There were no expeditions for Katrín, save for heading into the uncharted social territory of weekly cocktail parties, the only mysteries to unearth there being whatever inane local gossip was circling this week. She would not swat away flies, only would-be suitors, nor parley with natives of a newly discovered humanoid species. Instead she would have to play out her role in circles of vain, callous girls, to avoid becoming a social pariah. Which, after only a few months of this nonsense, became her inevitable fate.
* * *
It started with the first article she submitted to the newspapers under a male pseudonym. Housing had been a long-standing problem in Reykjavík since the city’s population boomed after Kalmar took over. Increasing urban density was the popular solution, but it was one plagued with difficulties of affordability, urban planning, priorities. The city walls held back further outward expansion, which was considered a dangerous move due to higher amounts of seiðmagn. Regardless of that fact, this was still the favoured stance of the Citizens’ Party, who felt it was only fair that people who wanted affordable housing should find it in a more dangerous part of the city. Safe land, free of malicious seiðmagn, should not be available for everyone but sold at a premium. Housing was a popular topic of discussion among the men who visited her father every week. Her nights were too frequently occupied with social matters she found increasingly frivolous, but as her social status plummeted she had a chance to make the time to eavesdrop on their conversations by tangling yarn in the adjacent drawing room under the pretence of knitting.
In her article Katrín suggested a novel solution: build a new suburb in the village of Akranes, across the Bay of Faxaflói, and run a ferry service several times a day to Seltjarnarnes in Reykjavík. Akranes was quite low in seiðmagn compared to the outskirts of the city and an ideal place for further expansion. With a viable commute to the city centre it would prove a great relief to the housing issue, with too many young families unable to afford apartments of their own.
The responses over the next few days were staggering. Many of the people who wrote in were names and faces she recalled having visited her house, to discuss politics with her father over imported booze and cigars. She replied quickly and concisely, and when she overheard them talking about the exchange the next time they met she couldn’t help but smile for the next few days. Her heart pounded with excitement. Her mother erroneously believed she had fallen in love, so rose-tinted had her daily life become. She finally felt as if she was doing something that was important. That she was someone who mattered.
She kept writing in, engaging with powerful men on the battlefields of the newspaper columns. Her contribution made a difference, she knew that – but she still knew that she could do so much more.
The initial feeling which had taken her over started to fade. The person under whose name she wrote didn’t exist. It made her feel as if she herself did not exist. She moved like a zombie during the dances and parties, refusing to bother keeping up with whatever inane gossip the others were occupying themselves with.
It was at one of those parties where she had been offered her first pipe. She was wandering the back rooms of a large house, intentionally trying to get lost and find a quiet place to spend the evening in solitude. Her mother scolded her if she came back home too early. It was easier to just pretend.
She’d entered a study, decorated with exquisite leather sofas, tables made from dark, polished mahogany, delicate lamps made from glass so beautiful and refined it was hard to believe it had been made by hand, not through some thaumaturgic method. A man and a woman sat on one of the sofas. The man had straw-coloured hair and a neatly trimmed moustache; he was dressed in an evening jacket made from peculiar emerald fabric. He looked up, startled at her entrance, distracting her with a dazzling smile as he stood up to greet her, trying to steer her gaze and attention from the items laid out on the desk that he had been fiddling with.
“Elskan, you must be lost. Come, I will show you to the powder room …’
She ignored him grasping her upper arm, firmly but gently. The woman on the sofa was leaning back in an almost indecent manner, her eyes half-closed and fluttering, her breathing deep and heavy as if asleep. To Katrín she seemed both vulgar and enticing. Taking in the sight made her heartbeat pick up, her cheeks flushing warm with an embarrassment she didn’t quite comprehend.
“Is she all right?’
Katrín didn’t feel it was right to leave this woman alone with the man in this state.
“I’m fine,” the woman mumbled, her voice distant and heavy with lethargy.
Katrín took in the instruments laid out on the table: a long ivory pipe, a small wooden box, an oil lamp. The pipe seemed to be carved in an intricate pattern.
“What is
