C2 Chapter 2

Vetle Volden’s three children had each turned out differently. In 1939, Mari was seventeen, Jonathan fifteen and Karine thirteen. On the surface, all three seemed well adjusted. But this was because all three, especially the two girls, were good at hiding their thoughts and emotions.

Mari, the older of the two girls, was the more outgoing.

She had cursed her name a thousand times. “Malin and Mali,” she would fume. “Marit and Mari. Don’t the Ice People have any imagination? Nobody knows who you’re talking about, they have to try and remember who Mari is. I’m me, and I’m a very important person in this context.”

“Yes, in your context,” Jonathan would answer, because they teased each other incessantly.

Mari had a compulsion to avoid unpleasantness. She wanted to be liked by all, and for everyone to like one another. Above all, she hated it when people were cross and grumpy. Listening to people quarrelling made her feel sick, and to be told that somebody disliked her was unbearable. She couldn’t stand listening to suffering of any kind, and siding with one party in a dispute would have been unthinkable: it would mean the other party would be cross with her.

No one could live like that. But Mari tried.

This was why she was considered superficial and giggly; she laughed at everything, often in the wrong places, and she tried to smooth over any signs of annoyance or enmity among her school friends as soon as she detected them. If that wasn’t possible, she would run away with a cheerful joke.

Mari wanted to be friends with everybody. This was why she was almost excessively generous; she gave and gave all that she had. She was honest and would never have stolen from her parents, though she could be sloppy about returning the change she got when she had been shopping for her mother. It was never on purpose, she just forgot. All the change she got she used to buy sweets for her friends.

She had many friends but no best friend. She was the clown and daredevil of her class but not somebody you had a serious conversation with.

Mari resembled her French mother in her appearance and lively movements and had Vetle’s happy disposition. She was dark, with brown eyes in a narrow, personable face, which you remembered once you had seen her. It couldn’t be denied that she had lots of fun with boys, because a cheerful and unrestrained girl will always be popular. The boys were too immature to understand her helpless, desperate struggle to be liked.

Up to 1939, she had managed to fall in love seriously and for ever after at least twenty times. Her infatuations died down just as quickly and madly as they had arisen.

Jonathan, who was a tease, couldn’t help noticing Mari’s fast lifestyle. “Honestly!” he would say lightly. “They say that our branch of the family is destined to populate the earth, and Mum and Dad did a good job having three children. So you must also do your duty. Just get started having children! I think you’re making a real effort!”

At which Mari would throw a pillow at him. But his words stung. She felt that Jonathan was cross with her, which he mustn’t be! Was her reputation really so bad that it had reached her own brother?

Mari went to her room in despair. She had just met a boy who was the one, he really was. She knew he was! (Just like all the previous ones, but Mari had forgotten about them.)

What was she to do? She needed to be told that she had a friend, which she desperately needed, and she would have one now, she was sure of it! But if people were gossiping, she couldn’t ...

What was she to do? She had to meet him. The boy was a pupil like herself but he went to a different school. So Mari would haunt the places where he walked; she was totally absorbed, and the boy couldn’t help noticing her intense admiration.

It wasn’t good. Making oneself an easy target isn’t conducive to true love. This boy was used to everyone from little girls to grown women admiring and falling in love with him. He was slightly disgusted by Mari’s eager and far too obvious attempts. From what he gathered from the gossip among the boys, she was sweet and cheerful and superficial and easy. So why not? She was surely worth an evening or two, and that would be it. He would take what he wanted of her and afterwards she wouldn’t be interesting anymore.

So he got a friend to arrange the meeting. Once they had got to know one another, he could always invite her to the cinema one evening. The cinema ... etcetera.

Mari was thrilled. He had looked at her, spoken to her. He had said “Hi” in his husky voice, kind of casually, as if he wanted to conceal his interest.

“Hi!” Was there a more beautiful word in the whole world? Hi ... Mari sampled the word all the way home from the café where she had been introduced to the boy; she copied his tone of voice and tried to adopt the same harsh, matter-of-fact facial expression.

Now they knew one another.

Oh, wonderful future!

Mari had no idea what awaited her at home.

