The Christmas Mystery

  Elisabet tried to keep up with it, but she tripped over a pine-tree root and fell flat on the ground.

  The worst thing wasn’t that she had hurt herself, but that she realized she probably wouldn’t ever catch up with the lamb. She had decided to follow it to the ends of the earth, but the earth was round, after all, so they might go on running around the world forever, or at least until she grew up, and by then she might have lost interest in lambs and the like.

  When she looked up, she saw a shining figure between the trees. Elisabet stared, wide-eyed, because it was neither an animal nor a human being. A pair of wings were sticking out of a robe as white as the lamb.

  Elisabet was only just getting to know the world. She knew what the most common animals were called, but she hadn’t learned the difference between a tomtit and a yellowhammer, for example. Or between a camel and a dromedary, come to think of it. Still, there was no mistaking what she was looking at now. Elisabet understood at once that the shining figure must be an angel. She had seen angels in books, but it was the first time she had seen such a creature in real life.

  “Fear not!” said the angel in a gentle voice.

  Elisabet raised herself halfway up. “Don’t think I’m afraid of you,” she said, sulking a little because she had fallen and hurt herself.

  The angel came closer. It looked as if he was hovering just above the ground. He reminded Elisabet of her Cousin Anna, who could dance on the tips of her toes. The angel knelt down and stroked Elisabet gently on the nape of her neck with the tip of one of his wings.

  “I said, ‘Fear not,’ to be on the safe side,” he said. “We don’t appear to humans very often, so it’s best to be careful when we do. Usually people are very frightened when they’re visited by an angel.”

  Suddenly Elisabet began to cry, not because she was afraid of angels, and not because she had hurt herself, either. She didn’t understand why she was crying until she heard herself sob, “I wanted … to pet the lamb.”

  The angel nodded gracefully. “I’m sure God wouldn’t have created lambs with such soft fleece unless He hoped someone would want to pet them.”

  “The lamb runs much faster than I do,” said Elisabet, sobbing, “and it has twice as many legs … Isn’t that unfair? I can’t see why a little lamb should be in such a hurry.”

  The angel helped her to her feet and said confidentially, “It’s going to Bethlehem.”

  Elisabet had stopped crying. “To Bethlehem?”

  “Yes. To Bethlehem, to Bethlehem! That’s where Jesus was born.”

  Elisabet was very surprised at what the angel said. In an attempt to hide her astonishment, she began to brush dirt and grass off her pants. There were some nasty stains on her red jacket, too.

  “Then I want to go to Bethlehem,” she said.

  The angel had begun dancing on the tips of his toes again on the path. “That suits me,” he said, hovering just above the ground, “because I’m going there, too. So we might just as well keep each other company, all three of us.”

  Elisabet had been taught that she should never go anywhere with people she didn’t know. That certainly applied to angels and trolls as well. She looked up at the angel and asked, “What’s your name?”

  She had thought that the angel was a man, but she wasn’t quite sure. Now he curtsied like a ballet dancer and said, “My name is Ephiriel.”

  “That sounds like a butterfly. Did you really say Ephiriel?”

  The angel nodded. “Just Ephiriel, yes. Angels have no mother or father, so we have no family name.”

  Elisabet sniffed for the last time. Then she said, “I don’t think we have time to talk anymore if we’re going all the way to Bethlehem. Isn’t it far away?”

  “Yes indeed, it’s very far—and a very long time ago. But I know a short cut, and that’s the path we’re taking now.”

  And, with that, they began to run. First the lamb, then Elisabet. The angel Ephiriel danced behind them.

  As they ran, Elisabet wished she had asked the angel why it had suddenly become summer. But when she caught a glimpse of the lamb on the path in front of her, she didn’t dare stop.

  “Little lamb, little lamb!”

  * * *

  JOACHIM quickly hid the piece of paper in the secret box.

  It was John the flower seller who had left the old calendar with the bookseller. Did he know about the scraps of paper, too? Or was Joachim the only person in the world who knew the secret? After all, he was the only person who had opened the calendar.

