Before the Frost

She paused at the top of a hill to catch her breath, looking down at the glassy surface of the lake between the trees. She was sixty-three years old now and, according to her own calculations, she needed five more years to complete her life’s work: The History of Swedish Walkways. In this book she would reveal that paths were among the most important clues to ancient settlements and their way of life. Paths were not laid out only for the simplest way of getting from A to B. On the contrary, she had ample evidence for the numerous religious and cultural factors that determined where and how paths made their way across the landscape. Over the years she had published regional studies and maps, but the conclusions of her many years of research had yet to be set down in final form.

She slowed down when she found the spot. Where the untrained eye saw nothing but grass and moss growing at the edge of the path she spotted the clear outline of a trail that had been out of use for many years. She started climbing up the side of the hill, looking carefully before she stepped. Last year she had broken a leg when she fell exploring a trail to the south of Brösarp. The accident had forced her to take a long rest, which stood out in her mind as a particularly difficult time. Even though it had given her more time to write, she had simply become restless and irritated, especially without her husband to care for her. He had died shortly before the accident occurred and had always been the one to take care of things in the home. She had sold the house in Rydsgård after that and moved to the little apartment in Skurup.

She pushed some branches aside and moved in under the trees. Once she had read about a meadow in the forest that could only be found by someone who had lost their way. To her mind this captured some of the mystical dimension of human existence. If only one dared to get lost, one could find the unexpected. There was a whole other world beyond the highways and byways — if you just dared to take the turnoff. And I’m the caretaker of these old forgotten paths, she thought. Sleeping beauties waiting for someone to wake them from their slumber. If paths remain unused for too long, they die.

She was deep into the forest now, a long way from the main trail. She stopped and listened. A branch broke some distance away, then all was quiet. A bird flapped noisily and flew away. She walked on, hunched over the ground, moving very slowly. The path was nearly invisible. She had to search for its contours under the moss, the grass, and the fallen branches.

Soon she started feeling disappointed; this wasn’t an old path. When she first saw it she had been hoping it was part of the ancient pilgrim’s trail that was rumored to pass close to Led Lake. On the north side of the Rommele hills it was still visible. It disappeared around Led Lake only to pop up again northwest of Sturup. Sometimes she was tempted to think the pilgrims had used a tunnel, but she knew that was not their custom. They walked on trails and one day she hoped to find it. Unfortunately it wasn’t going to be today. After a mere hundred meters she was convinced the path was newly established, no more than ten or twenty years old. She hoped to be able to say why it had been abandoned when she figured out where it led. She was about three hundred meters into the forest by now and the trees and the undergrowth stood so thick and close together it was almost impossible to make her way through them.

Suddenly she stopped and squatted. She saw something that confused her. She picked at the moss with her finger. She had seen something white lying there: a feather. A dove? she thought. But are there white forest doves? They were usually brown or blue. She stood up and continued studying the feather. Finally she realized it came from a swan. But how could it have turned up so deep in the forest? Swans came ashore from time to time but never this far inland, not in thick forest.

After only a few more steps she stopped again, this time because the ground in front of her was curiously flattened. Someone must have walked here only a few days ago. But where exactly did the prints start? She examined the area for ten minutes and decided someone had come out of the forest and only joined the path at this point. She continued on slowly. She was no longer as curious about the path as she had been when she thought it might be the old pilgrim trail. This path was probably simply an extension of the paths Count Haverman had put in to satisfy his outdoor tastes, but that had fallen out of use since his time. The prints she was following probably belonged to a hunter.