The Mist

But that didn’t really matter; all that really mattered was getting that man out of their house and out of their lives.
Although she couldn’t see anything, she could hear the wind and feel the cold sneaking in through the gaps in the window frame. The roaring of the gale was loud enough to keep those unaccustomed to it awake, but not her and Einar. It was such a frequent occurrence in this godforsaken spot that they were inured to the noise. She listened, doing her best to block out the weather and attune her ears to what was happening nearer at hand, trying to hear their visitor through the thin wooden partition wall, but as far as she could tell, everything was quiet indoors.
She lay there absolutely still, hardly breathing, alert to the faintest sound.
Lay on her back with her eyes wide open, staring blindly at the ceiling.
Sometimes, when she was going through one of her bad patches, she lay like this half the night or more, wondering if their life would have been better if they’d moved to Reykjavík; if Einar could have cut his damned umbilical cord and sold the farm, escaping the ancestral yoke. And sometimes, very occasionally, she let herself wonder if life would have been better if she’d never met Einar at all … But the answer to that was more complicated, because without Einar there would have been no Anna. It was pointless brooding like this, but she did it anyway, the prisoner of her own memories, or rather the prisoner of her own mind.
There was another candle in the drawer of the bedside table. Erla reached for it now, groping for the matches in the darkness. She couldn’t go on like this; she had to have a little light. She sat up in bed but, of course, Einar didn’t stir. He slept the sleep of the carefree, of the self-contained. Erla struck a match, held it to the wick until it caught, then listened. Since there was no question of going to sleep, she resolved to wait it out.
But the tiredness was there underneath; however wide awake she was now, there was always a risk she might doze off. In an attempt to stave off drowsiness, she started thinking about her relatives in Reykjavík. She had little contact with them nowadays. Really, she was stuck in this marriage for the simple reason that she had nowhere else to turn. She wouldn’t know what to do with herself if she ever left and moved back to the city. In spite of everything, she had put down roots here.
She emerged from this familiar train of thought to find herself still sitting up in bed. Closing her eyes, she listened to the silence indoors. Slowly, she became aware of the low humming of the house, which seemed to grow more insistent with every moment that passed. Then there was the rhythmic ticking of the alarm clock, so shockingly loud in the quietness, and seeming louder every minute. The roaring of the wind, the humming in the walls, the ticking of the clock, they all merged together until the noise grew unbearable, like a searing pain in her ears. She opened her eyes wide, trying to shake off the feeling.
And then she heard something.
Something real this time.
There was no mistaking it: somebody was moving around in the house.
Of course, there was only one person it could be. She heard the squeaking of a door, the muffled creaking of the floorboards. It was impossible to creep around noiselessly in this old house, but Leó was trying to do just that, and would probably have got away with it if Erla had been out for the count, like Einar.
Where was the bastard going?
She heard squeaking again, another door. Don’t overreact, she told herself. He’s probably just going to the toilet. But she could have sworn the noise came from the attic. Had he gone upstairs? For a moment she seriously considered tiptoeing out of their room and sneaking up on him to give him a shock. But she didn’t have the guts. Although she knew the house like the back of her hand, had done her best to learn to recognize all its idiosyncratic noises and could find her way around it even with the lights off, this time the cause of her fear was a flesh-and-blood person. The last thing she wanted was to risk encountering him in the dark.
What she ought to do was wake Einar, but she hesitated, unsure how he would react. Besides, he might make a noise as he stirred, and there was a risk that would scare Leó back into his room.
Getting out of bed, she padded over to the door and listened, then turned the handle with infinite care to ensure that it was locked without making a betraying rattle. It was, of course. The certainty brought a rush of relief. She was safe in here.
All was quiet again. She couldn’t hear anything to indicate that Leó was still moving around or to help her pinpoint his whereabouts, but in spite of that she was certain he’d left his room and hadn’t yet returned to it. She stood motionless in the chilly bedroom, the shadows moving and dancing in the flickering candlelight, waiting. Every now and then she glanced back at the bed, where Einar was sleeping as if he hadn’t a care in the world.
Then she heard it again. She pressed her ear to the door and, yes, she recognized that succession of creaks: Leó was descending the stairs from the attic; she was sure of it now. So she’d been right. His footsteps approached stealthily along the passage and her heart missed a beat. She didn’t know how long he had been snooping around the house but, as far as she was concerned, things had gone far enough. Without another thought, she walked softly over to the bed. As she did so, she heard more noises, the squeaking of a door,