Karine, the youngest of Vetle’s three children, was a dreamer, and she was hiding more serious secrets than Mari’s yearning for solidarity and togetherness with other people. With her eyes focused on an invisible spot in the distance, she walked about the streets or in the hills around the town, often talking to herself, inventing fantasies and daydreams. Admittedly, she missed somebody she could talk to about all these things, but so far she hadn’t found anyone who could glide into her private world and share it with her. That was asking a lot – which is why writers, poets and dreamers are the loneliest creatures in the world.

Karine didn’t want to live in the real world. She was a true escaper, perpetually fleeing from the present and reality. Apart from the fact that she had such a tendency, there were other reasons as well.

Shocking things had happened to her. So shocking that she would probably never regain her mental equilibrium. She was as maimed as anybody could be. The Ice People would have been horrified if they had known about it. But Karine wasn’t going to tell them.

She had been ten years old when the first unfortunate incident occurred. As she had always lived in her fantasy world rather than in the real world, she knew very little about people and their behaviour.

She was out cycling one beautiful spring evening. The air was dusky blue with a golden light after sunset. The road lay free and tempting before her. In a small forest glade she knew, there ought to be cowslips and violets in bloom by now. She wanted to see if that was the case. Perhaps she might also see a pasqueflower?

She came to a more deserted area where little houses still glowed red, with old apple trees and gnarled cherry trees round about them. It was pristine countryside, a remnant of a time that was disappearing.

A man cycled up to her on the road. That is to say, he had actually passed her without her noticing it and had then turned around.

To Karine’s young eyes the man was pretty old, though he wasn’t yet thirty. She didn’t know him. Karine might not be very pretty – she wasn’t a beauty like Mari – but she was physically mature for her age and was developing curves that could clearly be seen under her too-tight sweater.

The man had what in legal terms would be known as “inadequately developed mental faculties.” He was of normal intelligence but he couldn’t handle his impulses and desires or his relations with an orderly society.

He began to talk to Karine, who thought he seemed nice. He knew a lot about animals and nature, and the girl became eager. She wanted so much to show him the beautiful meadow full of flowers. He wanted to see it as well; perhaps he imagined that she wanted his company. That type finds it easy to twist people’s motives.

The meadow wasn’t visible from the road. They cycled to a small path, left their bicycles on the grass and walked through the delicate spring grass full of violets and yellow cowslips. Cat’s foot was beginning to appear in the grass, and small insects floated in great swarms like veils in a wind. But there was no wind: it was a warm spring evening with thousands of scents on the air.

“Look,” said Karine. “A ladybird!”

She let it creep up her hand.

“And here we have lady’s mantle,” said the man, sitting down. “Isn’t nature fantastic?”

“Yes, it’s at its best now,” Karine replied. He patted the grass and she sat next to him, still with the ladybird on her hand. “Sometimes, it seems as if everything is so random.”

“What do you mean?”

“So much isn’t fair. There’s so much unnecessary suffering.”

“Such is life,” he said, pretty matter-of-factly. “It’s certainly nice here. Do you know what I would like?”

“No?”

“Just to flop down on my back and stay the night here. Listen to the cuckoo at dawn and see the cobwebs glistening with dew in the first rays of the sun.”

“Yes, so would I,” said Karine with radiant eyes.

“Then let’s do it.”

Her eyes turned fearful. “I’d better be on my way home. They don’t know where I am.”

He laughed. “I didn’t mean all through the night. But we can try for a moment. Now.”

He flopped backwards onto the grass, still laughing. Slightly shy, but excited, Karine did the same.

“Oh, now I’ve lost my ladybird,” she said sadly. As she leaned back, he had placed his arm under her neck. Karine didn’t like that: she who had always sought solitude wasn’t used to physical proximity with strangers. Still, he was very much like her in his joy in nature, so she reluctantly let it happen. She was as stiff as a board, trying to keep a mental distance from him.

He spoke so calmly about experiences he had had with nature, about wild animals he had met, that it made her relax a bit. Lying on her back and looking at the clouds was wonderful. The meadow was surrounded by birch trees, but the soft green branches didn’t move. Everything was so calm, so serene. The world around her disappeared.

The man lifted his head, turned towards her and let his finger glide across her brown, smooth cheek.

He whispered: “Your eyes are so pretty.”

“Are they?” she muttered. She didn’t feel at ease with his tangible closeness. He had turned his body towards her so that his hip lay against her thigh. “I think I had better be on my way home now,” she said in a slightly trembling voice.

“In a moment,” he said reassuringly.

Karine looked into his eyes and thought they seemed as if he was unsure while she also registered a certain self-assurance in his smile.

