Read My Soul to Take: A Novel of Iceland for Free Online Page A

Not even the stench from the beached whale upset him; it suited his mood. Bergur quickened his pace slightly. Perhaps he should rush home and tell Rosa that he had found another woman. More fun, cleverer, prettier, and younger too. A better woman than her in every way. For an instant, it seemed the right thing to do. He would give Rosa everything—the farm, the cattle, the horses, the eider colony. He would not have any use for them in his new, happy life. Then this dreamlike vision faded. Rosa could not run the farm by herself and would hardly rejoice at the news. She had never been particularly impressed by the countryside or the farm, greeting everything with the same flat expression bordering on indifference. The only thing that got a reaction out of her was the cat. The same went for their married life: she was never furious, never ecstatic. The strange thing was that he used to be exactly the same, but now he was a completely different man.
    At the beachhead he stumbled and looked down in surprise. As a rule he was sure-footed and confident, with a knack for negotiating the rounded boulders and slippery seaweed. Looking down, he noticed something that he had never seen on the beach before among all the oddities that had washed up over the years. For a start, it was a much larger bed of seaweed than he had ever seen washed ashore in the bay. More important, a human arm could be seen through the seaweed. There was no doubt about that. The fingers were curled and twisted in a way that no doll or mannequin manufacturer would have wanted to reproduce. Bergur bent down and the acrid stench of blood filled his nose. He jumped back. The smell had probably escaped when he'd uncovered the soft, slimy seaweed with his foot, and the metallic smell of blood was so powerful that the stench from the rotting whale paled in comparison. Bergur put his arm over his nose and mouth to avoid inhaling the foul air.
    He straightened up, since there was little he could do for the person under the seaweed. He could see the outline of a body under the weed, and patches of white flesh were showing through. Once he had discerned the shape of it, it was so obvious that he was amazed he hadn't noticed it immediately. Since he never took his mobile with him, there wasn't much he could do but rush home and call the police. Perhaps the coast guard should be called out as well. They would enjoy being involved. He breathed through the sleeve of his coat to stave off the smell of blood, then stiffened. He recognized the ring on the swollen finger.
    Bergur fell to his knees. Oblivious to the smell, he grabbed the ice-cold hand to be certain. Yes, that was her ring. He moaned and began to tear the seaweed away from where he imagined the head to be, but stopped when he realized there was no face. He could tell from the corpse's familiar hair that his dream of a happy new life was over.
    T hora was trying to unwind. Lying on her stomach, She m ade an effort to relax, or rather to concentrate on appearing relaxed, because she didn't want the masseuse to think otherwise. The latter was a stringy, muscular woman, slightly younger than Thora. She was wearing white canvas trousers, a pale green T-shirt, and orthopedic sandals on her feet. She had painted her toenails with light blue polish. Thora did not make a habit of scrutinizing that part of people's anatomy, but the toes kept appearing as she lay on the bench with her face positioned in a hole at one end.
    The worst of it was over; the woman had stopped massaging and begun arranging hot stones in a row down her backbone. "Now you should feel how the energy from the stones flows through your back. It travels along the nerves and out into every part of you." This speech was accompanied by soothing music from a CD the masseuse had told Thora was on sale in reception. Thora decided to look in at reception and find out the name of the group, to make sure she never bought one of their CDs by accident.
    "Will it be