A rapidly moving river flowed out of the lake. A bridge arched over the river, and they walked across it to the other side.
“This is the Göta River,” said Ephiriel. “We’ll follow an old cart track along the riverbank.”
“Little lamb, little lamb!” coaxed Elisabet, but the sheep and the lamb were already running again.
They passed a village. On the outskirts was a church that was painted red, and the people from the village were heading along the road toward it. Most of them were on foot, but some of them sat in big, horse-drawn carts. The men were dressed in black suits and black hats, and many of the women were in black as well. Some of them carried hymn books.
“It must be Sunday,” said Elisabet.
They paused for a moment or two and looked down at all the people. Suddenly a little boy noticed them, but he barely had time to look astonished, because at that same moment the angel Ephiriel began running again. Elisabet had to hurry to keep up. Once she turned and looked back, but all the people in front of the church had vanished. The horses and carts had vanished, too.
When they left the village behind, Elisabet turned to the angel and said, “The only one who saw us was a little boy.”
“Excellent. We try not to attract too much attention. Sometimes we can’t help it if someone catches sight of us, but a glimpse is quite enough.”
They ran on through woods and fields. Now and again, they saw people making hay or reaping wheat with scythes. Sometimes they had to take a roundabout way so as not to scare anyone.
Before long, the sheep and the lamb found a field that was so green and tempting that it dazzled the eyes.
“Now’s our chance,” whispered Elisabet, “if we go up to them carefully.”
But just then a man came walking toward them. He was wearing a blue tunic, and holding a tall staff that was curved at the top. He greeted them. “Peace be with you who walk on the narrow way along the Göta River. My name is Joshua the shepherd.”
“Then you are one of us,” said Ephiriel.
Elisabet didn’t understand what the angel meant by that. But then the shepherd said, “I am coming with you to the Holy Land, for I must be in the fields when the angels announce the glad tidings of the birth of Jesus.”
A clever idea occurred to Elisabet. “If you are a proper shepherd, perhaps you can bring the lamb to me?”
The shepherd bowed low. “That’s not difficult for a good shepherd.”
He took a few steps firmly toward the sheep and the lamb. The next moment, the lamb was lying at Elisabet’s feet. She knelt and petted its soft fleece. “I think you are the fastest stuffed animal in the world,” she said, “but I caught you at last!”
The shepherd thumped his crook on the ground and said. “To Bethlehem! To Bethlehem!”
The lamb and the sheep bounded away, the shepherd, the angel, and Elisabet after them.
They came to another small town. From a hill outside the town, they looked down on a cluster of red timber houses. Ephiriel explained that the town was called Kungälv.
“That means Kings’ Rock. The town was given that name because the Scandinavian kings used to meet here to take counsel together. One of them was Sigurd Jorsalfar. Jorsalfar means the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Sigurd was given that name because he had gone on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land where Jesus was born.”
Soon they passed above a city at the mouth of the Göta River. Women in long dresses and men wearing hats and carrying walking sticks were parading up and down the streets. Others rode in line coaches drawn by two horses.
“That’s Göteborg,” said Ephiriel. “The time is 1814, and Denmark has had to hand Norway over to Sweden. Now Norway will get her own Constitution.”
Joshua the shepherd turned and waved to them. “To Bethlehem!” he called. “To Bethlehem!”
They sped on through Sweden.
* * *
JOACHIM had just hidden the paper from the Advent calendar in his secret box when Mama came into his room.
“And what was the picture today?” she asked.
Joachim knew he did not need to answer. Mama always wanted to look for herself.
She clasped her hands. “It must be one of the shepherds in the fields.”
“Why do you say ‘in the fields’?” asked Joachim.
Mama told him that there were pictures of shepherds in nice old Advent calendars because an angel had come to the shepherds in the fields to tell them that the Baby Jesus was born.
“They’ve come as far as Göteborg,” explained Joachim.
“Göteborg?” Mama looked at him oddly. “Who are ‘they’?”
“Elisabet Hansen, the angel Ephiriel, and Joshua the shepherd. They’re going to Bethlehem! To Bethlehem!”
Mama looked at him in astonishment. “Don’t let this old calendar get to you. They’re only pictures.”
Joachim realized that he couldn’t keep telling Mama and Papa all he knew about Elisabet. If he did, he wouldn’t be able to keep the secret of the scraps of paper in the calendar either.
He realized something else, too. He would have to try to talk to John. John was the only person who knew where the magic Advent calendar had come from. Perhaps he also knew more about Elisabet Hansen. But how could Joachim find John? He wasn’t allowed to go to town and to the market square by himself.
He had just come home from school that afternoon when someone rang the doorbell. It couldn’t be Mama, because she knew Joachim never locked the door from the inside. So who could it be?
He went out into the hall and opened the door. On the steps stood the bookseller who had given him the Advent calendar!
“Ah, there you are,” he said, “Just as I thought.”
“Why?” asked Joachim, suddenly a little scared that the bookseller might have come to ask for the magic Advent calendar back.
Besides, how did he know where they lived?
The man put his hand into his coat pocket and took out a driver’s license.