“I really must be on my way home now.”

He moved his elbow over to the other side of her so that he almost covered her completely.

Karine shouted: “The ladybird! Oh, please don’t put your arm on it, it will be crushed!”

“Never mind the ladybird,” he said, tight-lipped.

But Karine had already managed to wriggle away because he had got up on his hands and knees to make himself ready, and she began to search for the ladybird, crawling on all fours without really understanding the danger she was in.

The next moment, iron arms grabbed her from behind and her panties were pulled off her. She screamed and inched her way out of his grip and crept forward. But he was over her again, holding her tightly to the lower part of his body. Karine gasped in horror, didn’t understand what was going on, just wanted to get away, because this was yucky, yucky. She didn’t want his skin against hers, she didn’t like him anymore.

“Keep quiet, you damn girl,” he snorted.

She managed to crawl a few yards away from him, in her despair asking all the violets to forgive her for flattening them, but he was swifter than her, he overtook her and held her in his iron grip.

“No, no!” she shouted.

The man put one hand over her mouth. That meant that he slightly loosened his grip on her so that she could turn around. But she shouldn’t have done that, because now he had her where he wanted her. She stared up into his wild, ruthlessly determined eyes.

“Don’t kill me,” she sobbed, terrified.

“I damn well don’t intend to kill you,” he snorted.

Then there was a void in her memory. Because what happened was traumatic for Karine, a shock of violence that she managed to banish from her memory. Afterwards, all she remembered was that the ladybird disappeared and then she was lying all by herself in a flowery meadow, abandoned, bleeding and with an almost unbearable pain in her abdomen. She had forgotten what had happened in the meantime.

That was why she said nothing at home. She was probably also too ashamed to say where she felt such a pain; she remembered that she had sobbed and struggled to wipe away all that horrible stuff down there; she had used her panties and there was blood on them and some slime, which she didn’t understand. She was so ashamed and so shaken that she got home very late that evening.

Because she suppressed the incident and because she knew so little about life, she didn’t understand what had happened to her.

Things were much worse when she was twelve.

All the children were to have their photograph taken. But Karine was in a terrible mood, because Mum was forcing her to put on a dress she had never liked. So that morning she dashed out in her overalls and favourite blue checked blouse, and she had to try to get rid of her anger out in the open.

Still stifled with rage, she sat on the mountain ridge with her arms around her knees. She found it difficult to breathe, because she was just so disappointed. Couldn’t she be allowed to be herself? Did she absolutely have to be dressed up in clothes that were far too ladylike and grown-up, just because they were all going to have their picture taken? Then she would stand there framed forever in that horrible dress, which just wasn’t her! It would be so wrong, so very wrong!

“Hi, Karine!”

It was the father of one of the girls in class. He came down from the mountain ledge and sat next to her. She muttered something as a greeting and hid her face against her knees.

“What are you so upset about?”

Karine just sniffed and couldn’t say anything. She wanted to get away, but that would have been impolite.

Then she remembered. “I thought you had moved? Lisen told me that you were about to move ... was it the day before yesterday?”

“You’re right, but I just wanted to take leave of the town while I fetched the last items. Then I caught sight of you walking up here.”

Karine didn’t ask why he had followed her. She wasn’t interested in knowing that.

He asked her quietly: “Has somebody been nasty to you?”

“No,” she mumbled. And then: “They don’t understand me.”

“At home?” the man asked gently.

“They’re kind enough, that’s not the problem. But my mother has such strange ideas.”

He put his arms gently around her shoulders. “Would you like to tell me about it?”

Karine reacted vaguely and instinctively as he touched her. She had never liked physical contact with other people, and her distaste had grown worse in the past two years. She didn’t remember why.

He understood her. “Just remember that you have a friend in me. I’ve always felt that you were a very special girl, Karine.”

His words warmed her heart, but she was pretty embarrassed because he was staring at her breasts as he spoke. Her body had changed dramatically over the past few months and to her mother’s surprise, she had begun to need a bra. Karine was a child with a woman’s curves, which is quite a dangerous combination. There will always be men who are turned on by little girls. Lisen’s father was such a type.

He was an electrician. He had coarse features but was pretty good-looking and regarded as a nice chap. His wife probably knew quite a lot about his escapades with other women, but she knew nothing about his sickly desire for girls like Karine.

