PART TWO . Possessed

As long as the little boat can sail

As long as the heart can beat

As long as the sun sparkles

On the blue billows

Evert Taube -As long as the little boat can sail


Bodies in the water

Beware of the sea, beware of the sea

The sea is so big, the sea is so big…


Taking care of business

The dawn came creeping behind the eastern islands and a glimpse of the sun was just appearing between the windblown pine trees on Botskär. Anders was standing right on the end of Simon's jetty, squinting into the approaching light. Despite his scarf and padded jacket he was frozen, and couldn't stop his body from shaking. He jumped as Simon dropped a chain in the boat behind his back. He tried to find a point of warmth inside himself, tried to find Maja. There was nothing there, and he felt like the sloughed-off skin of a human being. He turned around.

The chain lay in a heap in the prow of Simon's boat. In the stern lay Elin. He couldn't remember why they had decided to wrap her in two black plastic sacks with parcel tape wound around them. He wished they hadn't done that, would have preferred her empty, staring eyes to the person-shaped package on the deck. It looked horrible, and he didn't want to go anywhere near it. 'Are we really going to do this?' 'Yes,' said Simon. 'I think it's the only thing we can do.'

With half-dried excrement smeared over his legs, Anders had crept to the telephone and called Simon. Simon had come, placed a tea towel over Elin's face and helped Anders to wash himself. Then they had sat opposite each other at the kitchen table, staring out of the window until a lone pink cloud drifted across the sky, a starting flag for the new day.

There were two possible courses of action.

Nobody would believe that two dead teenagers had turned up and drowned Elin in a bucket. On the other hand, as far as everybody was concerned, there had been no sign of Elin since the fire.

Therefore, one possibility was to come up with a different story: a story that would be closely scrutinised under interrogation, since this was a murder. Would Anders be able to stick to a made-up story when the police started questioning him? Probably not.

Which left the other possibility. To get rid of Elin and pretend it had never happened.

After Simon had argued back and forth for some time, mostly with himself, they agreed that this was the lesser of two evils.

Anders took the torch and went out to the shed to fetch a couple of plastic sacks. Once inside he stopped, and his knees gave way. He had a bowling ball stuck in the middle of his chest. A black, shining sphere of guilt. He had done nothing when they were murdering Elin, he had just stayed in his bed and watched.

'It's not my fault,' he whispered.

Say it once, twice, a thousand times. Eventually you might believe it.

He was finding it difficult to breathe, because the bowling ball was in the way, pressing on his lungs. Stiffly he swept the torch over the walls of the shed, and caught sight of the plastic bottle.

Wormwood…

He unscrewed the top, raised the bottle to his mouth and took two swigs. If there was a thought in his head it was burn away. What was to be burned away he had no idea. Maybe it was the ball, maybe it was he himself. The liquid coursed down his throat and he waited for the fire, but the fire did not come.

This wormwood was not dissolved in alcohol but in something else, and the substance running down into Anders' stomach had a thick, slippery consistency. Like oil. Only when he had finished swallowing did the taste come. It didn't explode on his palate as it had at Anna-Greta's, but came creeping along and squeezed his tongue, his palate, his throat, his chest.

Anders sank down into a crouching position as the upper part of his body was turned inside out. He lost all feeling in his fingers, and his breathing stopped.

Cramp. Cramp in my lungs. I'm going to die.

Poison. Not the instantaneous shock of a toxin that compels the body to spit it out immediately, but the treacherous effect of something that slips down and takes root, spreads through the bloodstream and kills.

Anders pressed his hands to his temples and his brain crackled with discharging electricity. He took a deep breath, and discovered that he could do it. His lungs were not paralysed, he had actually been holding his breath. The air he inhaled brought his tastebuds to life, and he was wormwood. It tasted so vile that it wasn't a taste at all, it was a state of being. He grabbed hold of the workbench and pulled himself to his feet.

I am wormwood.

The ball in his chest was gone. The revolting taste had encased it, and it had shrunk and disappeared. He blinked and blinked again, trying to focus his gaze. He fixed on a piece of rope with a frayed end. He shone the torch on it and he could see every single fibre. There were fifty-seven threads.

Fifty-seven. The same age as Dad was when he died. The same number of screws and plugs as there were in the cupboard Cecilia and I bought from IKEA for the bedroom. The same number of centimetres as Maja's height when she was two months old. The same…

The outlines of everything perceived by the eye of the torch were blurred, yet at the same time all too clear. He wasn't seeing the objects, he was seeing what they were. He reached out for the roll of plastic sacks and knew there were eight sacks left on the roll and together they would hold one thousand six hundred litres.

One thousand six hundred litres of things. Leaves, twigs, toys, tins of paint, tools, gramophones, pairs of glasses, pine cones, microwave ovens. One thousand six hundred litres of things…

As he picked up the roll he found a still point inside his head, a rock in the river where he could stand and think clearly as everything flowed past and around him.

Take the bags. Go to the house.

That was what he did. As the world continued to come adrift, dissolve and pour through him, he stood on the rock and watched his hands helping Simon to dress Elin's body in plastic for this final journey. Then the perception grew weaker and he began to shiver.

Anders crouched down in the prow, as far away from the plastic bundle as possible. Simon had to sit with his feet pushed underneath Elin's thighs in order to fit in the driving seat.

How can he do this.

Simon's lips were clamped together and his forehead was furrowed, as if he were concentrating hard the whole time. But he was doing it. Anders realised he ought to be grateful, but he had no room for any such emotions. The world had frayed like the rope in the shed.

Simon started the engine and they set off from Domarö, rounded North Point and set their course for the bay between Kattholmen and Ledinge. There was a light breeze, and Anders fixed his gaze on the horizon as the rising sun warmed his cheek.

A dozen or so metres ahead of the boat a gull took off from the surface of the water and soared away with a scream. Anders followed it with his eyes, saw it cross the disc of the sun and disappear in the direction of Gåvasten.

Daddy…

How many early mornings had Anders lain in the prow of his father's boat as the sun rose, on their way to the fishing grounds to lift their nets? Forty? Fifty?

Daddy…

He hadn't thought properly about his father for a long time. With the fleeing gull and the rising sun, it all came back. Including that time.

That time…

Fishing for herring

The summer Anders turned twelve he was saving up for a radio- controlled boat. He had seen it in the toy shop in Norrtälje, and had been seduced by the fantastic picture on the box. The white hull racing across the water, the blue go-faster stripes along the side. It cost three hundred and fifty kronor, and it would be his before the summer was over.

It wasn't impossible. He and his father would lay their net twice a week, then Anders would sell the fish outside the shop. Six kronor a kilo, and he got half. So the boat represented one hundred and seventeen kilos of herring, he had worked out. With one krona left over.

He was no Uncle Scrooge, saving every krona he earned, but he had managed to put away one hundred and ninety kronor. Every catch brought between thirty and forty kilos, but by the time it got towards the end of June and the herring were beginning to move further out to sea, each catch was slightly smaller. He still needed to sell fifty kilos of fish, and they were unlikely to put the net out more than twice before the end of the season.

So that was the first thing Anders thought about when he woke up that morning: fifty kilos.

He got out of bed and dug his fishing clothes out of the bottom drawer. The smell alone would have given his mother palpitations. Both his jeans and pullover were covered in old scales and dried roe, and had approximately the same aroma as the dried pieces of fish you give to dogs.

Finally he put on his cap. It was a cap with a logo from the shipyard in Nåten where his father worked, and it too was so full of scales and solidified herring gunge that a dog could probably have eaten it just as it was.

Anders liked his outfit. When he put it on he was no longer Anders-nobody-in-particular, he was Anders the fisher boy. This was not something he could share with his friends from the city, and he made sure he changed his clothes before he sat down outside the shop. But in the mornings when they were all still sleeping, he was just his father's son, the fisher boy, and he liked that.

It was a fine morning. Anders and his father sat opposite each other at the kitchen table with a cup of hot chocolate and a cup of coffee respectively, looking out towards the bay, which was dead calm. The reflector in Gåvasten lighthouse was bouncing back the first rays of the sun. The odd cloud drifted across the sky like swansdown on a puddle.

They each ate a sandwich and finished their drinks. Then they put on their lifejackets and went down to the boat. Dad cranked up the compression ignition engine, and it started first time. At the beginning of the summer Anders had asked to have a go, and had been frightened by the recoil in the crank handle when the engine didn't fire. He left it to Dad after that.

Fine weather. The engine started straight away. Good omens. Fifty kilos.

He knew they wouldn't get fifty kilos today, that had only happened to him once, last summer, and that had been right at the beginning of June. But thirty. Thirty would do. From now on he was going to save every single krona.

They rounded North Point and came out into the sunlit stretch of Ledinge Bay, where a slight breeze was blowing from the east. The low-lying sun had just freed itself from the tops of the pine trees on Ryssholmen, and was celebrating by spreading its light across the rippling surface of the sea. Anders sat by the gunwale, trailing his fingers in the water. It was already warm enough to swim, varying between seventeen and nineteen degrees depending on the wind.

He moved into the prow and lay down full length on the wood warmed by the sun, gazing towards the spot where they had laid their net, in the narrow inlet between Ledinge and the Ledinge ferry. When he screwed up his eyes he thought he could make out the flag marking the location of the net.

The gentle chugging of the engine was making him sleepy, so he rubbed his eyes and thought about the radio-controlled boat. How far could it go before it lost contact with the remote control? Fifty metres? A hundred? How fast did it go? Probably faster than Dad's boat at any rate, he thought as they glided towards the inlet.

