Little Star

by John Ajvide Lindqvist

  Their inane babble about trivialities was a grating distraction and the food did not taste as good as it had done the previous day, when she had eaten very little and had had to conceal how much she was enjoying each bite of potato—the poor appetite fitted nicely with the impression of illness she wanted to maintain.

  Tuesday evening was different. She pretended to feel weak and exhausted, closed her eyes and tried to recapture the feeling. It was there, but much fainter. She excused herself and went up to her room.

  When she woke up on Wednesday another little bit had disappeared, and by Thursday morning she was being honest when she said she didn’t feel well. She told herself her senses were still stronger, but she was beginning to feel pretty much like an ordinary person. And that felt like an illness compared with the way things had been at the beginning of the week.

  Friday and Saturday were the direct opposite of Monday and Tuesday. She felt ill, as if she was constantly quivering inside, but she had to pretend to the family that she was feeling much better so they wouldn’t stop her going to Stockholm on Sunday. It was stressful and difficult, and she collapsed at night into uneasy sleep filled with nightmares.

  They would have had to bind her hand and foot to stop her going. She would have run away, hitch-hiked, caught the train without a ticket if necessary, but it was simpler if the others believed she was feeling OK. So at night she lay there tossing and turning, and during the day she walked around with arms folded or fists clenched in her pockets to hide her shaking hands, and all the time she smiled, smiled, smiled and spoke nicely.

  Only when she was sitting on the train on Sunday was she able, at last, to drop the act. She slumped in her seat, flowing like jelly over the rough upholstery. When an elderly lady leaned forward to ask if she was all right, she went and shut herself in the toilet.

  She looked at herself in the mirror. She looked every bit as sick as she had pretended to be on Monday: cold sweat, pallor; lank, greasy hair. She splashed her face a few times with cold water, dried herself with paper towels, then sat on the toilet and breathed deeply until some of the weight inside her chest disappeared.

  She looked at her hands and forced them to stop shaking. Soon everything would be better. Soon she would be with her pack.

  Just being with Theres on the subway, then the bus, made Teresa feel better; by the time they were lying on the blankets outside the wolf enclosure, her body was able to soak up the warmth of the sun. The shivering that had gripped her over the last few days diminished, and she was able to talk without having to control the shake in her voice. She could do it. With Theres beside her, she could do it.

  She lay on her stomach gazing into the enclosure, but couldn’t see any of the wolves. She took her piece of wolf skin out of her pocket, waved it around and stroked it like a talisman.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Theres.

  ‘I want them to come. The wolves.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I want to see them.’

  There was silence for a while, then Theres said, ‘Here they come.’

  Teresa peered among the tree trunks and rocks, but there was no sign of any grey shape. When she turned to Theres to ask her where they were, she saw that Theres was looking over towards the far end of the fence, where the rest of the girls were approaching in a group.

  ‘I thought you meant the wolves,’ said Teresa.

  ‘We are the wolves. That’s what you said.’

  Yes. That’s what she’d said. But the pack creeping along the narrow track was no more wolf-like than she was right now. They came and sat down, shuffling close to each other on the blankets with Theres at the centre. An inaudible whimper hung in the air along with a scent indistinguishable, to Teresa, from her own. The scent of exhaustion and nagging pain.

  It turned out that the others had felt much the same over the course of the week. To begin with, a joyous, crackling proximity to life that felt indestructible, as if it would last forever, then the slow change to fever and despair as the feeling dissolved.

  Like Teresa, the others found consolation in the group, relief in simply being close to one another, but the voices echoing between them were weak; empty in a ghostly way.

  ‘…I thought that now, at long last…and then when it disappeared, I saw myself…I mean, you’re like, nothing…I haven’t done anything, I’m never going to do anything…as if I was invisible…nobody’s going to remember me…everything will disappear…it’s as if you’re too small to be heard…when it disappeared, all I had left was empty hands…’

  This went on for a good five minutes, a low whimpering made verbal, until Theres yelled, ‘Quiet!’

  The voices broke off abruptly. Theres was holding both hands up in front of her, the palms facing outwards as if she was stopping a runaway train, and she shouted again, ‘Quiet! Quiet!’

  If they could have pricked up their ears, they would have done so now. They were sitting in a huddle around Theres, who straightened up and looked from one to the other. They were focussed on her lips, waiting for a few words that could free them. A suggestion, an order, a telling-off. Anything.

  When Theres opened her mouth, they were so intently anticipating some pithy, vital truth that it took them a couple of seconds to realise that she was singing.

  I’m nothing special, in fact I’m a bit of a bore

  If I tell a joke, you’ve probably heard it before

  But I have a talent, a wonderful thing

  ’cause everyone listens when I start to sing

  I’m so grateful and proud

  All I want is to sing it out loud…

  By the time she had got that far most of them had recognised the song, and even if they didn’t know the words to the verse, they knew the chorus. Theres’ pure, clear voice, so perfectly pitched, resonated through their bodies like a giant tuning fork, guiding them to the right note as they joined in.

