The cottage was silent, save for the low hiss of the hearth.
Margit stood by the window, still cloaked, though she no longer seemed to be hiding. Her hands were ungloved, slender, pale with veins like branches. Her gaze moved over Astrid the way one might trace weather — watching for storm patterns.
Åse sat across from her, still regal in her age, one hand gripping the carved arm of her chair as if the past required physical restraint.
Astrid poured tea.
No one drank it.
Margit spoke first.
"I came here forty years ago. Like you. A woman with a notebook. A mind full of questions. A body that hadn't yet been allowed to answer them."
Her voice was low, almost androgynous — thick with accent from somewhere inland, deeper than Løvlund's fjord dialect.
"I didn't expect to fall in love," she added.
Åse looked up then.
But Margit didn't look back.
"I didn't expect her," she whispered. "But it was inevitable."
Astrid leaned forward.
"You loved Åse."
"Yes."Margit's tone was sharp."But I loved the village more."
That stung.
Åse looked away.
Margit continued.
"I wanted to record it. Chronicle everything — the rituals, the moans, the unspoken laws. I thought I could protect it by preserving it."
Astrid's fingers tightened on the mug.
"And what happened?"
Margit smiled bitterly.
"I was told to stop.Not by Åse. Not even by the elders.By the fjord itself."
She pulled back the edge of her cloak.
Revealing her shoulder.
Scars. Dozens of them. Thin and silvery, like old script etched across her skin.
"I woke one morning, and the book I'd written was gone. Burned. No one claimed it. But on my skin, the words had appeared."
Astrid blinked. "What did they say?"
Margit turned slightly, letting the firelight hit the scarred flesh.
"They said:'Desire is sacred. Not yours to own.'"
The room fell utterly silent.
Astrid suddenly felt the red book in her satchel like a weight. A heartbeat. A danger.
"I'm not trying to own it," she whispered.
"No," said Margit, stepping closer."But the story writes you back. And not all who try to carry it… survive the telling."
Later that night, after Margit had gone, Åse remained by the hearth.
Astrid knelt beside her.
"Why didn't you warn me?"
Åse didn't answer right away.
Then she said:
"Because I saw something in you Margit never had.You don't write to preserve.You write to offer."
That night, Astrid went down to the cellar.
She lit a single candle. Laid out her red book. Turned to the blank page.
And for the first time, she hesitated.
What if Margit was right?
What if the fjord gave its pleasure only to those who never tried to make it permanent?
But her hand moved anyway.
And she wrote:
"I do not record this to keep it alive.I write because it already lives — inside me, around me, between every gasp and gaze."
"If it burns me, let it be the fire I deserve."
Outside, the wind picked up.
And far below the cellar, under stone and moss and blood — the fjord stirred.