It was yesterday, well around half past five and I was driving home from work when my mother called. She’d finally gotten grandma and grandpa’s old house out in the archipelago sold, and wondered if I wanted to come out and celebrate; My siblings would come, and it was so long since we all saw each other. Maybe there was something I wanted to save?
Between us, there are many things I’d rather do than spending a Friday night with my dear mother, but that I didn’t have the heart to say. The worry of not being able to sell her parents’ home had been a heavy burden for her which had only grown as winter approached, and I understand her; with today’s interest rates and electricity prices it’s hard enough to keep one household afloat.
So I told her that I was happy to come but that I didn’t want anything. Everyone could take what they wanted, but if there was anything of value we could split it.
Yeah, that she would tell them, but still asked me to think about it on the way out; Grandpa had the whole boathouse full of things and it’d be such a shame to throw it all away.
The boathouse, I thought, and felt my stomach tingle. I hadn’t been there in probably twenty years; That the old shed was still standing upright was the closest thing to a wonder.
I promised her to think about it and then excused myself with the fact that I’d rather not be on the phone while I was driving. She thought that was sensible and ended the conversation by telling me to drive carefully.
As soon as she hung up, my mind went back to the boathouse. As a kid I always spent the summer holidays at grandma and grandpa’s, and if I wasn’t fishing, I was with Grandpa and helped him in his haunt. There was always something that needed to be done. It could be anything from fixing nets to build lobster pots (which was pretty boring chores, really), but it was there — there and nowhere else — that he told his stories, something I learned when we were out fishing for mackerel an early summer evening almost three decades ago.
We laid a nautical mile west of the island on a spot that always used to be good, but hadn’t felt a nibble in over half an hour, when I started to get bored. I looked at Grandpa where he was sitting in the stern, his back resting against the outboard and with a fishingline in each hand, and wondered if he, too, wasn’t a little bored. So I broke the silence and asked him if he couldn’t tell me a story while we waited. I joked and said that if he did, the mackerel might come and listen too. Grandpa gazed towards the horizon, his forhead furrowed like the sea during the midday breeze, and I could see that the question made him uncomfortable. Did I say something wrong? Before I got around to ask him, he looked at me and said: “No point in being out here today. Let’s go home, shall we?”
Stunned by him being the first to give up, I just nodded and wound up the line. I thought that maybe he wasn’t feeling well, but didn’t dare to ask. By the time I was done and had secured the hooks, Grandpa had already gotten up both his lines and was in the process to start the outboard. The old workhorse started on the first try — as usual — and we took of as fast the six horsepowers allowed.
It wasn’t until we were back in the boathouse that Grandpa finally opened his mouth again. He put the bucket with the fishing gear on the floor and told me to come over. When I reached him, he crouched down so that both our heads were leveled. and then put his big fisherman hands on my shoulders. The blue-grey eyes, watery as the ocean it self, stared into mine.
“We never talk about such things outside of these walls, understood?”
At first I didn’t understand what he meant, but thought that it must’ve been that about the story out in the boat, and nodded silently. The grip around my shoulders softened and he gave me a little smile. He ruffled my hair, and then arduously rose up to his feet and took my hand.
“Do you see that?” He said, pointing on an carved symbol above the door that looked like a pretzel. “It’s a troll cross that will keep the dark forces away. There’s another one.” Grandpa pointed towards the window. “Nothing that isn’t welcome can come in here.”
Well, that’s how I found out exactly how superstitious Grandpa really was. That he wouldn’t go beneath ladders nor allow keys on the table and such, I knew, but not more than that.
Two hours later I finally arrived and drove of the ferry. The darkness had settled over the island, and in front of me the house windows lit up like stars in the night. The harbor bathed in the orange glow from the streetlights, but out on the street not a soul could be seen. Although only a couple of hundreds lived there year-round, you’d usually bump into at least some people — especially on a Friday. Maybe they were still on their way home from work, or maybe there was some big game on TV?
I rolled on through the harbor and quickly realized how much things had changed since I’d last been there. On a patch of grass where the boats used to stay over the winter, a row of boathouses, big as smaller houses, had now been erected. With their two storeys, garage, and ocean view, they surely had costed a smaller fortune, but would probably stay empty for the most of the year. The so-called boathouses didn’t fit in at all in the otherwise so unpretentious archipelagic idyll, and for the first time I understood what the old people had meant with that it was better back in the days.
Beyond the fancy sheds, the old wharf was still intact except for a few cracks and holes in the concrete, but the fishing boats were long gone. The commercial fishermen had been a dying breed for decades, and where boats once moored, only the bollars remained.
