Free Ice by Anna Kavan

otherwise the dragon might think we'd palmed off a dead girl on him. The water foams down below. The monster's great scaly coils appear. Then we hurl her down. The whole fjord becomes a maelstrom, blood and foam flying in all directions.'
    A lively discussion of the sacrifice followed, different people speaking in turn. They might have been talking about a football match between their team and a rival town. Somebody said: 'We haven't so many good-looking girls to spare. Why should we give one of them to the dragon? Why not sacrifice a stranger, some foreign girl who means nothing to any of us?' The tone of voice suggested that the speaker referred to a special person, whose identity was known to all present. The father started raising objections, but was silenced by his daughter, who called out her agreement, launching into a vicious tirade of which I only caught isolated phrases. 'Pale girls who look as pure as if they were made of glass . . . smash them to smithereens. . . . And I will smash this one. . . .' The end was shouted. 'I'll hurl her down off the rock myself, if none of you have the guts to do it!'
    I walked away in disgust. These people were worse than savages. My hands and face were numb, I felt half frozen, and could not think why I had stood there so long listening to their preposterous rigmarole. I had a vague feeling that something was wrong with me, though I could not decide what it was. For a moment this was disturbing; then I forgot it. A small, cold, bright moon shone high in the sky, showed the landscape distinctly. I recognized the fjord but not the scene. Tall perpendicular rocks rose straight out of the water, supporting a flat horizontal rock like a high-diving platform. Some people appeared, dragging the girl between them, her hands tied. As she passed me, I caught a glimpse of her pitiful white face of a child-victim, terrified and betrayed. I sprang forward, tried to reach her, to cut her bonds. Somebody went for me. I threw him off, tried again to get near her, she was dragged away. I rushed after the group, shouting: 'Murderers!' Before I could overtake them, they were hauling her up the rock.
    I was close to her on the platform high above the fjord. We were alone there, although a mixture of vague sounds behind me indicated the presence of numerous on-lookers. They did not concern me. I was completely concentrated on the trembling figure, half kneeling, half crouching, at the extremity of the rock, overhanging the dark water. Her hair glittered as if with diamond dust under the moon. She was not looking at me, but I could see her face, which was always pale, but now drained of colour right to the bone. I observed her extreme slenderness, felt I could enclose the whole of her with my two hands, even the rib-cage containing her heart. Her skin was like white satin, shadowless in the brilliant moonlight. The circular marks the cords had left on her wrists would have been red in daylight, but now looked black. I could imagine how it would feel to take hold of her wrists and to snap the fragile bones with my hands.
    Leaning forward, I touched her cold skin, the shallow hollow in her thigh. Snow had fallen between her breasts.
    Armed men came up, pushed me back, seized her by her frail shoulders. Big tears fell from her eyes like icicles, like diamonds, but I was unmoved. They did not seem to me like real tears. She herself did not seem quite real. She was pale and almost transparent, the victim I used for my own enjoyment in dreams. People behind me muttered, impatient at the delay. The men did not wait any longer but hurled her down, her last pathetic scream trailing after her. The night exploded then like a paper bag. Huge jets of water sprang up; waves dashing wildly against the rocks burst in cascades of spray. I hardly noticed the freezing showerbath, but peered over the edge of the platform, and saw a circle of scaly coils emerge from the seething water, in which something white struggled