Sixty-four days

On the edge of an island high up in the Arctic Circle where time seems to stand still, lies a small red and white cottage, surrounded by icy snow, with the steel grey sea in front of it and the dark, endless, snow-capped forest behind it. In the cabin, Marie is preparing supplies and trying to stay calmer than her hammering heart feels. She blows a strand of her long blonde hair out of her eyes and throws a shawl around her slender shoulders. Through the window facing the sea, the sun glows halfway down the sky, illuminating the clouds and sea mist so its haze seems almost ethereal. Not long to go now. They must hurry.

“Liza, grab your cloak and your brother’s too, we need to leave soon,” she calls to the other end of the cottage.

Liza approaches her mother, her blonde hair in a plait down her back, looking older than her eleven years. Marie knows the girl is scared and wraps her arms around this smaller carbon-copy of her. “Don’t be scared, my love. This will be over soon, it always is.”

Liza looks up at her with clear blue eyes, red-rimmed from tears and an anxious lack of sleep. It’s unlikely anyone on the island got any sleep the previous night. The night that is approaching brings fear to the heart of every islander, every single year.

“Are we going to the bonfire now?” Liza’s seven-year-old brother is standing behind them and seems to look through them with his milky blue eyes. They know he can’t see them, so they both reach out to him and pull him towards them for a group hug that feels better than all the hugs over the past year.

Marie kisses the top of Erik’s head, his brown hair tickling her chin. Chocolate brown hair, just like his father’s. “Yes we are, darling. And we’re going to see Corie and Lars and all the others there by the fire, all of us together, and we’re going to feel strong and ready to face this after we get back, ok?”

“Yes, Mama,” say both the children in unison. The children prepare their cloaks and put on their beanie hats, the ones their grandmother had made for them. Marie’s heart aches when she thinks of her parents, and Mark’s parents… and Mark. Her love, Mark. Almost two years without him and she still expects him to walk in through the door every evening, clearing the earth off his boots on the doormat, taking off his coat and kissing her cheek before they all settle down to dinner by the fireplace. How she misses those days. How she misses him. Now it is just the three of them, her and the children. Families were getting smaller each year, and it was all because of what was coming from tonight.

The flames from the bonfire lift high up into the sky, sending sparks flying and jumping between the flames as if they were dancing with the orange fire. The sight and the warmth of the bright firelight draws the community together from all over, desperate for some connection before the coming dreaded months.

Marie and the children approach the central place in the snow-covered clearing near the forest and see the other inhabitants of the island gathering around the bonfire at the same time. Shadows were long as the sun made its way downwards in the late afternoon sky, and the wind which had been blowing for days on end on the back of the most recent snow storm had died down completely. There is low chatter, some people are hugging, others are sitting by the fire, talking and drinking wine or tea. Despite the completely still air, there is a deep chill that bites through their woollen garments, and they huddle closer to the bonfire to absorb as much of the warmth of it as they can, while they can.

“There’s Aunt Corie,” exclaims Liza happily, and she runs towards her aunt, throwing her arms around her and holding her very tightly.

Corie looks at her sister and laughs. “She hugs tighter than a bear, this one, Marie, what are you feeding her?”

The two sisters share an affectionate look before embracing. “Lars and I are here for you, ok? You don’t have to be scared, we’ll get through this.”

“I’m terrified, Corie. It’s been two years… The darkness is so hard, I almost can’t bear the thought of going through this again.”

“You have to stay strong, sister. For Liza and Erik. They lost a father, they can’t lose a mother too. You can get through this, I know you can.”

Marie fights back tears and nods, inhaling deeply. “I know.”

Lars walks over from where he had been helping to add wood to the bonfire. The five of them stand in a row, watching and feeling the warmth of the flames, lost in their own thoughts, glad to be close to one another and enjoying the experience of being outside, while it lasted.

Marie’s eyes glaze over as she looks into the fire, her mind wandering back to the night she lost Mark. It was two years ago, nearly to the day. They were on day two of sixty-four days of mid-winter darkness, the permanent night having swallowed them up yet again as it does every year, with only the faintest trace of a turquoise light on the very edge of the horizon during the long twilight. This had been the annual rhythm of the Northern Arctic way of life for millennia, but two years ago, suddenly, something was different. Some people who left home during the darkness never returned, or were discovered on the edge of the forest, dead with eyes wide open and a look of unmasked terror frozen on their faces, as if they had seen a demon from the pit.

Mark was one of them. He had gone out to get more wood for the fireplace and never returned. His frozen body was discovered months later when the sun was out and the snow was starting to melt. Marie will never forget the look on his face as long as she lives.

