Flåm was a very quiet and clean village with hardly any traffic. It reminded Samuel of a model village he used to own when he was little, but this was a model village blown up so big it was full-sized. Like Hell and all the other places they’d driven through, the streets were lined with gabled timber houses—some painted white or blue, others left dark and natural. Aunt Eda drove them slowly past a church, which was also made of wood, and shaped like all the other buildings, except for the short, pointed steeple sticking out of it.
“Your uncle Henrik used to joke that it wasn’t a church at all,” said Aunt Eda as she waited at a crossroads. “He said it was just an ordinary house that had ideas above its station.”
Aunt Eda parked the car in the middle of the high street.
“Come on, children. Let us get some food, shall we?”
Samuel huffed, but he and Martha did as their aunt said, following her past a bookshop, then an art shop, toward a shop which had a sign outside, painted in bold yellow letters, that said:
DAGLIGVAREBUTIKK
“This is Oskar’s shop,” explained Aunt Eda. “Oskar is the grocer. This is where I get my shopping. It is a werry friendly place.”
She pushed open the door and a bell rang.
Samuel nearly choked on the smell. It was like walking into a giant block of smelly cheese.
The shop was busy with villagers talking and laughing, but when they heard the bell, and turned to see Aunt Eda and the two children, their conversation stopped.
“Goddag!” Aunt Eda said, cheerily, but the greeting bounced off their stony faces.
Aunt Eda did her best to ignore the villagers staring at her, and picked up a shopping basket. She began to pick groceries from the shelves—a packet of flatbread, a carton of cloudberry juice, a jar of pickled herrings—while Samuel and Martha shuffled along behind her.
When she reached the cheese counter, another customer—a chubby woman in three cardigans—tutted at Aunt Eda and shook her head at Samuel and Martha.
“What’s her problem?” Samuel muttered.
But it wasn’t just the cardigan woman. All the other customers were giving Samuel and Martha equally funny looks.
“Now, Samuel and Martha, is there anything you would like to add to the basket?” Aunt Eda asked, doing her best to ignore the villagers.
Martha shook her head.
“No,” said Samuel, because he wanted to leave the shop as soon as he possibly could.
“If you’re sure,” said Aunt Eda, with a smile, as she waited at the cheese counter for Oskar to appear.
“Goddag, Oskar,” she said to the shopkeeper, once he’d walked over.
Oskar was a rather odd-looking man. He was short, with a bald head and an impressive yellow mustache. He also wore a yellow bow tie and yellow shirt, tucked tight over his round belly. He didn’t return Aunt Eda’s greeting. He just stood there, silent in his yellow clothes, as if he was just another cheese waiting to be picked.
“Oskar?” Aunt Eda enquired. She then began talking in Norwegian and pointing at different cheeses.
Oskar began slicing cheese, but didn’t talk.
It was then that a boy appeared from the doorway at the far end of the shop. The boy was about Samuel’s age, with white-blond hair and green eyes magnified by thick, gold-rimmed glasses.
He came and sat on a stool behind his father, Oskar, and began playing with a calculator.
It must be the closest thing to fun round here, thought Samuel. Playing with a calculator.
“Goddag,” the boy said to Samuel. His smile revealed a silver brace.
“Hello,” said Samuel.
“Fredrick!” Oskar clicked his fingers, and sent his son away, as if Samuel was infected with something dangerous.
To Samuel’s surprise, the poor boy did exactly as he was told, disappearing from where he had come without question.
The other villagers in the shop were leaving, each one tutting or grumbling or throwing scornful looks as they passed Aunt Eda and the children. When the last villager had left, Oskar’s face softened, like a chunk of cheese that had been left too near a fire. And, in a voice that sounded both friendly and cross all at once, he began to talk.
But what it was he said to her Samuel and Martha couldn’t imagine, although the bulging eyes made it clear it was something quite serious.
