Читать книгу The Ice People 22 - The Demon and the Virgin - Margit Sandemo - Страница 7

Chapter 2

The first time Vinga discovered that something was wrong she was on a slope covered in blue anemones. Perhaps their gentle blue colour had made her less vigilant. She just had to stop and pick a bunch. Imagine how it would brighten up her uncomfortable room! She remembered how she would come in from the fields and give her mother a fresh bouquet of blue anemones in early spring. The goat probably wouldn’t thank her quite as enthusiastically as her mother had done. It would probably eat the flowers. As she was picking them, she got the feeling that somebody was close by. She straightened her back and looked about and was immediately on guard.

There was no one there. The forest was perfectly quiet. Nevertheless, she couldn’t let go of the sensation. Vinga didn’t possess the intuition of the cursed members of her family. Her power of perception was something she had acquired and had a lot to do with her solitary life in the forest. She was using this ability now, but this sensation was different.

She wasn’t the one who was picking up the signals about a strange creature. It was the creature transmitting them, in a controlled and conscious way. The animals in the forest didn’t do that. They did everything they could to obliterate signs of their presence.

Vinga bent down carefully, took hold of the goat’s horns and tried to slip away quietly with a half-picked bouquet and an obstinate goat.

Nobody attacked her, and nobody appeared. Later in the day when she was out gathering juniper branches for the fireplace, she had another alarming experience. In the place where she usually cut firewood, the juniper branches were ready, nicely bundled, lying on a stone – undoubtedly for her. She didn’t know of anyone else who went so far into the forest to gather fuel.

“I don’t like this,” she said to the goat. Nevertheless, she carried the bundle back with her to her smallholding.

Then came the real shock.

On the bench that she used as a table lay piles of all kinds of food. Things she hadn’t seen since she left Elistrand: meat, fish, eggs, bread, cheeses, home-brewed beer, cakes and fruit – and a big sack filled with a goat’s favourite food.

“Oh, no,” Vinga said through gritted teeth. “You won’t fool me! You’ve found out where I live and now you want to ingratiate yourself with me and lure me into a trap. Then I’ll be sent to Mrs Fleden’s house. Unless, of course, you’re planning to make me disappear from the parish in a different way – forever. From the surface of the earth!”

She stared glumly at all the good food, feeling hunger gnaw away inside her even more than usual. Her fingers were itching.

Then she looked at the goat and the corners of her mouth turned upwards.

“First of all, we’ll eat this lovely food, shall we? Here’s your sack – it’s all yours! Yes, I mean it! You can eat the sack as well if you want to!”

Vinga had a sweet voice, which rose and fell in big waves when she spoke lovingly to the goat. She sat down and they both enjoyed a truly festive meal.

“I just can’t imagine how they got in,” she said to her friend the goat. “You really have to know the place very well not to put your foot through all those rotten planks.”

She started with the cakes. Dessert first, then the more worthy food afterwards.

When they had both finished eating, they went to sleep fuller than they had been for years.

That night, Vinga placed the axe next to her bed – and kept a firm grip on the handle.

Over the following days there was a game of cat and mouse between Vinga and her invisible enemy. She didn’t understand it at all. She who was able to register every unusual sound, every movement in the forest, had no control over what was happening now.

She went to the brook to wash her summer dress, which had become too short and tight over her chest. Down by the brook the water bowl always hung from a pyramid she had built from three logs. The old bowl was something she had found in her smallholding, rusty and not very nice, but watertight. As she approached the brook, she registered the smell of smoke some way off. And the water in her bowl was boiling.

“They know it,” she gasped. “They know exactly what I intend to do! Even before I’ve said a word!”

This frightened her out of her wits and she seriously considered running away and finding a new hiding place.

Although she referred to the invisible presence as “them”, she knew that only one being was involved. Two or more couldn’t possibly hide from her trained, vigilant eyes.

Once she had caught sight of a huge creature among the fir trees up on the mountainside. But the very next moment it had vanished, and she assumed that her imagination was playing a trick on her. She felt herself shrink a little because she was afraid and powerless.

So far, the creature had done her no harm. On the contrary. Even if her life of solitude had made her suspicious and ever so watchful, she had to admit that there was no end to the amount of help she was getting. One morning, the tiny plot that she cultivated had been carefully dug and weeded, in case she wanted to sow something there. The bucket that stood outside the door was always full of fresh spring water. Everything she set out to do had already been done when she reached it. It was all rather eerie but also exciting.

