The Ice People 1 - Spellbound (The Legend of the Ice People) (2 page)

BOOK: The Ice People 1 - Spellbound (The Legend of the Ice People)
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The child didn’t want to come. She clung to her mother’s coat. It looked nice and wasn’t very worn. The girl was also well dressed. Not extravagant but simple and nice. Obviously, the girl’s mother had been a real beauty once. Now her dark eyes stared blindly at the Moon.

It had never occurred to Silje to take the dead woman’s coat to protect herself from the cold. This would be unthinkable for various reasons. The most important reason was probably that she found it repulsive.

“Come,” she said again, feeling helpless as she faced the crying baby’s sobs. She gently loosened the child’s hands and took her in her arms. “We must try to find some food for you.”

Of course, she had no idea how she would find it but the word “food” worked its magic on the child, who resigned with a trembling, tearful sigh, allowing herself to be carried out of the backyard. She cast a long, agonizing glance back at her mother that was full of grief and despair. Silje knew that she would never forget that look.

The child wept silently while Silje carried the child through the streets along the last stretch towards the gates. The child had cried for so long that she was far too exhausted to be able to resist.

But Silje’s problem had become twice as big because now she was also responsible for another person. A child, who in a couple of days was likely to die from the plague ... Until that happened, she would have to make sure that the girl didn’t go hungry.

They were close to the city gates. Between the houses, she could see the glow from the pyres on the square. It was so cold at the moment that people were unable to bury their dead because the ground was so frozen that graves couldn’t be dug. This was why they burned them. There was a mass grave that … No. Silje didn’t want to think about such tragic things right now.

She saw a woman leaning against the wall of a building. It was obvious that she might collapse at any moment. Silje hesitantly walked over to her.

“Can I help you?” she asked timidly.

The woman turned and looked at her with matted eyes. She seemed to be a lady of noble bearing but right now she was deathly white and the perspiration poured over her face.

As Charlotte Meiden’s eyes caught sight of Silje, she gathered all the strength she could muster and began to walk away. “Nobody can help me,” she mumbled as she disappeared down a side street. Silje watched her go but didn’t follow. “I suppose it’s the plague once more. There’s nothing I can do.”

She was now at the gates. There was still a bit of time until they would be closed. But Silje didn’t want to enter Trondheim again because she realized that nobody would offer help to her or the child. She would try to find a barn in the countryside – or somewhere else.

“Let’s hope we won’t meet any wild animals!”

Only they weren’t any worse than the suspicious characters, drunkards and debauched wretches who would pester her if she got close to their ‘territory.’ People who didn’t care at all about the plague and who hadn’t a clue as to whether they would soon be beyond help and therefore wanted to experience all the pleasures of this life before it was too late.

The palace guard asked where she was on her way to at this late hour. As a matter of fact, he was less interested in those who wanted to leave than those who wanted to enter. She said that they had been turned out for showing signs of sickness, and he accepted this at once, and with a wave of the hand he sent them on their way. He didn’t care whether they carried the infection with them. Honestly, he couldn’t care less! The most important thing was that they left Trondheim.

The warm glow from the pyre outside the city gates urged her on. Silje began to walk faster because what if they put out the fire before she reached it? But first of all, she would have to walk through the forest which was situated between Trondheim and the scaffold. Silje had lost her way and ended up at the evil spot, the scaffold, when she came to Trondheim. But she had moved away fast from the spot, terrified by the stench and everything she saw. Now her desperate yearning for warmth made her go back. Just stretching her frozen hands towards the flames, turning her back to the fire, feeling the heat through her clothes, warming a body that had felt nothing but cold for so many days and nights – this would be a dream come true.

The forest … She stopped at the edge of the forest.

Like many others who lived in open farmland, she had always been afraid of the forest. It held so many unseen secrets in its shadows.

The girl became too heavy for her exhausted body to carry so she put her down.

“Can you walk on your own?” she asked. “Then I can carry you again in a little while.”

