Giants of the Frost (19 page)

"Don't tell Maryanne. She always does it as a favor."

"Why would anybody want children? They're hideous beasts."

"Matthias and Nina are. Yours wouldn't be," he said, pointing a spoon at me emphatically.

"How do you know that?"

"Because your kids won't have a psychotic shrew for a mother and Magnus for a father." I laughed. "Don't speak too soon. I'm already psychotic, and Magnus has already asked me for a date." Gunnar dropped into the chair opposite me in shock. "He didn't!"

I waved my hand. "I don't want to talk about it."

"What did you say?"

"No, of course!" I exclaimed quickly. "I was drunk. He was drunk. And this morning he's acting like nothing happened."

"Maybe he's forgotten. If he was drunk—"

"I hope so. But Magnus is so shameless it wouldn't surprise me if he remembered everything and just intended to carry on as usual."

"So did you scream when he asked you?"

"Sorry?"

"When I said I'd heard you scream, you thought I meant last night."

"Oh, that. No, I didn't scream at Magnus. I had a nightmare around three. I dreamed I was in the forest and when you said you'd heard a scream from out there, I thought…"

He was smiling at me again. "You thought? What?"

"Nothing." I slapped the table. "Where's my bloody coffee?" Gunnar laughed. "I think I have some information that might interest you."

"If it's about ghosts—"

"No," he said, returning to the bench to pour the coffee, "it's about the weather."

"Go on."

A coffee cup in each hand, he shrugged a shoulder toward his computer desk. "Come over here. I'll show you."

He booted up his computer as I slipped into the chair beside his and sipped my coffee.

"I've been entering all the old paper records into the database," he explained as the soft blue glow of the screen lit his face. "Magnus wanted me to pay particular attention to unusual weather events, for his research work. So I've been scanning the records for storm reports, heavy snow, long rain periods…

and I got all the way back to day one." He punched a few keys, and the screen filled with text. He tapped the screen. "Here, seventeenth of June 1964. The grand opening of Kirkja Station, attended by all of eight people, the first staff members. Temperature at 11:00 A.M. was twenty-two degrees. Sky was cloudless, humidity low. And here…" He clicked and the next screen came up. "Same date, 3:00

P.M. They report a snowstorm."

"Yes, but it's obviously a mistake," I said. "You double-checked?"

"I did."

"Their mistake then. They wrote it on the wrong day."

He clicked an icon in the corner and a box appeared. "In some instances I added comments from the journals. 'We were outside enjoying a few celebratory drinks at lunchtime when the temperature began to drop and clouds blew in. Soon after, snow began to fall and by afternoon it was heavy, accompanied by thunder and lightning. We're all baffled.'"

"Interesting," I said. "Did they manage to explain it?"

"I don't know. There's nothing else about it in the record books."

"The weather does odd things," I said. "Raining frogs—"

"There are two instances of raining frogs in here," he said, "but I'm not interested in that. I don't even think the snowstorm was particularly odd in itself. It's the other stuff I've read that makes it intriguing."

"What other stuff?"

He reached across his desk and began plowing through an overflowing in-tray. Something clunked out of a pile of papers. He scooped it up and handed it to me. "Oh, did I show you this? Magnus found it in the forest."

It was the shard of metal that I'd thought was part of an axe blade. It was cold in my palm. I felt no conviction about what it was this time. It was just an unidentifiable piece of anything. Gunnar had seized a set of photocopies and shook them in front of me. "Remember I told you about the first settlement here? In the eleventh century? It was a Christian settlement and the Christians loved to keep records. There were a few records left behind on Kirkja, and they're now in a museum in Bergen. This is a copy of a modern translation of the Latin. It's very boring, mostly. But look at this…" He pointed to a sentence.

"I can't read Norwegian," I reminded him dryly.

"It says: 'On the day the foundation stone was laid for our new church, the warm summer morning gave way to a mighty storm and deep snowfall.'"

"Wow," I said. "Amazing coincidence."

"Just a coincidence?"

"What else would it be?"

"I don't know," Gunnar said. "I
like
not knowing. I like to wonder. Don't you?" I shook my head.

"There's more," he said.

"Go on."

