1. Well of Winter

United Kingdom, December 2010

The sky covered with clouds made the air in the City of London feel cooler. Even though the snow had not yet fallen, a woman repositioned the gloves she was wearing so that they fit and could ward off the stinging cold. December always makes her rub her hands to keep them warm.

The woman nervously glanced at her watch as if rushed by time. However, her anxiety grew when her cellphone rang. She took a brief breath before picking up the call from her father, Thomas.

"Hello, Dad?"

"Are you at the airport?" The deep voice of the boy softly asked.

"Yes, soon will be leaving."

"I don't know why you even asked for a vacation to Denmark for your graduation gift," Thomas said, making his daughter bite her lower lip, holding back both nervousness and anxiety.

"I want to experience what it is like to be in a country that is said to be one of the happiest countries in the world," the woman said with a small chuckle.

Thomas laughed softly too. "Okay I understand, be careful and like I will find it difficult to contact you, because you will be serving in one of the remote areas on the border with Jordan."

"Of course, Dad is careful there too."

"All right, I'll miss you. Get on the plane."

The lady disconnects the call first. She then got up from the iron chair, but before taking a step while pulling her suitcase, she opened her passport first.

Megan Charoline Guietto. That's the name written.

Megan took a deep breath before walking away. She will soon fly to Norway. True, she lied to Thomas that she was going to Denmark. It can't be helped, her father who worked as an active soldier strongly prohibited her from visiting Norway, even though her childhood was spent in the Scandinavian country.

Not without reason Megan came to Norway, even if it was forbidden by Thomas. It all started with a book that was sent to her after officially graduating from college. A book that should never have been sent. A book whose owner's name is Helena Varie Guietto. Helena who is her older sister who died ten years ago.

Megan has been trying her best to find out who sent the book. But she didn't succeed, the only thing she was trying to do now was to go to Norway. The book received is like a diary, in which Helena seems to write down her teenage life there, to be precise in the City of Bergen. She was sure she was also in that period, but was still young and didn't understand anything.

Surprisingly, Megan read Helena's writing as if her older sister was in the past and the writing was interrupted right after Helena wrote that the woman fell in love with something that shouldn't be.

Actually Megan is also a little curious about the cause of Helena's death. Thomas only told me that Helena died, due to illness. But as she remembered Helena, her older sister was very healthy and active.

*

After traveling in the air for several hours, Megan finally arrived at the Norwegian capital, Oslo. Like other capitals, the city is bustling and very modern. It's just that her childhood memories weren't very useful for really adapting to the city. Luckily she was still quite fluent in Norwegian, although she had heard that the Norwegian was quite fluent in English as well.

Oslo is not Megan's main goal. She still has to continue her journey, but is the Hardanger area which is close to the second largest city in Norway, namely Bergen.

But this time Megan decided to fill her supplies in the city of Oslo and while making plans for where to live when she arrived in Hardanger later.

Megan looked at the snow-covered hills from behind her hotel room. Being in a Scandinavian country made him think of Luvita—her mother who came from Norway. Her mother died before she could even learn to run properly.

Initially Thomas invited Luvita to live in England, but after Megan's birth, he could not bear to always leave his wife with his child. Therefore, he brought Luvita back to Norway where there was Luvita's sister Ariana who could accompany his wife. But after Helena died, he brought Megan back to England.

The next morning Megan begins preparing to head to Bergen. The cold air did not discourage her from leaving. She chose to use a plane that had a travel time of only about one hour to arrive. Then she continued by taking the train to Hardanger. In fact, she knows that Ariana—her aunt still lives in Bergen. It's just that she intends to visit later after returning from Hardanger.

Megan held Helena's notebook in her hand. She occasionally reread her older sister's writing, turning her head toward the window. But the view of the mountains that looked steep and rocky, covered in snow made her eyes always amazed. Not to mention if the train line crosses a small river through which water flows.

A view that according to Megan she would never encounter in the City of London, where every day is crowded and there are only buildings close together or skyscrapers.

While reading Helena's writing, a passage caught Megan's attention.

Sometimes I feel like this isn't real, but it's not a dream.

Like he looks like any other man.

But when the moon shines, her true self begins to reveal who she really is.

I know it's dangerous, but I can't stay away from it either.

Megan took a deep breath. She clearly understood that the writing referred to Helena's romance. However, the artist who sounded so poetic made her wonder who he was in Helena's writing?

A trip that took two hours finally brought Megan to Hardanger. She had booked hotels near Hardangerfjord. In Helena's writings, many describe the beauty of a fjord, a bay caused by melted glaciers that forms a lake connected to the sea between steep cliffs.

Once Megan saw first hand the fjord that Helena was referring to. Now she feels amazed and amazed. After putting down her suitcase and changing clothes, she immediately enjoyed lunch at the restaurant inside the hotel. Even though her body felt tired, she didn't want to waste the opportunity to fall asleep on a sunny day.

Megan was wearing thicker clothes and intended to take a walk outside. Not quite a thick jacket, she also wears a scarf, gloves, socks and boots and skullcaps to cover her head.

Before entering her room earlier, Megan heard that the back of the hotel was a small village where residents worked as fishermen. She was curious and then headed to the village after successfully renting a bicycle provided by the hotel.

Fortunately, the roads were not always covered with snow, which made Megan quickly reach the countryside by the coast.

One resident who knows that Megan is a foreign tourist is then served a drink consisting of a mixture of wine, vodka, brandy and rum. Making the drink immediately warmed Megan's body.

Megan also heard several stories about long-standing villages as well as stories of the Vikings, who are known to have come from Norway. However, because these residents had to return to sailing, Megan finally decided to tour independently. She continued walking away from the coast towards the deeper part of the countryside.

When going home Megan accidentally saw the village's name sign, which became familiar in her head. But suddenly she realized that it was one of the place names mentioned in Helena's notebook. She opened her bag where she carried the book and looked for a page about the writing that contained a village called Dasford.

Megan's chest flutters as she reads the section where the Jazmore forest is located after the village of Dasford. She immediately spurred her bicycle towards the forest that Helena was referring to, armed with writing, not a digital map on her cell phone. After arriving, she only found tall trees, but one thing caught his attention. Namely, it looks like the ruins of a building where in the middle there is a well.

Megan saw that the water had almost reached the top of the well, but it had frozen because of winter. The well that has a short size makes it run on the edge of the well. Slowly her feet stepped onto the frozen part. The smile immediately measured on her face as soon as she succeeded in doing so, this was her first experience standing on top of a frozen well.

But it turns out to be the beginning of disaster for Megan. The well frozen in water looked so sturdy and impossible to thaw even if winter turned to spring. It took at least a few days, but it turned out that the frozen water cracked like glass and made Megan's body fall down.

Megan's eyes widened, she could feel her body getting wet, slowly turning unbearably cold and before her vision faded. She remembered that why she stepped into the frozen well, because Helena wrote things like that in her notebook.

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