Samuel Blink and the Forbidden Forest (3 page)

Aunt Eda was waiting for them at the airport, with a piece of cardboard that said
SAMUEL + MARTHA. HELLO, I AM AUNT EDA
.

Samuel saw the sign. “There she is.”

Martha looked and saw a tall and thin woman with graying hair tied into a bun. The woman, wearing a long stripy scarf and a big orange coat, was smiling straight at her.

Martha followed her brother through the crowds of people and tried to smile back at the woman, but she couldn't. She had lost the ability to smile seven days ago. The day she stopped speaking.

In the case of Samuel, he didn't smile because he didn't like the look of Aunt Eda. She certainly didn't look like someone who had ever been in the Olympics. She looked tall and strict, and wore weird clothes. He didn't like her stupid long scarf or her silly round-toed ankle boots or her big orange coat. He didn't like her red cheeks or her long neck or her weird sloping shoulders that gave her the look of a wine bottle.

When they reached their aunt she held out her arms.

“Samuel,” she said, still smiling broadly. “Martha.”

She hugged them both, squashing their faces together as she brought the children into her arms. Samuel couldn't help but notice that these arms—although thin—were very strong. The wiry hairs on her chin and upper lip prickled his cheek.

“You poor children,” she said, holding the hug for as long as possible. And then she whispered something in Norwegian, which neither Samuel nor Martha could understand. It was something that seemed to mean a lot, because when she stood back there was a tear in one of her eyes.

She looked into both their faces, searching for something that wasn't there.

“Oh dear, oh dear,” she said. “We'd better go to lost luggage and ask if they haff seen the smiles of two children.”

“I'm twelve,” Samuel said crossly. “Martha's ten. You don't have to speak like we're babies.”

Aunt Eda looked like she was ready to tell Samuel off but she thought twice about it.

“Right,” she said, nodding toward the luggage trolley Samuel was pushing, “I'll take your bag, shall I, Mr. Twelf Years Old?”

“I can manage it,” Samuel said, tightening his grip on the metal handle of the trolley. In fact, he had chosen the one trolley with a wobbly wheel and couldn't manage it very well at all, but he tried to hide the strain on his face.

“Werry well. Then let us go to the car, shall we?”

Aunt Eda had a slight accent that sounded slightly surprised, as if the words had never expected to be used. It also turned all
v
s into
w
s or
f
s, which Samuel would have found quite funny if he wasn't so cross about being in Norway.

“She looks stupid,” whispered Samuel as he and Martha followed their aunt through the airport.

Martha gave her brother a look.
No, she doesn't,
she thought (but she was too sad to say it).
She looks nice. She's got Mum's eyes and Mum's smile and she's being very friendly.

“Look at her clothes,” Samuel went on. “Look at her stupid scarf. And those boots. And what's she wearing that weird big coat for? She must spend an hour buttoning it up to the top.”

Aunt Eda turned around. “Sorry? Did you say something?”

“Er, I was just saying how much I like your clothes,” he said.

“Oh,” said Aunt Eda. “Thank you werry much.”

The children followed their aunt through the door that had a sign saying
UTANG
—
EXIT
and outside into the cold air. Suddenly Samuel realized Aunt Eda's scarf and coat weren't so stupid.

“I hate this country,” Samuel told his sister. “I've been here five seconds and I know I hate it.”

His words were lost on the wind as they walked across the tarmac to a scruffy-looking white car on its own in a far corner of the parking lot.

“Look at her car,” he mumbled to Martha as they helped put their luggage in the battered old trunk. “It's ancient!”

Samuel climbed in the back, and was surprised when he saw Martha sit in the front.

“Now, it is old,” said Aunt Eda, acting like she'd heard Samuel talking about the car. “But cars are loyal, I think. If you stand by them, they won't let you down.”

The car coughed its disagreement as she tried the ignition.

“Come on, you old thing,” said Aunt Eda. “Come on…Ah, there it is…purring like a Skogkatt.”

Samuel felt a sense of unease in his stomach as the car pulled away, as if he expected another log to fall out of the sky.

“It was terrible, what happened,” Aunt Eda said. “I couldn't beleef it. Your mother was a brilliant person. And your father—”

The softly spoken words ran through Samuel like nails down a blackboard.