The child didn’t answer but did as she was told while she was still sobbing quietly to herself.

The shadows were so dark among the pine trees. Silje’s eyes had got completely accustomed to the darkness of night. She thought she saw secretive beings with burning eyes behind the trees. She pondered that dark wasn’t just black but a long series of nuances – before they turned into what we call grey.

The little girl was also frightened. But fear had made her stop sobbing and now she just clung very tightly to Silje, moaning softly now and then.

Silje’s mouth felt dry. She tried to swallow, hoping that the dry sensation would disappear. They had to fumble their way step by step, and she tried to concentrate on the glow from the pyres on the other side. This was often a help. She didn’t dare turn around because she had a feeling that shapeless creatures were dogging her footsteps. …

When they were about halfway through the forest, Silje could feel how the blood raced in her body and drained from her face. She was shocked.

Once more she heard the sound that evening, she heard a child cry. Only she just
couldn’t bear
to hear this kind of sobbing.

Her heart was pounding madly. It was the pitiful sound of a baby crying in the forest. This could only be one thing: a
myling
. She had heard a lot of stories about them and always dreaded that she would meet one. She knew that she was in mortal danger.

Mylings were the spirits of infants born out of wedlock and left to die a very long time ago. Afterwards they would haunt everybody who walked past their hidden graves. She knew only too well the stories of what would happen to those who got too close to such a grave in the forest! They told of an infant child who was just as tall as a house and who would scream horribly and follow the poor passers-by, its footsteps pounding the earth, finally clawing at their backs and dragging them so that they would collapse. She also knew that such a spirit could transform itself into: Black dogs, a child’s corpse without throats, ravens and reptiles, and each one just as evil as the other.

Silje was transfixed. Her legs wouldn’t listen to her plea to move quickly away from this spot. Only the little girl, who was still clinging on to Silje, reacted in a different way.

She said something which Silje didn’t understand. Just one word, a name perhaps? It sounded like “Nadda” or something similar.

Might she have had a little brother or sister who had died recently? This was quite possible.

The girl began tugging at her hand, wanting to draw Silje towards where the cries from the child came from among the trees only a short distance from the path that Silje imagined that they were on.

Silje hesitated. She desperately wanted to get away.

The little girl repeated the word or the name once more, her voice choking with tears.

“But it’s too dangerous,” Silje protested. “We must leave quickly, very quickly!”

But how
could
they run away? Would they have a tremendous
myling
snapping at their heels? That would be even worse.

Suddenly, a gentler thought entered her mind. Perhaps mylings wanted to be baptized? Perhaps they were yearning to be united with their mother?

What could one do to bring peace to a myling? Read the sacraments for them? But she wasn’t a priest. Or … wait a minute! There was an old verse, an invocation. If only she could recall it! Something that began like “I baptize thee …”

Then she thought it would be better to say all the prayers she could remember. Then it would be over and done with.

Silje took a deep breath and began reciting all the prayers she had learned, Catholic and Protestant all mixed together, fragments from her earliest childhood and the things the priest had taught her.

She approached the myling very carefully, ready to dash away at the least sign of danger. The myling was silent now. Her prayers had worked!

She was feeling a bit more confident and walked a bit faster while she also tried to put together a ceremony that would be like for a rite of baptism. The little girl tugged at her. She wanted them to hurry up.

As they picked their way forward, Silje mumbled with an unsteady voice:

“I found you in the middle of the night. Therefore I baptize you Dag if you’re a baby boy. You were doomed to die once. Therefore I baptize you Liv if you’re a baby girl.”

Did that sound too foolish? Would it be acceptable as a rite of baptism? To be absolutely sure, she added: “In the name of Jesus, our Lord, amen,” knowing perfectly well that she had no right to pronounce such sacred words. Only the priests were allowed to do that.

Was it dangerous to call a
myling
Liv? Perhaps it would become a mortal again and rise with awesome might … No, she mustn’t think of such things. She had done her very best and could only pray that it would be enough.