Samuel wished he could speak Norwegian so he could understand properly. But if he had understood the conversation, he might have wished it the other way round, as the words coming out of Oskar’s mouth would have made him think everyone round here was totally mad. Including Aunt Eda.
The Conversation between Aunt Eda and Oskar (That Samuel and Martha Couldn’t Understand)
AUNT EDA: What is the matter with everyone today, they seem so unfriendly?
OSKAR: Eda, it seems strange that you have to ask.
AUNT EDA: Well, I am asking.
OSKAR: The children! Who are they? What are you doing with them?
AUNT EDA: They are my sister’s children. They have come from England. My sister and her husband died in a terrible accident and they have no one else. No one. They must come and live with me.
OSKAR: Near the forest?
AUNT EDA: Yes, near the forest.
OSKAR: Then you might as well kill them now. It would be kinder. Because you know if they go into the forest they won’t ever come back.
AUNT EDA: They won’t go into the forest. I will make it clear that they must never go in.
OSKAR: (shaking his head) As soon as they hear about all the creatures that live there—the huldres and the pixies and the trolls and all the others—they will want to see them. You know what children are like.
AUNT EDA: No, I will make it very clear to them that they must not go near the trees. So long as they never go into the forest, they will be safe.
OSKAR: (leaning over the counter) No, Eda, forgive me, but I fear you are wrong. You might be able to keep the children away from the forest, but can you keep the forest away from the children? Did you hear about Old Tor, the painter?
AUNT EDA: Old Tor? Who has the art shop down the street? Whose wife was just so rude to me? I have bought pictures from him before. What about him?
OSKAR: Well, he says he was out near the fjord on Friday, painting a moonlit scene, when he saw a great monster. A monster that had run out of the forest. A troll with two heads!
AUNT EDA: (gulping) A troll with two heads?
OSKAR: Yes, and it was being chased by even uglier creatures. Huldres!
AUNT EDA: Huldres! Just like the Professor said.
OSKAR: Yes. They were on horseback. Old Tor saw them throw a net over the two-headed troll and then beat him to the ground. They dragged the troll back to the forest.
AUNT EDA: So what did Tor do?
OSKAR: He hid behind his canvas and prayed to God that no one would notice him. He sat there shaking for two hours before he dared make a move.
AUNT EDA: And it was dark. How could he see? He only has one good eye, hasn’t he?
OSKAR: Yes. I know. But it is a very good eye. You have seen his paintings. Old Tor is the most respected man in the village…And if the creatures are stepping out of the forest, you can see why people worry. About the children. Your house is too close, Eda.
AUNT EDA: Yes, it is close. Don’t you think I know that? But what do these worried people think I am going to do? Do they think I am going to send the children into the forest? Do they think I won’t tell them not to go there? Do they think I won’t tell them not to be outside after dark? Of course I will. What else can I do?
OSKAR: You could…move. Maybe.
AUNT EDA: Oh, and what would my dear Henrik say then?
OSKAR: Henrik? Eda, Henrik has…gone. You must realize that.
AUNT EDA: Yes. Of course. I know that. I know that just as well as I know that he is coming back.
OSKAR: But it has been ten years, Eda. Ten years since he walked into that forest. You must know he isn’t coming
back.
AUNT EDA: If I knew that, I would have gone into the forest years ago, and finished myself off too.
OSKAR: Eda, you don’t mean that. There are plenty of men out there, you know. Maybe some who need a little company too, from time to time.
AUNT EDA: Well, yes, maybe. But now I’ve got Samuel and Martha to look after. And anyway, I know Henrik is still alive. Somewhere. Inside that forest. And I know he is going to come back.
OSKAR: Yes. But now? After ten years? Wouldn’t it be easier if you—
AUNT EDA: No. He is alive. And he is coming back. I can feel it in my heart. If you believed in love as much as you believed Old Tor, you would understand me.
OSKAR: Oh, Eda, if only you realized how much I believed in true love.
AUNT EDA: And what does that mean?
OSKAR: (blushing) Nothing. It means nothing.
