Harbour

by John Ajvide Lindqvist

'What's that?' asked Anders.

  'Wormwood,' said Anna-Greta. 'It's supposed to protect you.'

  'From what?'

  'From things that come out of the sea.'

  Anders looked from Simon to Anna-Greta. 'So does this mean that...you believe me?'

  'I do now,' said Simon, pointing to the glass. 'Although I didn't know about this.'

  Anders sniffed the contents. It was alcohol, which was fine up to a point. But the aroma carried on the alcoholic fumes was oily and bitter, with a hint of putrefaction. 'Isn't wormwood poisonous?'

  'Well yes,' said Anna-Greta. 'But not in small quantities.'

  Of course he didn't think his grandmother was trying to poison him, but he had never smelt anything closer to the essence of poison than the one that was rising from the glass in his hand.

  Wormwood...

  A whole series of associations ran through his mind as he raised the glass to his lips.

  The wormwood meadow by the shore...the plastic bottle in the woodshed that the bird was sitting on... and the name of the star was Wormwood... Chernobyl... and the rivers shall be poisoned.. .wormwood, enemy of the water...

  What decided the matter was the fact that he was desperately in need of a drink. He knocked back the contents of the glass.

  The taste was horribly bitter and his tongue curled up in protest. It felt as if the alcohol had gone straight to his brain, and everything was spinning around as he put down the empty glass. His tongue felt as if it were paralysed, and he managed to slur, 'Didn't taste very nice.'

  The heat coursed through his veins and reached the very tips of his fingers, then turned around and raced through his body once again. With lips that were still curling from the vile taste, he asked, 'Can I have another?'

  Anna-Greta refilled his glass, then put the top back on the bottle and replaced it in the cupboard. Anders emptied the glass, and since his palate was already numb from the first shock, it didn't taste half as bad this time. When he put down the glass and smacked his lips, he even got a hint of an aftertaste that was...good.

  He got to his feet, using the table for support. 'Could I borrow a pair of trousers? I have to go down to the Shack to check if Elin's there, otherwise.. .1 don't know what we're going to do.'

  Simon went to check in the 'hidey-hole', the little storeroom where clothes and belongings from past generations were kept. Anders was left alone in the kitchen with Anna-Greta. He looked longingly at the empty shot glass, but by putting the bottle away Anna-Greta had made her point.

  'Protection from the sea,' said Anders. 'What does that mean?'

  'We'll talk about it another time.'

  'When?'

  Anna-Greta didn't answer. Anders examined the photograph of Elsa. She looked angry; angry and disappointed. If the people in the other pictures looked as if it were hard work being photographed, Elsa looked as if she regarded it as an insult. Her furious gaze reached him through seventy years, making him feel distinctly uncomfortable.

  'Was she always alone?' asked Anders. 'Elsa?'

  'No, she had a husband who was quite a bit older. Anton, I think his name was. He had heart problems, and...he had a heart attack and died.'

  'When he was out fishing?'

  'Yes. How did you know that?'

  'And she was the one who found him in the boat. Some of the fish were still alive, but he was dead.'

  'I don't know about that, but she was the one who found him, that's definitely true. Who told you all this?'

  'Elin.'

  Simon came into the kitchen with a pair of flimsy trousers that looked as if they might have had something to do with the army. He gave them to Anders along with a belt, and said, 'I don't know if these will do, but they're all I could find.'

  Anders pulled on the trousers, which were much too big, and fastened the belt around his waist. The wide legs felt good, because they weren't tight over his cuts. Simon stood looking at him, his arms folded.

  Are you really going out again? Is that a good idea? Shall I come with you?'

  Anders smiled. 'I don't think there's much you can do, and besides...' he nodded at the kitchen cupboard '...I'm protected now, aren't I?'

  'I don't know about that, and I don't think Anna-Greta does either, not really.'

  'That's true,' said Anna-Greta. 'It's only hearsay.'

  'I'll go down and check,' said Anders. 'I'll call you. Whether she's there or not. Then we can decide what to do.'

  He borrowed a torch, hoisted up the trousers and grimaced as his wounds pulled. On his way to the outside door he stopped and turned around. He had suddenly realised something. He had been carrying the knowledge with him for quite some time, but it wasn't until that moment it became obvious and possible to say out loud.

  'Ghosts,' he said. 'There are ghosts.'

  He nodded to Simon and Anna-Greta and went out into the darkness.

  Before he switched on the torch he gazed at the sky. "Wasn't that a tinge of orange in the thin clouds over Kattudden? Yes, it was, and he couldn't have cared less. However, he turned, went back into the kitchen and said indifferently, 'I think there's a fire over by Kattudden again.'

  If Simon and Anna-Greta wanted to do something about it, they were welcome. He just couldn't. It had been a long night, and it was almost three o'clock. He wanted Elin to be fast asleep in bed when he got home, as if everything that had happened to her had happened in her sleep, and could be forgotten.

