by Stefan Spjut
‘Was that him?’ I said, stepping forwards, clutching the strap of my bag. ‘Are you sure it was the same one?’
‘Do you understand now?’ Mona said. ‘Do you understand that what I saw was real?’
She looked entreatingly at the woman next to her, who was looking sad. She had spectacles with thick light-blue frames and her cheeks drooped in thick wads.
The man in the down jacket pointed at me.
‘Who are these people, Mona?’ he asked.
And then he said:
‘Leave Mona alone! Do you hear?’
But Torbjörn had pulled his mobile out of his trouser pocket.
‘I filmed him,’ he said.
‘Karats is dead,’ Börje said.
He was sitting at the kitchen table holding the receiver in his hand. The coiled cord ran across the room and was so taut it had straightened out in places. The gravity of the news made him incapable of getting out of the chair and hanging up. Seved took the phone from him and replaced it in its base on the wall.
‘Those Myréns have shot him. Down in Stockholm.’
Seved had nothing to say and clearly that irritated Börje.
‘Don’t you understand what that means!’
Seved continued to say nothing. Ever since Skabram left Hybblet he had felt as if something had come to a standstill inside him. He had no idea what it was, only that suddenly and unexpectedly everything stood still, like the hands of a clock that had stopped working. He swallowed hard.
‘What about the one up at the Holmboms’ then? Luttak.’
‘I’ve phoned Torsten’s mobile but he’s not answering. But if Skabram has picked up on it, then you can bet he’s taken off as well. And Urtas. Wherever he might be.’
‘But where would they go?’
‘I don’t expect they even know that themselves. They’ll wander about and, if worst comes to worst, they’ll get shot. Otherwise they’ll make their way back eventually.’
‘But Urtas never came back.’
Börje snorted and said sneeringly:
‘Those fellows are ancient. Luttak is almost certainly a thousand. Urtas has been gone twenty-five years but that’s like an afternoon for them. He’ll be back when he feels like it.’
Now, thought Seved, this is where I ought to tell him, tell him I know I haven’t always been with them. That I know who took me and why—I just don’t know why they chose me. Was it by chance? Who am I—really?
Then he looked at Börje, sitting at the kitchen table in his worn denim shirt, his hair hanging in greasy strands over his lined forehead and the palm of his hand pressed to his chest where the bear had sunk his claws in. He knew he would never be able to find the words.
‘What the hell were you doing in there anyway?’ Börje said, nodding towards the window.
They had not closed the door to Hybblet and the small shapeshifted creatures were still on the veranda and in the yard, milling about, unconcerned. The dogs had barked themselves hoarse and were too worn out now to make a sound.
‘Nothing. I just thought I’d tidy up.’
It was Börje’s job to draw up the rotas for cleaning and feeding, and to make sure they were followed, but presumably he was too weary to work out whose turn it was because all he said was:
‘Tidy up? In the afternoon?’
‘So what happened in Stockholm then?’
The question came fast and brought Börje’s thoughts back to the phone call from Lennart, and that depressed him. All he could do was shake his head.
‘She’s nothing but trouble, that girl,’ he said, and his yellow teeth flashed. ‘She took the gun from Jola when we were up in Kiruna. Pulled it right out of his hand. And now this.’
He leaned heavily across the table, staring vacantly to one side for a few moments, lost in thought, before saying:
‘Lennart thinks someone helped her.’
‘Who would that be?’
‘That’s what we don’t know. She was down in Småland, that’s for sure, and it’s possible she met up with someone who contacted her through that website.’
‘Well, what are we going to do now?’
‘We’ll have to wait and see. The old-timer will come back tonight, I’m sure.’
‘You think so?’
‘They always come back. Sooner or later.’
Compact flurries of snow swept in columns across the yard and were illuminated in the lamplight as Seved hurried back to the house. He had been in the barn looking for the foxshifter but there was no sign of him. Maybe he had taken the opportunity to slip away now that the hide was empty?
Börje had said it might get a bit out of hand while Skabram was gone, and it turned out he was right. After shapeshifting into animals the majority of the woodland beings naturally shied away from daylight, or were reticent to say the least, but in the absence of the old-timers many of them appeared to have forgotten that.
When he had entered the barn he had noticed a pair of squirrels perched on the antlers decorating the wall, and a pine marten had been stretched out on the netting of the dog compound for hours. The dogs were disturbed by those black eyes staring down at them but had made only a half-hearted attempt to bark at the inaccessible spectator. Seved had told Börje about the pine marten because he was surprised there had been one in Hybblet, but Börje told him it usually stayed in the fir trees behind the house, and so did the squirrels. They wanted to be close to the bearshifters but not too close, and now that the big old-timers were gone, they were worried.
Amina and Mattias were playing Connect Four on the floor when Seved barged in through the cellar door. They were still extremely frightened, especially the boy, and jumped when the door flew open. When Seved had gone down to them after Skabram’s attack of rage he had found them curled up and terrified at the top of the bed, and Amina said they thought he had been bitten and killed. Now Mattias did not want to go out, and that was a problem. Seved could always carry the boy out to the car at night but he was afraid he would call out, and Börje woke at the slightest sound. He had slept half-awake all his life and could only get a good night’s sleep when he was drunk, but he would not be drinking that night.
