Looking at the painting makes me think about all the summers we’ve spent playing and walking on the beach here. The last few holidays started off sunny, but within days I would sense an argument brewing between Mum and Mormor, hanging over us like an impending storm. After Mum and Dad got divorced, Mormor wanted Mum and me to move to Skjebne permanently. She asked so many times, and it always ended in a row.

I know Mormor and Mum kept secrets from me. They passed them back and forth to one another, like a stitch made over and over, until they became fastened into the fabric of our lives. I turn my back to the painting and sigh, annoyed at myself for not making them tell me. But I loved coming to the island, and the more questions I asked, the angrier Mum got. It became easier not to ask.

Mormor’s cashmere shawl is folded on the side of the armchair. Perhaps it’s not too late to unpick the truth.

I step towards it and reach out my hand. Taking a deep breath, I clear my mind, ready for whatever emotions come. My fingers graze the soft material and my heart races. Despair, guilt, fear. Mormor grabbing Yrsa’s hand, begging and pleading.

I cry out and pull away. Yrsa lied to me! Mormor didn’t die peacefully. She died in anguish.

I rush to the door and snatch it open, desperate for air.

‘Hey, look at this!’ Stig points towards the sea, but he doesn’t have to – I see it: a massive wall of fog as high as a cliff. I watch, unable to believe my eyes, as streams of mist cascade down like a waterfall.

When the fog rises, run for home, Marta, my child. Dead men rise with the mist!

I shiver at the memory of Mormor’s words. I know her stories were harmless – a way to ensure a little girl who liked to roam didn’t get lost in the fog, but I was always afraid, as if she could make the impossible happen just by saying it.

I close my eyes, wishing I had never touched her shawl. What could have made her so upset? Maybe she was begging Yrsa to get Mum, only she wouldn’t come.

I grab my coat and go out. The fog must be at least a mile away, but I can feel its clammy chill on my face. The axe drops from Stig’s hand and lands with a dull thump. ‘Å faen … It’s getting closer!’

We stand side by side and watch the tsunami of cloud move insidiously towards us. We could be the only two people left on Earth, waiting for the apocalypse to come. ‘Stig, maybe we should get inside.’ I scan the horizon. ‘Where’s Gandalf?’

Stig picks up his clothes and shrugs back into them. ‘He was here just now, sniffing that old tree.’