Chapter 3
Three hours later, she was standing on the ferry from the mainland over to the island and from a distance she could see that someone was standing on the shore, waiting.
The summer sun shone from a cloudless sky, and she could feel the heat-rash lurking under her skin.
A moment later they arrived at the island, and she drove off the ferry and parked across from the ferry terminal.
Sardinon looked exactly as she had imagined it.
Along the pier, the boathouses were leaning into each other, each of them boasting a wooden sign with its name carved into it; Pollux, Grundland, Skagen.
There was a narrow, paved road running from the ferry that split itself in half, with each of the roads running in different directions around the island.
On the other side of the road were the wooden villas.
White and beautiful, with glassed-in porches and intricate carpentry work.
“Hello, are you Emelie?”
She turned around and caught sight of a young man with clear blue eyes who was wearing his blonde hair in a fashionable, thick fringe. Not very old, but definitely no brat either. Emelie smiled hesitantly.
“Yes, exactly. Andreas?”
He smiled and nodded, displaying shiny row of white teeth.
“Such a lovely weather. I guess there’s sunshine all year round on this island, huh? I’m sure it’s always like this?”
Christ, why was she babbling on like that? She shook her head and pulled herself together.
“Of course there is. But why don’t you drive ahead, and then I can follow you to the house?”
“No, this is a car-free island, so we will have to take my ride”, he said, turning around and walking along the pier.
“But my car…?”
He waved dismissively with one hand, and she didn’t have any other choice than to follow him. The only vehicle she could see on the pier was a blue moped with a loading platform, and he jumped on it and kick-started it.
“Let’s go, you can sit here”, he said and nodded towards the platform.
Emelie stopped abruptly. Sure, she had tried riding that kind of moped before, but it was a long time ago and today she had picked a short skirt and tights.
It had been a bit of a miscalculation on a beautiful day like this, but when she left V?xjo it had been raining, and it had seemed like a tights kind of day.
Now she was sweating tremendously and the mere thought of clambering up on a wooden platform that would definitely catch her stockings made her feel nauseous.
Especially since she didn’t know this Andreas at all.
“No, actually, I don’t want to, or I simply can’t…”
He turned the gas handle with one hand, making the engine purr. Then he switched into neutral gear, stepped off the moped and walked over to her.
“Do you need help getting up?”
This was even worse! Sweat was running down her spine and she definitely wasn’t going to let this brat play the gentleman.
“No, I’ve got it, thank you very much!”
She took off her backpack and the jacket that she had also picked out back in rainy V?xjo. She squeezed the jacket down into the bag and put it back on her back. In the meantime, Andreas had gotten back on his moped.
“You can step on the wheel if you want to,” he said, pointing to the left front wheel.
She nodded and went over to the platform.
Luckily, he had found a pillow for her to sit on, but she was still risking catching her stockings.
Her best bet was to try and avoid slipping around on the platform, because in that case both her skin and her tights would get destroyed.
She had to sit straight on the pillow, stay put the whole way and not move her bum or her legs an inch, no matter how long the road turned out to be.
Luckily, the skirt wasn’t super tight and, with one foot on the wheel, she took advantage the few riding classes she had taken when she was ten.
She swung herself up on the platform and managed to sit down rather gracefully and almost exactly in the middle of the pillow.
As soon as she had put her bum down, Andreas took off and she shrieked with surprise and held on tightly to the sides.
They quickly drove around the island before finally coming to a stop in front of a white wooden building. Her legs were all shaky as she jumped off, concluding that she had definitely caught her stockings. She sighed. Bugger.
“We’re here. This is Astrid’s house,” Andreas told her.
She looked over at the house and could hardly believe what she saw. It was big. Bigger than the ones she had seen in the harbour. Mullioned windows, a glassed-in porch with intricate carpentry work and a tower. A tower!
“It is? This one?”
She pointed to the big house in disbelief, but Andreas just nodded and handed her a key from his pocket. The keychain was a red tassel.
“This is the key to your home”, he said, giving it to her.
She took the key, noticing that a plastic Santa was hanging next to the red tassel. She laughed and straightened out her skirt that had become twisted during the ride.
“A Santa? Feels a bit odd in the middle of summer. Maybe Astrid was a rather ironic lady,” she said.
He looked at her in surprise.
“Did you not know Astrid at all?”
“No, not one bit. I think we might have met once, but I don’t remember her. Why?”
He smiled and his blue eyes were sparkling.
“It’s just that you’d be surprised, because she wasn’t really that ironic”, he said.
“What? What do you mean?”
“Let’s go inside and then you can see for yourself” he said, and smiled mischievously.
Emelie was sweating, she had ripped her tights and she was rather thirsty.
She only felt more and more annoyed with this self-righteous young man.
She followed him up the pebbled path to the front door that was adorned with a small decorative sleigh.
She gave him puzzled look but Andreas seemed to have found something very interesting on one of his index fingers, which he was now studying thoroughly, and she didn’t get any answers.
She put the key in the lock and opened the door.
The first thing she saw was a Christmas tapestry with the text: “We wish you a Merry Christmas” with children in red clothes and Santa-hats dancing around the letters.
Around the tapestry were little wreaths, that seemed to be made out of spruces and that were adorned with dried rowan berries.
She took one step into the hallway and peeked into the living room which was large and stretched along one whole side of the house.
The kitchen was on the left and the sun shone brightly on the shiny red kitchen cupboards.
