Season of the Witch Read online

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Text copyright © 2005 by Arni Thorarinsson

  English translation copyright © 2012 by Anna Yates

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Season of the Witch was first published in 2005 by Forlagid as Tími nornarinnar. Translated from Icelandic by Anna Yates. Published in English by AmazonCrossing in 2012.

  Published by AmazonCrossing

  P.O. Box 400818

  Las Vegas, NV 89140

  ISBN-13: 978-1611091038

  ISBN-10: 1611091039

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2011963581

  At the very moment that his head crashed onto the rocky ground, I was putting down the remote control and thinking about the love people have for their pets.

  The context is inappropriate, of course. Yet it happened like that—just like that, and at the same time as I was considering whether love for pets arises from the power of the lover over the loved. And vice versa: whether the person who loves a pet is at the same time in the pet’s power. The things you can think of. One time, two places. Is there a context?

  CONTENTS

  1 SATURDAY

  2 SATURDAY

  3 SUNDAY

  4 MONDAY

  5 TUESDAY

  6 WEDNESDAY/HOLY THURSDAY

  7 HOLY THURSDAY

  8 GOOD FRIDAY

  9 SATURDAY

  10 EASTER SUNDAY/EASTER MONDAY

  11 TUESDAY

  12 WEDNESDAY

  13 THURSDAY

  14 FRIDAY

  15 SATURDAY

  16 SUNDAY

  17 MONDAY

  18 TUESDAY

  19 WEDNESDAY

  20 THURSDAY

  21 FRIDAY

  22 SATURDAY

  23 SUNDAY

  24 MONDAY

  25 TUESDAY/WEDNESDAY

  26 WEDNESDAY

  27 SEVERAL WEEKS LATER

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

  “Wilderness tour?”

  Ásbjörn’s blabbing is drowned out by the background noise. “What?” I shout into the phone. It’s the brand-new goddamned cell phone he forced on me with this new assignment up north. I hate a gadget that means people can get hold of me anytime, anywhere; it’s a disadvantage. It enables me to get hold of people anytime, anywhere; that’s an advantage. So what is gained? Continuous contact with the outside world. And what is lost? Peace. Freedom from contact with the outside world.

  “What?” Ásbjörn yells back.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said there was an accident on a wilderness…”

  He falls silent.

  “Accident?” I ask.

  Silence.

  “An accident where?”

  No answer. I’ve been cut off. I place the phone in my lap and pull over. I read somewhere that cell phones have made life much easier for criminals, but much harder for writers of crime fiction, because the thrill and risk of being out of touch is almost a thing of the past. But couldn’t there be more thrill and risk in being in touch than out?

  “What’s up?” asks Jóa, our photographer. She looks at me sideways from the passenger seat, chunky in her thick blue quilted parka. Although I say “chunky,” Jóa is to me a beautiful young woman, with her kind face and constant smile. The Afternoon News venture of opening a branch in Northern Iceland with me as the only reporter has been made just bearable by her presence. Exile with her, if only for the time being, is a considerably more pleasant thought than exile with just Ásbjörn.

  I light a cigarette. “Ásbjörn was going on about an accident somewhere around here that he probably wants us to cover. Then I was cut off.”

  Jóa looks around. “We’re surrounded by mountains, Einar.”

  I wind the window down and blow smoke out into the damp air. Immediately raindrops start falling. Was that an objection? Is there someone up there who wants to put out the fire?

  “High technology,” I grumble.

  “Not much use up here in the north,” remarks Jóa. “The mountains block the signal.”

  She’s misunderstood me. I was talking about the celestial fire service. The Almighty’s antismoking police.

  “I don’t think that’s it,” I reply, looking around. “Hjaltadalur valley doesn’t look narrow enough to block reception. These peaks aren’t all that high.” I try to mimic an actor’s pompous delivery: “They have the shape of freshly filled silicone breasts on the body of the land.”

  “You never change!” laughs Jóa, with an overtone of disdain. Then she glances around and adds: “Actually, you’re quite right, although your prose isn’t exactly original. They’re quite shapely, these breasts.”

  Nature has decreed that Jóa and I have similar preferences in feminine beauty.

  “Maybe the land simply doesn’t like the perpetual electronic stimulus,” I sigh. “And who can blame it?”

  I pick up the damned cell phone and call Ásbjörn.

  He is pissed. “Why did you hang up on me?”

  “I didn’t hang up on you. You must have touched a button by accident.”

  “I did not touch any button.”

  “Yes, you did,” I say.

  “You must have touched a button by accident. You’re hopeless with cell phones.”

  I give Jóa a wink. “OK, OK. Enough. Were you saying something about an accident?”

  “A woman fell into the Jökulsá River. She may have drowned. Can you cover it?”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “Where are you?” Ásbjörn asks.

  “In the Hjaltadalur valley. We’ve just left Hólar after interviewing the high school students from Akureyri.”

  “You’re not far from the scene. Ambulance and police are on the way from here, or they may already have gotten to Varmahlíd. I gather the people from the tour drove down in their SUVs to meet the ambulance.”

  “What were you saying about a wilderness tour?”

