The front door was kept locked and Pési had never quite been able to open it by himself. Naturally, he grew bigger and stronger every day, so it could just be that this was the first time he’d managed it. Berglind opened the door and was hit by an ice-cold gust of wind. The weekend’s fine weather was well and truly over. Her coat hung on a hook in the hall, with Pési’s jacket next to it. If he had gone out, he was inadequately dressed, even ignoring the fact that he was too young to be wandering around alone. Instead of putting on her coat, Berglind ran back to check whether he’d been messing about in the garden. He could sometimes manage the sliding door if he pulled with all his might, and he was used to playing outside – though he’d rarely gone out there in the sleet of recent months. It was also possible that she’d left the door half open. She couldn’t remember whether she’d shut it behind her when she took the clothes from the line, irritated at foolishly letting the fine weekend weather dupe her into hanging the washing outside. Mind you, it was cold out and there was no chance that the door had stood open all that time. When she entered the room she saw the curtains moving in the breeze.
‘Pési?’ Berglind drew them back and was relieved to see her son out in the garden. She pushed her way out through the half-open door. Her son had his back to her, and appeared not to hear her. Fortunately, he was wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt, but he still had far too few clothes on for the middle of winter. His blond hair fluttered in the wind, reminding Berglind that he was well overdue for a haircut. ‘Pési? You can’t go out like this without letting Mummy know.’ He remained absolutely motionless, giving no indication that he was aware of her. He stood directly underneath the line where the white washing had been hanging that morning. It could be that he’d found the dead animal Halli had been talking about, which would explain the stench. That would definitely scare him; she didn’t know whether Pési had ever seen anything dead. ‘Come on, Pési, darling. You’ll catch cold if you stay out for long dressed like this.’ She went over to him and spoke calmly, so as not to startle him when she took his shoulder. It was rare for him to be so distracted; it did happen from time to time, of course, but always in the evenings when he was very tired.
‘Bad smell here, Mummy.’ He didn’t turn around.
Berglind felt a stabbing pain in her heart; he was the only one who knew that it wasn’t her imagination. ‘I know, darling. Let’s go inside.’ She had nearly reached him when he moved slightly, pawing at the grass with his bare feet. ‘Your feet must be like blocks of ice, Pési, sweetheart. I think I’ll need to make you some hot chocolate if we want to get them warm again.’
‘I don’t want hot chocolate. I want to be outside.’ He finally turned around and looked at his mother with sad eyes. His hair still blew in the wind a little, but suddenly it looked almost as if it was being smoothed down somehow; protected from the gusts by invisible means.
‘Come on, Pési.’ Berglind gave up trying to seem bright and cheerful; instead her voice was full of urgency and unease. ‘Let’s go inside.’ The air was tinged with a familiar metallic tang. ‘It’s too cold to be outside.’
He didn’t reply, but stared at her as if he didn’t recognize his own mother. Berglind wasn’t even sure if he could see her. But he couldn’t be looking at something in between them, since there was nothing there. ‘What are you looking at? My jumper?’ At moments like these it was better to talk, even though no one might be listening except you.
‘I want to go in now.’ Pési continued to stare straight ahead, hypnotized, his expression unaltered. He was even paler than usual; the only colour in his face was two red spots high on his cheekbones. The ghostly white hands sticking out from his thin sleeves looked as if they belonged to an overgrown porcelain doll.
‘Come on, then.’ She held out her hand, but it failed to draw him out of his hypnotized state. ‘Let’s go in, Pési.’ She went up to him, bent down and took his little, ice-cold palm. Then she felt her shoulder-length hair electrify and rise slightly. Brittle, fragile leaves were lifted into the air and blew across the grass.
‘Who was driving, Mummy?’
Berglind squeezed his small hand. She was desperate to pull him inside with her, get away from the oppressive stench that lingered under the washing line and stand with him in the kitchen, surrounded by the fragrance of hot cocoa. There they could chat together comfortably about everything but the terrible event that had destroyed their lives. She would do anything to free herself from this burden, but didn’t know what this ‘anything’ might be. She and Halli hadn’t realized until too late what a good life they’d had before. They were broke, their journey to work was too long, Pési was ill too often, she was always getting split ends, the weather was awful… these complaints sounded ridiculous now, compared to what was to come after. A year ago she would have been at work, not standing half dressed out in her garden like an idiot, trying to coax her son back inside. Once again she wondered why things had escalated so slowly before becoming unbearable; although the spirit had manifested itself immediately after the accident, it wasn’t until around the time of the financial crash that they had begun to feel as if they couldn’t stand it any more and had turned to the church for help. In other words, nearly a year after the actual accident. Berglind had the feeling that something had pushed the haunting to another level, but it was difficult to say what that might have been. Nothing had changed in her and Halli’s behaviour during that time, and Pési had continued to be the same little angel, following a routine that developed gradually with his increasing maturity. Whatever had caused it, it must have been something external. The best Berglind could come up with was that the changes were connected to Magga’s family, but when she had spoken to their neighbour, who knew their circumstances, the woman hadn’t known anything useful. Magga’s family were still overwhelmed by grief and trying to come to terms with what had happened.
Suddenly Pési appeared to jump start. All at once he seemed to feel the cold, because when he started speaking his teeth chattered. ‘There was someone in the garden, Mummy. I saw them earlier.’
‘Come on. You’re going to get ill if you stay out a minute longer in this cold.’ Berglind herself was feeling the cold even more now, and she stamped her feet in an attempt to get rid of the chill. It had no effect.
‘There’s a bad smell when someone dies, Mummy.’ He looked at her but instead of staring into her eyes, he looked at her open mouth. ‘Not straight away, though.’
Forgetting her earlier idea of taking him carefully by the arm, Berglind grabbed her son by the shoulders, picked him up and ran inside with him.
The priest couldn’t hide the fact that he was keen to get going. He kept starting his sentences with the phrase Well, then, but then he lost his bottle, repeatedly missing his chance to make an exit. Had he done a better job of concealing his desire to be elsewhere, Jósteinn probably wouldn’t have done anything to delay his departure; but his opportunities to make other people suffer were decreasing, and he fully exploited every single one he came across. ‘I’m just not sure that God exists. And if he does, then I can’t understand the hand I’ve been dealt.’