Anders was still lost in boy-racer fantasies when his father slowed the engine. The chugging changed to a knocking sound, with longer and longer intervals between strokes. The flag was getting closer. Anders started moving just as his father shouted, Action stations, captain!' and put the engine in neutral.

Anders jumped down and edged towards the helm as his father moved towards the prow. They crossed on either side of the engine. They had done this before. His father smiled and said, 'Take it slowly and carefully now'. Anders pulled a face that said Have I done this before, or what? and sat down at the helm.

His father got hold of the flag, hauled it in and grabbed the rope. Anders edged the boat gently into reverse, until it was completely motionless. As his father began to haul in the net, he edged forward so that the boat was following the line of the net. This was the time he loved best during their morning trips. When he was the one in charge. He could race the engine, slam the boat into reverse and turn the rudder if he so wished-but did he?

Of course not.

Slowly and carefully he adjusted the steering and the speed to make it as easy as possible for his father to lift the net. Anders was good at this. He was the captain.

He leaned over the rail and looked down into the dark water. It was usually possible to glimpse enough of the shining silver on its way to the surface to get some idea of how big the catch was likely to be. Anders looked down and frowned.

What's that? Can it he…

What he could see moving upwards was not the scattered, metallic shimmer of this many or that many herring, no, it looked more as if they had caught one single, gigantic herring in the net this morning, a compact mass being pulled slowly towards the boat.

His father had stopped hauling the net and was now standing motionless in the prow, staring down into the water. Anders peered down and he could now see that the apparently solid body did in fact consist of individual herring. It was a record catch beyond all expectation. His heart began to beat faster.

There's fifty kilos there, at least. May he more. Will I be able to sell that much?

He waited for the catch to get closer to the surface so that he would be able to see better, but nothing happened. His father was still standing in the prow, the rope dangling from his hands.

'What's the matter?' asked Anders. 'It's a massive catch!'

His father turned to face him with an expression Anders didn't understand. He looked…frightened. Frightened and worried. Anders shook his head.

'Aren't you going to bring them up, then?'

'I think…maybe we shouldn't.'

'But why? I mean, it's a record! There's loads of them!'

His father let go of the rope with one hand and pointed at the surface. 'Feel the water.'

Anders did as he said and dipped his hand in the water. He yanked it back quickly. The water was ice cold. He blinked and cautiously slipped his hand in once again. It nipped at the tips of his fingers, and the water was so cold it was on the point of freezing.

How can it be like that?

He looked enquiringly at his father, who was staring down into the water as if he were searching for something. Anders looked around. There was nothing to indicate that winter was suddenly on the way. The only explanation was an unusually cold and strong current. Wasn't it?

'Why is it like that?'

His father sighed deeply. The rope began to slip out of his hands.

'Dad!'

The rope stopped. 'Yes?'

'We have to land this catch, don't we?'

His father turned his head towards the broad strip of sunlight and said quietly, 'Why?'

The question confused Anders and frightened him a little. He babbled, 'Because…because there's such a lot and you know that boat I'm saving up for, this is…and…it won't do any good if we leave it, will it?'

His father turned to Anders once again, nodded slowly and said, 'No, I don't suppose it will. You're probably right.'

He started hauling on the net again, the muscles in his jaw working as if he were chewing on something he was never going to be able to swallow. Anders didn't know what had happened, what he'd said, but he was relieved it had worked. The catch would be brought in.

Apart from the problem that Anders didn't understand, it was very difficult for his father to lift such an enormous catch. Anders moved the boat as helpfully as he could, but the net his father was hauling into the prow was not a net full of individual fish, but rather a thick cable of silver enclosed in mesh.

When the whole of the net was in the boat and the anchor had been raised, his father went over to the engine without a word and put his hands on the cylinder head gasket.

'What are you doing?' asked Anders. If his father's behaviour during the later part of their trip had been strange, this was yet another new thing.

His father gave a wan smile. 'Warming my hands.'

Anders nodded. Of course. That was understandable, at least. The water was cold-his hands had got cold. He left the helm and went to have a look at the catch. He was no expert, but surely this was a good bit more than fifty kilos? Seventy? Eighty? When he looked at the massive pile of fish ensnared in the net, he noticed something else unusual.

Herring did not have the endurance of perch or flounder, which could live for a long time after being pulled out of the sea, but they would normally move about and twitch in the net for a good while after the boat had set off for home. But not this time.

The herring were lying completely motionless, with not a twitch to be seen. Anders crouched down and felt at a fish that had fallen out of the net. The little body was stiff, almost frozen, and the eyes were milky white. He held it out to his father, who was still standing with his hands resting on the engine. 'Why are they like this?'

'I don't know.'

'But…I mean…what's happened?'

'I don't know.'

'But how can the herring just-'

'I don't know, I said!'

It was very rare for his father to raise his voice. As he did so now a hot stabbing sensation went through Anders, making his cheeks flush bright red, and he closed his mouth on any further questions. He didn't know what he'd said that was so wrong, but it was something, and he was upset. Because he had destroyed the great atmosphere between them without knowing how.

The herring had softened in the warmth of his hand. He dropped it on the deck and crept into the prow, squinting into the sun with a heavy feeling in his stomach. The big catch was no fun any more. As far as he was concerned, they could chuck the whole bloody lot back in the sea.

He rested his cheek against the wood and lay still. Strange…

He lay still for a while, listening. Then he raised his head and gazed out across the bay.

Why hadn't he noticed until now? There wasn't a single gull in sight. Normally they would have been screaming and fighting over the fish that had fallen out of the net as it was being hauled up, flapping wings or white, dipping bodies waiting for Anders to throw them scraps or herring that were too small to sell.

But now: Not a sound. Not one bird.

Anders was still considering this when he felt his father's hand on his foot.

'Listen, I'm sorry I…shouted like that. I didn't mean it.' 'OK.'

Anders stayed where he was, lying on his stomach, and waited for more. When nothing was forthcoming, he said, 'Dad?'

'Yes?'

'Why aren't there any gulls?'

A brief pause, then his father sighed and said without anger, 'Don't start again, Anders.'

'OK. But it's odd, isn't it?'

'Yes.'

His father patted Anders on the calf, then went to start the engine. After a few minutes Anders sat up and gazed out over the sea. Not one gull anywhere in sight. And no other birds either. The sea was deserted. The only movement was the bow wave around the boat, the only sound the even chugging of the engine.

During the trip home, Anders fantasised that he and his father were the only survivors of a disaster that had wiped out all life on earth. What would their lives be like from now on?

Other creatures had evidently survived the disaster, since Simon's cat Dante was waiting for them on the jetty. Anders grabbed the stern rope and jumped up by the outermost capstan. As the cat wound around his legs, he carefully tied the half hitch he had learned the previous summer.

When the boat was safely moored he stroked Dante's head, climbed down into the prow and threw a couple of herring on to the jetty. He was curious to see how the cat would react. At first everything seemed just the same as usual. Perhaps because his pride demanded it, Dante always pretended that he had caught the prey himself. He crouched down, crept towards the lifeless fish as if the utmost vigilance was essential to ensure that his food would not escape.

Then he leapt forward and sank both paws into one of the herring, holding it firmly with his claws extended. When he was absolutely certain the fish was not going to get away, he would sink his teeth into it. What happened next looked so funny that Anders laughed out loud.

Dante stopped with his teeth on the way to the herring, then raised his head and sneezed twice. He looked at Anders as if to ask: Is this some kind of joke?, and poked at the herring with his paw, rolling it around the jetty a couple of times.

His father was sitting on his haunches, watching the cat's movements with tense interest. When Dante felt he had spent enough time rolling the fish around, he settled down and sank his teeth into the herring, and this time they could hear the crunch of breaking bones. The cat polished off the herring in a minute, then picked the other one up in his mouth and left the jetty with his tail pointing straight up in the air.

His father stood up and rubbed his hands together. 'We'd better make a start, then.' Before Anders had time to set off ashore to fetch the necessary equipment, his father glanced down into the boat and added, 'You know, that's quite a catch.'

Oh, so now you've noticed, have you? thought Anders, but all he said was, 'How much do you think there is?'

His father pursed his lips. 'About ninety kilos. That'll keep us busy for a while.'

Ninety…two hundred and seventy kronor. But I won't be able to sell that much. If I drop the price…

Anders went ashore and fetched the rinsing net and the boxes. Meanwhile his father swung out the beam, hoisted up the net and started to shake it. The herring flew out of the net into the bottom of the boat. A few landed in the water, but still there wasn't a single gull there to snap them up. However, a couple of crows had arrived at the bottom of the jetty. They stood there moving their feet up and down, unsure how to behave now they didn't have to compete with the gulls.

Anders jumped into the boat with the rinsing net and threw a couple of herring to the crows. They swallowed them whole, croaked excitedly, and after a couple of minutes three more crows had arrived.

The herring whirled around Anders' head and it was all he could do to pour them into the rinsing net, sluice them in the sea and tip them into the boxes. It was more difficult than usual because the herring were still stiff, and kept slipping out of his hands. When he looked up from his work after filling one box, he saw a couple of gulls bobbing on the water just off the jetty.

When he bent down to his task again he heard the sound of flapping, and a splash next to the boat. The gulls had started to help themselves to the fish that had sunk to the bottom, and everything was back to normal.

It took his father a good hour to shake out all the fish, and then they worked together rinsing them and tipping them into boxes. When they had finished they each sat down on a capstan and contemplated the pile of five full twenty-kilo boxes on the jetty.

Anders took off his cap and scratched his sweaty scalp. Are we going to be able to sell this much?'

His father pulled a face. 'I doubt it. I'll have to take a box with me to work, and…well, I suppose we can smoke whatever's left over.'

