My shoes are slippery with gore by the time I make it across town to the drab little cottage with the damaged roof. A thin trickle of smoke rises from the chimney. I kick the starfish from the step and knock on the door. I no longer care who will see me or what they will say. I suppose I could claim that I am here to ask after Gunther’s health. What a good lad that Kaspar is, they will say. Inquiring about our brave harpoonsman, even after Gunther tried to murder him. There are times when I long for a match to burn this entire village down.

I am giggling over the thought when Agnet opens the door. She does not look surprised or happy to see me. Her eyes are lifeless, the mouth drawn thin. She is only sixteen, but she seems to have aged twenty years in a single night. When her eyes fall to the stinking sea creatures fouling her yard, she betrays no reaction.

“Yes?” she says, as if I am a stranger.

“Agnet.” My tongue stalls, becomes stone. Coming up the path, I was bursting with a thousand things to say to her. Now my head is as empty as a shell.

“What is it, Kaspar?”

“I came to see if you were all right. And Gunther, too. I was worried.”

This last part is not a complete lie. I hope that he has died in the night.

Her voice is as flat as her eyes. “I see.”

Is she drunk? I have never seen her like this. “May I come in?”

“This is not a good time.”

“I won’t stay long. Please.”

She moves aside and I come through. I have never stepped foot inside Gunther’s cottage before, although I have often tried to picture it in my mind. Or rather, I pictured Agnet inside it. What she was doing at any moment, or if she was happy. The interior is dark, and it smells of woodsmoke and fish. Mounted over the hearth is the sailfin of the swordfish that tried to pluck out Gunther’s eye. A net is draped over a chair, waiting to be mended.

There is a bad smell and an even worse sound coming from the bed on the far side of the room. A curtain hangs from the rafters for privacy. I almost do not recognize Gunther’s voice, moaning and mumbling in pain. Restless in his torment, I can hear him creaking the bed and swishing the sheets.

“How is he?”

Her eyes go to the curtain and then turn away. “Like this. The pain has made him senseless, but it won’t let him sleep.”

No wonder her eyes are so blasted. I have had only a taste of his moaning and I want to run away. How could she have endured this all night? How much longer will it continue?