Her scowl deepened into unveiled disgust. “What’s wrong with you?” she said, looking me up and down. And then she walked away.
One day, Derry invited me to accompany her on her morning run.
“Sorry,” I said, stifling a yawn. “I have to be up for the girls.”
“Don’t they wake at six thirty?” she said. “We can be back well before that. I usually leave at five, but we can leave even earlier . . .”
It was the tail end of November. Midwinter in Norway meant that a cataracted sun cast a resentful smattering of oblique light for approximately twenty minutes each day before giving up the ghost and tagging in Blackest Night. Even Tom had started to talk about investing in SAD lamps for Gaia and Coco, who were even grumpier than usual. An unexpected bonus of the pervasive gloom was that Coco had started sleeping through the night, and occasionally she slept in past seven. Relatively speaking, the supernal bliss of eight hours’ sleep should have gifted me with the energy levels of a gazelle, but I’d found that the decrease in sunlight exposure felt like lead being pumped directly into my veins. The slightest effort plundered my energy stores. I was clearly designed for the bounteous rays of Apollo, and I began to loathe Tom for choosing Norway as the locale for his summer home instead of, say, California.
“We don’t even have to run,” Derry offered. “We can . . . jog . . .”
“I’m afraid I’m not much of a jogger . . .” I said. In the hours before dawn, I reckoned I would barely be able to crawl.
“Walk, then?” she said, her voice breaking at the word walk. She had these big deep-set eyes, Frodo blue, that seemed capable of removing my willpower. A perfect nose, perfect teeth. Seven tattoos in a line down her spine—chakra symbols, she’d said, to “focus her energy centers.” “Oh, come on, Sophie! I promise you’ll love it!”
“You won’t love it,” Clive grumped from behind his phone. “You’ll have a minor heart attack while Derry does thirty-mile laps. Or you’ll wreck your knee cartilage like I have. Don’t let her suck you in.”
“I . . .” I said.
“Oh, Clive,” Derry laughed, waving her hand at him. “Honestly, he needs his heart chakra massaged big-time. Say you’ll come jogging with me, Sophie. Or walking, whatever. Please?”
Before I could answer she had lowered herself down, balancing her weight on her palms, with both legs impossibly straightened out to one side, hovering a few inches above the floor.
“What are you doing?” Clive said.
“Astavakrasana,” she panted, wobbling slightly.
“I thought you were going for a walk with Sophie?”
“Tomorrow morning,” she said, throwing me a wink. And lo, it was decided.
I didn’t have any running shoes so Derry loaned me a pair. “Luckily we’re both a size six,” she whispered, her words transforming to icicles right in front of me. It was four thirty, pitch-black, and freezing cold. I slipped on the trainers, pulled on my woolen hat and gloves, and crossed myself.
The air was so cold that it seemed to be gnawing my face. Derry immediately began pumping her arms as she walked and encouraged me to copy her, which I did, assuming this was to prevent frostbite setting in. I had expected us to head toward the cliff, but instead she ventured away from the house toward the thickest part of the forest.
“Don’t worry,” she said when I started to whimper. “I know these woods really well. There’s actually a path that cuts right to the road.”
But how will we see it? I wanted to say, given that the forest was so dense that the light of the moon and stars was almost blocked out. Derry fumbled in her pocket for something, then strapped a headlamp to her forehead. The garish white light fell on a number of creatures ahead of us, who immediately scattered into the bushes.
“Let there be light!” Derry said, laughing and strutting onward. I marveled at how unafraid she was, how awake she was. Given how cold and miserable it was, I had half expected her to suggest we turn back for another hour’s sleep, but she simply powered on through the forest, oblivious to the squelch of soggy leaves underfoot and the bats whirling overhead. We walked through the trees and, although Derry chatted amiably, I responded with mm-hmms, focused on keeping my mouth closed in case I inadvertently swallowed a