Ingrid jumped up eagerly, “I know what we’ll do! We’ll take the magic treasure of the Ice People with us, Dan, Ulvhedin and me, and we will abolish the curse once and for all!”
Frantic exclamations of “Stop! Stop!” flew around the room. Ingrid’s suggestion was cut down so decisively that she sank back down onto the bench, crestfallen.
Only from one corner did her suggestion receive any interest. Ulvhedin’s eyes shone with a thoughtful lustre, and a smile played about the corners of his mouth, which made her shudder slightly.
“Enough of that,” Alv said. “We all wish to be free of our inherited curse, but not under any circumstance is my only daughter going to dig that pot up! We have already lost far too many youthful lives in the lineage.”
The others fell silent. Their thoughts went out to Vendel Grip, who had vanished in the vast country of Russia. They did not know that at that very moment he was in Arkhangelsk, suffering in a dungeon. But his experiences have already been related, and some years were still to pass before the clan would receive word of him.
The only thing they knew was that his mother, Christiana, was alone in Scania, grieving over the unknown fate of her son. His grandmother Lene shared in that grief.
Tristan was probably the person in the room who took Vendel’s disappearance most to heart. Lene was his sister and Christiana his niece.
The conversation turned to more everyday matters, but there were two in the group who did not partake in the conversation. Two brains had started to devise plans.
Chapter 2
To Ingrid’s great delight, young Dan remained at Graastensholm for a few days. The two were together all the time, and Ingrid absorbed all the knowledge and information she could, like a thirsty plant absorbing water. No one could keep track any more of how many times she had begged her father for permission to travel with Dan into the mountains – a question to which she had received the answer “No” equally as many times.
On Dan’s last evening she was very taciturn. Her parents perceived her silence as an expression of her suffering soul feeling misunderstood, and sympathized with her longing. But they would not be moved. Dan’s journey was much too dangerous for Ingrid to join him, they said, wild and thoughtless as she was. It was true that Dan had more or less promised that he would not attempt to find Tengel the Evil’s grave; nonetheless, he intended to travel in that direction, he explained to them disingenuously, in case he was able to find some interesting plants.
That night Ingrid could not get to sleep. She had been a good girl for a whole year because her father had said that she had to learn to be worthy of owning the treasure. It had been a long and strenuous year. Not to be allowed to wish disease upon the cliques of local gossips, not to be allowed to tease the farmhands who salivated in their desire for her. Not to be allowed to wish for a good harvest at Graastensholm or for strength and health for poor little Bronja at Elistrand. Not to be allowed to use her nascent abilities in witchcraft!
The Ice People’s treasure ...
She had heard the story about Kolgrim who, using witchcraft, was able to locate the treasure behind Sol’s portrait. Naturally, her father had not hidden the secret medicines and magic potions in the same place as before, but, still, it was rumoured that Kolgrim had received help from his long deceased grandmother, Sol, in finding them. Ingrid was too distantly related to Sol for her to expect to receive any help from that source. But it was whispered that Sol still had a hand in situations where her help was needed. And she and Ingrid did resemble one another closely, so perhaps there was a slight chance that Sol might be of help now.
Ingrid got up and went over to the window. A foggy crescent moon was shedding no light in the night sky, but it was early summer so she was still able to make out the Parish of Graastensholm. That is to say, it was not the village itself that she could see but the back of Graastensholm Farm. Beyond it was the forest, the meadows, the fields and the ridges in the background. Had Sol not spent a lot of time in the forest up there? Was it not said that she had had a secret place of her own there, too? Someone once claimed to have sensed Sol’s presence in the forest ... Had it been Cecilie? Ingrid knew that Sol was still present among the members of the Ice People: Villemo, Dan’s grandmother, had both sensed and seen her several times.
“Sol!” Ingrid whispered quietly out to the forest, “Dan planned to journey to the Valley of the Ice People, but he is not allowed to do it. They are all so stupid, they don’t understand anything! There is something in the valley that is tempting and alluring, but what is it, Sol? Do you know? I don’t think it can be the pot, Tengel the Evil’s pot, because is that really what we want to get hold of? You and me and the others?”
The landscape held its breath in the quiet summer night.
“Of course we should be allowed to travel to the Valley of the Ice People now that Dan has to go north anyway. If only I could get permission to join him! And take all the magic potions with me! Sol, there is so much inside me that I am not given the chance to express. I know, I do conjure things occasionally. Like the time I had to carry in the hay and was so sick and tired of it all. No one saw what I did. Did you see it? I just made a peremptory movement with my arm and the word just flew out of my mouth, and then all the hay just lifted off the ground and whirled in the air like a gust of wind before it landed in the hayloft. It was a fantastic feeling, Sol! I was in such high spirits all day that I could hardly sit still.”
Ingrid remained standing at the window, staring dreamily out into the night. Memories came and went.
Suddenly she started. Was that a shadow she had seen out there? Over by the edge of the woods ... Out of the forest, across the meadows, something or someone came walking.
An elk?
No, it was too small. It was not an animal. Its shape was more human, this hazy image gliding rapidly across the dewy grass. It came closer. Heading directly for Graastensholm Farm.
In a different room at Graastensholm young Dan Lind of the Ice People was preparing for his journey next day. He went through his equipment, making sure that he had everything, and he double-checked the list he had made of what had to be done.
Dan, the only grandchild of Villemo and Dominic, was a methodical man. That was something he had learned during his time with Olof Rudbeck the Younger. As a child, he had been thoroughly spoiled by his grandparents, much to the dismay of both his father Tengel and his mother, Sigrid. Villemo displayed a complete lack of discretion when it came to her beloved grandson. “If your parents act disagreeably towards you, just come to me, Dan! We’ll take care of it, you and I!”
Dan had nonetheless managed to grow into a good person. His proper, serious, conscientious side became apparent when he started his studies. That was when what he thought of as his new life began.
He went over to the mirror at Graastensholm. The room he was staying in had belonged to Liv, though he was not aware of it as Liv had been dead for fifty years. It was in semi-darkness and the mirror was dim and hazy with age, but with a little effort he was able to discern his features. His dark colouring he could see, of course, and the distinctive curves of his eyebrows, which he had inherited from his grandfather Dominic. But in the darkness he could not see the scar at the corner of his mouth, which gave him a permanently ironic look. He knew that that look irritated many people, and they would call him arrogant because they did not understand what had caused the sarcastic pull about his mouth. But that was not the way he was. He was anything but arrogant. Did they not see the uncertainty in his eyes? His need for friendship? Dan had many friends, but he was one of those incurable utopians who wish to be friends with every single soul on earth. An unfriendly remark made by some random individual could depress him for days.
He was actually very handsome, he concluded with a smile, in this subdued light that softened all his features. He was also sweet and cooperative. Though maybe not all the time, he had to admit. Ingrid, for example, had the ability to irritate him intensely with her irrational digressions of thought. Imagine having such a clever mind and then horsing around the way she sometimes did, teasing him by quickly