“Your father left this on the counter,” he explained. “I thought it must be yours, but since you didn’t come back to the store I decided to drop it off myself. I live close by, you see, at 12 Clover Road.”
That wasn’t far. One of Joachim’s classmates lived at number 7.
“And how’s it going with the magic Advent calendar?” asked the bookseller.
“Super,” said Joachim. “There are some mysterious pieces of paper in it, too.”
“Are there?”
The bookseller gave him a big smile. He handed Joachim Papa’s driver’s license. “Well, I must be going on,” he said, “It’s a busy time for us booksellers.”
It wasn’t long before Mama and Papa came home from work. Shortly afterwards, they had dinner.
Joachim had decided not to say anything about the driver’s license until Papa mentioned it himself.
Instead, he started to talk about something completely different. “What’s a pilgrimage?”
His parents must have thought it strange that Joachim asked about that, because “pilgrimage” was a difficult word. Papa helped himself to more fish pie and said, “A pilgrim is someone who travels to a holy place.”
“Like Sigurd Jorsalfar?” asked Joachim. “He traveled all the way to Jerusalem, didn’t he? That’s why he was called the Traveler to Jerusalem.”
Mama and Papa looked at each other. “Have you been learning about Sigurd Jorsalfar at school?” asked Mama.
Joachim shook his head. He realized it was time to talk about the driver’s license. He looked up at Papa. “Have you found your driver’s license yet?”
“Not a trace,” said Papa.
“I have,” said Joachim.
He got up from his chair and went into his room to get the driver’s license. He handed it to Papa, smiling mischievously.
Papa nearly choked on his dinner. “Where did you find it, Joachim? Surely you didn’t—”
Joachim had to interrupt Papa before he said something he would come
to regret. “You left it in the bookshop when we bought the Advent calendar.”
Papa looked as if he had had a visitation from an angel in broad daylight. He had in a way, too, except that the angel had sent a white-haired bookseller instead of coming himself.
“He came this afternoon,” explained Joachim. “He said he lives nearby.”
Then Mama and Papa understood.
“Well, he’s quite a bookseller,” said Papa. He turned to Mama. “That is quite unusual.”
“And you’re quite an unusual muddlehead,” said Joachim.
5
DECEMBER 5
… “a thousand ages in thy sight are like an evening gone” …
JOACHIM was glad there were no chocolates or plastic figures in the old Advent calendar. But Papa had not been right when he said there were only pictures behind the doors.
A strange story was hidden inside the magic Advent calendar. It took 24 days to read the whole of the tale, since the story was divided into 24 small chapters, one for each day. Each day, another pilgrim joined the pilgrimage.
December 5 was a Saturday. Mama and Papa usually slept late on the weekends. Joachim woke up at seven, as he always did. He sat up in bed and examined the big picture on the calendar.
Only now did he see that one of the shepherds was holding a crook in his hand—just like Joshua.
Why hadn’t he noticed that before?
Every time he looked at the magic calendar, he discovered something new. But surely there couldn’t be anything more to see than what had been there all the time? Wouldn’t that be like a magic trick?
Amazed, Joachim took a deep breath.
Perhaps that was what made the old Advent calendar magical? The picture outside had never been completely finished, and gradually what was missing was painted in as the doors were opened and the pieces of paper were read.
Was it really possible to make a picture like that?
Joachim knew that bread was not quite ready until it had risen all by itself—first in the baking pan and then in the oven. He knew that it had something to do with yeast, because Joachim had often helped Mama or Papa bake bread. When he was smaller, he used to think that babies inside their mothers’ stomachs must be like yeast.
Wasn’t the whole world a magic picture which added to itself? For the world changed all the time. It was never completely finished.
If God had made a whole world that could create itself in every tiny nook and cranny, then He could probably manage to make a picture that developed itself in front of the eyes of those looking at it.
Joachim opened the door with the number 5 on it. Today’s picture was of a rowboat. In it sat a shepherd, an angel, a little girl, and three sheep. Joachim knew who they were, but what interested him most was the thin sheet of paper.
THE THIRD SHEEP
Elisabet, the lamb, the angel, the sheep, and the shepherd sped through Sweden along dirt roads and grassy cart tracks, between yellow fields and through dense forests, until they looked out over a little town down by the sea. The wind blew so strongly that the waves were breaking over the line of the pier. Far out to sea, there was a sailing ship with three tall masts. At the edge of the town was a large castle.
“We are in Halland,” said the angel Ephiriel. “The town is called Halmstad, and the waves are rolling in from Kattegat. The watch says that 1789 years have passed since Jesus was born.”
“Are we still in Sweden?” asked Elisabet.
Ephiriel nodded. “But not so very long ago this was part of Denmark.”
Joshua the shepherd said they should hurry, and they crossed a landscape that became flatter and flatter the farther south they went. Between grazing land and enclosed pastures lay small villages, each with a little church and a few houses.
They were rushing through dense woodland when Joshua the shepherd stopped and knelt under a birch tree. He had found a sheep caught in a trap.
“The trap was probably set for a hare or a fox,” he said.
He loosened a cord from the sheep’s leg and added, “But now the sheep shall come with us to Bethlehem.”