Anders nodded gloomily, but inside he was jubilant. Although selling herring could be a bit slow, buckling was snapped up in no time on those rare occasions when his father decided to fire up the smoker. The tourists went mad for buckling, and his father's considered opinion was that they regarded it as quaint.

Anders took the wheelbarrow and went down to the steamboat jetty to fetch some ice from the store that was run by the village committee since the fishing industry had come to an end. When he got back, his father had carried the boxes ashore and hung the net up to dry. They packed the boxes with ice and placed a thick tarpaulin over the whole lot.

Anders went down to the shore and rubbed his hands with sand to get rid of the fish scales, then he squatted down on a rock for a while and warmed his face in the sun, which had now climbed high above the pine trees on North Point.

When they got home, Anders went to bed to sleep for a couple of hours more. To him, this was the best part of their fishing days. Lying there in the fiery yellow light pressing against the blind as his hands thawed out under the covers, sleepily listening to the cries of the gulls from the sea. If he didn't fall asleep straight away he would lie there for a while, satisfied with a job well done, picking individual scales off his hands. Then he would drop off as the summer day came to life around him.

Weight

But we're not there yet…

Anders had been so far away in his memories that he didn't realise why the engine had been cut, why the boat was slowing down when they were only halfway to the inlet. The net wasn't here, right in the middle of the bay.

Then he noticed that the deck he was lying on was made of fibre- glass, and that he was so big there wasn't really room for him. He was a grown man, his father was dead and everything that had happened later that day had nothing to do with the task in hand.

Although it does. Everything is connected to everything else here. I'm the only one who doesn't see it.

The engine died and silence fell. Simon was sitting in the prow looking around. There wasn't a boat in sight, no eyes that might spy on them. Anders stepped back into the present, although he wished he could have stayed in the past. The black sacks at Simon's feet were real, and demanded an act of which he would never have believed himself capable.

It's all my fault. I have to…contribute.

He gathered up the chain and hauled it forward, letting it coil down on top of the black bundle. Simon smiled sadly. 'Do you know where that chain comes from?'

'Is it the one you used when you…?'

'Mmm. It's been in the sea before.' Simon nodded to himself, and neither of them spoke for a while. Simon stroked the plastic covering Elin's head.

'She's dead. Nothing we do now will make any difference. To her. She drowned. Somebody drowned her. And now she's going into the sea. There's nothing strange about that. It isn't wrong. We just have to do it. Because we need to go on living.' Simon looked Anders in the eye. 'Don't you agree?'

Anders nodded mechanically. That wasn't really the problem. The problem was actually starting to touch the dead body, feeling muscles and bones through the black plastic without knowing for certain… that she was really dead.

'What's the plastic for?' asked Anders.

'I don't know,' said Simon. 'I thought…it would be better.'

'It isn't.'

'No.'

Anders understood the thought behind it, the idea of hiding what they were doing from themselves. And yet it was a relief when they pulled off the sacks and had Elin's corpse at their feet. Her skin had lost all its lustre, and the colour had faded from her wide-open eyes. It was a horrible sight, and yet it was better.

As Simon bent down and grabbed hold of the chain, he caught sight of the scars on her face and body, glowing white in the morning light. 'What are these? Scars?'

'I'll tell you all about it,' said Anders. 'But not now.'

They worked together to lift the body, turn it, wrap the chain around and secure it with a couple of locking pawls. However tightly they pulled the chain, there was no response from Elin's skin, no reddening or swelling. Her eyes stared up at the sky without blinking, and Simon was caught in her empty gaze.

'Who was she?' he asked.

That was the question that needed to be asked, the final question. Unfortunately, Anders didn't know the answer.

'I don't know,' he said. 'I think she was someone who…was looking for approval. Someone who tried, in a lot of…roundabout ways…to get the whole world to think she was wonderful. But…'

The memory of Elin's smile when Henrik and Björn were being humiliated by the boathouse flashed through his mind, and Anders lowered his head.

'In that case, we will remember someone who wanted to be wonderful,' said Simon, taking hold of the chain around her thighs and stomach.

They heaved Elin over the rail. Her legs hooked over the edge and she hung there for a few seconds with her head and upper body in the water. Then Simon gently lifted her feet. The body came free and slipped into the water with a faint splash.

Anders leaned over and watched her sink. A few air bubbles escaped from her mouth and rose to the surface like transparent beads. Her hair floated outwards and hid her face as she was dragged down into the depths. After a few seconds she had sunk so far that she was nothing more than a blurred, pale patch in the great darkness. Anders kept on staring until he was no longer sure he could see her, until she was replaced by the shifting pattern of the light on the surface of the water.

The black water. He was so dreadfully tired, he could sleep for a year. He leaned his head against the rail, closed his eyes and whispered, 'I'm so tired, Simon. I just can't cope any more.'

His head was expanding and shrinking, his brain was a lung. Expanding and contracting quickly, panting. His consciousness was gasping for air as if it was drowning, the lung close to bursting point.

There was a creaking sound as Simon got up and came to sit beside him, eased him away from the rail and placed his head on his knee. Anders curled up and put his arms around Simon's waist, resting his head on Simon's thighs. Simon's cold hand caressed his hair.

'There now, little Anders,' said Simon. 'Everything will be all right. Everything's fine. It'll all work out, Anders.'

Simon's hand went on gently stroking his hair, and it was like oxygen. He stopped panting inside, the panic subsided and he relaxed. He might have fallen asleep for a few seconds. If he did fall asleep, the worst was over when he woke up. Simon's hand was resting on the back of his head.

'Simon,' said Anders, without raising his head.

'Yes?'

'Do you remember saying…that we can never become another person, do you remember that? That however close we get, we can never become the other person.'

'Yes, I did say that. But it seems as if I was wrong.'

'It isn't just Elin. It's me as well. I'm turning into Maja.'

'What do you mean?'

There was in fact a word for what was happening to him. It wasn't the right word, it had the wrong kind of associations. Demons and devils. And yet it was the only word there was.

'I'm possessed. I'm turning into someone else. I'm turning into Maja.'

Anders pulled himself up into a sitting position and moved over to sit opposite Simon. Then he told the story again, in the light of his new insight. How he could sometimes hear her voice inside his head, his fear of the GB-man, the Bamse comics, her bed, the writing on the table and the bead tile.

Simon didn't ask any questions, didn't raise any objections. He simply listened and said 'Hmm' from time to time, and it was as if the strong hand that had been squeezing Anders' mind more and more tightly loosened its grip a little more.

'So I think…I know,' said Anders eventually, 'that she's doing all this through me. She's the one who's making a picture with the beads and reading about Bamse, but she's using my fingers and my eyes to do it and I don't know…1 don't understand what I ought to do.'

The sun had now risen so high that it had some heat. During his long narrative Anders had started to sweat in his warm clothes. He took off his hat and dipped his hand in the water, scooped up a handful and bathed his eyes. Simon was gazing towards Nåten, where the first tender of the morning was just setting off from the jetty. He asked, 'So what does she want?'

'You…believe me?'

Simon wagged his head from side to side, 'Let me put it like this: it isn't the strangest thing I've heard. Recently.'

'What do you mean?'

Simon sighed. 'I think we'll leave that for now.' When he noticed that Anders was frowning, he added, 'I need to talk to Anna-Greta. Is it OK if I tell her what you've told me?'

'Yes, I suppose so, but…'

'Speaking of Anna-Greta, I think we'd better head for home. She's probably getting worried by now.'

Anders nodded and gazed over the rail. Elin was lying on the seabed by now, perhaps fifty metres beneath them. He imagined the fish nudging at the new arrival, the eels crawling up from the mud as they caught the smell of food…

He cut off the thought before it started wallowing in physical details.

'Simon?' he asked. 'Did we do the right thing?'

'Yes. I think so. And if we did the wrong thing…' Simon looked down at the surface of the water,'…there's not much we can do about it now.'

Anders got up and went to the prow, curled up on the seat as well as he could as Simon started the engine and turned the boat, heading for home. For a long time Anders sat there trying to keep his eyes fixed on the spot where they had let Elin go. There should have been something there. A buoy or a flag, some kind of memorial. Something to mark the fact that there was a person down there. But there was only the constant shifting of the water, and Elin belonged to those who have disappeared into the sea.

They parted in silence at Simon's jetty, and Anders dragged himself back to the Shack. If someone had leapt out of the bushes and pointed a shotgun at him, he would have been incapable of reacting. He would simply have shuffled on, perhaps looking forward to the burning sensation in his back.

He looked at his feet, and they were moving without his cooperation or input. He was being drawn. Just as an animal hunted beyond endurance, with no strength left, still creeps towards its lair out of instinct or a blind sense of self-preservation, so he kept on moving homeward, homeward.

He walked in, pulled off his clothes, lay down on Maja's bed and pulled the covers over him. Then he lay there staring at the window, too tired to close his eyelids. He was lying in the same place and the light was roughly the same as on those mornings when he had gone back to bed after going fishing with his father.

He thought he was the same person, the same child. That time moved in circles, and soon it would be time for him to get up and load the wheelbarrow, set off for the shop.

That was a fine catch this morning…

Perhaps he fell asleep with his eyes open.

Pulling power

He had written the sign himself, 'FRESH HERRING 6KR A KILO', because his father was dyslexic and besides, his handwriting was atrocious. The sign stood beside him on the bench outside the shop as he sat there waiting for the morning's first customers.

It was nine o'clock and the shop had just opened. Two people who had gone inside had said they wanted to buy some herring once they had done the rest of their shopping.

This seemed promising. Despite the enormous catch Anders hadn't lowered the price, mainly because he hadn't had time to alter the sign. He had slept for an unusually long time, right up until quarter to nine. It had been a rush to get a box loaded on to the wheelbarrow and push it up to the shop before they opened.