  “Yes,” he says, “it’s a group from a company here in Akureyri, on a wilderness tour.”

  “One of those trips that are supposed to strengthen corporate bonding? A booze-fest presented as team building?”

  “I wouldn’t know. You and your condescending humor, Einar. We’ve got a good chance of a scoop, with photos and interviews. So shut up and put the pedal to the metal.”

  I’m not backing down. “It sounds to me, Ásbjörn, as if our little Akureyri newspaper branch could do with its own team-building excursion. To improve morale, strengthen solidarity, and enhance motivation and mutual care.”

  He says nothing.

  “What do you say? A venture into the wilderness? Under your bold, strong leadership?”

  He still says nothing. He’s hung up. Or accidentally touched the button.

  “Riding home from Hólar,” I sing absently, recalling the old nursery rhyme as we pass a roadside sign: Home to Hólar. The rain is letting up. The grass fields are yellow and mucky under the gray sky. In the middle of nowhere a cross stands up out of the ground, all alone. Horses have huddled together and stand stock-still, pensive, stoic. In the rearview mirror I see the belfry of Hólar Cathedral sticking up like a sharpened pencil, separate from the old cathedral, which reminds me of an eraser.

  Optimistic students from Akureyri High School had intended to premiere their production of the play Loftur the Sorcerer in the cathedral. When
I interviewed the kids they told me the plan had not worked out. It sounded like a cool idea to me, since the action of the old play actually takes place at Hólar and in the cathedral itself. But what do I know? I haven’t even read the play or seen it staged. And I’m no ecclesiastical authority, so the impropriety of staging on hallowed ground a play about a man who sells his soul to the devil isn’t that obvious to me. As a compromise they’ve been permitted to use the Hólar College gym, in among the small campus’s eclectic buildings, which include all sorts of modern structures and even an old turf farmhouse. Icelandic architectural history in a nutshell. Not to mention impeccable Icelandic taste.

  I wonder if I’d be more at peace with myself if I’d studied something like horse breeding at Hólar College? Would it have given me the balance, stoicism, and thoughtfulness I notice in the horses that are rushing past like hairy statues along the roadside as we drive up through Skagafjördur?

  “Why don’t you make an effort?” Jóa suddenly asks.

  I’m taken aback. “At horse breeding?”

  “No, idiot. To get along with poor old Ásbjörn. I mean, the two of you have got to work closely together up here in the north. Why not make the effort?”

  “I really don’t think I want to. If I get along with Ásbjörn I’ll be a completely different person. He is who he is. I am who I am.”

  I can feel her looking at me in surprise. Even disapprovingly. “Maybe a change of personality would do you good,” she mutters.

  “The man is just so fucking boring,” I add to make my point. “Or do you like him?”

  She is silent for a while. “He is who he is.”

  “See. We’re in agreement.”

  “No, we are not in agreement,” she says. “You’re a pain in the ass too. And he’s pretty much a broken man. Losing his news editor job…”

  “Yes, fortunately sometimes the right decisions are made,” I interject.

  “…and being sent up north to the back of beyond with you, of all people.”

  “It’s a tough punishment, I’ll grant you. For both of us.” I think of the horses again: You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. The media group that just bought 50 percent of the Afternoon News may be assholes. But at least they realized that Ásbjörn was not up to his job as news editor. Making him head of a new Akureyri office instead is another matter. So was giving his old job to ex-television personality Trausti Löve. Both decisions are supposed to make the paper more in touch with modern times. And my role in all of this modernization? Well, like I said, they probably are assholes.

  Jóa shakes her head. “You’re like two little boys. Two little boys who’ve been sent to the corner for fighting and keep on fighting there, long after you’ve forgotten what it was about.”

  She’s absolutely right, as usual. But how the hell am I going to go about serving my time when she goes back down south?

  As we drive over the bridge across the Héradsvötn River we see a crowd of people outside the roadside café in Varmahlíd, on the other side of the river. Four big SUVs are surrounded by other vehicles in the parking lot, and a police car and ambulance are parked in front of the building.

  “Well, well,” I remark. “Surely all these people don’t live here at Varmahlíd, do they?”

  “They’re probably vacationers, spending the Easter holiday in bucolic bliss,” Jóa replies. “And presumably the people on the wilderness tour.”

  “The ones wearing the ponchos.”

  A number of the people in the crowd look like blimps in blue dry suits, and two or three of them are also wearing life vests over the top. Some have red safety helmets on their heads. They must have set off in a hurry, without taking time to change. As we approach it’s obvious that they are upset. Most are standing in three clusters around the ambulance, either crying or comforting the weepers. Inside the ambulance I spot two people in blue, along with a man and woman in white coats.

  We pull up and Jóa reaches into the back for her camera.

  “She simply fell overboard. Quite suddenly. I don’t understand it,” says Sigurpáll.

  Sigurpáll is a tall, heavyset man, middle-aged and weather-beaten, with bushy red hair and beard. On his craggy face the beard is just beginning to gray. Sigurpáll Einarsson, the owner of Sigurpáll Einarsson Wilderness Tours Ltd, appears to be powerfully built inside his bulky dry suit. But his lips are trembling.

