The Shapeshifters

by Stefan Spjut

  ‘Thanks for that,’ Torbjörn said to Susso through gritted teeth.

  The driver stood for a while looking in at them, before knocking on the window with the knuckle of his index finger. Torbjörn pressed the button and lowered the window. The man bent forwards but before he could open his mouth Susso leaned across Torbjörn’s legs.

  ‘You know that button with the red triangle?’ she said. ‘If you’ve got to stop on a road with a ninety speed limit, you might like to use it!’

  The man said nothing. Taken aback by Susso’s angry tone he had straightened up and stepped away from the car. Now he was slowly stroking his beard.

  ‘We almost ran into you!’ she went on. ‘Don’t you realise that?’

  ‘I braked. You saw the brake lights . . .’

  ‘Yeah, well, because you drive like a little old lady your brake lights have been on more than they’ve been off for the last few miles, so that was no help.’

  ‘It’s because of the reindeer,’ the man muttered. ‘You’ve got to take it easy.’

  The older man was standing with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders raised. He was carrying a small knife with a horn handle on his belt. He said something but it did not carry into the car, and his friend shook his head and spread his hand across his chest. Then he walked swiftly off without looking back, the second man following him, but more slowly. They both got in the car but did not drive off, so Torbjörn swung out and overtook them.

  The squirrel was awake and lively and clung to Susso’s hand. Playfully she tried to shake it off but it hung on tenaciously. She inspected its front paws, stroking its claws with her thumb, bending them and feeling how sharp they were.

  ‘What the fuck was that all about?’ Torbjörn said.

  ‘Two stupid hillbillies, that’s what,’ Susso said, without looking up.

  ‘But don’t you think they were a bit suspicious?’

  ‘Hillbillies are suspicious. That’s what hillbillies are all about.’

  ‘But it was almost as if they were afraid. Of me.’

  He held out his arms.

  ‘And I’m not exactly a big guy.’

  ‘There are four of us in this car,’ Gudrun said hoarsely from the back seat. ‘Don’t forget that.’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Torbjörn, glancing at the squirrel, which was sitting on Susso’s lap with its head on one side. ‘But he’s not very big either.’

  ‘You saw what he did with the troll out there on the ice,’ Susso said.

  Torbjörn was quiet.

  ‘He held it back just by looking at it,’ she continued.

  ‘But I thought that was something between them,’ he said. ‘Because of what they are. If he can also affect people, then it’s like Gudrun said—he’s dangerous.’

  ‘So what shall we do?’ said Susso. ‘Throw him out?’

  ‘No, but . . .’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘He’s dangerous, that’s all. So you’ve got to watch out.’

  Susso nodded, looking out of the window.

  ‘But he’s nice as well,’ Torbjörn added, grinning. ‘Isn’t he?’

  Shortly before six that evening they arrived at the village of Rackvattnet. It consisted of a few weather-beaten houses clustered together on each side of the road. A boarded-up shop with lining paper taped over the windows slipped past in the car headlights and on a gentle slope they came across a man pushing a kick sledge. He walked with small shuffling steps and in the rearview mirror Susso saw that he had stopped and was watching the car go by.

  Susso studied the map in the dim light of her mobile’s screen. She told Torbjörn to carry on and then pointed at a building standing behind a row of young birches.

  ‘There,’ she said. ‘It has to be that one.’

  As they approached the solitary house, a red brick single-storey building, they saw a tarpaulin stretched across the garage doors. The wind blew small waves in the sea-green plastic covering, and when Torbjörn pulled up and put on the handbrake they caught sight of a face through a gap.

  ‘There’s someone there,’ Gudrun said.

  A door swung open in the side wall of the garage and a tall, older man in a fleece jacket came out. The front door of the house had also opened and the man exchanged a few brief words through the crack with whoever had opened the door before walking up to them. Judging from the look on the face that peered through the car window he was not pleased to see them.