The little girl seemed determined to find the
myling
, which made Silje even more certain that she had a younger sister or brother. It was no use trying to stop her. She had no other choice but to follow.

It
had
to be somewhere. She stopped, bent down and began to search in the dark shadows beneath the trees. Her heart still pounded and her frozen fingers trembled.

But for a human to touch a child
myling
?

What would it feel like? Would there be anything to touch? Perhaps it would be just dried bones? Or would it be slimy and horrible? She wished she could escape from it all when something suddenly made her jerk.

The little girl seemed to have found something. She was prattling away, and what she said didn’t make sense. And then Silje heard a rattling noise.

She stretched out her hand and touched a wooden handle. It felt like a beer tankard with a lid.

No danger there, she thought, and carried on searching.

Clothes … Warmer than the frozen soil.

A small bundle.

When she touched it, the weak cries began again. Silje plucked up all her courage and carefully let her hands glide inside the thick blanket.

Warm skin. It
was
a baby – and alive. Not a
myling
, just a baby that had been abandoned and left to its fate.

“Thank you,” she whispered to the little girl. “Tonight you’ve saved this baby’s life.”

The little girl eagerly touched the baby in the bundle. “Nadda,” she said once more, and Silje didn’t have the heart to abandon the plague-stricken child.

The cup. She shook it. Something splashed. Silje put a finger into it and could feel something that was moist. Something that wasn’t yet frozen.

She licked it.

Milk. Oh, dear God. It was milk!

She awoke with a jerk from the intoxicated state she was in and discovered that she had put the cup to her mouth, ready to drink the whole lot in one gulp.

The children. She mustn’t forget them!

But just a little sip?

No, because then she wouldn’t be able to stop.

The little girl first of all. She would get one-third.

She listened to the deep, delightful gulps as the little girl drank. It broke her heart because it was so difficult to take the cup from her. But she
had
to. The little girl fought to keep it with a fury that frightened Silje.

“Nadda must also have some milk,” she whispered, which calmed the little girl. Anyway the milk seemed to have taken the edge off the little girl’s hunger – it hadn’t taken much to fill such a little girl’s stomach.

She turned her thoughts to the baby. What was she to do with it?

The baby seemed to be wrapped in several layers. Closest to its body it wore a blanket that shone dark grey in the evening darkness. Silje pulled up one corner and twisted it to a point, dipped it in the cup and put it in the child’s mouth.

But the little baby didn’t want to drink. Silje didn’t know so much about newborn babies. She didn’t know that often they aren’t hungry during their first day of life. She didn’t know either that not all babies had a strong instinct to suckle straightaway. She just felt helpless and desperate.

No matter what she did, the baby didn’t want the milk. At last she gave up. They had to move on and she couldn’t carry the cup as well. After all, she only had two arms. Feeling a strong sense of guilt, she drank the rest of the milk herself. It didn’t taste so nice any longer when she knew only too well that she had stolen it from the baby.

She rose to her feet, cradled the baby and the little girl by the hand. She suddenly let out an almost desperate laugh. What on earth was she doing? It was the blind leading the blind, she thought. How could
she
possibly help these two children?

The milk had helped them and eased their hunger, both the little girl and herself. Silje’s fear of the forest had begun to release its grip on her because now she could clearly see the glow of firelight between the tree trunks.

She stopped at the edge of the forest and looked down on the dreadful place. A huge funeral pyre spewed stinking clouds of smoke in her direction. She could see the gallows in front of the pyre, dark against the red fire, and next to it stood the instruments of torture, testifying to the fantasy with which Mankind was suddenly armed – when they got the chance to inflict pain on others. There she saw the pillory. A pyre had been lighted next to it – in case there was a need for red-hot tongs or swords. Large, dreadful hooks on which to hang the criminals and instruments of torture so grotesque and satanic that she shuddered at the sight of them.

BOOK: The Ice People 1 - Spellbound (The Legend of the Ice People)
13.38Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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