Líf sat up, not quite with the same energy as Katrín and Putti, but almost. She peered bewilderedly through the tousled hair hanging in her face, then clumsily pushed it aside to see better. ‘What time is it?’
‘I don’t know.’ Katrín gritted her teeth. ‘Late enough for the sun to have risen.’
‘We’ve slept an awfully long time.’ Líf yawned without covering her mouth, subjecting Katrín to a vision of her rows of white teeth. ‘Where’s Garðar?’ Putti seemed to understand the question. He circled the room and sniffed the floor. When he encountered a dust ball he sneezed comically, stopped his search and sat down self-consciously.
‘I don’t know; it looks like he’s gone.’ Katrín’s voice was still hoarse; she realized that she’d spoken far too loudly in her agitated state. ‘He didn’t wake us up in the night. Not me, anyway.’ A hazy memory of him nudging her appeared in her mind but vanished before she could fix it there. Maybe it had happened in the dream that was now lost to her.
‘Me neither.’ Líf looked around in confusion. ‘At least I don’t think so.’
Katrín reached for Garðar’s sleeping bag and ran her hand down its interior. ‘The bag is freezing cold, so he hasn’t just left.’ Putti misunderstood the message, leapt up and wagged his tail happily as he stepped onto the soft bag, where he curled into a ball, contented. ‘Maybe he’s outside working on the porch. Or making us breakfast.’ Líf never changed; her mood turned cheerful at the thought of someone pampering her.
‘He didn’t answer when I shouted, so he could hardly be in the kitchen. And you can hear for yourself that there’s no one working outside.’ Katrín tried to restrain her resentment. If someone had to go missing, why couldn’t it have been Líf? She pulled herself together. ‘Maybe he’s gone down to the doctor’s house to get something.’
For the first time now they felt how cold it was inside and Líf pulled her sleeping bag back up over her shoulders. Katrín did the same and they sat there like that for some time without saying anything, both praying silently that the sound of footsteps would come from the porch. But the only thing they heard was the soft ripple of the stream. ‘Shouldn’t we go and see if he’s outside?’ Líf gave Katrín an anguished look, but then her face brightened. ‘Maybe he went down to the beach because he heard a boat!’
Although Katrín didn’t believe this for a minute, she found it more comforting to have a possible explanation, no matter how unlikely it was. She clenched her jaw and stood up in a rather roundabout way in order to protect her foot. The heavy throbbing in her swollen instep intensified with each minute. Her foot was the only part of her body that felt burning hot. The question was no longer whether it was broken, but just how badly. Yet in the end she managed to get herself out of her sleeping bag and was then able to hop on one foot towards her jacket, which she’d put in a corner of the room the night before. Luckily she hadn’t wanted to remove her trousers because of her foot; it would have been impossible now for her to put them back on, considering how much the swelling had increased. Katrín put on her jacket and supported herself on the wall as she walked to the door. She wanted to scream in pain every time she attempted to put weight on her injured foot. Putti, sensing this, or reading it in her screwed-up face, jumped off the sleeping bag and came over to her, uncertain about how he could help her.
Líf realized she would be alone if she didn’t get up, so she jumped up and dressed in a hurry. Líf’s bustle made Katrín feel dizzy and she held on tighter to the doorframe for fear of toppling over. Even Putti moved away slightly, to be safe. When most of the racket was over Katrín hopped on one foot ahead of Líf, determined to get Garðar to help her make a crutch when he returned.
There was nothing to see in the kitchen, and although that might have been clear to Katrín before she limped there, she was deeply disappointed not to see Garðar standing there preparing breakfast for them all. The air was stale and terribly cold, even colder than in the living room. The kitchen table looked exactly as they’d left it the night before: on it were only the candlestick, matches and the medicine bottle. A stack of dirty dishes waited patiently on the counter for someone to take them, along with the cups and glasses, out to the stream and rinse them off. That was hardly likely to happen any time soon. Katrín hadn’t looked at anything else before Líf appeared in the doorway. She pointed at the damaged floorboards. ‘Look.’ She tapped Katrín’s shoulder and pointed. ‘Garðar’s started repairing it. Maybe he’s gone to look for tools or materials.’
Katrín looked around and saw the traces of the repairs made in the night or the morning. She couldn’t recall having heard Garðar pottering about when she fell asleep, or having woken to those kinds of sounds. She hopped towards the broken floor in the hope of finding something there that might suggest what had happened to Garðar; as ridiculous as it was, she simply couldn’t think of anything better to do. Supporting herself on the wall, she leaned forward to get a better look at the part of the floor he’d been concerned with. Surprisingly, Putti didn’t follow her, but went and stood by Líf.
‘Do you see any mould or fungus? Maybe Garðar was poisoned and ran out to throw up.’ Líf sounded quite frightened. ‘I told you to leave it alone. I told you.’
There was no nasty fungus to be seen, however. Instead it looked as if another layer of floorboards, much older in appearance, lay beneath the ones that had been removed. ‘There’s no fungus here. I’d need a candle to get a better look, but I can’t see anything special.’ She frowned. ‘But there’s an awful smell coming from down there, probably from opening up the space that’s been closed for so long.’ She took care not to breathe in too deeply. The area might contain bacteria that modern-day people couldn’t handle. Including Garðar.
‘This floor isn’t that old, Katrín. The last man who owned the house installed it, remember? That was only three years ago.’ Líf had moved as far away from the area as the confines of the kitchen allowed. ‘If it smells bad, it’s because of the fungus. Even though you can’t see it, it could still be there.’
Instead of arguing about this, Katrín pulled herself away from the wall and the half-finished repairs. She hadn’t found Garðar under the floorboards. Putti greeted her enthusiastically when she reached Líf, as if he were seeing her for the first time after several days’ absence. Under normal circumstances she would have enjoyed the dog’s behaviour, but for the moment her mind was occupied with something entirely different. ‘Garðar!’ Katrín shouted as loudly as she could. No reply. ‘Maybe he’s sleeping upstairs, Líf. Would you mind looking?’
‘Why should he have gone up there? The mattresses and sleeping bags are down here. And he would have answered if he were there.’ Líf’s expression gave no indication that she was about to go upstairs alone. ‘He would definitely have woken up with all your shouting.’
Katrín breathed in and counted to ten in her head. ‘Not definitely, Líf. You didn’t wake up when I called out to him before. Besides, he was probably up all night; he didn’t wake us, remember? And if he’s been messing about with the floor all night, he could very well just be completely out of it.’