  As he approached the Shack he veered off to the toolshed and picked up an axe. It might well be as useless as the fence post he'd used but it felt good in his hand, and perhaps a sharp weapon would work better.

  The fire alarm up in the village went off just as he pushed down the handle of the outside door. The door was locked. He thought about it. No, he hadn't locked it when he went out. And there was no light in the kitchen window. It had been on when he left.

  'Elin!' he shouted through the closed door. 'Elin, are you there?'

  The door was old and in poor condition; many winters of patient work had made it settle in the frame. He pushed the blade of the axe into the broad gap above the lock and prised the door open with a cracking sound. He stepped into the hallway and said tentatively, 'Elin? Elin, it's only me.'

  He took off his shoes and locked the door, which was now even more warped, behind him. Despite an exhaustion that felt much too big to be accommodated in his skinny body, fear kicked the adrenaline into action once again as he crept through the hallway, clutching the shaft of the axe.

  No more now,

  he thought. No more.

  The beam of the torch made the perfectly ordinary kitchen furniture look ominous, creating shadows with unpleasant shapes.

  'Elin,' he whispered. 'Elin, are you there?'

  The kitchen floor creaked beneath his feet and he stopped, listened. The fire alarm could be heard less clearly indoors, but still covered all the small noises that might indicate the presence of another person.

  He went on into the living room. A little warmth was still emanating from the Roslagen stove, and he swept the beam of the torch around him without noticing anything strange, apart from the fact that the bedroom door was closed. He licked his lips. His tongue was still stiff from the wormwood, and the taste seemed to have penetrated so deep into the flesh of his palate that it would never be possible to wash it away.

  When he pushed down the handle, the door was barricaded from the inside. But it had been done badly, and the chair that had been placed behind the door fell over when he pushed.

  Elin was sitting in the bed, leaning against the bedpost. She had wrapped the quilt around her so that only her head was sticking up. The sheet at the foot of the bed was streaked with blood and covered in lumps of mud.

  'Elin?'

  Her eyes were staring at him in terror. He didn't dare go into the room or switch on the light, because he didn't know how she would react. He became aware of the axe in his hand, and put it down next to the door. He shone the torch around the roo
m, listened to the fire alarm. He looked at Elin, and a shudder ran through his body.

  She's dead. They've killed her and put her here.

  'Elin?' he whispered. 'Elin, it's Anders. Can you hear me?'

  She nodded. A faint, faint nod. He made a gesture, just hang on, and turned away. Behind him he heard Elin say, 'Don't leave me.'

  'I'm just going to make a phone call. I'll be right back.'

  He went into the kitchen, switched on the light and rang Anna- Greta's number; he told her Elin was back, and they would deal with everything when they'd had a couple of hours' sleep. When Anna- Greta had hung up, Anders stood with the receiver in his hand, staring at the grubby tape on the table.

  The music you play, would you say it was.. .just between ourselves... cheerful music?

  He wanted to ring somewhere and ask for help. He wanted to ring Kalle Sandare. Sit at the kitchen table with the phone pressed to his ear listening to Kalle's gentle Gothenburg accent, like balm to the soul, talking about little things and laughing from time to time.

  How can the world be like this? How can what happened tonight exist at the same time as Kalle Sandare exists?

  He put the phone down and felt a strange pain in his chest. It wasn't Kalle Sandare he missed, but his father. Kalle was just a simpler and more manageable substitute. Because they had had so much fun together with Kalle, Kalle had come to mean Dad, but without the difficult associations.

  It was really his father he wanted to talk to. The sense of loss that he had refused to recognise came crawling up through his chest, reaching for his heart with its long claws. He pushed it back and went into the bedroom.

  Elin was sitting just as he had left her. Cautiously he sat down beside her on the edge of the bed. 'Shall I put the light on?'

  Elin shook her head. The light from the kitchen was enough for him to be able to see her face. In the half-light it was even more like Elsa's. Elin had had quite a prominent chin. It was gone now, running on from her throat just like Elsa's.

  How did they do it? They must have. ..smashed her legs.

  His eyes moved to the signs of blood and mud at the foot of the bed. 'We need to.. .get you bandaged up.'

  Elin pulled the quilt more tightly around her. 'No. I don't want to.'

  Anders didn't have the strength to insist. It was as if he had an anchor chain around his neck. His head kept trying to droop, and all he wanted was to go to bed. From time to time flashes of white shot through his eyes, and he didn't know if it was just tiredness, or if the wormwood really had poisoned his exhausted body.

  'There's something wrong with me,' whispered Elin. 'I'm insane, I ought to kill myself.'

  Anders sat there with his elbows on his knees, staring at the wardrobe. He didn't know what was best: to tell or not to tell. In the end he sought refuge in one simple sentence: It's better to know. He'd heard it in the context of illness, and didn't know if it was appropriate here, but he hadn't the energy to work it out.

