Margit Sandemo - The Ice People 13 - The Devil´s Footprint

Villemo tried as best she could not to worry about what awaited them ...

Dominic knew better. “Of course, we need to get home and pick up Niklas,” he said. “And then ...”

“Do you have any idea where the monster might be?”

He looked uncertain. “It’s roaming about. I’ll probably know more as we get closer to Graastensholm and Linden Avenue.”

That evening they had planned to seek lodgings at an inn near Lake Vanern. But Dominic stopped suddenly.

“No,” he said. “No, we shan’t be spending the night there.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. But don’t you agree with me that we should rely on my intuition?”

“Oh, absolutely! But it’s a long way to the next inn, isn’t it?”

“Yes. But ... no, there’s something sinister here. I sense a strong opposition.”

“Then let’s continue, even if I’m curious to know what might lurk in that peaceful-looking house.”

He let out a brief laugh. “How typical of you. But honestly, it feels like danger, and that surely means we might be assaulted.”

“You’re probably right. But we’re not all that elegantly dressed, are we?”

“You may say that,” he laughed as he turned the horses. “But we’re very privileged people in the eyes of the villagers.”

“All this is very strange, Dominic. The Ice People themselves are not wealthy. But I must say that many of us have certainly married well above our station!”

“Yes,” he smiled. “There’s something about us that appeals to nobility. Basically, it must be because our forefathers, Silje and Tengel, took care of the young Dag Meiden, who was of noble birth.”

“Yes, and his true mother, Charlotte Meiden, introduced the Ice People to fashionable circles.”

“We should be grateful for that. When you see how the poor toil and the enormous suffering they endure, we must consider ourselves privileged.”

“Absolutely.”

“Even if times are hard for the nobility now. One after the other is losing his estates and possessions. That’s why I’m happy that His Majesty never succeeded in ennobling Dad or me as he wanted to. We’re in a kind of middle position, which is quite pleasant.”

“Let’s keep it that way, by all means,” Villemo decided.

Luckily they remembered that they had friends who lived not very far away, where they were warmly welcomed and told that the inn had a very bad reputation. Far too many well-to-do travellers had simply disappeared, while their precious possessions turned up in various places much later.

When they went to bed that evening, Villemo said: “I must say that your gifts have been heightened of late, Dominic! We’re being prepared!”

“Yes, and you, my sweet girl, have a radiant glow about you. An aura. Now there can be no doubt that the time has come.”

“Our time. I wonder how Niklas fits in, and what tasks you and I will be given. We haven’t been chosen at random.”

“No,” Dominic replied, his eyes gazing into the remote darkness, attempting to peer through the veil of the future.

“I think we’d better hurry,” he whispered, frightened.

At Graastensholm, Irmelin lay awake, staring up at the ceiling. Her hand rested in Niklas’s. She didn’t like to let go of it.

While the three others had a task to solve, it fell to her to pace about at home and be scared.

Alv, their son, lived mostly down at Grandpa Andreas’s farm at Linden Avenue, certainly when it was high season and there was work to do on the farm. At Graastensholm there was only her, Niklas and Mattias, and, of course, the servants.

She knew that they all shared her anxiety for what might come. Gabriella and Kaleb waited impatiently for their loved ones to arrive from Sweden, and all the retarded people were expecting Villemo, who had been away for so many years. At last, their angel would be returning home.

Irmelin smiled to herself. They were probably the only ones who regarded Villemo as an angel!

All of a sudden, she opened her eyes wide in the dark. She had a creeping sensation that somebody was staring at her.

She looked around the room but there was nothing but shadows. Niklas was sleeping heavily with his back to her. The window ...?

No, it was just a lighter square. Besides, she was on the second floor so who could look in? She must stop imagining things!

She had heard that the horrible beast from the underworld had vanished once more. Everybody hoped that he had returned to where he came from, and nobody was in any doubt where that was.

They had surrounded him out on Ladegaard Island, so people said. Although the soldiers had guarded the causeway with cannons and more than a hundred men, he had nevertheless managed to escape under cover of darkness without anyone seeing him. All they had found were the dead men where he had broken through the human chain.

Then he was gone. As if vanished from the face of the earth. People allowed themselves to heave a cautious sigh of relief. Maybe, maybe he had vanished forever!

However, they had found bloodstains on the cliff on Ladegaard Island, so he wasn’t quite invincible after all!

Irmelin couldn’t let go of the eerie sensation that somebody was gazing at her. She looked over to the window.

Outside she could vaguely see the mountain where Kolgrim used to love to sit and look out over the village, feeling that he owned everything and everybody. But Irmelin didn’t know this because she had never known her father’s brother, who had died at the age of fourteen.

She shuddered, feeling slightly uncomfortable. The mountain suddenly seemed so threatening to her, she who had always thought that the view from her bedroom window was so tranquil. She lay there for a long time, staring at the black mountain ridge. Then she turned decisively onto her other side and lay close to Niklas’s back, trying to fall asleep. After a while the eerie sensation left her.

The Beast stood on the mountain in the black night, looking down on the farm that somehow drew his gaze. He had been staring at that farm for a long time now. He had prowled along the edge of the forest and had studied it without knowing why. Something drew him to it but he didn’t know what it was.

There was another farm not far away ...

Only the sensation wasn’t so strong. There was also another one, farther away on the other side of the obnoxious building with the high tower. His nostrils were distended in discomfort as he inhaled the atmosphere of this tower. It was pointed, stretching straight up towards the sky, and the mere sight of it made him nauseous. But the farm farther away down by the lake ... There was a connection here. With the two farms down below him.

The bigger one, the one that was nearer ... should he do something to it? Ruin it? Kill all the creeps in it?

No, not yet. First he wanted ...

No, he didn’t know what he wanted to do.

He put his hand to his shoulder. The blood had clotted but the wound was still painful, like the numerous other wounds all over his body.

He had to go home to nurse them.

Home ...?

What was that? He had never had a home. Only a point of departure.

The night was drawing to its close. He was at sixes and sevens, had roamed about for so long without knowing what he was looking for and there was no one he could ask. The mountain called once more.

A mountain valley. Why did a valley keep appearing in his thoughts? He had come from one and had been in many others without ever feeling at home.

Maybe he should go back to his point of departure after all? What was he doing down in the valley among these irritating people?

His wounds were aching and he opened his mouth in a dull yell. A fever was burning in his body, making his blood pump and his limbs limp. He had to hang on, he had to!