A short story from Gyrðir's collection Vatnsfólkið (The Water People) from 1997. The English translation, by Vera Júlíusdóttir, was published in the book Elsewhere. Stories from Small Town Europe. Editor: Maria Crossan.
From The Water People:
Jónína reads the book for a good while, then looks up again and says: 'Remember, sister, when we were small and we went up into the Hat Mountain here, and dad went looking for us and found us near the Raven Cliffs, where we were throwing rocks over the edge. Dad was afraid for us then. Do you remember that?'
'Please dear, I am wathcing the telly here,' and she relights the pipe and the chair starts creaking again.
The younger sister sighs, puts the book down on the nightstand and rises from the bed, looks out of the attic window, out into the autumn darkness, onto the shaded ocean.
'Another autumn,' she thinks. 'How many autumns more? We are not Sisters of Hope.'
Through the gunshots the older sister calls into the room. 'Jónína, won't you please heat some tea for us before bed?' 'And what type of tea do you want?' asks the other one blankly and continues to look out the window.
'Just chamomile now I think, it is getting so late,' says Nanna, and the pipe lets out a snorting sound.
Jónína goes down the stairs, turns on a light on the lower floor, heats water on the stove and comes upstairs, carrying a ceramic pot and two mugs.
'Tea for two,' Nanna says cheerfully.
'Yes, if it only were for two,' Jónína thinks and puts down the tray with the pot and the mugs. She sits down in a chair beside her sister, who rocks and slurps tea and lights the pipe yet again, until the film is finished.
'Now we go to bed, sister dear,' Jónína thinks, but aloud she says: 'Yes, it will be a hard day tomorrow.'
'Will it?' the other one says. 'How do you know? Isn't it just an ordinary day? You are not going to paint the house, are you?'
'It will be a hard day,' Jónína says calmly. 'I know it.'
That night, when the house is ablaze and the billowing smoke rolls up into the starless sky, the sisters resemble giant moths or old fairies in their grey nightgowns, fluttering in the slow breeze off the ocean.
