22
‘Thanks to you,’ Elias rumbles as we enter the cabin, ‘we’ve got more work cut out for us.’
I trail behind him with feet that no longer feel mine. Snow weighs down my boots, and every step pulls at the ache buried deep in my thighs from that punishing trek through the woods.
The warmth of the cabin is the first thing to assault me.
Then the smell.
Wet timber. Feathered musk.
I step over the threshold and freeze just as Elias sets the hatchet beside the hearth. My jaw clamps shut, teeth grinding before I even realise it.
The kitchen floor is soaked. The wood is dark with moisture, water already sinking into the grain. The spreading stain licks across the floorboards all the way to the dining table, where it curls in a dismal crescent around one leg.
The pipe beneath the sink looks bent at the wrong angle. Tools lie scattered across the counter.
And there is another matter: chickens.
Everywhere.
A whole, clucking flock of them has invaded the sitting room. Some perch on the arms of the couch, others scratch at the soaked floor, their wings flapping wildly at our entrance as if they’ve taken offence at the poor lodging.
‘What—?’ I start, mouth dry.
‘You used the tap before the line had thawed properly,’ Elias cuts in sharply. ‘The pipe burst.’ He doesn’t look at me as he begins peeling his gloves, jaw ticking. ‘It’s sheer fucking luck Anders does plumbing and keeps tools in his sledge bags.’
My chin drops. I stare at the spreading stain as though I can make it shrink if I look hard enough.
He’d left the notes. I’ve read them. I was also too busy planning never to see this place again.
‘The animal shed?’ he continues, stepping deeper into the chaos with the slow, exhausted gait of someone trying not to explode. ‘You left the heater running flat out. The battery drained before we even made it back. Now it’s cold as arse in there until I get the backup generator running. So—’
He gestures broadly towards the clucking mass of menace. ‘We have housemates.’
The damn thermostat. I forgot to check it when I turned on the heater.
One of the chickens chooses that moment to hop up onto a chair and drop a fresh insult onto the seat cushion.
‘Fuck off!’ He waves it away, grabs the mop that leans tiredly against the fridge and tosses it to me.
Then he stops at the table, both hands braced against the back of a chair. His head dips. One long breath leaves him. Then another.
Long, then slow. Out again, just as slow. But the strain in his shoulders never leaves.
I say nothing. Because I didn’t think twice about what I was leaving behind.
His hand leaves the chair for the briefest second and presses into his side, just below his ribs.
The next angry thought never quite forms.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ I ask instead.
His hand falls away, spine straightens.
He turns away from me before I can see his face properly, settling the chair back into its position.
‘I’m going out to help Anders turn the shed into a henhouse,’ he mutters at last, completely ignoring my question. ‘Stoke the fire. Feed the birds. Give them some water. It’ll be an hour until the generator heats the shed enough so their feathers don’t fall off their arses.’
He pushes off the chair and walks to the door with his jaw locked so tight his cheeks ripple. ‘You’re on chicken shit duty until further notice.’
He slams the door behind him with a force that makes the walls shudder and sends the chickens flying all over the place.
The quiet that settles clots with things unsaid and things done. My limbs are still numb, but the cold has nothing to do with it. My mouth still remembers his.
The one glove still on my hand goes first, then the rest of the outer layers.
I slide my phone back into its hiding place inside the picture frame, then swap into a purple fleece-lined tracksuit that still smells of my laundry detergent from back home.
It calms me a little. A pair of white-and-brown fluffy socks follows.
They make my feet look like cartoon paws.
Marina and I always bought each other the most ridiculous ones we could find for Christmas.
I wiggle my toes inside them and can almost see her laughing at these. The memories thaw me at least a little.
The chickens seem to like them, too.
Because the moment I step out of the bedroom, the bloody cockerel mounts my ankle.
‘Get off me, you… pervert!’ I stomp, trying to shake him loose without breaking him. My dignity, too.
He flutters off in a huff, circling me like he’s planning his next move – reminding me of someone else with the same manners.
Apparently, I have a type.
‘God,’ I puff out, ‘I don’t think I could handle another one of yous.’
The joke leaves my mouth on a stiff breath.
My gaze jumps to the back door, because Elias might come back at any second. And I am still here. I am still fucking here and not on the first bus to Narvik.
With the ache in my body and in my soul, I move towards the sink, careful not to slip on the damp floor.
Before the men return, I do exactly as I’m told – clean the mess, keep the fire fed, the chickens too.
