Authors: Jenny Colgan
‘Welcome,’ he said, in English. ‘Welcome – come in, come in.’
The room was sparsely furnished in wood as an office. Through a curtain, they could see a second room that may have been a bedroom.
‘It is good when people make the trip,’ he said, nodding his head. Then he extended his hand. ‘I am Johann Vit.’
They shook it. Sven said something quietly to him in Danish, and Johann flapped his arms and said, no, no, he must not, he was a modest man. Then he knelt down and scratched Sandwiches behind the ear.
‘Come, come. Sit by the fire. I will make hot chocolate and then we will talk, yes?’
He disappeared into the back room and they sat down in wooden chairs which were surprisingly comfortable. Gwyneth felt her cheeks turn red in the heat from the fire.
‘So, we didn’t need you to come after all to translate, eh Sven?’ said Arthur, examining the pictures on the wall – scenes of great, vertiginous and beautifully made ski slopes, vast ice rinks and sculptures. Around the room were models and brochures.
‘Yes that’s right,’ said Sven. ‘You could easily have walked here.’
Johann re-entered the room with chocolate and small rolls. Gwyneth realized she was absolutely starving and took them gratefully.
‘Now,’ he said. ‘You wish to enter my ice kingdom,
ja
? No, it is my joke,’ he said when he saw Arthur’s face. Arthur was a little sensitive to talk of kingdoms. ‘Well. Tell me what you do.’
It took them much longer to explain than they’d thought. The man’s bright-eyed, intelligent face encouraged confidences, and, before they were done, Arthur found himself explaining about Ross – not the sleeping with his ex bit, more the innate rivalry bit – and the planning committee. Gwyneth helped too, talking about what the ice festival would mean to the area, and why they even wanted to do it in the first place. Sven chipped in with what a good job he was doing with all the logistical programming on his new computer. Sandwiches went to sleep.
‘Ah,’ said Johann when they had finished. He sat back and steepled his fingers together. Gwyneth and Arthur looked at one another.
Johann sighed deeply. ‘It will be difficult,’ he said.
Arthur nodded. ‘We know.’
‘You will have to divert the path of the river.’
‘We’ll build a weir.’
He nodded and, very slowly, stood up. His bones creaked as he walked towards the bookcase. ‘In your country,’ he said, shaking his finger, ‘in your country, you had the most magnificent ice festivals … ah …’
‘When?’ said Arthur.
‘Oh, for years.’ Johann squinted. ‘Until quite late. The longest one was in 1684. Ooh, a very cold year, no doubt.’
‘You speak like you were there!’ said Gwyneth.
‘Ha! Well, yes, however,’ said Johann. He smiled. ‘You know, they used to roast oxen on the ice. There were pedlars and minstrels and jugglers, and everyone used to come. You could smell it from miles away – all kinds of food and sweets,’
‘Did they have skates?’ said Sven. ‘How could they have skates?’
‘They did, actually. Wooden. But most people just walked. And the children ran and slid and fell over.’
‘It sounds wonderful,’ said Arthur.
‘Oh, it was. Except, there was too much ale, so there was always a casualty or two. But, you know – life.’
‘No licensing,’ said Gwyneth, reaching for her notepad.
‘It would be a wonderful thing to see it again in England,’ the old man said meditatively. ‘A wonderful thing.’
‘Will you do it for us?’ said Arthur.
The man looked at the floor, then back up at them.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I will.’
After more chocolate – this time laced with brandy – they sat and listened as Johann explained exactly what was going to be required.
It was a massive project. They would have to pay seed money up ahead, whether or not they got the commission. Then it would take a month of diverting and setting up and cleaning and flattening, and trying to rope off anywhere likely to be of dangerous interest to two-year-olds. They would have to sort out disputes between traditional Morris dancers and endemic Peruvian pipe players. Did they want scary carnival rides or was the concept going to be enough in itself? Did they …
Suddenly Johann stood up and sniffed the air. The others looked at him. ‘Oh, no’ he said abruptly. ‘I am afraid … it is late. You have to go now.’ He had switched from being a charming, intelligent man to someone more brusque. ‘I am sorry. The night comes on so quick …’
Arthur glanced at his watch. It was past ten o’clock.
