Page 128 of These Tears

The chickens seem to like them, too.

Because the moment I step out of the bedroom, the bloody cockerel mounts my ankle.

‘Get off me, you… pervert!’ I stomp, trying to shake him loose without breaking him. My dignity, too.

He flutters off in a huff, circling me like he’s planning his next move – reminding me of someone else with the same manners.

Apparently, I have a type.

‘God,’ I puff out, ‘I don’t think I could handle another one of yous.’

The joke leaves my mouth on a stiff breath.

My gaze jumps to the back door, because Elias might come back at any second. And I am still here. I am still fucking here and not on the first bus to Narvik.

With the ache in my body and in my soul, I move towards the sink, careful not to slip on the damp floor.

Before the men return, I do exactly as I’m told – clean the mess, keep the fire fed, the chickens too.

As I turn, I catch sight of a fresh, glistening pile of droppings near the entrance to the root cellar.

This is penance.

True. Divine. Shitty penance.

Armed with a mop and a bucket of water, I start on that, then sweep the rest as the cockerel keeps rounding me.

Soon, the back door creaks open. Elias enters first, snow still in his hair and beard. Close behind him follows Anders, wearing Elias’ spare slippers.

Now that I’m not half-frozen and half out of my mind, I get a proper look at him. Indoors, he seems shorter than Elias – then again, so is most of the human population – but still wide-shouldered, thick through the chest. Clearly built for survival in places like this – places that might chew lesser men alive.

‘Ah!’ Anders exclaims with a slight accent, wiping his hands on his shirt even as Elias wordlessly takes his coat and hangs it on a hook beside the front door. ‘Told you she’d clean up in no time!’

He strides forwards with a broad smile that deepens the creases around his eyes.

His full white beard blooms on his face like winter moss, cheeks permanently rosy from a lifetime of Arctic wind. He takes off his knitted beanie, revealing wild white curls streaked with grey, and his pale eyes crinkle with a rare kind of kindness.

‘How do you find this place, then?’ he asks brightly.

There’s real joy in his voice. Nearly disarming. I try to match that excitement, if only to keep that glow alive in this false, sodden, chicken-infested corner of my existence.

But suspicion won’t leave me. If he helped Elias bring me here, how can he stand in front of me now and smile as though there’s nothing bloody wrong with any of this?

And yet, when I smile back at him, his easy expression holds. There’s no guilt tucked behind it, no knowing glance, nothing to suggest he sees anything except the woman Elias told him would be here.

Maybe he doesn’t know?

Elias has lied well.

I keep reminding myself I’m playing a part. Because I don’t know what story about us Elias had told him.

And then—

The damn cockerel is back.

‘Get off!’ I growl. This time he pecks furiously at my foot.

Anders bursts into laughter, shooing the beast away with his heel. ‘I think it’s the fluff. Looks too much like feathers.’