I Remember You

Chapter 25

Katrín had never rejoiced so much at any sound as at the din that now came from outside. Líf’s laughter at something Garðar said convinced her that the owner of the hand was no longer standing on the porch. She dared to open her eyes and felt her heartbeat slow down and her breathing become stable. The odour of fish offal seemed to have gone and she enjoyed breathing normally again, after the stench had filled her nostrils. Unlike other odours, she hadn’t grown used to this one; instead it had intensified until Katrín felt as if she had a piece of rotten fish covering her nose. As her fear had increased, so the pain in her foot had diminished, but now that the terror seemed behind her, the pain returned in waves, both there and elsewhere on her bruised body. But most of all she felt like weeping with happiness when the vague outlines of Líf and Garðar appeared in the dark kitchen doorway, their arms full. ‘Weren’t we quick?’ Líf placed two rolled-up sleeping bags and a plastic bag full of things on the floor without entering the room, then started untying her walking boots. The dull scent of cigarette smoke filled the room and Katrín was happy to breathe it in; it was much better than the newly vanished smell of rot.

As far as Katrín was concerned, they couldn’t have been gone any longer, but she didn’t have the heart to say so. ‘I can’t begin to describe how relieved I am to see you. Did you bring the candles?’ Her longing for light was probably no less desperate than Líf’s for nicotine. Her voice quivered to an embarrassing degree and after Líf put on her furry slippers, took a candle from the bag and lit it, Katrín knew that it was her own deathly pale face that caused Líf to take one step back and exclaim in surprise. ‘My foot is killing me,’ she muttered. ‘And there was someone outside. Just before you came.’

‘What did you say?’ Garðar walked in, half limping himself. His sore heel was apparently playing up again after the day’s walk and the trip down to the doctor’s house. ‘We didn’t see anyone.’ He sat down opposite Katrín at the kitchen table and placed a white medicine bottle in front of her. ‘Take four. You should feel better afterwards.’

‘Doesn’t she get anything to drink with that?’ Líf looked around for water or juice, but the limited light from the candle did little more than cast shadows beyond the kitchen table.

‘It’s all right.’ Katrín took four white tablets from the bottle. They seemed unnecessarily large and when she put them in her mouth it was as if all the saliva drained from it, forcing her to make a real effort to swallow them. ‘How long do they take to work?’ She didn’t ask what she was swallowing, nor did she feel like reading the label on the bottle. The only thing that mattered to her was to reduce her intolerable pain.

Garðar watched her take the pills. ‘Half an hour. Something like that. Maybe less, since it’s been so long since we ate.’ His brow was furrowed with worry; there seemed little left of the cheerfulness that had accompanied him and Líf to the door. ‘Tell me what you saw. We’ve got to take precautions before we sleep, if that little bastard is around.’

Líf’s laughter also seemed remote when she said in a trembling voice: ‘What precautions? What can we do?’ She pulled the chair closer to the table. ‘Why didn’t we go and stay at the doctor’s again? We could just as easily have helped you down there, Katrín.’

‘I can’t go anywhere. Maybe tomorrow, but now I would have to hop on one foot and I wouldn’t trust myself to do that. You two could hardly carry me and all the stuff back down. How would we cross the stream, for example?’ Katrín’s pitch continued to rise and she stopped before she started sounding like a banshee. ‘We’re not going anywhere now. My foot is killing me again.’

Garðar’s frown had deepened. ‘If the worst comes to the worst, we’ll sleep in shifts. One child can’t handle all three of us. His only weapon is surprise, and the only time he could really do us any harm is when we’re all asleep.’ Garðar pulled the candle closer to the centre of the table. ‘We have enough candles now and it’s easier to stay awake that way than when everything’s pitch-dark. I’ll take the first watch, and I suggest you go straight to bed. It’s silly for us all to be awake if we’re going to do it this way.’

‘I wonder what he wants from us.’ Katrín was too drained physically and emotionally to have an opinion on Garðar’s idea, much less to suggest any other solution. She was immensely relieved not to have to make the decision and would even have accepted one of Líf’s ridiculous suggestions, so long as she didn’t have to walk anywhere. ‘I mean, why is he hanging around here? He hasn’t given the impression of wanting to steal anything; he’s had enough opportunity to do that, and he’s not looking for companionship or help.’ She sighed. ‘I just don’t get it.’

