C9 Chapter 9

My name is Margit Sandemo. I live in Valdres. Many patients get sent from there to Lillehammer. It wasn’t anything serious, I wasn’t even sick. They just had to correct a small imperfection that had bothered me since childhood.

The day before I was to go home I had been allowed to get out of bed to walk about, and I trudged restlessly around the corridors and down into the big reception hall. There was a cafeteria there that was crowded as usual – a fact I hadn’t checked before getting my tray. So there I stood, in the middle of a full cafeteria with no empty tables, feeling rather stupid.

At one table sat a little boy all alone. He had dreamy blue eyes and dark, bristly hair that stuck out all round. He didn’t look at all happy but sat reluctantly chewing his way through a cheese sandwich as though it tasted awful. He seemed rather abandoned.

And since I’m one of those awkward people who never want to be a burden to anyone else and who constantly convince themselves that they are in the way, I hesitated for a long time before asking the boy if I could sit at his table.

He started violently when I spoke to him, as though he was frightened. His dispirited chewing came to a halt, and I thought he would turn me down, but then he nodded anxiously.

We ate in silence. I constantly sensed his stolen glances at me and after I had drunk a cup of tea I felt much better and said to him, “You seem a little worried?”

I didn’t want to use the word “terrified”, but that’s exactly what he was.

“I ... no, I ...”

“What is your name?”

“Gabriel. Gabriel Gard of ...”

He cut himself short, and even though I waited he didn’t continue.

“My name is Margit Sandemo,” I said, because I had the feeling that I had to gain his confidence before he would dare speak to me. “And I’m going to be discharged tomorrow, which I’m looking forward to. Are you, too?”

One of his arms was bandaged, but otherwise he seemed healthy.

“Yes,” he said, brightening up, but then his smile disappeared again. “Are you one of them?”

That was a strange question! How can you answer that? “Um ... I don’t think I’m one of anything. I’m actually nothing. I’m married and have three children. I must be the worst housewife in Norway. Imagine, I was married for eleven years before I discovered that we didn’t own an iron. And it took me seven years to learn how to prepare the potatoes before the rest of the meal. That’s why my dinners always turned out strange. And last week I was supposed to fill a bucket with water. Instead of putting it under the tap I walked back and forth with a small ladle and poured water into the bucket. I’m so horribly impractical I shouldn’t be let loose.”

The boy was smiling a little now, so I continued. “As you can hear, I’m also fond of hearing my own voice. You see, I know I’m an artist of some kind but haven’t figured out which one yet. I’ve tried most forms of art and the results have been so-so but nothing that will go down in history. It’s rather frustrating, you see. Not being good at anything. No, I generally don’t belong to any particular group, unless you meant ‘the failed’.”

He shook his head, smiling. He seemed reassured.

Then he became absorbed in his own thoughts.

“I was supposed to have been there,” he said into the air, with a real sense of sadness in his voice. “I was supposed to have recorded everything that happened.”

Since I didn’t know what he was referring to I asked him, discreetly, “Are you here alone in the hospital?”

“No,” he said quickly. “But I will be soon. Because Nataniel will soon be going home. His father died. They took him.”

Gabriel and Nataniel? Those were strange names. I started to wonder if the boy was a mythomaniac, a compulsive liar. Had he seen too many movies and started making up stories about a dangerous group that was pursuing him and others around him?

Gabriel looked as though he was about twelve years old and seemed very intelligent. Yes, they were often the ones that had the most vivid imagination.

“Did you break your arm?” I asked.

“No, it was just dislocated. It is healing up now.”

“Did you fall off your bike?”

“Oh, no. They pushed me off a cliff. But Ulvhedin sat with me and Marco tried to save me, but then they cut his rope, and he fell into the river. And then Rune came and saved me.”

Finally, a normal name, I thought, not realizing that Rune was the strangest one of them all.

The boy seemed as though he had been alone for a long time, and he was restless because he wasn’t going anywhere. He had a great need to talk to somebody, as far as I could understand. So why shouldn’t it be me? I had nothing against hearing tall stories; I was a compulsive liar myself.