One day, something frightening happened. Some small boys had come up from the valley and gone into the forest. As they were rushing around here, there and everywhere, they discovered the goat and tried to catch it. The goat was frightened and fled in panic. Before Vinga, who was hiding, had time to stop it, the goat had fallen over the edge of the ridge. The boys, tired of playing around, wandered away.

Vinga stood on the slope, wailing, but then she heard the goat bleating below her. She ran home to fetch the rope she had made from osiers. She was scared and worried about her goat. And furious with the thoughtless boys.

As she was returning, she met the goat halfway down the slope. It was quite agitated and its coat was full of moss and lichen, but otherwise it was unhurt. It certainly couldn’t have climbed back up by itself.

Vinga began to sense a feeling of gratitude towards her invisible enemy. In her eyes, helping an innocent animal was a heroic deed.

“They’re probably just trying to ingratiate themselves with me,” she muttered. “They want to win my confidence before they strike!”

The game of cat and mouse continued. Vinga couldn’t make up her mind to run away. After all, she was also slightly curious. A new dimension had been added to her monotonous life. And since things were going well ...

One late afternoon, something happened that stopped the game. It was already dusk when she returned to her smallholding after helping the goat find somewhere to graze. She stopped abruptly at the edge of the forest and hid behind some juniper bushes. There were some people standing by her house. One of them was a strongly built woman who stood, arms akimbo, looking searchingly at the building. “The boys aren’t mistaken. I’m damned if I know how anybody could live here,” she said in a shrill voice. “It really is too bad!”

There was screaming and commotion under the porch. Vinga saw a man and a woman, trying to pull a boy to his feet.

“Why did you try to go in there?” the woman shouted – she was probably his mother. “Those logs are rotten!”

The boy groaned and the father thundered. Farther off there were two other men watching the scene. One of them was extremely burly. Could that be her invisible friend? If so, she was right to have been suspicious of his motives.

Yet another boy came out of her house. He had clearly managed the balancing act required to get inside.

Vinga recognized him as one of the boys who had chased the goat. “Somebody is living here,” he said. “Do you believe me now?” They had managed to get the unlucky child out of the hole in which he had been stuck.

“We must tell Mr Snivel about this,” said the woman with the shrill voice.

Vinga was really anxious. Now she would have to flee, straight away, tonight! She was so worried that she forgot all about the goat. It trotted calmly past her and out into the open.

“Oh, no, come back!” she whispered.

The boy shouted: “There it is again. There’s the goat!” Vinga had no choice. She couldn’t sacrifice her only friend. She ran out from her hiding place and quickly tied the rope she was carrying around the goat’s neck. Then she ran as fast as she could into the forest, pulling the goat, which was reluctant to begin with but became more compliant.

Of course, they had seen her. They shouted and rushed after her, all of them.

“It’s her,” the woman shouted. “It’s Tark’s daughter, Vinga. I swear it is! Come back, we don’t want to hurt you!”

Vinga wasn’t able to distinguish between friend and foe. For her, people meant Mr Snivel and a life in Mrs Fleden’s house. It was a long time since she had interacted with other people and she was as frightened as a calf that had got lost and had been out all winter.

Vinga had been out for much longer than that. She wasn’t interested in finding out whether these people were kindly disposed or not. They were people – and thus dangerous.

Normally, she would have been able to lose them. But she had the goat in tow and she didn’t want to let it down. She imagined the most terrible things: that they would slaughter and fry her best friend, which just mustn’t happen! She ran through the forest with her heart beating furiously because she was so scared. She was running for her life and that of the goat. The goat dug its heels in: it didn’t want to join in and didn’t like the rope at all. Vinga pulled and tugged and groaned in despair. There were lots of places she could hide, but she couldn’t get to them because the goat was with her.

She still had a good lead but she could hear that the boys and the men were definitely after her, and behind them the women were shouting that they should wait – which, of course, they didn’t.

Darkness had fallen, which was to Vinga’s advantage. Night fell rather late at this time of year but it was now so dim in the forest that the details became blurred and only outlines could be made out. The goat wasn’t the quietest creature she could have had with her. It bleated and stepped on twigs and complained about the way it was being treated.

Vinga stopped and listened, desperate at her inability to shake off her pursuers.

They were getting quite close!

She was about to run on when something suddenly appeared beside her, and lifted up the goat. Before she had time to protest, a voice whispered: “Come!” Then the creature disappeared, away from the pursuers. Vinga hesitated for a second and then followed the voice.