The first customer came out, an elderly lady Anders had seen every summer for as long as he could remember, although he didn't know her name or where she lived. She would always say hello when they met, and Anders would return the greeting without any idea who he was saying hello to.

The lady came over and said, 'I'll have one kilo, please.'

Anders had a stroke of genius. 'We're having a sale today,' he said. 'Two kilos for ten kronor.'

The lady raised her eyebrows and bent over the herring, as if to check whether there was something wrong with them. 'How come?'

Anders realised the best thing would be to tell the truth. 'We caught a huge amount, and we need to get rid of it.'

'But what am I going to do with all that extra?'

'Pickle it. Freeze it. There might not be any more herring this summer. This could be the last.'

The lady laughed and Anders steeled himself for what might come next: the ruffling of his hair. That was the kind of thing you just had to put up with. But the lady just laughed and said, 'What a businessman! OK then, I'll take two kilos. Since there's a sale on.'

Anders slipped a plastic bag over his hand and counted forty-two herring into another bag, added a couple extra to be on the safe side, tied a knot in the top and handed it over, and accepted the payment just as the second customer emerged from the shop. A middle-aged man who was probably a yachtsman, judging by his outfit.

The lady held up her well-filled bag and said to him, 'There's a sale on.'

The jocular way she said it made Anders suspect that sale might not be the right word. That suggested you were selling off something that had been left over, which wasn't appropriate in the context of fresh herring. He decided to say special offer from now on.

It wasn't the success he had hoped for when he got the idea, but roughly every fourth customer could be tempted to take an extra kilo. Perhaps more to help him out than because they wanted to snap up a bargain. Anders didn't think two kronor here or there meant a great deal to most adults.

However, there were more customers than usual, and Anders went back to fetch another box in time for the eleven o'clock boat, since the first box was more or less empty. There was a bit of a rush with the eleven o'clock boat, and he only just had enough fish. A small queue formed in front of the box; Anders stopped adding a couple of extra fish, and put only eighteen or nineteen in a bag if the customer was someone he didn't recognise, who was only over for the day.

By twelve o'clock he was ready for the third box. The boat was moored by the jetty and his father, who was on holiday from work, was back from the shipyard where he had obviously got rid of the fourth box.

It was looking more than promising. Even if sales slowed down now, it wasn't out of the question that Anders would manage to sell the contents of the third box as well. Despite the special offer this would mean that he was home and dry, that the radio-controlled boat would soon be surging through the waters of the inlet.

Buoyed up by this thought he carted the third box off to the shop and found a customer waiting by the sign. When he managed to sell two kilos once again, Anders decided to celebrate with an ice cream. He went into the shop and bought a Pear Split, then sat back down at his post.

He blew into the paper to loosen it from the ice cream, read the funny story on the collectable card, then sucked on the ice cream while counting the boats out in the bay. He could see his own radio- controlled boat storming past the lot of them, its engine roaring.

He had just got to the best part of the Pear Split, where the ice shell was beginning to melt on his tongue and its sweeter flavour blended with the vanilla ice cream inside, when a man came walking along the track from Kattudden.

The man's eyes looked strange. As if he were drunk. Anders' father sometimes had the same purposeful walk when he'd had too much to drink, as if nothing existed but the goal before his eyes, as if life were merely a question of getting the body to the place it had to be.

Anders recognised him. He was the son of someone his grandmother knew-perhaps he used to live on the mainland and now he'd moved back to the island, Anders couldn't remember. He was a bad-tempered individual. He had once shouted at Anders because his wheelbarrow was in the way outside the shop, and since then Anders had never asked him if he wanted to buy any herring.

He was wearing blue jeans and a checked shirt, like most of the permanent residents. He had wooden clogs on his feet and was marching determinedly towards the jetty.

Marching, yes. That was the word. The man was moving in a way that brooked no interference. If anything got in his way, he would ignore it or walk straight through it rather than give way. Perfectly consistent, bearing in mind how angry he had been when Anders got in his way.

When the man got near the jetty he turned off towards the thicket of sea buckthorn on the right. Anders was so fascinated by his behaviour that he forgot about his ice cream, and the sticky, melting stuff trickled down the stick and over his fingers.

The man disappeared from view behind the sea buckthorn, and Anders took the opportunity to lick the sticky sweetness off his fingers. Then he spotted the man again. He had reached the shoreline, and was on his way out into the water. He hadn't even taken off his clogs.

Only now did Anders start to feel there was something unpleasant about the whole thing. The man slipped on the wet stones and fell, but immediately got up and carried on walking. Anders looked around, searching for some adult who could explain the situation to him, or simply indicate with a calm glance that everything was as it should be.

There were no adults in the vicinity. Nor anybody else, for that matter. Only Anders and the man who was now up to his waist in the water, forging ahead with heavier and heavier strides, heading straight for Gåvasten as if there were a secret track leading out there, a track you could only use if you had the right attitude.

When the water reached the man's chest, he started swimming. Anders stood up, not knowing what he ought to do. He sucked on the lolly, took a couple of bites and saw the man's head slowly moving further and further away from the steamboat jetty. He didn't seem to be an accomplished swimmer, he was splashing about and making strange movements.

Perhaps it's because he's wearing clothes.

When he'd finished the ice cream and the man was showing no sign of turning back, Anders threw the stick in the bin and went into the shop.

There was nobody in there either, thanks to the midday lull. Anders found Ove, the owner, in the fridge behind the dairy cupboard, filling up the milk.

'So how's business?' asked Ove without looking up from his work.

'Good, thanks,' said Anders.

'Same here. Plenty of people about today.'

'Yes.' Anders began to feel unsure of himself. He had never spoken to Ove like this before, and he was a frightening figure, with his huge stomach and gigantic eyebrows. Anders rubbed one arm and said, 'There's a man swimming out there.'

Ove put the last carton of milk on the shelf and straightened up. 'I'm not surprised. It's hot today.'

'Mm. But he's still got his clothes on and…' Anders didn't know how to describe the feeling of foreboding that had come over him as the man walked down to the jetty, '…and there was something kind of strange about him.'

'Strange in what way?'

'Well…the fact that he didn't take off his clothes. He just walked out into the water…and he was walking in an odd way too.'

'So where is he now, then?'

'Still swimming.'

Ove closed the door on the milk, wiped his hands on his apron and said, 'We'd better take a look, then.'

When Anders got outside the shop a couple of steps behind Ove, he saw that it was as he feared. The man was no longer anywhere in sight.

'Where is he, then?' asked Ove.

Anders felt a faint blush creeping over his cheeks. 'He was there just now.'

Ove looked at him suspiciously, as if he were trying to come up with a reasonable explanation as to why Anders would have made this up. Evidently he couldn't come up with anything, since he walked quickly down to the jetty with Anders following in his wake.

There was no sign of anyone when they got down to the jetty either, and Ove shook his head.

'Well, young Anders. There doesn't seem to be anyone here.'

Anders gazed out across the water and spotted a couple of ducks bobbing on the surface ten metres off the jetty. But they weren't ducks. They were two clogs. He pointed them out to Ove, and then the circus got under way.

Ove rang and people came. They went out in boats and the coastguard was called out from Nåten. Anders had to describe the man who had walked out into the water, and everyone agreed it must be Torgny Ek, the son of Kristoffer and Astrid Ek who lived just a few houses past the shop.

Curious tourists from Kattudden and the ramblers' hostel came to see what all the fuss was about. Soon everyone knew the story of what the poor little boy-Anders-had witnessed, and how could they best show their goodwill towards the unfortunate child? By buying his herring, of course.

To tell the truth, Anders didn't feel particularly badly affected or upset by what had happened, but realised it was best to adopt a serious expression as the herring flowed out of his hands and the money flowed into his pockets. He even had the sense to avoid mentioning the special offer, which would obviously be inappropriate.

By the time the box was empty there were still a lot of people standing around the harbour waiting to see what the divers might find, and Anders pushed the wheelbarrow towards home for the third time that day. As he approached the Shack he saw a column of smoke rising up into the sky.

His father was crouching by the smoker, pushing juniper branches into the fire. The last box of herring was by his side, but he hadn't started threading the fish yet. He looked surprised when he caught sight of Anders.

'Back already?'

'Yes,' said Anders, tilting the wheelbarrow to show him the empty box. All gone.'

His father got to his feet and looked. First at the box, then at Anders. 'You've sold…sixty kilos?'

'Yup.'

'How come?'

Anders told him about Torgny Ek. How he had come walking along, how he had swum out to sea. All the people who had gathered in the harbour. His voice became more and more tentative as the story went on, since he noticed that his father was very upset by the whole thing, for some reason. He was sitting on the bench by the smoker, staring at the ground.

'And then the coastguard arrived…' Anders' voice died away and silence fell. There was only the crackling of burning juniper branches from inside the smoker. 'Three hundred and twenty kronor. That's how much I've taken. It's a bit less because I did a special offer.'

His father nodded heavily. 'Well done.'

Anders picked up a metal skewer and threaded a couple of herring on to it. His father made a slow, dismissive gesture. 'You can leave that. I don't think we'll do any smoking today.'

'Why not?'

'Well, you've…sold such a lot.'

The heavy feeling in his stomach came back, and Anders was drawn down towards the ground. He lowered the skewer he'd started. 'But…it's always good to have buckling.'

His father slowly got to his feet, and said, 'I'm just not in the mood.' He made an effort and drew the corners of his mouth up into a kind of smile. 'It's really good that you've sold such a lot. Now you can afford that boat. Take it easy for a while.'