This was one of the reasons Seved had been looking for the foxshifter. A mouseshifter would probably have been able to calm the boy down, at least enough to keep him from getting hysterical. He had gone into Hybblet to try and catch one but had failed. They would not come out, let alone allow themselves to be caught. They were always much more fearful when they were camouflaged in fur.
Some of them even forgot they could be anything other than mice.
Now he crouched down and watched Mattias and Amina playing. Amina sat cross-legged and hunched, and Mattias was kneeling. He had filled his hand with discs and picked one out each time it was his turn. The red discs, which were Amina’s, had already made one vertical and one horizontal row, but they carried on playing anyway.
Seved waited for Amina to look at him, and when she did he said:
‘I can’t find him, so it’s best we wait.’
Torbjörn turned on his phone and held the screen towards them. Everyone in the waiting room, apart from Mona and Gudrun, pressed forwards to see.
The picture was poor quality and shaky, but there was the troll, standing stock still far away on the ice beside Susso. The squirrel could not be seen, naturally, and from a distance the troll looked a lot like a bear. The man in the grey jacket was quick to point that out. He sighed and pulled a face to show he had seen enough but still he could not tear himself away from the film.
Suddenly the camera zoomed in, precisely when the troll threw itself at Susso. The picture had stabilised and Gudrun came running into it, shrieking. The man in the grey jacket—Göran, Mona had called him—frowned.
All of a sudden he said:
‘There was a letter, Mona.’
He seemed as if he wanted to avoid eye contact with the others while he was speaking. This was clearly difficult for him, something he had been carrying fo
r a long time.
‘A letter came and I never told you about it. It was four, five years after Magnus disappeared, and you were starting to feel better. I didn’t want to make it worse by dragging up the past . . .’
There was silence in the room. Everyone was waiting for him to continue, which he did after twisting the rod of the venetian blind a couple of times. A flap of checked shirt was sticking out from below his jumper.
‘The letter came from a woman in Kramfors who had read about you in the paper, read what you had said about the giant and all that. She said there was a giant living at her neighbour’s, and that she had seen it. With her own eyes. It was living in their guest cabin. There was a rumour that the couple’s son had died, and when the woman saw the giant she remembered what she’d read in the paper. She thought they might be the ones who had taken Magnus, to replace the child they had lost.
‘So she looked in the cabin window. The curtains were drawn so she couldn’t see anything, but the neighbours must have seen her because a couple of weeks later they moved. I thought it was nonsense and I wanted to protect you from it. So I didn’t say anything.’
Mona sat staring at his back. Her fingers were resting in her lap, not moving. It was impossible to tell if she had understood what he had told her. She looked completely blank.
‘What was her name?’ Gudrun asked. ‘Have you still got the letter?
He shook his head, his gaze directed at the windowsill.
‘But I remember what the family was called,’ he said. ‘The name has stayed with me for some reason, I don’t know why. It was a fairly unusual name, so perhaps that’s why . . .’
He turned round.
‘Skarf,’ he said. ‘Skarf was the name.’
There was no reason for Mona to sit and wait. Klas would not be coming round for a long time and his condition was stable, so she ought to go home and get some sleep. But she just shook her head, and when Göran said naturally he would go with her, she shouted that she did not want to go home.
That she never wanted to go home again. That she did not dare!
Susso stood with a plastic mug of water raised to her mouth and looked at Mona.
‘If it’s a troll you’re afraid of, then it’s more dangerous sitting here in the waiting room,’ she said. ‘It was me it was looking for, not you.’
Torbjörn had done a search on his mobile for Skarf. There were about thirty people with that name in the whole country, but none of them lived north of Stockholm, oddly enough. It seemed to be a family name in Småland, in the south.
‘We’ll have to phone round and ask if any of them have ever lived in Kramfors,’ he said. ‘I’m sure it’s possible to find out, if we do it carefully.’
He went out to phone straight away.
‘They live in Boden now,’ he said, when he returned. ‘Inger Skarf has remarried someone called Yngve Fredén. I spoke to one of Inger’s cousins, but he didn’t have an address or telephone number. I searched but I couldn’t find anything, but I’m sure we can find out somehow.’
‘Did they have a son? An adult son?’
Torbjörn looked up.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I should have asked that . . .’
Then he added:
‘He would be . . . how old?’
‘Thirty-two this year,’ said Mona. ‘So thirty-one.’
‘I’ll check,’ he said.
He sat down to write a text but then changed his mind and went out to phone instead, and when he came back he said in a low voice to Susso:
‘I spoke to Matti Alkberg. He’s going to see if anyone knows someone called Fredén. Or Skarf. And who is that age.’
‘Okay, but it’s important we get an address for Inger and Yngve.’
‘What would you like to do?’ Gudrun asked, unscrewing the top of her lip salve as she looked at Mona. ‘We’ll find those people, don’t you worry. Boden is on our way home. Would you like to come with us? I would understand if you did.’
‘I don’t know. I really don’t. I’d like to sleep on it.’
