Mikkel Birkegaard - The Library of Shadows

'Are you sure? We can't even see the farm yet.'

'The signs,' Katherina said. 'They're not just there to keep people away.'

Jon gave her a look of surprise.

'They act as a warning system,' she explained. 'He "heard" you read them.'

Jon stared at her for a couple of seconds in disbelief, until he realized what she meant.

'Now I get it.' He looked embarrassed. 'Sorry.'

'That's okay,' said Katherina. 'Such brief texts can't tell him anything about us except that we're on the way.'

They followed the track through the small grove of trees. More signs stood along the road. Others were fastened to tree trunks, and even though Katherina sensed that Jon tried not to read them, she still received their text: 'No admittance', 'Guard dogs', 'Private property'.

After a hundred metres they arrived in a big clearing, and there stood a white-painted farm building with three wings and a thatched roof. In many places the paint was peeling off the walls. Big green patches of moss covered the straw on the roof. One window was covered with plywood and the rest looked as if they hadn't been washed since they were installed. The perimeter of the clearing was filled with rusty farm implements that had long since served their purpose and had been left to fall apart.

Jon drove his Mercedes into the farmyard where grass and weeds had taken over most of the area from the gravel. A grey Volvo estate car was parked next to one wing of the building.

'That must be the main building,' said Jon, pointing to the one behind the Volvo. He parked in front of the estate car, and they got out.

After the echo from the closing doors had faded, the place was utterly quiet. Katherina savoured the silence as she looked around. The house they had decided was the main building was about a hundred square metres with windows a metre and a half off the ground. She couldn't see in, either because of the thick layer of dirt on the panes or because something was covering them on the inside. The two other wings were in worse shape. On one, half the roof had caved in; the other lacked both windows and doors.

Jon went over to the front entrance. A big sign with a lot of text was fastened to the heavy oak door.

'Don't read it,' Katherina warned. 'It's too long – it'll just make things easy for him.'

Jon nodded and looked the other way as he fumbled with the door knocker. The pounding sound echoed over the farm. Jon leaned close to the door to listen. Nothing happened. He glanced at Katherina and shook his head. He knocked again, this time a little harder.

Katherina went over to one of the windows and tried to peer inside, but a dark cloth prevented her from looking into the room. She tried the other windows facing the yard, but they were all covered with curtains, furniture or plywood.

'Hello! Anybody home?' shouted Jon at the door.

Katherina thought she saw a shadow in one of the empty windows in the building with the collapsed roof. She slowly strolled towards what must have once been the stable. Again she saw a shadow, this time behind a windowpane that was so filthy it was impossible to tell what or who the shape was.

'Jon,' she called in a low voice as she kept walking towards the stable.

Jon stepped away from the front door and went over to her.

'Yes?'

She pointed at the stable without speaking.

The door was in the middle, facing the yard. It had once been blue but dry rot and wear and tear had turned it almost completely grey and it hung wearily from its hinges. Katherina gave it a shove. With a long-drawn-out screech the door reluctantly opened.

'Hello?' she called. 'Anyone here?'

She stepped inside with Jon right behind her. The space had not been used as a stable in a very long time. The stalls were filled with rubbish, the remains from the collapsed roof or crates and furniture.

'Over there,' said Jon, stepping past her.

At the other end of the stable, closest to the main building, a door opened and they saw a silhouette run out, slamming the door. Jon raced for the door, having to jump over crates and old junk blocking his way. Katherina instead turned on her heel and ran out into the yard and then over to the main house. She reached the corner of the building just as Jon came bursting out of the door. They continued on together to the gable end and then around to the back of the house. They didn't see anyone, but they did hear a door slam. Banging and pounding sounds revealed that the door was being emphatically bolted.

They slowed down and stopped outside a dark, solid-looking door with black metal hinges.

'We just want to talk to you,' shouted Jon, out of breath.

There was no reaction from inside the house.

'Tom?' Katherina ventured. 'We need your help.'

Jon knocked on the door.

'Tom Nшrreskov? We know you're in there.'

They listened tensely.

'Go away,' they suddenly heard from behind the door. 'You have no business being here.' The voice was low and hoarse.

'We just want to talk to you, Tom,' said Katherina.

'I have nothing to say to you. Get out of here, or I'll call the police.'

'Won't you at least confirm that your name is Tom Nшrreskov?' asked Jon.

'There's no Nшrreskov here. My name is Klausen. It says that on the door. Now go away.'

'We know that you changed your name in eighty-six,' said Jon. 'We know that you were thrown out of the Society, and we know why.'

For several seconds there was no response from behind the door. Then they heard a faint muttering. Katherina and Jon looked at each other.

'It sounded like he repeated the words "thrown out",' whispered Jon.

'What are you whispering for?' yelled the man behind the door. 'Who are you? What do you want?'

'We just want to talk to you,' Katherina repeated. 'My name is Katherina, and Jon Campelli is with me.'

Again a couple of seconds of silence behind the door.

'Campelli?'

'Jon Campelli,' Jon confirmed. 'I'm the son of-'

He was interrupted by the sound of bolts being thrown. Slowly the door opened a crack and a head came into view. The face was almost completely hidden by hair and a beard. A pair of wide-open blue eyes looked Jon up and down.

'Campelli,' said the man again, nodding to himself.

'We just want…' Katherina began, but stopped when the man pulled the door wide open and took a step back.

'Come in, Jon, come in. I have a message from your father.'

Jon's feet suddenly felt very heavy. He couldn't lift them but just stood there staring at the man in the doorway. A tall, smiling man with a mass of hair, a lean body, probably even skinnier than his loose dark-green sweater and baggy cords intimated, and a slightly bowed back. His big beard was grey at the ends, and in several places it was matted and knotted.

'Come in,' said the man again, motioning them eagerly inside with bony fingers.

Jon felt Katherina's hand on his shoulder, and he slowly stepped through the doorway into the house. When they both stood inside a small dark hallway, Tom Nшrreskov slammed the door behind them. They stood still in the dark, listening to him carefully locking the door. The air was rank and heavy.

'Excuse me,' said Nшrreskov as he slipped past them. 'Just let me turn on the light.' A dim lamp in the ceiling came to life, casting a yellow glow over a cramped hallway cluttered with cardboard boxes of various sizes. 'I don't use it much myself. The light, I mean.'

He disappeared through an opening between the boxes, which led to another room, and there too he turned on a light. Katherina and Jon followed him into a big room. All four walls were plastered with newspaper clippings, pictures and countless little yellow slips of paper with hand-written notes. Multi-coloured strings were stretched between many of the pieces of paper, so the whole thing looked like a web of information, a paper version of the Internet. In the middle of the floor, right underneath the glare of a bare bulb, stood a big, worn leather chair, and in front of the chair was a Morocco ottoman that looked as though it had been punctured. All around the chair were stacks of books, in no apparent order.