How stupid I was back then! Here I was trying to find my place in life. And I hadn’t realized that the long stories I spun before going to bed at night were entire novels! It would take me another four years to realize that I had a talent for writing.

“Is anyone coming to pick you up tomorrow, Gabriel?”

His voice began to sound anxious again. “No, they don’t know I’m in the hospital. Marco didn’t want Mum and Dad to worry. That’s why I’m not attending the funerals.”

“The funerals?”

“Yes. Nataniel’s father is my grandfather. Nataniel is my uncle, you see. And then they also killed my grandmother. Her name was Hanna and she was French. Benedikte died, too, but she was old. And so did Christel.”

Gabriel’s eyes were filled with tears now.

“Would you have liked to have been at the funerals?”

He discreetly dried his tears. “No, not really. Funerals are so hard to get through and I don’t like crying in church, which I do when someone’s died.”

“But you do want to go home to your mother and father?”

He got a distant look in his eyes. “I was supposed to write... I was the chosen one for it. And now I won’t be able to do it!”

His tears were now dripping so that, sniffling, he had to wipe them away.

“There are so many people here, it’s so crowded,” I said. “Should we go and find a sitting room, perhaps? One where you can’t smoke? No one’s ever in those.”

He hesitated only slightly, then he followed, clearly relieved.

But just as we were about to leave the big hall a very handsome man approached us. He was dark with strange, sad eyes. Those eyes captured me immediately. They contained so much mental pain and secrets I couldn’t even begin to guess at.

“Hi, Nataniel,” said Gabriel. “This is Margit. We’re going to find somewhere where we can talk alone.”

Nataniel greeted me and then turned to Gabriel.

So there really is a Nataniel, I thought. He certainly wasn’t made up.

“Gabriel, I have to leave now,” said the handsome man. “You won’t be discharged until tomorrow, and that’ll be too late for the funeral.”

“I know. I’ll have to catch up with the others, but I don’t know where they are.”

The little boy looked so sad that it pierced my heart.

“But I do,” Nataniel answered him. “Linde-Lou told me. Marco and Rune and Halkatla are together and they are on their way to Oppdal. They reckon that Tova and Morahan are close to the Valley now.”

He spoke softly but didn’t seem to have anything against my hearing what he said. In any case, everything he said was utterly incomprehensible to me. But he had actually mentioned both Marco and Rune! And a string of other very unusual names. There was only one name missing of those Gabriel had mentioned: Ulv– something or other.

But there it was! Nataniel was still speaking: “I was supposed to have gone with you up north and followed them. But I have to go back home. Something else has come up. If you could just go up to Oppdal tomorrow, then Ulvhedin will tell you where the others are.”

The little boy grabbed the man’s hand. “Nataniel – don’t leave me!”

“Ulvhedin will take care of you. And you can see that we’ve been left in peace here in the hospital. I’ll follow you as fast as I can. I suppose ... you’ll have to go by train ... but that’s going to take a little too long.”

I broke into the conversation. “I’m sorry to butt in like this, but if the boy needs to get to Oppdal in a hurry perhaps my husband and I can drive him up there? We have plenty of time on our hands and I know that my husband wouldn’t mind a quick spring trip up there. We’re both going to be discharged tomorrow, Gabriel and I.”

Nataniel looked at me with those fantastic, unique eyes of his. Had I not met my husband and been living happily with him I would probably have become very interested in this Nataniel.

“It won’t be an easy trip,” he said thoughtfully. “But I presume they won’t take much notice of Gabriel ...”

He went on thinking aloud. “Yes, thank you, if you and your husband really would be willing to do that for the boy we’d all be grateful.”

I’m the kind of person who takes on the worries of other people and thinks I’m obliged to help them. Obviously, that was a stupid move on my part but I just couldn’t bear to hear that someone was having problems. I have this idea that I can sort everything out. In retrospect I see that it was crazy getting mixed up in Gabriel’s problems, but at the time it seemed perfectly natural. Nataniel said something that I didn’t think much about at the time: “Gabriel has a guardian who watches over him so I don’t think you and your husband need to worry.”

