C8 Chapter 8

Ulvar’s life had changed since that day in the churchyard. He had been listening! Oh, he had heard a lot of new and exciting things! Malin knew an awful lot that she had never told him about. Nasty, horrible Malin. Why hadn’t she said anything about the Ice People’s ancestors and all the things they had done? But then, most of it was just hints. He was one of the stricken, he knew that. He was very proud of it. Now he had heard a little about the other stricken members of the Ice People.

He wanted to know more!

He couldn’t go to Malin and Viljar. He knew from experience that they would just give him an evasive answer. He doubted that Henning knew very much. He had never hinted that he did.

Belinda knew nothing. She was just plain dumb. And he was sure that Marco hadn’t been allowed to hear anything. He and Marco were bonded because they were twins. Ulvar often knew what Marco was thinking and vice versa.

Ulvar pondered night and day.

Nobody could possibly learn about their ancestors without having someone to tell them. But who? Viljar? Damn!

Ulvar took to searching when he was on his own, when the others were out in the stable or at school or elsewhere. He sniffed his way through Linden Avenue, from top to bottom. Of course, he knew that there was a supply of medicines locked in Viljar’s bedroom. He didn’t give a damn about medicines; that wasn’t what he was looking for.

He had heard that there was supposed to be something else. Something mystical and secretive that they kept hidden from him. One day, he happened to hear the word “treasure” mentioned. He never forgot that.

The treasure: the treasure was like an obsession. It flickered before his mind’s eye, he could swear that it had something to do with him. The uncertainty was gnawing at his soul, like a small animal. There had been an awful lot of trouble that day when Mr Johnsen’s house burned down with everything in it, including the owner. Ulvar laughed. He was pleased with himself. He was clever at torching houses – this wasn’t the first time it had happened. This Johnsen had said something about destroying the Ice People’s graves. He wasn’t allowed to do that, because on that day in the churchyard Ulvar had gleaned that he had allies who were buried there. He had to try to get in touch with them – he, who had seen spirits several times without really being able to turn it to his own advantage. Something was lacking in his skills. Oh, damn it, something was missing that could make him frighteningly strong!

Could it be the treasure?

How was he going to get to know for sure?

There was one name that had been indelibly printed on his mind in the churchyard: Tengel the Evil.

He had heard that name before, whispered secretly. What a wonderful name; it meant everything to Ulvar. There was no doubt about it: Tengel the Evil was his master! He felt a tingling sensation down his spine when he thought about that name.

The churchwarden had narrowly escaped being burnt in the house. He had been slightly late arriving at Johnsen’s farm, and the place had already been in flames.

He had seen it all.

But he hadn’t seen Ulvar.

That was lucky, wasn’t it?

But it had been a close call. Ulvar had just had time to hide at a safe distance from the fire when that stupid chap had turned up.

The churchwarden had said that the fire was like an explosion.

Several people, including experts who knew about such things, had taken a look at the ruins. But they couldn’t say either what had caused the fire. They hadn’t found anything. There was some mention of gas under the floor somewhere in the house.

They could talk and talk as much as they wanted.

Malin had told him such a lot of nice, new and exciting things in the churchyard!

The stricken ones were innocent. They weren’t to blame for their fate. Never mind, he didn’t care, being cursed was wonderful. Malin had said that very often they turned out to be very strong personalities as well.

Well of course! Was there any greater personality than him in the entire world? Yes, Marco perhaps, but they were twins so ...

But Tengel the Evil ... if only he could be allowed to meet him, whoever he was! He had to know, he had to, he just had to!

Kolgrim sounded exciting. The tool of the evil one, one of the most stricken members, a tragedy for his whole life, and he was only fourteen when he died. Of course, Ulvar planned to be much older than fourteen, but apart from that they were probably much alike.

And then there was Ulvhedin, another of the stricken. He must have been immensely interesting to begin with. But then Elisa had turned him into a human being.

He would jolly well destroy Elisa’s grave. You bet he would!

And Heike’s as well! Heike, who had overcome the curse! He didn’t deserve to be allowed to live – no, now he was talking nonsense, he didn’t deserve to have such a fine grave.

Ulvar laughed at his own thoughts. He was jolly well going to tear down that tombstone. Damage it and pee on it!