  Susso stepped out. Black pine forest towered behind the house, and from the treetops came a faint whispering. The wind tugged at the tassels on her hat as she asked if the man was Yngve Fredén.

  He said he was.

  By this time Gudrun and Torbjörn had climbed out of the car, and Susso stared up at Yngve.

  ‘What do you want?’ he asked.

  ‘Do you happen to know a giant, Yngve?’

  Yngve did not answer but neither did he look away, and Susso thought a look of sadness spread across his face. There was a tension in it that quickly disappeared. He had a strong, sculpted nose and the shadow it cast lay like a black fin over his cheek. Underneath his jacket she could see the collar of a checked shirt.

  ‘A giant . . .’ he said.

  Gudrun was standing behind the car on the road, stamping her heels against the hard packed snow. She was holding her coat collar closed and hiding her mouth behind it.

  ‘Oh, it’s so cold,’ she said. ‘Can we go in and talk?’

  ‘Well, I still don’t know what you want,’ Yngve said.

  Still stamping her feet, Gudrun nodded towards the house.

  ‘We wonder if you’ve had a giant living with you, because if you have, that giant is now lying in the freezer at the National Veterinary Institute. As a bear.’

  A rectangle of light fell on the snow as the front door opened and then closed.

  A woman walked towards them, and Susso realised it was Yngve’s wife, Inger. Her down jacket was hanging crookedly from her shoulders and on her head she was wearing a cap. Her glasses glinted under the flat peak. With her hands in her pockets and without greeting them, she stood half a metre behind Yngve, who threw a look over his shoulder when he heard the snow crunch under her boots.

  ‘And why,’ he said, ‘would you think we have had a giant . . .’

  ‘Because your neighbour saw him,’ Susso said. ‘When you lived in Kramfors.’

  Yngve muttered something to his wife about going in and they began to walk. Susso ran after them with her hand on her stomach.

  ‘Wait!’ she said, and they both stopped immediately. The squirrel that was weighing down her front pocket was very still but she was sure it was not asleep.

  ‘It’s important,’ she said.

  ‘I think we want to go inside now.’

  ‘Do you know anything about Magnus Brodin? The boy who vanished in 1978? Down in Dalarna?’

  They shook their heads and she knew they were telling the truth.

  ‘I presume you have heard about Mattias Mickelsson,’ she said. ‘The boy who disappeared at Christmas. The one they found in Sorsele today.’

  ‘Yes,’ Inger said. ‘We saw it on the news.’

  ‘We think the stallo folk might have taken him. And that they took Magnus too. Some of them are big, big as giants, and we have been told you had a giant living with you.’

  ‘We’ve never kidnapped anyone.’

  ‘But what about the giant? Did you have one staying with you?’

  They exchanged a look, as if to agree on an answer.

  ‘He’s not here any more,’ Inger said. ‘He . . . he turned into something else and left.’

  ‘A bear?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Because I shot him. He attacked me and so I shot him. But what I don’t understand is how he could have found me.’

  ‘We’ve been waiting to hear this,’ Inger said. ‘That he’s been shot or something like that. But we haven’t seen anything on t
he news yet.’

  ‘It happened further south, outside Stockholm.’

  Yngve looked puzzled.

  ‘How would he have taken himself all the way down to Stockholm? That’s impossible.’

  ‘They can wander long distances,’ Susso said, but Yngve found that hard to believe.

  ‘He left, when was it, Sunday? Sunday afternoon, two days ago. So you’re saying he travelled almost a thousand kilometres in two days? And when did he get shot, did you say? Today?’

  Susso slowly shook her head.

  ‘On Sunday,’ she said. ‘In the afternoon.’

  ‘Then it can’t be him,’ Inger said. ‘Because he was here then. He was at home. Yes, that was when he went berserk, or whatever it was.’

  Susso looked over her shoulder and wondered if she ought to call the others, but she was afraid Yngve and Inger would clam up.