“From what I understand, Gabriel has experienced something very unpleasant,” I said probingly.

“Yes, he was pushed off a cliff. Luckily it didn’t end badly.”

He believed it! This wonderful young man with the sad eyes believed Gabriel’s wild imagination!

“You have been in hospital yourself?” I asked.

Nataniel hesitated. “Yes. I lost the only girl I ever cared for. And I was injured at the same time.”

“Did ‘they’ do it?” I asked discreetly.

“Did Gabriel tell you that?”

“Not much. Nothing other than that ‘they’ are unpleasant.”

I actually said it in a rather ironic voice, as one adult telling another knowingly about the made-up stories of a child.

But Nataniel took me seriously! “It’s an understatement to call them ‘unpleasant’. They are fatally dangerous. But I don’t want you to get too involved in our problems. If it weren’t for the fact that Gabriel has to get to Oppdal as quickly as possible I would never have accepted your generous offer to drive him there. But don’t let him fill you with drastic stories on your way there! Even though they are true, they are a bit too complicated for an ordinary person to understand.”

I smiled crookedly. “No one likes to be called an ordinary person. But I promise to control my curiosity. He is in safe hands with us. Where will we meet this Ulvhedin who is supposed to give him the information?”

At first he looked embarrassed. “Gabriel will take care of that. You don’t need to think about it. Be a good boy now, Gabriel.”

Then he left us, thanking me once again for driving the boy to Oppdal. The hall felt very empty after he left.

Gabriel looked dejected and clung to me desperately. I must say I thought it was brutal leaving a little boy like that all alone, not even informing his parents that he was in hospital with an injury. But back then I knew nothing about the struggle of the Ice People. I hadn’t even heard of the Ice People then.

As I had anticipated, the smoking room on my floor was completely full and the smoke was practically impenetrable. But in the non-smoking room there was one old woman who had apparently managed to frighten everyone off with her incoherent talk. I knew her quite well and told Gabriel that we could sit there because she would forget everything we said the very moment we uttered the words. He looked rather sceptical but came and sat with me in a corner.

The refined old woman sat in another corner, talking to herself about how she had to hurry home to her mother with the strawberries she’d picked. Gabriel looked at me with a vacant stare that still conveyed everything he was thinking.

Once he realized that the old woman really wouldn’t understand anything we said, he exclaimed with a sigh, “I’m so worried that I won’t make it in time. Or that I won’t be able to find them. If only we could leave tonight!”

I smiled a little. “Unfortunately, I’m no driver, far from it. I tried driving a car once, when my husband tried to teach me: I ploughed figures of eight in an oat field. I had gone into a panic and my husband shouted, “Let go! Let go!” He meant me to brake, but I thought he wanted me to let go of the wheel, which didn’t help matters much. By the way, I can’t tell right from left – I have to look at my hands first to see which one to use to greet people.”

Gabriel smiled a little. I told him a lot about myself in order to calm him down and perhaps with the hope that he might open up a little. Because there was so much about him and Nataniel that I didn’t understand.

Very carefully, I said, “Your uncle Nataniel is a very special person. Who is he?”

“He is the seventh son of a seventh son,” said Gabriel.

“Aha! Is he psychic?”

“Oh, yes, and much more than that. But he is also the chosen one of the Ice People. And a descendant of the black angels and the night demons ... Oh, I wasn’t really supposed to tell anyone that.”

“That’s OK,” I said very calmly for I didn’t have the foggiest idea what he had been talking about. “You see, Gabriel, all my life I’ve lived somewhere between this world and the next. I’ve even been committed to the insane asylum three times because I saw things. And I have a vivid imagination so I don’t get so easily shocked.”

He gave me a serious look. “But this isn’t imagination. It’s real.”

The old lady shouted in a faint voice: “That’s my cake! Little brother isn’t allowed to take my cake! I’m going to tell Father when he gets home and then you’ll get a good spanking, little Brother!”

I wasn’t sure how far I could get Gabriel to go, so I said, “Won’t you tell me more about all the things you’ve experienced? But only as much as you’re allowed to, of course.”