AUNT EDA: Now, here is twenty krone for my groceries. You can keep the change. Morna, Oskar.
OSKAR: Morna.
And then, in a strange kind of English, Oskar said to the children: “Remember, do as your aunt does tell you so—stay away from the cheese.”
The cheese? thought Samuel. What’s so dangerous about the cheese?
(He didn’t realize that the shopkeeper had been talking about the forest, and meant to say “trees,” not “cheese.”)
Aunt Eda, Samuel and Martha left the shop and walked back to the car. On the way, Samuel looked inside the window of the art shop run by Old Tor.
He saw the chubby woman with the three cardigans who had been so rude. She was talking to a man with a very long beard and clothes specked with paint. Catching the old man’s stare, Samuel saw that one of his eyes was as white as milk. Samuel pretended to be interested in the canvases by the window. Most were of mountains and fjords, but then he saw another picture. It wasn’t in the window, but hanging on the wall behind the old man. It was a picture of a wild-looking creature, with two heads. It was so lifelike it made him jump, as if the creature could have leaped out of the painting.
Samuel shook the picture out of his mind, like a dog shaking off water, and followed his aunt and sister to the car.
“Why is everybody so creepy around here?” he asked his aunt as they loaded the shopping into the trunk.
“They’re not creepy, really. Not when you get to know them. They are just a bit frightened, that’s all. And fear can make you act a bit strange.”
“Why are they frightened?” Samuel asked. “What is there to be scared of?”
“Nothing,” Aunt Eda said, too quickly to be believed. “That is, nothing if we all follow certain rules. Now, Samuel, I can see from your face that you don’t like the sound of that werry much. But they are not just for you, they are for me as well. If all three of us follow the rules, we will be fine. And we will not become strange like those scared old willagers.”
Samuel curled his lip as he climbed into the backseat. All his life he’d had to listen to other people’s rules. Do your homework on time. Make your bed. Change out of your uniform after school. And where had following these rules got him? All the way to Norway and his hairy-faced aunt.
No. That was it. Samuel Blink wasn’t going to listen to rules anymore.
After all, what else had he got to lose?
The Unmentionable Place
Aunt Eda lived in a white wooden house with a steep sloping gray roof, a few miles outside of Flåm.
Most visitors to the house would have been mightily impressed with its setting, as it perched on a lush green hillside overlooking one of the most beautiful Norwegian fjords. The fjord was called the Aurlandsfjorden—a giant inlet of water so still and so pure that it looked like a massive mirror reflecting the tree-covered hills and snowcapped mountains all around.
Samuel, however, was not like most visitors. He hated the house and he hated the view from the first time he saw it. He felt exactly the same about the grassy slopes of the hills that led up to the thick, dark forest behind the house.
“This is the worst place ever,” he mumbled to his sister, who neither nodded yes nor shook her head no.
Where were the people? Where were the things to do?
“Come on, children, let me show you inside,” said Aunt Eda as she walked them from the car to the narrow front door. Samuel couldn’t help but notice the easy way Aunt Eda’s skinny arms managed to carry both the suitcase and the shopping bags, as if they contained nothing but feathers.
“This is the hallway, where we leave our coats and our hats and where we take off our shoes,” she said, placing the bags and suitcase down. “And there is the kitchen and the washroom, on the left…and on the right, if we go on through, is the liffing room.”
She walked them into a large room with wooden walls, rugs on the floor and a fireplace. A shiver went through Samuel as his eyes scanned the room. He had a very strange feeling he had been here before. He recognized everything, but couldn’t think where from. The rocking chair, the sofa covered with a multicolored woolen blanket, the dark wooden table, the shelves full of glass vases and ancient-smelling books, an empty dog basket, the framed paintings of the mountains and fjords on the wall, and more mountains and fjords outside the front window.
“Ah yes,” said Eda, noticing Samuel was looking at the paintings. “They were painted by an old man in the willage. Old Tor they call him. He sits out sometimes, late at night, painting the water and the mountains under the stars.”
