Thief Eyes by Janni Lee Simner
Once the hot dogs were gone, Ari fell asleep in the backseat, his head resting on my shoulder. I saw Dad watching us again; Dad saw me watching him and quickly looked away. I stroked Ari’s hair, which felt just like bear fur, and wondered what on earth I was going to tell Jared when I called him.
* * *
Flosi threw himself at Ari the instant we opened the door to his apartment, before he could even pull off his shoes. The quake hadn’t reached as far as Reykjavik, so it was safe to go inside. Once the sheepdog had gotten his entire wriggling body into Ari’s lap on the couch, it was Ari’s and my turn to explain.
We told Dad and Katrin everything, in English for Dad’s benefit. They listened, not saying a word, though Katrin’s arms gripped her chair and Dad ran his hands through his hair so many times I was sure it would never lie flat again.
Neither of them spoke when we were through, either, not for long moments. Then Dad turned, slowly, to Katrin. “There was a time,” he told her, “when I said that you were crazy. I’d like to take that back now, if I may.”
“And I as well,” Ari said. Flosi had fallen asleep in his lap, and Ari absently scratched the dog’s ears.
Katrin shut her eyes, as if their apologies pained her. “I wish I had been crazy, and that none of this had happened. I wish—” She looked at Dad; he looked at her. They didn’t look like they hated each other anymore. They looked more like—not lovers. Like old friends who’d been through the same war together. The war in which their children were lost and found again.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I never should have run. If I hadn’t run, Mom might not—”
“Haley.” Dad’s voice was quiet as I’d ever heard it. “This is not your fault. If anyone is to blame—” He buried his face in his hands. “It’s me, Haley.”
“Not only you,” Katrin said.
“Oh sure, let’s all fight over whose fault it is,” Ari said. “Can I have a turn, too?” Flosi stirred in his lap and let out a single woof. “See? Even Flosi wants his chance at feeling guilty.” Ari pressed his face into the dog’s fur. His shoulders shook, laughing or sobbing, I couldn’t tell.
Katrin watched him, her expression strange. “You were really a bear?”
“Oh, yeah, that reminds me.” Ari’s shaking stilled as he nudged Flosi from his lap and took off his jacket. “You don’t want a bear in the apartment. They run around, break all the furniture—it is a problem. For now, I will be human.”
Katrin gave a shaky laugh, but Dad only sighed and ran his hands through his hair once more. “Just like us all,” he said.
The sun was down and Ari and I were yawning by the time Katrin drove Dad and me back to the guesthouse. Along the way Dad and Katrin told us how the earthquakes in the Westfjords had lots of people confused, while the quake at Hlidarendi had them worried because of all the volcanoes nearby. There’d be no more earthquakes because of my magic, or Hallgerd’s, either, but no one knew that yet. At least no one was seriously hurt, in either place, because Icelanders built for quakes. I guess you do that when your home is one big geologic event waiting to happen.
In the car, Flosi gave my hands a thorough licking over. His nose got under Ari’s handkerchief bandage and it fell away, revealing the puckered skin below. I handed the handkerchief to Ari, but he shook his head. “Keep it. You never know when you’ll hurt yourself again.”
He meant it as a joke, but I glanced at the scars on my palms, then back at my burned wrist. I remembered the fire that had burst through my skin, and I shook my head. “I’m done with that,” I said, but I kept his handkerchief anyway.
When we reached the guesthouse, Ari and I looked at each other, suddenly a little uncomfortable, neither of us sure what to say.
“You still owe me a song,” I said at last, and turned away before Ari could see my eyes stinging. I hurried after Dad into the guesthouse.
By the time Dad and I got inside, I wanted nothing more than to sleep for a week, but there was something I had to know first. “Were you and Mom really planning a divorce?”
Dad let out a breath, and something of the old lost look returned to his face. But I waited, and finally he looked right at me and said, “I don’t know, Haley. I honestly don’t.”
“Did you talk about getting one?”
“No. That was my first mistake, not talking to your mother. I’m not always much good at talking—I guess you know that. Maybe we could have worked things out. I don’t know.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. “Here. You should let Jared know you’re okay.”