I left the abandoned docking area and continued towards the heart of the harbor where I was greeted by yet another change. The small area that once was covered in gravel, and where I as child had danced around the midsummer pole so many times, had now been asphalted and made into a parking lot. The modernization of the island had probably been inevitable for it to not completely lose it’s appeal, but the impressions I’d received so far had not been positive.
I parked the car and stepped out into the salty ocean air. Out by the pier, the waves that the ferry had brought up crashed into the boulders that surrounded the harbor, making a booming sound, but apart from that it was as quiet as the grave; A nice break from the constant noise back in the city.
Down by the marina some dinghies were still rocking in the black water. Most would probably survive the winter, but when the ice melted again at least one of them would rest on the sandy sea bottom. I stepped down onto the jetty and headed towards the other side. At the far end, with one half perched on a rock and the other protruding above the water, grandpa’s boathouse safely stood and rested on it’s buttresses. I smiled. The mere sight of the old shed made me feel like a child the day before Christmas, but even though I suspected that Grandpa hadn’t shown me all of the boathouse secrets, I tried to persuade myself not to be too dissapointed if it turned out that I was wrong.
Once at the door, I stopped and looked at the weatherd façade. Unlike the rearmament that was going on around the bigger harbor, here the time had stood still; Everything looked exactly the same way as it always had: the red, flaky paint, the door made of nailed together planks, the paper-thin window that shook at the slightest gust of wind — Even the rack for the fyke nets was still there!
I took the the key that was hanging from a nail next to the window that I’d asked mom to hang there, and stuck it into the lock. Here, in the archipelago, they rarely lock the doors, but that was the only way to keep the door to the boathouse closed. Grandpa had tried with hasps several times, but once the west wind flexed it’s muscles, they never had the strength to resist which the marks on the outer wall could tell.
The door slid open with a creaking sound. In front of me the boathouse was shrouded in darkness, uplit only by a faint glow coming through the window. Luckily, my mother had thought about that and had put a flashlight on the floor, right inside the door. I turned on the light and stepped onto the floor that had once been part of the deck of grandpa’s fishing boat, Siljan. The scent of tar still lingered in the old wood and hung in the air like an invisible mist. By the foot of the long side opposed to me, stacks of torn fyke nets were piled up against the wall as it had been doing for as long as I could remember. It was a never ending project that only grew no matter how many you managed to fix. The beam of light wandered towards a couple of pale life jackets that had already lost their glaring colors back when I used to use them, to a dozen lobster pots with way to small escape openings to be allowed to used with today’s strict fishing regulations. Seeing the old fishing gear I myself had fished with so many years ago made me warm inside, and I was fascinated by how untouched everything had been left. If time had stood still on the outside, it had definitely spread to the inside aswell.
I continued looking around and caught sight of the tackles that was hanging in the window, and went over. Clad in cobwebs and layers of dust, they still managed to glisten in the flashlight’s glow: yellow, green, red. The hooks, however, were worse; The barbs were brown with rust and surely would break if you tried to lift them from the mullion’s. To see if I was right, I reached out for a herring-like jig, and was just about to grab it, when a shadow swept past outside the window. Frightened by the sudden movement, I jumped and hit the knee on an upside-down wooden bin Grandpa had used as a table. A schnapps glass that had been resting on it tipped and fell to the floor, shattering. “What the hell was that?” I thought. I leaned forward and looked through the window, but the only thing moving was a ripple on the oily surface of the harbor basin. I shook my head and smiled to myself, thinking it must’ve been a cat.
Before I went on exploring, I bent down to pick up the the very largest shards. If I knew myself I’d probably step on a piece otherwise, having to seek medical care, and that was not something I’d rather do than visit my mother on a day off. I picked up the pieces I could see and put them in an empty can of paint, when I caught something in the corner of my eye: in the side of the bin’s gray wood was hiding a hatch! Excited by my discovery, I moved closer and pointed the flashlight to the closure; had it not been for a little brass hasp I never would’ve found it.
I lifted the cover aside and peered into box. Hidden in the darkness, the contour of something cylindrical could be seen, and didn’t take long before I realized what it was. Smiling at grandpa’s shrewdness, I stuck my hand into the hole and lifted out a bottle of vodka Explorer, his favorite beverage. Grandpa was a thirsty man and took a sip as soon as Grandma looked the other way.
