Chapter 7

A Voice in the Wind

“We should let Archie sleep, but maybe it’s time to stop pretending Rita isn’t already listening from the very small gap you left in the door that I most definitely didn’t notice as soon as I entered this house.”

Orla pointed her finger at Kaisa’s bedroom door behind her without even looking. She’d been Rita’s mother for all of Rita’s little life, and she didn’t need to see to know when her daughter was suspended in midair between what she ought to know and what was none of her business. Rita’s unbridled curiosity would, in the end, always get the better of her. The door opened all the way and Rita stood in the frame, holding Archie’s one hand, Steve dangling from the other. 

“What a hilarious coincidence. I just woke up and there was this strange airflow that unlocked the door. You know those weird indoor winds.” Rita gave her mother a wolfish smile, while Archie hid his face behind her hand. At least one of them felt remotely guilty, Orla thought before she waved them over. She wasn’t interested in scolding her daughter for listening in. How could she? Archie settled on the couch between Orla and her husband, while he wouldn’t let her out of his sight, staring up at her with his big brown eyes.

“Don’t worry, boy. You’re being very brave, being all this way from home.” 

She gave him a little wink as he climbed up onto the empty seat next to her and kept observing her with tired but watchful eyes. Rita sat down on the floor at Kaisa’s feet, who was curled up in the big recliner. None of them spoke, but waited for the small black feline to keep its promise. 

“I think we all remember it well. The people who’ve had the chance to witness it…”

The sky was gray that day, not like that had been something out of the ordinary here in the Westfjords. But Olli found this particular day to feel different. He leaned on the door of his workshop and let his gaze drift over the skies out beyond the fjord. Something was brewing out there, and it made his joints ache. 

“Looking mighty sinister.”
A female voice came from behind him and as he looked over his shoulder, a tall brunette woman made her way around his shop, fixing him with her friendly eyes. She hadn’t been around town for all that long, and Olli couldn’t really remember her name, but he figured it was way too late to ask. 

“Nothing unusual. The North Atlantic isn’t known for her peachy moods. What are you doing here?”

He watched her as she climbed over a couple of half broken wooden crates to join him. 

“Checking on a grumpy new friend. Also, I could see it brewing from over at my house. Had to check it out from up close.” 

She smiled at him, but couldn’t quite hide her intentions. She was bored, he knew it. There was nothing here for such a wild girl. 

“I am going to assume that ‘up close’ isn’t from right here?” 

He knew the answer as soon as he saw the little glimmer in her eyes.

“Come on, I used to do that all the time. Back with my dad. You just have to know how to. And I suspect you do. Or am I wrong? Are you a boring old man?”

“Tired and boring. The tired part is really important.” 

She rolled her eyes and grunted. 

“Boooooooring!”

“Christ, do you want to get yourself killed, woman? And me with you?”

The woman pushed herself off the wooden facade of the workshop and slowly walked towards the dock. 

“It’s really not that bad, you know?”

“We will drown.”

“We will with that attitude.” 

Olli exhaled sharply and stared after her as her brown ponytail swayed back and forth while she skipped over stray ropes and loose wooden planks, right towards his boat.

“Fine…fuck’s sake.” 

He pushed himself off and stomped after her. 

“Yeeeees! Let’s get ourselves killed.” 

Olli shook his head, but couldn’t help crack a smile at this wild spirit. She had found her way to Hesteyri just a short while ago. It was rare, her brisk acceptance. Really rare. He couldn’t even remember her crying when she arrived.
They checked his old monohull for jackets, checked the engine, the rudder. Everything that needed to be in the right place before they embarked on their little adventure.

“Isn’t it interesting? Everything in this place is wild. Nothing stays where you put it, like this dumb Oddity is trying to make you lose your mind. But that’s about it. Imagine the lines on this boat went missing, or the sails just disappeared out of nowhere. The Oddity is odd, but doesn’t try to kill us. Interesting.”

“The only one that’s trying to kill us is you, now let’s go.” 

Olli merely heard her brisk, chiming laugh as he started the engine and put the boat in gear. He watched her loosen the lines and off they went. As they made their way through the fjord, she picked the frontmost spot at the bow and sat down, dangling her feet from the edge of the boat and leaned into the safety lines. Olli looked beyond her, out onto the open ocean and the closer they came, the more neck-breaking it looked. Her excitement was obvious, and all the more unsettling to him, who considered himself someone who had left his wild days long behind him.

