Page 214 of These Tears

I press the power button, but it’s dead. I do it again just to make my nerves believe it, then hold it down while the useless black screen reflects my own face back at me.

Fine.

Charger. Signal. Snowmobile. Passport.

At the front door, the chair beneath my grip shrieks against the wooden floor until it’s right beneath the antlers. My fingers prod behind the carved mount till they hit something smooth.

My passport.

Exactly where he said it would be.

As I come down from there, I turn it over in my hand. It reflects the firelight, but the sheen is faint.

Sinking onto the handwoven rug, I leave my phone beside me, its screen still dark. Dead enough that signal no longer matters.

My gaze climbs up to the heavy antlers where my way out has been sleeping so close it’s almost absurd. Beyond the crown of bones, through the half-frozen glass pane, I can just make out the silhouette of the snowmobile sitting like a taunt.

Not an exit.

But the possibility of one.

Right there.

Fresh snowmobile tracks cut away from the house, Anders and Inga having laid the route out for me. I could follow them towards civilisation.

The answer that the treeline beyond offers back is one that rattles me more than the wolves had: this choice would not end with him in it.

It’s not love. Not fate tying a ribbon around all this ugliness to make it pretty.

It might be fear. Might be guilt.

Or it might be the sick, stubborn ache of recognising someone’s wound is still bleeding where my hands have touched it. And opened it anew.

Drawing my knees to my chest, I wrap my arms around them and stare into the flames.

My fingers tense around the passport until the cover bends. I open it, flip to the page with my picture and stare at the face I no longer recognise.

Freedom in a palm.

But he’s right behind that door, with teeth marks in his flesh and shadows in his eyes.

My thumb follows the edge of the document in one slow stroke.

I suck in a breath. Give the treeline one firm glare.

And I flip it closed.

36

My legs take me to the bedroom where my things sleep; the few scraps of myself he has not rearranged into his rules. I need something familiar to keep me from making rash decisions. Something I know I can make into a small thing where nothing outside of a frame can touch me.

The charger makes a soft click as I pull the plug from the camera. Then I press the switch on the socket, cutting the draw from the solar battery. Like he taught me.

With the camera nestled in my arms, I lie down onto the bed and crawl beneath the duvet where the mattress accepts me with a soft creak. I cradle the camera against my chest as though it holds confessions.

In a way, it does.

Scrolling through my life in Norway, I see thumbnail after thumbnail of stills of snow, boots, axe, the fjords… Then the gathering at the Nielsens’ comes into view.