He bit his lip. From what I could gather, he had been alone with his secret for some time and now he felt cut off from his friends, the ones with the strange names: Ulvhedin, Halkatla ... and in the middle of all those Old Norse names, a southern European one – Marco!

He needed me, which made me feel good. Normally I’m shy with children. I get shy and awkward when I’m with them, but once they reach Gabriel’s age I am much better able to communicate with them and there always seems to be a mutual understanding. I felt a genuine sense of kinship with the boy and it was clear that he felt something similar because he began, very slowly and awkwardly, to tell me the story.

I sat speechless as I listened to him. Other patients came and looked in, considering whether they should sit near us, but when they saw the little old senile woman they quickly pulled back, which I couldn’t understand because all she was doing was living in her own world – she never addressed any of the others. But at any rate, Gabriel and I found her useful in helping us to be able to talk in peace.

It was quite a story that he sketched for me. I was perfectly aware of the fact that all I was getting were details, or whatever he dared to tell me. But either he was a highly imaginative storyteller, or the whole thing was true. And I found it hard to believe that a twelve-year-old boy had such a lively imagination. And it all connected, all the fantastic phenomena he talked about.

The villain of the drama, whose evil spread across two millennia, seemed to be a Tengel who was referred to as “the Evil”. And he had now begun to stir and the whole thing revolved around a race to reach the Valley of the Ice People before anyone else. Yes, Nataniel had talked about the “Valley” and that they were on their way there.

Had it not been for the fact that the fantastic Nataniel had confirmed many of the boy’s claims I would probably have been more sceptical. But there, in the sterile hospital sitting room, I began to believe he was telling the truth. Almost, not entirely. I thought he had misunderstood a number of things and had interpreted some real-life occurrences in his own imaginative way.

Then a nurse came and whisked us away. It had gotten much too late and they wanted Gabriel back in his ward.

We agreed to meet the next morning. I promised to call my husband so that he would be prepared and wouldn’t get a shock when he arrived at the hospital. “Just a short trip to Oppdal, a small detour of about five hundred kilometres, it’ll be over in no time ...”

My husband, that unique specimen of a man by the name of Asbjørn, was on board immediately because he likes adventures and he likes to drive. He was mostly concerned about me. “Will you be able to manage the journey after your operation?” Nonsense! I was fit as a fiddle, I assured him, and ready to start as early as possible.

Asbjørn is such a morning person that it often makes me feel guilty because I tend to snooze until seven o’clock. So he was all for leaving Valdres at four. “It’s the best time to drive,” he declared happily.

At six the following morning he was there already. We had finished getting dressed, Gabriel and I. Gabriel was anxious but grateful to be able to take off that early. And he liked the spring morning outside the gates of the hospital. The flowers were dewy and the air as clear as glass.

“They’ve stayed overnight at Oppdal,” he said with a trembling voice. “Ulvhedin sent directions for how to get to the hotel. Do you think we’ll get there before they leave?”

I doubted it, but assured him that we wouldn’t give up until we had caught up with them. I didn’t dare ask where he had met this Ulvhedin, it was probably just his own wishful thinking. For me, Ulvhedin was like an imaginary friend that lonely children often create for themselves. The fact that Nataniel had also mentioned him just showed that he didn’t want to hurt the little boy by revealing the brutal truth.

Now on this sober morning when we got into the sober car I found it difficult to know what to think about the incredible story I had heard the night before. It was very hard to believe it now! But ... if you have taken a certain someone into your boat you must also row him to shore, I thought. And the boy needed to get to the people he knew.

Why in the world hadn’t Nataniel notified the parents that their son was in hospital? And how could he possibly leave a twelve-year-old in that way? Unless it really was for the very reason Gabriel had mentioned – namely, that he had been selected to record the whole thing and that was why he had to follow the others, the ones with all the strange names.

We hadn’t said much to Asbjørn, and as I mentioned before I probably hadn’t managed to absorb and accept Gabriel’s story. So in the car on our way north we spoke of trivialities. Gabriel was anxious to get there in time and he liked it when Asbjørn stepped on the accelerator and almost exceeded the speed limit. Yes, well, on long, deserted roads we may have tended to do that every so often. It was so wonderful to have the road to ourselves and we took full advantage of it.