“An interesting hobby you have. You know you can still die in the Spillage, right? You’re not dead yet,” a voice sounded up from between his feet. The woman turned around to greet the small black cat who walked towards her, tail lifted in the air and curling at the tip like a question mark. 

“Oh, you joined us? I didn’t realize. Why?”

The cat sat down next to her, looking out into the ever quicker approaching opening that would lead them out into the North Atlantic. 

“I felt an obligation to make sure you had a fair chance of arriving back safely. Not sure why you would tempt fate like this, but you do you, girl.” 

The woman smiled and poked the cat’s puffed up chest. 

“Sounds like you are curious to see what’s out there. Even though I appreciate your honest concern for my life.” 

The cat moved out of the way and sat down at a reach that was just an inch longer than the woman’s arm would stretch. Typical.

“Haven’t seen clouds like this before, I think. In a place like this, if things act up, you better make sure it’s not coming to bite you,” the cat said, its eyes still fixed onto the sky out over the open ocean, its tail twitching.

“I think you were bored and curious. Nothing wrong with that, kitty cat.”

The cat wagged its tail like a whip and narrowed its yellow eyes. 

“Kitty cat…,” it hissed.

Soon the opening of the fjord spat them out into the unprotected sea. Olli thought they would just go out some more, set the storm-sail, make a few rounds so this insane woman could get her adventure fix and then go back home. He was nervous, but he tried to downplay it. He thought they would be in and out in a matter of an hour or two, but he would be mistaken.
Olli was still brooding over the stormy skies when the boat was pulled forward with such a sudden and violent kick, it almost made him lose his footing. His heart still pounded against his chest when he quickly stared over the railing, but couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. The waves were angry, thrashing onto the side of the small boat, but they didn’t explain what was happening. With every passing second Olli felt the boat accelerating out into the open ocean. He whirled around, saw the surrounding shoreline of the fjord getting smaller and smaller. The engine was off. When had it stopped? The woman turned around and looked alarmed.

“Hey, what’s happening? How are we so fast?”

“I-I don’t know…”

“Switch the engine off!”

“It IS off.”

She got up on her feet, the cat scurrying after her, keeping low to the ground. She bent over the safety lines on each side, but there was nothing. They were being pulled further and further out, and Olli secretly hoped that it was only ‘out’ and not somehow also ‘under’. 

“Uhm…do you think we can turn around and fight this…current?” 

Olli laughed so loud, it almost sounded like a shriek. 

“Are we on the same boat? Do you actually think I can fight this ungodly death current with my fifteen horsepower engine? Maybe you want to set the storm-sail and add a blow-dryer for maximum power.” 

She frowned, but didn’t argue. This had taken a rather unfortunate turn, rather more rapidly than initially anticipated. This lady wanted wild, but this wasn’t an ordinary ocean current.

“Look there!” the cat yelled. It had fled into the belly of the boat, but looked out over the stairway leading down into the galley. When Olli craned his neck to see where it was looking, all he could make out were bigger and bigger waves. Even those looked strange. Like splashes in a bowl full of water that you had set down too quickly.  

“I don’t see anything but- …there!” The woman suddenly yelled, pointing her finger. Olli had no clue what either of them was talking about. He squinted, took a look around, but there was absolutely nothing. He watched her sprint to the bow once again, opening a small hatch, pulling out what looked like an old fishing net.

“How does she even know that was in there?” Olli said, but rather to himself. The cat had its ears pressed to its head and was clearly more focussed on what the woman was doing than trying to make light conversation with an old man. The woman walked up to the port side and got into position, and as Olli wanted to protest, ask her whether she was mad, he saw it too. 

A light. 

So small and so faint, it looked like a reflection at first. Just a glimmer on the surface. The closer it got, the more he could make out what it really was. It looked like the small flame of a candle. Like a tea light floating on a leaf. What on earth does that do out here? His companion readied herself and tossed the net overboard. She missed. The net splashed into the water next to the light and made it whirl away. 

“That was the most shit throw I have ever seen, goddamn it, woman.” He let go of the helm and ordered her to take it in his stead. She ran back, frowning a little. She had obviously taken that personally. Olli pulled the net back, grabbed it by its edges, and watched the little flame dance on the wild surface of the water. Just at the right moment, at the right time, Olli threw the net back out. 

“Gotcha!” 

“Pull it back!” 

