That was the Cup Woman. Then there is Ekka in the Well House.
Ekka is Jutta’s aunt. She lives in an elegant, well kept house up in the hills and has her own field and keeps a cow and some poultry.
Ekka is always dressed in black, for she is a widow and wears mourning. She is mourning her late husband Bendik.
Ekka fetches water from a little pool in the stream that runs across her ground. It’s a well made pool with stones around it; Bendik made it. It is called the Well, and so the house is known as the Well House.
Ekka brings her white bed clothes out into the field and spreads them out on the grass to get them properly bleached.
There is nothing strange about any of this. But now comes the strange thing, and again it comes from Merrit and is one of all those things she knows.
Well, during the night, when Ekka’s bed clothes are spread out in the green grass, Bendik’s lonely shadow comes and sees them lying there white and shining.
“What then, Merrit?”
“Well, Ekka knows perfectly well that Bendik is there, ’cos she can feel it in her bones. But what’s the use if he’s dead after all? Even so, Ekka wishes he would come in, even if he’s dead.”
“Does he come?”
“Yes. Just you listen. Dare you? Yes, ’cos it’s really frightening. Just come and sit over here, Amaldus, ’cos otherwise even I daren’t tell it.”
It is a windy evening, all overcast; the wind soughs in the grass, and the water in Ekka’s well is almost black with tiny curling waves. Merrit looks all staring.
“Well, you see, one day Ekka had taken her bed clothes indoors to iron them, but they had to be stretched first, and she couldn’t do that on her own, but then she had the idea of fixing one end of a sheet to a door latch. And then, just as she starts stretching, there’s Bendik suddenly standing in the doorway holding on the other end and helping her. Amaldus!”
“What’s wrong?”
“Amaldus, I think he’s here now.”
“Who? Bendik?”
“Yes. ’Cos we’ve been talking about him so much.”
And Merrit clings on to you, and you can feel her cold hair against your mouth. She’s trembling with fear and daren’t look up.
“Can you see anything, Amaldus?”
“See what?”
“Him.”
“No, ’cos there’s no one there.”
“Yes, but he’s there even so.”
She gets up with a little scream.
“Come on.”
And they rush off down through the fields.
***
But you can’t get Ekka and her well house out of your mind again.
The candles on Grandmother’s piano are lit during the gloaming. Then Merrit comes and plays scales. One scale is different from all the others; it goes right through you when you hear it.
“Why is it like that, Merrit?”
“Like what?”
You try to explain to her, but it’s as though you don’t quite know how to put it.
“No, but I know what you mean, ’cos it’s right enough that it is like that. It’s got its own name as well… what’s it called?”
Grandmother knows. It’s the “melodic minor scale”.
The melodic minor scale is full of the dusk, and it makes you think of Ekka’s well house and the well there reflecting the clouds in its dark waters. Then there are clouds and sorrow in the dark waters. And when Ekka’s bed clothes lie out there shining in the grass as they are bleaching, Bendik comes and stands watching how the sheets and pillowcases turn pale and sad in the grass ––
Then, one evening, the church bells ring.
“They are ringing for Ekka.”
“Is Ekka dead?”
No, Ekka’s not dead. They’re her wedding bells that are ringing. Ekka has found a new husband.
And now there is no longer sorrow in Ekka’s well; there is joy instead. And all the sheets and duvet covers and pillow cases in the bed where Ekka sleeps with her new husband are beautifully bleached and freshly ironed and full of joy and comfort.
But outside, beneath the sad night clouds, Bendik’s pale shadow wanders about all alone.