At one point a cold shudder went through all of us – my husband felt it, too. It was when we met a car that was on its way south at a furious speed. Gabriel squeezed into a corner in the back seat and I heard him gasp for air. And I could have sworn that there was someone else sitting in the car holding Gabriel close to him. It was such an intense feeling that I had to turn and look, but of course there was only Gabriel.

I was appalled to see how blue his lips were. And his eyes were wider than ever. I shot a glance at the car that was moving away, the one we had passed, and sensed once more a mysterious form of unpleasantness, and then it disappeared around a bend in the road.

Who was it we had encountered? And who was it who had been sitting next to the boy and shielding him like that?

There were a few times when we experienced something foreboding without realizing it ourselves. Up on Dovre Mountain there was a wrecked car by a broken and presumably very temporary road block, and the sides of the road were churned up as though there had been a serious accident. Gabriel claimed that one of the cars belonged to Nataniel. He was truly alarmed because his friends had been involved in the accident, he said.

And on the way to Oppdal there was a semi-trailer parked rather haphazardly on the roadside. Whether it had anything to do with Gabriel’s friends was hard to say, but he was certainly frightened. Anything mysterious that we encountered he associated with the fate of his friends.

“Your name is Gabriel,” I said, “and yesterday you mentioned some names of other people with whom I am very familiar.”

“Really?” he said.

“Yes, you see, Gabriel is a family name on my grandmother’s side, Oxenstierna of Korsholm and Wasa, and you mentioned ...”

“But they’re the ones I am named after!” he said excitedly. “As a tribute to how much they meant to the Ice People! And then it worked well that it was a biblical name because everyone in the Gard family has those.”

“Yes, so you said. Do you know when their connection with the Oxenstiernas began?”

“Oh, a long time ago. It was Tarjei who married Cornelia of Erbach ...”

“Erbach? That name is in my family tree. Count Georg of Erbach-Breuberg. And his daughter, Juliana of Erbach, married Georg of Löwenstein-Scharfeneck.”

“But that was Cornelia’s grandfather! The Breuberg one! And her parents died so Juliana took her into her care.”

“But Gabriel, that means that we’re related! Distant relatives, that is. And Juliana’s daughter was the well-known Marca Christiana, who married Gabriel Oxenstierna the Elder. That’s how she went to Sweden. Gabriel was a Lord High Constable there!”

“Wow,” said Gabriel. “how odd! Marca Christiana took care of Tarjei’s son, Mikael, and they became very good friends. Just as Mikael became good friends with Marca Christiana’s son, whose name was also Gabriel.”

“Yes,” I said, “The younger Gabriel was a lord-in-waiting and his son, in turn, was Major-General Göran Oxenstierna. They were all counts of Oxenstierna of Korsholm and Wasa.”

“Goodness,” sighed Asbjørn from the driver’s seat. “Once you get Margit going on her family tree there’s no stopping her.”

“Göran Oxenstierna,” Gabriel said happily. “He was the one who was with Dan Lind of the Ice People and his son, Daniel Ingridsson, in the Finnish War, and he was injured at Villmands Beach!”

“A hand injury, yes,” I said. “And it froze and he wasn’t ever able to use it again. Göran was the father of the poet Johan Gabriel Oxenstierna ...”

Gabriel’s eyes grew dark. “Who was a good friend of Sölve’s before Sölve changed and his stricken characteristics became apparent.”

“But Johan Gabriel wasn’t my ancestor,” I said. “That was his brother Axel Frederik.”

“Whom Ingela, Sölve’s sister, was housekeeper for,” Gabriel added. “I wonder how long our families followed one another. Ingela’s son, Ola, served Axel Frederik’s son, Erik Oxenstierna.”

“Whom I am also descended from. Erik was a terribly fine gentleman who had so many titles that I’ve forgotten most of them. And Erik’s son, Axel ...”

“Exactly,” said Gabriel. “Anna Maria and Kol were with Axel and his Lotten.”