I was so tired. I couldn’t deal with Jared now. “I’ll call him in the morning, I—”
“Don’t be like me,” Dad said. “Talk to him. Don’t worry about the charges. Take as long as you need.”
Jared picked up on the first ring. “Haley?” The strained hope in his voice nearly broke my heart.
“Yeah. It’s me.”
“You’re not going to disappear again?”
“No,” I promised him. “It’s over.”
I told Jared everything, too, crying all over again as I did. Talking to him felt good. I realized just how much I’d missed him.
We talked for a really long time.
I had no idea what time it was when I finally fell into bed. I barely had time to grab Mortimer—he wasn’t a bear, but he’d do—before I fell asleep.
I dreamed I walked on a green summer hillside, dandelions blooming, gulls circling up above. There was no fire, just a gently trickling stream and a distant figure walking toward me. As the figure drew closer, I recognized her. “Mom!”
She smiled and reached for me. Yet as our hands met, flames flared between us. Mom turned to hot ash, sifting like snow through my fingers. I would have screamed then, only the fire had burned my voice away. I ran, knowing any moment I would burn, too.
But I didn’t. A cool breeze caressed my neck, and I found myself jogging along a path beside a harbor. The sky above shone with stars. When I looked down, I saw a white fox running by my side.
“At least now I know what happened,” I said to him. “That’s something, isn’t it?”
Freki didn’t answer. He just cocked an ear in my direction as we ran on, the little fox keeping me company through the rest of the night, clear on to morning.
Wind gusted as Dad and I walked between the blocky stone walls of Thingvellir two days later. Rain spat from the sky, and I shivered in my jacket. The wind felt good, though. I didn’t think I’d ever mind the cold again.
We stopped when we reached the Law Rock, and together we stared out at the river. The geese were gone now, leaving behind grasses that blazed bright shades of orange and red. Most of the tourists had left, too. Only a few people walked the path behind us.
“So this is where it happened,” I said.
Dad turned to look at me, his eyes damp. “I miss her, Haley. You know that, don’t you?”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. Either you loved someone or you didn’t. Was it ever that simple?
Dad shoved his hands into his pockets. “Can you ever forgive me?”
My throat hurt, but I forced myself to speak. “I’m working on it,” I said, and meant it.
We walked back down the path in silence, to the Hotel Valholl, where we were meeting Ari and Katrin for dinner. Ari and I had slept most of yesterday away. We’d seen each other only briefly, when Dad and Katrin brought us to the police station to file a report. Apparently the police had thought it might have been Dad and Katrin’s fault we’d disappeared, that maybe they’d abducted us or something, and Mom before us, too. They seemed to believe Ari’s and my story that we’d run away, though, right down to our claiming that Ari had dyed his hair and I’d cut mine to make us harder to recognize.
Ari looked up from the newspaper he was reading as we entered the room. His leather jacket was replaced by fleece-lined black nylon, along with a bleached wool cap almost as pale as his hair. “Hey,” he said in English. “It says here they fo
“There’s a sorcery museum?” I said, also in English, as I slid into my seat.
“Yeah. In Holmavik. Too bad we forgot to visit. Of course, we were a bit busy.”
“Just a bit.” I turned to the menu, which was written in both English and Icelandic. I read the English, then ordered in Icelandic, which seemed to startle the waiter. Even if I spoke the language, a million other small things gave me away as the foreigner I was.
“It’s going to take a while to get used to that,” Dad said. “I bet you could place out of your language requirement when we get home, though.”
I switched to English automatically. “Yeah, because that would make it all totally worth it, right?” I managed a laugh.
Katrin glanced at Ari’s white hair. “We all have things to get used to.” She spoke English, too. She sipped her coffee and looked at Dad and me over the rim of her cup. “You’ve decided to go back, then?”
Ari looked down, suddenly very interested in his napkin. I nodded slowly. “There still might be time to catch up at school. Keep me from losing the year.” Give Dad and me a chance to learn how to live alone with each other.
“I wish you would stay,” Katrin said. “Not all the stories about Hallgerd and Thorgerd are written down. I’d tell you the rest of what was passed on to me.”
