"In a series of events that can only be described as highly improbable, several previously thought extinct volcanoes, across four different continents, have suddenly become active, spewing rock and fumes into the sky in, what geologists suggest, could usher in a new ice age.

All the volcanoes had not seen any activity, or hinted at their continued life, for hundreds of years and the chances of them all erupting within the same timeframe are almost incalculable. As fears grow of falling temperatures across the globe, world leaders are set to meet, remotely, to discuss options for the future."

-+-

5

McAreavey gave a whistle, calling Murty back to him, out of the paw print. With one last glance at their surroundings, he began to make his shotgun safe, preparing to put it away. Runa couldn't understand why. With a creature the size that could make such a paw print around, she would have thought the old man would want to stay prepared.

"Why are you putting your gun away?" She reached out to stop him fastening the gun bag and the old man frowned. "We have to find this thing and kill it!"

"Doctor MacCabe, there's no 'thing' to kill." He slung the gun bag across his shoulder and then returned the cartridges to the leather ammunition box upon his belt. He nodded towards the dip in the face of the cliff wall. "There's not an animal alive can make a print that size, and, I dare say we'd have trouble finding the bones of one dead that could make one, too. No, lassie, this just looks like a paw print. Probably made by a mixture of the earthquake and the storm."

"But, the children said, the big dog held them between its paws." She pointed at the paw print. "That would make a hell of a big dog, don't you think? And, last night, I ..."

She had to stop herself. What she had seen the night before, and here, at her feet, could all be explained away by the storm and the earthquake. She was an educated woman and, with that knowing look in old McAreavey's bright, green eyes, she knew she sounded like a madwoman, and not someone that used facts and figures in her daily life.

As a scientist, she couldn't allow herself to fall prey to fears and fantasies. McAreavey was right, anything could have made that mark and the human brain had the most remarkable capacity for seeing patterns where there were none. She had to pull herself back to facts. Facts could never lie to her.

A dog the size that this 'paw print' indicated would leave more than one print as proof of its existence. She had not seen any other similar holes anywhere along the beach, or at the point where she had felt certain she saw something the night before. Nothing but a little scuffing of pebbles, gravel and sand. She regained control of her breathing. Regained control of her rationality.

"Aye. That's for the best." With a wave of his hand, McAreavey sent Murty off along the beach. "I'll give the area a good look over and if I do see a dog, I'll get it under control and we'll have it off the island and safe come the next visit of the boat. You have yourself back with the wee 'uns. Me and Murty'll see to it."

Runa could only nod. She could have sworn she had seen a great beast of an animal within the fury of the storm, and this paw print, or what she had taken as a paw print, had all but confirmed what she thought she had seen. The simplest explanations were, more often than not, the correct ones. Simple illusions. A mind playing tricks after the terror of the earthquake and the fear for her missing children.

For a second, she hesitated. Ready to return back to the cottage, she had turned, but something caught her attention. A sound. Muffled. Or distant. She cocked her head to the side and concentrated. There, again. A snuffling, or so she thought. She looked up for McAreavey, but he had already moved on far up the beach.

Runa couldn't explain why, but she moved towards the darker part of the cliff face. The part that the children called a cave, but was, in fact, only a deep bevel, the stone worn away by centuries of waves crashing upon it and eroding the surface. She thought she heard the snuffle once more and lifted a hand to place upon the rough surface of the 'cave' wall.

And snatched her hand away, startled.

After a second, regaining her composure, she lifted her hand again, pressing it flat against the stone, feeling the dampness and the cold. It felt as though electricity ran through the rock itself. An energy that rippled against her hand. An energy that felt more than electricity, but an energy borne of age and pain, of sadness and sorrow. Even as she thought that, she realised how ridiculous it sounded. Energy did not, could not, have feelings like emotions.

The wind picked up once again and Runa feared the return of the worst of the storm but, as she turned to look out towards the direction of the mainland, she could see the storm clouds had not returned, but they did look as though they had grown. Without anything to gauge it by, she could imagine those clouds covering the entirety of Great Britain and she pitied the people having to suffer it, as she had.

McAreavey had disappeared by now. Too far along the beach, or turned back towards the land, following the keen senses of Murty, perhaps. She had no option but to return to the cottage. She did, after all, have a lot of work to prepare for the next term and even though the classes would be over the internet it didn't mean she could skimp with the education of her charges. Likewise for Hertha and Stigr. They had their homeschooling to perform, too.

