The Shapeshifters: A Novel

by Stefan Spjut

  There had been a slamming of car doors, lowered voices, whispers. A small figure had stood motionless in the doorway, watching her for a long, long time, and afterwards a larger shape had blocked out the light and closed the door. A mobile had rung, an Ericsson. That little six-tone melody, over and over again.

  She sat still on the bed for a while, listening, unable to move. From outside nothing could be heard except the rumble of the fridge. It was almost uncomfortably quiet.

  After smoothing out the creases in the bedspread and placing the cushion symmetrically on the bed, she walked into the kitchen, where Edit was sitting reading with her head in her hands. She was wearing a bulky yellow knitted cardigan. The squeak of the door made her look up.

  ‘Well, look who’s here,’ she said.

  A long yawn escaped Susso’s smiling mouth. She sank down on a chair and looked distractedly at the newspaper, which was spread out across the table.

  After a while she wrinkled her brow and said:

  ‘Were there people here?’

  Edit looked up at her, surprised, and then lowered her eyes. She licked her thumb, flicked through the paper to the TV listings page and flattened it out with her hand.

  ‘Per-Erik and Mattias looked in.’

  Susso nodded, staring at the floor.

  ‘So he’s allowed to come and visit again then. Mattias.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said he wasn’t allowed to come and see you after what happened. But now he can?’

  Edit nodded.

  Susso scratched her face and realised the cross-stitch on the cushion had left an imprint on her skin. She pointed at the door.

  ‘Was he standing there looking at me?’

  An embarrassed smile appeared on Edit’s lips.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He was curious, naturally, when he heard there was a girl asleep in there. In Granddad’s old room. Something like that doesn’t happen every day, so he immediately wanted to have a look.’

  ‘Just wondering,’ Susso said, shaking her head. ‘Because I had such weird dreams. You can’t sleep properly when you’re that tired. It’s something different.’

  She fidgeted on the chair, thrust her hands between her thighs and yawned widely, exposing her teeth.

  ‘Something not like sleep at all,’ she said. ‘Now my head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton wool.’

  After staring at the floor for a moment she said:

  ‘But aren’t you happy he can come and visit you again?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Edit replied.

  She sighed.

  ‘It’s just that I didn’t know what to say about what we had seen. He must be wondering too. There’s only the two of us involved—and you too, of course,’ she added, nodding at Susso.

  ‘Well, how did he seem?’

  ‘He sat here with his glass of juice in front of him and didn’t say a word. I asked him what he had been up to lately, and he told me about something he had seen on television. I couldn’t say anything because of Per-Erik, so I’ll have to wait until next time I see him.’

  Edit had placed the camera and the straps in a plastic bag printed with ICA Rajden, and she held it out to Susso as they stood on the veranda steps.

  The sky had cleared and there were stars. Far away on the other side of the water, along the road leading to Jokkmokk, there was a solitary light. A house. Or a lamp post at a slip road. Occasionally it flashed and then disappeared for a moment: no doubt there were trees in the way, swaying in the wind.

  Susso opened the bag and looked inside. She didn’t know what to say. They had hardly spoken about Edit’s experience.

  ‘I’ll be in touch,’ Susso said. ‘As soon as I’ve checked the photos.’

  Edit nodded.

  ‘And if you see him again, give me a ring.’

  There was a news programme on the television. Some social services bosses from a council further south were being chased with a blowtorch, but Seved had no idea why. Something about not doing their job properly. He was slumped in the armchair with his chin on his chest. He was cold but could not be bothered to shuffle over to the sofa and get a blanket. Börje had already gone to bed, and Signe was on the upstairs landing. From time to time she tuned to the same programme he was watching, but most of the time she sat there channel hopping.

  That weary look in her eyes—he did not want to see it. That was the reason he thought he would put off going upstairs until she had gone to bed. It had to be soon. Or had she slept during the day? She often did. Then she sat in front of the TV all night, huddled under blankets.

  Signe.

  He knew that was not her real name, and he thought she knew that too, but they never talked about it. They never talked much about anything. They did not even look at each other in the kitchen, and he thought he hated her.

  What was it he felt if not hate?

  He had no real reason to hate her, but she made him feel uncomfortable, and perhaps that was enough. To get him through the days.

  No one had told him she would be coming or who she was. She had suddenly been sitting there one day at the kitchen table, glaring at him, her black fingernails clasping a sandwich that Ejvor had made for her. A foreigner! He didn’t understand a thing and afterwards he had asked Ejvor who she was. She would be living with them for a short time. That was all she said, and he had gathered from her voice that she wanted no more questions.

  Unless it was unavoidable, they never even mentioned her name.

  Has she eaten? Is she up yet? Has she cleaned out Hybblet?

  For a while.

  That was over six years ago.

  But she wasn’t a child now.

  When Susso entered the kitchen Gudrun was standing with her back to her, slicing a cucumber. She had rolled up the sleeves of her blouse and her bracelet was jangling as she sliced. Small chunky silver charms dangled from it.

  ‘Where’s your camera?’ Susso asked, putting the plastic bag on the table.