He shuffled the pages. "Here, at the end. The last entry. Before the… before whatever happened to them. "This morning is cool and clear, the first signs of winter.'" Gunnar's finger scanned down the page.

"This is all boring nonsense about the Bible. And then, here: 'The late morning grows hot. The children paddle naked in the water. I have never experienced such a heat, even in the middle of summer. The fires of hell itself could not be warmer.'" He flipped the page over. "And here: "The peculiar weather continues and many of our number grow superstitious. At dusk, the heat drained suddenly and sharply, and across the whole island stole a great frost. The trees are white, the lake has frozen over and the ground is covered in crystals. If I had not seen it with my own eyes, I would never believe it. It is now dark and there are fearsome sounds in the forest. A cruel wind gathers force and we all huddle inside by the fire in fear of what may happen next.'"

As Gunnar read aloud I found myself holding my breath. There was something so familiar about the tale. Imagined impressions flashed across my mind: desperate faces in the firelight, the weight of their fear. The piece of metal in my palm was growing warm. I dropped it on Gunnar's desk, finding that it repelled me.

"What happened next?" I said.

"Don't know. That was the last entry. It's great, isn't it? A real mystery. And all that stuff about the weather, it makes you think."

I gathered my wits. "You said it was written hundreds of years ago. It would be impossible to confirm if it were authentic or not. Or perhaps one of the translators has played with the language to make it more dramatic. You know, in light of the history of the island."

"I suppose so," Gunnar said, putting the pages aside. "Is it not possible for a frost to come on the afternoon of a very hot day?"

I shook my head. "Not here in the midlatitudes. In the Arctic, a change in air mass can mean katabatic winds and a sharp temperature drop. But certainly not how it's described there." Gunnar smiled. "Are you trying to convince me, or yourself?"

"What do you mean?"

Gunnar waved his hand. "It doesn't matter. Let's go over to the rec hall. I promised Maryanne I'd help her with sandwiches for tomorrow's picnic."

Gunnar reached over to turn off his computer and I saw the ward on a chain around his neck, under his shirt. If I caved in and asked for it, he would think he had won. He was obviously goading me, telling me mysterious stories. I preferred to be the old Vicky, who was scared of nothing. As Gunnar locked the cabin door behind us, I glanced up toward the trees. For a second, another image laid itself over the forest in my mind's eye: ice hanging from branches, hoarfrost all over the ground, a strange creaking almost silence. The image troubled me. As though I had really seen it, once, somewhere. As though it might have really happened.

Despite drizzle the evening before, Kirkja predicted a mild, clear day for our picnic and we were right. Shortly after the morning balloon launch, we all traipsed into the forest carrying blankets and baskets of food. Matthias and Nina ran ahead and ran back, calling in excited voices. The forest didn't feel strange and haunted under these circumstances. I was looking forward to our day out. Night and solitude brought the yearning back. Being around other people helped me forget about Vidar for a few relaxed hours. The area directly around the lake was muddy, but we found a grassy verge at the edge of the trees on the eastern side of the water and spread out our blankets. I lay on my back and looked at the sky through branches, and listened to the sounds of the picnic being unpacked, of plates and glasses being handed about, of conversations and laughter.

Gunnar crouched down on my blanket. "Vicky, why are you the only one not doing anything?" he asked.

"I am doing something. I'm watching Magnus's kids." I turned my head, saw they were still shouting to each other as they ran round the lake, and turned back. "See?"

He settled next to me. "So you're still babysitting?"

I sat up and said, mock-cheerfully, "Magnus says I'm the best babysitter he's ever employed and he wishes he could take me home to Oslo one day."

"I think you'll have some competition from Maryanne." He pointed to Magnus and Maryanne, head to head, talking quietly.

"That's progress," I said.

"I saw him leaving her cabin first thing this morning."

"Do you think they… ?"

"I'm fairly sure."

I screwed up my nose. "Yuck."

"It's like a social experiment, this place," Gunnar said, folding his long hands around his knees. "Eventually they all pair off. Frida and Carsten. Magnus and Maryanne. You know that Alex and Josef… ?"

"I guessed."

"So that leaves me a choice between Gordon or you," he said.

"Gordon's a safer bet," I said lightly.

"You have better teeth."