Now things got easier. She couldn’t see what was running in front of her but she could hear quick steps. They ran up the mountain, alongside a stone wall; she knew exactly where she was. Then she stopped because her pursuers had also stopped. She listened.

One of the boys had fallen and hurt himself. Their agitated voices told her that they were exhausted, had lost their sense of direction and were furious with the dark forest.

“I just can’t go any farther,” said the shrill woman’s voice.

A man’s voice replied: “The boy is bleeding. We won’t find her in this darkness. It’s hopeless. Let’s go home.”

Another man said: “We almost had her and then she was suddenly gone. No, we must give up!”

Vinga turned to see if she could trust the creature that had helped her. But only the goat was there.

Suddenly she felt awfully tired. It was the kind of fatigue that comes with despondency. For the first time in a long time, she felt the need to cry. Where should she go now? Her smallholding had been discovered. Those people would probably turn up the following morning. It was late in the evening and she was used to being asleep at this hour. To begin packing up her possessions, her pots and pans and tools, in the dark, and leaving with it all and the goat without knowing where to go ... Vinga felt as if she was about to climb a huge mountain. She didn’t have the energy to think.

But she couldn’t just give up; she was responsible for the goat. Dejected, without any hope or will to live, she began to walk back towards the home where she wouldn’t be allowed to sleep tonight, or ever again. The tears were burning behind her eyelids.

Elistrand she would never get to see again. Now she would also have to leave Gråstensholm Parish. She had stayed close to Elistrand in a futile, desperate hope that she would get back to her childhood home. During lonely evenings she would fantasize that her mother and father were still alive and that the farm was buzzing with life as it had been in the past. She imagined people at work in the fields and in the forest, the servants who would always greet her, and her father who would lift her up high in the air, asking her if she wanted to ride in front of him on the horse. Her mother’s hands patting her goodnight, the lamp they lit in their room – which shone through a crack by the door. How reassuring it was to see that light.

Now everything was gone. Grandfather Ulf. She had managed to get to know him and Aunt Ingrid at Gråstensholm before they died. She remembered Aunt Ingrid’s magnificent funeral, at which the whole parish had been present. The last member of the Ice People at Gråstensholm. It was the only time Mrs Ingrid had been inside the church, the nasty farmers’ wives said.

Her thoughts went back to her first harsh year in her smallholding. As the daughter of the manor, she hadn’t the first idea how to manage the place on her own. She had been very confused. Fortunately, she had arrived there in the summer, but there was such an awful lot she had to learn and so much she needed. And then the unbearable sorrow. The sense of being lost, the helplessness and the powerlessness,

Not to mention the loneliness! The horror of the darkness before she became familiar with all the sounds of the forest. She would crouch in the farthest corner by the bed, staring at the door, hour after hour. She remembered all the old ghost tales. The goat didn’t get much sleep on those nights because Vinga had taken it to bed with her, holding it very close.

The horror of going to Mrs Fleden’s house was the only thing that had made her endure it all. She became afraid of everybody, which she needn’t have been, but how was she to know? Suddenly, everyone had seemed to turn against her. The servants had left, one after the other, after her parents died. By the end, only one farmhand was left, and he had also let her down when she needed him the most. That was when Mr Snivel had arrived and made everything horrible.

Her thoughts wandered, without objective or meaning. She seemed to have used up all her resources now that she had lost the only place she could call home.

The bitter truth dawned on her, and she was too afraid to go back to her smallholding. Not even now, in the middle of the night. Vinga sat down and hid her face in her hands. Tomorrow they would come and they would take all her possessions from her. All the good food she had stored away. Everything she had made from what she found in the forest to help her keep going. Although her soul was desperate, her thoughts went back to the time when she had struggled to survive. Then she had told herself that now she had had enough of powerlessness and tears and her intense fear of the darkness. She had become strong and hard. That was when she learned how to be a forest creature just like the animals. Perhaps she had gone a little crazy, but the paradox was that it was her only option if she wanted to keep her soul and intellect intact. If she had to go on being frightened by the unknown, all the wild animals around her, if she tried to keep hold of her lost life, yearning in vain to have it back ... Well, then she would never have gained the courage and strength to go on living. That was why she had slipped out of the world of human beings and became “odd”.

But now, at this moment, everything had fallen to pieces – the whole shield that she had built around her vulnerable soul. Now she had to face the truth: she was nothing but a frightened, defenceless little creature in a big, hostile world.

