Thora had not seen so much bad posture in one place since her son celebrated his sixteenth birthday. Yet the young people in front of her and Matthew were almost ten years older. They were all sitting as if they had dropped into the sofa out of the skyapart from the tall red-haired girland staring at their toes. After Gunnar called that morning, Thora had contacted Briet and arranged for the group to meet her and Matthew. Briet did not sound very pleased but reluctantly agreed to round them up and meet at eleven o'clockat a place where they could smoke. Strapped for choices, Thora had suggested Harald's apartment. Her proposal was greeted as grumpily as the idea of meeting in the first place, but judging from the curt exchange that preceded it, Thora realized that she could have invited them to Paris and earned the same response. Matthew was delighted with the venue, which he thought might throw them off balance and make them more likely to tell the truth.
While they were waiting for the students, Thora showed Matthew the handwritten sheet of paper that had been inside
The students arranged themselves in Harald's living room, sitting close together on the two sofas with Thora and Matthew facing them on chairs. Thora had found a few ashtrays and the air was already thick with smoke.
'What do you want from us anyway?' asked the red-haired girl, Marta Mist. Her friends turned to look at her, relieved that a leader had emerged to divert attention from them. They all smoked nonstop.
'We just wanted to talk to you about Harald,' said Thora. 'As you know, we've repeatedly tried to meet you but have always received a less than warm response.'
Marta Mist was unruffled. 'We've been busy at school and we've got better things to do than talk to people we don't know from Adam. Actually, we're under no obligation to talk to you. We've all made statements to the police.'
'Yes, quite right,' Thora said, trying to conceal how much the girl got on her nerves, as in fact they all did. 'We're very grateful to you for taking the time to come and we promise we won't keep you for long. As you know, we're looking into Harald's murder on behalf of his family in Germany and we understand you were his closest circle of friends.'
'Well, I don't know; we went around with him quite a bit but we have no idea what he did on his own, naturally,' said Marta Mist, and Briet nodded solemnly in agreement. The others just stared into their laps.
'You talk like you're one person, not five,' said Matthew. 'We've spoken to Hugi Thorisson, whom you all know, of course, and according to him it was you, Halldor, who went around with Harald the mosthelped him with translations and other things.' He addressed his words to Dori, who sat squashed up against Marta Mist. 'Am I correct?'
Dori looked up. 'Er, yeah, we hung around together quite a bit. Harald had trouble with Icelandic documents and stuff that I helped him with. We were good mates.' He shrugged to emphasize that their friendship had been fairly ordinary.
'You're a good mate of Hugi's too, aren't you?' Thora asked.
'Yes. We're childhood friends,' Dori said, and looked down. With a deft jerk of his head he let his hair fall down to avoid further eye contact.
'It must matter to you that we have a clear picture of what happened. One of your friends was murdered and another friend is suspected of killing him. I'd expect you to be eager to help us. Right?' Matthew smiled at Dori but it failed to penetrate his hair and reach his eyes. He turned to the others. 'And the rest of youthe same applies to you, of course?'
They all indicated their agreement by muttering 'yes' down into their chests or nodding.
'Good.' Matthew slapped his thigh. 'So we're all set. Apart from where to start.' He looked over at Thora. 'Thora, would you like to do the honors?'
Thora smiled at the students. 'How about you tell us where you met Harald and explain the nature of this magic society of yours? We find it all very peculiar.'
Everyone looked at Marta Mist, hoping that she would take the task on. But she passed the question on to Dori with a nudge of her elbow, which looked unnecessarily forceful to Thora. Dori grimaced, but answered. 'How we met? I first met Harald with Hugi last year. They'd met at a bar in town. I thought he was a laugh and we started hanging around together, like you do. We went out to restaurants and bars and concerts and stuff. Then Harald asked if we were interested in joining a society he was thinking about setting up and we just said yes. That's how we met the others.'
Marta Mist took over. 'I joined the society through Briet. She'd met Harald in class and wanted me to see what they were up to.' Briet nodded fervently in agreement.
'What about you?' Thora directed her words at Andri and Brjann who sat side by side, smoking.
'Us?' Andri coughed, choking on the smoke he had forgotten to exhale.
'Yes,' Thora replied. 'You two.' She pointed at them to dispel all doubt.
Brjann went first. 'I'm doing history and I heard about the society the same way as BrietI'd chatted to Harald a bit before and he invited me to join. I took Andri along for a laugh.' Andri smiled sheepishly.
'And what was the point of this society, if I may ask? We understood from Hugi that it mainly involved orgiesdisguised as meetings of people who were interested in sorcery in the historical sense.'
The three boys grinned while Marta Mist turned down the corners of her mouth and said in tones of outraged innocence: 'Orgies? There were no orgies. We were learning about sorcery and witchcraft culture in ancient times. The old stories really aren't so dull after all, they're really interesting. The fact that we had a bit of fun after the meetings is irrelevant, and Hugi's got the wrong end of the stick as usual. He never had a clue what that society was about.' She leaned back and folded her arms. Her frown stayed put. She glared at Matthew and Thora. 'Of course you have no idea what it was about eitherI bet you think we were decapitating chickens and sticking pins in homemade dolls.'
'Would you be so kind as to explain the world of witchcraft, then?' asked Matthew.
Marta Mist groaned. 'I'm not going to play teacher with you. All you need to understand is that magic is just an individual's attempt to influence his own life in unconventional waysat least, unconventional to the modern mind. In its day it was very common and for those born into poverty at the time it was the only hope they had of possibly changing their circumstances for the better. It mainly involves performing acts that will twist events in your favorsometimes at someone else's expense, sometimes not. In my view, when you've made the effort to perform the charm you've taken one step toward a specific aim and you can focus on it better afterward, so you're more likely to achieve it than before.'
'Can you give me an example?' said Thora.
'Winning love or success; healing; harming an enemy. There's no limit, really. Most of the old charms are connected with basic needs, thoughlife wasn't so complicated back then.'
After reading
'Very funny,' said Marta Mist, without a trace of a smile. 'In Iceland it was mainly magical symbolsalthough they often had to do more than carve or draw them to complete the spell. We know of magical symbols from other parts of Europe, too, and the same applied to themit wasn't always enough just to draw them.'
'Such as?' Matthew asked.
'Reciting a charm, collecting animal bones, human bones, the hair of a virgin. That sort of thing. Nothing serious,' Marta Mist answered coldly.
'Yes, and sometimes human body parts,' Briet interjected. The group suddenly fell silent. She blushed and clammed up.
'Really?' Matthew said with feigned surprise. 'Like what? Hands? Hair?' He paused briefly. 'Or maybe