  Another thought struck him. Elisabet! Wasn’t Elisabet the name of the woman whose picture John had put in the shop window?

  Yes, it was, he was certain. Could it be the same Elisabet he was reading about in the magic Advent calendar? She was only a child, it’s true, but the calendar was so old that she must have had plenty of time to grow up during all the years that had passed since then.

  Mama and Papa came in that day, too, to see the picture in the calendar.

  “An angel,” whispered Mama solemnly.

  “He’s comforting Elisabet,” explained Joachim. “She was running so fast after the lamb that she fell and hurt herself.”

  Mama winked at Papa, and Papa smiled shyly. It was probably because they thought Joachim was good at inventing stories. They didn’t know that he wasn’t inventing anything at all.

  That day he had to get to school early, so there was no more time to talk about the Advent calendar. But Joachim thought about nothing else on his way there.

  When he came home from school, he had to let himself in. He got home a little earlier than Mama nearly every day.

  Joachim rushed to his room and looked up at the magic Advent calendar. It was still there. He had had to ask himself a couple of times during the day whether it had been only a dream, because Joachim was always dreaming about the strangest things.

  He longed to know what the picture behind door number 3 was. Should he open the third door? All he had to do was push it back again afterwards and pretend he hadn’t done it.

  But that would be cheating. You weren’t allowed to cheat at cards either, but it would be even worse to cheat about Christmas. It was like peeping into presents that were not to be opened until Christmas Eve. It was almost like stealing from yourself.

  Mama soon came home from work and started to peel potatoes and carrots. Then Papa arrived. He was complaining that he had lost his driver’s license.

  “I can’t understand it,” he said. “Not in the car, not at the office, and not in my coat pocket, either.”

  “What a muddlehead you are!” said Joachim. Because Papa always said that to him when he couldn’t find his pencil case or he hadn’t put his toys away.

  That evening must have been the first time in Joachim’s whole life that he asked to go to bed early.

  “You don’t feel ill, do you, darling?” asked Mama.

  “No, of course not. But the sooner I go to sleep, the sooner I will wake up to open the magic Advent calendar.”

  3

  DECEMBER 3

  … like running before the wind—or like rushing down an escalator …

  JOACHIM woke up early on December 3. The Donald Duck clock hanging above his desk said a quarter to seven. Mama and Papa would not be up for another half hour.

  He remembered that he’d dreamed about something strange, but he was not quite sure what. It had had something to do with the angel Ephiriel and the lamb.

  He sat up in bed and looked closely at the magic Advent calendar. At the top of the picture, several angels were floating down through the clouds in the sky. One of them was blowing a trumpet. That was to wake up all the sheep and the shepherds, of course.

  Joachim imagined that the angel on the right of the picture must be the angel Ephiriel. He looked just like Joachim thought Ephiriel might look.

  Suddenly he noticed that that angel was smiling at him, lifting an arm as if trying to wave at Joachim. The angel in the picture looked clearer than yeste
rday.

  Joachim got up on the bed and opened the door with the number 3 on it. He saw a tiny picture of a vintage car. He had seen that kind of old car at the Technical Museum with Grandpa.

  Joachim didn’t understand what a vintage car could have to do with Christmas, but he picked up the thin sheet of paper that had fallen out of the calendar. He snuggled down under the covers and began to read.

  THE SECOND SHEEP

  Elisabet and the angel Ephiriel went on running after the little lamb. Soon they left the woods behind and were going down a narrow country lane. In the distance, thick smoke rose from some tall factory chimneys.

  “There’s a town,” said Elisabet.

  “That’s Halden,” explained the angel. “We’re fairly close to Sweden.”

  Suddenly they heard a clatter right behind them. Elisabet turned and saw an old car heading toward them. In the car sat a man wearing a hat and a coat. He had a black heard and looked a little like the picture of her great-grandfather on the mantelpiece at home. As the car passed them, the man honked the horn and saluted with his hat.