Karine suspected nothing at all because she had forgotten the terrible incident two years before, and Lisen’s parents had always been kind to her. She didn’t know them all that well, but the other girls in her class thought that Lisen had the handsomest father of them all. Karine didn’t think so: she thought that her father, Vetle, was better looking.

Suddenly, she felt that her small problem with her clothes and the photographer was ridiculous. She wanted to go home.

But Lisen’s father kept on squeezing and patting her in an extremely kind manner while he told her how well he understood her.

What was it he understood? Karine hadn’t said anything. She didn’t want to expose her family to ridicule.

In fact, he was so kind that she couldn’t interrupt his breathless monologue, didn’t get a chance to do so either, because he talked incessantly. He talked a lot of nonsense, something about always seeing her when she was out walking or in the garden. They had lived next door to the Voldens’ house, but now they were moving. Far away, Karine didn’t know where.

Suddenly, Karine discovered that she actually liked the idea that somebody was looking after her. She dared to lean her head a bit more comfortably against his shoulder. At home, they rarely showed emotion through caresses. Vetle and Hanne had more of a friendly relationship with their children. Being with Lisen’s father made her feel at ease. She felt as if she was four years old again.

That was until he began stroking her breast. Then she felt vaguely uneasy. Of course, Karine had learnt more about so-called life during the past two years, but the incident in the flowery meadow had been erased from her memory. Now she experienced an irrational sensation that something was wrong; she had flashbacks about something frightening, something she absolutely mustn’t think about, because then she might go mad with grief. But these sensations were so weak that she didn’t do anything drastic, she merely stiffened when the man’s big work-hardened hands glided over her.

He had begun to pull her blouse over her head.

That was when something awoke in Karine.

A fear of something that had happened in the past, something she had desperately tried to hide from herself. She didn’t recall it now either, but she remembered her immense anxiety and horror.

She screamed and broke loose, with the result that the man was left sitting with her blouse in his hand. But he was up as swift as thought, and grabbed her. Karine stumbled on the slippery cliff, trying to grab hold of roots or hold onto crevices in the rock. The man was over her; she felt him pull her trousers down; she tried to crawl away but he held her firmly, forcing himself into her from behind. She wriggled away, turned around and kicked and bit and tore and pulled, so that the moss flew around in large tufts, and she got a taste of earth in her mouth. There was no danger that they would fall down the slope because there was a bank of earth below them, but a cliff isn’t the best surface on which to fight. Karine’s hair was full of moss and earth. She spat earth up into his face, because now she knew what was happening, more because of what she had learnt from others than what she remembered herself.

She was in utter panic. She hit and hit and bit and kicked for her life, or so she thought. She knew it was something awful she had experienced that time, and it mustn’t happen again.

He managed to enter her again, and this time she was trapped. Her screams were subdued by his hand, while her fists banged pointlessly against his back.

So humiliated, so grubby, she just wanted to die ... Never would she be able to look people in the eye. Stigmatized, worthy only of being despised by all.

He had finished. He got to his feet and quickly put his clothes on.

“Don’t you dare tell anybody,” he panted. “Because I’ll deny it. Nobody knows I’ve been here today.”

Then he was gone.

Karine was unable to get up. She lay huddled like a fetus, sobbing and trembling.

She managed to say pathetically: “You mustn’t do this. You mustn’t do this.”

The photograph was terrible. Her mother said: “You look a mess!”

Karine never told anybody about what had happened. Not because he had forbidden her to do so, but simply because she banished it from her consciousness. She imagined that it was nothing but a bad dream.

Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been able to get on with her life.

Nevertheless, it had a hidden impact on her. It really did!

Karine became lonelier and more introverted than ever. She took great care not to walk on lonely forest tracks, always seeing to it that she was surrounded by open space. Or that she was close to places where people lived. She always sought solitude, because that was a part of her nature.

Nevertheless, she yearned desperately to be among people. But it wasn’t possible now.

Often, she felt like Shira in the grottos. She had read about her in the chronicles of the Ice People. When Shira stood in a void with empty space all around her.

Karine’s distance from her fellow humans was enormous.

She was laying the table that day when her older sister returned from meeting her One and Only Love. They had visitors from Linden Avenue. Mari, overjoyed, impulsively gave her Karine a hug as she passed. As always when somebody touched her, Karine would be shocked and draw away. But Mari was too overcome with joy to notice it.

