by Adam Nevill
I fled. Fast as I could. Ran till I thought my heart would give out. Cut my head badly on a tree branch and smashed up a knee on a tree root when I fell. And through the trees the cold air chased after me. Among its whining gusts came a howl of a nature that I am convinced will echo within me for some, if not all, time. There are wolves and bears and arctic foxes this far north. Perhaps I had even heard a wolverine, or so I told myself. I’ve heard the baying of jackals and the roar of great baboons on safari too, but yesterday I was ready to wager that nothing in the animal kingdom could utter such a cry in the mêlée of the hunt. There was an awful note of triumph in it. And I’m convinced that whatever issued the howl followed me back here, Henry. Last night I heard something outside, in the paddock at the rear of the house. And this morning, I found prints. Not even bears make such tracks.
Suffice to say I have seen and heard enough. This Friday I shall make my way to the airport in Östersund. By then, the rest of my things will be packed and the house shuttered for the winter. The sun is still bright and strong in the morning and I can sense things are more reasonable here at that time of day. I shall wobble and wince up to the postbox this morning on my bike to post this letter. And while I am there, I shall arrange from the callbox for the transport company to come for me and my gear in two days’ time.
Your fond friend
William Atterton
In silence I passed the letter back to Henry, and he continued with his story.
‘I waited anxiously for the week to end and even made a hasty call to the Swedish consulate, only to discover the nearest local authority to Radalen was some eighty kilometres away from Atterton’s Fritidshus. As I had no crime or accident to report, and was frankly too embarrassed to paraphrase the content of his third letter over the phone, I decided it best I set off for Sweden myself the following Monday. Even if we passed each other in transit, so be it; I’d like to think that one of my own friends would act as I did, should they ever receive a letter of a similar nature from me, while I’m abroad. The least I could do was accompany poor Atterton home and assist him in procuring professional treatment for his nerves.
‘On the first plane to Stockholm early on Monday morning, an elderly Swedish gentleman sitting beside me asked if I required any assistance with the map that I’d spread across my lap. He had seen me struggling with four reputable travel guides too, in which I sought some information about Radalen. There was mention of the counties inside Norrland, but little on Jämtland, and nothing at all on Radalen. So I took advantage of the passenger’s kind offer and made some inquiries about getting to Radalen. To which the gentleman immediately asked me a question as direct as his gaze. “And why would you wish to see Radalen?” Just like most of his fellow countrymen, the man spoke excellent, direct and concise English.
‘I was temporarily at a loss for an explanation, but the gentleman informed me that he was originally from the south of Jämtland, though hadn’t lived there since his teens and rarely visited any more. But though most of Sweden was ignorant of the reputation of Radalen, those of his generation who originated from the area were unlikely to forget the stories that they were told as children. Many other parts of Sweden were more amenable to visitors, he said, than Radalen. As a youth, he was forbidden to ever roam that far north.
‘Of course, I humoured the man, and tried my best to keep an expression of scepticism at bay. I asked him for more detail about this reputation and mentioned my friend’s recent residence there.
‘He proceeded to tell me of things that had survived in the oral tradition, as opposed to those recorded by historians, which detailed the survival of . . . I guess you would call it folklore, or a belief system that had been observed long before the aggressive colonisation of Sweden by the Christian Church. Apparently, even during the early twentieth century, animal sacrifice was still common at the end of each summer to placate the original occupants of the forests, prior to the privations of winter.
‘It was claimed that these original occupants of the woods – or Ra – were ghastly things, and the basis for monsters in local legends and so forth. And it had always been believed that the forests were unsafe if certain precautionary measures were not taken. Foresters and huntsmen could no longer roam, women could no longer collect firewood, and children would be unable to play freely. Then, in the seventeenth century, the custom of offering gifts was violently suppressed during a period of puritanical fervour, intended to sweep away the last vestiges of pantheism in Northern Sweden. But immediately after the censorship, this fellow claimed, a spate of disappearances ensued in northern Jämtland. First livestock, then the more vulnerable human elements of the local communities went missing. And it was from this period that a particular warning originated – Det som en gang givits ar forsvunnet, det kommer att atertas – which the gentleman translated into English for me: What was once given, is missing. One will come to fetch it back.
