They walked up the hill to the rectory and were brushing the snow off each other in the hallway when the kitchen door opened and Sara stuck her head out, recognised Ingrid and ran back in, shouting.

The kitchen was a mess. Ingrid said My God and Barbro said Th’ Divil teik me. Anja was pleased to see them and hugged Ingrid and glanced searchingly up at her, as if to assure herself that she was in one of her stable moods.

Ingrid pulled herself free and enquired about Mikkel, who had fled under the table and refused to come out, and about Ante, whom she spotted through the door to the drawing room, where he was sitting on the floor with half a porcelain cup in his mouth. Nelvy and Gunvor were each on a chair eating leftovers with their fingers, Nelvy in the old red woollen hat pulled down over her ears, with short, brown tufts sticking out through two holes.

Ingrid asked why they weren’t at school and was told that the teacher was ill. She drilled her eyes into Anja, who shrugged. Barbro bent down and looked at Mikkel and asked what he was doing under the table. He covered his face with his hands. Then Ellen came running in and wanted to sit on Ingrid’s lap. Ingrid had slumped down onto the wood bin. Ellen asked her if she had any cakes.

“But you’ve got food,” Ingrid said, nodding towards the plates on the table, put Ellen down again and said she should come with her to write some letters, whereupon she went into the study, where beds had been made up on the two leather sofas. She asked who was sleeping there. Sara came in and said it was her and Ellen, their room was too cold.

Ingrid asked if they knew how to make coffee. They looked at each other. She told them to go and ask their mother to make some. They ran out. Ingrid sat at the priest’s desk, found some paper, a pen and ink, and wrote Dear Eva Sofie, she had arrived safe and sound and was now in the fortunate position of being able to thank her for all the things she could now remember, the food on the steamer, the writing on the wall and Eva Sofie’s unstinting patience, it was Ada and Signy they had been with on the boat, wasn’t it?

Say hello to them.

And to the doctor, Erik Falc.

Ingrid would never forget any of them, she didn’t forget things anymore, but there was still the question of the clothes, whether they were hers, and what’s more whether they were torn when Eva Sofie took charge of her. And even if she could assume that Hargel hadn’t used force, there was still the matter of Henriksen’s festering eyes.

~