The Mist

footsteps. She gave Einar a shove but he didn’t immediately stir.
‘Einar, Einar,’ she whispered frantically, her breathing fast and shallow. ‘You’ve got to wake up. Right now. Wake up!’
His eyes flicked open.
‘It’s Leó. I can hear him, Einar, I can hear him!’
Einar blinked, confused, and rubbed his eyes.
‘Get up!’ she hissed. ‘Quietly.’
Obediently, he pushed back the covers and got out of bed. ‘What’s the matter, love?’ he asked in a low voice. ‘Why did you wake me?’
‘You’ve got to stop him,’ she hissed. ‘It’s Leó! He’s prowling around the house – in the middle of the night!’
Einar went over to the door and took hold of the handle. ‘It’s locked,’ he whispered, surprised. ‘What the hell? Why’s it locked?’
‘I locked it. Because of him.’ She went over to join her husband and softly turned the key so he could open it. He looked out into the passage, with Erla peering over his shoulder. There was nothing to see but darkness.
‘Pass me the candle,’ he said, gesturing back at the bedside table.
Erla did as he asked. Einar looked out of the door again, then ventured into the passage. She waited on tenterhooks in the bedroom.
He came almost straight back. ‘There’s no one there, love. You must have been dreaming. I expect the poor chap’s sound asleep.’
She shook her head but didn’t say anything.
‘Come on, love. Let’s try and go back to sleep ourselves. We don’t want to be up and about in the middle of the night.’ He closed the door but, to her chagrin, didn’t lock it.
She went over and locked it herself, then got into bed next to him and turned over on her side, facing away from him, lying with her eyes stretched wide open.

XII
‘Your mother’s definitely coming over tomorrow, isn’t she?’ Jón asked from the armchair, without raising his eyes from his book. There was a sweet smell of cocoa in the air. He had heated milk for them and stirred in the best-quality drinking chocolate, but one of the three mugs was still standing untouched on the sofa table.
Hulda, who was engaged in the annual chore of trying to disentangle the fairy lights, answered curtly: ‘Yes.’ She would gladly have got out of the duty of hosting her mother for once and celebrated Christmas alone with Jón and Dimma. She was especially dreading her mother’s visit this time, with Dimma being so difficult and unpredictable.
‘I reckon we’re all set,’ Jón said, finally looking up from his book. ‘Aren’t we, darling?’
‘Well, except for Dimma.’
‘Oh, can’t we talk about something else? Just leave her alone to get over it. She’ll come round when it’s time to open her presents.’ He smiled at Hulda, but neither his smile nor his rallying tone rang true.
In the background they could hear the traditional Christmas messages to friends and family being read out over the radio, a reminder that this was the time of peace and harmony, but the emotions churning inside Hulda felt jarringly at odds with this spirit. She was anxious and upset. More than that, she felt apprehensive, though of what she didn’t know.
‘Do you have to work on Christmas Day?’ Jón asked. ‘Aren’t you senior enough to have a bit more say in what shifts you get lumbered with these days?’
‘I can’t do anything about it; it’s just how the rota worked out. Is it a problem?’
‘No, of course not. It’s fine. Dimma and I will just read our books while you’re out. Maybe we could do a puzzle too. We’ve got an old jigsaw in the loft, haven’t we?’
‘Several, yes.’
‘Then we’ll have a nice lazy time. Like in the old days before Dimma was born, when it was just you and me. Do you remember how we used to snuggle up on the sofa and read for days on end over Christmas and Easter? With no one to disturb us.’
‘Yes, before you started working so much.’
He smiled. She knew that smile. It was his way of defusing difficult conversations, and she’d fallen for it every time. Ever since they first got together.
‘You’ll take good care of her while I’m out, won’t you?’ she asked, a pleading note in her voice.
‘On Christmas Day? Of course I will.’
‘Promise me, Jón,’ she said.


XIII
Erla started awake and automatically reached for the alarm clock, peering at the hands in the gloom. It was morning, gone seven o’clock. She must have fallen asleep in spite of herself. The disturbances of the night felt like a bad dream. Could she have imagined it, or part of it, at least? Suddenly she wasn’t sure … not entirely, and the thought unsettled her.
After a moment she registered that Einar was no longer lying by her side. She sat up and tried to switch on the light, but nothing happened: the power was obviously still out. The morning was pitch black, as usual at this time of year, indistinguishable from the night, but the clock didn’t lie. She felt a momentary stab of fear. Could something have happened to Einar? Closing her eyes, she listened, but couldn’t hear anything. All was quiet in the house.
Too quiet?
Her heart began to race, making the blood throb in her head, and next minute she was out of bed and running into the passage in her nightclothes. It was lighter out there than in the bedroom, illuminated by a dim glow that appeared to be coming from the sitting room. Heading towards it, she found the room lit up by candles and Einar and the man who called himself Leó both sitting there.
There was a comforting aroma of coffee in the air. Then her gaze alighted on the tree and the colourful parcels beneath it and it dawned on her that it was Christmas Eve.
‘You’re awake, love,’ Einar said. ‘There’s hot coffee in the pot. Thank God, the gas is still working.’
She stood rooted to the spot, the words stuck in her throat. The seconds seemed to be passing as slowly as minutes as she stood there, speechless,