  “This has never happened to me before. Never. And everything had been going so well. The group was getting along fine.”

  I’ve cornered him by the ambulance. “Were you in charge?” I ask him.

  He slowly nods his shaggy head. Then shakes it, just as slowly, as if he has lost sight of his place in reality. There is so much distress all around that no one else seems likely to be more capable of providing information. I must try and get a clearer picture of what happened.

  “What happened before the accident? What kind of trip was it?”

  He is quiet for a while. “A wilderness tour. I’ve organized dozens, even hundreds of them, over the past five years. Exactly the same. We were going over the rapids on the Jökulsá River when she fell overboard from the raft. Just like that.”

  “Isn’t it rather early in the year for white-water rafting? It’s a summer activity, isn’t it?” I ask.

  “Yes, we don’t usually start till May. But the weather’s been so good. It’s been fine and windless, so two or three weeks either way doesn’t make any difference. The conditions today were perfect. That wasn’t it. I was asked to organize a tour for the company, and I did it in the usual way. Team building, food and drink, white-water rafting on the glacial river, cliff-jumping, and so on. And the Jökulsá is tailor-made for beginners.”

  “Drink? Alcoholic drinks?”

  Sigurpáll sniffs. “We serve hot cocoa.”

  I wait for him to go on. When he doesn’t, I ask: “Were they drunk?”

  Sigurpáll is startled. There is suspicion in his brown eyes. “Who are you, anyway?”

  “I’m Einar. I’m a journalist on the Afternoon News. We’ve opened an office in Akureyri.”

  “Why don’t you stick to the scandals down south? Isn’t there enough dirt for you there?” he growls.

  I don’t like the look of this. “The Afternoon News wants to improve its coverage of the drastic changes now being experienced in the regions,” I quote from an article published a few days ago in the paper by the editor, Hannes, “and provide a better service to the people who live there.”

  “You’re not going to sensationalize this, are you?” he asks.

  Now his voice is trembling, along with his lips.

  “Not at all,” I reply, trying to appear cool. He’s clearly losing it. “I’m just looking for accurate information about this accident. The name of the company, for instance.” I look around at the gaggle of distressed people. Nobody looks intoxicated to me. I notice that Jóa is busy taking photos, but keeping a low profile.

  “They’re from the Yumm candy factory in Akureyri,” says Sigurpáll reluctantly.

  “How big was the group?”

  “Nearly thirty people. Some brought their husbands or wives along.”

  “Isn’t that unusual, on these team-building trips?” I ask.

  “Yes, kind of. But it was also supposed to be their annual staff party ending with a dinner in Akureyri this evening.” He goes on: “I don’t know if that dinner is going to happen.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not as if anyone died, is it?”

  Now Sigurpáll is shaking from head to foot.

  “Who is the woman who fell in the river?” I ask.

  “She’s the boss’s wife. I don’t remember her name.”

  “What about him?”

  “Ásgeir Eyvindarson. He’s in the ambulance. Unconscious, like her.”

  “What?” I ask. “What happened to him?”

  “He jumped in after her,” Sigurpáll replies. And it’s as if the floodgates are opened. “I was in the
boat ahead of them, and I didn’t see what happened until too late. He jumped in, but he couldn’t reach her. She was swept downstream, and then him too. It was a few minutes before we could fish them out.”

  “How many minutes, do you think?”

  “I don’t know. Five, maybe. Perhaps more. It all happened so fast.”

  “Weren’t they wearing life vests?”

  He gives me a scornful look. “Of course they were.” Then he looks down and violently kicks a pebble toward the river before slouching off toward the café.

  Jóa is in the doorway devouring an ice cream. Some people are cooler than others, I think. But I’m not laughing. I try to get into conversation with two police officers who are sitting in their squad car.

  “We’re just off,” says the driver. “You can get in touch with the station at Akureyri later today. Or the hospital.”

  Suddenly a man’s roar of pain resounds from the ambulance. I can’t tell if the distress is mental or physical. Everyone turns in shock to look. At that very moment the ambulance backs up and sharply turns around. The police car drives off, followed by the ambulance. I watch them cross the river. The sirens start to wail, and the chilling noise, which you can never get used to, echoes out over the peaceful countryside.

  The mountains and ridges, which from the air look as sharp and forbidding as razor blades on end, appear quite harmless, a little rusty and worn, when seen from the ground. When I flew into Akureyri nearly a week ago, the snow in the ravines resembled pure white stripes on a gray woolen sweater. Now, as we drive down the öxnadalur valley toward Akureyri, nothing is left of the snow but grubby patches here and there at the foot of the mountain slopes. We pass the occasional farmhouse. Rolls of hay in their white plastic packaging, scattered in the withered grass fields, are the only sign of habitation.

  Most of the farms will probably soon be taken over by the banks or by the wealthy of Iceland, who see the future as opportunities for larger production units, enhanced profitability, and glossy annual reports.

  The old stone cairns that used to mark the route through the mountains fly by, symbols of times long gone, an Iceland that will never return.

  I am brought out of my musings by Jóa, who produces a plastic bag from the roadside café in Varmahlíd. She takes from it two small chocolate eggs and offers me one.