Rites of Spring by Anders Motte (hardest books to read txt) 📕

‘I’m looking for John Swanson,’ Thea says.

‘He’s my granddad!’

The front door opens and a tall man steps out. His beard and hair are peppered with grey, he has a slight stoop, and he’s wearing jeans and a checked flannel shirt.

‘Can I help you?’ he asks in almost perfect English.

‘I’m looking for Leo Rasmussen,’ Thea says in Swedish. She sees him recoil, as if the name opens doors in his head that he would prefer to keep closed.

‘I’m Thea Lind,’ she adds quickly. ‘I’m here to tell you what really happened on Walpurgis Night in 1986.’

The man stares at her, and for a few seconds she is convinced that he’s going to tell her to leave. But then he gestures towards the veranda.

‘Take a seat,’ he replies in Swedish. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

She sits down in a wicker armchair and he disappears into the house. He returns with two bottles of mineral water and sits down beside her.

Thea takes a deep breath, then tells him everything from beginning to end. He listens in silence.

‘Here.’

She passes him her iPad, shows him a series of newspaper headlines from last spring. Pictures of the pick-up and the Ford being recovered from the canal. Of Leo and Elita when they were young. Of the Polaroid.

He scrolls through the images, still saying nothing. He lingers for a while on Elita’s self-portrait. Touches her face with his index finger before moving on.

‘Thank you,’ he says when he’s finished. ‘Thank you for telling me all this.’

His eyes are shining with unshed tears, and it might be an illusion, but she thinks his back is suddenly a little straighter, as if a weight has been lifted from his shoulders.

She stays for a while and answers his questions, then gets up to say goodbye. She gives him a card with her phone number, then leaves him in peace with his thoughts.

On the way back to the car, the little dark-haired girl catches up with her. Takes her hand.

‘What’s your name?’ the child asks.

‘Thea. What’s yours?’

‘Elita.’

‘What a lovely name,’ Thea says.

For a brief moment she almost feels happy.

If you enjoyed RITES OF SPRING, don’t miss the next in the series, END OF SUMMER

Author’s note

Tornaby and Ljungslöv are both fictional places. Just like Reftinge in End of Summer, Nedanås in Deeds of Autumn and Vedarp in Dead of Winter, they are based on the area where I grew up in north-western Skåne.

Walpurgis Eve in Sweden falls on April 30th. Walpurgis, or Valborgsmässoafton (‘Valborg’ for short), is the night where bonfires are lit to celebrate spring. Traditionally the bonfires were believed to ward off evil spirits, and today people still gather together to light the fires and sing. On May Day there are parades and festivals held across the country as May 1st has been a public holiday in Sweden since 1939.

Keep reading for an exclusive extract from the next book in the Seasons Quartet

End of Summer

You can always go home. But you can never go back . . .

Summer 1983: Four-year-old Billy chases a rabbit in the fields behind his house. But when his mother goes to call him in, Billy has disappeared. Never to be seen again.

Today: Veronica is a bereavement counsellor. She’s never fully come to terms with her mother’s suicide after her brother Billy’s disappearance. When a young man walks into her group, he looks familiar and talks about the trauma of his friend’s disappearance in 1983. Could Billy still be alive after all this time?

Needing to know the truth, Veronica goes home – to the place where her life started to fall apart.

Prologue

Summer 1983

The baby rabbit was crouching in the tall grass. Its coat was wet and shiny with the dew that had accompanied dusk into the garden.

He should really go in. His mum didn’t like him being out on his own, especially not when it was getting dark. But he was a big boy now, he would be five in a few weeks, and he liked dusk a lot. Soon all the night animals would start to appear. Hedgehogs would peer out cautiously from beneath the big bushes, then set off across the grass in funny, zigzag paths. Bats would start to swirl about between the tall trees, and from the avenue of chestnuts on the other side of the house he could already hear the first cries of the owls.

It was the rabbits he wanted to see most. Having one of his own was right at the top of his wish list. A fluffy baby rabbit, just like the one sitting over there in the grass. The little creature looked at him, twitching its nose as if it wasn’t sure about his smell. If he was dangerous or harmless. He took a couple of careful steps towards it. The rabbit stayed where it was, it didn’t seem to have made up its mind.

He had been looking forward to his birthday for a couple of months already. He was hoping to get a kite from Mattias. He had watched his big brother spend hours making kites out in Dad’s workshop. The way he carefully measured the canes for the frame, stretched twine between the ends and covered the whole thing with taut, shiny fabric that he had pinched from the boxes up in the attic. Clothes that had once belonged to their grandmother, that Mum hadn’t got round to getting rid of.

Several times this summer he had watched as Mattias and his friends held competitions with their homemade creations. Mattias’s kites always flew highest, every time. Hovering above the fields just like their feathered namesakes.

The rabbit in the grass was still looking at him, so he took a few more steps towards it. He stopped when the animal raised its head slightly. He felt like running straight at the rabbit to grab hold of it. But Uncle Harald always said that a good hunter didn’t rush things, so he