“What the…”
She didn’t get any further than that.
“So, this is Astrid’s house”, Andreas repeated, taking off his shoes and walking inside.
Emelie was standing in the doorway leading into the living room, just trying to process everything she saw.
From floor to ceiling, the room was overflowing with Santas, pine wreaths, sleighs, elves, angels and bells.
The walls were covered in tapestries, there were Christmas tablecloths on the big coffee table, and on the smaller tables that were spread across the room.
Each one of the tables had a display of at least three porcelain figurines, and they were all Christmas themed.
Tiny dogs with red bow ties around their necks that were cheerfully playing with a little girl with Christmas gifts in her bag.
A sleigh pulled by Santa Claus with plenty of toys in the back.
On the ceiling was a green, glittery garland with red bows and there were carpets in red and gold on the floor.
“Bloody hell, did Santa’s workshop explode, and then everything somehow ended up here?”
She could here Andreas laugh from the kitchen where he was going through the cabinets like he owned the place.
“Would you like some coffee?”
“Yes please” she said and followed him out to the kitchen
The red kitchen cupboards were accompanied by green kitchen chairs and the table had a tablecloth with embroidered Santas, reindeer and Christmas trees. She dropped down onto one of the chairs.
“But why…? Why is the house so…Christmassy?”
Andreas shrugged his shoulders.
“She liked Christmas”, he replied shortly.
He put water in the coffee machine. It was red. Naturally.
“But there’s ‘liked’ and then there’s this. This seems more like a hoarder but with Christmas things,” Emelie said, looking around the kitchen.
There were Christmas-themed stickers on the window, but between them she could make out the garden in the back. It was large and had lush flowerbeds with flowers harmonising in beautiful colours. The lawn was well-kept, and the hedge looked neat.
“She seems to have been interested in gardening as well”, Emelie said hesitantly.
“Hmm…That’s probably mostly me. I’m a gardener,” Andreas explained.
He found two cups in the cupboard above the coffee machine. One with a Christmas tree and one with a pig. He pointed through the window.
“I live over there, in the guest house”, he said. She leaned to the right and could see a small cottage. It was red with white corners.
“Okay, so do you plan on living there?”
He froze. Then he found the milk in the fridge.
“I guess that is up to you now”, he said.
She shook her head.
“No, you inherited the cottage and 300 m2 of the land. Didn’t you know that?”
He slowly turned towards her, and the expression in his face made it clear that he had not been aware of that.
“Excuse me?”
“Astrid gave it to you. She said you had been like a grandchild to her, or something like that,” Emelie said and dug around in her bag in order to find the papers from the law firm.
She looked through the will until she found the passage regarding Andreas’ inheritance and shoved it towards him.
“Look, here it is. The reason why I asked, is that I reckoned that you might not want to stay here now that there’s a complete stranger living the big house”, she said.
He nodded and poured the coffee. Then he looked intensely at her.
“Are you planning on moving here?”
“Er, no I don’t think so. I have three kids at home, and they are in school and I have a job and you know, a whole life. I don’t know what to do with this…this…Christmas chaos.”
She had never seen so many Christmas things in one place before. Astrid had definitely been a hoarder, but she seemed to have only collected Christmas stuff. What kind of a person does that?
“But did she have…problems, or what?”
Emelie noticed that the handrail leading up to the first floor was decorated with a garland identical to the one on the ceiling.
“She certainly did not. Astrid was the most wonderful person”, he said harshly.
She laughed.
“Hard to believe when you see this. The lady seems to have been a bit… away with the fairies, had some elves on the top shelf, if you know what I mean. Do you get it? Elves!” she said, laughing even harder.
Andreas slammed his hand hard onto the worktop in the kitchen and Emelie immediately stopped laughing and stared at him in surprise.
“I don’t want you saying things like that about her!”
Emelie got up and held up her hands.
“Calm down, I didn’t mean anything by it. But don’t you think it’s a bit loopy? Is it like this everywhere? I need to take a look around.”
She walked up the stairs and the garland felt prickly in her hand when she touched the bannister. Andreas poured the coffee and sat down at the table. Ten minutes later, Emelie came back down, looking even more surprised than before. She stopped on the last step and looked at him.
“It’s everywhere. E v e r y w h e r e. I didn’t know that much Christmas stuff even existed. Has she robbed an IKEA?”
He looked back at her, but his blue eyes weren’t as open and glittering anymore.
“That’s the way she wanted it, okay?”
“Sure, sure, but you have to admit that it’s crazy!”
“I don’t have to do anything.”
She sat down at the table, took a sip from the cup with Christmas trees and frowned at the cold coffee.
She was wondering what kind of relationship Andreas and the old lady had actually had?
He seemed really territorial, as if Astrid had actually been his grandmother.
Which obviously she was not. Or he might just be cross because he wasn’t the one to inherit this Christmas inferno.
“Are all bedrooms up on the first floor?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“No, there’s another one in there,” he said, pointing to the short side of the living room.
Emelie got up and peeked into the bedroom, and it looked exactly like the four rooms on top, the living room and the kitchen.
A thorough and completely surprising Christmas theme.
There were Christmas curtains with Santas, tapestries with lyrics from Christmas carols above the bed and a red, fluffy carpet on the floor.
What the heck was she going to do with all of this stuff?
And what was she going do about the grumpy young hottie living in her garden?