“You didn't know my dad,” Samuel said. “You hardly knew Mum either. You never saw her, so I don't know why you want us to live with you. You never wanted to see us before.”

“This is not true,” said Aunt Eda quietly.

“Why did you never see our mum, if you liked her so much?” Samuel asked, surprised at how angry his own voice sounded. “Mum said you were scared of flying in planes. And going on boats.”

“She did?” Aunt Eda looked confused for a moment, as if she was learning new things about herself. “Oh yes…yes…”

Her words trailed off.

Samuel looked at his sister. She was tracing circles on her palm with her fingertips. A week ago, Samuel had prayed for her to stop singing and now he wondered if he was ever going to hear her sing again. He wondered if there was a song sad enough.

Probably not,
he thought.

Probably not.

Samuel had only been in Norway for thirty-six minutes but he was already sure that it was the worst country he had ever visited. What was the point of all the mountains and trees and water? Why live somewhere so cold you have to wear big coats and woolly hats? And what was with the words on the road signs?

ENVEISKJØRING

REKVERK MANGLER

ALL STANS FORBUDT

The names of the towns they were driving through were just as weird—

LØKKEN VERK

SKOGN

KYRKSÆTERØRA

The small town they were in now was called “Hell.” It even had a sign, written in English, that said
WELCOME TO HELL
.

And what did Hell look like? The same as all the other villages they had been through.

Bright-colored three-story houses and a fat gray church that clung to the gentle slope of a hill, with a short steeple that seemed scared to reach too high to the sky.

“In Norway, Hell is the word for prosperity,” explained Aunt Eda. “Do you know what
prosperity
means?”

She looked at Martha and then in the rearview mirror at Samuel. Neither was about to tell her if they knew what
prosperity
meant or not.

“If you prosper at something, it means you are successful, like if you earn a lot of money people say you are prosperous,” Aunt Eda said. “And Norway is always called a very prosperous country. Everybody earns a nice amount of money. The postman earns nearly as much as the doctors and lawyers. It is a very equal society. In Norway, people don't get too jealous of each other. We are a peaceful people. There is enough money and enough land to go around so efferyone is happy…That is what they say.”

Samuel could see his aunt's face in the mirror and noticed that her eyes were not showing the happiness she described.
She doesn't want us here,
Samuel thought.
That is why she has unhappy eyes. She probably hated Mum, really. And she probably hates us.

He didn't care about peace or rich postmen. He just wanted it to be the week before, when everything was normal.

“How far is it?” Samuel asked his aunt.

They had gone past Hell now and they were somewhere else, without houses or a name.

“Oh, not too far now,” she told him. “But on the way we must stop and get some food at the grocer's shop in FlÃ¥m. FlÃ¥m is the village nearest to my house. It is a lovely place.”

The words were no comfort. Samuel had never felt farther away from home in his whole life. And it wasn't just the two plane journeys or the long car ride or the weird scenery that was making him feel like this. It was the thought that even if he made the long car ride and two plane journeys back in the opposite direction, he would be no closer to home. He knew, ever since his parents died, that he would never feel at home again—even if he lived to be a hundred years old.

“I have a dog,” Aunt Eda said. “A Norwegian elkhound. He is a werry good dog, if a little bit greedy. He is called Ibsen. I told you about him in the letter. He barks a lot but he is a big soft thing really. Do you like dogs?”

“No,” said Samuel.

Martha said nothing.

“Oh well, I am sure you will like Ibsen.”

The scenery suddenly disappeared, replaced by darkness on both sides of the road.

“This is a werry long tunnel,” explained Aunt Eda. “It is elefen kilometers, and goes right under the mountain.”

Samuel looked at his sister. She used to be scared of tunnels, but her blank face showed no sign of fear.

“You are werry quiet,” Aunt Eda said, turning to Martha. “Why don't you tell me about your hobbies? What games do you like to play?”

The questions made Samuel cross. “She can't answer you. She doesn't…speak.”

Aunt Eda made a questioning face, so Samuel explained.

“She hasn't said anything since Mum and Dad died. She only nods and shakes her head. Only ask her things that need a yes or no for an answer.”

Samuel thought the idea of his silent sister might shock Aunt Eda, as she seemed the shockable type, but she took this piece of news as if it was perfectly normal. He watched his aunt's face under the flickering lights of the tunnel and detected nothing except a warm smile below the same sad eyes.