  'Elin,' he said. 'Somebody is making you do all this. All these operations. The things you do at night. Your dreams. They're not yours.'

  In the silence that followed Anders noticed that the fire alarm had stopped, he didn't know how long ago. He could hear Elin breathing. The sound of his own poisoned blood in his ears.

  'Whose are they then?' she asked.

  'Someone else's. Another woman. She's inside you.'

  'How come?'

  'I don't know. But she lived at Kattudden before your house was built. She wants revenge, and she's using you.' Anders hesitated, then added, 'She looked exactly the way you do now. She's the one who's made you...recreate her through all this surgery.'

  If Anders had had the energy to be surprised, he would have been surprised by what happened next. Elin exhaled, a long, deep sigh, and her body slumped, relaxed. She nodded slowly and said, 'I knew it. Deep down.'

  Anders put his head in his hands and closed his eyes. The white flashes flared up and disappeared.

  It's better to know. It's better...

  He must have fallen asleep for a few seconds, because he only woke up when he was about to fall over sideways. Elin said quietly, 'Go to bed.'

  Anders stood up, took one step and collapsed on Maja's bed. He laid his head on the pillow, scrabbled for the quilt and managed to pull it over him. As he was falling asleep he heard Elin say, 'Thank you. For coming after me. For helping me.'

  He parted his lips to answer, but before the words had time to emerge he was asleep again.

  A child was screaming. A single long, wailing note.

  Screaming is the wrong word, wailing is the wrong word. Child is the wrong word. It was the monotone sound of pure fear that a human being can produce when it is trapped in a corner, and the thing it is most afraid of in all the world is approaching inexorably. The tongue is not used, the lips are not used, it is only air being forced out of the lungs and resonating through a closed-up throat. A single note, the primeval note that quivers through the breastbone as death approaches.

  Anders woke up and saw everything through a fog. The room was still dark, and the sound was coming from the big bed. It was so horrible that he was terrified as well. He curled up inside himself, pulled the quilt more tightly around him. The sound continued to pour out of Elin. Something was frightening her out of her wits.

  He heard steps on the porch, then someone was banging on the door. Three hard, sharp blows. Elin s long drawn-out scream became a little louder and penetrated Anders' body like a vibration, transmitted itself to him and made him start shaking.

  Something sensible within him stared at the axe propped up by the door, told him he ought to dash over and grab it, but blind fear anchored his body to the bed.

  It's the GB-man. The GB-man is coming.

  The outside door was smashed open and Anders pulled the quilt over his head. His teeth were chattering and he pulled his feet up, not one tiny part of him must be visible outside the quilt.

  The axe! Get the axe!

  Heavy steps moved through the hallway, but he was incapable of movement. Through a tiny gap in his cocoon he looked at the axe and his will reached out for it, but his body refused. Elin's song of horror went up another notch and Anders' buttocks suddenly felt warm as he shat himself.

  Steps through the living room and then Henrik's voice, 'Hellooo? Anyone home?'

  Do something! Do something!

  He closed his eyes and put his hands over his ears. Silence fell. The footsteps stopped as well. There was the stench of excrement under the quilt. Despite the fact that he didn't want to, he opened his eyes again and peeped out through the gap.

  Henrik and Björn were standing in the room. Henrik had his knife in his hand, Björn was holding a bucket, a white plastic bucket full of water.

  I'm dreaming. This isn't real. If it were real I'd do something.

  Like a child Anders pinched his arm hard so that he would wake up, but Henrik and Björn were still standing there. They were facing the big bed, from which Elin's note of terror continued to pour out into the room.

  Anders stayed put as they dragged Elin out of the bed and said, 'Sorry, darling, this can't go on any longer. You know what they say about pretty girls, don't you? They make graves.'

  He bit his knuckles as they dragged her into the middle of the floor and forced her head down into the plastic bucket. Björn grasped her legs while Henrik held the back of her neck in an iron grip, pushing her head further down into the bucket so that the water surged over the sides. Her legs jerked, but Björn held her ankles firmly, pressing them against the floor.

  A muffled scream could be heard from the bucket and bubbles rose up, making the water splash on to the floor. Elin's body suddenly arched, then slumped and lay still. Henrik wound her hair around his hand and yanked her head up out of the bucket. He looked at her face and said regretfully, 'Fifteen minutes.. .1 don't think I would have said no,' at which point he let go. Elin's face hit the floor with a wet crunch.

  As if on a
given signal they turned towards the little bed. Anders curled up into a tighter ball and gnawed the skin off his knuckles. 'Please,' he whimpered. 'Please. Don't hurt me. I'm so little.'

  Henrik walked over to him and ripped off the quilt. 'Little children, how they suffer.' He raised his eyebrows as if he were pleased with himself, and clicked his fingers. 'That's just perfect, isn't it?'

  He grabbed hold of Anders' shoulder, but withdrew his hand as if he'd had a shock. An expression of revulsion distorted his face.