“What do you think I’m fucking doing...” Olli mumbled. What was he even doing out here, why was he fishing for small tea candles out in the wild ocean? He was just leaning on his workshop door and then this female came along to bother him. 
As soon as he pulled the net out of the water and dropped it on board, the boat came to an immediate halt, like they had hit something at full speed. The sudden stop flung him through the air, the safety lines at the bow just barely catching him. The woman was able to hold onto the helm, but was slammed against it with full force. The boat stood still. Completely still. The water around them was still foaming and spitting, but they seemed to be unaffected by it. Olli pushed himself up and walked back over to the net, but his nameless companion reached it first. She started searching, frantically. Boy, would she be disappointed if she found a damn wet tealight in there, he thought. But then he saw something else, just from the corner of his eye. He tried swatting his arm at it, thinking it was a bug, but as he saw his hand waving before it, he couldn’t make sense of what he was really looking at. It didn’t make sense. A rip. In the sky, right before them. Or far away? No…it was right there. An open tear. Like the world around him was just a moving canvas someone had dropped or accidentally bumped into a sharp corner. 

“What the fuck is this…?” 

“It’s a baby girl.” 

“No, not tha-...what?” 

He didn’t want to take his eyes off the strangeness before him, but he couldn’t help but look as the woman pulled off her own jacket to wrap it around what actually looked like a human child. It was hard to decide which curiosity to stare at first, but he still kept his eyes fixed on the paper-like fracture. Always keep your eyes on the bigger threat, he thought, when he saw something else. Something that made him jerk back so hard, he had to hold onto the helm to not stumble over backwards. He kept looking, just to make sure his mind wasn’t playing a trick on him, but the tingle in his fingers made him fear the opposite. The woman seemed to be so heavily preoccupied with the girl, she didn’t even notice what was just unfolding before Olli’s eyes. 

“Do you see that?” Olli yelled over.

“She’s so sweet, look.” 

“No, no! The hand. Or whatever that thing is. From that…cut. Look!!”

“What are you talking about?”

“YOU AREN’T LOOKING!”

Why wouldn’t she leave the girl alone for one goddamn second? Then, suddenly, she shot up and stood next to him, the girl still wrapped in her jacket and safely cradled in her arms. He turned to look at her, but saw she wasn’t standing on her own. She was being pulled upwards, stretched into the air, only touching the ground by her toes. 

“Give her back!”

The voice came from nowhere and everywhere. A sharp sting in his temple, a loud thought in the back of his head. His hands clasped the helm so tightly his muscles started aching, but he didn’t dare to loosen his grip.

“NO!” 

Olli whirled around, looking between her and the black hand, wrapping itself around her neck, its fingers crooked like the legs of a spider. It protruded from the rupture like a strange beast reaching into their world.

“What are you doing, give it the child!”

“NO!”

The little girl didn’t even make the faintest sound. It seemed content, wrapped in the jacket, wrapped in this woman’s arms. Should he take the child away from her? Should he fight the beast? Fight the beast… The thought echoing in his mind terrified him, but his body acted on its own accord. As he reached out to grab the black hand, to yank it away from the woman’s neck, the touch of its skin seared his own. Surprised by the pain, he jerked back. When he looked at his hands, expecting to see burned flesh, there was nothing. He stared back up at the woman and as he heard the dull cracking coming from her neck, her eyes rolling over in her head as her face slowly started to turn grey, he thought he was going to be sick.

“For crying out loud, girl, give the baby away!”

But she didn’t. 

She just held onto it, harder than she clung to her own life. And when he thought the glimmer in her eyes had faded, thought this thing had broken her neck for good, it let her go. Just like that. The long crooked fingers opened and dropped her to the ground. Olli fell to his knees, crouched low to where the woman sat, bent over the baby she still held in her arms and heard her cough. 

“Jesus fucking Christ, woman. I thought it killed you! Are you mad?”

She didn’t answer, just gasped and coughed some more. Her neck was bruised and bleeding, but other than that she seemed to be fine. The engine came back to life with a sudden roar, which prompted him to jump up to grab the helm. As Olli turned the boat around, he noticed the decrease in swell and the change of light. The clouds parted.
The entire ride back, the cat didn’t come out from below deck, and the woman didn’t even turn around to look at him. She just sat there, cradling the child in her arms. He thought about speaking to her, urging her to tell him what on earth had gotten into her, but every time he opened his mouth he decided to stay silent.
When they came back to the dock, she didn’t help him with the lines. She wouldn’t put the child down, wouldn’t take her eyes off it. Once the boat was all tied up, he saw the cat scurry off deck and run over the dock so low to the ground, he was surprised its belly didn’t touch the wooden boards. It slipped through a small gap between the workshop door and the wall and was gone. The woman, whose name he still couldn’t remember, climbed off the boat and just started to walk off with a brisk pace, when Olli decided that this wasn’t done. 

