the northernmost settlements who thought he was a big man but was forced to bow down to the spirits.’
‘So it’s spirits, not dangerous wild animals, or crevasses in the ice, or anything like that?’ Thora asked, although the answer was obvious.
‘Oh, no, it’s nothing like that. These are the spirits or souls of people who died there and can’t get away.’ The girl’s expression did not change and she appeared completely unembarrassed about this explanation. Somehow her face reminded Thora of the young woman in the village who had allowed them to use her phone, except that this girl was younger and had followed another, straighter path in life. ‘I was told there were some marks connected with the place. Have you ever heard of these?’
‘Yes, the spirits mark the people that they intend to seize. I’ve never seen such a thing, just heard it said.’
‘What are the marks like?’ Thora imagined a forehead branded with black, smoking crosses.
‘Something involving the facial features. I was told that the blood abandons the body through the eyes, mouth and nose – even the ears. And that the people turn blue. After a person has lost all his blood he disappears into the ice to be with the others.’ The girl placed the nearly full coffeepot on the table. ‘It must be a horrible way to die. That’s why the villagers are determined to keep people away from the area. They don’t want this to happen to anyone. They’re also obligated to those who died to enforce the ban.’
‘How?’ Now Thora was expecting a story about ghosts who appeared to people in dreams. ‘Didn’t everyone die? How did they deliver the message about the ban?’
‘They didn’t all die. One escaped.’
‘One escaped?’ Thora didn’t remember this from the book she’d read.
‘Yes, so I was told. He didn’t escape completely, but he managed to get far enough south to come across other people. They thought he was a ghost but they took him to someone in the village who declared him to be a living person. The two of them spoke and he supposedly told the angekkok – that’s a kind of shaman – which area was to be avoided, and made him promise that he would see to it that no one went there. I don’t know what else he said because only the chosen are allowed to hear it.’
‘Who are the chosen? Special people, or everyone over a certain age?’
‘No, no. Descendants of the shaman. His sons, and their sons after them. I think the most important hunter in the village was also involved. Later on the people there even moved farther north to be closer to the area, so that they could keep watch on it. That’s how the village of Kaanneq came to be, from what I understand. They’d heard that there were plans to encourage people to spread out northward along the coast, and they wanted to be sure that no one settled where the spirits were. Because the more souls the dead can seize, the more powerful they become.’
‘How do you know all of this? I’ve read a bit about it and I haven’t found anything saying that any more was heard of the people who died. Of course I read a description of how a hunting party saw one or two of the villagers out on the ice, but they supposedly fled and were never seen again.’
‘That was the same man; he was by himself. Then he disappeared after delivering his message. When this story was recorded there was a lot of secrecy around what the shaman had been told. People feared the revenge of the spirits if they talked about it. So outsiders were never told, nor was it spoken of publicly. Most people thought that it was connected with a Tupilak, that one of the original inhabitants of Kaanneq had created one in the spirit of vengeance but that it had turned against him: rebelled against its creator and then against everyone else there. In the old days you couldn’t even think about them without running the risk of dying, let alone discuss them out loud, so that could also explain why no one wanted to talk about this.’
‘A Tupilak?’ Thora suddenly remembered the little statue that they had found in the cab of the drilling rig. ‘Are they those little scowling figures made of bone?’
‘Yes, you can read about them here in the lobby. There’s a display set up near the exit. Of course no one believes in them any longer but they’re popular souvenirs. That’s why the case seems different now; no one fears the Tupilak any more, so people aren’t afraid to discuss the story with each other. Maybe what you read will be corrected later, I don’t know. Here in Kulusuk no one has any particular interest in it; I just know the story because I’ve lived in Kaanneq. My mother wanted me to learn about the old-fashioned hunting culture. Kulusuk is quite old- fashioned enough for me, but it’s still far more modern than Kaanneq. At least here we have tourists.’