“Help!” I said, laughing. “This is starting to get spooky.”

“But that’s where it had to stop. Because it was actually Saga who was to have looked after Lotten’s four children but she had a different ... a different kind of fate.”

Then he told me the fantastic story about Saga and Lucifer which I didn’t really believe, but ...

“What a shame that it ended at that point,” I lamented. “Because Lotten’s only daughter was my grandmother.”

“No,” said Gabriel, as astonished as before. “I can’t believe it!”

“Neither can I. Who would imagine that you and I would run into each other like this! But Gabriel, you mentioned several names that I recognized: Cecilie, who was nanny to the children of Christian IV and Kirsten Munk.”

“Yes, but they’re famous so you must have heard of them already.”

“Yes, of course, but you see, King Christian and Kirsten Munk are among my ancestors. Along with their daughter Leonora Christina.”

“Who knew Tancred Paladin’s wife, Jessica, yes. She was also a nanny there – Jessica, that is. And their daughter, Lene, followed the daughter of the house, Eleonora Sofia, to Skåne. And Lene’s daughter, Christiana, was a housekeeper for Eleonora Sofia’s son, Korfitz Beck.”

“And Korfitz Beck is my ancestor. He had a very famous daughter, Agnete Beck Friis. Are the Ice People still in the picture?”

“Yes, of course! But let’s not forget Christiana’s son, Vendel Grip. He was the one who accompanied Korfitz Beck when they were in Russian captivity. Later Vendel’s son, Örjan, worked for Agnete Beck Friis. And after that came Arv Grip. He was with Agneta’s daughter, who was married to Arvid Posse.”

“Lord of Bergqvara, yes. It still matches up so far,” I said. “And I am descended from the son, Arvid M. Posse, the prime minister – who wasn’t a particularly good prime minister, by the way.”

“Yes, we’re still in the picture. Tula protected Arvid M. Posse in all sorts of drastic ways. And her beloved son, the mad Christer, was for a time with the daughter Charlotte Posse, and her husband, Adam Reuterskjöld. They wanted Christer’s daughter, Malin, to care for their little son, Axel Reuterskjöld, but instead Malin chose to help little Henning Lind care for the twins, Marco and Ulvar.”

I nodded thoughtfully. “Their little Axel Reuterskjöld was my grandfather.”

Gabriel looked astonished. “But that’s true! The two families that the Ice People had chosen to follow through the ages were finally united. And in time you were the result, Margit! Hello,” he said, beaming with joy as he extended his hand across the back of the seat. I took it and we squeezed one another’s hands for a long time and laughed elatedly.

Now I was even more eager to hear the entire story of the Ice People.

I belonged there in a way, I felt.

But the boy was tired and I didn’t want to pressure him anymore now. If he was speaking the truth then he had a hard time ahead of him.

But even though much of what he had said added up from a historical perspective, there were limits to how much I was willing to believe.

I asked him to rest a bit in the back seat, which he obediently did. I think he may have dozed a little, but I’m not sure.

We drove the two hundred and forty kilometres from Lillehammer to Oppdal in record time, and then we began looking for his friends. Confused, he looked around for the designated hotel.

“Getting a description of the place isn’t the same as seeing it,” he said insecurely.

Both Asbjørn and I understood what he meant. We had driven through Oppdal some years ago when the children were little but now everything had changed there. I couldn’t find my way around it at all now.

“But I think ... yes, we’ll drive a little more,” Gabriel concluded.

A little while later we found the hotel. It wasn’t where we thought it would be, but it had the right name. We rushed into the reception.

Gabriel did the talking. “I’d like to know whether Marco ...”

He stopped abruptly. He turned to us, his cheeks deeply flushed, and said, “Help! I don’t know what Marco’s surname is!”

“What about one of the others?”

He was terribly confused. “I can’t mention Halkatla or Rune ... Oh, yes, thank goodness! Tova Brink! Is she staying here?”

She wasn’t.

Gabriel was crestfallen. We felt really sorry for him, even though my suspicions about his compulsive lying were reconfirmed.

