This wasn’t an opening – her exhibition had been on for a few weeks now. Apparently a few clients had asked to meet her. It was not something she really did, but in this case it was for a very expensive painting. And she needed the money for the delýsíð. Her plans for the protest depended on it. So she’d agreed to meet them.
She walked through the cramped alley into the hidden courtyard where the gallery was located. A few hipsters sat by a bench, gossiping while they smoked. They all stared at her unabashedly as she crossed the small yard and entered the gallery.
Gjóta’s gallery space was bright and open, but still small enough that there wasn’t a clamour when a decent crowd gathered together. Bragi stood alongside an older man and his wife, both of them looking over one of the bigger paintings in the room. It was Garún’s work, something she called Untitled Mask of the God in the Stone, a massive, amorphous shape like something out of a cosmology book, a murky, swirling galaxy in formation. At a distance, if you relaxed your vision and focused on the work, it could almost resemble a face. Garún had laced the painting with microdosages of delýsíð. She hid the shape of the mask from the viewer, so that although it visually didn’t seem to be there, it was actually hiding there in the formless void. Your brain picked up the shape of a face, a mask, in the murky painting, but your eyes couldn’t see it. None of this was known to Bragi, of course, or if he suspected anything he’d at least kept quiet enough about it. It was the most expensive work Garún had ever had on display, and Bragi had asked her to come over today because the prospective buyer was apparently dropping by to view it for the third time. This time he was bringing his wife. Or more likely, his mistress.
“… one of the most exciting artists in Starholt today. A true rarity among her—”
Bragi stopped talking as he heard Garún’s footsteps approach in the hall.
“Ah, speaking of the brilliant artist. Garún, pleased you could make it.”
He flashed her an encouraging smile. She’d noticed when she was walking in that several of her paintings had been marked as sold in the last weeks. She found herself beaming, but her smile froze and her heart started pounding when the man and woman turned around to greet her.
She recognised him instantly. She’d been tagging one of his stores not that long ago. Sigurður Thorvaldsen. One of the richest people in Reykjavík. He was well into middle age, impeccably dressed in a fine suit. The woman, markedly younger than him, was his wife, Anna Margrét Eydal Thorvaldsen. She was descended from finer folk than Sigurður, her mother’s side of the family having bishops and celebrated composers, and more than one goði on her father’s side, the Eydal family. Garún had a simple rule of thumb when it came to people with family names instead of the traditional patronyms: don’t trust them. Either they belonged to the upper classes, or worse, they wanted to be one of them.
Her heart was pounding and her ears were buzzing.
Run. Get out. He knows.
She met his eyes, trying to remain calm. Did he know? Was this an elaborate trap? If so, the police were already waiting for her outside. No. Better to stand still. Frozen in front of a dumb, lumbering predator.
Sigurður held out his hand. Garún shook it almost reflexively and immediately regretted it. Anna Margrét looked at her coolly and offered a stiff smile, the polite gesture not reaching her eyes.
“Garún, yes? I am happy that you could take the time.”
“It’s the least she could do with the price she’s asking,” Anna Margrét interjected.
Bragi replied before Garún could find the words to lash out at this stuck-up woman.
“Yes, indeed! This is one of the finer pieces we’ve put on display in recent years. Truly a tremendous, authentic work of the huldufólk’s deity.”
“Doesn’t look like much, does it?’ Sigurður approached the painting and squinted at it. “I thought their … or well, your god was supposed to be holding a hundred masks?’
“Adralíen-toll has a myriad of depictions, one of them being with an uncountable number of masks, yes. This is a more modern take on this story.”
Sigurður stared at the painting for a while. They stood in silence. Why had these people brought her over, Garún wondered. A power move? Because they were bored? She was finding it hard to believe that Sigurður had been made aware of her recent work. It shouldn’t even have triggered properly – that was supposed to take days.
He sniffed and shook his head.
“I don’t get it. I mean, I like it – but I don’t get it.”
Sigurður looked at Garún expectantly. Anna Margrét and Bragi followed his cue. She stared at them blankly. Bragi gave her a hopeful look.
Go ahead. Sell it. Sell them the damn thing.
“It’s an interpretation of the huldufólk’s god,” Garún said. “It’s not traditional in that sense. There’s not much to get. Just to … experience.”
Anna Margrét shook her