“Nah, Jared would be disappointed if she didn’t come home,” Ari said.
I looked sharply over at him. Ari met my gaze. “Hey, two days ago we were not sure we would make it back at all. It is good that you can go home.”
I kept looking at him. “Want to go for a walk?” I said.
“It is freezing out there. Why would anyone—I am being stupid again. Yes, I would love to go for a walk.”
I glanced at Dad, and he nodded. Ari followed me out.
As we headed across the parking lot and onto the path, something icy blew into our faces. I held out my hand, and a cold flake landed there. Snow.
Back home, they were still having hundred-degree days. Even without magic, I’d be warm soon enough. The thought wasn’t as comforting as it should have been. I missed the desert, but I was going to miss Iceland, too. Would it always be like this, wishing for whichever place I couldn’t be? “Dad says maybe we can come back for Christmas,” I told Ari in Icelandic.
“The weather’s worse at Christmas,” Ari said, also in Icelandic. “More snow, and it’s dark all the time. Of course you don’t want to stay.”
I stopped and stared at a cluster of bright red flowers. Didn’t they know that it was way too cold to bloom? “I talked to Jared.”
Ari didn’t look at me. “I’m sure he’s glad you’re okay.”
“Of course he’s glad. Jared’s my best friend. He’s been worried sick these past months. He wants to know what it’s like to be a bear, too, by the way. I think he’s a little jealous of you.”
Ari gave a wry laugh. “We’re even there, then.”
“You’re not listening!” Or maybe I wasn’t saying it right. “I told Jared how much I’d missed him. And I told him how much I was going to miss you.”
Ari opened his mouth as if to make a joke, shut it again. Around us the snow kept falling.
I drew a deep breath. Either you loved someone or you didn’t. But what if you loved more than one person? Or what if things changed? “We decided—we’re only sixteen, okay? Maybe in Hallgerd’s time that was old enough to be married off whether you wanted to be or not, but neither of us wants to live out some ancient tragedy. We’re not ready to decide about the rest of our lives, you know?” I was having enough trouble getting through each day right now. I’d had more nightmares last night.
“So you’re—”
“We’re not breaking up.”
“No, of course not,” Ari said, a little too fast. “I didn’t mean—”
“But we’re both going to see other people, too.”
Any clever comeback Ari had died on his lips. He stared at me in complete silence.
I was suddenly very aware of how close we were standing. “I mean, assuming you’re okay with that”—I was the one talking too fast now—“because maybe you’re not and I’d totally understand if—”
Ari leaned forward and kissed me.
I kissed him back. His hands were warm against my neck. I pulled off his hat, running my own hands through his soft hair. The Star Wars theme blared from Ari’s pocket, but we ignored it. His lips were soft, too, and his skin smelled faintly of snow and more faintly of bear, and the heat that rose in me had nothing at all to do with magic.
“Yes, Haley,” Ari said when we pulled apart at last. “I’m okay with that.” He smiled. No matter what happened a year, five years from now, I would always love that smile. “Are you leaving right away?”
“Next week. Dad couldn’t get a flight out any sooner.”
“Good,” Ari said. “Because your song, it isn’t finished yet.”
My song? “You didn’t have to write something new for me.” But I smiled, too.
“No, I wanted to, only—I don’t like the ending anymore. Too much of that ancient tragedy stuff. I want to change it, but I wasn’t sure you’d be here long enough.”
The snow fell harder, white flakes landing on Ari’s pale eyelashes. His cell phone rang once more. I put my arms around his neck and looked right into his bright green eyes.
“I have time,” I said.
Author’s Note
Hallgerd, Gunnar, Thorgerd, Svan, Hrut, and Hallgerd’s father, Hoskuld, are all found in the pages of Njal’s Saga, one of the best-known and best-loved of the Icelandic sagas—medieval stories about Iceland’s early inhabitants. It is likely Hallgerd and her kin really existed, but all the rest is uncertain. Although Njal’s Saga took place a thousand years ago, it wasn’t written down until the thirteenth century, and as a result it’s hard to know which events are real and which aren’t, or exactly where history ends and fiction begins.
