Rites of Spring by Anders Motte (life books to read .txt) 📗

afternoon when she returned the poetry book. The open door of the old chapel. Hubert rarely leaves his wing, but tonight the hermit is out of his cave. Which means that the cave and any secrets it might hold are unguarded.

She glances up at the loft hatch. The ladder the builder was using has been left in a corner. She puts her handbag on the table and takes out her phone. Carries the ladder over, opens it out and places it beneath the hatch, then slips off her shoes.

78

‘Everyone seems to be hiding something, Margaux. They’re all stuck in a mire of lies and half-truths. And high above them floats Elita Svart.’

Thea has already begun to regret her impulse when she clambers into the loft. The darkness, the smell, the frightening thought of bats. She can still hear the music from the dining room, mingled with Jan-Olof’s faint snores, which makes the whole thing feel even odder.

The torch on her phone illuminates only a few metres at a time, so she has to move cautiously. The wooden floor creaks beneath her feet, and she has to duck under thick beams that must have been here for centuries.

She glimpses a silhouette; she directs the beam at the figure and sees a chalk-white, distorted female face.

Thea gasps, then realises it’s the statue of the saint that David mentioned. A woman with her hands clasped in front of her and two gaping holes where her eyes should be. It looks as if it’s several hundred years old. The wood is cracked, the colours faded. It’s about one and a half metres tall, and is standing on a square plinth. ST LUCIA, it says at the bottom. Not exactly the usual dressed-in-white-with-candles-in-her-hair version.

The statue is surrounded by a number of items which presumably come from the chapel. Two crosses, a couple of tall candlesticks and a large wooden chest. Beyond them she finds what she’s looking for: a hatch just like the one she came up through. The bridal suite’s position in the east wing matches that of the chapel in the west wing, which should mean that the hatch will lead her there.

She is right. The windows are covered and the torch on her phone isn’t strong enough to enable her to see much more than the stone floor directly below the hatch, but it’s obviously the chapel. The drop is around three metres, and if she hangs by her hands she should be able to jump down. She’s not very heavy, her arms are strong and she’s pretty fit. However, it will be considerably more difficult to get back up.

She turns the beam this way and that, hoping to spot something that she’ll be able to stand on, but the darkness swallows the light and all she can see are silhouettes – presumably statues like the one in the attic. She must either take a chance and risk being locked in the chapel, or return to the dinner without having accomplished her mission.

Neither alternative appeals to her, but she might not get another opportunity. Hubert is hiding something, she’s sure of it. Something that might be in the darkness below her.

She tucks her phone into her bra, then turns around, slides her legs over the edge and lowers herself slowly until her arms are fully extended. Ronny would be proud if he could see her now.

She takes a deep breath, lets go.

The drop is longer than she’d thought. Her bare feet hit the cold floor with such force that she tumbles over. She lies there for a few seconds to catch her breath, then gets up.

She glances at the dark rectangle above her and suddenly regrets the whole thing. How on earth is she going to get back up there?

Her phone has survived the fall, but reception is poor. She switches the torch on again.

The chapel doesn’t look like a chapel at all. No pews, no altar. The only source of light is a faint strip beneath the door.

The silhouettes are indeed statues of saints, set out in the middle of the room in some kind of formation. She makes her way to the door; as expected it’s locked, bolted from the outside, so whatever is in here, Hubert doesn’t want it on display.

She finds a bank of switches, tries the top one.

Two spotlights come on, illuminating the centre of the room. Thea inhales sharply.

Five figures, almost in a row.

The one in the middle is on a plinth so that it’s taller than the others. Silk ribbons run from this central figure to the other four, whose faces are covered by animal masks.

A hare, a fox, an owl and a deer.

79

Thea is finding it hard to breathe. It’s as if she can hear her heartbeat bouncing off the stone walls. Hubert has removed all the religious trappings and staged his own version of the spring sacrifice.

She moves closer to the figures. On a table beside them is a record player with a black LP on the turntable, and propped up against one speaker is something she recognises only too well.

A Polaroid, virtually identical to the ones she found inside the Gallows Oak and at Arne’s house.

Walpurgis Night 1986. To Hubert. Come to the stone circle at midnight. The spring sacrifice.

Hubert was also invited to the stone circle.

She picks up the photograph, compares the animal masks with the ones on the saints. They’re the same. So how did they end up here, inside the Gordon family’s private chapel?

She walks around the back of the tableau. There is something on the floor behind the figure representing Elita.

A blue suitcase.

Her heart begins to race. She sits down and opens the case. It contains two pairs of shoes, and neatly folded items of clothing. Two dresses, two pairs of jeans, a blouse, several tops, a passport. Right at the bottom is a soft toy, a little rabbit.

There is something very moving about it all. Elita Svart’s most treasured possessions, the