Death in Dalvik

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It was a gorgeous, crisp, clear November evening in the valley just outside Dalvík when Dísa came home from school to learn that her family would have to sell the farm.

Dísa’s ancestors had tended the gentle slopes of Blábrekka for centuries. Five centuries: her grandfather could proudly and plausibly trace his descent to one Brandur Kolgrímsson who had purchased the farm in 1613. But the farm was much older than that — the ancient Book of Settlements reported its settlement early in the tenth century by one Ulf Blue Cheeks. Blábrekka stood a few kilometres outside the modern fishing village of Dalvík, at the base of a mountain overlooking the deep, dark waters of Eyjafjördur and the low island of Hrísey. The fjord pointed northwards to the Arctic Circle, which hovered invisibly thirty kilometres out to sea.

The sun had just slipped behind the mountain to the west; its rays painted the undersides of the clouds and the snow on the upper slopes of the surrounding hills a soft pink, with odd bruises of purple.

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