The Nix(195)

“Who are you?” she says, and even as she says it the answer bursts into her head: It’s a nix. After all these years, it has appeared to her, here, on a ridge high above the frigid harbor, in Norway, in the northernmost city in the world. She has found herself in a fairy tale.

The horse looks unblinkingly straight at her as if to say, I know who you are. And she feels herself drawn to it, wanting to touch it, to rub her hand along its ribs and bound onto it and let it do whatever it wishes to do. It would be a fitting end, she thinks.

She comes closer, and even as she reaches up to pet the beast’s face, still it does not flinch. Still it waits. She touches it on that spot between its eyes, that spot she always thinks will be softer than it really is, the skull so close to the surface there, all thin fur and bone.

“Were you waiting for me?” she says into its ear, which is gray and black and flecked silver and looks like a porcelain teacup. She wonders if she can leap onto its back, if she can manage the jump. That would be the hardest part. The next part would be simple. If the horse began galloping, it would reach the nearby cliff in maybe a dozen strides. The fall down to the water would take only seconds. It amazes her that after such a long life, the end could come that quickly.

Then Faye hears a sound, a voice carried on the wind from the valley below. A woman is down there walking toward her, yelling something in Norwegian. And beyond her, just past her, is a house: a small square thing with a deck in back that faces the water, a path down to a rickety wooden dock, a big garden out front, a few spruce trees, a small pasture for a couple of goats, a couple of sheep. The house is gray and weathered, but in the places that are protected from the wind—under the eaves and behind window shutters—Faye can see the lingering color of old paint: salmon-red.

She almost falls over at the sight. It’s not how she imagined it, but still she recognizes it. It’s familiar, as if she’d been here many times before.

When the woman reaches her, Faye can see she’s handsome and young, maybe Samuel’s age, with the same striking features she sees all the time in this country: fair skin, blue eyes, long straight hair that delicate color halfway between blond and cotton. She’s smiling and saying something that Faye does not understand.

“This must be your horse,” Faye says. She feels self-conscious about using English so presumptuously, but she has no alternative.

The woman does not seem offended, though. She cocks her head at this new information and seems to process it for a moment, then says, “British?”

“American.”

“Ah,” she says, nodding, as if this solves some important mystery. “The horse wanders off sometimes. Thank you for catching him.”

“I didn’t really catch him. He was standing here when I found him. It’s more like he caught me.”

The woman introduces herself—her name is Lillian. She’s wearing gray herringbone pants of some sturdy-looking material, a light blue sweater, a wool scarf that looks homemade. She’s the very picture of unassuming Nordic style—restrained and elegant. Certain women can wear a scarf effortlessly. Lillian takes the horse by the reins and together they all begin walking back down toward the house. Faye wonders if this might be a distant relative, a cousin, for this is almost certainly the place. So many of the details match, even if the version her father told was exaggerated: not a field in the front yard but rather a garden; not a long line of spruces but only two; not a great pier over the water but instead a small flimsy-looking dock perhaps large enough for a canoe. Faye wonders whether he was self-consciously lying and puffing it up, or if, in the years since he left, in his imagination, the house really did grow in its proportions and majesty.

Lillian, meanwhile, is pleasantly making conversation, asking Faye where she’s from, how she’s enjoying her travels, where she’s gone. She suggests restaurants to try, nearby sights to see.

“This is your house?” Faye asks.

“It’s my mother’s.”

“Does she live here too?”

“Of course.”

“How long has she lived here?”

“Most of her life.”

The garden out front is wild with life, a great efflorescence of bushes and grasses and flowers thick and barely domesticated. It’s an eccentric and rowdy garden, a place where nature has been encouraged to its messy ends. Lillian leads the horse into its pen and closes a rickety gate that she secures with a bit of twine tied in a knot. She thanks Faye for helping return the animal.

“I hope you enjoy your vacation,” she says.

And even though this is what Faye has come here to find, she’s feeling tongue-tied and nervous now, not sure exactly what to say or how to proceed, not sure how to explain everything.

“Listen, I’m not really on vacation.”

“Oh?”

“I’m looking for someone. Old family, actually. Relatives of mine.”

“What’s the name? Maybe I can help.”

Faye swallows. She doesn’t know why she’s so anxious saying it: “Andresen.”

“Andresen,” Lillian says. “That’s a pretty common name.”

“Yes. But, you see, I think this is it. What I mean is, I think my family used to live here, in this house.”

“Nobody in our family was named Andresen, or moved to America. Are you sure you have the right town?”