As I turn, I catch sight of a fresh, glistening pile of droppings near the entrance to the root cellar.
This is penance.
True. Divine. Shitty penance.
Armed with a mop and a bucket of water, I start on that, then sweep the rest as the cockerel keeps rounding me.
Soon, the back door creaks open. Elias enters first, snow still in his hair and beard. Close behind him follows Anders, wearing Elias’ spare slippers.
Now that I’m not half-frozen and half out of my mind, I get a proper look at him.
Indoors, he seems shorter than Elias – then again, so is most of the human population – but still wide-shouldered, thick through the chest. Clearly built for survival in places like this – places that might chew lesser men alive.
‘Ah!’ Anders exclaims with a slight accent, wiping his hands on his shirt even as Elias wordlessly takes his coat and hangs it on a hook beside the front door. ‘Told you she’d clean up in no time!’
He strides forwards with a broad smile that deepens the creases around his eyes.
His full white beard blooms on his face like winter moss, cheeks permanently rosy from a lifetime of Arctic wind. He takes off his knitted beanie, revealing wild white curls streaked with grey, and his pale eyes crinkle with a rare kind of kindness.
‘How do you find this place, then?’ he asks brightly.
There’s real joy in his voice. Nearly disarming. I try to match that excitement, if only to keep that glow alive in this false, sodden, chicken-infested corner of my existence.
But suspicion won’t leave me. If he helped Elias bring me here, how can he stand in front of me now and smile as though there’s nothing bloody wrong with any of this?
And yet, when I smile back at him, his easy expression holds. There’s no guilt tucked behind it, no knowing glance, nothing to suggest he sees anything except the woman Elias told him would be here.
Maybe he doesn’t know?
Elias has lied well.
I keep reminding myself I’m playing a part. Because I don’t know what story about us Elias had told him.
And then—
The damn cockerel is back.
‘Get off!’ I growl. This time he pecks furiously at my foot.
Anders bursts into laughter, shooing the beast away with his heel. ‘I think it’s the fluff. Looks too much like feathers.’
Elias passes us without so much as a glance my way.
The socks are off within seconds. I fling them onto a chair near the fire, and the bastard cockerel hops up and immediately starts treading it.
‘Leandra—’ Anders starts merrily, picking up the bent pipe from the counter that makes something inside me fall straight through the floor again.
‘Leah, please,’ I say, brushing my sticky hands down my thighs.
He flashes me another smile. ‘Of course! Leah.’ He starts gathering tools with surprising grace. ‘I was just telling Jakob you should come for dinner tomorrow night!’
Jakob?
My gaze flicks to Elias at the range where he busies himself with the fire. The tendons in his neck strain as he clenches his jaw. The furrow between his brows could bloody well hold water.
This is the second time that name has come up.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I say warily, glancing at the swamp I’ve made of the kitchen floor. ‘I seem to have… set us back a bit.’
‘Bah!’ Anders waves a hand as if swatting my concern away. ‘Wood will dry. The Cluckers will be in the shed soon. Besides—’ He turns slightly to face Elias, ‘—Inga’s arriving tonight! She’d love to see you! It’s been so long.’
The name does something to Elias’ face. His jaw loosens, the corner of his mouth lifts a fraction, and something warmer flashes in his eyes.
Whatever’s in my stomach curdles instantly.
Who the hell is Inga?
I blink slowly, then again.
What… the hell… was that?
‘My daughter!’ Anders says, turning to me again, beaming. ‘She runs an animal shelter in Oslo.’
I clear my throat – more to dislodge this ridiculousness that came over me, because, obviously, the past few days have already begun eating away what little sanity I had left. I’m twitchy, restless in my own skin, unwilling to stay still for too long in one place with him in it.
And now I’m fucking jealous, too?
Not trusting myself, I drift towards the rack where several dusty bottles lie nestled in their wooden cradle.
‘How about something with a bit of a bite to finish off the evening?’ I murmur, fingers closing around a white-labelled bottle with severe black lettering.
Anders’ grin spreads wider, his beard twitching with amusement as he glances at Elias – who glares daggers at me, his shoulders taut as if they’re restraining something worse than the Crane temper.
‘I’d like some,’ I add. A momentary truce with fate, if nothing else.
Elias stares at my side a heartbeat too long as I fumble with the bottles. Something simmers behind the frost, but he only turns back to the range and feeds more logs into the fire. The glow blooms warmer across the timber walls, but it doesn’t quite reach the shadows in his face.