Chapter 3
The Flickering Moon
Orla sat quietly, one leg folded on top of the other. The cup of tea she had just poured for herself sat steaming in her hands. Her thick black curly hair was tied up into a high bun, but a single strand tickled her forehead. That one would always refuse to stay in, and she’d long since accepted defeat. She was snuggled up on the couch in her living room, and from the outside one could assume she was just enjoying an evening chat with her husband. But her eyes were fixed on his face, reading every word from his lips. Her demeanor seemed calm, but her mind was racing. When Thorinn finally stopped pacing and fell into his living room chair, they sat in silence. She looked down into her cup, then to the small table next to the couch. Just about an hour ago she had been cleaning up a big puddle of spilled tea from that very table after her first attempt to settle down with a hot drink that night. When she put down her cup filled with boiling hot water, it shot up to the ceiling and shattered . She knew the table had its odd tendencies here and there, but usually things she put down would just disappear and reappear fixed to the ceiling upside down for about a day or two, then return to their intended spot. They wouldn’t, however, turn themselves into projectiles. That was new and much odder than she had anticipated. It felt like she had just been warned.
Thorinn stared at her, waiting for her acknowledgement. When she finally looked up, she merely gave him a comforting smile.
“I’m glad you told me right away. And I need to confess that this does sound a little…crazy.”
“It is. It is crazy. I mean, a rip in…I don’t know, it’s even hard to say it out loud, but that’s just what it was. Can’t explain it any other way. But you believe me?”
“Of course I do! Why would I not?”
“Because it sounds like I’ve had a drink and I didn’t. I swear I didn’t.”
“Why would I think that? You don’t drink.”
Thorinn buried his face in his hands, and seeing her husband this distraught pained Orla.
“Maybe I would start to think so if I were you. I sound insane.”
She got up and instinctively set down her cup on the table. Just as it touched the surface, it was violently ripped from her hands and burst against the ceiling with a bone-shattering bang. Orla stumbled and gasped.
“For crying out loud!”
“What in odd’s name was that? That’s never happened before,” Thorinn said, staring up at the brown tea spot on the ceiling.
“It has…I just forgot.”
Orla walked over to her husband's chair, avoiding the shards on the floor, and sat down on the carpet at his feet. She gently took his hands into hers.
“Thorinn, your little discovery wasn’t the only strange thing that happened here today. Someone came here. A little boy.”
“A little boy? A lost boy?”
“He turned up at Olli’s workshop, speaks English. Like me, when I first came here. Wee lad, only five years old. Poor baby was terrified.”
“And the cats? They should’ve seen him coming.”
“That’s the point…” Orla said, her voice turning into a whisper. She moved closer, as if somebody else was listening.
“The cats have no clue. Never seen him before. They don’t know where to bring him back to. None of them.”
Thorinn squinted and was silent for a moment. Orla could feel his tension through the palms of his hands.
“What on earth is going on here, Orla?”
“I don’t know, but have you noticed the moon?”
“The moon? Yes? It's winter, it's there a lot. But I'm guessing that's not what you mean?”
“No, that’s obviously not what I mean, my love,” she said and rolled her eyes at him. “The second one.”
“The…what?”
Thorinn let his hands slip from hers as he got up and made his way over to the window.
“Ah, damn, that stupid mug!” he yelled and inhaled sharply through his teeth.
He pulled the shard from his sock, cursed some more and finally managed to catch a glimpse outside
And there it was, the moon. Shining so bright it almost looked like a streetlamp. But it wasn't alone. Right next to it shone another, smaller, less bright, flickering on and off in an unsteady rhythm.
“What on earth…”
“Strange, isn't it? Looks like some rather crappy handiwork if you ask me,” Orla said, unable to hide a smirk. Thorinn gave his wife an exasperated look.
“The bathroom light works just fine and…why are we even talking about this?”
She started laughing, watching her husband as he himself tried to keep a straight face.
“What in particular is all that funny to you, my love?”
Orla put her arm on the base of the chair and leaned her head against it. She could see Thorinn's unease, yet she found it charming. He worried, she didn’t. It was their little dance.
“What isn’t?”
“Honestly, woman, sometimes I wish you would worry a little more about serious things.”
Orla sighed and shrugged, watching the flickering speck through the window.
“Why? I can’t send that boy home, I can’t make that moon disappear, the cats don’t ask my opinion. I can’t even remember our own odd places. What else is there but to laugh?”
Thorinn rolled his eyes.
“You're, but I'd rather you weren't. Where is that boy now?”
“At Nonni’s.”
“Ah, her girl? Think she know's something?”
“If she did, she would tell us," Orla replied, the smile steadily fading from her face.
“I know… I just always wondered what was up with her.”
“I think you and her both.”
“You’re right…maybe I’m not being fair.”
Orla stretched both arms over her head and yawned, letting her head sink deeper into the base of the chair. The boy, the rip, the moon. Maybe it was insignificant, maybe just another quirk of this relentlessly quirky town. But maybe not. Maybe
“Exciting times might be ahead of us,” she said and was well aware that she sounded a bit too casual for her Thorinn's taste, who preferred to acknowledge life's theatrics a lot more.
“You’re crazy,” was all he replied, before he walked into the kitchen and started the kettle, then proceeded to sweep up the shards in the living room with a small broom. Before he discarded them into the bin, Orla watched him reach into it and wave his hand from side to side. Their kitchen bin sometimes preferred to be a gateway through to their neighbor's shower head, which she had always found utterly cruel and unnecessary. Hilarious, yes, but mostly just unnecessary. The bin was the bin, and just like that, she decided that it was the small things that made you happy during strange times.
“I will tell Kaisa tomorrow. I think she should know what’s happening out there,” Thorinn said over his shoulder as he poured both of them a fresh cup of tea.
“I feel bad, you know?” she replied with a soft sigh in her voice.
“For what?”
“We’re adults, Thorinn. We should try to get this situation under control and not burden a little girl. It’s not fair. And it’s irresponsible.”
“She honestly doesn’t seem like a little girl.”
“Yeah, of course not. If you’re treated like an adult long enough, you’re gonna start acting like one. We can’t make her something and then blame her for actually turning into it.”
She took a sip of her tea and set the cup on her lap. Thorinn sat down next to her and gently brushed the loose strand of hair out of her face. Orla felt it slip from his fingers and bounce back to tickle her forehead once again.
"She's not like other people."
Thorinn's voice was low, careful and Orla fought the urge immediaely push back. He was right, they both knew it, everyone did, and it broke Orla's heart.
"I think if she'd had the choice, she would have chosen differently, don't you think?"
She looked up at Thorinn, but he seemed to stare into empty space, taking a sip from his cup.
"Perhaps."
The silence that lingered between them made Orla uneasy. They'd had this conversation so many times before, and it somehow felt more and more straining each time they spoke about it. About her. That girl...
“I always dreaded this day.”
Orla blinked, looked up at her husband and was confused when she found him smiling down at her.
"The day we finally have to act like adults."
"Thorinn, we've raised a child."
Thorinn laughed and put his arm around Orla's shoulder, which almost mader her spill her tea.
“Then why do I sometimes feel like one myself?”