However, there was another person far more interesting: Sol, the witch! She must have been wonderful! There was a painting of her at Linden Avenue, an old and horribly damaged painting. Ulvar had never bothered to look at all that awful shit. Now he wanted to dust it off and see whether he registered anything in it.

He wanted to hear more about the grey people. He knew a little about them from ghost stories that went round the parish. What a damn shame it was that the grey people had been chased out of Graastensholm! By Saga, Ulvar’s own mother!

Phew, he felt nothing for his mother. Nothing! It had been his fault that she died. That was what a gossipmonger had told him once. Did she think that she could give him a bad conscience? You bet she couldn’t!

Marco missed his mother, Ulvar knew that he did! He often thought of her, wondering what she might have been like. Marco was happy with both Malin and Belinda, who were nothing but shit, and so was Viljar. Henning was all right – he never scolded him. But he was pretty nondescript as well.

All of them were just shit. Except Marco.

Despondency seized Ulvar once more. He felt helpless! He wanted to know. But who would tell him anything? They all backed away and started talking about something else.

That horrible bloke who had been with Malin at the cemetery now had Johnsen’s job. Good for him. Ulvar didn’t actually have anything against Volden, provided he left the graves in peace. Which he was obviously going to. A new forest cemetery was to be established on the edge of the forest below the mountain ridge. But that stupid Volden insisted on taking Malin along to see the plan. He wanted to know what she thought. Stupid idiot, running over here a couple of times a week to fetch her.

And Malin! She wasn’t right in her head! She had stopped wearing her usual black clothes and white gloves and was now fooling about in all sorts of colours. What was she doing that for? Although it made her look much younger and so much sweeter. She would never scold him when he was up to mischief. “Per will be here this evening,” she would say and then she would light up in a delighted smile, and she looked really stupid. Per, that was Volden.

As long as he was nice to her, Ulvar was prepared to leave him in peace. But if he was to try something stupid – making her forget her chores at Linden Avenue, for instance, or even taking her away from there ... then he would definitely be in trouble! You didn’t just take Ulvar’s slave and maid away from him, oh no! Belinda couldn’t manage the house alone. She just fooled about. Forgot how long Ulvar’s egg needed to boil and put out the wrong clothes for him, asked him a lot of stupid questions about where he was off to, or where he had been.

Everything was shit!

One year later, Mr Volden proposed to Malin. Of course, she had suspected that he would pop the question, and actually she was well prepared. Nevertheless, she stuttered terribly when she tried to explain that she couldn’t yet accept. They needed her at Linden Avenue. Volden thought, that little brat of a devil, but he didn’t say so out loud. He knew that Malin had a sense of duty to the twins’ late mother. But he agreed with the rest of the parish that the boy needed locking up.

There had been no end to his antics this past year. To be honest, he spent most of his time up in the forest, where he didn’t seem to do any harm, and it was true that he was blamed for a lot of things he couldn’t have set in motion. But what he had done was more than enough.

The whole parish hated him by now. The residents of Linden Avenue could no longer conceal the fact that they were harbouring a very dangerous person. Not because he had used force against any other people, let alone any animals, but you never knew. He loved to tease and bother other children when he came across them in the neighbourhood. He was always up to mischief with the farmers and clerks whenever he could get away with it: the sort of things he couldn’t really be punished for, but which were barely tolerable or decent. He exposed himself to elegant women, poured salt in people’s coffee at the inn, tied people’s shoelaces together so that they fell and hurt themselves, let the cows out into the wrong fields, made rude suggestions to little girls and spoilt the boys’ games.

He was an absolute nuisance and a headache, and Viljar had been given several ultimatums. Delegations from the police and the child welfare authority had turned up wanting to seize the boy by force, but they had always had to give up. Ulvar was not to be taken lightly. When he met opposition he was dangerous. Four strong men couldn’t tackle him.

Then there were those wolves that helped him. The whole parish knew about them now. Most people whispered that they couldn’t be natural.

They appeared in various numbers. Sometimes there was only one, sometimes there were two, but there had never been more than three. So there were three wolves. Since men are always coming up with some pretext to justify hunting, no matter how thin the pretext, people had tried to shoot them. Because they were dealing with dangerous beasts – anybody could understand that. Men with rifles and feathers in their caps and baggy trousers over their boots came all the way from Christiania to act like real men; farmers from the parish went out with their rusty old rifles; every living thing that could hold a rifle was out. There were more people out and about than you could believe. Because they wanted to hunt the vermin down. Some had silver bullets in their guns. Others, who were more realistic, fumed at such superstitious nonsense and had already decided where the wolfskin was to hang in the parlour. Because these wolves were very big, and their fur wasn’t going to be used for coats but to brag about.

