Margit Sandemo - The Ice People 31 - The Ferryman

“She must be a fairly strong child!”

“Yes. Her parents are due to go abroad today, they’ve already reserved a hotel room, and the poor child has nowhere to stay. I don’t understand how the parents could bring themselves to take her to that house!”

“What makes you say that?”

“The ladies are dreadful! I’ve only met them on a few occasions, but they are about the worst shrews I’ve ever encountered. They keep themselves to themselves in that haunted castle – well, you’ll soon see it. They used to have a farmhand to assist them who was rather simple, but even he couldn’t stand them in the end. They are really stingy with everything, so he was probably earning almost nothing working for them. Some of the people in these parts refer to it as a haunted house and no one ever wants to go up there ... And we’ll soon be there, it’s just around the corner.”

Sander had something he wanted to confess. “Do you know what I did while I was waiting for you down in the parish? I sent an urgent message to someone I think would be very interested in this haunted house.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. A young girl. I don’t know her personally – I’ve never met her – but my father was a close friend of her grandfather, Viljar Lind. The girl is about nineteen years old, I think, but she belongs to a very peculiar family ...”

“You don’t mean the Ice People, do you?”

“Yes! Have you heard of them?”

“I thought that family was a phenomenon invented by fantasists,” Sveg muttered.

“Oh no, it exists! But then you must also know that they are rumoured to have supernatural abilities. And this girl – her name is Benedikte – is supposed to be particularly gifted in that regard. If there truly are any ghosts in this ghastly house of yours, she’s bound to discover them immediately.”

“I’d have to see it to believe it. And please refrain from referring to that horrendous hovel as mine.”

The road suddenly rounded a bend, and Sander Brink opened his eyes wide.

“Goodness,” he muttered, “We’ll certainly need Benedikte’s assistance here! She should be here soon, she lives just a little way from here.”

“Yes, you had to wait quite a while for us, so she may already be on her way here, don’t you think?”

“Yes, that’s what I’m counting on,” said Sander Brink. “I do hope she’s in town and willing to come here!”

Young Olsen, who, to his dismay, had had to ride backwards in the gig, pointed over their shoulders. “There are two riders approaching us at a gallop.”

Sander turned around. “Oh, that’s my express messenger. And he has a woman with him, I can tell by her fluttering petticoat. Thank goodness that worked out, Sheriff: now we can safely enter that frightful mansion! No ghost will escape us now!”

Benedikte had been playing with little Vanja at home in Linden Avenue when the messenger arrived. She was nineteen years old now, while Ulvar’s and Agnete’s daughter was seven. But since Benedikte was rather childish and adored her stepsister, they tended to play well together.

While Vanja was a nimble, delicate little beauty, Benedikte didn’t have many physical attributes. She was a heavy-set, clumsy girl, with tousled hair that it was impossible to do up in coquettish hairstyles. Her voice sounded like a foghorn and her hands were as big as sledgehammers. Her face had many of the features characteristic of the Ice People and since, on top of it all, she had inherited Henning’s friendly but rather heavy features, the result was doomed to be unflattering.

Nevertheless, Benedikte had many friends. Some of them may have felt sorry for her. “Poor girl, she’ll never manage to marry with those looks. It’s such a shame, really, because she’s so sweet. Just look at how she’s embraced Vanja as her little sister, even though they are barely related to one another. At least only very distantly!” Chatterboxes like that were always full of opinions. But most people just accepted Benedikte the way she was and only saw her warm, joyful eyes and her constant friendly smile.

To his relief, Henning noticed that Benedikte had not inherited the many unfortunate characteristics or evil blood of those who were cursed. Though as a child she could get frightfully upset when she felt she was being unfairly treated, in recent years she had discovered that the friendliness she displayed had been met with friendliness by the outside world, and she eventually grew much calmer.

And yet no one really knew what was going on in Benedikte’s mind. No one knew of the nightmarish fantasies that tormented her at night. As a little girl she had often run into the bedroom of her father and Agnete to seek consolation. But she never talked about it. The gloomy world she frequented when the house was dark and quiet was her own. She would roam about there in dizzying depths, through secret, dark hallways where frightening creatures would emerge and stare at her, then vanish. She learned a lot about the secrets of the world beyond on those nights; she got an insight into hidden things, but she never gave any of it away. For she knew that there was no one on earth who could share those experiences with her.

She had been in contact with the ancestors of the Ice People many times. They had supported and assisted her on her hazardous mental journeys, and had taught her much wisdom. They were her true friends, who knew what she had to endure. And they gave her the strength to face the inconsiderate remarks or stupid or downright evil comments that ordinary people would make about her appearance.

She had the ability to perform magic. This was partly her own, still latent, ability and partly what her parents had given her. Benedikte’s strength lay in being able to see the past history of an object by holding it in her hand, as well as other obvious, extrasensory gifts. Henning had permitted her to take possession of the treasure of the Ice People on the day she turned eighteen, as he considered it to be harmless. Benedikte had been ecstatic and in complete awe, but he knew that she read and studied and experimented with the recipes. It was something she was allowed to do, for those things might prove useful to her some day.

The only thing he kept back was the mandrake.

He felt he could justify doing that. Once, years ago, a dark angel had given it to him so that he could take the place of Saga. He had managed the task well, he thought, which had to be thanks to the mandrake. For how could an eleven-year-old have managed to care for two strange twin boys if he hadn’t received help of some kind?

Yes, those eight years from 1883 to 1891 had been good years for the Ice People.

Henning was a good farmer at Linden Avenue. His marriage to Agnete had turned out to be very happy after her depression in the first year. Ulvar’s rape of her had taken its toll, of course, but once she had given birth to his child, Vanja, she seemed to settle down. And that was mostly thanks to Henning. His eternal kindness and understanding meant the world to Agnete. He embraced Vanja as his own child and thus he acquired two daughters. Vanja’s stepsister, his own daughter Benedikte, adored the new child – her little sister, as she said. They couldn’t have found a better babysitter.

Malin and her Per and their son Christoffer still lived in the parish: they never did move back to Sweden. In 1889 Malin received a letter from her parents, Christer and Magdalena, who lived there, to tell her that the two noble families the Ice People had served through the centuries had been united. Charlotte Posse’s son, Alex Reuterskiöld, had married the Oxenstiernas’ daughter, Gabriella. The circle was complete, and the Ice People’s duty was fulfilled.

But on this summer’s day a man rode into the courtyard of Linden Avenue asking for Henning’s daughter, Benedikte. The man produced a letter from a man who was unknown to them – Sander Brink. However, it seemed that Brink’s father knew Henning’s father, Viljar. They briefly consulted in the parlour, the whole family and the stranger. Yes, Viljar could vouch for Sander Brink, whom he had heard was a very promising researcher currently attending university. His name was Alexander, but he used the abbreviated form, Sander.