‘I had an unusual encounter today,’ he says slowly. He tells her in broken sentences the sequence of events – the creation of the new riverbed, the tea, his longing for lemon cake. He stammers when he describes what happened to his hand, offering possibilities for the water’s grip even as he explains it. Maren strains to read between the lines. She asks questions. What did it feel like? Did he find any weeds caught beneath his wedding ring? Had the water perhaps frozen solid? Did a fish seize his hand, or an eel?

When he exhausts her own suggestions and mentions the reflection of the woman behind him and her sudden disappearance, Maren falls silent. She has heard of water trolls in Norway, usually referred to as nøkk. They were called nymphs in other parts of the world, nix, or water sprites – malicious and mischievous beings from another world, though they had been known to help and even save humans. As a child in Finnmark people talked about them as though they were as real as the family dog. Her father always left some of his catch at the shore line for the nøkk, to ensure a plentiful haul next time. She never saw any, but she didn’t question their existence, though she hasn’t thought about them for years.

Tom loathes himself for not yet having found a rational explanation for the water’s grip on his hand or the presence of the woman. He’s tried to tell himself that the reflection was a tree, or a cloud, though he can’t deny what he saw, if only for a split second. It’s as though that image is branded now on his memory – a dark figure right there in the woods with him. As for the river, he’s already sent an awkward email to a professor in Environmental Science at Cambridge, asking in a roundabout way if it would be possible for a river to seize and hold an object.

He admits this to Maren.

‘And what did he say?’

‘The reply was … unsatisfactory.’

She nods. ‘My father used to tell me about tales of the Saami who lived in our village before we did. They knew that Mother Nature was our ruler, and that we had to be careful not to abuse our privileges.’

Tom scowls. ‘Privileges?’

‘The nøkk act on behalf of Mother Nature. They punish humans who overstep the mark. They might make shallow pools deepen and drown people who abuse nature. I’ve heard of crops that turned poisonous when the earth was not given proper stewardship.’

Tom looks away, angered by Maren’s tangent into Norse folklore, of all things. There has to be a logical, scientific basis for what happened. He tells himself it was likely due to a combination of the cold, hunger, fatigue, and poor light. His muscles contracted after all that heavy lifting. He gets up to leave.