He thought for a moment. “Nataniel said something about them having an Irishman with them. But I can’t remember ...”

Poor boy. The lady at reception was starting to get impatient, which was understandable. I thought his stories were getting worse by the minute. When had that Irishman entered the picture? What did he have to do with all of this?”

But we had to make sense of the situation. Asbjørn was beginning to wonder if we had traveled those extra five hundred kilometres for no reason.

I turned to the lady on the desk. “Do you have any Irishmen staying here?”

She checked the guest book. “Yes. An Ian Morahan. Is that who you mean?”

“Yes!” Gabriel shouted with relief.

“Ian Morahan and wife, it says here. They were several people with them. They haven’t checked out yet but they aren’t here at the moment. I heard them say that they wanted to rent a car.”

“Thank God,” Gabriel whispered.

“We’ll just wait here, then,” Asbjørn decided. “Is it possible to get breakfast here?”

“Yes, of course.”

We sat down in a spot where we could keep an eye on the entrance. I noticed that Gabriel’s hands were trembling with excitement.

“Ian Morahan and wife?” he said, perplexed. “I don’t understand. Why aren’t they coming? I hope nothing’s happened to them.”

“It’s best that we stay here,” I said. “If we go out looking for them we might risk missing one another.”

Gabriel nodded but he was extremely nervous.

Luckily they arrived shortly afterwards. Gabriel flew out to the courtyard to greet them and they seemed just as happy to see him. A man so beautiful that I hardly believed my own eyes lifted him up in the air. That must be Marco, I thought. I hadn’t believed the part about black angels but I wasn’t so sure anymore. The strange, fascinating interplay of ebony black on his skin, those eyes that seemed to be able to see beyond time and space ... I finally managed to shift my gaze to some of the others.

There was the Irishman, there was no doubt about that. But he looked fatally ill! His face already had a deathly look about it. And the young girl who stood so close to him must be the unfortunate Tova. I was moved by the realization of how unfairly some people are treated by so-called creation. The other woman had a magnetic attractiveness about her, despite the fact that her features were rather ordinary. A wild, frizzy, blonde head of hair framed a face that ... I can’t find any words to describe it other than that the general impression the girl gave was one of a totally devil-may-care attitude. That had to be Halkatla. Gabriel had claimed that she was a real witch.

Yes, well, certainly, if witches really did exist then she was one of them!

Then there was Rune. Gabriel certainly hadn’t exaggerated his description of him. The mandrake. I had once seen a mandrake at the University of Bergen and had been scared by the sight of it. Rune resembled it to a frightening degree. But there was something gentle and good about him that the other mandrake hadn’t displayed.

No, what was I doing? Standing at the window in the dining room and having these thoughts, as if I had accepted Gabriel’s story!

But Asbjørn expressed the same thought I had, even though he hadn’t heard the story of the Ice People. He rubbed his ears and wondered, “Am I really awake? None of them look human, not a single one! Well, maybe the one who looks so ill, but none of the others!”

We pulled ourselves together and went out to greet them. I noticed that most of them didn’t shake our hands when they were introduced to us. They just gave us a very reverential greeting by lowering their heads and smiling faintly. And Asbjørn and I were given warm thanks for driving Gabriel so quickly to Oppdal. Marco’s smile went straight to my heart and I’ve never forgotten it. Never! He also said that we would be rewarded for our deed, not with material things, but that he would personally make sure that we received something in return. Well, I don’t know whether it was his words that did it, but everything has gone well for us since then. We may be Norway’s happiest couple. We have succeeded in everything, and we haven’t had any grievances since that year. And that’s no exaggeration.

We said good-bye there in the courtyard in front of the hotel. Asbjørn and I had to get back to Valdres as quickly as possible because I was now beginning to feel what I should have thought of before: I was utterly exhausted after the ride. I could now feel that I had just been operated on. I was actually beginning to get a little anxious.

Had it not been for that I might very well have asked whether we could join them, just to see what the outcome would be. But I decided against it.

And that was the last I saw of Gabriel and his friends back then. I felt a deep emptiness inside as I watched them disappear.

I was to see my young friend one more time, but that is a story for later.