Chapter 72
Alone in the cabin, Maggie waited at the window. There was still no sign of her friends. The thickening fog snaked across the mountain, its damp breath pressing against the glass pane.
Hugging her arms to her chest, she worried about Helena. She was pregnant, without a phone or map, and with a man she didn’t know if they could trust. The fast beat of her heart pushed adrenaline through her body, and she felt wired, alert.
She turned in her seat, glancing around the cabin.
Yesterday evening, it had felt like a refuge, with the warmth of the fire, the flickering candlelight, the noodles eaten by the woodstove.
But in the gray daylight, the cabin looked shabby, ash dusting the floor, the smeared window letting in little light, drifts of dead insects on the windowsill.
Her gaze fixed on the bolted door. She didn’t want to go out there—but she’d been putting it off and now she needed to pee. Her ankle was throbbing dully, and each time she tested putting a little weight on it, a stabbing pain bit through her nerve endings, causing her to suck in a sharp breath.
She reached for the broom she’d been using as a makeshift crutch and pushed from her seat, hobbling across the cabin. She listened at the door—and heard only the sound of her own breath. She unbolted it and pulled it open a crack.
Fog curled around the cabin, obscuring the territory it stalked through, whole shoulders of mountain disappearing beneath white smoke.
Vilhelm’s description of Blafjell as a thin place came to mind again. She limped through the fog, thinking about the divide between this world and another at its thinnest. She could feel a coldness in the air that had nothing to do with temperature.
She looked about her, suddenly uncertain that she was alone. Her head twisted left to right—but she could see no one.
“Hello?” she called tentatively into the fog.
There was only silence.
She turned and looked back over her shoulder. The fog was so thick now that if she walked another few meters, the cabin would be swallowed.
One by one her friends had left the cabin—and none of them had returned.
And now she was out here. Alone.
She couldn’t lose sight of the cabin. She wanted to get back inside, lock the door. She’d light the fire, get it roaring—use the smoke as a signal to lead her friends back to her.
She pulled down her trousers and squatted awkwardly, her ankle unable to bear much of her weight.
The moment she was finished, she pulled up her knickers and grabbed the broom. As she went to turn, she saw a shadow moving in the distance.
Her skin chilled as she felt a shifting, dark energy close by. She heard a whisper of wind. The air moved with the fog, leaving tiny beads of moisture in her hair.
Then, through the fog, a shape emerged again—too low to be human. She felt a scream stifled in her throat.
She began to move, rushing and hobbling toward the cabin, pain shooting through her ankle.
She burst into the cabin, heart thumping.
The door swung closed behind her, and she bolted the lock with a loud clang. Then she stood there, palms pressed against the wooden door, panting.
A few moments passed—the silence of the cabin holding her in its spell so that all she could hear was the rise and fall of her own breath.
Then a cool, prickling sensation traveled across the back of her neck, spreading down her spine. For a moment, she held her breath, listening.
But the sound of an exhale, then inhale, continued.
Maggie turned.
Sitting in her seat beside the window was Vilhelm.