Burial Rites

by Hannah Kent

That dress was my last possession. There is nothing in the world I now own; even the heat my body gives out is taken away by the summer breeze.

Two small girls sucking eggs by the road, hems damp through with mud. The blur of a thin dog chasing his reflection in the water and the sky broken gray and wide. Three ravens flying in a line. A good omen. “Steina!” The walk from Gudrúnarstadir to Gilsstadir in a freezing spring. 1819. One hundred small whales come ashore near Thingeyrar. A bad omen.

“Well…I suppose because, I mean, we want, Blöndal and the clergy, and I…We want you to return to God.” Agnes hardened her expression. “I think I’ll be returning to Him soon enough. By way of an axe-swing.”

I so often feel that I am barely here, that to feel weight is to be reminded of my own existence.

After the trial, the priest from Tjörn told me that I would burn if I did not cast my mind back over the sin of my life and pray for forgiveness. As though prayer could simply pluck sin out. But any woman knows that a thread, once woven, is fixed in place; the only way to smooth a mistake is to let it all unravel.

“It’s not fair. People claim to know you through the things you’ve done, and not by sitting down and listening to you speak for yourself. No matter how much you try to live a godly life, if you make a mistake in this valley, it’s never forgotten. No matter if you tried to do what was best. No matter if your innermost self whispers, ‘I am not as you say!’—how other people think of you determines who you are.”