“Now,” said Aunt Eda, turning a corner. “This is FlÃ¥m, the nearest willage to my house. This is where we must stop here and get some food from the grocers.”

Flåm was a very quiet and clean village with hardly any traffic. It reminded Samuel of a model village he used to own when he was little, but this was a model village blown up so big it was full-sized. Like Hell and all the other places they'd driven through, the streets were lined with gabled timber houses—some painted white or blue, others left dark and natural. Aunt Eda drove them slowly past a church, which was also made of wood, and shaped like all the other buildings, except for the short, pointed steeple sticking out of it.

“Your uncle Henrik used to joke that it wasn't a church at all,” said Aunt Eda as she waited at a crossroads. “He said it was just an ordinary house that had ideas above its station.”

Aunt Eda parked the car in the middle of the high street.

“Come on, children. Let us get some food, shall we?”

Samuel huffed, but he and Martha did as their aunt said, following her past a bookshop, then an art shop, toward a shop which had a sign outside, painted in bold yellow letters, that said:

DAGLIGVAREBUTIKK

“This is Oskar's shop,” explained Aunt Eda. “Oskar is the grocer. This is where I get my shopping. It is a werry friendly place.”

She pushed open the door and a bell rang.

Samuel nearly choked on the smell. It was like walking into a giant block of smelly cheese.

The shop was busy with villagers talking and laughing, but when they heard the bell, and turned to see Aunt Eda and the two children, their conversation stopped.

“Goddag!”
Aunt Eda said, cheerily, but the greeting bounced off their stony faces.

Aunt Eda did her best to ignore the villagers staring at her, and picked up a shopping basket. She began to pick groceries from the shelves—a packet of flatbread, a carton of cloudberry juice, a jar of pickled herrings—while Samuel and Martha shuffled along behind her.

When she reached the cheese counter, another customer—a chubby woman in three cardigans—tutted at Aunt Eda and shook her head at Samuel and Martha.

“What's her problem?” Samuel muttered.

But it wasn't just the cardigan woman. All the other customers were giving Samuel and Martha equally funny looks.

“Now, Samuel and Martha, is there anything you would like to add to the basket?” Aunt Eda asked, doing her best to ignore the villagers.

Martha shook her head.

“No,” said Samuel, because he wanted to leave the shop as soon as he possibly could.

“If you're sure,” said Aunt Eda, with a smile, as she waited at the cheese counter for Oskar to appear.

“Goddag,
Oskar,” she said to the shopkeeper, once he'd walked over.

Oskar was a rather odd-looking man. He was short, with a bald head and an impressive yellow mustache. He also wore a yellow bow tie and yellow shirt, tucked tight over his round belly. He didn't return Aunt Eda's greeting. He just stood there, silent in his yellow clothes, as if he was just another cheese waiting to be picked.

“Oskar?” Aunt Eda enquired. She then began talking in Norwegian and pointing at different cheeses.

Oskar began slicing cheese, but didn't talk.

It was then that a boy appeared from the doorway at the far end of the shop. The boy was about Samuel's age, with white-blond hair and green eyes magnified by thick, gold-rimmed glasses.

He came and sat on a stool behind his father, Oskar, and began playing with a calculator.

It must be the closest thing to fun round here,
thought Samuel.
Playing with a calculator.

“Goddag,”
the boy said to Samuel. His smile revealed a silver brace.

“Hello,” said Samuel.

“Fredrick!” Oskar clicked his fingers, and sent his son away, as if Samuel was infected with something dangerous.

To Samuel's surprise, the poor boy did exactly as he was told, disappearing from where he had come without question.

The other villagers in the shop were leaving, each one tutting or grumbling or throwing scornful looks as they passed Aunt Eda and the children. When the last villager had left, Oskar's face softened, like a chunk of cheese that had been left too near a fire. And, in a voice that sounded both friendly and cross all at once, he began to talk.

But what it was he said to her Samuel and Martha couldn't imagine, although the bulging eyes made it clear it was something quite serious.

Samuel wished he could speak Norwegian so he could understand properly. But if he
had
understood the conversation, he might have wished it the other way round, as the words coming out of Oskar's mouth would have made him think everyone round here was totally mad. Including Aunt Eda.