I laughed. Gordon had big protuberant teeth, with a gap between them wide enough to sail the
Jonsok
through. "But really," I said, "teeth or no teeth, I'm not—"

"I know, Vicky. It was only a joke," he said quickly.

I felt uncomfortable, but tried to pretend I wasn't. "I know," I said.

"Victoria!" This was Magnus, calling from a hundred feet away where he and Maryanne had started a bottle of champagne. "Can you tell the children to be careful not to slip in the water?" I looked around and spotted the kids on the far side of the lake, faking a sword fight with branches. I got up and walked around the lake toward them. They saw me coming and ran away.

"Hey!" I called. "Be careful you don't slip into the water." Matthias turned and brandished his sword. "I want to go swimming."

"Well, you can't. It's dangerous."

"I'm the best swimmer in my school. Far said I could go swimming."

"No he didn't. Now behave or I'll make you come and sit with me and Gunnar." He turned to run after Nina with his sword held high, but I noticed he put three more feet between himself and the muddy edge of the water. I returned to the picnic site to see Maryanne looking at me smugly. Gunnar and Josef had pulled all the picnic blankets into a communal square, and champagne and sandwiches were served. Carsten and Frida made an official engagement announcement and the two sips of champagne I took as a toast were my limit for the day. After Wednesday night's debacle, I was easing off on the social club's alcohol. Magnus clearly had a different agenda, and he and Maryanne both became Saturday-afternoon tipsy and exchanged desiring looks for the entire picnic. Nobody was more embarrassed than Magnus's children, who dealt with it by taking a plate of sandwiches and a flask of orange juice to the far side of the lake for a private picnic.

At around four, the warmth of the afternoon gave way to the first chill of approaching evening. Magnus buttonholed me while I was patrolling for plastic wrap that had blown into the edge of the forest.

"Will you watch the children?" he slurred.

"I'm watching them," I said distractedly, glancing over my shoulder.

"For the rest of the day," he added. "Maryanne and I are… heading back to her cabin." I was glad my back was turned to him. The look of horror on my face was best kept a secret. "Fine." I gathered rubbish and, when I turned around, Magnus and Maryanne were scurrying off like American teenagers at a frat party—she was giggling, his hand was firmly attached to her bum—and everyone else at the picnic looked away politely. We gave them a half hour lead, then started saying how late it was getting and it was probably time to head back.

We had packed up and were twenty feet into the trees when Matthias pulled my arm, and said, "Vicky, I've left my sword back at the lake."

"Can't you find another?" I asked. "It was only a stick." He shook his head.

"Go on, be quick," I said, waving him off. Nina ran away with him. I walked another hundred feet in conversation with Gunnar when I realized that I should probably not be so casual in my responsibilities to Magnus's children.

"Actually, Gunnar, I'd better wait for the kids."

"See you back at the station," he said, and disappeared into the trees. I was halfway back to the lake when I heard Nina scream.

My heart jumped. I ran.

"Matthias! Matthias!" she shrieked. "Far! Far!
Help
!" I broke through the trees. Nina stood helpless and sobbing in the mud.

"Nina, where's Matthias?"

She shrieked at me in Norwegian and pointed to the water. A stream of bubbles about fifteen feet out.

"I'll go in after him," I said, throwing off my coat and shoes. "You run that way and call loudly for Gunnar."

She tore off, screaming Gunnar's name while I splashed into the cold lake…

A draugr is a thing to be feared.

… and swam toward Matthias.

Under the surface the water was grey-green and murky. Below me all was black, choked with weed and cloudy shapes. I spotted a pale flailing arm and headed in that direction, scooped up Matthias and broke the surface with him.

"Are you all right?" I gasped.

He spat out a mouthful of water and began to cry, pushed at me angrily and swam toward land. I guessed he was all right.

Something brushed my ankle. A weed or…

With a rush of bubbles I was yanked under. I opened my mouth to scream and swallowed the lake. I was spinning, something had me around the thighs. I struggled away. Had I been caught in a float of weed? I felt around near my legs and was horrified to feel fingers brush my own. They pulled me down farther. The water was icy. My throat was raw and I was running out of breath. My lungs felt hard, blocked. My brain was bursting its bounds.