“You’ll only get hurt,” Hulda said after a while, and closed her off. And that was the end of that.
Garún didn’t know what had brought her mother to this point. And if she was being honest with herself, maybe she didn’t really care all that much for the reasons why. She found it pathetic. Hulda had committed a cardinal sin, at least to Garún. She had let the fire within her go out. Garún pitied her. She was determined to never become like that. She would never give up hope, never stop fighting.
When Garún left home there had been no argument, no screaming, no doors being slammed. She took everything she owned and went out just before dawn to the gravel road that led to the city’s southern gate. She’d been saving up a runaway fund ever since she could remember. Every single aur, every króna she managed to acquire, went into this fund. When she was a child she’d dreamed of travelling abroad, where people didn’t hate blendingar like herself and cities didn’t have walls to keep people out. That dream was quickly turned to ash when her mother told her that the huldufólk had been persecuted almost everywhere in the world, except in Hrímland, after their world collapsed and they fled into this one. But there were still rumours of huldufólk living abroad. Maybe not every place was like this. She decided to scale back her daydreaming and put her feet on the ground. Instead of fantasising about foreign lands, she decided to start by getting out of Huldufjörður, in through the city walls. The rest she could figure out later.
The sun bloodied the sky and the wagons started appearing one after the other. Every day farmers headed into the city with what it needed to thrive. The earth was not as toxic with seiðmagn in Reykjavík’s surroundings when compared to most other places in Hrímland, but the closer to the mountains or the further from the sea you went, the more potent it became. The wagons carried crates of bottled milk, barrels of salted meat, livestock, barley, eggs, leather, wool, furs, sand, gravel – whatever was needed. She hailed them and offered them everything she had in return for smuggling her through the gate. Those who didn’t stop, she followed. It wasn’t exactly illegal for huldufólk or blendingar to live in Reykjavík, but the guards would stop every non-human party that tried to get through without having the proper papers or identification. The huldufólk were meant to stay down in the fjord and the marbendlar in the lakes.
She was refused again and again. No one wanted to risk angering the guards. The best case scenario was that they’d be fined and Garún tossed out. Worst case scenario, they’d be imprisoned and Garún sent to the stocks. To her, that was a more desirable fate than be forced to waste her live trying to survive in Huldufjörður. She didn’t give up. All her possessions didn’t amount to much, but were still a small fortune to those farmers, most of whom went so frequently through that no one saw a reason to look through their cargo. 176 krónur in total.
The sixth one she stopped didn’t have a horse towing his wagon, but a well-horned reindeer buck. She’d never seen such a beautiful beast. He looked odd with a bridle in his mouth, but he carried his fetters like royal raiment. As if he’d voluntarily chosen to work himself to death for some peasant.
“What the hell do you want, girl? Get off the road or my buck will ride you down.”
“I have to get through the wall. I can pay.”
The farmer stared her down for a long while. His gaze was heavy and suspicious.
“To beg the aid of others is submission to an independent man,” he finally said.
“I am no man, but I am independent,” she answered, defiant.
The farmer snorted. “Does not seem so to me, standing like a dependant of the county begging for scraps.”
She felt her face turning warm.
“Very well. I am not fully independent. So far. But no person is an island and now I need help. So are you going to help me or not?’
“Maybe you think that independence can be found on the other side of that wall? The skuggabaldur is more free, sitting in my cage.”
A filthy, blond head jutted up from the carriage.
“Hi,” the child said in a bright voice.
“Down, and shut up!’ the farmer spat at the girl.
The girl retreated from the farmer’s harsh tone, as if she feared he was going to strike her. When he didn’t seem likely to do so she studied Garún carefully with inquisitive eyes.
“You’re like me!’ the girl suddenly realised.
As soon as the girl said it Garún couldn’t understand how she could have missed it. Those unique features, those eyes from another reality which looked ever so alluring, but still so humanly crude, the human and hulda merged together in a being that was both familiar and alien. But more than anything else, the presence, the feeling which surrounded her, the disturbance that follows two dimensional realities intertwining. To Garún the child looked overwhelmingly comforting. Like home – a form of home, at least. Garún wanted to take hold of the girl and never let go.
The farmer gave the girl a frustrated look, and she slowly sank back down. When
