I wake to the aroma of pancakes and fresh coffee. For a wonderful, fleeting moment everything is how it should be: Mormor is pottering about the kitchen, making breakfast. Then I remember and a fist squeezes my heart. I sit up, my head groggy as last night comes back to me. The chest is at the end of the bed, everything back inside and the lid closed.
Several journals lie open on the pillow next to me. I must have fallen asleep looking at them, though how I managed to sleep after what happened I don’t know.
‘Nei, Gandalf!’ Stig’s voice carries a note of laughter.
I throw a jumper over my pyjamas and brush my hair, then go to the bathroom. When I pad into the living room, Stig is in the kitchen, flipping a pancake. His hair is tied back and the sleeves of his black woolly jumper are pushed up. Gandalf wags his tail and stares at the food flying above his head.
‘God morgen!’
‘What time is it?’
Stig switches off the gas burner, then turns to me with a grin. If he has a hangover, it doesn’t show. ‘Eleven. I heard you getting up, finally! Here we are – pancakes as promised.’
He sets a plate on the table and I pull out a chair. ‘Great, thanks.’
I take a bite, but hardly taste it. The creepy doll and the books … it doesn’t seem real. I don’t even remember putting the rest of the journals back in the chest before I went to sleep.
I watch Stig sip his coffee. The spinning wheel moving, that was real. He heard it too. I want to tell him everything, but at the same time I’m not sure I should. Ever since the shadows rushed past me on the porch, I’ve had a strange sense of foreboding. Like in a dream, where there’s something lurking on the edge of your vision but you’re too afraid to look. Talking about it would mean having to admit there’s something in the cabin with us – either that, or I am seeing things.
Worries flap inside my head, pecking at me like angry birds. Before she started her medication, Mum would stay up all night painting and then scream in terror. When I rushed into the room, the canvas would be covered in black paint – whatever horror she’d seen had been in her head. After the second time it happened, Dad called the doctor out. She said Mum had been hallucinating. That’s when the bottles of pills appeared in the bathroom cabinet.
‘Notice anything different?’ asks Stig.
I startle at his voice. The room seems normal, though it’s odd he hasn’t opened the curtains when it’s light outside. Stig strides to the window and pulls back the curtain like a proud stage magician. The world outside is brilliant white.
‘Snow?’
He beams like a kid at Christmas. ‘Ja, snø – and lots of it!’
I take another bite of pancake and wash it down with coffee. It tastes less bitter this time. Stig must have remembered and mixed the grounds with egg. I do my best to smile, grateful that he’s trying to make things nice for me.
Stig wipes the window. ‘I haven’t been out yet. I was waiting for you to get up.’
I glance at him over the edge of my cup.
‘I wanted for us to share it together,’ he explains.
This time I don’t have to force a smile.
‘More?’ he asks.
What were the words he taught me last night? ‘Takk for maten.’
Stig looks impressed. ‘You remembered!’
He zips up his boots and grabs his coat from the sofa. ‘Come on, let’s go!’
I lower my cup and hesitate. I was hoping to show him the journals and ask him to translate, but I guess it can wait. If I’m honest, part of me wants to forget about the creepy books and drawings and pretend last night didn’t happen.
‘Shouldn’t I get dressed?’
‘You look lovely, Miss Martha.’
‘Are all Norwegians as mad as you?’
Stig laughs and raises an eyebrow.
‘I’m not going out there like this! Wait a minute.’
I dash into the bedroom and pull on six layers of clothing. When I return, Stig is waiting by the front door, his coat buttoned up tight, and his scarf around his neck. He wears a hunting hat with fur along the edge and long flaps over the ears. It makes him look cute and cuddly, despite his leather coat and spiky boots.
I shrug into my coat and a warm feeling spreads through me as Stig lifts the hood over my head. ‘Ready?’ he asks. I nod and he opens the door to endless blue skies and acres of white. The world has been made new overnight. He bows and lets me go first. I’m glad he waited for me, so we could step into it together. I don’t like to admit it, but Mum and Kelly were right – despite everything, it feels good not to be shut away in my room.
The snow squeaks and crunches under our boots as we walk down the steps. My foot slips and I grab the rail and pretend to admire the view as I steady myself. Stig races headlong into a field of white. He throws his arms wide and spins. ‘I love snow!’
His enthusiasm is infectious. I jump into the craters of his footsteps and laugh at Gandalf, who barks and chases his tail. I try a little spin, just to see how it feels. Stig grabs handfuls of snow and throws them into the air and Gandalf tries to catch them.
Stig’s face is flushed pink and his eyes are as clear as the sky. Mormor would have loved this. She would have loved him.
‘Hey, Martha, catch!’
I turn as he throws a snowball. It misses.
‘You’ll have to do better than that!’ I shout.
I grab a handful of the white powder and pat it into a ball. When Stig reaches for more, I throw it and it hits him hard on the ear, much to his surprise and mine. ‘Sorry!’ I say, laughing.
Stig shakes his fist. ‘Right!’ He grabs some snow and rallies the troops – in this case Gandalf. ‘You saw that, didn’t you, boy?’ I turn and squeal as a snowball sails over my head, quickly followed by another. I race away and Stig gives chase. Unable to get me, he stands and catches his breath.
I hold up my hands. ‘Truce?’ I offer.
Stig nods. ‘But only because I’m a gentleman.’
I grin. ‘Not because you can’t catch me?’
Gandalf trots around the side of the cabin and we trudge behind him through snow half a metre deep. The view from here is even more stunning. The flat expanse of white stretches all the way to the forest without a single track, human or animal, to disfigure its cold perfection. If there is a wolf, it hasn’t passed this way recently.
The branches of the fir trees bend under the weight of snow: fairy-tale queens in white fur coats, arms dripping with diamonds. Even the twisted tree looks less bleak with a sprinkling of winter white. Seeing it casts a shadow over my happiness. I don’t want to go near it, but I can’t let Mormor down. Once we’re inside, I’ll ask Stig to translate the journals; maybe they’ll explain why I have to water it.
A raven caws and lands on a low branch, its blue-black body stark against the snow. It twitches its head and looks at me intently, then spreads its wings to reveal a clump of grey feathers on its chest. It looks just like the bird I saw when I got off the ferry at Skjebne, but why would it follow me here?
Stig is throwing snowballs and chasing after Gandalf. I nearly call out to him, but stop myself. He’d probably think I was making it up. I turn my back on the tree and walk away, but I’m convinced the raven is following my every move. A harsh caw makes me glance behind. Sure enough, it’s watching me.
‘Hey, Martha, is my nose still there?’
‘What?’
Stig walks over and prods a finger to his face. ‘I’m so cold I thought it had dropped off.’
I pull a face at his nonsense, and then bend to make another snowball. The raven swoops past my head and I duck away, afraid.
Stig chuckles. ‘You’re not afraid of birds, are you?’
‘No, I just –’
The bird flies back to its branch and caws again. I have the strangest feeling it’s trying to tell me something.
‘Come on – let’s get inside before parts of me really do fall off!’ says Stig.
I pull my gaze away from the tree and trudge after him. As we walk, a black shape flies overhead, trailing us like an ominous shadow.