  So I say thank you for the music, the songs I’m singing

  Thanks for all the joy they’re bringing…

  Theres sang the song all the way through, the others helped out in the choruses, and the music was like morphine. The pain in their bodies eased, flowed out through the notes, and as long as the song went on there was nothing to fear. In the silence after the final words died away, they heard distant applause. People walking their dogs had stopped in various places and one of them shouted, ‘Yay! Sing Along at Skansen!’ before moving on.

  Theres pointed towards Skansen and said, ‘That’s what I’m going to sing. There. The day after tomorrow. You will all come. Then it will be over. It will be good.’ She got up and went over to the fence, leaned against the wire and let out a low growl, trying to entice the wolves without success.

  ‘What do you mean, over?’ said Caroline. ‘What does she mean, it’ll be over? I don’t understand what she’s talking about.’

  Teresa looked towards Skansen, imagining the Solliden stage somewhere far beyond the trees, just as she had seen it on TV. The crowds, the singers, the camera cranes and ‘Stockholm in My Heart’. The wall of young girls, just like them and very different from them, pressed against the barriers right at the front as they sang along. Theres standing on the stage. The rest of them in the audience. Among all those people.

  ‘Ronja?’ said Teresa. ‘Do you remember asking me where we were actually going, what we were going to do?’

  Ronja nodded and shrugged her shoulders. ‘We’ve done stuff.’

  ‘No,’ said Teresa. ‘We haven’t done anything. We have only prepared ourselves.’ She glanced at the sign on the wolf enclosure: Do not feed the animals, then waved her hand towards it, towards Skansen. ‘But we are going to do something. We are going to feel good forever. And no bastard is ever going to forget us.’

  Hitachi DS14DFL.

  Weight 1.6 kg. Total length 210mm. Ergonomic, rubber-coated handle. 13mm chuck capacity. 1,200 revolutions per minute.

  Teresa had searched for over an hour to find the right tool. It had to
be battery operated, and have a slender handle which would suit small hands. It mustn’t be too big or heavy, but must be able to run a reasonably thick drill bit. It had to be available to buy all over the place. And it had to look good.

  Behind the nondescript name Hitachi DS14DFL she found the answer. A slender tool with a long-lasting heavy duty lithium-ion battery. The handle looked inviting: she longed to hold it, to extend her arm with a sharp, whirling point.

  She clicked on the group containing the other girls’ email addresses and forwarded the product information along with details of a number of different shops where the machine could be bought. They could improvise when it came to other tools or weapons, but their claws would be the same.

  Sunday had become Monday while she sat at the computer searching for this: for the tool that would free them, at long last, from these lives in which they had never asked to be imprisoned. The moon was high in the sky outside her window, and soon she would be gone.

  The itch in her body would not let her be. She paced the strip of moonlight on the floor of her bedroom, thinking about her mother and father asleep in their beds, thinking about the drill, thinking about the axe in the cellar. The only thing that stopped her was her reluctance to start a chain of events that would prevent her from being there on Tuesday.

  Her fingers were tingling, the soles of her feet were burning and she was panting like a starving animal as she forced herself to quit the pacing before she woke everybody up; a knock on the door, a curious head poked into her room, and this particular night could end in disaster.

  She sat on the bed and did something she hadn’t done for several months: she took her medication. She stuffed three tablets in her mouth and swallowed them without water. Then she sat still, hands resting on her knees, breathing and waiting for something to happen.

  When there was no change after half an hour and her body was still being torn apart, she sat down at the computer and wrote a letter. She used the language Theres would use, because it helped her gather and simplify her thoughts. When the letter was finished she printed out four copies and placed them in envelopes on which she wrote addresses she had looked up on the internet.

  Then she stood by the window looking at the moon, hugging herself and trying to survive the night.

  On Monday she caught the bus to Rimsta and bought the chosen drill with the last of her savings. On the bus back she sat there holding the box close like a lifebuoy, and when she got home she unpacked the drill and placed it in the charger.

  She planned and visualised, tried to think herself into the situation. She watched clips from Sing Along at Skansen on the net to see how the audience was deployed, the big tree in the middle, where the cameras were. She was afraid.

  Afraid that her courage would fail when it came to the crunch, afraid that she would miss her opportunity because of the cowardice and the human frailty that still chafed away somewhere inside her.

  That evening, Johannes rang.

  The voices of her parents and her brothers had been reduced to meaningless background noise, whether they were speaking to her or not. She had nothing to do with them. So how come Johannes’ voice could still be heard?

  ‘Hi Teresa.’

  Teresa. That name. She did remember it, she knew that in some way it meant her. Yes. When Johannes said it she could remember that other girl. Before Theres, before ‘Fly’, before Max Hansen and before Urd. Poor little Teresa with her poor little poems and her poor little life.

  She spoke in Teresa’s voice. It was still there. In a way it was pleasant to speak in that voice. Teresa wasn’t suffering from this tearing hunger, Teresa didn’t have a bloody task to carry out. Teresa was Johannes’ friend, and always would be.

  ‘Hi Johannes.’