Líf looked over her shoulder as if she expected to see the boy staring at her through the window. On the other side of the pane was sheer darkness. ‘The boy isn’t alive. Why don’t we admit that? It’s not as if the situation would get any worse.’

‘That’s enough of that nonsense, Líf.’ Garðar looked at neither of them as he said this. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, and there’s no reason to imagine the worst. Things are fucked-up enough as it is.’

Katrín was in agreement with Líf. There was something more than a little peculiar going on, and it couldn’t be explained by the presence of any normal child. She was going to tell Líf this when a creak in the floorboards silenced them all. ‘Was that one of you?’ Katrín whispered, though there was no reason to lower her voice. ‘That’s how it started before.’ The sound seemed to originate there in the little kitchen.

No one wanted to admit to having caused the noise. ‘Putti?’ Líf bent down and took the dog in her arms. ‘Was it him, maybe?’ She glanced around furtively and squeezed the little animal tightly to her chest. ‘Is he heavy enough?’

‘Are you kidding? He weighs as much as a cork. He wouldn’t make the floor creak even if he started jumping on it with all his weight.’ The creaking sound came again, now much more softly than before. Líf muttered something under her breath and in her attempt to move closer to them bumped the table; Garðar just managed to grab the candle before it toppled over. He held the candlestick aloft, illuminating the room better. Then he stood up and stared towards where the sound seemed to originate. ‘Don’t say anything.’ He focused his eyes firmly on the spot and when the sound came again he walked with the candle away from the table, towards the internal wall of the kitchen. There was nothing to see besides the damaged floorboards and the ends of the broken planks. Garðar was only one step away from the damaged patch when the creak came again, now so softly that they would hardly have noticed it if they hadn’t been completely silent. ‘There’s nothing here.’ Garðar seemed surprised. He bent down and swept the candle along the wall and floor in search of an explanation. When he stood up he was much calmer. ‘There must be something wrong with the foundations here. Do you remember the planks? Maybe the mould, or whatever it is, is damaging the wood and the house is shifting because of it.’ He turned round, satisfied to have come up with an explanation, but also quite worried since he knew he was the only one of them who hadn’t given up on the house. ‘Damn it.’ He walked back over to them. ‘I think there’s nothing we can do but tear up the floor and see what’s underneath.’

‘Not now. Please.’ Líf had loosened her grip on Putti slightly and he struggled weakly in her arms, desperate to get back down to the floor. ‘What if there’s something under there?’

‘Like what? A ghost?’ Garðar grimaced and shook his head.

Líf let Putti go and rearranged her jumper, which had been pulled out of place by the dog’s wriggling. ‘Or maybe a perfect breeding ground for an infestation of some disgusting fungus. I read online that you can become horribly ill breathing in that kind of fungal growth. It occurs precisely in old houses like this one. If I remember correctly, the spores float around in the air; they’re so small you can’t see them.’

‘If that’s the case, then we’re already affected, Líf.’ Garðar placed the candle back on the table and sat down.

‘Was there anything in the article about the fungus causing hallucinations?’ Katrín wondered whether what she’d seen and heard when she was alone in the house had been due to skewed perception from toxic poisoning. That would explain a lot of what had happened since their arrival at the house. If it was life-threatening, the fungus could also explain why the former owner had left the house and died outdoors somewhere. ‘Maybe we’re getting high without realizing it.’ A stab of pain that went all the way up her leg when she moved slightly in her chair didn’t suggest that she was all that doped up.

‘There was nothing about that, but it wasn’t a very scientific article.’ Líf seemed to cheer up at this weak hope that everything had a logical explanation, but she hadn’t thought it all the way through: if they were on some sort of mushroom trip, they were probably seriously ill. ‘Wow, that would be awesome! Then there’s probably nothing wrong here and we’ve just been imagining all this shit.’ She looked at Katrín’s leg, resting outstretched on a chair. ‘Except maybe this. I think you’re seriously injured.’

‘I think so too.’ Katrín leaned back as far as she could in the hope that a different position would make her feel better until the painkillers took effect. ‘How long has it been since I took the pills?’

‘Ten minutes. Fifteen. Not even that.’ Garðar yawned widely, after trying unsuccessfully to suppress it. ‘They won’t have started working yet, but they will.’ They all fell silent for a few moments, unsure whether to expect more unwelcome noises. However, nothing could be heard but their own breathing. ‘I think we should stick to our plan of going to sleep now, and I’ll keep watch until I can’t keep my eyes open. Then you’ll take over, Líf.’