‘This script was erected on gateposts and signs as a warning to visitors, and was usually accompanied by the horseshoe, a symbol that made the Ra particularly uncomfortable due to its aversion to men on horseback.
‘Though temporarily suppressed, the late-summer gifts were soon offered again from the places designated for such transactions. And this originally began in an age when colonising Norsemen, and the original occupants, had made these uneasy treaties. This time, the church turned a blind eye, silently acknowledging a local problem beyond its brief and power to correct.
‘But things were different. The tastes of the original occupants were said to have changed. Changed back to an older baseness. During the interference of the church, the Ra had rediscovered a taste for a different kind of flesh. And unscrupulous members of the local populace were soon said to be giving succour to the revival of such an enthusiastic appetite. Hence the long-standing tradition of missing travellers in Radalen.
‘Gradually, the local communities withdrew from the affected area to put themselves beyond reach of the very territorial Ra, abandoning homes and churches as they migrated south and east. And in time, such observances of old lore struggled to survive in the age of reason and science. The local lore was seen as folly by all but a few who lived closest to the valley. This area is now a long-neglected portion of the national park, though the gentleman did hear something about a property developer rebuilding or renovating old villas to sell off as summer houses. But the idea had never taken off. With such a slender population, there is little infrastructure and almost no local services in the area. “It must be one of these your friend has purchased,” he said in closing, just as the smoked salmon and caviar were served to us by a stewardess.
‘I had listened with interest and some disquiet, but my unease soon turned to irritation. I was willing to venture that such talk and spurious conjecture amounted to nothing more than the fairy tales composed to prevent children from getting lost in the forest. Somehow, it must have all taken root in Atterton’s isolated imagination, and then the foolishness must have flourished; no doubt cultivated by the dying of the light as winter approached. So, the sooner I reached him and returned him to the observable world, the better. I say “observable” because I’ve always championed a motto among those with a bent for psychics, ghosts and visitors from other galaxies, and that is that I trust my own eyes. If it exists, then let it show itself.’
At this point in the narration, I was surprised at the manner in which Henry gulped at his brandy.
Descriptions of travel by untutored pens can be as dull as slide-shows of holiday photographs, so I will not blunt the reader’s concentration with details of Henry’s journey through Sweden to the Jämtland region, and then onto the periphery of Radalen. Suffice to say, he acquired his rental vehicle and a better map. But the closer he drew to Atterton’s location, the more difficult the journey became.
‘The moment I left the main arteries, to move inland on secondary roads, I found myself overwhelmed by the impenetrable nature of the forest. I’d never seen such a pla
ce in Europe before. A true, virgin wilderness, as much of northern Scandinavia still remains; Boreal forest surviving from prehistory, unmanaged, and probably still boasting miles of woodland where no human has ever set foot.
‘About sixty kilometres from Radalen, there was some evidence of summer housing scattered about through the trees; small wooden houses built in the vintage rural style and painted a dark red. These must have been the remnants of the settlements that drew away from Radalen in the eighteenth century, and the buildings were now used for summer holidays, but were empty that late in the season.
‘The buildings thinned and then practically disappeared when I couldn’t have been more than twenty kilometres from the valley. The road surface turned from tarmac to gravel and, in places, was barely wide enough for a single vehicle. And even in the late sun of the afternoon, I couldn’t prevent myself thinking that the last of the buildings that I spied through the trees, on higher ground, suggested a greater air of abandonment than the others. The very structures seemed to suggest that they had not drawn back far enough from the darkest, ageless fathoms of the valley. I even fancied that some of the little Stugas were in the process of peering over their gabled shoulders in fearful anticipation of what might be approaching through the trees.
