As they drove home from the hospital, Astrid flipped through the newspapers spread across her p. Eleonore had been saving every paper she'd come across since the birth of her granddaughter. Knowing Astrid's fir for the dramatic, she knew her daughter would find it amusing to read about how the world turned upside down on the very day she gave birth.

  "Cut them out and paste them into her first photo album. The articles, I mean. If she's anything like you, she'll appreciate it when she's older," Eleonore said, a lopsided smile pying on her lips. Astrid indeed found the articles both terrifying and oddly alluring.

  "It's like some doomsday shit happened, mum. And I had no idea what was going on, like, the world could have ended, and I'd never even know!" Eleonore's ugh was full of love.

  "I'm not sure you'd care, even if you had known, sweetheart. You were dealing with enough all on your own, weren't you?" The silence following was easy enough for Astrid to read, and she braced herself for the inevitable question she knew was coming next. "Astrid," her mother began, her tone turning serious. "Why won't you tell me who he is? He's got responsibilities, and rights, as the father of this baby. Also, shouldn't your daughter be allowed to know who her father is? It hardly seems fair to anyone, does it?"

  Astrid's gaze drifted to her sleeping daughter, swaddled in a yellow hospital bnket nestled in her arms. She hadn't confided in anyone yet. Josefine had visited her at the hospital, as had her grandmother — people Astrid usually felt she could tell anything. She didn't keep many secrets from her parents either, but she had some, of course. Like how she and Josefine snuck beers into the park one night during the summer break. Or that she'd tried smoking. But this... this was a secret she couldn't let go of, not even to grandma or her best friend. Telling anyone about him? That was something she couldn't speak about aloud — not yet. When she finally spoke, her voice was but a whisper:

  "Iris."

  "Sorry love, I didn't hear you. What were you saying?" Eleonore shifted her gaze from the road to her daughter in the seat next to her for a brief moment and Astrid saw both concern and interest in her mother's eyes. What Eleonore saw what completely different. Astrid's face had a peculiar expression. One that somewhat startled Eleonore, because it was so foreign to what Astrid usually looked like. It wasn't an altogether pleasant expression either. She looked... manic. Possessed. And indifferent at the same time.

  Astrid smiled, and the mix of childish innocence and what unsettling enough almost looked like some strange ancient wisdom set Eleonores pulse racing. It struck a long-lost cord in her but she couldn't put her finger on what.

  "I'm going to call her Iris," Astrid crified. Her smile grew wider as she turned to gaze out the window with those words. Eleonore stayed silent. It was a beautiful name. It felt wrong to express how it somehow filled her with something ominous and heartbreaking.