She leapt up and seized my arms with both hands, nodding, smiling with an energy that was almost frenzied. At last! At last someone understands!

“But why? Why, Svala? And where is it?” I swept my hand in a circle, then pointed north, south, east, west.

Her arm rose with complete confidence. Due north. Due north? What lay there? The Orcades, destination of their original voyage, were to the northeast. I knew of no land at all to the north.

“I wish you could explain why,” I said, more to myself than to my companion. “That might be the key to everything. If only you could tell me your story, Svala.”

She put her arms around me, shocking me profoundly, for it was the last thing I had expected from her. I returned the gesture, saddened that I had not fully understood, and perhaps never would; concerned that what she seemed to want was a crazy thing, a thing that made no sense at all, even if I had been able to make it happen.

Svala murmured something, not words, more of a singing sound, like a snatch of mournful chant. She was so much taller than I that in this embrace my cheek was against her heart, and in the moment of her singing I felt its message beating straight into me, the rhythm that of a great marching drum. Home! Home!

Dear gods. Home? That island with not a scrap of anything growing on it, that rock beset by howling winds and mountainous seas? No one could survive in such a place. I tried to imagine Knut and Svala eking out a living in some isolated hut, scraping shellfish off the rocks and bolting their door at night while the monster swam about the bay. Impossible. I could not believe it. They could not have come from such a place. Besides, it was our reef the boat had been wrecked on, not that of a wild, far-off isle. It made no sense at all.

“I’ll try to help,” I murmured, not knowing where to start. A place like that was surely home to nothing but sea creatures, and even those probably had the common sense to keep away lest they become the monster’s next meal. Perhaps the vision was entirely symbolic.

We walked back toward the settlement. Fang was still nowhere to be seen, but halfway along the track we met Knut coming the other way. His face was pale, his jaw tight, his eyes furious. He strode up to us and took hold of Svala’s arm. She stood quiet in his grasp, eyes down.

“Where you go?” He hurled the question at me. “I look—wife—everywhere.” A sweep of the arm.

“We’ve been walking.” Every part of me was on edge.