‘Chiding myself for a betrayal of reason, I shut down that train of thought. But even the unimaginative, in whose number I would include myself, retain enough of their primal instinct to fear the shadowy expanses of uncultivated forests. Particularly as dusk settles through the clouds to tint the very air before your eyes, promising a nightfall so dense as to cancel visibility in every direction. It was no longer any surprise to me that legends of the Ra and human sacrifice lingered in these valleys. It was the perfect setting for such fables. But stories they were, and I had a troubled friend to find.
‘When I could not have been more than ten kilometres from Atterton’s Fritidshus, I found myself making repeated stops to study the map. The light was fading and the road curved about to such an extent that I no longer knew which direction was north and which was south. I’d become lost. I was tired and hungry by this time too, the best of my concentration was long gone, my temper was beginning to spark, and my sense of awe at the forest was fast turning to dread. I wondered if I’d have to spend the night on the backseat of the car.
‘But, to my relief, after another five minutes behind the wheel, I spied a church steeple through the passenger window, during a brief break in the woodland bordering the road. Hoping to find someone who could direct me to Atterton’s house, I drove toward the steeple on what amounted to no more than a track.
‘The church was a long, single-storey, timber affair, with a steeple that also served as a bell tower, surrounded by a well-tended meadow cemetery. But my brief optimism began to drain when I noticed that all of the windows were shuttered. And around the arch that topped the little gatehouse, providing access to the grounds through the dry-stone wall, an inscription had been carved into the wood between two black horseshoes: Det som en gang givits ar forsvunnet, det kommer att atertas – What was once given is missing. One will come to fetch it back.
‘Alone, lost in a national park, hours’ drive from the nearest town, and before a churchyard with a chilly dusk assembling about me, this warning was just about the last thing that I wanted to come across. And no sooner had I advanced through the gate and approached the church doors than I noticed another configuration of horseshoes nailed about the porch canopy, to protect the entrance of God’s house. If indeed these primitive iron symbols were used to ward off evil spirits, then why would a crucifix not suffice? Perhaps, an irritating voice cried out inside me, because a cross is not recognised by eyes older than the origin of that symbol. I turned an involuntary shudder into a vigorous shake of my cramped limbs, my tired muscles and frazzled senses, and I investigated the building.
‘My knocks went unanswered, as did my calls, and there was not so much as a single notice in the glass-fronted display case beside the door.
‘At the rear of the property I discovered a collection of large granite runestones, suggesting to me this was the sight of a far older cemetery. And while I looked at them, all about me the shadows thickened between the boughs and trunks of the trees, the leaves darkened as the light thinned, and I pulled up my collar against the buffets of a cold wind. I was forced to remember Atterton’s last letter. I didn’t linger long and made my way back to the car.
‘Eyes burning and head thumping, I made another frustrating scrutiny of the map under the overhead light. Pretty soon the headlights would have to go on as well. I was just about to utter another string of curses, when I noticed the tiny symbol of a cross on the map, which seemed to be an indication of the church that I was currently parked beside. If this was the case, then all I needed to do was turnabout, drive to the crossroads that I had passed no more than two kilometres back and take a left. A road or single track would then take me to Atterton’s Stuga.
‘With my sense of direction recovered, I managed to find the house, without further mishap, at 6.45 p.m. A small, pretty red building with white awnings and porch, set in a grass paddock about which the white picket fence was not so much surrounded as engulfed by the encroaching forest. I could see no more than a few feet along the leafy tracks that ran between the great trees and then vanished into a darker immensity.
‘There was no answer to my rapping on the door, or to my calls as I circled the house with a growing sense of alarm. I recalled Atterton mentioning his removal of a plethora of horseshoes from the walls of the house, but it now appeared that they had been nailed back, and with haste and little regard for symmetry. The windows had also been boarded over with any material at hand: bits of broken furniture, firewood, planks torn from the outhouse. Surely this was not what he referred to as shutting up for the winter? So, had he come to believe himself besieged by a creature from a fairy tale?
