Margit Sandemo - The Ice People 31 - The Ferryman

The young Brink had asked for Benedikte’s assistance. A haunted house? It was apparent from the letter that he was also working on another case, but the first thing on his agenda was the haunted house, and he wanted to have someone there who was familiar with the phenomenon. Someone who could detect human imposters or find out what it was all about.

Benedikte’s pleading eyes rested on her father Henning. Would he give her permission? No one had ever sought her advice about anything outside her closest family circle, for Henning did not want her to be taken advantage of or to become a kind of public oracle.

“I think she should be allowed to go,” said old Viljar calmly. “She’s a big girl now, and she’s much too isolated here on the farm. And the Brinks are trustworthy people.”

“And it’s not that far from here,” Belinda added.

Henning thought with desperation of all the rudeness his sweet, yet physically disadvantaged, little girl might encounter out on her own among strangers. Would she be able to endure all the unpleasantness that might be thrown at her simple, childish soul?

“Yes, yes,” he said reluctantly. “If you promise to come back home as soon as possible. No one here has time to escort you, or we would do so. But you are old enough to manage on your own, aren’t you?”

Benedikte’s face lit up as she threw her arms around her father.

Then Henning stepped back so that he could give her a serious look, but a tender little smile lay just below the surface.

“I guess it’s time for you to have the rest of your inheritance,” he said wistfully, as he took off the mandrake. “You may need this now, and I know it will protect you. Take good care of it!”

Benedikte forgot to breathe for a moment. She was so solemn when she bowed her head to receive the mandrake; her eyes grew huge and gleamed with a light green colour.

“It feels as though, as though ... it likes it,” she said in her simple, naive way. “This is where it belongs, it seems.”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I thought,” Henning nodded. “As you all know, I was never really one of the chosen ones, much less one of the stricken. It was only lent to me.” He sighed. “The only thing now is that I suddenly feel so naked without it. Bless you both! Both you, my daughter, and our family’s loyal follower – the mandrake!”

In his secret cave Tengel the Evil smiled with satisfaction and great anticipation.

Everything had gone as planned: he was still able to control the fate of other people.

But it had been hard to get Benedikte where he wanted her. It had demanded a lot of concentration on his part and had involved other people.

He felt tired. Some day soon, when he was fully awake again, nothing would ever tire him. But right now he had to work under very strenuous conditions. Without being able to be present. Without being able to hear or see people directly. And then there was the slumber itself that oppressed and tormented all his senses and thoughts. He had to exert himself many times over in order get his way with these wretched human creatures.

The words “human creatures” made him feel ill at ease. That was what the gods and spirits in Taran-gai had called him, back when he had found the path to the cave of evil. He recalled that journey with fear and loathing. It had been a horrendous walk through all the passages of evil, where it was essential that he didn’t execute a single act of goodness if he was to reach the source of the black water.

Fortunately, he had never done anything good in the world, or else he would have suffered the same fate as those wretches whose remains he saw along his path and whose bones he had tauntingly kicked aside. He was the only human who had ever reached the source of evil! But it had cost him dearly! His own screams of pain still echoed shrilly in his ears at the memory of reaching it.

But it had been worth it. Now he was ruler of the world.

If he could only get up soon!

Chapter 4

Benedikte walked through the scary old house in astonishment. She had a wait-and-see attitude. If her father, Henning, had seen her now he might have understood, for no one knew Benedikte better than he did, although he knew nothing about her exhausting dream world. But from her attitude he would have been able to grasp that this was a house with a certain ... could one say “atmosphere”?

Many of those present observed her with curiosity as she walked around. The three owners of the house were very sceptical of her presence, giving her disapproving glances and muttering about “a nosy, prying little girl”. The Martinsen couple, who were waiting impatiently to be allowed to leave, looked on in astonishment. Sveg was also sceptical and Olsen was disdainfully arrogant, while Sander Brink was disappointed.

He had heard about Benedikte and had formed a picture of her. He had been expecting an ethereal, mystical creature with great personal magnetism. Benedikte had none of these qualities. She was so tall that Olsen had to look up to speak to her and Sander looked her straight in the eyes when facing her. She was clumsily built, her face was as broad as an Eskimo’s and her features were somewhat Mongolian, but she had a friendly demeanour. She showed not the least sign of being demonic or intuitive, which he believed a psychic woman ought to be.

On the other hand, Benedikte didn’t dare look in his direction. He distracted her thoughts to a great degree. Never before had she seen such a handsome man, but she was nothing to him, she knew that painfully well. Had she been allowed to, she would have sat in a dark room and observed him as he sat in the light. Invisible to him, she would simply have sat and gazed at him for hours. Allowed herself to be saturated with the sight of him, uninhibitedly taking pleasure in looking at every single feature, absorbing every single word he said.

But right now she had other things to think about, and she didn’t want him to see her face. Sometimes you needed to hide your face, she understood that now.

She took a deep breath, trying not to think about the fact that he was studying her, and instead attempted to concentrate on the house.

The little girl was important.

Benedikte squatted in front of Sidsel and took her hands in hers. The girl was reserved but not scared.

“You heard footsteps coming from the floor above?” Benedikte asked quietly.

Sidsel nodded. The aunts strained to hear her, but Benedikte purposefully spoke much too softly for them to hear anything. She knew that they were hostile towards the girl.

“We’re sure to get to the bottom of this,” she said reassuringly – she had always had a way with children. “Naturally you can’t stay here: we’ll have to find somewhere else for you to stay. But first we have to remain here for a little while. I don’t think we’ll have to spend the night.”

She sensed the relief that flooded the little girl’s body upon hearing those words.

“Don’t be afraid,” Benedikte said. “I’ll be with you the whole time. I won’t leave your side.”

Now it was a matter of being diplomatic. And this was an area in which Benedikte felt inadequate, as she was naive and open and didn’t have a talent for life’s more intricate cunning. But the aunts were merciless, she was well aware of that. They had fought a hard battle earlier that day. The thought of having the police in their home was deeply upsetting to them, but at the same time they clearly understood that they wouldn’t be able to get compensation for a few pieces of charred furniture if they didn’t report it. But Ove and Guri Martinsen wouldn’t cooperate with them: the couple simply wouldn’t allow their daughter to stay in a house that was haunted. To which the aunts had furiously responded that ghosts had never haunted their house before, so it must have been the Martinsens themselves who had dragged the ghost in with them. They were deeply troubled by all the people who were running in and out of their home, and Benedikte was merely another one to shrug their shoulders or sneer at.