Outside the back window was a different view entirely—the grass slope stretching toward the strange army of dark pine trees on the horizon.
Samuel shook off the feeling that he had been here before, and noticed something even more unsettling. “Where’s the TV?”
“There’s no telewision here,” Aunt Eda told him. She almost seemed proud of the fact. Proud of not having a television!
“But I’ve brought my video games,” he said. “And I need a TV to play them.”
Aunt Eda did not seem to appreciate the seriousness of this situation, as she said: “Well, for now you will haff to find someone else to play with.”
“Like who?” sulked Samuel.
“Like…like…” Aunt Eda nearly said “like your sister” but decided against it after looking at Martha’s somber, speechless face. “…like dear old Ibsen.”
At the sound of his name, a large, gray and black dog padded his way into the living room and introduced himself by wagging his tail. The tail was white, and curled around so that the tip touched his back, as if it was the handle of a dog-shaped jug.
“Get off me,” Samuel said, pushing the dog’s snout away.
He expected the dog to growl at him, but he just wagged his curly tail and looked up at Samuel with complete love in his eyes. Then Ibsen padded his way over to Martha, and just for a second she seemed to forget herself. Happiness tugged the corners of her mouth—not into a smile exactly, but into something that might grow into one.
“Martha!” Samuel said, pointing at her face. “You’re smiling!”
But as soon as the half smile was pointed out, it disappeared, like a frightened deer, and Martha remembered her sadness once again. A sadness that was mildly comforted by Ibsen’s rough tongue licking her hand.
“Looks like you haff got a friend,” Aunt Eda said, but it was unclear whether she was talking to Martha or Ibsen.
The dog followed everyone upstairs, where the children were shown their bedroom. There were two beds with sheets and blankets tucked in tight in a way that reminded Samuel of a hospital. A tall antique wardrobe stood like an awkward stranger in the corner of the room, from where it seemed to look down on the children.
“I know that wardrobe,” Samuel said. “I’ve seen it before.”
Aunt Eda looked frightened for a moment, as if Samuel’s words were dangerous creatures let out into the room.
“It is a werry popular type of wardrobe,” she said.
“But I’ve seen the wallpaper too.”
“The wallpaper is especia
lly popular, all over the world I am sure…Now, here are your beds…”
The beds faced two windows, out of which Samuel could see the green sloping field and the dark forest behind.
Ibsen, who was now at Samuel’s side, looked up at the boy and began to whimper. And he kept whimpering until Samuel stopped staring out at the forest.
Aunt Eda was busy showing Martha where to put her clothes in the wardrobe when Samuel asked: “What’s in the trees?”
Aunt Eda’s head spun around as if Samuel had just said the worst swearword he knew.
“In the forest,” Samuel went on. “Are there bears? Or wolves? Or something else? Is that what those stupid villagers were scared of?”
Aunt Eda walked from the wardrobe to Samuel, and bent down until her face was level with his.
As Samuel looked in her eyes he felt his heartbeat start to quicken. His question about the forest had a transforming effect on his aunt, making her face look so stern it could have been carved from stone.
“Don’t mention that place,” she said in the most serious voice Samuel had ever heard. “Don’t let your mind think about what is inside there. When you go outside you must stay on the grass, where I can see you. Both of you. This is the most important rule I will tell you. Neffer go in the forest. Neffer. And don’t talk about it effer again. Do you understand?”
Of course, Samuel didn’t understand. He had more questions in his head than ever before. What was so dangerous about the forest? And if it was so dangerous, why live so close that you can see it from your windows?
But Samuel was so shocked by the sudden change in Aunt Eda that he found himself unable to say anything except: “Yes, I understand.”
Aunt Eda breathed in through her nose, as if testing the truth of his words by smelling them.
“Good,” she said.
And then she straightened herself back upright and forced the smile to return to her face.
“Right,” she said. “Now, let’s go and feed those empty stomachs.”