‘Me?’ Líf sounded shocked. ‘Am I supposed to sit here in the dark, alone?’

‘There’s just the three of us, Líf, and Katrín is injured. It makes by far the most sense for her to sleep while the medication is working, and then take over from you when it fades. Then you just take another dose, Katrín, and keep watch as long as you can. After that I’ll take over again and hopefully by then it’ll be morning.’

Katrín found his plan over-optimistic; judging by Líf’s reluctance to take her shift, she wouldn’t last long. They would probably each take two shifts before daybreak. ‘I can’t make it up the stairs. I’ll have to sleep down here.’ No one said anything; they were all too tired to ponder what this meant. In the end Katrín broke the silence: ‘If anyone wants to bring a mattress down, I’ll just sleep in the living room. It won’t be any worse for me than sleeping upstairs.’ She pushed aside the thought of how many windows there were, windows through which it was easy to enter, unlike the ones upstairs.

‘We’ll all sleep there.’ Garðar stood up. ‘Come on, Líf, let’s bring the stuff down.’

‘But…’ Líf said nothing more. She stood up, looking shattered. ‘I don’t want to go to sleep.’

Garðar sighed, his patience long since exhausted. ‘What now? Are you going to keep watch by yourself the whole night?’

‘No. I don’t want to sleep precisely because of this stupid arrangement. As soon as I fall asleep I’ll forget everything, and I’ll be happy, and then you’ll wake me up and I’ll remember all over again, and then I’ll have to be awake and alone. I might as well take the first watch and get it over with, see?’

Katrín suddenly felt indescribably weary. She’d been in too much pain and too frightened to feel tired, but now it rushed over her. ‘Why don’t you just do that, then?’ she snapped.

‘We’ll see.’ Garðar pulled Líf along with him to go and get the mattresses before she had the chance to respond to Katrín. The face she made from the doorway as Garðar stopped to take another candle suggested that Katrín’s sarcasm hadn’t pleased her. After they’d gone, Katrín looked at Putti and wanted very much to bend down and scratch the poor dog’s ears. She didn’t, however, for fear of moving her foot before the medication kicked in. Instead she listened to Líf and Garðar’s footsteps on their way up the stairs, and to their muffled conversation, which seemed brusque but friendly, fortunately. If there was ever a time that they needed to make peace, it was now. She personally had to make quite an effort to put up with Líf, even on a good day. They didn’t need to put up with her much longer, because soon the nightmare would be over, and it would be best if they could get through that short time without bickering or fighting. She resolved to make an effort not to say or do anything to upset Líf.

‘We’re back.’ Líf stood in the doorway, looking extremely pissed off. ‘Garðar’s spreading out the sleeping bags.’

Katrín started. ‘Wow. I fell asleep.’ She stretched and yawned. ‘You know what I thought? If you want, we could take our watch together. Isn’t that the simplest solution? We’ll keep watch while Garðar sleeps and try to hold out a little longer. Of course it’ll be easier if it’s the two of us, and we can look after each other.’ She smiled at Líf in the hope that she would accept this diplomatic compromise.

At first Líf frowned, apparently wondering whether Katrín was trying to trick her. But then her face brightened and she smiled back broadly. ‘I really like that idea. Do you want me to tell you some gossip? I know so many stories that it’ll be morning before you know it.’

‘Yes please! I don’t have any at all, so I hope you know as much as you say!’ Katrín stretched properly and prepared to move over to the living room. ‘I don’t know what I’ll do if I have to pee in the night.’

‘Oh, I’ll just go with you.’ Líf was so thrilled with Katrín’s suggestion that now she was clearly capable of anything. She walked into the kitchen and bent down to Putti. ‘I guess we’re just hallucinating. Do you think Putti’s tripping as well?’

‘I don’t know whether I’d rather we were high or crazy. I’m not sure which is worse.’ Katrín watched as one of Putti’s hind legs jerked back and forth aimlessly as Líf scratched his side. He’d closed his eyes and rolled onto his back, perfectly relaxed. It had been a long time since he’d appeared so calm and Katrín was happy about this small sign of normality, which she took as an indication of a quiet night ahead.

She stirred in the night when Garðar shook her shoulder lightly and said that he was going out for a piss. The drugs might not have worked miracles, but now her leg felt more tingly than as if it were being crushed. She smiled sleepily at him, yawned and said that she would get up when he came back in. Then she slept again, without knowing that next time she woke, the night would be at an end. And Garðar would be gone.