Without saying any more he went towards the house, his shoulders drooping. Anders waggled the skewer in his hand. The two herring hung there, threaded through the eyes. The eyes themselves were dangling from their heads, attached by thin membranes. Anders pushed the herring right to the end of the skewer, drew back his arm, flicked his wrist. The herring flew off in a wide arch, landing in the sawdust by the woodpile.

That's that, then.

He washed his hands in the rainwater barrel and went back up towards the shop. He didn't know what had happened, but there had been something wrong with this catch from the start.

Except for one thing.

He felt at the bundle of notes in his right-hand pocket, the clump of coins in his left. He might have a funny feeling in his stomach, and maybe the day could have been better in many ways. But there was no denying one thing: he had made plenty of money.

Find the one you love

As long as just one of her young remains, the female scoter

appears to be quite contented, and behaves normally. But it

often happens that the entire brood is wiped out during their

very first hour of life. When this happens, it can be clearly

seen that she is overcome by neurosis. She spins around on the

spot where the young disappeared, returns to the same spot

and searches for them, day after day, and she searches for them

along the route she followed with them-as if their scent were

still there on the surface of the water.

Sten Rinaldo -To the Outer Archipelago


Instead of Las Vegas

Simon was woken by a tickling sensation on his upper lip. The next moment two lips were pressed against his forehead, and he opened his eyes. Anna-Greta drew back, and the strand of hair that had been tickling him was gone.

She was sitting on the edge of his bed with her hand on his hip. 'Good morning,' she said. Simon nodded in response, and Anna-Greta lowered her voice, as if someone might hear.

'How did it go? This morning?'

When Simon came ashore he had simply told Anna-Greta that he was too tired to talk about what had happened, then he had gone straight home and fallen asleep immediately.

He still didn't want to talk about the morning's outing, so he just said it had gone as well as it could, and asked what time it was.

'Half-past eleven,' replied Anna-Greta. 'I didn't know whether to wake you, but…I have a suggestion. You might not like it. In which case, feel free to refuse.'

'What kind of suggestion?'

Simon thought he'd probably had enough surprises to last for some considerable time. Anna-Greta's posture, the way she was picking at her cuticles, suggested she was about to ask a difficult question. Simon sighed and flopped back on the pillow; he was about to say that the answer to all suggestions at this particular moment was No, when Anna-Greta asked, 'Do you still want to marry me?'

The no would have to wait a while. Simon gave the opposite answer, but added, 'Why do you ask?'

'Do you want to marry me now?'

Simon blinked and looked around the room as if to check whether there was a priest hiding somewhere. There didn't appear to be. He didn't understand the question.

'Now} What do you mean by now}'

'As soon as possible.'

'Is it…urgent?'

Anna-Greta rested her chin on one hand. There was sorrow in the look she gave Simon, her eyes fixed on his for a while until she said, 'Perhaps it is. You never know. And I want to be married to you if… if anything happens.'

'What do you mean?'

Anna-Greta traced the lifeline on her palm with her index finger, not looking at Simon as she replied, 'You know I'm not particularly religious. But still. There's something in all that. I want us to be…' She took a deep breath and expanded her chest, as if she had to make an effort to get the big words out, '…to be married in the sight of God. If anything should happen.' She looked at Simon apologetically. 'So there.'

'OK,' said Simon. 'I understand. What's the suggestion, then?'

Anna-Greta had made a number of calls that morning. In order to marry, it was necessary to have proof that there was no impediment to the marriage. That had to be obtained from the national registration office in Norrtälje. It would normally take a week or two to receive the papers, but it was possible to obtain them more quickly if it was urgent. The same day, in fact.

'I said we'd booked the church for tomorrow,' said Anna-Greta. 'But that we'd forgotten this one detail.' She glanced out of the window. 'We'll just make it if we catch the one o'clock boat.'

Simon had forgotten that he was going to say No, and started to take off his pyjama jacket. When he was halfway he stopped and let the jacket fall back down over his head. 'And have you? Booked the church?'

Anna-Greta laughed. 'No. I didn't know if you'd think this was a good idea.'

She moved up so that Simon had room to get out of bed. He took off the jacket and stood up, using the bedpost for support. 'I'm not so sure about good, but I understand the reasoning. Would it be possible to have a cup of coffee before…the wedding trip?'

Anna-Greta went into the kitchen to make the coffee. Simon leaned against the bedpost. He wobbled as the morning's events hurled themselves at him from behind. He suddenly felt dizzy, and sat down on the bed again. With hands that felt unreal he took off his pyjama trousers and pulled on his underpants and socks. Then he came to a full stop. He held his hands up in front of his eyes.

These fingers of mine.

His entire life's work had been built on what he could do-or what he used to be able to do-with these fingers. Thousands of hours in front of the mirror, polishing the tiniest movement to make it look natural, even though it was hiding something else. He had trained his fingers to obedience, and had had them under control.

Earlier that morning those same fingers had wound his old chain around a dead person, those same hands had tipped a pair of feet over the rail and let a young woman disappear into the depths. To escape awkward questions. To avoid problems. These things his trained fingers had done.

The thought wouldn't go away. As he got up from the bed and opened the wardrobe door, he was looking at his hands the whole time as if they were prostheses, alien things that had been screwed on to the ends of his arms while he was asleep.

He took out a pair of trousers, a shirt and a jacket. His best clothes. He put them on. Perhaps the disruption to his normal daily routine had done something to his head, but it really did seem as if his fingers were behaving as if they had a will of their own, and it was only with some difficulty that he could get them to do as he wished. Fasten his buttons, buckle his belt.

He stopped dead as he was fastening the top button of his shirt.

Is this what it feels like? To he possessed?

He looked at himself in the mirror on the wardrobe door. Not that he knew how it was supposed to feel, but he didn't think that was what was going on here. It was more like the English expression: he was beside himself One person carrying out the actions, another looking on, side by side.

He pushed back his long grey hair, pulled on his jacket and looked at himself in the mirror again.

Here I am.

He tried to recall the feeling that had come over him when a maple leaf had crossed his path. Without success. But still he made a slight bow to the mirror, said thank you for the divided life that had been given to him, in spite of everything.

Clap, clap.

Anna-Greta was leaning against the doorframe watching him, and she brought her palms together a couple more times. 'Very elegant. Coffee's ready.'

Simon followed her into the kitchen. Once he had drunk the first cup of coffee, his thoughts began to clear. He looked out of the window and his eye caught the spot on the grass where Marita had sat that time. When he had stood in front of her with a shotgun, considering whether to execute her.

On that occasion too he had felt as if he had been thrown outside himself, standing beside himself and looking on.

It's all just excuses, he thought, pouring himself another cup. We talk about being out of our mind, that we weren't ourselves, that we lost control. Different ways of saying the same thing. But we are always ourselves. There are no imaginary friends carrying out actions in our name.

Except… except…

'What are you thinking about?' asked Anna-Greta.

Simon told her what Anders had said to him in the boat. That Maja had entered into him and was influencing him, guiding his hands at night. That he was possessed, just as Elin had been.

When he had finished, Anna-Greta sat quietly for a while, looking over towards the Shack. Eventually she said, 'Poor little soul.'

Simon didn't know if she was referring to Anders or Maja, and it didn't really matter which it was. Everything suddenly seemed utterly impossible, and Anna-Greta's simple compassion merely intensified the feeling.

'Do you really believe that's what's happening?' he asked. 'That the souls of the dead come up from the sea and…and…'

'There's no guarantee they're dead. We know nothing. Nothing. Not for certain.'

'But what can we do?'

Anna-Greta reached across the table and placed her hand on top of his. 'What we can do right now,' she said, 'is to take the one o'clock boat over to Norrtälje and sign some papers so that we can get married.'

Simon glanced at the clock. It was twenty to one, and they would have to leave right away if they were going to get there in time. He picked up the matchbox from the windowsill and said, 'Yes. This is our day. Let's do it. Could you just…wait outside for me for a minute?'

Anna-Greta raised her eyebrows enquiringly, and Simon showed her the box. 'I have to…'

'Go on, then.'

'I'd prefer to be on my own.'

'Why?'

Simon looked at the white silhouette of the little boy on the box. Why? He could have come up with reasons, but instead he told the truth, 'Because it's embarrassing. It would be like…having an audience when you go to the toilet. Can you understand that?'

Anna-Greta shook her head and smiled. 'If we're going to grow even older together, there's a good chance that one of us will have to wipe the other's backside before it's all over. Go on, do what you have to do.'

Simon hesitated. He hadn't realised how suffused with shame his relationship with Spiritus was, and he felt dirty as he pushed open the box. He glanced at Anna-Greta and saw that she was kindly looking out of the window.

The insect really didn't look healthy. It's skin, once black and shiny, was dull and parchment-like. It was beginning to look more and more like the dead specimen he had seen in the great magician's display case. Simon cleared his throat and gathered up spit.

The clock was ticking. Time was passing. The boat was getting closer.

Let go.

The bubble of spit emerged, fell and spread across the dry skin. The insect moved, absorbed the liquid and came to life a little. Simon looked up. Anna-Greta was watching him.

'Shall we go?' she asked, pointing at his chin. Simon wiped away a string of saliva, stood up and put the box in his pocket. When they got outside, Anna-Greta took his hand and said, 'That wasn't too bad, was it?'

'No,' said Simon, and meant it.

They were going to get married. So it was probably time to embrace the words from the letter to the Corinthians, the words that form part of the promise of love, 'When I became a man I put away childish things.'

Let go.

He followed Anna-Greta up on to the track, and the morning stiffness in his limbs began to ease. He looked out to sea and saw that the tender had covered half the distance between Nåten and Domarö. They hurried along, and Simon was worn out by the time they reached the jetty.

