Category:

CHAPTER ONE

The wind rolls over the rental car in a tidal wave so strong Agnes's knuckles turn white on the steering wheel. Snow follows in its wake, swirling against the windshield, packing into small piles on the bottom of the wipers' arc, and she leans forward in her seat, one hand reaching to turn down the volume of the radio, as though that'll help her see. It's seven in the morning, but it's dark enough to be the middle of the night. She's exhausted from the flights, her body cramped and sore.

The GPS that came with the car tells her it's a two-hour drive from the Keflavík airport to the old farmhouse, where she'll be meeting Nora Carver, finally, in person. At the rate she's going, though, it might be closer to four hours. Except for the few cars skidding past her at speeds she can't fathom in this weather, she's alone on the highway.

Agnes has lived in California her entire life, and never the parts that know snow. She can take the turns of the road, the limited visibility, but this snow makes her heart pound in her throat. As do the roundabouts. Every few minutes, it seems, a new oval interrupts the lane, forcing her to slow on the ice, to rub shoulders with the road, and to figure out her next turn. She supposes they're there to maintain the speed limit or to prevent traffic jams, something like that, but they unnerve her.

She tries to relax into the slick motion of the car, into the tunnel of snow pelting toward her. But she can't settle. It's the ache in her joints, her ankle throbbing in time with her too-quick heartbeat, the nausea simmering somewhere in her stomach. Or it's the fact that she's actually here, in Iceland. Or, she thinks, it's the fear of failure.

What will happen to her, if she can't do this?

Her hand reflexively reaches for her phone, propped up in the cup holder. Her father is the last person she wants to talk to, but he's also the only person who might pick up if she called. She wishes she could call her grandfather. There's so much to tell him, so much to ask. Right now, though, all she wants is to hear him say, as he did at the end of every call, I love you.

It's only as her fingers slide over the glossy screen of her phone, though, that she remembers: it's still on airplane mode. She can't afford to roam, and she isn't sure if her phone connecting to the local network will automatically charge her account. She could hardly manage the flights here, booked at the last minute, at the mercy of whatever force makes a plane ticket cost a month's rent because you want to fly the next week. Even with Nora arranging her car and her stay, this trip is beyond Agnes's means. Her medical bills had drained her savings and now she's down to the dregs of what her grandfather had left to her. Her, and only her. Not a penny to her father.

Her hand drifts back to the steering wheel. No one to call. Fourteen hours of travel. Fourteen hours since she's been online. It's not that long to be disconnected from the world, but right now, it feels like it's all she's known and it's all she'll ever know.

Even though she and Emi had officially broken up six months ago, they've kept in constant contact. Every other day, Agnes manufactures a reason to text Emi. I saw a new way to kill aphids safely with oils. How's the garden coming? And then Emi answers. Emi might have been the one to end it, the one to pack up Agnes's things and carry the boxes one by one out of their apartment and into her father's home, but whenever Agnes texts, Emi answers. And that, Agnes understands now, is the problem. In the early days of the breakup, Emi's generosity had felt like a lifeline. Somewhere along the way, though, it had transformed into a noose. And now even that is gone. Agnes doesn't have service.

She's alone.

Agnes leans into the car's movements, following the signs for Reykjavík. Houses appear out of the darkness, aglow with leftover Christmas lights. She imagines the people sleeping inside, waking up, shuffling through the cozy winter morning, seeking coffee. She pictures herself in this car, zipping past their windows like a dragonfly streaking in a slipstream, and for one brief moment, she can actually relax.

The road gradually takes on more lanes. This place could be California. It's a highway. It's a group of buildings. How different can they be?

The answer is: very different.

This is her first time out of the country, and she's struck, horribly, by a burning self-hatred. She's wasted twenty-seven years patrolling the same highways, absorbing the same colors, the same smells. So much time in one place. What did that get her?

It's not that she hasn't dreamt of traveling. She had long imagined herself in Iceland, coming here with her grandfather. She'd searched out language courses online, but never committed, because she knew that to learn a language, you need to have someone to speak it with, and neither her grandfather nor her father would ever speak it with her. She's settled for listening to the music that comes from there. Here. She's watched the movies. She's fantasized.

But in all the fantasies, it never actually occurred to her that she could just get on a plane and come here. Not until Nora Carver. Agnes should have come here years ago, before Emi and her grandfather broke her heart. She was a lighter person back then, aimless in a nice way. Not self-destructive. She'd been gainfully employed, coding software for big tech, living with friends, visiting her grandfather every Sunday for either a swim or a long chat in his garden, and she was open to the world. Which is how she met Emi and how she didn't realize how much of herself she'd given to those she loved, not until she'd lost them.