Walpurgis Night 1986
I hate Tornaby. Hate the people who live there. The people who stare at me and call me horrible names. Who tell their kids to keep away from the likes of Elita Svart.
Gyppo, tart, trash.
To them I’m just a nymph in a muddy pool. A tempting morsel that will drag them down into the shit. They haven’t realised who I can become when my wings have dried and I am ready to fly.
Arne dreamed that he was running through the forest. He was twelve or thirteen, seven or eight, yet at the same time he was grown up in that weird way things are in dreams.
The darkness was pressing against him from all directions, twigs and branches tearing at his face, lashing him with a whining sound that reminded him of a riding crop. He didn’t know why he was running, at least not at first. He just knew he was terrified.
Behind him he could hear the dull thud of horse’s hooves drumming against the soft ground. The air was thick and hard to breathe, his heart was pounding in his chest.
The hoof beats came closer and closer, the horse snorting with every step as if it were eager to catch him up.
He was running blind, the darkness was impenetrable now. He tripped over a branch and fell so slowly that he had time to think that his landing would be painful.
He crashed down heavily, yet at the same time the ground was soft, sinking beneath him. There were creatures all around him, creeping and crawling, animals with slimy bodies and shiny backs, with scales and blue transparent wings. They were trying to get into his mouth, his nose, his ears.
His arms flailing wildly, he tried to find something to hold onto so that he could pull himself up, but his legs were heavy, dragging his body down until only his head was protruding above the mud.
Horse and rider broke through the greenery, and the horse was Bill yet at the same time something else, something ancient that might not even be a horse.
And the rider . . . The body was covered in leaves, tendrils writhing like snakes. The arms were branches, the fingers plaited bramble, the face hard circles of bark beneath a crown of antlers.
Arne closed his eyes, felt the rush of wind as the Green Man and his steed leaped over him. The smell of stagnant water, rotting wood and dead leaves, of things that crept and crawled and transformed what had recently been alive into earth and mould.
He screamed, but no sound came out of his mouth, just a stream of white grubs that stripped the flesh from his legs. Emptied him completely and let the night into his head.
*
He woke as usual right in the middle of that silent scream. Automatically checked whether he’d wet himself, which was ridiculous because he was a grown man, not a teenager who was easily scared.
His clothes were sticking to the car seat, his mouth felt like grade three sandpaper. The full moon shone high above the treetops.
Arne belched loudly and shook off the unpleasant dream. Once when he was a little boy he’d got lost during a mushroom foraging expedition, and had fallen into a sump of mud. His boots had stuck fast, and he hadn’t been able to get out. His father had found him after fifteen minutes – filthy, scared and covered in mosquito bites, but otherwise unharmed.
His father had told him off, firstly for straying from the path, and then because Arne couldn’t stop crying. It was nothing, really, and yet for some reason the incident had stuck in his mind, got mixed up with Ingrid’s ghost stories about the Green Man, tormenting him with nightmares that meant he’d had to sleep with a rubber undersheet until well into his teens.
It must have been ten years since he’d last had that fucking dream. All Lasse Svart’s fault, of course. His eyes, that burning stare.
There are many forces on the move tonight, let me tell you. Nature is hungry and the Green Man will ride through the forests, so you be careful, little Arne.
Arne shuddered. He’d parked the police car on a narrow track. The smell of newness had gone, replaced by a miasma of perspiration, the marsh itself, and fried food. He glanced at the Coke can and the screwed-up foil tray on the passenger seat. Checked his tie and discovered greasy stains left by his supper, just as he’d suspected.
He could have stayed in Ljungslöv after delivering Lasse’s moonshine, but instead he’d returned to Tornaby. Now he was sitting here in the middle of nowhere, half-dozing while he waited for . . . what? He had no idea. He just knew that he had to be here, that she’d invited him. He took out the Polaroid again.
Come to the stone circle at midnight.
Bewitched. That was how he felt. And maybe that was the truth?
It was because of Elita that he’d driven out to Svartgården this afternoon, because of her that he’d been dragged back down into the mud. He’d been well aware of the risks, and yet he couldn’t stay away. And now he was sitting here.
There are many forces on the move tonight.
He picked up the container on the passenger seat, unscrewed the lid and took a deep slug of neat alcohol. It seared his throat, offering a brief respite.
He sat there with the container on his knee, fingering his tie. Found a new patch of grease, on his shirt this time. Then several more on his trousers. He spat on his thumb and rubbed it over the coarse fabric, to no avail.
Suddenly he felt sick. Everything was going downhill. He was going downhill. And it was all because of her. Elita Svart. He ought to get out of here. Right now, before it was too late.
He looked at his watch. The luminous hands showed eleven thirty. Time to make a decision.
He took one last swig, then put the container back on the seat beside him. Took his binoculars out of the glove compartment, then opened the car door and stepped out into the night.