  “Look at that car!” exclaimed Elisabet. “It must be really old.”

  “On the contrary, I think it was probably brand-new,” said Ephiriel.

  Elisabet sighed. “I’ve always thought angels were much cleverer than humans. But you don’t seem to know much about cars.”

  Still, she didn’t want to quarrel with the angel, so she went on, “But I suppose you don’t drive cars in heaven. I imagine God has forbidden any kind of pollution.”

  Ephiriel pointed to a large pile of logs. “Sit down here,” he said. “You deserve a short rest, and there’s something important I have to tell you about our journey to Bethlehem.”

  Elisabet sat down and looked up at the angel. “Don’t you get tired, too?” she asked.

  The angel shook his head. “No, angels don’t get tired, because we’re not made of flesh and blood. When you get tired, it’s your flesh and blood that feel it most.”

  Elisabet felt a little embarrassed that she had thought angels could get tired. If they had been able to, they surely wouldn’t have the strength to fly up and down between heaven and earth. That must be very far, maybe even farther than Bethlehem.

  “Exactly where are we going, my dear?” asked the angel.

  “To Bethlehem,” replied Elisabet.

  “Very well, and what are we going to do there?”

  “We’re going to pet the lamb.”

  The angel nodded. “And we’ll welcome the Baby Jesus into the world. He was called God’s lamb. That was because He was just as kind and as innocent as a little lamb’s fleece is soft.”

  Elisabet shrugged. This was something she’d never thought about.

  “But it’s not enough just to travel to Bethlehem,” the angel continued. “We have to travel two thousand years back in time, too. That’s because when you started to run after the lamb, just about that length of time had passed since Jesus was born. We’ll try to get there at the moment when the great wonder happens.”

  “Isn’t it absolutely impossible to travel back in time?” Elisabet asked.

  Ephiriel shook his head. “Not absolutely, no. Nothing is impossible for God, and I’m here as God’s messenger, so practically nothing is impossible for me, either. We have a small part of the long way behind us already. Down there you see Halden, and we’re at the beginning of the twentieth century after Jesus’ birth. Can you understand that?”

  Elisabet’s eyes widened, and she nodded. “I think so—and that means the vintage car wasn’t so old, after all.”

  “No. It may have been brand-new. I’m sure you noticed how proud the driver was when he honked his horn. Not very many people own cars at this time.”

  Elisabet simply sat and stared, and the angel Ephiriel continued. “It would have taken a very long time to run to Bethlehem in a straight line. But we’re also running diagonally down through history, so in a way we’re going downhill all the time. It’s like running before the wind—or like rushing down an escalator.”

  Elisabet nodded. She was not at all sure she understood everything the angel said, but she understood enough to realize how clever it all was.

  “How do you know we’re at the beginning of the twentieth century?”

  The angel raised his arm and pointed at a gold watch on his wrist. It was decorated with a row of shining pearls. On its face it said 1916.

  “It’s an angel watch,” he explained. “It isn’t quite as accurate as other watches, but in heaven we’re not too particular about all those hours and minutes.”

  “Why not?”

  “We have the whole of eternity to see to,” replied the angel. “Besides, we never have to catch a bus to get to work on time.”

  Now Elisabet understood why the church clock had only struck three even though it had been six or seven o’clock when she ran from the shop and why the snow had disappeared and it had suddenly become summer. She had run backward in time.

  “You began running along the diagonal path as soon as you started chasing the lamb,” continued the angel Ephiriel. “That’s when the long journey through time and space began.”

  Another car approached them from the opposite direction. It left such a cloud of dust and sand behind it that it made Elisabet cough.

  When the dust cloud had settled, she pointed up at the road. “There’s our lamb again. But now there’s a grown sheep as well.”

  The angel nodded. “Verily I say unto you, that sheep is going to Bethlehem, too.”

  With that, they began to run. When Elisabet and Ephiriel had caught up with the lamb and the sheep, both of them bounded on as well.

