Elinor's presence spread like steam.
Not invasive.
Inevitable.
By the end of her first week, she'd been invited to four households, tasted three kinds of homebrewed mead, and soaked in every sauna the village had to offer — always clothed in questions, always leaving with answers no one had meant to give.
She carried a notebook, though no one had seen her write in it.She said she wasn't documenting.She was listening.
And the village, in its strange hunger to be heard, began to open.
Even Åse let her braid her hair one evening by the fire.
Even Ida, wary and still raw from her parting with Astrid, laughed at Elinor's dry humor about moss and madness.
And Astrid?
Astrid watched.
Elinor came to her again on the seventh night.
No manuscript this time.
Just wine. And the same unhurried gaze.
"I've read many things about this place," she said, tracing the rim of her cup with one ringless finger. "But what no one ever wrote down was the sound of it."
Astrid raised an eyebrow. "The sound?"
"The moans," Elinor said, voice low. "They don't echo here. They root. Every one of them stays. Somewhere between the trees, the water, and the skin."
Astrid didn't reply.
Because she knew it was true.
Elinor moved closer.
Her voice changed — not the tone, but the temperature.
"You've written more than anyone here. Felt more, too. But I wonder…"
Her fingers brushed Astrid's wrist.
"…has anyone ever written you?"
Astrid's breath caught.
Not from shock.
From memory.
The last person who'd written her — truly written her — hadn't used a pen.
They had used fingers.And hips.And the weight of a gaze that undressed her before a single button fell.
Leif.Margit.Ida.
Each had written a chapter.
But none had claimed to understand her.
Not the way Elinor now implied.
Astrid stood.
"You're seducing the whole village," she said quietly.
Elinor smiled.
"I'm reminding it. Of what it already knows."
Astrid tilted her head.
"And what do I already know?"
Elinor rose too.
Stepped in.
And kissed her —not on the lips,but beside the mouth,as if inviting a decision.
The kiss was warm.
Not soft.Sure.
Astrid didn't pull away.
But she didn't respond either.
Her voice came out steadier than she expected:
"I don't need you to write me. I need you to tell me why you're really here."
Elinor touched her cheek.Stepped back.
And finally said:
"Because the stories are starting to repeat themselves."
She left without another word.
And Astrid stood alone with her pulse hammering, her thighs damp, and the strange, chilling thought that the fjord had brought Elinor for a reason.
Not as a mirror.
As a consequence.
That night, the red book wouldn't open.
Its pages were sealed shut.
Not with glue.
With heat.
Astrid set it on the windowsill to cool, then whispered to the air:
"Tell me if she's a key…Or a matchstick."