1941, Norway
"Bestefar fant jeg din oldefar!" ("Grandfathter, I found your great-grandfather!")
"Oh! Yes, you are right. Let's get the blanket out."
"Do we have to stay long? It's cold..."
"Just for a short while, Aldine. Come sit and we'll play that game you thought of last night."
Grandpa spread the blanket with her help. The sky and stars shone above them. At long last the days of darkness had arrived and grandpa could at long last bring this dream to fruition. Little Aldine was too excited to sit still and danced around the family graves. Down below the gentle hillside where they were sitting they could see the family farm. Electric lights shone from the windows. Grandma was making hot cocoa for when they came back.
They sat in the darkness and played 'Where Am I now, Grandpa?" as she scampered about. Her bright white mittens tended to give her away, but Grandpa wasn't going to let her know. He would smile and feign having a terribly hard time finding her. To his immediate left was the stone marking his beloved great-grandfather Halvard. "1885" was written at its base. How he missed that kind old man, even after all this time. Some emotions never fade.
Since the days of old, old Halvard electricity had arrived. And indoor plumbing! Cars too, of course. And now they had radio that actually worked. He knew great-grandfather would have hated it all! Such was his ways. Electricity had been forbidden at the farm as along as he had lived. Halvard would have nothing to do with it.
This last year had been hard on everyone... Russia had been invaded by the Germans this summer. The world was so fraught with war and death. Beloved Norway had been overrun the year before. What a horrible age this had become. In these ways he was glad great-grandfather was not here. The sorrow would kill him outright.
"Where ammmmm I nowwwww?" she whispered from nearby in a ghost-like voice.
"Oohhhh, I am looking!..." "Oh, I see you over there!"
"Noooooo, no! You guessed the wrong way," she giggled.
"Hmmmmmm" and he looked about.
...
A while later they had given up the game. Aldine sat in his lap, helping him count stars and deciding which ones were twinkling he most.
"Can we go back now?"
"But I have someone for you to meet. I do!"
"But you said that last night. And we sat here until gramma's hot cocoa was cold..."
"Ohhh, I think we're doing well this evening."
"Grampa! You kept me here bored last night and told me about elves. I asked my older sister and she said you were full of little stories."
"Oh, is that so?"
"mhmmmmm" she pretended to be cross with him.
"Well, I have someone for you to meet. But you have to be quiet. And I have to ask you a very special promise."
"Okay. I will be quiet. And okay, I will make a promise... maybe."
"Oh good! Well, then, here is the promise: that you never tell until your days too are nearly over."
"Grammmpy! What kind of a promise is that?"
"Hmmmm, it is the same promise my great-grandfather made with me, here, long ago on a night like this. And I then was ten years old, just like you now."
"Ohhhh, well, then, whatever. Okay."
"You promise?"
"Yes. DIdn't I just say that?"
"Yes, darling, you did."
"Grampy you really need to listen better."
"Mmmmmm."
"Okay. So let's go. I'm bored."
"Ssssh."
"Oh grampy."
"Ready?"
"To go? YES!"
"Noo..."
"What then?"
"Over there to your right. Look carefully, but don't move. Just sit and try to be calm."
And Aldine looked. And she saw a little face. And a little body, fully stretched out in the grass, head propped up with two hands, looking at them. She was no more than a meter away! The smile of bittersweet joy which broke slowly to a mischievous grin was something Aldine would never forget.
"Oooh!"