Page 5 of Meet Me Under the Northern Lights

Chloe had a mouth full of thick padded jacket and a hand full of what felt like icy grit.

Everything was suddenly spinning and she couldn’t work out quite which way up she was or what had even happened.

Cold. Cold was infiltrating her fast. The ground.

She was definitely on the ground. Or, at least, some of her was.

The rest of her was on a padded jacket apparently…

‘I do not know which one of us should move to make this better.’

A man’s voice. A man’s jacket she still had in her mouth. She needed to end that.

‘You are Icelandic? You do not speak English?’

Before Chloe could say anything else he was talking fast in words she definitely did not understand and both of them were still, somehow lying on the ground. There was only one thing she could think to say…

‘ Attú vín ?’

‘ Hvao ?’

She had asked if he had wine! Why had she said that?! ‘Sorry, I do speak English and, I think, if you just move your right leg a bit I can move my arm and?—’

He did as she asked and, with a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, like some crazy version of Twister, she was able to get to her feet and realise that quite a lot of her felt sore.

‘You are OK?’ he asked.

She had to be OK. Michelle was depending on her. She looked up at the man she had been half-mounted on and observed him for the first time. Tall. Broad. Hair the colour of corn, not super long but long enough to be poking out from underneath a beanie. The bluest eyes…

‘I’m OK,’ she answered.

Hot air came fast from his mouth as he exhaled in what seemed like deep relief. He said something – presumably in his native tongue.

‘What does that mean?’ Chloe asked.

‘It means I am happy you are OK.’

‘That’s a direct translation? Of what you just said?’

‘You do speak Icelandic?’

‘No, just a gut feeling that you swore.’

‘Really?’ Those blue eyes widened as he looked directly at her, got bluer still somehow. It started to get intense like he was challenging her on what she was going to say next. She liked a challenge.

‘Really,’ she said, matching his gaze.

And that’s when time seemed to really slow right down and everything going on around the outside area of the airport – the travellers rolling suitcases, the engines of the buses – became smaller, quieter, insignificant to whatever was happening across the icy air.

‘OK,’ he said finally. ‘Where do you go? Into Reykjavik?’

‘Yes, I am booked on a bus at?—’

‘OK, you will come with me.’

‘Wait. What?’

‘Fast,’ he said, reaching out and taking her arm. ‘You will come fast.’

Chloe swallowed as all the connotations of that sentence hit her as severely as the current wind chill. Where was her suitcase? Why was she letting a man guide her to who knew where?

‘Stop,’ she said, trainers skidding on the ground as she forced them both to a halt.

‘Listen, I know this is not the situation anybody wants but if my boss knows that you fell into me and?—’

‘That I fell into you?’

‘Your voice is very too loud now,’ he whispered. ‘Here in Iceland we like quiet.’

‘If you think this is my voice being loud then Iceland really isn’t ready,’ Chloe said louder than before.

‘OK, OK, it’s just I have not had the best beginning to today and?—’

‘Funnily enough, neither have I,’ Chloe interrupted.

‘OK, well, we can swap our disastrous day stories on my bus. Is this your suitcase?’

She turned around, remembering that yes, she had luggage, and she also did not yet have somewhere to stay and all this distraction was not helping her towards her current goal.

‘Yes,’ she answered, taking steps to retrieve it.

‘Let me,’ the man said, reaching it before her.

‘It’s fine,’ Chloe said, fingers on the handle.

‘I insist. We do not want any more accidents and the road, it is icy.’

‘Well, I fell over you, not because of the ice so I will take my case and take my chances.’

Chloe yanked at her luggage and that’s when it burst like an overfilled water balloon, everything she had crammed in there in a frenzy last night spilling out over the ground. She yelped. Definitely too loud for Iceland.

‘OK. We go now.’

And before Chloe could do or say anything else, this stranger who said he had a bus, destination not quite known, was picking up all her clothing.