Thora smiled at the girl. It was the same everywhere: the older one got, the more charming one found more old-fashioned ways of life. Thora’s parents had made many attempts to send her to the countryside, determined that she would not grow up without having tried haymaking or feeding an orphaned lamb from a bottle. She was starting to feel this way herself, regretting that Soley wasn’t outside in all sorts of weather, playing with skipping ropes or hopscotch or cat’s cradle. The old, vanishing way of life was more appealing than the new one taking over, not to mention whatever was waiting around the corner. Thora thanked the girl, who left with the coffeepot. She decided to read the information about the Tupilak, since she needed to go down to the lobby anyway, to go online. Although old horror stories about magical monsters could hardly have anything to do with the case, she found it rather interesting.
Fri?rikka had said nothing while Thora was speaking to the girl, but had been listening carefully. She was pale and tired-looking and still seemed a little shaky after having discovered the corpse in the freezer. ‘Do you think they’ll find Oddny Hildur?’ she said now. It was clear that she’d been startled by the story about souls who pulled people down into the ice. No one wanted to imagine a loved one in those circumstances, no matter how far- fetched a notion it seemed.
‘Probably.’ Thora said this with great conviction, though she was far from certain. The woman could have died out in the open in any one of a million different places – or been put anywhere, if she had died by human hand. There must be animals out in the wild who would take advantage of such an easy meal, though at that moment Thora could not think of any scavengers native to the area. She had no idea whether polar bears and other indigenous fauna ate only freshly killed prey, or whether everything was considered edible in times of hardship. Considering how little food there was, she assumed the latter. It was extremely likely that neither hide nor hair of the woman would ever be found.
‘We’ve got to get her home and bury her. She can’t stay here.’ Fri?rikka was gazing at the multicoloured tablecloth.
‘Aren’t you forgetting Dori and Bjarki?’ Eyjolfur was sitting at the end of the table, staring out through the window at the choppy sea. ‘Don’t we need to find them too?’
Apparently these two couldn’t agree on anything. If one of them said the sky was blue, the other would say green. ‘Of course it also applies to them. It just came out that way.’ Thora couldn’t believe she was starting the day by listening to more of their bickering. She looked back at the clock on the wall, irritated at the time difference. Her children had already gone to school by the time she’d woken up, so she would have to wait until later in the day to reach them by phone, and her longing to hear their voices had become almost unbearable. Little Orri could rarely be persuaded to come on the phone and talk to her, so she would have to wait until she came home to hear him. He only ever spoke to the television remote control, which he thought was a telephone. ‘I think I’ll go online and see if I can find Arnar’s telephone number.’ She removed the napkin from her lap and stood up. Now they could argue as much as they wanted.
The online yellow pages turned out to have ten Arnar Johannessons listed, and although many of them had middle names that didn’t help Thora at all. None of them was listed as being an engineer. She asked Matthew to try to dig up his number through the bank, and then went over to the exit to read about the Tupilak. The display had just a few paragraphs of text and a photograph of a hideous creature that did not look anything like what they had found, but more like a rather bony dog carcass with the face of a man. According to the display this was a being that shamans created from various parts of dead animals, birds and human bones. It was further noted that the most powerful ones were made with bones from a child. The Tupilak was created in a secret place out in the wilderness, where the shaman bestowed life on the monster by allowing it to suck semen from his penis. Thora shuddered slightly at that, but forced herself to continue. After this, the Tupilak was cast into the sea to seek out its victim and kill it. Of course there was a catch: the being was unpredictable and liable to turn on and attack its creator – or anyone else that it met – especially if the enemy was a more powerful shaman than the one who had sent it out. The Tupilak could also cause illness and decimate entire communities, either with epidemics or by killing individuals one by one. This would have fitted in very neatly with the story about the dead settlers of Kaanneq, thought Thora. The display further revealed that the phenomenon inspired real fear in the natives of former times, even though now it was considered just an entertaining story for tourists; and that since no original