But no wolves appeared before the hunters. They didn’t find the slightest trace. It was as if the beasts had never existed.

Nobody had been killed by the wolves, apart from that first man, the one who had had a heart attack at his own front door, and that was mostly because he was in very poor physical shape. No, for some strange reason, the wolves always appeared in connection with Ulvar at Linden Avenue. People said that unfortunate child should never have been called Ulvar. Ulvar means wolves in Swedish. It was a very bad omen. Things could only turn out bad with such a name, especially since everyone could see that the child belonged to the devil.

Anyway, for the time being Malin had to decline Per Volden’s proposal, no matter how much she wanted not to. He reminded her that they were no longer all that young and that they couldn’t wait too long to have children. Because he would like to have children – with Malin.

“I know, I know,” she replied, concerned, twisting her gloves between her fingers. “There’s nothing I would rather do, but what can I do? I can’t let them down at Linden Avenue. They aren’t able to manage on their own, as I know only too well. How often has Belinda wept in despair at Ulvar’s cruelty and ‘funny’ whims, and how many times has Viljar or Henning tried to make him understand how much he’s hurting others! But that’s what he wants, you see. He wants to hurt other people. To hurt them as much as they can take. After all, the boy is only ten. It will be many years before we can let him take care of himself – if that ever happens.”

Per Volden said cautiously: “We could take care of him, couldn’t we?”

“No!” said Malin vehemently. Her temper took her by complete surprise, and it frightened her. “No, you’re not to be bothered with him. He’ll see you as a rival. I know this sounds absolutely crazy, but he doesn’t like you. He already looks upon you as a competitor. I’m sure you’ve felt it. Besides, it would be even worse if we had children. I wouldn’t dare. He could kill them, Per.”

“But if he’s so dangerous ...”

“I know. He ought to be locked up. But I can’t hurt Saga’s son. Nobody has sufficient power over him to have him confined.”

“What about his brother?”

“Marco would never lock up Ulvar. Marco is the only one who understands him and is forbearing. He has endless patience with his tragic brother. Another thing we must consider is that although I’m twenty years older than Ulvar, we’re of the same generation. So I might have a child like him. Would you be able to accept that?”

Volden didn’t answer directly because his thoughts were elsewhere. “I’m not so sure that Ulvar hates me. Do you remember the fire last year and the wolf that made us retreat? That wolf saved our lives. You know that, don’t you?”

This warmed Malin’s heart. “So you’ve thought the same then?” she said. “I was too scared to mention it because I know that you’re a realist. Oh, if only we had the courage to try it!”

“How would it be if we asked Ulvar what he thought?”

Ask Ulvar? The thought had never occurred to Malin. But then she also knew the boy better than he did.

“We can try,” she answered evasively.

Ulvar had climbed up on the low branch of the oak behind the buildings of Linden Avenue. Like a forest troll or a black elf, he sat there with his back against the trunk and his legs pulled up. His hair was sticking out in all directions, and his wide mouth was pulled back in a malicious grin.

He looked down in disgust at the human creeps.

“Why the hell would I want to move in with you, fat ugly Malin, and that rude idiot of yours? Do you think I don’t know what the two of you get up to when you’re on your own? You have a lovely time, don’t you, Per, with your miserable tool. You’ve gone and made her pregnant so now you have to get married, eh?”

Malin blushed. “It’s not like that at all, Ulvar. You know perfectly well that we haven’t done anything indecent. We’re asking you kindly. Would you like to come and live with us? Because we would like to have you. Will you be our son?”

“The son of that castrated goat? No, I’ll stay here. Marco and I will stay here.”

“We haven’t asked Marco yet. You’re the first one we’re asking. We would like to hear what you think.”

“Oh, so you’d like to separate us, you horrible bitch!”

Per Volden moved a few steps closer and said sternly: “Now listen, Ulvar. Don’t speak like that to ...”

Ulvar’s eyes turned green and a knife point was sticking in Mr Volden’s shoe. It didn’t seem to have hit his foot.

“Be careful!” mumbled Malin. “Now listen, Ulvar! If Marco comes with us, will you come along as well?”