As she approached the cottage, getting ready to remove her coat to shake out the excess water before going inside, she caught sight of Hertha and Stigr through the window, the movie playing in the background with neither of them watching. Instead, they looked deep in conversation. Something Runa did not see very often from her beloved, but argumentative children.

With great care, she opened the door to the cottage and slipped inside. She could hear the two children talking in heated debate, the sound of the movie playing in the background, which neither Hertha nor Stigr paid attention to. Easing herself along the corridor, she tried to hold her breath, not wishing either of them to know she had returned.

"But what if old Whiskers McMutton-Chops does find him?" Stigr sounded as though he pleaded with his sister. "Mummy doesn't think we know, but I bet that was a gun in his bag. Every farmer has a gun. What if old Whiskers shoots him?"

"He won't. You're being ridiculous." As always, Hertha spoke to her brother with an arrogance borne of the gulf of the two years between them. Ever asserting her Older Sister authority. "He said no-one could see him if he didn't wish to be seen."

Runa didn't know who this 'he' was and now she worried that they had said a dog had hidden in the cave only to hide the fact that it was a man that had sheltered them from the storm. She remembered Stigr mentioning songs sung to them. A dog couldn't sing to them, but she had put that down to another flight of fancy.

A stray dog roaming the island was bad enough, but a man? She couldn't have that. This wasn't a public area. These were private lands, owned by her husband's family for centuries. They had come here for privacy and safety, not to worry about strange people wandering around where they had no right to be. At least she had stopped considering the possibility of some monstrous dog upon the island.

"All I'm saying is what if they do find him? Even if they don't hurt him, if the others find him, they will kill him. Remember what he said about the war?" In her haste to hear the conversation more clearly, Runa had brushed against a pair of untidy boots on the floor, sending one skidding away. She heard Stigr catch his breath. "What was that?"

Runa cursed herself and managed to stand up straight, slipping her coat from her arms as Hertha appeared around the edge of the doorway. Hertha said nothing, only looking at the floor at Runa's feet and seeing the pool of rainwater that had gathered as Runa had stood listening to them. She couldn't let Hertha linger on that.

"Have you finished watching the movie?" She gave her coat a little shake, sending droplets flying out from the hem, then hung it upon the coat rack peg before giving Hertha her most motherly gaze of authority. "If you have, get your books ready and I'll set you some exercises for the morning. You still have schoolwork, even on a private island."

Again, Hertha glanced at the puddle of water, her forehead creased, before turning and heading back into the living room. She hissed something towards Stigr and, as Runa followed Hertha, she saw Stigr pretending to appear engrossed in the movie, twirling a curl of hair above his forehead. Runa didn't believe that for a second. She allowed him to think he fooled her as she and Hertha prepared the materials for their tutoring.

"Mummy." As the movie came to an end, Stigr slouched back in his seat and toyed with a pen from the table before him. "Our family, your side, comes from where the Norse came from, don't they?"

"I suppose they do, though not for a good few generations." She knew very well that they did. Her father had made it his goal to instil every ounce of history into her before she had even started school. "Why do you ask?"

"Oh, nothing. I just saw something about it on tv and wondered about it." He made a terrible attempt at wheedling information from her, but he tried. "Could you tell us about it? One day? About, I don't know, the gods and stuff?"

"One day." She squinted at him as she laid the textbooks down, wondering what had brought those questions to his attention. He'd never shown any interest in their family's past before. "Right, I want you to read chapters two through to four and to write a short essay about the consequences of the Prime Ministers actions during the Suez Crisis, economically and diplomatically, before lunch. Hertha, I expect yours to be far more detailed."

Stigr slumped forward, groaning before picking up the text book and laboriously flicking through to the relevant chapters. Hertha had little more enthusiasm, but she didn't show it. She had held her silence as Stigr had asked his questions, but Runa had seen the little scowl sent her brother's way.

As Runa left the children to their studies, she headed to the kitchen. She needed a strong coffee after the events of the night before and of that morning. She also needed time to think. To think about whether a dog had come to the island, or a man, or anything or anyone at all. But she also thought about Stigr's questions, about the Norsemen and of their gods and she remembered that dream. The dream of warriors from the north. Of war and of blood. Even with the mug of hot coffee in her hands, Runa shivered.