  Gudrun pointed with the wet blade of the knife towards the brown-stained cupboard visible through the open bedroom door, and after Susso had gone in she yelled:

  ‘On the top!’

  Susso stood on tiptoe and saw the black nylon shoulder strap with its white lettering. Holding the camera with both hands she walked back into the kitchen and dug the memory card out of her pocket. Strands of hair had come loose from her ponytail and were hanging down in two curls. They met at her nose as she bent her head over the camera.

  ‘What have you got there?’ asked Gudrun.

  She had put down the knife and was taking bites from a slice of cucumber. She was so curious she was almost smiling.

  ‘Wait until you see this,’ said Susso, pressing the button to illuminate the display. An alert popped up on the screen saying there were no pictures on the memory card.

  ‘Oh shit,’ she said, rubbing her face.

  She told Gudrun about the tracks outside Edit Mickelsson’s window, and what had happened to the wildlife camera when that arse Per-Erik had removed it from the wall of the house. Gudrun did not appear worried about the fact that he had sabotaged it. All her attention was focused on the camera.

  ‘Then we’ll have to ask Cecilia. She’s clever at this sort of thing.’

  Susso and Gudrun sat close together, looking at the screen as Cecilia clicked her way to the folders. The computer took its time. Cecilia said it was lost in thought, and when computers were lost in thought it was time to take them out and shoot them.

  ‘You see,’ said Gudrun. ‘What did I tell you?’

  ‘It wasn’t because the card was damaged that you couldn’t see the pictures. It was because you moved the card from one camera to another,’ explained Cecilia. ‘Cameras don’t always talk to each other.’

  She double-clicked on one of the files, tapping her index finger impatiently on the mouse as the reader got going. Slender birches in a grey mist appeared.

  ‘It’s the warmth,’ said Susso. ‘As the sun rises.
Either that or the branches are blowing in the wind.’

  The next photo was practically identical, and the next, and even the one after that. After a while Cecilia grew tired of the birches.

  ‘How many photos are there?’ asked Susso.

  ‘Just over a hundred.’

  ‘Go on to the last ones then,’ said Susso.

  The final photo documented the brutal removal of the camera and was just a blur. They backed up a dozen images and found more birches, pale skeletons standing out against a background black as night.

  Then Gudrun jabbed her index finger hard against the screen.

  ‘There!’ she said. ‘See?’

  Deep in the murky shade hung a small but penetrating dot of light. Susso bent forwards to get a better view, while Gudrun wrenched the mouse out of Cecilia’s fingers and clicked on the next picture.

  Now there were two dots, suspended beside each other in the darkness.

  ‘There’s something there,’ Susso said.

  Gudrun’s hand trembled as she moved the arrow to the next file, so Cecilia took over the mouse again. Susso had pulled her sleeves down over her hands and was sitting leaning towards the screen, looking closely.

  On the next photo both dots were enclosed in an oval of faint light that could only be a face. No one said a word. They just stared at the screen while Cecilia clicked with the mouse.

  ‘Someone’s coming,’ said Gudrun, twisting her bracelet round and round her wrist.

  Yes, someone was coming. Its eyes were shining white from beneath the hood of its jacket. It was an old man, a very small old man: the snow came up to his chest. His arms were open wide and he was wearing gloves.

  The camera had taken a picture every ten seconds and the tiny figure was visible on a total of eleven, if you included the first ones showing only his eyes: seven as he walked towards the camera and two as he walked, or rather ran, off.

  He could be seen most clearly in the seventh photograph. He was standing to the side of the shot, and his face glowed white in the cascade of infrared light.

  He was not deformed exactly, but he had an unusual appearance, to say the least. His eyes were set far apart and deep in their sockets, and his nose was lumpy and large. Sparse white bristles protruded from his wrinkled cheeks and his chin.

  Susso phoned Edit immediately, standing in the kitchen, staring at the laptop. Gudrun and Cecilia could not take their eyes off the screen.

  For a long time Edit was silent at the other end of the line. Then she wanted to know what they planned to do next. Susso didn’t know how to answer that. She was completely thrown and filled with conflicting emotions. She could barely keep still.

  Her mother and her sister were involved in a lively discussion, and because she wanted to have her say she ended the phone call with a promise to ring the next day.

  Cecilia agreed that the little man in the photographs looked strange—not even human, in fact—but she refused to believe it could be a troll. Or a gnome, for that matter.

  ‘It could be a kid,’ she said. ‘Dressed up. Ella and I have been looking at masks online and they’re so bloody realistic.’

  ‘A kid?’ Susso said, pointing at the screen. ‘At nineteen minutes past five in the morning?’

  ‘Well, it’s a dwarf then,’ said Cecilia, wide-eyed. ‘He might actually look like that. It can be hormonal, you know.’

  She angled the screen to get a better look at the picture.

  ‘If I looked like that, I would only go out at night as well.’

  ‘If that’s the case, then wasn’t it a dwarf Granddad saw too?’ Susso exclaimed.

  Cecilia took a deep breath and rolled her eyes. She took her mobile out of her pocket and looked at it.

  ‘I’ve got to go home,’ she said abruptly.

