On her left, bare trees dot the rise; between them she can see the blue silhouette of Goat Back Mountain rising up in the distance. Steep and inaccessible to a person her age. To a person Fredrik’s age. He’s not that stupid, she assures herself before suppressing the entire notion. The alternative on the other side is even worse. A few feet from the path on her right, the ground ends in a sheer drop.

She reluctantly turns her head. As long as she keeps her eyes focused on a point at the far end, it looks like a normal, pleasant lake, glinting in the first pale rays of the December sun. A lake in the middle of the woods, covered by a thin film of ice. But if you stray just a few steps from the path, crane your neck and look down, the quarry walls plunge precipitously into the black depths. Gertrud does not stray from the path. Nothing could make her approach that edge willingly.

‘He walks by here every day,’ she tells herself out loud and is frightened to hear her faint voice and the compact silence devouring her words. She can’t bring herself to call out his name, doesn’t want to know what that would sound like. If he’s here, she’ll find him.

He knows the terrain, she tells herself. Knows exactly where to put his feet, and so does Sammy. They’re probably back home already; she wouldn’t be surprised if he were snug in the warm kitchen, with a cup of coffee and what was left of the saffron pastry from yesterday, godless and completely unconcerned about heaven and hell. It would be just like him. No, I’m going to turn around right now and stop this nonsense, she decides and glances over her shoulder, back the way she came. On the other hand, she realises reluctantly, at this point, the walk back would take as long as completing the loop around the quarry.

With a heavy sigh, she presses on, crossing herself again while inwardly cursing her brother’s lack of consideration in general and utter want of devoutness in particular. Fredrik doesn’t often darken the church’s doorstep, she is all too aware of that, but he normally attends the early morning Christmas Day service, at least. For some reason, even the most irreverent of her neighbours, the ones who never set foot in the Lord’s house except for weddings and christenings, tend to show up on Christmas. Maybe he just overslept.