  ‘What happened?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, you can see what the garage looks like,’ Yngve said. ‘I was standing there, clearing the snow, when suddenly he started growling and banging on the door. We had never seen him get angry before.’

  ‘Oh yes we had,’ Inger said.

  ‘But not like that,’ Yngve said. ‘He was wild with rage. And for no reason at all. Before I knew what was happening he made firewood of the door and stormed out. And then I saw what he had turned into, although just at that moment I didn’t realise it was him. I only saw a bear and I thought, This is it, I’m going to die. But he paid no attention to me. He didn’t even seem to see me. His eyes were almost white and he ran past me and into the forest over there. And since then we’ve been waiting for them to say on the news that a bear had been shot. Of course, we didn’t understand any of it . . .’

  ‘But then it can’t have been him,’ Inger said.

  By this time Gudrun had walked up to them. She had let go of her collar and her arms were crossed as she jumped from one foot to the other, surveying the red brick house.

  ‘You might as well come in for a while,’ Yngve said. ‘So we can talk.’

  It took them almost an hour to get down to the house and it was dark by the time they reached it. The walls looked black and the Advent lights were shining between the open curtains of Ejvor’s room. Lennart was standing inside his camper van, watching the procession as it came out of the trees. He was bareheaded and his mobile was pressed to his cheek. There was no sign of Börje. On the other hand, the Volvo was there, parked beside the Isuzu, and when Seved saw it he was filled with an overwhelming sense of guilt.

  The snowmobile fell silent and Jola climbed off and turned his cap round. He walked towards Lennart, dragging his feet in his heavy boots, and spoke softly to him. He had slung his rifle over his shoulder like a moose hunter. Lennart nodded, pulled out a handkerchief and began wiping his mouth, and after replacing it in his pocket he nodded again. He looked tired. White streaks of stubble fell into folds as he lowered his chin to his chest, where his dark glasses hung from a cord.

  ‘Makes no difference,’ he said loudly, and then he disappeared into the camper van, which swayed under his weight.

  ‘Go in,’ Jola said. He waved the rifle barrel. Towards Hybblet. Seved walked a few steps before asking over his shoulder what they were going to do in there, his voice trembling.

  Jola told them to empty their pockets. Only the tip of his blond stubbly chin showed below the peak of his cap as he spoke. Seved placed the keys to the Volvo and his torch on the veranda railing, which was dotted with footprints. Amina said she had nothing in hers.

  ‘Jola,’ Seved said. ‘He’s not down there, is he?’

  ‘You’ll have to wait and see.’

  The staircase dropped steeply down into a dense darkness. The hide lay deep underground to maintain the correct temperature. Seved listened for any sounds but heard none, and he was not sure if that was a good sign or a bad one. There was no bannister so he went slowly with his knees bent, feeling his way with his fingers along the cold, damp concrete lining. Amina was close behind him. Her breathing hissed against his neck and she was gripping his shoulder tightly.

  ‘Down!’ commanded Jola, standing in the doorway.

  At first Seved held his breath, a reflex action, but when he had come halfway down the stairs he had to take a breath. The fermenting, acidic stench of decay and excrement that filled his nostrils was so sickening that he threw himself backwards and retched violently, emptying his stomach of its contents. The vomit splashed down the steps and his eyes stung with tears. He had one hand on Amina’s boot and the other on the rough wood. Then it went dark around them. Jola had shut the door, and when the lock was turned it felt as if the darkness itself was being locked.

  ‘Watch out,’ gasped Seved, wiping his lips. ‘Mind you don’t slip where I puked . . .’

  There was no answer and that made him irritated, but also afraid.

  ‘You’ve got to answer me, Signe!’ he said, tugging at her boot. ‘Otherwise I won’t know where you are.’

  She mumbled something inaudible.

  When he had found his feet he stood rubbing his mouth to get rid of the remains that had fastened to his beard.

  ‘We’ll sit here,’ he whispered, climbing back up.