Many of the details in Thief Eyes come directly from Njal’s Saga: that Hallgerd’s uncle Svan was a sorcerer and her uncle Hrut could see the future, that Hrut said Hallgerd had the eyes of a thief, the deaths of Hallgerd’s husbands, and—most memorably—Hallgerd’s refusing Gunnar two locks of her hair. Other details are my own invention: that Hallgerd studied sorcery with Svan, that Thorgerd inherited Hrut’s gift of prophecy, and that Thorgerd had any daughters, let alone daughters whose descendants live on today. None of these things directly contradict the saga, but none of them appear in its pages, either.
Berserks get little mention in Njal’s Saga, but Egil’s Saga features a shape-shifting wolf. In general there are more references to berserks turning into wolves than into bears, but as Freki says, no wolf has ever set foot on Iceland’s shores. Many of the sagas mention sorcery, but they give few details about how it was practiced. The Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft has more extensive records of spells and spellbooks from later times, though. Hallgerd’s spell was inspired by these records, but it, too, is ultimately my invention.
Freki, Muninn, the fire giants, and the mead of poetry come not from the sagas but from Norse mythology. Freki and Muninn are companions to the Norse god Odin—their master, whom Ari refuses to name—and Freki, too, is traditionally a wolf. Muninn has always been a raven, but I invented his mountain—although there is a mountain in Iceland’s Westfjords—Kaldbakshorn—into which Njal’s Saga says Svan may have disappeared when he died. The voices in Muninn’s mountain are loosely based on several other sagas, as well as (once Haley and Ari begin to climb) a few bits of later Icelandic history. The woman whose lover refuses to take her abroad is Gudrun from Laxdaela Saga.
If you’d like to read Njal’s Saga, Egil’s Saga, Laxdaela Saga, or any of the other Icelandic sagas, I recommend finding a relatively recent print translation; in my experience, contemporary translations tend to be more acce
Finally, most of the places Haley and Ari visit are real, and many still bear the names they held a thousand years ago. Hoskuldsstadir, Hrutsstadir, and Svansholl are all named for their original owners and remain working farms today. Hlidarendi, the hillside where Gunnar died, also kept its saga-era name and is now the site of a parish church. And Thingvellir, the original site of Iceland’s Althing, or parliament, probably appears in more Icelandic sagas than any other location.
This book began at Thingvellir. As I walked through that rift valley for the first time, a half-read copy of Njal’s Saga in my backpack, I heard a woman’s voice whisper in my head, low and full of rage, “I will not allow it.” Later, I would wonder where that voice came from and whether it was real. Right then, I knew only that I had to stop, sit down, and write down Hallgerd’s words and the opening scene of Thief Eyes.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to:
Sigurður Atlason, manager of the Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft, and Björk Bjarnadóttir, environmental ethnologist, for answering my many questions and making me feel welcome in the Strandir region. Lárus Bragason, for a tour of the Njal’s Saga sites in the south of Iceland, where Hallgerd, Gunnar, and their neighbors lived. Matthias Johannsson of the Hótel Laugarhóll for the best meal I had in Iceland, with apologies for sending an earthquake to his hotel in return. Wildlife biologist Andrew Trent for answering my questions about polar bears. Stephanie Rosas, William Winhall, and Kelly Terry of Sea-World San Diego for not only answering my questions but also letting me visit with their resident arctic foxes, Boris and Natasha.
Inga þóra Ingvarsdóttir for reading the manuscript from an Icelander’s perspective, for answering more questions, and for always being willing to geek out about the sagas with me. Sarah Johnson and her daughter Elayne for reading the manuscript from the perspective of Americans living in Iceland, and all their family for welcoming us into their home. Everyone else who read all or part of the manuscript, sometimes on short notice: C. S. Adler, Catherine Keegan, Jill Knowles, Larry Hammer, Ann Manheimer, Patricia McCord, Earl Parrish, Frances Robertson, and Jennifer J. Stewart. My husband, Larry Hammer, again, because it was his idea to go to Iceland in the first place, and because his memory for visual details—not to mention his quiet conviction that of course I could write this book—helped me through countless scenes.