present: 'I don't careyou can get a really fat belly and horrible breasts. I won't leave you and I won't invite anyone else to the prom. I'll just go by myself. You're the girl I love.'
Sigga cried even harder while the adults all stared at Gylfi, openmouthed. Somehow this ridiculous confession of love drove home the truth that Mother Nature had made an appalling error of judgmentthese were children having a child, and identifying the culprit was not necessarily the point.
Only Hannes spoke after this collective realization. He turned to Thora, his features distorted by rage. 'It's all your fault. You live a wild life and sleep with anyone who shows you the slightest interest. The boy did nothing like that while I lived therehe's imitating the only role model he knows.'
Thora was too taken aback to answer. Wild life? One session of sexadmittedly two, if you counted the replayin two years. That was hardly a wild life. Even her eighty-eight-year-old grandfather had urged her to go out and have more funto say nothing of her girlfriend Laufey, although she could hardly be called a preacher of morals.
'I knew it, you're a slut!' the mother screeched, piercing all their eardrums. 'A sex addictand it runs in the family.' She stared at Thora triumphantly.
Thora found an unexpected ally when Sigga's father joined the fray. 'Well, honey, rejoice in the fact that at least your daughter's not frigid like her mother!'
Suddenly Thora could take it no longer. She had heard more about her son's prospective in-laws than she cared to know. Ahead of them lay a baptism, a string of birthdays, confirmation, and God knows what else. Thora had no desire to recall these people's most intimate secrets on such occasions. She stood up. 'You know whatI don't know whose bright idea it was to meet here in the first place.' She pointed at Hannes. 'Feel free to talk to Gylfi's father, all night if need be. But I've had enough.' She spun around to leave but was forced to return to the gathering when she realized she wanted to take her son with her. 'Gylfi, come on.' Her departing words were for poor Sigga, who was still weeping with bowed head. 'Sigga, the baby will always be welcome in my houseas will both of you if you want to live there together. Good-bye to you all.'
She walked out with Gylfi at her heels. She was completely drained. They slammed the front door behind them and went over to Matthew's Jeep, which fortunately was still in its place. Without saying a word, Thora sat in the passenger seat and Gylfi in the rear beside his sister. 'Hannes-ar-dottir,' Soley said emphatically, teaching Matthew to pronounce her last name.
'Let's go,' said Thora, clutching her head in her hands. She looked at Matthewrelieved that her son had only a fleeting grasp of German and her daughter none at all. 'Guess what? I've been devalued. You've just slept with a granny.'
To her surprise, Matthew roared with laughter. 'I must say that Icelandic grannies are rather different from German ones.' He darted a glance toward the backseat, where Gylfi sat immersed in doubts about his future. The only straw he could clutch at now was his mother, who had flown into a rage, largely because she was still half hungover. 'Hello, son of Thora. I'm Matthew.' He winked at Thora. She looked back at him, too, ready to repay his honesty. Now she would tell her son that Matthew was more than a friend and colleague. Noticing the iPod still dangling from the lad's neck, she decided not to.
'Gylfi. This is Matthew, who's working with me. I invited him round for dinner. We'll talk things over quietly together when he's gone.' She swallowed a lump that suddenly appeared in her throat. She was going to be a grandmother, thirty-six years old. Jesus, Mary, the Holy Ghost, and the other one from the Trinity whose name escaped hermay the child be healthy and its parents' lives a bed of roses in spite of this mistake. She fought back the tears that pressed forth uninvited. She was swamped with old signals she should have figured out.
'Thora.' Matthew pulled her out of her thoughts. 'I had a phone call from the museum of sorcery just now. It seems there's an explanation for the state Harald's body was in.'
CHAPTER 28
Thora was determined not to cancel the dinner invitation. As if in a trance she threw some food from the refrigerator and freezer into a pot, not paying much attention to the outcome.
'Dinner is served,' she called, trying to sound cheerful. Matthew sat down at the kitchen table straightaway and watched wide-eyed as a succession of bowls appeared. When the table was set, the meal consisted of peas, chips, rice, couscous, soup, jam, and traditional Icelandic flatbread.
'Looks delicious,' he said politely when they were all seated. He reached for some canned peas.
Thora surveyed the table and groaned. 'I forgot the main course,' she said resignedly. 'I knew there was something wrong.' She began to stand up to look for something to make the best of a bad job: frozen lasagna, pasta, meat, or fish. But she knew she had nothingshe had planned to go shopping but had been swept along by events. Matthew grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back to her seat.
'It's fine. It's an unconventional dinner but so is the timing, so it's all right.' He smiled at the children poking at the mixture on their plates.
Thora looked at the clock and saw it was only threeshe had certainly gone off the rails. She forced a smile. 'I'm still in a state of shock. I'll invite you for dinner again next year if I've recovered by then.'
'No, there's no need. I'd rather invite you out,' Matthew said, taking a bite of plain Icelandic flatbread. 'Exquisite.' He grinned.
None of them cleared their plates, and the trash can was filled with leftovers at the end of the meal. Soley asked to go round to see her friend Kristin, and Thora agreed without a word. Gylfi disappeared into his room, said he was going on the Internet. Thora hoped he would not visit any sites about baby care. He would give up in despair if he saw in black-and-white what that entailed. When they were left by themselves, Thora and Matthew sat down in the living room. She had made coffee that they took with them.
'Well, well,' he said awkwardly. 'I won't stay long, given the circumstances. Don't grannies need to take a nap after every meal?'
Thora snorted. 'This granny fancies a gin and tonic,' she said as she sipped her coffee. 'But we both know the consequences so I'll pass for now.' She smiled at him and blushed a little. 'Anyway, I'm ready to hear what the man from the sorcery museum said.' She leaned back in the sofa and curled up her legs.
Matthew took out a piece of paper and unfolded it on the coffee table. 'Thorgrimur phoned. He got in touch with that walking encyclopedia called Pall. He could reel straight off all that's known about that magic symboldo you know why?'
Thora shook her head. Matthew had clearly expected a more active response, so she ventured: 'I don't knowbecause he's a walking encyclopedia?'
'No. Or yes, he may well be. But he knew all about the symbol because he remembered how incredibly excited Harald was to hear about it.'
'So Harald talked to him about that particular symbol?' asked Thora.
'Yes and no. Harald originally contacted Pall in connection with magic symbols in general and asked him about some that weren't in the standard reference books. Then he asked about the Icelandic book of spells we saw at the exhibition. Pall described the main spells in it and said one in particular had aroused Harald's interesta fairly nasty spell, although it belongs to the cycle of love charms. Apparently Pall asked Thorgrimur if we'd noticed it. The leaf we saw at the exhibition is the opening passagethere's a lot more on the next page which is not on show. Guess what the spell involved.'
'You take a dead man's eyes and do something with them?' Thora guessed.
'No, but that's still important. If I understood it right, this charm is supposed to make a woman fall in love with you. You have to dig a hole in the floor that the woman walks over, put snake's blood in the hole, and write her name with some magic symbols. Finally you recite a charmthe very charm that was sent to Harald's mother.' Matthew gave a proud smile.
'You mean the poem?' asked Thora.
'You got it,' Matthew replied. 'That's not all. Pall said Harald was profoundly interested in the charm and they discussed it in depthwhether it only worked on a lover or could apply to a different form of love, whether the hole had to be in the floor, and so on. Then they discussed the symbol scrawled in the margin of the charm.' Matthew