To make sure I hadn’t missed anything inside the box, I shone the light into the hole one more time. When I was just about to move on, I spotted something carved into the wood: a five centimeter long cross. Unlike the troll crosses Grandpa had shown me earlier, this was something he had kept to himself. Maybe he just wanted to keep the stash a secret, but as a Christian, I think he was somewhat ashamed of his drinking and maybe the cross was an attempt at forgiveness for his sins?
Curious as to what more secrets the bin might hold, I stood up to turn it over, but first I wanted to see if the troll crosses was still there. I pointed the light to the space between the door and the roof. At first I couldn’t see the carving, but there, hidden behind a layer of mold, a piece of the symbol peeked out. I followed the infested plank over to the window where the other troll cross was supposed to be, and found that the mold had taken hold there, too. Maybe that part was more exposed to the humidity, or maybe the wood wasn’t properly impregnated? Regardless of what, that part would have to be replaced so that the mold didn’t spread.
I returned to the wooden box and turned it over so that its bottom rested against the floor. At the same moment the underside thudded against the floor, a hissing sound could be heard. Instinctively, I turned my gaze towards the window where the shadow previously had swept by, but saw to my great relief only the dark depths of the night sky and thought that it must’ve been the god damned cat again.
With the flashlight pointed down into the box, I let the light wander between the walls in seach of more symbols. The curiosity and enthusiasm for new discoveries that had previously been so palpable, had now been replaced by a desire to simply ascertain myself that there were no more remarkable things to be found. The whole operation had been a stupid idea and it felt like a had broken an implicit promise between me and Grandpa, but I had to finish what I’d started; otherwise I would go and brood over this for the rest of my life.
When only one wall remained and I still hadn’t discovered anything new, I felt the courage come back again. The shadow and the strange sound hade only been my mind playing tricks on me, maybe because I so desperately had wanted to find something mysterious. So I kept searching the last side of the bin where I had seen the cross — the faster I finished, the sooner I could leave. Shortly there after, part of the carving appeared in the yellow light. At the same time, the air grew colder, and I was filled with a feeling of discomfort, as if something didn’t want me there. With a trembling hand I continued to move the flashlight until the whole cross was illuminated, and discovered that it stood upside down. Next to it were scratch marks that hadn’t been there minutes before, and they were definitely not from a fucking cat. The hair on the back of my neck stood up and I could feel the skin crawl on my arms — I had to get ouf of there, now. I turned around and hurried towards the exit, heart pounding as if I were subjecting my body to somehting physically demanding and it was about to overexert itself, but I couldn’t stop now; I could rest in the car or out on the jetty — anywhere but here.
Almost out of the boathouse, so close that I could stretch an arm out into the fresh air, the door slammed shut right in front of my face. I crashed into the planks, arms in front of me, and dropped the flashlight. It hit the floor with a thud, and went out. Darkness swept in over the boathouse. As my eyes tried to adjust to the gloominess, I could hear the flashlight roll away across the floor, dissappearing deeper into the shadows. Paralyzed with terror, I tried to regain control over my body when the sound of nails dragging against wood could be heard. The fear sent shiver down my spine and I screamed for someone to come and help me. After a couple of seconds, I finally regained the ability to move. I banged on the door and continued to scream so loud that my throat hurt. Behind me, something heavy dragged itself across the floor, filling the boathouse with the stench of something dead. When my hands had become so sore that I thought they were going to fall off, and my vocal cords burned with pain, I threw myself into the door. The door shook and the planks almost gave way, so I tried again, but with no luck. The slithering sound was right behind me now, and down at my feet I could hear a heavy breathing, as if something was choking and struggled for air. In a last desperate attempt to get out, I brought my knee up to my stomach and kicked the handle.
The door flew open and slammed into the façade so violently that it sent an echo across the harbor. I threw myself out of the boathouse and ran towards the car without looking back — I neither wanted nor dared to see if anything was after me. Once at the car, I jumped in and drove to the ferry at such high speed that I doubt I would have time to give way, should someone been unfortunate enough to stand in the way. Fortunately, I was still alone out there, and when I arrived at the ferry queue I saw to my great relief that a ferry was just about to dock. I drove on board, and texted my mother that I suddenly had felt nauseous and was on my way home again. I wrote that there had been a strange smell in the boathouse and that maybe that was the reason to why I didn’t feel so well; it was probably for the best that noone went there until it had properly been aired out.
Now almost twentyfour hours has passed, and I still haven’t dared to turn on the phone. I dread that mother didn’t listen to what I said and went into the boathouse anyway, but I’m in no condition to speak; I haven’t slept a wink since I got home, because wherever I look, I can see a shadow in the corner of my eye.