Father Dorsten said that fear of ghosts was nothing next to fear of a ghost.
“The Holy Ghost?” Grandma asked.
“I certainly don’t believe in any other.”
“What do you think he looks like?” Mother asked. “I’ve always pictured him as young and bald, riding a cloud, like one of the trebles in The Magic Flute.”
“I think you’d have trouble giving me chapter and verse for that,” Father Dorsten said.
Grandma said, “In Culture and Anarchy, Matthew Arnold wrote, ‘One may say that to be reared a member of a national Church is in itself a lesson of religious moderation, and a help towards culture and harmonious perfection. Instead of battling for his own private forms for expressing the inexpressible and defining the undefinable, a man has leisure and composure to satisfy other sides of his nature as well.’”
“So, you picture him as a dove?” Father Dorsten said.
“The Holy Ghost let our cat out the window,” Olle said.
“When?” Freja asked skeptically.
“Fifteen years ago,” Olle said, and began to cry.
Grandma poured the coffee. “Why don’t you take the children upstairs?” she said.
“OK,” Jonas said, with glittering eyes.