The wood in the old frame was swollen from the recent rains, and keened in protest as he lifted it. It stuck, only a third of the way open, but the opening proved wide enough for him to wriggle through on his belly. He landed with a thud on the bed beneath the sill, raising a plume of dust.
The room—he didn’t know why he expected it to still be his room—had been papered over. Gone were the trappings of his youth, replaced by sprigs of forget-me-nots on a lavender background. The long shelf over the bed now sat devoid of rock paraphernalia, and in its place a cluster of cheap aerosol perfume sprays and assorted out of date make-up palettes. Of course, either Tove or Hanne had taken possession of the room once he’d moved on. Life wasn’t supposed to be static, and his two youngest sisters had always hated sharing.
Things were different outside of the room; everything was exactly the same, except now the bare boards were covered with a rime of dust that would never have existed in the past. His grandmother had never sat idle for a minute of her life, and she’d made sure none of them ever were either. Unexpected nostalgia washed through him. He found himself crouched at the top of the stairs, forehead pressed to the wooden spindles, peering down on the room below, as if the years had rolled back to a happier time, before events had conspired to rip him and his family apart. The smell of freshly cooked bread threaded through the musty air, and with it the tang of spicy meatballs. He could hear his grandmother’s voice, high and sweet, singing as she worked. Old folk songs, and things that she’d sung in the war-torn days of her youth. His two younger sisters’ voices intertwined with hers, and his heart clenched, the loss of those times briefly unbearable.
There was so much he’d lost when he’d left this place, so much more besides painful memories that he’d left behind. There’d been love in this place and joy. At the bottom of the stairs, he lingered on an old leather pouffe. Perched on its patterned surface he’d numbed his fingers learning to pick out tunes upon his grandfather’s old acoustic guitar. Learning notes and chords, and painfully deciphering music notation. No wonder he’d been quiet, even back then, his mind desperately trying to unravel the secrets of three languages all at once. Of those, music had been the most difficult, but also the one that brought the most joy.
Later, he’d accompany his grandmother’s singing. Watching her wipe and put away dishes, roll out dough, mend knees and coddle them in the way the mother that had left them behind ought to have done. He didn’t miss his mother, had never felt the urge to track her down. His father had passed away several years back. Elin maintained that’s what had finally done for their grandmother. Her heart had split in two. She’d loved her son, for all his faults. The same as she’d loved him, he realised now, despite his faults, and despite the doubts that were all too human, and not a sign of her abandonment of him.
She hadn’t known how to help him, or what to believe. And he? He ought never to have eavesdropped on a conversation never meant for his ears. She’d been crying out to a friend, expressing all the confusion she’d felt. He, fool that he was, had taken it as rejection. That his grandmother believed him to be the same vile monster as everyone else.
“I get it now. You were just afraid.”
She hadn’t betrayed him. She’d simply been harried and human. He wondered if Elin had ever told her why he left.
“I never said goodbye. I regret that. I regret not confiding in you about any of it.”
He’d thought he might take several things with him when he left. In the end, he took only one. A faded photograph in a frame of his grandparents in their youth, caught in the midst of laughter. That’s what he wanted to remember, the merriment that would light up her eyes. The smile he’d inherited.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry. You told me the Gyllenskölds were the sort of folks to whom you should always be polite but keep at a wary distance. I was shit at listening, and we all paid for it.”
***
Sometime later, Alle found him staring at a patch of ground near to the remains of the old rabbit enclosure. Here, despite it still being only early spring, the grass was already overrun with wildflowers. He’d asked her not to leave the car, but she was shockingly bad at obeying orders. He guessed she’d seen him from along the lane, standing staring at nothing, and could no longer keep her feet still.
Heck, he was almost glad to see her, and certainly he didn’t object when she slipped her hand into his.
“Is this the place?” she asked.
He gave a nod. Even vocalising a yes was too much.
Alle squeezed his fingers but gave him space for his thoughts. “It seems too pretty to be a source of a nightmare,” she observed after a while.
“It was dark, cold, and wet. Not nearly so green.” He turned to her, bringing their bodies together in a close embrace.
“Spook?” she said into the cascade of his long hair. “Are you okay?”
There were tears in his eyes, and he sniffed, but he said, “I am.” And deep down, he was. “I couldn’t have come here before. I didn’t think I’d ever come back, but it’s just a place.”
“Why did you come?”
“Closure,” he said. “It’s time to move on, and there was an anchor still holding me here.”
“And there’s not any longer?”
He bowed his head and kissed her, losing himself momentarily in the feeling of togetherness. “There won’t be before long.”
She pushed him back a little, so that she could peer up at him. “What does that mean?”
“It means that tonight is Valborg.”
“The celebration of the arrival of spring. I don’t understand.”
“It’s Beltane. Walpurgisnacht. It’s not just about the coming of spring. It’s about lighting bonfires and making a noise to ward off malevolent spirits. There are a lot of evil spirits lingering about this place. I figured it was time to send them on their way.”
“Okay,” she said, still not understanding. “Do I need to help you collect some firewood? Do we sing, or bang saucepan lids?”
“On this occasion, neither.”