‘… and still I lose track of the hour. Please. If you are to get back to Skærgård …’
‘We’re sorry,’ said Gwyneth, standing up. ‘We lost track of the time.’
‘No, no, it is not that.’
Johann was agitated now, pulling out their coats and hats from the pegs on the wall. ‘Sometimes, out in the woods, late … it is not so safe. And not so good for your driver and his horse, yes? We talk soon, yes. I like you. I think we can work together. But for now …’
Gwyneth and Arthur looked at each other as they shrugged themselves into their coats. Arthur raised his eyebrows.
‘Okay, then. No, wait!’
Johann scuttled back into the second room in the building and returned an instant later. ‘A gift for you,’ he said to Arthur, and handed him a long piece of what looked like crystal.
‘It is bore ice,’ he added, to Arthur’s bemused expression. ‘Taken from the very bottom of the lake. This ice has been in existence before the dinosaurs. It’s encased in resin, but it was formed at the beginning of time.’ He looked straight at Arthur suddenly. ‘Many things are older than you know.’
Arthur swallowed. ‘Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.’
Johann nodded. ‘Not at all. We shall speak again. But now – hurry,’ said the little man, pulling open the door and practically thrusting them into the freezing wind outside. ‘You must hurry.’
There was a clatter of the door shutting, then the external light was switched off. Gwyneth, Sven, Arthur and Sandwiches found themselves looking out on the mysterious ice shapes looming into the midnight air.
‘Where’s the cab?’ said Arthur. But the little bells of the sleigh were nowhere to be heard.
‘Um,’ said Sven, swallowing nervously after a few moments had passed. ‘
Chauffør
!?’
Silence. Just the wind whistling through the ice. Somewhere beneath them in the dark, Sandwiches made a cringing noise and tried to crawl, unsuccessfully, up Sven’s trouser leg. There was a panicked scrabble and a quiet whine and he slipped back on to the ice.
‘There there,’ said Sven absent-mindedly. ‘
CHAUFFØR
!?’
‘Er …’ Gwyneth turned back to the little house. But all its lights were out now. If ever a house had tried to curl into a ball and pass unnoticed, it was this one.
‘Crap!’ said Arthur. ‘Where is the guy with the horse?’
But, as if in answer to his question, there was only the sound of the wind whistling through the corridors of the sculpture park. Then suddenly, in the distance, came the sound of a long, low howl.
At once, Arthur knew what it was. It was the sound he had heard late at night, hundreds of miles away. It was the sound of his nightmares. It was the sound of a wolf.
‘Wh – what was that?’ said Gwyneth, pulling her arms around her.
‘Um, an urban fox?’ said Arthur, not expecting her to believe him.
‘This …’ She peered out over the glacier. ‘This isn’t urban, Arthur.’
‘No.’ He could feel the fear in her voice.
‘Where’s that bastard cabbie?’ said Sven. ‘They’re all the same – no, I won’t take you south of the river … no, I won’t take you through the wolf-infested forest …’
‘Oh God!’ said Gwyneth. ‘It’s a WOLF?’
‘Whooo!’ came the sound again, as if in confirmation.
‘Well, what are we waiting for? We’re going back to hammer on the door.’
‘I wouldn’t do that,’ said Sven. ‘Northern people are very superstitious about their wolves. They believe a lot of the old stories.’
‘What old stories? Like … werewolves?’
Gwyneth had intended this to come out as sneering and sarcastic, but at the last moment she absolutely couldn’t pull it off.
‘
Ja
,’ said Sven. ‘He probably wouldn’t let you in, in case you’d been bitten. Or he might just blast you away with a silver bullet.’
‘He wouldn’t.’
The howling came again.
‘Look,’ said Arthur. ‘The sleigh driver can’t be far. We’ll do better going to have a look for him than just standing around freezing our arses to death. Okay?’ He looked at his phone. ‘I’ve still got some power left in my battery. So if we can’t find him you, Sven, can phone the Danish wilderness equivalent of
Yellow Pages
and get us out of here.’