Anna-Greta stood in front of him and pushed back his hair, brushing a few loose strands from his shoulders.

'Will I do?' he asked.

'You'll do. In fact, you'll more than do. Do you know which word suits you?' 'No.'

'It's a beautiful word. You're mysterious.'

The tender slowed down as it approached the jetty. Simon was just about to say something about glass houses and throwing stones when the angry roar of an engine came up behind them. Just as the prow of the boat touched the jetty and Roger came forward to throw the mooring rope, Johan Lundberg arrived beside them on his platform moped and pulled up.

'Here you are,' he said. 'Good.'

However, his expression did not suggest that things were good- quite the opposite, in fact.

He ignored Simon and turned to Anna-Greta.

'You have to come. Karl-Erik has lost it completely. You have to talk to him. He'll listen to you.'

'What do you mean, lost it?' asked Anna-Greta.

'We're busy clearing up around the house that burned down and he…you have to come. He's out of his mind.'

Roger came up to them with the mooring rope in his hand.

'Are you coming? I have to go now.'

Anna-Greta nodded and turned to Johan. 'Unfortunately I'm busy today. We'll be back at six.'

Johan's jaw dropped, as if Anna-Greta's response had just revealed one of the great mysteries of the universe to him. Before he had time to come up with any objections, Simon and Anna-Greta stepped on board. Roger followed them and climbed up to the cockpit. The boat reversed away from the jetty.

Johan stood there gazing after them with the expression of a foundling left to rely on the kindness of strangers. If Simon had needed any proof that Anna-Greta was the unofficial leader of the village, he had it now.

As the boat began to swing around to head for Nåten, Johan raised his hand feebly in farewell, straddled his moped, kicked it into life and set off back towards the village.

Anna-Greta and Simon stood leaning against the rail as they swung away from Domarö, towards the mainland. The bay was busy, dotted white with gulls taking off one by one or in groups, flying around in circles then coming in to land once again.

'What do you think all that was about?' asked Simon.

Anna-Greta was gazing out to sea. 'I don't know,' she said. 'And I don't want to know, either. Have you seen how many gulls there are? I don't think I've ever seen so many.'

The boat carved its way through a throng of white bodies that paddled or flew away at a leisurely pace. It really was unusual to see so many.

Wedding guests, thought Simon. And here come the happy couple.

He put his arm around Anna-Greta and let his thoughts turn to the mainland.

Duel

This time there was no room for doubt: it was arson. As they worked to put out the fire, the smell of petrol had been noticeable, and when the worst was over they had also found the can. Someone had set the fire in the Wahlgrens' summer cottage, and it was a small step to assume it was the same person who had set fire to the Grönwalls' place.

For a while during the night it had looked as though things might go very badly. The fire had taken hold in the conifers in the Wahlgrens' garden, and sparks and burning fragments were being carried inland. Before the fire service arrived, a panic-stricken decision had been taken to fell a number of trees that might otherwise have led the fire up into the forest. It had been a dry autumn, and if the fire caught in the tops of the fir trees, it could be a disaster. The flames would spread through the forest all the way down to the old village, not stopping until they reached the sea.

Three men worked with chainsaws to fell some forty fir and pine trees that ran along a spur from the forest, an arm that was just dying to grab hold of the fire. It was the kind of feat about which songs are sung. But such songs are no longer sung, and at best Karl- Erik, Lasse and Mats had a small mention in the local newspaper to look forward to.

The report should, however, mention that they had to work fast, that the trees could not be felled in the direction of the fire, and that they also had to make sure the trees did not fall on to any of the cottages in the area, which meant they had to fell every single tree with precision, and of course all this was done in darkness, with little more than the light of the street lamp and the fire itself to help them.

Who would have taken on such a task, and who succeeded?

Why, Karl-Erik, Lasse and Mats!

OK, so they nearly knocked down the Carlgrens' outhouse, and those people from Örebro might have lost a few panes of glass from their greenhouse, but by and large nobody could have done a better job and the three musketeers, wielding chainsaws instead of rapiers, were the heroes of the night. Since the fire was under control, they could go home and sleep as long as they pleased. They had done their part, and more besides.

That was how they were greeted when they turned up the following day to chop up the felled trees, 'Here come the three musketeers again!'

But Mats was the only one who grinned and tossed out a reply. Lasse’s expression was grim, and Karl-Erik looked furious, to put it mildly. It was as if the memory of the previous night's co-operation had been blown away. What happened next could only be described as incomprehensible, an event not unlike that business in Soderviken with Gustavsson and the swan.

Gustavsson used to feed a swan. It came back to him year after year, accepting pieces of bread from him and providing him with a little company. As soon as you met Gustavsson he would start talking about that swan, how beautiful and clever it was, what a good friend it had become.

And then one day Gustavsson took his shotgun down to the bay and shot the swan, fired a blast at its neck so that the head flew off. Afterwards he had been inconsolable, unable to come up with any explanation for his behaviour, except that he had got it into his head that he was going to shoot the swan.

However, this incident with Karl-Erik was more extensive in that it went on for longer than the time it took to load a shotgun, take aim and fire. And it wasn't only Karl-Erik-Lasse was seized by the same irrational behaviour.

The morning's work of removing branches and chopping up the trees proceeded more or less as normal, although Mats did say later that there was something slightly odd about Karl-Erik and Lasse. They had each kept themselves to themselves, working in silence. When they took a break to have a drink of water and eat their sandwiches, they sat a long way from each other.

After their break all three of them put on their ear protectors, started up their saws and set to work again. Mats was working his way through the root of one of the thicker fir trees. Progress was slow, and the saw got very hot. Therefore, when he had finished he switched off the saw, took off his ear protectors and began to sharpen the chain.

Lasse's saw was also switched off, and so Mats was able to hear the sound of sawing from elsewhere, up towards the village and quite a distance from the newly felled trees they were busy clearing. He stood up and looked for the source of the noise. When he found it he dropped his saw and ran.

At the time when Holger's father sold Kattudden to the agent from Stockholm, a couple of families from the village had managed to secure a promise that they could at least divide up and purchase a small area, so that not everything would pass into the ownership of strangers. They had been allocated a few small parcels of land furthest away from the sea, up towards the forest.

The Bergwall family, to which Lasse belonged, was one of them. His mother, Margareta Bergwall, now owned the two summer cottages that lay up on the hill to the west, perhaps three hundred metres from the shore, but with something of a sea view. The cottages were rented out to summer visitors, but Lasse's brother Robert was planning to renovate one of them and move back home.

Between the two properties stood the largest birch tree on Kattudden: a real giant some twenty metres tall. A grown man could just about get his arms around it. And it was this birch that Karl-Erik was busy cutting down.

When Mats saw what he was up to, he dropped his saw as well and hurried towards Karl-Erik. The birch was between the two properties, but leaned slightly towards Lasse's mother's house, and judging from the way Karl-Erik was making the face cut, he intended to use the tree's natural lean to ensure that it would land right on top of Lasse's future inheritance.

'Karl-Erik!' yelled Mats as soon as he was within earshot. 'Karl- Erik, what are you doing!'

But Karl-Erik was wearing his ear protectors, and couldn't hear a thing. He was just cutting the final part of the wedge, and kicked it out so that a wide, deep cut at the base of the tree gaped towards Lasse's house like a hungry mouth. He examined his work, seemed satisfied and went around the other side of the tree to start making the felling cut. It was no more than a minute's work, and then the tree would fall.

Mats reached Karl-Erik just as the sawdust began to whirl up from the tree, grabbed his shoulder and shook him. Karl-Erik looked up and Mats took a step backwards. The eyes that were looking at him were neither angry nor confused. They were as empty and ice-cold as the sea in November. It is a testament to Mats's courage that he still, when Karl-Erik revved up the saw again, pulled off his ear protectors and screamed, 'Are you crazy! Stop it! You can't chop this tree down! Stop!'

Karl-Erik jabbed at him with the saw and Mats was forced to step back again. He ran his hands over his sweaty face and thought: He's gone completely mad. How am I going to stop him?

There was no time to think about that, because Lasse had realised what was happening and came running, with his own saw in his hands. When Karl-Erik once again inserted the blade of his saw into the felling cut he had started, Lasse came rushing towards him, and Mats saw that his eyes were also empty. They were staring straight at Karl-Erik, but showed no emotion whatsoever.

Only now did Mats begin to feel afraid.

Karl-Erik's saw roared behind him, and the sawdust was tickling his calves; Lasse was racing towards him with his saw held high and the motor running at full speed. It's no surprise that Mats did what anyone else would have done under the circumstances. He took a couple of steps to one side and yelled to the people who were clearing up down on the site of the fire, 'Help! Up here! They're going to kill one another! Help!'

When Mats screamed, Karl-Erik looked up and saw the approaching threat at the last minute. He pulled the saw out of the cut and jumped back as Lasse rushed forward, swinging the saw at him. The howling chain missed Karl-Erik by a fraction, and the force of his own action made Lasse fall down headfirst, with the saw in his hands and chain oil splashing over his face.

Mats saw Karl-Erik push the speed to maximum and lower the saw over Lasse's back; he just had time to think: He's going to do it! before a reflex took over and hurled him towards Karl-Erik. The blade cut through the braces of Lasse's overalls, reaching his skin, and Lasse would have been chopped in half like a rotten log if Mats hadn't tackled Karl-Erik at that very moment, making him stagger sideways so that he couldn't complete the incision.

Lasse got to his feet and his trousers fell around his ankles as the blood started to gush from the wound on his back. He raised his saw and bared his teeth. For a couple of seconds the two men stood face to face, their chainsaws screaming and their empty gazes locked together.

