Margit Sandemo - The Ice People 23 - Rituals

Heike shuddered when he said the last word.

“I know,” said Vinga, “you once encountered an immortal. Anyway, they are many, many things, and you are probably not even halfway through the list. But do they include the cursed ones among the Ice People?”

“No, the Ice People who are cursed and who fought against Tengel the Evil’s power don’t belong to the grey people but are in a category of their own. And the cursed ones who were evil ... no, I haven’t heard anything about what has happened to them since they died so I know nothing ...”

Heike pulled back his foot as the flames from the fire flared up. “But Ingrid told me that the grey people who were at Gråstensholm were only the ones found here in the valley. Even so, there were quite a few of them.”

“Did she mention any in particular?” Vinga asked nonchalantly. She didn’t want Heike to know that a chill was running down her spine and she had a strong urge to turn around to see what was lurking in the corner, but at the same time she was too terrified to do so.

“No, I asked her but she just laughed at me.”

“Do you know ... how to communicate with them?”

Heike hesitated. “Yes, I do. They explained it to me. It didn’t sound particularly pleasant.”

“Tell me!”

“No, I ... Well, I suppose it wouldn’t do any harm. I have to use the instructions found in the treasure of the Ice People.”

“Well, it’s stored here under my care, so you can certainly have them. I can read them aloud to you.”

Her eagerness was as great as his misgivings.

“You probably shouldn’t get involved ...”

“Oh, very well,” she said saucily. “Then you can read them yourself!”

He placed his hand in hers, his eyes filled with laughter and tenderness. “I have no one else to ask. Not to mention anyone else I’d want to ask.”

“Well, that’s good to hear!” Vinga twittered in delight. “Should we begin right away?”

“No, first I must have another meeting with the four ancestors. I need more precise instructions.”

“I’ll go with you, then.”

“No, Vinga, you can’t ...”

But he only had to catch a glimpse of her pleading expression and he was lost. “As you wish!”

“When? Now?”

“They’ll come when I call to them.”

“Here?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“How exciting!”

He smiled. “Will you fetch the treasure please? Now is as good a time as any to meet the four. I had actually planned to go home, but ...”

“No! You can’t return to Christiania now, it’s so dark. And it’s snowing.”

“No, but I can’t spend the night here, either. And I assume Eirik’s family will already be in bed ...”

“If you insist on not spending the night in the same house as me, the little houses do have guest rooms. Would that be all right?”

“Yes, thank you. If you lock your door, that is.”

“I can’t promise you that. Yes, yes, calm down! I’ll fetch the treasure now.”

Heike went with her to help her carry it. They took it into the dining room and spread it out on the table. Vinga fetched some candles and the heat from the fire next door warmed up the room.

She was bouncing with enthusiasm. “Oh, there are so many beautiful things! Which are you going to use?”

“I don’t know yet. Are these the instructions?”

He carefully touched some parchment rolls and thin flakes of birch bark.

Vinga picked one up and read aloud. “Ugh, no!” she giggled. “It’s how you ... Listen to this: ‘If the stream dribbles down over your shoes, you should ...’”

“Put that away,” Heike said brusquely. “That’s for an old man’s ailment. Try to find something a little more relevant!”

Vinga went on reading, “Goodness! What is Raane’s Fifth Member?”

“Vinga,” Heike sighed, “Stop it! It’s better if we get the others to select the appropriate instructions.”

She asked, almost humbly, whether she ought to leave the room, but he told her to stay there by the instructions. She was going to be the one who would be reading them aloud afterwards, anyway.

Heike took some deep breaths. Then he said in a low voice, “Ingrid! Dida, Ulvhedin, Trond! Would you be so kind as to come to our aid now? We have decided to fight back against Snivel, with assistance from the grey people. Please accept the fact that Vinga is with me: she and I are inseparable. Come and teach me how to get in touch with the grey ones!”

Vinga took Heike’s hand. He could hear her tremulous breathing. Other than that silence reigned, as intense as in a desert.

Then a cold wind rushed through the room, blowing out all the candles.

Chapter 2

Vinga was certain that she would never forget that moment in the Elistrand dining room. Apart from the snow beating against the window, all was dead quiet. But at that point she didn’t know what she was about to witness ...

At the moment when the lights went out she had only one thought in her mind: to hold firmly onto Heike’s hand. But he carefully wriggled his hand free. Vinga was not the main player in this. She was just a minor character, who shouldn’t really have been present at all. Oddly enough, that didn’t offend her. All she felt was devotion and humility. And the anxious beating of her heart, which she couldn’t quell, even though she had been present the previous time Heike met his four guardians, in the attic of Gråstensholm.

But this was different and, in a way, more important. She couldn’t see much. The only light came from the glow of the fire in the room next door and from a single candle on the table in there. Its light barely reached into the dining room.

She had been close to shouting, “No, stop, how are we to see anything in here?” when the lights had been blown out, but she was tactful enough not to say anything, which was certainly not her usual style.

The whole thing was so terribly exciting. To think that they were going to talk with her Heike! Vinga’s admiration, not to mention worship, of Heike went up a few levels, as if that were possible. It was already out of control.

Suddenly she realized that they were already in the middle of a conversation. She could hear the peculiar, distant voices, like the rustle of frozen leaves, and she could sense that the items on the table were moving. Heike answered quietly, posing a question every so often, but he had lowered his voice so much that she couldn’t hear him.

They talked for a long time in that irritating, inaudible way. Odd phrases reached Vinga every so often, but they made no sense to her. But she thought she could sense a cautionary tone in the voices of the four spirits.

Of course, she couldn’t see them. She saw nothing at all. But she could see which direction Heike was facing, and she faced the same way as she struggled to look reverential and intelligent.

After a long time the conversation ended. Vinga suddenly felt something that could have been a tender caress on her cheek. From the large, coarse hand of a man. Ulvhedin? Her grandfather’s grandfather? Then there was another, feminine and soft. That must be Aunt Ingrid. Vinga had known her as a child – Graastenholm’s beautiful witch.

So they had registered her presence after all! Vinga felt immensely flattered and proud.

Heike lit the candles and the room was illuminated once again – the room that Alexander Paladin had arranged, like all of Elistrand, for his daughter, Gabriella. Since then, subsequent generations had also left their stamp on the house. Villemo, Tristan, Ulvhedin, Tora, Elisabet ...

But everything was different now. Vinga would never perceive it in the same way, because a kind of séance had taken place there. The Ice People’s chosen ones had found it dignified enough to hold a meeting there. The deceased Ice People protected those who were living – unceasingly and compassionately.