Hrafn.

His name is Hrafn, which in Icelandic is, literally, raven. There it's an old, ordinary name and nobody thinks twice about it. Old stories think about it plenty: the two ravens who told Odin what was happening in the world were called Thought and Memory, and ethology ended up proving the myth right, because the common raven solves new problems, makes tools and plans hours ahead. Bring it up at the table and Hrafn tilts his head, looks at you with one eye, and changes the subject.

Behind his house there's a corrugated-iron shed with an old baking tray on the bench. Inside is whatever the road keeps leaving unclaimed: a loose earring, a key, a little plastic soldier, a ring with no name inside it. They're arranged by stretch of road, and within each stretch by kilometer. Nobody's arranged them that way and nobody knows they're arranged at all. Ask him about any one of them and he'll tell you which bend it came from and what month. He hasn't given a single one back.