Back at the house on Barrøy she set about erasing his traces and tracks, and hers. She looked in the mirror and smeared soot on her face, went from one window to the next, peering north and east, nobody was coming.

She felt stupid and washed her face, tidied up and played with Koshka the cat, and now she couldn’t sleep in the North Chamber. She fetched the telescope from the quay house and lay in her parents’ bed in the South Chamber staring at Gjesøya, through the treacherous telescope without seeing anything at all, and she didn’t shut an eye until the night made her blind.

~

When next morning too the islands resembled specks of rust on a shiny mirror, she felt even more stupid and rowed south and took him out in the boat so the waves could make him seasick and they had something to laugh at. She set him ashore again, they waited until he had regained his balance, then they went out again. They fished and gutted the catch, she left him on the island and rowed home, turned and rowed back, mooring the boat to the log, and lay with him in the barn until darkness fell. And even though the new wind was no more than a light breeze, she decided that the sea was too rough and stayed there until yet another day dawned, before rowing home in thick snow and sleet and arriving for the second time in a cold house which she had to spend the rest of the day making habitable, fortunately it cost her all her reserves of energy.

She wound up the clock and adjusted the hands, played with the cat, made some food, and wanted to card and spin, but she wasn’t able to.

She lay in the South Chamber with the telescope and watched the day wane over Gjesøya, grey sea, the occasional flutter of birds, until they, too, passed out of sight.