“Hey! Stop immediately and turn around. What the fuck are you doing?”

Sounded a little harsher than he intended, but he could live with that. She stopped, but only very slowly turned to look at him. She didn’t come closer, just stood there. Olli climbed onto the dock and walked up to her. He stopped, standing just a foot away from her, but she didn’t look up. 

“Let me take a look.”

She didn’t answer.

“Hey…I’m not gonna take her away. I just want to look.”

She didn’t say anything, not moving, not lifting her head.

Olli took a sharp inhale.

“Please.” 

That seemed to do something, because she started to slowly lift her head. Her dark brown hair shone so brightly, even in so little sunlight. Reminded him of his late wife. From a long, very long time ago. 

“Are you going to say something?”

But this woman just looked at him, an apology in her eyes, but no word leaving her mouth. She shook her head, opened her mouth, but there was no sound. She tried again, but nothing. She pressed her lips back together and shook her head. 

“Oh boy…” Olli didn’t know what else to say. “Maybe you’ll get it back? Maybe just something in your throat needs to heal, you don’t know.” 

He heard himself babbling, but really only to console himself. She smiled at him and shook her head again. She didn’t seem to mind. You could see it in her face. The only thing Olli could see in her blue eyes was bliss. She opened her arms a little, and he could see a tiny hand grabbing a strand of the smooth brown hair hanging from her ponytail. 

“I have a hard time understanding what just happened. Something tells me that this was unusual even for the rather unusual place we already live in, but I might be mistaken.”

She smiled, but not at him. Her attention was not to be divided between a yapping old man and what seemed to be her baby now. 

“Needs a name, doesn’t she?” 

She nodded, and pointed at his hand. Olli opened his palm and with an outstretched finger, she started drawing on it. 

“K?” 

She nodded and kept on drawing. First a circle, then another line, then a dot. She went on and on and when she stopped, Olli understood.

“Kaisa.”

With bright eyes, and a beaming smile, she looked up at him. A name, written on the palm of a hand.

“Let’s go inside, hm? I need to think about what just happened.”

He put his hand on her shoulder and led her from the dock towards the workshop, where the cat would be waiting. Olli turned to look over his shoulder one more time. Towards the sky out over the ocean. It was different now, but he couldn’t really say how, but he had the sinking feeling that this child did not arrive on its own. 

The room was silent. Kaisa stared down into her hands, stared at them not to see the stares directed at her. And there she was yet again, the curious girl with the curious life. She took a deep breath and finally looked up, but the wondrous stares she’d expected didn’t come.

“Excuse me, but I am somehow under the impression that I just got filled in on something that everybody in this room already knew?” 

She turned to look at Rita, ready to explode at her for not telling her the truth, when Orla’s words interrupted her boiling temper.

“We haven’t told Rita,” she quickly said. Kaisa met her gaze, and held it for as long as she could, before she looked away. It was hard to stare down someone like Orla, because Kaisa didn’t just respect her, she was also a tad bit scared of her best friend’s mother.  

“Why now? Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” 

“We thought it was best to leave you in the dark. We thought it would do nothing but alienate you from the people in town,” Orla said firmly.

“That’s not up to you to decide,” Kaisa countered carefully.

“And yet it was. That’s how it works, I’m afraid.”

“Well I don-”

“You think it’s unfair, but I am going to ask you to leave that behind you. Nobody in this room means you harm, quite the opposite, actually. It was a decision all of us made a long time ago. I’m sorry, but that’s just something you’re going to have to come to terms with.”

Kaisa stared into Orla’s calm, unyielding eyes. The longer she looked, the angrier she became, but nothing she could think of would help her win an argument against this woman. How dare these people sit here and tell her this outlandish story, just expecting her to accept it silently and without so much as the slightest resistance? She knew for a fact that every single one of them would lose their minds over learning something so outrageous about themselves, and yet they found it reasonable for her to just quietly come to terms with it. Wild thoughts of harsh words started whirling in her head, foaming in her stomach, all the while Orla just stared into her eyes, unfazed. It wasn’t fair, and she wanted to yell it into all of their faces, especially her mother’s, but each time she wanted to open her mouth she knew how it would end. Why couldn’t anger ever mean anything?
Kaisa sighed and collapsed back into her chair, closing her eyes. 