Susso, Gudrun and Torbjörn checked into a hotel in Kristineberg, a pink building right next to an underground station. The standard was poor. The furnishings were shabby, the venetian blind was broken and there was an unpleasant smell in the bathroom. They decided to share a room because no one wanted to sleep alone.
Susso sat for a while on the toilet lid before turning on the tap and washing around her mouth. Then she wetted a wad of paper and used it to clean out her nostrils. Torbjörn and Gudrun were watching television when she came out. She found it impossible to relax and paced the floor until finally saying she had decided to drive out to Färingsö and look for the squirrel. Gudrun thought she should wait, at least until it was light, but that upset Susso. The squirrel had saved her. She would be dead had it not been for the squirrel.
In a bin outside the hotel’s delivery entrance Susso found a cardboard box, which she flattened and taped to the damaged car window. It flapped in the wind as she and Torbjörn drove out to the islands.
It was half past midnight when they arrived. They parked in the same place as before. The ambulance tyres had left deep furrows in the snow. Torbjörn used the torch on his mobile to guide them. Susso had inserted the two remaining cartridges in the revolver and was holding it tightly.
The troll’s blood was a black shadow in the churned-up snow. Both of them saw it but neither said anything. They walked around the tiny island several times, calling softly in all directions. It was pointless trying to climb up onto the rocks. Susso made a half-hearted attempt but got no further ashore than a few metres. The trees were crowded together, their branches intertwined, and there was nowhere secure to put her feet down among the shingle and the sheer rocks.
At last they heard a cracking sound among the trees and soon something small scampered towards them through the snow.
‘Here he is!’ said Torbjörn.
Susso crouched down in front of the squirrel as it sat upright. Then she held out her hand.
She held the squirrel on her lap all the way back to the hotel and was amazed at how calm it was. She stroked its white breast with her finger.
‘Have you felt how soft he is?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ Torbjörn replied. ‘Like cotton wool.’
They padded into the room. Gudrun was lying on her side, snoring loudly. Susso went into the bathroom and took her toothbrush from her toilet bag, and as she was brushing her teeth the squirrel sat on the edge of the basin, watching her intently. The ceiling lights were reflected as distinct dots of light in the animal’s black eyes.
Torbjörn’s pale face appeared in the doorway. He was standing a few metres from the door, looking at Susso’s reflection.
Then he slipped into the bathroom and suddenly there he was, behind her. A cold hand rested on her right hip, which was indented slightly at the lacy waistband of her knickers. When Susso felt his touch, she took out the toothbrush and supported herself with her other hand on the handbasin. He had already placed his other hand on her left hip.
‘You’ve got blood in your hair,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘You’ve got blood here,’ he said, taking hold of a lock of her hair. The end was stiff with coagulated blood and he showed it to her in the mirror. ‘Is it yours?’
She shook her head.
‘I don’t know . . .’
She watched as he lifted the strand of hair first to his nose and then to his mouth. He put the rust-red tip between his lips and sucked, not taking his eyes from hers. Then he nodded slowly.
‘It tastes of Susso.’
A puff of air came from her nose as she laughed. She smiled. He had not pressed up close to her yet. All he did was stand there, holding her hips in a tight grip, as if they were ice dancers preparing to leap.
Very slowly he leaned forwards, and as his mouth touched her neck she closed her eyes. She did not want to see herself in the mirror, to see how she was tr
ansforming. She drifted away, breathing between parted lips. But he saw. Only he saw. His mouth blew warm air against her throat, and like a cautious animal the tip of his tongue appeared and brushed against her skin. She knew he would push his hips against hers at any moment, knew how rough the denim of his jeans would feel against her skin. But he took his time. The lips left her neck as slowly as they had arrived and he released his hold on her hips. She opened her eyes. This was not what she had expected.
Torbjörn stood with his back to the wall, and when she saw his frozen expression she raised her eyebrows.
‘It’s no good,’ he said.
And then she noticed the squirrel. She had completely forgotten about it. It had climbed onto the rim of the handbasin and was standing there on all fours, staring at Torbjörn as its tail jerked from side to side. It was as if the little animal had nailed Torbjörn with its eyes. Susso waited a few seconds before reaching out her hand and prodding the squirrel with her toothbrush. It did not move from the spot.
‘You know,’ she said, ‘I think he’s jealous.’
Tracks from paws of various shapes and sizes criss-crossed the snow that had fallen during the night. Necklaces of patterns from the smallest animals meandered haphazardly, crossing the wider and more prominent prints the hares had left over the yard and around the buildings.
Something had crept up onto the roof of the Volvo and left behind a twisted black strand, and Seved thought it must have been one of the weasels. That would be typical of them. ‘The kind ones,’ Ejvor had called them, and Seved had believed her until he realised that ‘kind’ really meant ‘quick,’ and that the weasels were anything but kind as he understood the word.
With his hands in his pockets he stopped a few metres in front of Hybblet and checked to make sure there were no bear footprints there. He had not heard anything during the night but he knew the big old-timers had no trouble making themselves inconspicuous when they chose to. As a child he had more than once been startled to find they had crept up close to him while he was playing. It was always their heavy breathing that gave them away. That and their stench.