Mats could see that people were on their way up from the shore, but the closest still had at least a hundred metres to go, and he turned to the combatants and screamed like a despairing child, 'Stop it, stop it, stop it!' as the tears scalded his eyes.

It had no effect whatsoever. Lasse took a clumsy step forward, sweeping at Karl-Erik's arm with his saw, but Karl-Erik managed to lift his saw and parry the blow. Sparks flew as the howling chains made contact.

Karl-Erik responded with a low sweep towards Lasse's unprotected legs, but despite the fact that his trousers were in a heap around his feet, Lasse managed to jump backwards towards the birch so that the whirring blades missed his shins and merely tore up earth and grass.

Once again there was a brief lull as the two men measured each other and revved their chainsaws.

Mats looked around on the ground for something to throw, but as he spotted a stone the size of a fist, he realised it was pointless. If he managed to knock one of them down, the other one would kill the man who was down. He heard shouts behind him, and all he could do was hope that the others would get there in time.

A hint of emotion was now visible on Karl-Erik's face. The corners of his mouth curled upwards in a nasty smile. He swung the saw backwards and took a step forward, while at the same time letting go with his left hand, so that he was holding the machine with his right hand on the throttle as he swung it in an arc towards Lasse’s head.

Mats let out a gasp, and it was all too late. But at the very last second Lasse managed to raise his blade in his defence, and the chains met a few centimetres from his ear. Sparks flew, then there was a dry snapping noise and Lasse fell back.

Later it was established that the chain on Lasse’s saw had broken and whipped him across the forehead. All they could see at the time was Lasse’s head jerking backwards as the saw flew out of his hand. With a heavy thud he hit the birch tree and slipped to one side.

Whatever Karl-Erik's intentions might have been, he didn't manage to carry them out. Göran got there first, closely followed by Johan Lundberg. Together with Mats they managed to wrestle Karl- Erik to the ground and get the saw off him.

But in another way it was too late. When they turned their attention to Lasse they saw that he was lying flat on the ground with a wound in his forehead, and that he was alive. But the birch tree…the birch tree into which he had thudded, its trunk now spattered with his blood-the birch tree had started to fall.

It had started to fall and it couldn't be stopped. The tree was too big. Mats and the others could only stand watching open-mouthed as the enormous tree majestically and with studied slowness keeled over, tripped and fell.

The notch had been perfectly placed for its intended purpose, and the thick trunk went through the roof of the glass veranda first of all, shattering a number of panes, before smashing the chimney and snapping the roof beams. With a clatter of broken tiles, the entire roof of the little cottage folded and fell in. The trunk got halfway to the floor before its crown bounced in a cloud of splinters and brick dust, and lay still.

By this time several people had arrived and were taking care of Lasse, who was bleeding profusely from the wound on his head and the cut on his back. The falling tree had so completely occupied everyone's attention that they had forgotten about Karl-Erik for a while. He had a good deal to answer for, but when they turned around he was no longer there.

However, he wasn't far away. As if nothing had happened he had got up, picked up his saw and was now on his way towards one of the neighbouring gardens, heading straight for a couple of tall pine trees with a swing between them.

This time there was no negotiation. Mats, Göran and Johan caught up with him, wrenched the saw out of his hands and grabbed him before he could cause any more devastation. Karl-Erik struggled, but whether he was crazy or not it was three against one, and they managed to hold him.

While Mats and Göran held on to his arms, Johan stood in front of him and tried to catch his eye. It was impossible. The eyes were there and they were looking into his, but it was impossible to make any kind of contact.

'Karl-Erik?'Johan asked anyway. 'What's got into you? What the hell are you doing?'

During the whole of the terrible duel Karl-Erik hadn't made a sound, and they didn't expect him to answer now either. But they still had to try to talk to him as if he were a sensible person who had a reason for his actions. And they got an answer.

Tentatively, as if he were unused to his mouth and in a voice that sounded like Karl-Erik but yet not like Karl-Erik, he said, 'Those houses. Have got to go.'

'What do you mean?' asked Johan. 'They're not our houses. It's not up to us to decide.'

This objection made no impression on Karl-Erik. With stiff, grimacing lips he said, 'Those houses have got to go.'

He twisted and turned in their grasp, but Mats and Göran managed to hold him. Elof Lundberg came over to them, glanced at Karl-Erik and asked, 'What's the matter with him?'

'He's lost the plot completely,' said Johan. 'If you can help out here I'll go and fetch Anna-Greta. He'll listen to her.'

So that was why Johan Lundberg got on his moped and rode off to the old village to ask Anna-Greta for help, then found himself standing on the jetty like an orphaned child, watching her and Simon disappearing towards the mainland in a cloud of gulls.

At something of a loss he climbed back on his moped and set off back to Kattudden to do what could be done.

That magician, he thought as he rode along, is someone we could do without.

In Norrtälje

At half-past three Simon and Anna-Greta were sitting in a pizzeria in Norrtälje, each with a capricciosa in front of them which they cut into small, easily chewed pieces, washed down with lukewarm Fanta. Simon had the required certificate in his inside pocket and two smooth gold rings in his outer pocket. Anna-Greta had asked to use the telephone in the national registration office and had rung Geir, the priest in Nåten, and booked the church for Sunday, in two days' time, after High Mass. They were ready.

There was something…youthful about the haste with which they had gone about things. Perhaps it was that same feeling of rejuvenation that had led them to celebrate their speedily executed preparations with a pizza. Neither of them had eaten pizza since the days when it was a novelty, and they chose a capricciosa purely because they vaguely recognised the name.

When Anna-Greta had eaten about half of hers, she pushed the plate away and said, 'It was tasty at first, but it seems to be growing.'

Simon had exactly the same feeling. His stomach felt as if he had shovelled down half a litre of flour with a teaspoon. It was bubbling and swelling, and he stopped while he still had a delicious taste in his mouth.

Anna-Greta looked out of the window as Simon poked at the remains of what was probably the last pizza he would eat in this life. If you contemplated it when you weren't hungry, it didn't even look like human food.

'Simon,' said Anna-Greta. 'You have to be careful.'

Simon, who was still meditating on the suitability of pizza as food, replied, 'You mean about what I eat?'

Anna-Greta shook her head. 'If I'd known you were intending to do what you did this morning, I would never have let you go.'

'Do we have to talk about this?'

Their errands at the registration office and the goldsmith's had distracted Simon's thoughts from the horror of the morning, and he wanted to remain in this blissful state of forgetfulness for as long as possible. Anna-Greta turned her palms upward to indicate that she had no intention of continuing along this line, took a deep breath and said, 'A long time ago. When I used to travel around selling things. During the war. I was involved in something…something I haven't told you about.'

Simon didn't need to ask. Things had changed. He was now one of those in the know, someone who could be told. He leaned back as far as he could on the straight-backed chair as Anna-Greta went on.

'I was allowed to travel with the soldiers sometimes because I was…popular. I don't think they were really supposed to have civilians on board, but after all I knew the archipelago and so…' Anna- Greta looked up and frowned. 'What are you grinning at?'

Simon waved a hand. 'Nothing, nothing. I'll just say one thing. Belle of the boat.'

'I was not a belle of the boat! I knew every single…'

'Yes, yes. But I'm sure there were plenty of others who knew the archipelago even better. They just weren't as pretty as you.'

Anna-Greta gasped for breath, but stopped herself and looked suspiciously at Simon. Are you jealous?' she asked. Are you sitting here sixty years on feeling jealous}'

Simon thought about it. 'Now you come to mention it, yes.'

Anna-Greta looked at Simon, then shook her head at the absurdity of it all.

'They were thinking about laying mines. Out towards Ledinge. Since the major shipping lane to Stockholm runs along there. And I went along on one of those…reconnaissance trips where they were diving to check out the conditions on the seabed. They had just started using modern diving equipment with tanks on their backs. But because visibility in the water was poor and they still weren't sure about these new things, they used a safety line, attached to the diver.'

Anna-Greta nodded to herself and pointed vaguely in the air as if she'd just thought of something. 'That was probably why I went along, I think. Because I wanted to see the diving.'

Simon had a very witty comment on the tip of his tongue, but he kept it to himself and Anna-Greta went on:

'So down he went, this diver, and the line ran from a pulley on deck. There was something hypnotic about it. I mean, you couldn't see the diver, you just had this pulley to look at, and it made a clicking sound as it turned, paying out the line as he went down. And then… it stopped. The line stopped moving, as if he'd reached the bottom. But that couldn't be right, because only about seven or eight metres of the line had been paid out, and it was at least thirty metres deep there. The line just didn't move for a good while, and I thought he must have found a new reef, that he was standing there speculating about what it should be called, if it should be given a name. And then…'

Anna-Greta flicked her hand so that it made a small circular movement.

'…and then the line started moving again. But more quickly than before. Much more quickly. Ten metres, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five. And the pulley was no longer clicking, it was…clattering. Then the speed increased until it was just a continuous hum. Thirty, forty, fifty metres. In just a few seconds. As if he were falling through the air rather than sinking through water. There was nothing we could do. Somebody tried to grab hold of the line, and burned the palms of their hands. Then it ran right to the end, another thirty metres, came off the pulley and disappeared into the water. At the same speed.'

Anna-Greta drank some of her Fanta and cleared her throat.

'That's what happened. And that's why I want you to be careful.' She put down her glass and added, 'They had to come up with some kind of explanation, of course. So they decided he'd somehow got himself attached to a submarine. Stupid but true. He was never found. But perhaps you suspected that already.'

