it for about fifty years. She soon realized that someone had looked after the house over the years, perhaps intending to use it as a holiday home or to get away from the city, but those plans had never materialized. Inside the building, there was nothing to indicate that the twenty-first century had begun. A thick layer of dust had covered everything, but mousetraps here and there showed that someone had made sure that the interior and furnishings escaped unnecessary damage. The first time Birna went there, she had found it difficult to look at the tiny skeletons in some of the traps, but otherwise the house had impressed her, inside and out.

Birna looked at her watch. What was wrong with the man? Had he been delayed at that stupid séance? The message had been clear enough. She took out her mobile and scrolled through the texts. Yes, perfectly straightforward: “Meet me @ cave @ 9 2nite.” What a load of shit. Before putting her mobile back in her pocket, she double-checked that the cove was out of range. It was. That was one of the most annoying things about this area, she thought, bad mobile reception.

She decided to walk back to the cave. Maybe he was there. Although the cave was high up on the shore, visibility was so poor that she could have missed him. Also, the screeching of the birds drowned out everything else, so she wouldn’t have heard him arrive. She set off, taking care to look down because it was easy to lose one’s footing on the stones. They crunched together beneath the weight of her feet. Hopefully he had finally come around to her way of thinking. She had expended enough energy on this whole business. She didn’t really think he’d changed his mind, as he’d been so adamantly opposed. If by any chance he had, she knew she had herself to thank for his change of heart. She had given in and slept with him. The sex was intended to influence Jónas’s decision in her favor; she had certainly not done it for her own pleasure. It was important to have several projects on the go when the competition came around. Although she had the prize pretty much in the bag, she needed to be sure, so she had to take on that burden. What did one quick shag matter, compared with winning the competition? She would be the talk of the town and, more important, her peers. Birna smiled to herself at the thought.

An unusually loud squawking from the cliff pulled her out of her reverie. It was as if all the birds of the heavens were calling out in unison. Perhaps they wanted to remind the world beyond the fog that they existed. Birna sighed. It had turned cold and she wrapped her anorak more tightly around her. What sort of summer was this, anyway? She reached the cave but could see no one. On the off chance that he was there she called out, but no one answered. Ten minutes. She would give him ten minutes and then leave. This was just plain rude. Anger flared inside her, warming her slightly. How dare he make her wait like this? It wasn’t like being late for a meeting at a café in Reykjavík. There she could flick through magazines to kill the time, but here there was nothing to do. And beautiful as the area was, right now there was nothing to see but fog.