  She lay down on the bed, closed her eyes and had a perfectly normal conversation with Johannes. They talked about Agnes, about people in school, about the alterations to the library. For a while Teresa pretended that these things were important, and it was nice.

  After a while they slipped into talking about memories. Teresa allowed herself to be led, without resisting, to their cave, their bike rides, the places where they went swimming, the sheep. They talked for over two hours, and when Teresa picked up the drill and weighed it in her hand after saying goodbye, the whole thing seemed impossible.

  She lunged, raced the motor and simulated resistance, her limbs flailing as she screamed, ‘Urd!’

  Urd.

  She managed to get a few hours’ sleep that night, lying in bed with the drill and squeezing the wonderful, soft grip that fitted her hand as if it had been made for her.

  A person can think murderous thoughts and hide them behind a smile, she can fantasise about blood flowing and brain matter splattering as she eats her muesli, humming quietly to herself. But even if nothing concrete shows on the outside, people around her will notice something sooner or later. It leaks out like radiation or osmosis, seeping out of her very being.

  Teresa’s parents had started to be afraid of her. You couldn’t put your finger on anything definite that she said or did, but there was a kind of shimmer around her, a black aura that made them feel uncomfortable as soon as she walked into a room.

  When Teresa asked for a lift to Österyd more than an hour before the train was due to leave, no one asked any questions. They knew she was going to Stockholm to meet that friend of hers, but that was all they knew. If she wanted to go to Österyd first, then she could go to Österyd.

  Teresa’s rucksack looked heavy, but when Göran offered to help her carry it she just looked at him in a way that made him lower his hands. They got in the car in silence, and they drove into Österyd in silence. When Teresa told him where she wanted to be dropped off, Göran said, ‘Isn’t that where Johannes lives?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you going to see him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh good! It might…brighten you up a bit.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  Teresa got out of the car and grabbed her rucksack, then stood there with her head lowered. She didn’t close the door. When she looked at Göran a flash of pain passed through her eyes. He leaned over the passenger seat and held out his hand. ‘Sweetheart…’

  Teresa backed away from his touch and said, ‘I’m not sure if I’m going to Stockholm. It depends. I’ll ring you if I don’t go.’ Then she slammed the door shut, turned away and walked towards the door of Johannes’ apartment block.

  Göran sat there with his hands resting on the wheel. When Teresa had disappeared inside he let out a sob and lowered his head. His forehead hit one of the horn buttons, and the sound made him jump and look around. A man of about his own age with two supermarket carrier bags in his hands was standing looking at him. He waved, started the car and drove off.

  Teresa hesitated before ringing the doorbell. This could be very, very painful. She hadn’t even turned around when she left her father, but before she could do anything else she just had to say goodbye to Johannes. Then whatever was going to happen could happen.

  Her thumb hovered over the white plastic button as if it was wired to those Cruise missiles that could start a world war. The worst thing was that she didn’t know which action would start the chain of events: to push or not to push.

  She pushed the button. No roar of engines going through twelve litres of rocket fuel per second, no terrified screams from the entire population of the world. Just a quiet ding dong, then footsteps in the hallway.

  Johannes opened the door looking exactly the same as Teresa thought he had looked ever since his transformation. A pink T-shirt and khaki shorts, and he already had a tan even though the summer had hardly started. His eyes sparkled, and before Teresa could stop him he had flung his arms around her.

  ‘Teresa! It’s so good to see you!’

  ‘You too,’ she mumbled into his shoulder.

  He took a step back, still holding onto her arms, and looked her up and down.

  ‘How are you?
You don’t look too good, actually.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Oh, you know what I mean. Come in.’

  Teresa took her rucksack with her into the living room and sat down in an armchair. The apartment looked like it had been decorated by several different people, all with appalling taste. Nothing matched anything else, and a standard lamp that looked like a valuable antique was standing next to a huge plastic flower on a Perspex box.

  Johannes had mentioned how busy his mother was these days, how she didn’t have time to bother about what the apartment looked like.

  Teresa looked around and asked, ‘Has Agnes’ mother been here?’

  Johannes laughed out loud and told her a long story about how Clara, Agnes’ mother, had reacted the first time she came to dinner, how she had paused in front of a picture of a weeping child and eventually said, ‘Well, that’s certainly…a classic.’

  When Teresa didn’t even smile at his anecdotes, he sighed and sat down on the sofa, tucked his hands between his knees and waited. Teresa shuffled forward to the edge of the armchair, as close to him as possible. Then she said, ‘I’ve killed people.’

  Johannes grinned. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I’ve killed two people. One by myself, and one with other people.’

  His smile grew rigid then disappeared as he looked her in the eye. ‘You can’t be serious.’

  ‘I am serious. And today I’m going to kill some more.’

  Johannes frowned as if she were telling him a joke he just didn’t get, then he snorted. ‘Why are you saying this? Of course you’re not going to kill people. Of course you haven’t already killed people. What’s going on, Teresa?’

  She opened her rucksack. On the dark brown coffee table she placed the drill, a hammer, a carving knife and a small pair of bolt cutters. ‘These are the tools we’re going to use. The others have got the same. More or less.’