Anders de la Motte
Rites of Spring
(Seasons Quartet #4)
To all my readers,
because you allow me to have the best job in the world
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Prologue
19 May 1986
As soon as Little Stefan drove onto the marsh, he began to think about the dead girl. It was impossible not to. The game of Chinese whispers that had started on the morning of May the first had already travelled around the area several times. Filled his head with horrific images from which there was no escape.
Her lifeless body on the sacrificial stone in the centre of the stone circle. Her white dress, her hair loose around her head. Her hands folded over her chest, two antlers clasped in her stiff fingers. Her once beautiful face covered by a bloodstained handkerchief, as if whoever had taken her life had been unable to look her in the eye afterwards.
Most Tornaby residents were already absolutely certain that they knew who’d killed her, that the whole thing was a dreadful but simple story. A family tragedy. However, there were those who quietly maintained that something else entirely had happened during Walpurgis Night. That maybe it was the Green Man himself who had claimed his spring sacrifice.
It had been a long time since Little Stefan had believed in ghost stories, but he couldn’t help shuddering. The marshy forest closed in around the dirt track, scraping at the paintwork with long, green fingers. This was the part of the castle estate he disliked most of all. The dampness, the smell of decay. The sodden ground that at one moment felt solid, at the next sucked your boots so deep into the mud that it was a real struggle to escape without help. The marsh belongs to the Green Man, his grandfather used to say. People ought to stay away. At least the superstitious old misery guts had been partly right.
The track led deep into the marsh, to Svartgården, where the girl had lived. Only a month or so ago he’d given her a lift to the bus stop. She’d sat right next to him in the front seat of the pick-up. She hadn’t said much; she’d seemed lost in her own thoughts. He’d stolen glances at her from time to time, watching her face, her movements, and out of nowhere he’d been overwhelmed by a feeling he couldn’t explain.
He was married, he had two young daughters, a house, a car, a good job. Things he usually valued, but at that moment, sitting beside that beautiful girl, they had felt like a burden. His whole life was already mapped out, one long, predictable journey without an ounce of the tempting, forbidden pleasures that emanated from her. He could smell it on her – sweet and sharp like newly opened lilac blossom. A perfume that evoked yearning. Desire.
At one point when she looked away, he’d almost reached out to touch her, as if that would enable him to access everything he didn’t have. He’d stopped himself at the last second, but the sense of loss had lingered for several days.
He had to concentrate in order to avoid the deepest potholes the further on he drove. Lasse Svart was supposed to maintain the track, according to his lease, but needless to say he didn’t bother. For years Lasse Svart had relied on the fact that the count would never be able to find another tenant; nobody was interested in a dozen or so acres of sodden forest, so he more or less did what he liked out at Svartgården. His own little kingdom, far away from laws, rules, and curious eyes.
But that was before Walpurgis Night. Before Lasse’s sixteen-year-old daughter was found dead on the sacrificial stone, the ground all around ploughed up by hooves.
During Walpurgis Night the veil between life and death is at its thinnest. Things are on the move, nature is hungry and the Green Man rides through the forest.
Little Stefan suppressed another shudder.
The forest opened out as he reached the muddy yard surrounding Svartgården. Three dilapidated buildings huddled in the gloom beneath the trees, as if they were trying to hide. Rusty agricultural tools and machinery lay among the nettles.
He’d been here many times before, usually with Erik Nyberg, the castle administrator, and they’d always been met by a pack of yapping terriers before he’d even switched off the engine. Today there wasn’t a dog in sight. The place was quiet; even the birds weren’t making much noise on this spring morning. A strange, oppressive silence filled the air.
Little Stefan remained standing by his truck for a minute or so as he tucked a plug of tobacco beneath his top lip and waited for Lasse or one of his women to poke their head out of the door and ask what the fuck he wanted, but nothing happened. Lasse’s red pick-up was nowhere to be seen, nor was the battered old Ford the women usually drove. He glanced at his watch: seven thirty. Who went out at this early hour?
He caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. A small dog was peering around the corner of the smithy; it was little more than a puppy.
‘Hello! Come on then,’ Little Stefan said, without really knowing why. The dog took a couple of cautious steps, keeping its belly low, tail tucked between its legs. Then it suddenly stopped and stiffened, as if it had heard something.
Little Stefan turned his head, but the house was still in darkness. When he looked back, the dog was gone.
He set off up the concrete steps leading to the front door; halfway up he realised it was ajar. He paused, unsure of what to do. On the wall next to the door he saw a half-metre-tall figure woven from fresh green branches. His grandfather had made one every spring and hung it on the front door.
So that the Green Man will ride on through the night. So that he won’t stop at our house.
‘Hello? Anyone home?’
The words bounced off the walls and came back like a distorted echo, as if it were someone else’s voice. Someone who was watching him from the darkness. Imitating him, mocking him.
Little Stefan looked at the creepy figure again, and for a second he was ready to run back down the steps, jump in his truck and get out of there. Tell Erik Nyberg that no one had been home, and reading the water meter would have to wait. However, he was a grown man with a job to do, not some little kid who was scared of ghosts.
He knocked on the door frame.
‘Hello?’ he shouted again. ‘Anyone home? It’s Little Stefan, from the castle.’
No response.
The silence from inside the house was making him increasingly uncomfortable. His shirt was sticking to his back. He took a deep breath and knocked once more, harder this time. Pushed the door open and stepped into the porch. There was a weird smell, a stale odour that reminded him of animals – but what was it?
‘Hello?’
He checked out the kitchen. The table was littered with dirty plates, glasses and cutlery for three people. Several flies were buzzing around among the remains of the food. One of the chairs had been knocked over. Through a doorway on the other side of the porch he could just see a neatly made bed.
‘Hello!’ This time he yelled up the stairs.
Still nothing. He was feeling very uneasy now, but he pulled himself together and made his way up the creaking wooden staircase.
The upper floor was in darkness. On the left was a bedroom with a double bed, also neatly made. The door on the right was closed. It took him a few seconds to realise that it wasn’t simply a uniform green, but was covered in a carefully painted pattern of leaves. Almost a work of art, in fact.