  He sat on the top step, leaning his shoulder against the door, and soon he felt Amina’s fingers touching his face. He took hold of her hand and helped her.

  ‘Sit here,’ he said.

  The smell of vomit lingered and he regretted wiping his mouth because the smell of his digestive juices was preferable to the hideous fumes that came from below. They sat still, listening, and Seved was convinced that any shapeshifters that were in the hide were doing the same thing. He did not believe Skabram was down there. They would have heard him by now, especially if he was angry. So that left only the little ones. He knew there was a badger in the hide, he had even seen it bolt past in the darkness early one morning, but no one really knew whether it was a shapeshifter or a normal badger that one of the big fellows had taken a liking to.

  We’re supposed to sit here and feel scared, he thought. That’s all. Börje would never allow anything to happen to us. We’re his children, almost.

  ‘Seved.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I think I’ve got to pee.’

  ‘You’ll have to go down a few steps and sit there. But watch out you don’t slip.’

  He heard her make her way down, very slowly, her thick-soled boots scraping on the stairs. Then she swore sharply through gritted teeth and he knew what she had put her hand on.

  ‘Seved!’ she hissed.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Something’s shining down here.’

  Surely not. Or was there a source of light down there he knew nothing about? Mystified, he stood up and crept down the stairs.

  ‘Where are you?’ he whispered.

  ‘Here,’ she said, and soon he caught hold of her thin, cold hand.

  Seved stared out into the darkness. A light flashed. Once. Twice. He twisted his head and could hear that each flash was followed by a faint clicking sound.

  Someone was playing with a light, switching it on and off every few seconds. And it was far away. Clearly the hide was not nearly as confined as he had thought and the unanticipated size of the cellar frightened him more than the strange light signals in its depths.

  ‘Let’s go up,’ he said, grabbing Amina’s jacket.

  ‘But I’ve got to pee,’ she said.

  ‘Do it then, but come up afterwards. We’ll sit up there, it’s safest.’

  ‘I can’t! I’m scared! You’ve got to stay here!’

  ‘Well, hurry up then.’

  He heard her fumbling with her clothes.

  ‘Promise you won’t go!’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘You mustn’t go!’

  ‘Here,’ he said.

  She felt for his hand and grasped it hard, and shortly afterwards he heard a splashing against the wood. When she had finished they crawled up to the door
and sat down. Seved looked at his watch. The hands were pale but he thought it was seven fifteen. He shut his eyes. Then the stench returned. It had been lying there, in wait.

  Inger and Yngve Fredén told them the troll had been with them since 1982.

  ‘And during all that time you never saw the bear in him?’ Susso asked.

  She was standing in the garage, waiting for her eyes to get used to the gloom. There was a sofa covered in grey floral fabric, and blankets and fir-tree branches on the concrete floor, which was brown with old pine needles. Empty plastic bottles lay everywhere. Sheets of cardboard were tacked over the window and there was a smell of dog and rotting food.

  Yngve shook his head.

  ‘It came as a complete surprise. I mean, he was like a bear, I admit that, but we never imagined he could turn into a bear. I know it sounds strange. And I think it’s strange, now he’s no longer with us, that we never really talked about him.’

  After sitting down in the kitchen Inger explained in a trembling voice that they had lost their son. They had moved to Kramfors to start again, and that is when the troll came to them. He had been sitting naked in the forest beyond their garden, looking at their house with small moist eyes. In his hand he held a birch twig that he slowly waved about him to keep the mosquitoes away, but also perhaps to wave at them. They had never been afraid of him, despite his appearance. It had seemed obvious from the very beginning that they would look after him. There had been no discussion about it either, and as the years passed they hardly mentioned him. He had simply been there, and they accepted him as he was. They had given him food and cleaned up after him, but never even tried to talk to him. It was not until now, after he had gone, that they realised how peculiar that was. They had not even given him a name!

  ‘Can you understand that? Over twenty years and not even a name!’