‘Yeah, in lots of little pieces,’ said Sven sullenly.
‘None of that, please. You’re scaring Gwyneth.’
‘Uh huh!’ said Gwyneth.
‘Me, I mean. You’re scaring me.’
‘No, me too,’ said Gwyneth.
‘Okay,’ said Sven, ‘it’s just, I’m the one that has to drag this with me, that’s all.’
Sandwiches was lying perfectly still on his back in the snow, with his legs pointing straight up in the air.
‘Stop playing dead, Sandwiches,’ said Sven. ‘It’s not going to help, you know.’
But Sandwiches point-blank refused to open his eyes, so Sven had to pick him up and put him round his neck like a snake.
‘Actually, it’s quite warming,’ he said, patting the dog’s ears. Sandwiches continued to refuse to react in any way.
‘Amazing,’ said Arthur. ‘Okay. Off we go.
CHAUFFØR
!’
And they marched forward under the eerie-coloured starlight, and into the park of ice sculptures beyond.
The howling was definitely closer now. There was still no sign of the driver or the sleigh. They were huddling together underneath the Viking ship, some hundred yards or so ahead of where the house had now vanished into the darkness.
‘Oh
crap
,’ Gwyneth was saying.
‘Ssh,’ said Arthur. ‘Just keep moving on. We’ll find them.’
‘Or die horribly!’
‘No, I’m sure that won’t happen.’
‘I’m just going to play dead here like Sandwiches,’ said Sven.
‘Oh no you’re not,’ said Arthur. ‘I am not hauling your carcass through the snow.’
The howling came again.
‘Are there more than one of them?’ said Gwyneth, feeling her heart jump.
‘God, I hope not. Because if there’s only one, then it’ll get tired after the first throat …’ Sven trailed off.
Arthur shut his eyes. What was coming? It was getting rapidly colder. They were going to have to go back to the old man, they had to. Sven was being ridiculous. But where the hell was the cabbie? Had he not understood and just up and left them? More than anything, Arthur wanted him and the horse to be standing round the next corner, looking relieved and asking them where they’d been.
Round the next corner was an odd sculpture which resembled a desert scene in ice – there was a cactus, and a palm tree, and a coyote.
It wasn’t a coyote.
Arthur felt as if an enormous hand was squeezing his windpipe. The cold air he’d sucked in burned its way down his throat. It was every time he’d ever woken up in the night thinking he’d heard a burglar; every time he’d nearly walked in front of a moving vehicle. Simultaneously, it felt like he was being punched in the chest.
Gwyneth hadn’t meant to punch him in the chest but – look!
‘
Look
!’ Her voice had petered out to a petrified squeak.
‘Yes, I know,’ said Arthur, whispering. The wolf was about twenty feet away, casually regarding them in the moonlight. The wind was gently ruffling its fur, and it was staring straight at them with ice-blue eyes, looking completely unperturbed. Its entire body gave off a power: heavily contained muscles under tight control.
Arthur’s brain was working overtime. He couldn’t think straight. Could they scramble up the side of the ship? Could wolves climb? Anyway, how could they climb up the side of something made of ice? Could they make it back to the cottage? Almost certainly not: the creature could outrun anything and it would definitely grab the one nearest the back. He glanced at Sven, who was carrying at least three extra stone in weight, not to mention a cowardly dog round his neck.
‘If only we had a weapon or something,’ he moaned.
‘It’s all in the sleigh,’ said Sven mournfully. ‘They have a plan for times like this. Flares and things.’
‘Well, that would have been great,’ said Arthur, ‘if it hadn’t eaten the sleigh.’
Slowly, as if relishing its status, the wolf started to pad from side to side, moving almost imperceptibly closer.
‘Oh, Christ,’ said Gwyneth. ‘It’s coming for us. I can’t … I mean, we’re not going to
die
, are we? I mean, on a business trip. It seems so stupid.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Arthur. ‘And deprive Marcus of his expenses claims? It would be against all natural laws.’