Margit Sandemo - The Ice People 22 - The Demon and the Virgin

“Come! We’re going home!”

A goat isn’t a dog, but Vinga’s goat was so used to her that it obeyed her commands. It did what she wanted it to do straight away. After all, the two of them were the only living creatures in their world, and Vinga meant food and warmth and company and protection against wild animals. There weren’t very many wild beasts in the mountains around Gråstensholm, but one can never be too sure.

Now they were back home again and Vinga was talking nineteen to the dozen as she searched for something to eat: “The crows are shrieking dreadfully today, they’re probably building a nest, and did you hear the starling this morning? I think it wants to build a nest in the box I put up last year. Back then, it only came to take a look at things. No, they’re my leaves, surely you can go elsewhere? You’ve more to choose from than me. Eat a thistle or a shrub and leave the nice food for me! No, sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. It’s all yours because you’re all I have.” She knelt down, pressing her forehead against her friend so that the goat was covered in her blonde hair.

Yet again, the sad thought entered her mind that one day she might lose the goat. After all, goats didn’t live as long as people and the thought made Vinga very sad.

Then she lifted her head like a vigilant deer. “Hush! What was that? In we go, quickly!”

They sprinted over the rise, Vinga jumping over the treacherous logs that had fallen from the porch with the goat at her heels. It knew the way in, easily avoiding the rotten patches.

Vinga looked out through a crack in the wall. Then she relaxed.

“It’s just the elk. We know her, don’t we? The only ones who are dangerous are human beings. You know that. They mustn’t catch us. Then they’ll put me in a terrible house and take you from me. I won’t allow them to do that!”

They crouched together, Vinga with her nose buried in the goat’s coat. The goat was more relaxed than she was, turning its head away and starting to chew the cud.

Vinga didn’t dare to start making the soup until she felt sure that the young couple had left the valley. Then she lit a fire in the fireplace and set a pot over it that she had brought with her from Elistrand. She stirred together a sticky mixture that even the poorest of the poor would have wrinkled his nose at. But for the two of them it was a gourmet meal: the first green plants of spring!

Next morning, Vinga detected a new element in her small world. She was no longer alone: somebody was quietly walking about in the forest. It must be a stranger because she had never experienced anything like this. Vinga, who knew all the trails – who could make herself invisible in the darkness of the forest – was anxiously on the look-out for whoever was roaming about, because the stranger was just as good at hiding himself as she was. She knew there was somebody there but she couldn’t get too close without being seen.

It filled her heart with horror.

Chapter 2

The first time Vinga discovered that something was wrong she was on a slope covered in blue anemones. Perhaps their gentle blue colour had made her less vigilant. She just had to stop and pick a bunch. Imagine how it would brighten up her uncomfortable room! She remembered how she would come in from the fields and give her mother a fresh bouquet of blue anemones in early spring. The goat probably wouldn’t thank her quite as enthusiastically as her mother had done. It would probably eat the flowers. As she was picking them, she got the feeling that somebody was close by. She straightened her back and looked about and was immediately on guard.

There was no one there. The forest was perfectly quiet. Nevertheless, she couldn’t let go of the sensation. Vinga didn’t possess the intuition of the cursed members of her family. Her power of perception was something she had acquired and had a lot to do with her solitary life in the forest. She was using this ability now, but this sensation was different.

She wasn’t the one who was picking up the signals about a strange creature. It was the creature transmitting them, in a controlled and conscious way. The animals in the forest didn’t do that. They did everything they could to obliterate signs of their presence.

Vinga bent down carefully, took hold of the goat’s horns and tried to slip away quietly with a half-picked bouquet and an obstinate goat.

Nobody attacked her, and nobody appeared. Later in the day when she was out gathering juniper branches for the fireplace, she had another alarming experience. In the place where she usually cut firewood, the juniper branches were ready, nicely bundled, lying on a stone – undoubtedly for her. She didn’t know of anyone else who went so far into the forest to gather fuel.

“I don’t like this,” she said to the goat. Nevertheless, she carried the bundle back with her to her smallholding.

Then came the real shock.

On the bench that she used as a table lay piles of all kinds of food. Things she hadn’t seen since she left Elistrand: meat, fish, eggs, bread, cheeses, home-brewed beer, cakes and fruit – and a big sack filled with a goat’s favourite food.

“Oh, no,” Vinga said through gritted teeth. “You won’t fool me! You’ve found out where I live and now you want to ingratiate yourself with me and lure me into a trap. Then I’ll be sent to Mrs Fleden’s house. Unless, of course, you’re planning to make me disappear from the parish in a different way – forever. From the surface of the earth!”

She stared glumly at all the good food, feeling hunger gnaw away inside her even more than usual. Her fingers were itching.

Then she looked at the goat and the corners of her mouth turned upwards.

“First of all, we’ll eat this lovely food, shall we? Here’s your sack – it’s all yours! Yes, I mean it! You can eat the sack as well if you want to!”

Vinga had a sweet voice, which rose and fell in big waves when she spoke lovingly to the goat. She sat down and they both enjoyed a truly festive meal.

“I just can’t imagine how they got in,” she said to her friend the goat. “You really have to know the place very well not to put your foot through all those rotten planks.”

She started with the cakes. Dessert first, then the more worthy food afterwards.

When they had both finished eating, they went to sleep fuller than they had been for years.

That night, Vinga placed the axe next to her bed – and kept a firm grip on the handle.

Over the following days there was a game of cat and mouse between Vinga and her invisible enemy. She didn’t understand it at all. She who was able to register every unusual sound, every movement in the forest, had no control over what was happening now.

She went to the brook to wash her summer dress, which had become too short and tight over her chest. Down by the brook the water bowl always hung from a pyramid she had built from three logs. The old bowl was something she had found in her smallholding, rusty and not very nice, but watertight. As she approached the brook, she registered the smell of smoke some way off. And the water in her bowl was boiling.

“They know it,” she gasped. “They know exactly what I intend to do! Even before I’ve said a word!”

This frightened her out of her wits and she seriously considered running away and finding a new hiding place.

Although she referred to the invisible presence as “them”, she knew that only one being was involved. Two or more couldn’t possibly hide from her trained, vigilant eyes.

Once she had caught sight of a huge creature among the fir trees up on the mountainside. But the very next moment it had vanished, and she assumed that her imagination was playing a trick on her. She felt herself shrink a little because she was afraid and powerless.