“And there’s a churchyard out there too,” he said. “The whole of the east coast is a graveyard for hundreds of ships that ran up on the sandbanks and were smashed to pieces, and for all the sailors who drowned. Many of those who went to sea in days gone by couldn’t even swim.”
Joakim nodded and closed his eyes. “I didn’t believe in anything,” he said. “Before we came here I didn’t believe the dead could come back… but now I don’t know what to believe. A number of remarkable things have happened here.”
Silence fell in the kitchen.
“Whatever you might feel of the dead, or whatever you think you might see,” said Gerlof slowly, “it can be dangerous to let them rule our actions.”
“Yes,” said Joakim quietly.
“And to try to call them up… or ask questions.”
“Questions?”
“You never know what answers you might get,” said Gerlof.
Joakim looked down into his coffee cup and nodded. “But I have wondered about this story that says they will return here.”
“Who?”
“The dead. When I was having coffee with the neighbors, they told me a story: those who have died here at the manor return home every Christmas. I was just wondering if there were any more tales about that?”
“Oh, that’s an old story,” said Gerlof. “It’s told in many places, not just here at Eel Point. The Christmas vigil of the dead, that’s when those who have passed away during the year return for their own Christmas service. Anyone who disturbed them at that time had to run for their life.”
Joakim nodded. “An encounter with the dead.”
“Exactly. There was a strong belief that people would be able to see the dead again… and not only in church. In their homes too.”
“At home?”
“According to folk beliefs, you should place a candle in the window at Christmas,” said Gerlof, “so that the dead can find their way home.”
Joakim leaned forward. “But was that just those who had passed away in the house,” he said, “or other dead people as well?”
“You mean drowned sailors?” said Gerlof.
“Sailors… or other members of the family who have passed away somewhere else. Did they come back at Christmas as well?”
Gerlof glanced briefly at Tilda, then shook his head. “This is just a story, you know,” he said. “There are many superstitions surrounding Christmas… It was the turning point of the year, after all, when the darkness was at its peak and death was at its closest. Then the days grew longer again, and life returned.”
Joakim didn’t say anything.
“I’m looking forward to that,” he said eventually. “It’s so dark now… I’m looking forward to the turning point.”
A few minutes later they were outside saying goodbye. Joakim held out his hand.
“You have a beautiful home out here,” said Gerlof, shaking it. “But be careful of the blizzard.”
“The blizzard,” said Joakim. “It’s supposed to be a really big snowstorm down here, isn’t it?”
Gerlof nodded. “It doesn’t come every year, but I’m pretty sure it will come this winter. And it comes quickly. You don’t want to be outdoors down here by the sea when that happens. Especially not the children.”
“So how do people on Öland know when something like that is coming?” asked Joakim. “Can you feel it in the air?”
“We look at the thermometer and listen to the weather forecasts,” said Gerlof. “The cold has arrived early this year, and that’s usually a bad sign.”
“Okay,” said Joakim with a smile. “We’ll be careful.”
“You do that.” Gerlof nodded and set off toward the car, supported by Tilda, but he suddenly stopped, let go of her arm, and turned around. “One more thing… what was your wife wearing on the day of her accident?”
Joakim Westin stopped smiling. “I’m sorry?”
“Do you remember what clothes she was wearing that day?”
“Yes… but they were nothing special,” said Joakim. “Boots, jeans, and a winter jacket.”
“Have you still got them?”
Joakim nodded, looking tired and tortured again. “The hospital gave them to me. In a parcel.”
“Could I take a look at them?”
“You mean… you want to borrow them?”
“Borrow them, yes. I won’t damage them in any way, I just want to look at them.”
“Okay… but they’re still all parceled up,” said Joakim. “I’ll go and get them.”
He went back into the house.
“Can you take care of the parcel, Tilda?” said Gerlof, setting off toward the car once more.
When Tilda had started the engine and driven out through the gate, Gerlof leaned back in his seat.
“So, we had our little chat,” he said with a sigh. “I suppose I was a bit of a canny old man after all. It’s difficult to avoid it.”
A brown parcel containing Katrine Westin’s clothes was lying on his knee. Tilda glanced at it.
“What was all that business with the clothes? Why did you want to borrow them?”
Gerlof looked down at his knee. “It was just something that occurred to me when we were standing out there by the bog. About how the sacrifices were carried out there.”
“What do you mean? That Katrine Westin was some kind of sacrifice?”
Gerlof looked out through the windshield, over toward the bog. “I’ll tell you more very soon, when I’ve looked at the clothes.”
Tilda pulled out onto the main road.
“This visit worried me a little,” she said.
“Worried?”
“I’m worried about Joakim Westin, and about his children…
It felt as if you were sitting there in the kitchen talking about folktales, while Westin regarded them as reality.”
“Yes,” said Gerlof, “but I think it was good for him to talk a little. He’s still grieving for his wife, which is not so strange after all.”
“No,” said Tilda. “But I thought he talked about her as if she were still alive… as if he were expecting to see her again.”
20
After the break-in at Hagelby vicarage and the flight through the forest, it was two weeks before the Serelius brothers came back to Borgholm. But suddenly there they were at Henrik’s door one evening, at the worst possible moment.
Because by that time the quiet but rhythmic knocking in his apartment had started to become intolerable, like a dripping faucet that couldn’t be turned off.
At first Henrik was convinced that it was coming from the old stable lantern, and after three difficult nights with the constant sound of tapping, he put it in the car. The following morning he drove over to the east coast and put the lantern in the boathouse.
But the knocking continued the next night, and now it was coming from inside the wall in the hallway. But not always the same wall-the sound seemed to move slowly behind the wallpaper.
If it wasn’t the lantern, then it must be something else he had brought with him from the forest, or from that fucking death chamber he’d been crawling around in.
Unless of course it was something that had sneaked into his apartment through the brothers’ Ouija board. Those nights when they had sat around the kitchen table staring at the glass as it moved beneath Tommy’s finger, it had definitely felt as if something invisible was in the room.
Whatever it was, it was getting on Henrik’s nerves. Every night he wandered back and forth between the bedroom and the kitchen, terrified of going to bed and turning off the light.
In sheer desperation he had called Camilla, his ex-girlfriend. They hadn’t been in touch for several months, but she sounded pleased to hear from him. They had talked for almost an hour.
Henrik’s nerves were at the breaking point when his doorbell rang three days later, and the sight of Tommy and Freddy at the door didn’t exactly make him feel any better.
Tommy was wearing sunglasses and his hands were twitching. He wasn’t smiling.