  “Little lamb, little lamb!” coaxed Elisabet.

  But the lamb and the sheep would not be coaxed into standing still. They were going to Bethlehem! To Bethlehem!

  They passed the outskirts of Halden. They paused for a moment and looked down at all the people walking in the streets and the market. The ladies were wearing long, colorful cotton dresses and large hats. Several vintage cars were sputtering along the streets, but there were horses and carriages as well.

  They left it behind them and soon came to a border station. A large sign announced: “Border. SWEDEN.”

  Elisabet stopped abruptly. “Do you think we’ll be allowed to go into Sweden?”

  The angel fluttered around her like an overgrown butterfly. “They won’t dare stop a pilgrimage,” he replied. “Besides, it’s only a few weeks since Norway had the same king as Sweden.”

  “May I look at your angel watch again?”

  Ephiriel stretched out his arm. The watch said 1905.

  Then they sped past two border guards, the lamb and the sheep first, and Elisabet Hansen and the angel Ephiriel just behind them.

  “Halt!” shouted the border guards. “In the name of the law.”

  But they were already far into Sweden. And they had come a few years closer to the birth of Jesus.

  * * *

  JOACHIM sat up in bed. So that was why there was a picture of a vintage car in the Advent calendar! That was why it had suddenly become summer.

  Joachim quickly locked the piece of paper with the story of Elisabet and the angel Ephiriel in the secret box. Afterwards, he sat for a long time, thinking over what he had read.

  Elisabet hadn’t just set off after the lamb and followed it into the woods. She had begun to run back in time as well. She had already come to the year 1905, but she was going all the way to Bethlehem when Jesus was born. Joachim knew that it happened almost two thousand years ago.

  He was old enough to know that you can’t really run back in time. But it was possible to do it in your thoughts.

  At school he had heard that a thousand years to mankind can be as one single day to God. And the angel Ephiriel had told Elisabet that nothing is impossible for God. Could Elisabet and the angel really have run back in time?

  He heard Mama on the landing. She came into his room and asked, “H
ave you opened the Advent calendar?”

  He nodded, and Mama looked at the picture in the calendar. “A vintage car!” she exclaimed.

  She sounded surprised, almost disappointed. Perhaps she thought there should be pictures of angels and Christmasy things every day.

  “It’s because Elisabet and the angel Ephiriel have run to Sweden at the time when vintage cars like that were brand-new,” said Joachim. “They’re going to run all the way to Bethlehem.”

  “You’re a real little storyteller,” said Mama, patting him on the head. Then she went into the bathroom.

  Joachim felt a tickle in his stomach when he thought about all the clever things he knew about which Mama and Papa believed he was just making up. He decided something even cleverer. On Christmas Eve he’d put together all the pieces of paper that had come from the magic calendar and place the package under the Christmas tree. Then he would write: “To the best Mama and Papa in the world” on the outside.

  This idea made him look forward to Christmas even more. But it wasn’t always good to look forward to something. It could be boring, too, if it took a long time to come. When he looked forward to something terribly exciting, it could almost give him a headache.

  That afternoon, Papa complained that he still hadn’t found his driver’s license. In that case, he wasn’t really supposed to drive, said Mama. But when Papa heard that, he snorted like a steam engine.

  4

  DECEMBER 4

  … he barely had time to look astonished …

  WHEN Joachim woke up on Friday, he made sure it was completely quiet in the house. Then he opened the fourth door.

  It was a picture of a man in a light blue robe which looked a little like a nightgown. In his hand he held a tall staff. But Joachim had no time to look at the picture carefully, because a scrap of paper fell on his bed today, too.

  JOSHUA

  Elisabet Hansen and the angel Ephiriel hurried after the sheep and the lamb. They passed a red log cabin in a small clearing in the woods.

  From a hilltop, Ephiriel pointed down at a large lake. “That’s Vänern, the biggest lake in Scandinavia,” he said. “The watch shows that 1891 years have passed since Jesus was born, but we’ve only just arrived in Sweden.”