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She's supposed to go straight from the airport to Bifröst, to Nora. That had been the plan. But she flicks on her blinker and makes a slow, deliberate turn into the city center.

Now that she's finally here, she's going to see this place on her own terms. Nora can wait.

Signs lead her downtown. She takes turns at random until she's curling around the outskirts of the city, tracing the line of the water to one side, the rise of the city's low buildings to the other. She marvels at the black water, the hint of a mountain just across the way. Warm yellow streetlamps guide her along the unfamiliar roads. She veers away from the water, into the city proper, the streets narrowing. She passes closed shops, dark storefronts. A few figures, fighting the early morning chill. She drives the wrong way down a one-way street, to the astonishment of a car that is, as far as she can tell, two spotlights. She rolls down her window to apologize and receives an ear splitting honk in response. By some miracle, she finds a parking spot on a residential street. And then it takes a monumental effort to get out of the car. Her back creaks and protests, her knee and ankle screaming in collective pain.

Sitting in one set position for the past fourteen hours has sent her back to the early days of her recovery, when her worldview had contracted down to her left leg, and only her left leg. The cold envelops her in a tight, frigid embrace, despite the layers of shirts, a hoodie, and a windbreaker. Her sneakers slide on the snow and ice, her ankle locking up in protest, and she stops in the first open café she sees.

The warmth of the room hits her like a solid wall. The barista, a young woman with too-short bangs and an eyebrow piercing, nods at Agnes, but she doesn't speak. She simply moves about the enormous coffee machine, operating it with an unhurried ease that Agnes admires.

The counter offers an assortment of wrapped chocolates, jars of jam, and bags of coffee beans. Agnes draws a finger over a package of black licorice. Her grandfather's favorite indulgence. Every Sunday, up to the end, featured a bag of this candy, usually thrown onto the table between them. She hasn't eaten any in a year.

Agnes nudges the package forward on the counter to buy it. Her grandfather would want her to. He would've already opened the bag and swallowed a handful.

The barista acknowledges it, Agnes assumes, but continues with her work, unrushed. Agnes turns her attention to the rest of the display. To her left is a corkboard, piled high with what she assumes are the usual offerings at a café bulletin board. Guitar lessons, rooms to rent, flyers to see someone's band play next week.

What catches her by surprise, though, is the photo at the center. A young woman's face stares back at her, her expression bursting with pleasure. There's a cascade of white-blond hair, the flash of a smile, the hint of some shared happiness with the photographer. The surprise comes in stages. First, because at a glance this woman could be Agnes. The hair, the thin eyes. But then the borders of the photograph settle into place. The words, in English, MISSING. And PLEASE HELP.

Agnes leans in to read the text underneath but almost immediately flinches away.

Bifröst.

A student at Bifröst, is what it reads.

Maybe there are two towns named Bifröst. Except there's the university. Agnes thinks of her grandfather, and Nora Carver. It's too much of a coincidence. She finds the barista staring at her, so she orders a coffee and an egg sandwich, trying to ignore the dread settling in her empty stomach.

She chooses a table on the other side of the café, far away from the missing student's smiling face. Next to the fogged-up window, she watches her fingers transform from a troubling white to an even more troubling pink. She'll buy herself a winter jacket before she leaves Reykjavík. She peers down at her frozen, muddy sneakers. And maybe some boots. She'll ask the woman working here for advice on where to go. For now, though, she signs into the café's Wi-Fi, grateful to return to the internet.

No word from Emi.

Nothing from her father.

Nothing in her email inbox except junk.

She took a leave of absence from her job nearly a year ago, and formally quit soon after. Wi-Fi or no, it doesn't matter. She's alone. She stares out the window to the dark street. It's empty except for a few silhouettes of people walking by, skittering like shadows. A drift of car headlights. Agnes has been holding onto ghosts. The ghost of her relationship with Emi, the ghost of her grandfather superimposed onto her father. What would happen if she let them go? Who would she be?