Chapter 4: The Chair

Emlyn came out of his steel door at dusk with his hair standing up and read the card twice.

"You're not going," he said.

"I'm going."

"She'll try to frighten you."

"She sends a man in a black coat to follow a plow driver around," I said. "She's already doing it."

He drove me in his old Volvo, up the hill above downtown, with the lake going black behind us.

The Hall had been a Norwegian seamen's church once.

It still had the steeple and the narrow windows and a heavy oak door with iron straps.

At the gate he stopped the car.

"I'm not permitted past the steps tonight," he said. "She's barred me until you're registered."

"That's ridiculous."

"It's the Chair." He took my hand and kissed my knuckles, very gently. "I'll be here when you come out."

I got out and walked up the shoveled path alone.

Inside, the Hall was all dark wood and low candles.

The pews had been pushed to the walls.

At the far end, where an altar should have been, a long table stood with one tall chair behind it.

Four people sat along the walls in the shadows.

They looked at me.

A woman stood up from the high chair.

She was tall, past fifty by her face, with silver-blonde hair braided in a crown.

Her black wool dress was closed at the throat with a cameo.

Her eyes were the pale grey of lake ice, and her smile was warm.

"Miss Doyle," she said. "Thank you for coming. I am Ingeborg Haugen."

Her voice was lovely, deep and soft.

It was the voice you'd want on the phone when someone had died.

"You said Thursday," I said.

"I said Thursday, and then I thought, why make a young woman wait?" She came around the table. "Sit."

"I'll stand."

Her smile didn't move.

"As you like."

An old man came out of a side door carrying a tray with a percolator and two mugs.

He was very tall and stooped, ninety if a day, in a red flannel shirt buttoned at the wrists.

He had the biggest hands I'd ever seen on a person.

"There you are, dear," he said to me, and put a mug in my hand. "It's hot. Careful."

"Thank you."

"Ole, you needn't," Ingeborg said.

"Nobody comes into my house cold," said the old man, and winked at me.

He turned the percolator on its stand, and the cuff of his flannel slipped back an inch as he reached.

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