“Whatever man…” she said, barely opening her mouth.

“You’re taking it surprisingly well,” Thorinn said, his eyebrows raised.

“Sure…” she replied, swallowed hard, and decided that she would just battle this out on her own. None of them could help her anyway. “Your wife doesn’t give me much of a choice.”

“Does she ever,” she heard Rita say, who then leaned her back against Kaisa’s legs, which managed to ground her at least a little. She gazed down at Archie, who had fallen asleep, his head in Orla’s lap.

“So we’re assuming, and please correct me if I am getting something wrong, that I was born from the ocean and that a mysterious black hand came from a rip in the sky and stole my mother’s voice to get me back. Sure, man. Sure. If you don’t mind, if somebody should ever ask me where I’m from, I’ll leave most of that out and just say ‘Iceland’. Cool?”

Kaisa bit her lip as to not betray the tremble in her throat. Just move on. Just move on.

Rita laughed and Kaisa managed to pull the corners of her mouth into a smile, even though it felt more like a strange grimace. She saw her mother rubbing her temples and stare at her own feet. So she’d had a voice at some point. Olli had heard her speak. They all probably did at some point. Kaisa quickly looked away, scared to meet her mother’s eyes. Not with all of them around. For a moment she saw herself staring at the tall mountain behind her house, her fingers clutching tightly around the cold handle of her mug. Sometimes she would just close her eyes and wonder if she could simply wish it away, step forward and keep walking until she was gone. Out of here. Out there. Where her hair was just blonde, and her name just a bit foreign. Where people cared about other things. But each time she opened her eyes again the tall grey wall of the mountain would stare back at her and deep down she knew nothing she did would ever change that.

“Alright folks, my husband and I are going to go home. I will bring Archie back to your room. Rita can sleep here if she wants. I already know she does, and I already know that it’s been decided, I just need to pretend like I have any say in my teenage daughter’s life. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

While Thorinn and Orla put Archie to bed, Kaisa, Rita and her mother remained sitting in the living room in silence. Kaisa felt Rita’s eyes on her, but closed hers for a while. Just a little. Just until her head stopped spinning. She heard them come back, grab their things. She heard Orla loudly proclaim her surprise about finding their clothes where they left them. The cat said something, something Kaisa couldn’t understand, but something Orla replied to with an exasperated sigh.

“Hey…”

Kaisa opened her eyes and was surprised to hear Orla’s voice so close to her so suddenly. They looked into each other’s eyes and Kaisa was surprised to find Orla’s gentle instead of stern.

“I…I don’t expect you not to be affected by any of this, Kaisa. I really don’t. I know I’d probably lose my mind if I heard someone tell me that and I mean now, as an adult. At fourteen, I’d have already started breaking things.”

Even though Orla’s words seemed so pleasantly genuine, Kaisa didn’t dare speak out of fear she might still say something she’d later regret. Instead, all she did was stare back into Orla’s eyes, her palms feeling hot and sweaty. Orla reached out and brushed her hand up against Kaisa’s cheek while she pursed her lips, almost making her look apologetic.

“I’m so sorry. I’m asking so much of you, we all are. It’s just…neither of us can explain it, could help you find any answers to the questions you undoubtedly have. But I promise you we will speak about this, and you can yell at me if you want to and break things if you want to. There is space for that, I promise. But right now, tonight, I need you to look past your anger. Not indefinitely, just until we figure out what’s going on. Because we need you for that. We need your sight, Kaisa. Perhaps now is the time all of this strangeness can stop being your burden, my love.”

Kaisa flinched, but listened, and listened some more, felt Rita shift on the floor, her back still touching her legs. With pressed lips she nodded, held her breath so as not to start sobbing. She held Orla’s gaze, felt the touch of her hand on her cheek and remembered how often Orla had made her feel like she was a little bit her daughter too. For a brief moment her eyes met Nonni’s, but just until Kaisa had to look away. She heard her mother shift in her seat. It almost seemed like she was about to get up, come for her. Come for her daughter. And Kaisa waited, and waited, holing onto Orla’s touch. Her hands clasped the armrests of her chair and all she could think of was hammering her fists against that cold dark wall until her fingers started breaking.