Mari continued into her room to write down the day’s events in her diary, which was very secretly hidden behind a chest of drawers. Today, he saw me, she wrote. He looked deep into my eyes and said “Hi.”

Her hand happened to flip a page in the book so that an old page appeared. She read it quickly: Today, he saw me! Oh, I’m the happiest person in the whole world!

Mari stared at the page in surprise. But that was about a totally different boy! One that she had finished with ages ago. Oh, bother! He was nothing to write home about!

She quickly returned to today’s boy, but she was no longer quite so enthusiastic. She didn’t know what to put down on paper, because she had thought of writing: I’m the happiest person in the whole world!

A dialogue was taking place in the living room. Henning Lind of the Ice People, who was now eighty-nine years old, was visiting Vetle and his family. Jonathan, who was fifteen and therefore knew everything, was discussing a boulder on one of Linden Avenue’s fields with the grand old man of the family.

The boulder had always been there, close to the farm, and it was always necessary to plough around it. For generations, that stone had been a source of irritation to all farmers. Everybody, ever since Tengel the Good, had hit it with hammer or maul and chisel, and had reduced it somewhat, but there was still a lot left to frustrate new farmers in the family.

Jonathan was cocksure. “All it would take is some dynamite, and the problem would be solved.”

The old patriarch looked directly at Jonathan. “If you’re considering using dynamite, you haven’t understood a thing,” he said tartly.

Jonathan looked at him inquisitively, so he explained. “My father Viljar worked on the stone every time he had an opportunity. He would sit out there with his chisel, and under his hands, the boulder was reduced in size by a few cubic centimetres. My grandfather Eskil did the same, and Heike before him. I did my bit, just like all our ancestors who have owned Linden Avenue. André goes out there and struggles with it from time to time, and so did Rikard when he was young. Do you understand?”

Jonathan nodded shamefacedly. “The family’s struggle against the boulder. I understand. It was bigger before, wasn’t it?”

“Huge! They say that in Are’s time it was as tall as two men.”

“Wow! And now people are looking down at it!”

“Yes. Now do you understand the struggle, the challenge?”

“Where’s the sledgehammer, Uncle Henning?”

“That’s the way,” said the old man with a smile. Then he went out to see whether Hanne’s famous sea of crocuses planned to flower this year.

Mari came down with her head full of her future meetings with the One and Only. She was humming a tune:

Oh, I know a spot

Where goats flock.

Jonathan, who was always teasing her, immediately answered her with a parody:

Oh, I know Peter

Who's waiting to meet her with his stick.

“Jonathan!” Mari yelled, trying to hit him.

Nobody saw Karine slip out, eager to leave. The topic had bothered her.

But she didn’t get any farther than the door. There she met Benedikte, with Henning and the children’s father, Vetle, who was serious for once.

“Come here, children,” said Benedikte. “I need to talk to you. Where are the others?”

Jonathan quickly fetched Hanne, Christoffer and Mari. It was Sunday, and everybody was at home.

Benedikte was very serious. She said: “I’ve had a visit. In the churchyard. From our ancestors.”

The young ones started. They knew that now and then Benedikte was in touch with their ancestors. All three of them would have liked to have Benedikte’s ability, but they were just ordinary people.

“The first to appear was Imre,” she said, “And it was his final visit. His task now is to guard young Tova, and he’ll send somebody else next time.”

“What a shame,” said Christoffer. “Imre was so immensely handsome, and so pleasant to talk to.”

“Yes, it’s a pity. He asked me to stay in the churchyard, and when everybody else had left, our ancestors appeared.”

There was a solemn sigh from the younger members of the little group.

“The situation is very grave,” said Benedikte. “Tengel the Evil has vanished from his resting place.”

“No!” gasped Jonathan.

“Yes. The Wanderer is searching for him. But he seems to have disappeared without a trace.”

“Ugh!” exclaimed Mari.

The grown-ups were visibly pale.

Benedikte said: “He doesn’t seem to be on his way to Linden Avenue, he appears to have other plans. Nevertheless, we need to take precautions. Nataniel and Tova mustn’t come here anymore, because Tengel the Evil will be keeping a close eye on Linden Avenue. They each now have a special guard. Tova’s is Imre, as I said, and young Nataniel has Linde-Lou. However, each of us also has his own helper among our ancestors. This is necessary now because the situation is critical.”

Mari was curious: “Who’s my helper?”