‘Upon a closer inspection of the windows, even in the failing light, I happened to notice a disturbance in the flower beds beneath the windows at the rear of the property. The soil had been thoroughly trampled and the plants had been raked out. So had some inquisitive moose come nosing up to the windows to eat flowers or peer in through the glass? Or perhaps a bear had been enticed out of the woods by the scent of Atterton’s fish supper? And had the noises from such a commotion transformed themselves, inside Atterton’s unstable thoughts, into what he perceived to be a threat from some monstrous intruder?
‘Running my fingers along the woodwork of the sills, I discovered a series of deep scratches in the timber, which may have resulted from his hasty and inept attempts to seal the windows. And yet, despite my stubborn recourse to reason, I was struck by a notion that these marks suggested the attempt of a powerful animal to gain access to the interior.
‘But one thing did seem irrefutable: isolated and over-stimulated by the oppressive forest once that summer had gone, Atterton must have succumbed to panic and fled. For I was sure that he was no longer a resident of Radalen.
‘By this time, night was falling fast and an icy wind was causing a noisy commotion in the treeline. After over fourteen hours of continuous travel – including two plane journeys and a long drive – I needed shelter, food and rest. Going back the way I had come in the darkness would have been idiotic, so I made a quick decision: I would break in and get a fire going, first forcing the door with a tyre iron or a tool from the shed.
‘But I’ll admit, by that hour, it was not only exhaustion that spurred me on: I found the heavy, tense valley air peculiarly unpleasant. From out of the gloom came the odours of leaf rot and wet soil, and, if I’m not mistaken, the night air was also tainted by the smell of animal spoor. Not as searing as the pig, but less earthy than the cow. Something sharp and doglike. Perhaps Atterton had been using a local manure to cultivate the gardens? At any rate, I wanted to be spared the stench.
‘Using a spade from the shed, I levered the lock out of the door-frame, and into the dark house I
made my way. Guided by the twilight, I found an oil lamp in the kitchen and got it lit before checking the rest of the ground floor. The ceilings were much lower than I expected and the whole place reeked of timber, wood smoke and paraffin. Wherever I found them, I lit the lamps.
‘As Atterton had promised, it was basic. Plainly and simply furnished and painted white throughout. The interior of the place reminded me of both a skiing chalet and a child’s play house; everything seemed small, and cramped, especially the beds in the two upstairs bedrooms: little wooden boxes built beneath the slope of the roof.
‘And while I searched about, I realised that Atterton had never finished packing. It appeared to me that he had started stuffing his clothes into cases, in the master bedroom, and to box his books in the parlour, only to have stopped, or been interrupted.
‘In the kitchen, the surfaces were also littered with the rubbish produced by the last few days of his occupancy, and the metal bin beside the back door was full. That door was now sealed by uprooted floorboards. He’d been eating out of tins and rationing water out of a collection of enamel jugs. There was a pile of firewood beside the range, brought up from the dry-goods cellar, in which I found the remainder of his supplies.
‘So, I reasoned, Atterton had nailed himself inside the house, remained there for a few days and then fled. What else could I make of the evidence?
‘I helped myself to some cracker breads, pickled herring and some interesting local beer, while pondering his disaster. I decided that I would wait until dawn and then make a cursory inspection of the surrounding terrain, in case he had injured himself, or completely lost his wits and was out there now like King Lear, raving on the blasted heath. I’d then drive to the nearest settlement to notify the authorities of the condition of the house, and Atterton’s mind, in case a more thorough search of the locale needed to be arranged, or his whereabouts traced through airline records and so forth. Until then, I’d make camp in the parlour where I would get a fire going. I’d sleep in the chair, wrapped up in blankets.