Vinga sat still for a long time. The goat was lying down, chewing with its eyes half closed. It would stop chewing now and then, and then its chin would move again, moving from one side to the other.

Finally, Vinga realized that she had to do something. She would need to be far away by the time the sun rose.

She woke up from her deep thoughts. Then she smelled smoke from burning juniper twigs. She got to her feet in a swift movement.

Was the forest on fire?

Had those scoundrels set her forest on fire? The column of smoke that wound its way up the mountainside was very small. If it was a forest fire, she could probably manage to stop it.

“Come on!” she whispered.

The goat stretched its legs and stood up. They jumped through the undergrowth as if they were two goats, not one. Vinga was still wary: the people were on their way down the mountain but you never knew ...

Now she could see a yellow-red glow ahead of her. She would have to stop. She had been wearing her shoes all through the winter, and her feet were not quite accustomed to the forest floor: she would have to remove all the juniper spines that were stuck in them. She didn’t mind going barefoot in summer because then her skin became as thick as leather. Now, however, it was woefully sensitive.

It was nice not having to wear those shoes because they were now too small for her and they had hardly any soles left. Next winter would be worse.

Next winter ...?

She began to walk again; she didn’t want to think about it.

When Vinga and the goat got closer to where the smoke was coming from, she slowed down and moved more carefully. The vertical mountain wall was right in front of her. She knew there was a clearing in the shelter of this wall, an open area between the mountain and the dense forest. It was from there that the smoke was rising in an almost vertical column. The juniper twigs crackled in the fire. She stopped and stood motionless, as if she was a part of the forest.

Her heart was beating like a woodpecker. She pressed her hand against the goat’s forehead so that it wouldn’t go any farther. She moved her hand up to one of its horns, holding it tightly.

The smoke came from a fire, and between it and the rock face sat a horribly big creature, so large that his flickering shadow stood out enormous and grotesque on the stone. His shoulders were so broad that she had to stare at them for a long time in order to believe what she saw.

He sat on a low stump so that the fire hid his face, and she could only see a glimpse of it now and then. She wasn’t sure that she wanted to see more ...

Slowly, very slowly, she squatted down so that he wouldn’t see her.

The sight fascinated and completely captivated her. What was it? She called the creature “it” because it didn’t seem to belong to the human race nor to the animal world.

Vinga just stared, forgetting time and place and her own fear. She was in a world of her own gazing at this incredible sight. If you forget yourself, you also lose a lot of the weight that human beings drag around in the form of fear, arrogance, bitterness and all the other less desirable emotions. Vinga now found herself in an extremely receptive mode, and suddenly she realized that this was what the creature wanted. Once again, she understood that he had the ability to send signals to her.

Silent as a mouse, she sat there gazing. She had forgotten where she was now that she was faced with this new experience.

She started as he rose so that the glow from the fire fell on his face. As she tried to decide whether to stay still or run away for dear life, she heard his voice:

“Welcome Vinga. Won’t you come over here and sit by my fire?”

His voice was deep and hoarse, as if it came from the underworld.

The mountain king, she thought as she gazed at his incredible face. Or the chief troll himself?

He had helped her. Many, many times. He had carried the goat in his arms effortlessly, had rescued it from the ravine. He had done nothing but good for her.

She didn’t have a sense of horror, even if he did come from the underworld. Perhaps he was going to lure her inside the mountain, but how much worse could it be compared to the world of human beings anyway?

She got to her feet carefully. Somehow, it was irritating that he had discovered her: nobody had done that before, but then he was no ordinary human being!

He gave her a smile. How could such yellow eyes, such a terrible face, be changed so much by a smile?

She stood still! She didn’t run away! For the first time for years, she just stood there, didn’t flee from the presence of another person. Could it be because this creature was not human?

What a face! What a fantastic, incredible face! For Vinga, it was like light to a moth, so irresistibly fascinating, so alluring in all its ugliness.

She listened to his bewitching, expressive voice again. “I’ve been searching for you,” he said gently. “But I wanted to give you time to get used to me and to understand that I only want the best for you. You were as shy and suspicious as all the animals that are suspicious of human folly.”

He stopped for a moment and then added: “I’m Heike Lind of the Ice People.”

Then Vinga let out a long, long sigh. A serenity as great as a wide river flowed through her.

Now she knew that her burdensome, lonely years were over!