Benedikte turned to her. “I don’t know. I know that my helper is Heike, but I don’t know who is helping the rest of you.”

“What a shame,” said Mari. “I would have loved to have the incredibly handsome Imre. But he’ll be Tova’s helper.”

“Yes. You know that Imre isn’t one of our ancestors as such. He’s still alive. But nobody could have a stronger guard than him.”

“Then Nataniel ought to have had him,” said Jonathan.

“Tova is one of the stricken and is therefore vulnerable. We don’t know what her task will be. I think Linde-Lou has been chosen to protect Nataniel for a special reason. Linde-Lou is an important counterpart to Tengel the Evil. Linde-Lou was a member of the Black Angel’s family, and his heart was full of benevolence and concern for the young ones. That makes him extra strong.”

“Linde-Lou killed several people after he died,” Mari objected.

“I don’t think you’ve understood it correctly,” said Benedikte. “It’s true that people died of shock when they saw him. But all he wanted so desperately to do was to get in touch with the living, because he had so much to tell them. Christa was the only one who saw him as he had once been. The others only saw the shocking ghost.”

“Ah, so that is how it was,” said Jonathan.

“Yes. Linde-Lou’s tragedy was immense. But he’s happy now. He adored Christa, and to be allowed to guard and protect her child means a great deal to him. However, our ancestors would like to have you young ones taken to a safe place.”

Mari began to feel slightly uneasy.

“We have decided where to move you,” said Benedikte. “I’ve spoken to Christa. She could do with some help at home – she has eight boys to take care of, after all. She wouldn’t mind having Mari and Karine to stay.”

“No!” blurted Mari.

Benedikte looked at her. “Don’t you like Christa and Abel?”

“Yes, yes, I do. Very much,” Mari stammered. “But I would very much like to be here just now. We won’t be leaving immediately, will we?”

“You must leave by tomorrow morning.”

Oh, dear, Mari thought. No, I want to meet him!

She realized that it was hopeless, because she didn’t know the boy at all well so she couldn’t tell him that she was leaving. Her One and Only Love wouldn’t even have time to begin and develop.

Mari heard a small voice inside her tell her that because she would never have that boy, their “love” would have a chance of survival. “Only what is lost is owned forever,” wrote Henrik Ibsen: in a moment of serenity, Mari thought those words were beautiful.

Moving to Christa’s house wasn’t such a big deal for Karine. In fact, it might be quite nice to get away from these surroundings that held so many bitter memories. She got along well with Christa and her large all-male family.

As she thought about it more closely, the idea appealed to Karine. After all, it was only for a short while. Until they found Tengel the Evil and induced him to sleep once more.

That was her innocent thought.

“What about me then?” asked Jonathan.

“We’ve thought about you,” Benedikte replied. “You’ve been quite unhappy at school over the past year, haven’t you?”

“Yes, absolutely!”

“That’s for sure,” sighed Hanne. “His grades are falling at an alarming rate. Getting him up in the morning ...! It’s an impossible task! When you’ve eventually got him out of bed he immediately lands there again!”

Benedikte nodded. “How would you feel about a year out of school?”

“Terrific!” said Jonathan. “But where will I be going?”

“You’ll have to work, of course!”

“Sure! Earn some money!”

“Just listen to my greedy son,” said Vetle. “Dad, can’t you get the hospital in Drammen to take him?”

“Drammen is too close by,” Christoffer replied. “He might as well stay at home. But I think I could send him to Ullevål in Oslo. They have small flats for their employees.”

“But I’m not a doctor,” Jonathan protested.

“Who said you had to be a doctor?” replied his grandfather. “You can push the trollies in the casualty department. Wash corpses and new casualties.”

“Ugh!” shuddered Hanne, and Jonathan turned quite pale.

“Those are the usual jobs for beginners without any training, but if you think you can’t handle it ...”

“Of course I can,” said Jonathan quickly. He could have bitten his tongue for saying so. But now he had said it. “When am I to start?”

“I’ll organise it,” promised Christoffer. “I must say I’ll feel a lot more relaxed when I have my three grandchildren away from Tengel the Evil’s sphere of interest.”

“Me, too,” said Henning.

The others looked at him with concern. After all, he was eighty-nine years old, and their evil ancestor would probably strike against him.

Not to mention Benedikte, Henning’s daughter, who was sixty-seven, and one of the stricken who had turned against Tengel the Evil.