“Because it’s one of us,” said Ephiriel.
And the sheep seemed to answer. “Bah!” it bleated. “Baah.”
Off they went: the lamb and the two sheep first, the shepherd behind them, Elisabet and Ephiriel last.
They entered a town and stopped in front of an old church with two tall towers over the entrance.
The angel told them that they were in Scania, that the town was called Lund, and that the big church was an ancient cathedral. He looked at his angel watch and said, “The watch says 1745. That proud cathedral has stood here for many, many centuries. Churches and cathedrals have been built all over the world, and it all started with the Christ Child who was born in Bethlehem. It’s as if a tiny kernel of wheat is put into the ground and grows into a whole field full. The glory of heaven is very easily scattered about.”
Elisabet wondered about what the angel had said. “Can we go in?” she asked.
The angel nodded, and they entered the great church. The sheep first, the shepherd next, and then Elisabet Hansen.
Inside, Elisabet heard the most beautiful sound. From the great organ there swelled such rich and powerful melodies that tears came to her eyes.
When the angel saw her, he said, “Yes, weep, my child. That wonderful music was composed by Johann Sebastian Bach. He is alive in Germany at this time, but his music will be heard throughout the world one day. That’s not at all surprising, because his music is a tiny shred of the glory of heaven.”
The only things that disturbed the music were two bleating sheep and a lamb scurrying about, so that its little bell tinkled.
A man in black robes came toward them from the chancel. It was the priest. “Get out, all of you!” he said sternly. “Lund Cathedral is not a common sheepfold.”
Then the angel Ephiriel stepped in front of the priest. He spread out his wings and said, “The pastor should not be dismayed! He should remember that Jesus was born in a stable and that He was called the Good Shepherd.”
The priest stopped abruptly, for even though he was a priest in an ancient cathedral, he was not really used to angels and the like.
He fell to his knees and folded his hands. “Glory to God in the highest!” he exclaimed.
They left him like that. The angel made a sign to the others that they should go. “Moments like that should never last too long,” he said. “Perhaps he’ll write a report to the bishop. Then the whole thing will be hushed up, or rumors will start to circulate about the miracle at Lund. In any case, the bishop should remind the pastor that the word ‘pastor’ means shepherd, neither more nor less.”
Joshua struck his crook against the church wall. “To Bethlehem! To Bethlehem!”
They sped through a large park teeming with birds. A couple of soldiers came riding in their direction. When they saw the lively procession, they called out, “Halt!”
The men galloped toward them. But just as they bent down from their horses to seize Joshua the shepherd, they vanished like dew in sunshine.
Elisabet gaped, for the pilgrims were standing on the same spot as they had been before the soldiers rode up.
“They’ve disappeared!” she exclaimed.
The angel’s laugh was like rippling water. “Yes, in a way. But we were the ones who disappeared. Perhaps they were so terrified when they saw what happened that they fell off their horses.”
Elisabet was astonished, so Ephiriel had to explain to her again how they were traveling. “We’re traveling in two directions at once. One journey goes south on the map to the town of Bethlehem in Judea. The other passes through history to David’s city at the time when Jesus was born. It’s a very unusual way of traveling; many people would say it was quite impossible, but nothing is impossible for God. For ‘a thousand ages in thy sight are like an evening gone.’ But the road to Bethlehem is exactly the same.”
The angel’s words aston
ished Elisabet and she hid them in her heart.
“It makes it simpler to avoid danger,” remarked Joshua. “If we can’t give the slip to severe priests or angry soldiers by taking a step to one side, we have to take a step back in time, instead. As little as fifteen minutes or half an hour can be sufficient.”
With those words, they were on their way once more. They passed large fields and small villages. Soon they could glimpse the sea in the distance. In a short while, they were standing on a deserted beach.
“This is Øresund, the Sound,” said Ephiriel. “My watch shows that 1703 years have passed since Jesus was born. We must get across to Denmark before the eighteenth century is over.”
“Here’s a rowboat,” announced Joshua.
They climbed on board, the sheep first, Elisabet and Ephiriel behind them. Joshua pushed the boat out and jumped in at the last minute.
The angel Ephiriel rowed so hard that the spray foamed about the prow. The waves rocked the boat and the lamb’s bell rang piercingly all the way across.
Joshua sat in the stern. Suddenly he said, “I can see Denmark.”
* * *
“I CAN see Denmark.”
Joachim could almost see a little of Denmark, too, but it was only inside his head.
It was strange that Elisabet was able to travel back in time. And it was strange to think that two thousand years had passed since Jesus was born but the stories about Jesus had traveled through all those two thousand years, so that Joachim had heard about Him, too. Elisabet was traveling through time in the other direction.
When Mama and Papa got up, they came to see the picture in the Advent calendar. Joachim pointed to the boat with Elisabet, Ephiriel, Joshua, and the three sheep. But he said nothing about what had happened in the big park. He didn’t tell them that the pilgrims had visited the cathedral in Lund, either. They would only have asked how he knew what a cathedral was, and Joachim had decided not to talk about the pieces of paper in the calendar.
The Christmas Mystery Page 3