He gave them a hostile and suspicious look. “We’ll see,” he said, closing his eyes as a sign that the conversation was over.

“Here’s your knife,” said Per calmly, handing it to Ulvar, who tore it out of his hand. Malin, who understood his facial expressions, could see that he was reluctantly impressed that Per hadn’t confiscated the knife. Anybody else would have done so.

They walked away. Per took Malin’s hand quietly. “Everything will be all right. About what you asked me before: I’ve no reservations whatsoever about having you as the mother of our children, stricken or not.”

“Thank you,” she whispered. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Ulvar half-opened his sly eyes, following them as they disappeared around the corner of the house.

Damn idiots, he thought. They don’t understand anything! How the hell could they be so damn stupid as to let me into their cosy little love nest? Anyway, just try it! Get started, have some brats, and then you’ll be in for a hell of a lot of trouble! Those snotty children won’t have a quiet moment. I’ll plant lice on them and burn them with red-hot sticks, I’ll rape them and prick their eyes out! Hell, yes, it will be ever such fun!”

A gentle voice woke him from these sweet dreams of the future.

It was Henning, who stood there with shy, kind eyes. “Ulvar, would you please help me with a stone that I need to lift? I need to use it as a weight on the harrow because otherwise the harrow will just glide over the surface.”

Ulvar came down from the tree like a big, deformed spider. “Why the hell should I help you, you big coddle?” he said, but he obeyed. He was sullen and grumpy. Henning took no notice of his filthy words because these two understood each other in a back-handed manner, despite the fact that they disagreed about almost everything.

Maybe this silent acceptance was down to the fact that on one solemn evening by the fire at Linden Avenue, Marco and Ulvar had been told about the night on which they were born. Viljar hadn’t spoken about the dark angels or about their father, of course, but otherwise he had told them everything, and Henning had filled in many details. He had told them that Saga was deeply unhappy because she was to die after giving birth to her two babies and that he had promised to take care of them. “That wasn’t difficult,” Henning had said, with a radiant smile for the two little boys. “Both of you mean such a lot to me.”

Perhaps this was why Ulvar’s bark was worse than his bite towards Henning? The two boys had also been told a lot about Saga: that she came from Sweden and that her branch of the Ice People had served the Oxenstiernas since the early seventeenth century, but that this tradition had now been broken. Malin had received a letter from Countess Lotten Oxenstierna asking whether Saga would like to come back, because the countess now had four children and had immediately thought of Saga when she needed a governess for them. Malin had to give her the tragic news that Saga had passed away, leaving two small boys. The countess wrote back expressing her condolences, and saying they would be welcome in Sweden at any time. Malin thanked the countess, adding that time would tell what was to happen with the children. So far, relatives were taking good care of them.

Of course, she knew that they would never send Ulvar to Sweden. They wouldn’t be that cruel towards the noble family, who had always been so good to the Ice People. Malin was also in touch with her own parents, Christer and Magdalena. They were still close to the Posse family, acting as servants and confidantes, with the only difference that since Arvid Mauritz Posse’s daughter Charlotte had married the nobleman Adam Dikrik Reuterskiöld, it was the Reuterskiöld family that the Ice People now adhered to.

Malin’s parents wanted her to return to Sweden. But she was in love and wanted to be where Per Volden was.

It wasn’t difficult to persuade Marco to go and live in Malin’s future home. He understood that having the sole responsibility for Ulvar would be too much of a burden for Viljar and Belinda, even though Henning got on quite well with him. Marco also understood Malin’s own problem, and he promised to keep an eye on his brother as often as he could. But he went to school ...

Everybody despised Ulvar but adored Marco. At school, Marco often received little cut-out paper hearts from unknown girls who admired him, he was the absolute favourite of all the teachers, and even the other boys liked him because he was nice to everybody. He was serene and kind, with a impressive authority that was quite unique for a ten-year-old, despite the fact that he never drew attention to himself. The women in the parish would sigh: “That boy isn’t of this world,” and they might have been quite right about that.

Henning had his own opinion of the boy. “Marco’s biding his time,” he would always say. After all, he knew that the twins were destined for something. Each had been assigned his own task. Henning had thought a lot about that. But however much he pondered, he just couldn’t think of any assignment in which Ulvar would be of any use!

Henning soon had something else to think about, albeit of a more private nature.