Rites of Spring Anders Motte (classic children's novels txt) 📖

barefoot on the wet grass; Arne thought he could see the moisture gleaming on her shins.

The chanting continued, and by now he had heard it often enough to be able to make out the words.

‘Hoof and horn, hoof and horn. All that dies shall be reborn.

‘Corn and grain, corn and grain. All that falls shall rise again.’

The rhyme was repeated over and over again, each time a little faster than the one before. Elita’s feet were moving faster too. She swung her arms, spun around on the spot, taking the children with her.

‘Hoof and horn, hoof and horn. All that dies shall be reborn.’

Elita’s movements became more frantic. She threw her head back and raised the antlers high in the air, drawing the children closer.

The circle spun faster and faster, closer and closer. Arne swallowed, felt himself grow hard.

‘Corn and grain, corn and grain. All that falls shall rise again.’

The children pulled on the ribbons, locked Elita in the centre of the circle with her arms outstretched.

The tempo of the drums continued to increase. The circle was spinning so fast now that Arne could barely make out the children. But he didn’t care about them; Elita was all that mattered. Her eyes were closed, her chest shining with sweat above the neckline of her dress. She looked as if she was in a trance.

Arne’s mouth was as dry as dust, his face was burning, his trousers straining at the crotch. He reached for the zip with his free hand, but something made him pause. At first it was only a barely perceptible vibration in the darkness, then a pulsating beat that clashed with the rhythm of the drums.

He lowered the binoculars and twisted around, almost losing his balance in the process.

The beat grew louder, turning the hairs on the back of his neck into tiny, needle-sharp ice crystals. He’d heard it before, many times. The sound of hooves, of branches and twigs breaking. The sound from his nightmare, a rider approaching.

The hoof beats came closer and closer, thundering inside Arne’s chest, his head, his crotch. His cock shrank to the size of a pathetic little worm.

Horse and rider burst through the greenery directly below him. He caught a glimpse of a huge black horse that was something else at the same time, something ancient that might not even be a horse. And the rider . . .

Arne screamed, but exactly as in his dream, not a sound came out.

He closed his eyes, heard the Green Man and his steed crash through the undergrowth beneath him.

The smell of stagnant water overwhelmed him. Rotting wood and dead leaves, the stench of things that crept and crawled and transformed what had recently been alive into earth and mould. Transformed a grown man into a little child.

He lost his balance and fell backwards out of the tree. Hung in the air just long enough to think that the landing would be painful.

He could hear terrified screams from the glade, almost drowned out by the bellowing of an animal.

The sound was cut off abruptly as Arne hit the ground, letting the night into his head.

38

‘I’ve had a look at Hubert’s book. The poems are beautiful, melancholy in a way that I really like. They express a kind of longing, both for what has been and what never was.

‘Hubert has written inside the cover that the strongest love is unrequited love. I’ve searched for the quotation in the book, but I can’t find it. Anyway, I understand exactly what he means.’

David is playing the good husband. Preparing meals, asking about her work. In spite of his efforts, Thea can tell that his thoughts are elsewhere. He’s irritable, flares up at the least thing. She can’t help recalling his outburst the other day when he attacked the builder; he still hasn’t said anything about the incident. He gets phone calls until late into the evening, and he doesn’t protest when she says she’s tired and closes the bedroom door so that she can concentrate on the file the archivist gave her.

David, Nettan, Sebastian and Jan-Olof were interviewed at the police station in Ljungslöv. Together, apparently, which Thea finds a little strange. On the other hand, the police had also questioned Bertil and Erik together earlier that same day, so maybe it wasn’t against the rules.

The interviews seem to have been taped and then transcribed. In a couple of places whoever did the transcription has added brief notes in brackets.

Present in the room were the children and their fathers. All the men are listed in an old-fashioned way, with their professions: bank manager Bertil Nordin, headmaster Staffan Hellman, engineer Pawel Malinowski, machinist Eskil Leander.

David answered most of the questions. Sometimes he was prompted by Nettan, less often by Sebastian. Jan-Olof, on the other hand, says nothing unless he is asked directly, and then he answers in monosyllables.

INTERVIEWER: What were you doing in the stone circle?

DAVID NORDIN: We . . . We were pretending to act out a ceremony.

JEANETTE HELLMAN: Carry out a ceremony.

INTERVIEWER: What kind of ceremony?

DAVID NORDIN: A spring sacrifice. Like they used to do in the old days.

JEANETTE HELLMAN: They pretended to sacrifice a virgin so that spring would come.

INTERVIEWER: I see. And whose idea was that?

DAVID NORDIN: Elita’s. She’d read about it. Seen old photographs. She’d sorted out animal masks for us so that it would look exactly the same.

INTERVIEWER: And what did this ceremony consist of?

JEANETTE HELLMAN: We were going to sacrifice Elita to him. Pretend to, I mean.

INTERVIEWER: To him?

(SILENCE)

INTERVIEWER: Who were you going to sacrifice Elita to?

SEBASTIAN MALINOWSKI: (clears his throat) To the Green Man.

INTERVIEWER: The Green Man? The figure that people burn on the Walpurgis Night bonfires?

DAVID NORDIN: Yes . . .

INTERVIEWER: OK . . . So you were at the circle because you were going to play at sacrificing Elita to the Green Man.

JEANETTE HELLMAN: It wasn’t a game.

INTERVIEWER: No? What was it, then?

DAVID NORDIN: Well, maybe it was a kind of game. But it didn’t feel that way. It felt kind of . . .

JEANETTE