The sounds also started. Every day during the long twilight, never at the same time, strange haunting, chilling, sometimes piercing whooping sounds can be heard from the forest, sounds which the islanders had never heard before, the kind that can creep into your skull and leave permanent scars. The terrifying unknown coming from the even greater unknown. It was unfathomable and mind-alteringly horrifying.

This continues until sixty-four days after the sunset, when suddenly the tip of the sun peeks out from the horizon, and just like that, there is daylight. It’s brief, but more welcome than at any time of the year. It marks the end of the reign of terror of whatever is in the forest that haunts the island in its perpetual night, and the community rejoices on that first appearance of the sun. Even when the sun doesn’t set for sixty-four days later in the year, the appearance of the sun doesn’t garner as much celebration and happiness as when it appears after sixty-four days of pure, unencumbered horror.

“We should start heading back,” her sister says close to her ear, disturbing her reverie and snapping her back to reality. The other families are saying their goodbyes, emotional and reluctant. Some are throwing snow on the bonfire to extinguish it, some are already walking back to their cottages. A few of the children are crying. Liza takes Marie’s hand and holds it tightly. She looks around for Erik.

“Mama, where’s Erik?”

“What?” Marie spins around sharply, her heart doing a somersault in her chest. The blood rushes to her head when she realises she can’t see her son. “Where did he go? Erik! Erik!”

Soon Corie, Lars, Liza and several of the community members are shouting Erik’s name, desperately looking for him behind rocks and bushes, running between cottages and over the field, through the smoke of the doused bonfire. Marie feels a rising mist of shame and anger within herself. How could she let Erik out of her sight, especially on such a night? What if the same thing that happened to her husband happens to her son? She wouldn’t survive, the guilt would crush her, and what about Liza? All these thoughts are spiralling through her panicked mind when she hears Liza exclaim “There he is!”

Her daughter is standing still and pointing towards the forest. There, a few dozen feet away on the edge of the blackness of the forest stands Erik, facing the forest as if transfixed. Marie stops in her tracks next to her daughter, as do the others, and a quietness overtakes them. Behind them, over the sea, the sun is about to start its descent behind the sea. The sky and the clouds are illuminated with shades of impending sunset. It will be dark soon. There isn’t much time.

“Erik,” says Marie nervously but clearly. “Erik, come back here darling, there’s nothing there.”

Erik turns towards them. “I see them, Mama.”

Marie’s blood runs cold. She can almost hear the shiver pass through everyone standing around her at her son’s words. Erik has never been able to see anything in his life.

“Erik, stop this please and come back here. We have to get home, now.”

Erik turns back to the forest and slowly points towards the trees, towards the blackness within. Even the light from the setting sun can’t illuminate the way into the expanse of the forest. “There, I see them.”

He turns back to them. “They’re watching us.”

Some of the others standing with Marie and Liza turn away hurriedly and run towards the cottages into the light of the setting sun. Only Corie and Lars remain with Liza, as Marie runs towards her son, grabbing his arm and pulling him away from the forest. “Run Erik, there’s no time, we have to get home.”

They all charge towards the cottages, Corie and Lars heading for theirs which was next to where Marie lived with the children. After a hurried goodbye, the two families split up into their cottages, closing the doors behind them, and apply the various bolts and locks to secure themselves in the cottage. They are safe.

Marie and the children gather together in the middle of the cottage in a firm embrace, the children hiding their faces in their mother’s shawl. Marie fixes her eyes at the sun almost defiantly as it is setting. It is the last time they will see sunlight for a long time, and she is bracing herself for what is to come.

The ball of the sun turns a deep amber as it slips behind the sea, irradiating the clouds above it with every shade of red, orange, pink and purple. The snow between the cottage and the sea looks like it has been painted these brilliant hues in watercolour on canvas. Marie stands transfixed by the window clutching her children, mesmerised by the beauty of the sight, watching it until the very last tip of the sun has slipped away. It was gone.

A stillness falls upon the snow-covered island, the only sound that of the waves of the sea as it laps the shoreline, gentle and almost comforting in its eternal soundtrack. Marie and Liza stand watching the sky through the window for a long time while Erik stands between them. The colour of the sky darkens to a deep navy blue, with a faint turquoise glimmering very faintly on the horizon. The long blue hour has just begun.

Marie closes her eyes and tries to remember a time before this, when Mark was at home and the sounds of laughter from him and the children rang through the house. When they could go outside at midnight at this time of year and look at the blanket of stars in the icy night air. When he wasn’t a pile of ashes in an urn above the fireplace.

Marie’s eyes snap open and she and the children freeze. Did they just hear something? There it is, louder this time. Unmistakable in its clarity and its terror.

The sounds have begun. Sixty-four days of darkness are upon them.

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Word count: 2059