Margit Sandemo - The Ice People 06 - Evil Legacy

“Where is Grandpa?” wondered Kolgrim.

“Still out looking,” Liv told him with deep anxiety showing in her eyes. “We’ve been out all day searching, all of us!”

Yrja’s face hardened and she grabbed hold of Kolgrim. “You know where he is,” she shouted. “I can see it in your face. You know where he is, don’t you?”

Tarald pushed himself between them. “Yrja, my dear! You shouldn’t treat Kolgrim so harshly.”

Yrja struggled to contain her feelings, but the panic she’d been hiding all day had now taken hold of her. “I know him,” she screamed. “I know that innocent look! He’s done something to Mattias. I know it ... I just KNOW it!”

By now, Kolgrim’s eyes were brimming with the tears of the unjustly accused. “I’ve only been to Christiania,” he sniffed. “I went to buy a gift for Grandma. Look!”

He unfolded the paper package in his hand to reveal the shining silver brooch.

“Oh, Kolgrim!” said Liv, filled suddenly with emotion. “How sweet of you! You must forgive Yrja – a mother can’t always think clearly when something has happened to her child.”

Yrja was choking and sobbing uncontrollably. “The only good thing I ever did with ... my life ... was to bring ... my little Mattias into this world. He can’t be lost! He can’t be ... gone!”

“He isn’t lost,” Tarald comforted her. “He’ll be home again before nightfall, you’ll see.”

***

But Mattias didn’t come home – that night or the next day or the day after that. Graastensholm seemed stricken by grief and sorrow and Yrja could be heard calling out Mattias’s name day and night. Everybody lost count of the number of times she would rush back and forth through the forest, searching and crying endlessly.

When she managed to sleep, which wasn’t very often, she’d still wake in the middle of the night, panic-stricken, and cry out: “He needs me! He’s all alone and he needs me!” And she’d wander off once more at daybreak, walking again in circles through the forest and woodlands, asking in the cottages, searching, searching, always searching.

Liv lost her serene, happy attitude to life and her sorrow turned her hair grey within days. Dag hadn’t been in the best of health before Mattias disappeared, but now he became increasingly frail. Tarald’s fingernails were bitten to the quick. While he didn’t often allow the despair he was suffering to get the upper hand, when he was alone he’d go to Mattias’s room, pacing to and fro, touching all his things – and sobbing until his whole body ached. There wasn’t one person of the parish who hadn’t helped in the search for the fine little boy from Graastensholm. Everybody missed him and shared the family’s sadness.

One day, Kolgrim happened to laugh at something insignificant, which made Yrja fly at him in a rage. She grabbed him and began shaking him for all she was worth.

“It makes you happy, doesn’t it?” she screamed, her voice razor-sharp. “You’re happy to be rid of your brother so that you can inherit everything!”

She had no idea how close to the truth she was. Her only mistake was in not knowing what it was Kolgrim wanted to inherit. In his turn, Kolgrim was overcome with burning hatred.

“Leave me alone, you damned old woman!” he whispered, his eyes turning a bright yellow. Then his voice changed to a spiteful snarl. “Now we see you for what you really are! You’ve never cared about me, only about the sweet little boy you gave birth to!”

Immensely shocked, Liv spoke sharply to her older grandson. “What utter nonsense, Kolgrim! No motherless child could ever have been shown more love than you. We’ve given you all our affection, every one of us – from your granddad, the notary, to the youngest stable boy. We’ve shown you love and affection at all times and pampered you. Why, Granddad and I even begged for your life when you were newly born and thought to be too injured ... to survive. We wanted you then and we cared for you, Yrja as well! I doubt that your poor, dear mother, Sunniva, could have given you greater love. That’s something you should remember.”

Her outburst over, Yrja had come quickly to her senses.

“Forgive me, Kolgrim,” she said. “I’m so distressed I no longer know what I’m saying.”

“Oh, go to HELL!” he hissed so that only she could hear him, and without saying anything further, he stormed out of the room.

Liv had her suspicions about the truth of the matter. So she wrote a letter to Cecilie in which she described their deep despair and told her how they were still clinging to a faint hope that Mattias might still be alive; how he might be lost or lying somewhere injured and in need of help, and how they feared he might not be found until it was too late. She ended her letter by saying:

Dearest Cecilie, can you please come home as soon as possible? We have strong misgivings about Kolgrim and believe he might know something. You’re the only person who’s ever managed to tame him. Please come home to us. Our dear little Mattias has now been gone for five long weeks and Yrja’s beginning to lose her reason. Dad and I can’t stand this torment any longer.

Cecilie had only recently returned home to Gabrielshus from attending to Anna Christiane at Court as she lay on her deathbed and, more than anything else, needed to rest in the company of her small family. But she soon decided that she had to travel urgently back to Norway.

“And no, Alexander,” she told her concerned husband, “I shan’t take the twins with me to Graastensholm. I’m quite certain that Kolgrim’s behind all this. I’ll never allow Gabriella or Tancred to fall victim to his predatory gaze!”

“But surely he wouldn’t ever try to harm them, would he?” asked Alexander in alarm. “Do you really think he might?”

“Kolgrim was very attached to me as you know – and he thinks I betrayed him when I had children of my own. I’ve always doubted the sincerity of his apparent goodwill towards Mattias. So you can rest assured that no matter how much I would wish it, I shan’t ever take our little ones back to my home. Mum and Dad have been here to see them, as has Tarjei. But the rest of my family have never met Tancred and Gabriella, and it’s all because of Kolgrim.”

“I think you’re being a little unfair towards the boy,” said Alexander, “but then you know him better than I do. We’ll have to wait until the next time. I do hope you find Mattias. He was such a fine young chap.”

Cecilie sighed deeply. “If only we had Grandpa Tengel to help us! Or Sol. They always seemed to have the gift of finding people who were lost. Mind you, Sol would probably have sided with Kolgrim as he’s her grandchild. Anyway, I’ll stay with them one week but after that I’ll have to rest. It took a lot out of me being with the Princess during her final days – and now Mattias, dear little Mattias, has somehow disappeared!”

When Cecilie arrived at Graastensholm a week later, she was horrified to discover for herself how the grief and anxiety had affected everybody. On the very day she arrived, she took Kolgrim aside and spoke quietly to him, but she was dismayed to find that she no longer had his confidence. Besides, it was immediately clear to her that he was much more interested in something else, something that he considered much more important – and minor matters like Mattias didn’t concern him.

“When will Tarjei be back?” was almost the first thing that he asked her.

“I don’t know,” replied Cecilie. “But he’s not been home for a long time, so it will probably be soon. Do you like Tarjei?”

Kolgrim’s eyes darted around the room. Inside his head, he was thinking: ‘Tarjei? What use is he? It’s the things he owns that interest me.’ But out loud, he said with feigned enthusiasm: “Oh, yes, I like him very much! Tarjei is so wise!”