  But Susso had no intention of letting her get away that easily.

  ‘So you don’t think it’s remarkable that he turns up here, in this very village, just a hundred kilometres or so from the place where Granddad took his photo?’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ Gudrun said, in surprise.

  Cecilia stared at her phone, shaking her head.

  ‘You are completely bloody unbelievable . . .’

  ‘No, you’re the one who’s unbelievable,’ muttered Susso.

  Finally Cecilia looked up, her cheeks glowing red as she smiled.

  ‘Susso,’ she said, ‘what do you want me to do?’

  ‘You could at least be a bit interested.’

  ‘But I’m telling you, I’ve got to get home to Ella!’

  When Susso returned to her own flat upstairs she paced the floor in an attempt to calm herself down. She sent a text to Torbjörn. She didn’t want to tell him about the photo over the phone, so they arranged to meet on the Friday at Safari.

  That was where they used to go when they were together. It had been their favourite thing to do, sitting upstairs leafing through the papers, drinking coffee and playing games on their mobiles. Then he had moved to Luleå. He had been offered a place on some course at Luleå University of Technology. He had not said a word to her about applying, and she knew he had done it to get away from her and the family trouble at Riksgränsen. When she had confronted him he had asked if she wanted to go with him, but without really meaning it—he hadn’t even tried to persuade her. Bloody Torbjörn.

  Seved knew he would never be able to snatch a child. It would be easiest if he got Börje to do it for him.

  Börje, who had done it before.

  Although he had not snatched Seved.

  There was a memory, and that was of being picked up, but he had no memory of crying or shouting, and that was strange because it would have been reasonable to expect that. Perhaps it had all been too much for him. He remembered hunger, or perhaps it was nausea. He was carried for an eternity. He vomited and saw his vomit run like porridge down a hairy back, a rough bark of grey skin covered with long hair hanging like tassels.

  It was an image that never faded. That could never fade.

  A hand, heavy as a log, had held him, and the nails sprouting from the tops of its fingers were claws that occasionally dug about in his mouth, forcing in bilberries and lingonberries, and bitter fungi that he was unable to swallow. It was only in the darkness that he had dared to look at the enormous wrinkled face turned towards him, with its small, single amber eye edged with slime. A fly crawled into the gluey mucus but still the eye did not blink. It was always watching.

  He wasn’t sure now if that had been Karats or Skabram. It definitely wasn’t Luttak because his pelt was almost entirely grey, or so Börje had said, and the one who had carried him was dark.

  It could also have been the fourth hairy old-timer.

  Urtas.

  The one who had disappeared without trace.

  Ejvor had told Seved that he had been carried off by mistake and that he had to live with them until they could find his mother. He remembered that so well. She was gentle and friendly as she explained that it was hard to find his mother because no one had contacted the police to say they had lost a boy. And the huge creature had carried him all the way up to Norrland, so he was far away from home.

  They would just have to wait.

  And he waited.

  Then came the moment that was far worse than the moment when the huge creature lifted him up.

  Ejvor had been standing with her back to him, doing something at the sink. He had been quite big, seven or eight at least, and he had asked her something about his mother. He could not recall what it was.

  She had turned round and looked at him severely, and said that he had to stop going on about a mother because now there was no other mother. She was his mother.

  He had always lived with them.

  ‘You’ve got such a vivid imagination.’

  An aroma of coffee and cardamom met Susso as she walked into the cafe, and there was a din coming from the open kitchen door. A huge blackboard hung on the wall. She stood looking at it for a while,
counting her money in her head. There was not a lot left in her account. She would prefer not to know how little. She was hungry but would have to settle for a drink. She ordered a Christmas latte. It had the flavour of spicy gingerbread and was laced with mulled wine. Holding it in her hand, she tramped up the old staircase.

  He was sprawled on the red velvet sofa, tapping the keys of his mobile. His shiny black curls were sticking out from the edge of his white beanie hat. On the table was a can of Coke and beside it his tin of snus, with two crumpled pouches on the lid. She remained standing with her glass of coffee until he got up and gave her a hug. It was a stiff hug with one arm. A sour smell of snus came from his mouth.

  Susso put her glass on the table and undid her jacket.

  ‘Talk about slippery out there,’ said Torbjörn, sitting up straight. Typically he had already started grinning at the story he was about to tell.

  ‘I was coming home from work between shifts and it was okay until I got to the Statoil junction. Then I got into this massive great skid. And then that little hill, you know where I mean? I hardly made it up there. Sliding about all over the place. Then I kind of swerved all the way to the hunting school, where I made the final skid, landed on the wrong side of the road and of course there was this car coming and it didn’t get out of the way and I couldn’t move, so it was a right pile-up. Well, sort of.’

  ‘Sort of?’ said Susso, and took a gulp of coffee.

  ‘She got a small dent and my car was totally okay,’ he said, with a lopsided grin.

  As he tapped out texts on his mobile Torbjörn told Susso a few more stories, but soon he noticed that Susso was hardly listening. He put his phone down on the table and looked at her. He had grey eyes and between his eyebrows was a scar, a small pothole.