Chapter 17
Polly was waiting for her at the front door to the house.
Harper was frozen clear through and the sky was dark.
She was accustomed to jogging the route to the West Dock and back, but the walk in the wind with the encroaching darkness had been more than she expected.
Polly yawned in greeting and turned to the front door.
She entered to the smell of cheese baking and her stomach immediately contracted.
She hadn’t eaten since breakfast, hadn’t thought about it until now.
“There you are, Polly’s been waiting.” Shuri was chopping a bell pepper at the kitchen counter. “Dinner’s almost done, frozen pizza. I make the fanciest dinners.”
“Sounds and smells amazing,” Harper said as she kicked off her boots at the door.
Over dinner, the group was quiet. Shuri excused herself to her books.
Kyle helped Harper with dishes and disappeared as well, his usual chatter quelled by the strangeness of the day.
Harper made a cup of tea and settled on the couch with Polly, who looked at her with wide, all-knowing eyes.
As she checked her laptop, there was another message from Boston.
Greetings team. Good news, looks like this swell is moving south faster than they thought. Winds should be reasonable for next couple of days. But storm will be back end of week, so use time wisely. Check NOAA and navigation site in the AM but from here it looks like a go—finally!
Harper checked her phone, flipping through GeoRata and NOAA site weather updates.
Wind predicted not to exceed eleven knots.
Safe enough. She’d tell the team in the morning.
Only one of them needed to be on the boat with her and Murphy.
Even then, they’d just be tracking coordinates.
Restless, Harper clicked on photos and flipped back until she saw what she was looking for.
A grainy picture of a ten-year-old Harper standing with her parents on the cliffs at Reynisfjara, the black rock and sand below, the waves battering the shore.
The sky was gray, and storm clouds were forming over the sea.
Her father’s arm was protectively around Harper’s torso, his midnight hair whipping into his face.
Her mother was bundled up in woolen hat and coat; she was looking down at Harper instead of at the camera lens.
Her face was slightly twisted in an expression Harper had always thought was exasperation, but now she saw as concern.
Harper remembered that day. The waves had been too wicked, too dangerous to venture onto the black beach, so they’d stood on the cliffs, watching the angry Atlantic beat itself against the rock face.
Later, they’d hiked the 10 kilometers back to Vik and had hot chocolate in a café while the rain had started to fall outside.
It was a perfect day. The original photo had hung in their flat in Vestmannaeyjar.
After the accident, when Harper had been sent back to collect her things, she had carefully placed the photo in a wooden box alongside the other memories of what had been a perfect life.
A wooden box with delicate lupine carved into the lid.
She shook herself. This was a terrible path to go on, nothing good could come from this.
She hadn’t allowed these thoughts to waft into her waking life for a lot of years, and now was not the time.
She shut the laptop and put her phone on the side table.
Polly curled on her legs and purred. Harper sat and stared out the window.
In the darkness outside, Harper could hear the wind trying to rip the roof off the tiny house.
It was angry. The island itself was trying to tell her something, but she couldn’t quite read the message.
It was like her mother’s expression in that photograph, something far more extraordinary was happening beneath the surface.
All of a sudden, the floor beneath Harper began to move, and the mug of tea sloshed back and forth in her hands. Kyle ran out from the bedroom.
“Stop,” Harper ordered. “Stand still, it’ll be over in a second.” The ground continued to rattle. Polly looked up, her ears back and claws dug deep into Harper’s skin. The shaking subsided and Harper let go of the breath she’d been holding. “Alright, that was it.”
“Again?” Kyle’s voice was an octave above its normal tone. “I mean, what’s going on?”
“No idea,” Harper said as she picked up her phone, hit GeoRata, and scrolled quickly. “2.7 to epicenter to the east, close to the quake earlier today.”
“Another?” Shuri stood in the doorway, groggy from sleep.
“Aftershock from today’s likely.” Harper looked at the team. “Nothing to worry about, aftershocks are normal, right?”
“Perfectly normal,” Shuri said with a yawn, turning back to her bed.
“None of this is normal.” Kyle sighed and retreated back to his room.
Harper was left alone with Polly. Suddenly the cat leapt up and jumped to the windowsill, pawing at the windowpane.
“Polly, what’s up?” Harper asked, standing to join her.
From the other side of the glass three sharp knocks echoed through the room.
Harper was frozen with a combination of fear and the unknown.
The clear sound of knuckle against glass was coming from inches away and yet Harper saw nothing, just the night, just the trees whipping back and forth in the wind.
Harper felt her hand as if disembodied and emboldened to its own course of action rise to the glass and press her palm to the window.
Harper tried to pull it back, but while still attached to her body, her hand was not her own in this moment.
The knocks sounded again: one, two, three.
Loud, deliberate, and directly in front of her.
Polly frantically pawed at the glass. She turned, her fur and tail on edge, and leapt off the sill and out the open window in the kitchen.
Harper was hit with an immediate rush of adrenaline, her body felt like ice.
It was over. Whatever it was, was gone, she knew that even though there was no reason she should know anything.
She also knew without asking that no one else had heard it, no one would confirm the sounds. They were looking for her.