She arrived in the rain.
Carrying only a leather satchel, a folded map, and the kind of smile that came from knowing things no one had yet confessed.
Her name was Elinor Frey.Mid-forties. Angular jaw. Cropped silver hair. Lips always faintly stained with red wine or ink — Astrid couldn't decide which.
The villagers noticed her immediately.
Not because she was loud.
But because she watched the way they did.Not as tourists.As witnesses.
Astrid saw her first at the dock — standing under the canopy, water streaming from her coat, a smudge of mud on her cheek, eyes locked on the curve of the fjord like a lover remembering how to approach.
They didn't speak.
But Elinor nodded at her.
Not in greeting.
In recognition.
Later, in the sauna, Astrid asked Åse, "Did anyone invite her?"
Åse was silent a moment, then said:
"No. But the fjord sometimes calls its own."
By the second evening, Elinor had already been to the greenhouse. The sauna. The old schoolhouse turned gallery.
She moved through Løvlund like someone who expected it to be exactly as it was.
And that terrified Astrid.
Because she had once arrived in innocence.
Elinor arrived in certainty.
On the third morning, Elinor knocked on Astrid's door.
"I brought something," she said, holding up a flask of homemade cherry wine.
"And a question."
Astrid stepped aside.
"Ask it."
They sat near the window, the red book shut tightly beside Astrid like a silent guard.
Elinor sipped from the flask, then leaned forward.
"Did you read the woman before you?"
Astrid froze.
"You mean Margit?"
Elinor smiled. "No. The one before her."
She opened her satchel.
And pulled out a manuscript — brittle pages bound in twine, ink faded but intact. Its title read:
The First Moan: Notes from Løvlund's MouthBy Sigrid Hemstad, 1891
Astrid's breath left her like a slap.
"I've never seen that."
"No one has," Elinor said softly. "It was buried in a personal archive in Oslo. I found it by accident last spring. It described a village that couldn't possibly exist."
She looked out the window toward the fjord.
"And yet… here it is."
The manuscript included vivid entries:
A woman who painted with breastmilk and fjord water.
A midsummer festival where couples were rotated by moonlight.
A healer who only touched patients with her tongue.
Astrid felt her spine bristle.
She had written these images weeks ago. Identically.Before seeing this.
Before meeting Elinor.
"How did she know?" Astrid whispered.
Elinor met her gaze.
"I think she didn't. I think the fjord tells the same stories to different women… over time."
"Then why doesn't anyone remember her?"
Elinor closed the manuscript.
"Because Løvlund doesn't erase. It absorbs."
That night, Astrid walked to the edge of the fjord.
Naked. Barefoot. The red book pressed to her chest.
She whispered into the wind:
"How many of us have you swallowed?"
And from deep within the black water came a sound — not words, not waves.
But breath.
Heavy.Wet.Echoing with hundreds of voices.