Simon looked at her as she sat there wiping her mouth with her serviette. She didn't give the impression that she had just described something incomprehensible; it was more as if she had just been forced to explain this business of electricity so that you wouldn't poke your fingers in the socket.

'I am careful,' said Simon. 'I think.'

They went for a walk through Norrtälje and discussed to what extent they would change their current living arrangements after they were married. Well, it wasn't so much a discussion-they joked about it. In fact they were both in agreement from the start that they wanted to carry on as before.

There was no question of a honeymoon, but they decided to take a trip on the ferry to Finland and back. Some fine dining and a few symbolic dance steps, God (and their hips) willing.

At five o'clock they caught the bus back to Nåten, and at quarter to six they were on board the tender once again. Simon looked out over the dark sea and thought that it had changed. He no longer saw the surface, he saw the depths. He had studied the maritime charts, he had talked to people and he knew that the bay was between twenty and sixty metres deep outside Nåten. To the north and east there were deep trenches of a hundred metres or more.

The depths.

The colossal extent of it, the immense amount of water just between Domarö and Nåten, just lying there biding its time in its darkness, showing only its shining, harmless surface.

In his mind's eye Simon could see the ferry to Finland they would travel on before long. Silja Symphony. Hundreds of cabins and a long shopping mall down the centre. Ten storeys; at least one hundred and fifty metres from prow to stern.

He looked down at the sea, foaming up around the bow and thought: It could sink here and it would be gone. There would be no sign of it at all. It would be lying down there.

A shudder ran down his spine and he put his arm around Anna- Greta's shoulders as they approached Domarö.

A welcome committee was standing on the jetty. It consisted of the same people who had been in the mission house, apart from Tora Österberg and Holger, who were missing. And Karl-Erik.

Tora hadn't felt strong enough to come, and Holger was sitting with Göran, keeping an eye on Karl-Erik. 'So that he doesn't come up with something else,' as Johan Lundberg put it.

Lasse had been taken to the hospital in Norrtälje and had his wounds stitched, but had refused to stay one minute longer than necessary. When he was delivered back home his wife Lina had been just as unreasonable. She was normally the kindest, most helpful person you could imagine, but she had spat and hissed at Lasse's companions, transformed beyond recognition. She had let her husband in, but that was it. She hadn't even offered them coffee.

All this was relayed to Anna-Greta. Simon was deliberately ignored, and despite the fact that Anna-Greta took his hand to keep him within the circle, the group managed to close around her and exclude him. After a couple of minutes he had had enough. He squeezed Anna-Greta's hand and whispered to her that he was going to see how Anders was getting on.

He felt a pang of guilt when he turned around after a few steps and saw her standing on the jetty surrounded by dark figures, like a flock of crows. Although perhaps it wasn't guilt, he thought as he continued on towards the Shack. Perhaps it was jealousy.

She's not yours. She's mine. Mine!

The Shack was dark and silent, but when Simon went into the kitchen he could see light seeping out from beneath the bedroom door. He opened it gently and discovered Anders, fast asleep in Maja's bed with his arms around Bamse the Bear. Simon stood looking at him quietly for a while, then went out and closed the door silently behind him.

In the kitchen he switched on the light, found a pen and some paper and wrote a note about the wedding. As he was just about to leave he caught sight of the bead tile. He studied it carefully. Then he added something to the note and left the house.

Anna-Greta was already home. There hadn't been all that much to discuss, really. The only course of action on which they could agree had already been put in place: to keep Lasse and Karl-Erik under supervision and see how things developed. She pulled off her best boots and massaged her feet, which were feeling the effects of all that walking in Norrtälje. 'I'm sorry the others were like that,' she said. 'I'm sure they'll get used to the situation in time.'

'I doubt it,' said Simon, sitting down. 'Did you tell them? About Elin?'

'How could I possibly do that?'

'No. Of course not.'

Anna-Greta put her feet up on Simon's knee and he kneaded them absently. His hands were back in place, a natural part of his body.

Magic. Mysterious.

The whole thing was like a magic trick. An effect that could be seen on the surface, which seemed fantastic, but behind it all lay a mechanism that was basically very simple, if only you understood it. Perhaps. Perhaps not. Simon wished he could put his former talent to work on this particular effect and find the hidden compartment, the secret mechanism. Perhaps it was all as simple as an invisible thread or a false base, if you could just see it. But he couldn't see it.

'There is one thing I don't understand,' said Anna-Greta, wiggling her toes and making them creak slightly. 'Elin. Anders. Karl-Erik. Lasse. Lina. Why those people in particular? Why them}'

'There are a lot of things I don't understand. And that's one of them. Where are the strings?'

Hide and seek

When Anders managed to get hold of the alarm clock and decipher the position of the hands through eyes gritty with sleep, he couldn't believe what he was seeing. It was twenty to seven. Judging from the light outside it was morning, not evening. Which meant he hadn't slept more than quarter of an hour, despite the fact that he had been bone weary.

He rolled on to his back and pressed the clock to his chest. Strangely enough, he felt rested in a way that he hadn't felt for a very long time. His body was soft and his brain was empty, relaxed. It felt as if he'd slept…

Hang on a minute…

There was one other possibility. That he had slept for an entire day. That it was Saturday now. He closed his eyes, but they had already come to life and certainly didn't want to be closed again. He had finished sleeping. There was no other explanation: he must have slept for fifteen minutes plus twenty-four hours.

Or forty-eight. Or seventy-two. Or…

He was desperate for a pee, his bladder felt like a huge tumour. But he still didn't get up. It was so indescribably wonderful to lie there in bed feeling warm and rested. He hadn't had one single peaceful night since he came to Domarö. Now he felt as if he had recouped everything in one fell swoop. He drew up his knees and turned to the wall, where he found an old friend.

Bamse.

The big Bamse bear had been Maja's favourite when they were on Domarö. She hadn't wanted to take it back home to the city with her, no, Bamse belonged on Domarö and had to stay here and wait for her until the next time she came over.

Anders stroked the blue felt hat, the wide-open eyes, the buttons on his overalls.

'Hello, Bamse.'

He felt so calm. Yesterday or the day before his thoughts would probably have started whirling around in his head by now, scrabbling for an explanation of the fact that Bamse was lying next to him, even though he had been right under the bed when Anders fell asleep.

But not now. No problem. Bamse was here. Nice.

Besides, he now knew how things worked. He was the one who had dug out Bamse, or rather his body had done so. Maja had wanted Bamse next to her while she was sleeping, and had used Anders to get what she wanted.

'Morning, sweetheart.'

He listened inside himself for a reply, but none came. That was OK too. He thought he ought to be able to feel something, to be able to find a place inside himself that was Maja, but he had no intention of going into that right now. Things were OK as they were, with Bamse and everything. She was there.

He smiled. 'Do you remember this?' He cleared his throat and silently sang Maja's version of the Bamse song:

'Hey there Bamse, strongest hear of all

But oh, how he loves to fight!

Thunder honey, Grandma's thunder honey

That's what he eats when it's time to start a fight.'

She had really loved to play with songs and expressions, with language. Above all she liked making things…well, worse. It would often start with a mispronunciation, which she would then develop. A favourite had been to exchange the word 'Christmas' for 'Christmess'. They gave each other Christmess presents, brought in the Christmess tree and before Christmas they sat making different kinds of Christmess puzzles. Then Father Christmess came.

Pain shot through Anders' midriff and he frowned. He remembered how she had sat there gabbling a list of different things that were 'messy'. Christmess music and the Christmessy atmosphere. The verse she had added to 'I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus', which involved Daddy coming in and killing Santa Claus. Father Christmess.

I can't go on like this.

Anders rolled over quickly and slipped out of bed, half-crouching as he ran to the toilet where he achieved what was probably a world record in pissing for the longest time. His body felt purified, capable, ready for anything. He flushed the toilet and Elin came into his mind. Her hair floating outwards around her head as she sank down…

No!

He rinsed his face with cold water and slaked his thirst. He wouldn't think about that. Ever. It was over, it was gone, it belonged in the past. It was as if he had been given the gift of a new body and a new brain this morning. He had no intention of using them to wade around in the sludgy mess of things that couldn't be altered. He'd done enough of that.

He was famished, and stood by the fridge wolfing down three pieces of crispbread smothered in cheese spread while the water trickled through the coffee machine. He chewed and chewed, hearing the crunch inside his head as he gazed out of the window and noticed that the bay was full of gulls. He was not afraid.

I am not afraid.

He munched the last of the crispbread and studied the movements of the gulls as they drifted with the currents, taking off and blinking as they were caught by the light of the low-lying sun, then drifting back down towards the surface again.

I am not afraid.

He had been walking around more or less in a state of horror and fear for so long that it had become part of his nature. Now it was gone. There was only the bay, the blue sky, the gulls and his own body, unafraid, seeing everything in the autumn light.

It was wonderful.

He turned away from the window and caught sight of the bead tile. His eyes opened wide and he went across to it, ran his hand over the smooth surface, which was now larger than the knobbly area. Beads had been added, many beads had been added-

I have added the heads.

– while he was asleep. Lots and lots of blue beads had been added, and the large white patch in the middle was finished, surrounded by blue, and had been joined by a smaller white patch diagonally up to the left.

As he stood contemplating the incomprehensible picture an idea began to take shape, but before he managed to catch it he spotted the note.

Anna-Greta and I are getting married in Nåten on Sunday at two o'clock. We would very much like you to be there. Simon.

Under the signature was a postscript, and when Anders read it he slapped his forehead and shouted, 'Idiot! It's so obvious!' He studied the bead tile again and couldn't understand why he hadn't seen it straight away.

P.S. Isn't it a maritime chart?

The blue was the sea, the white patch in the middle was Domarö, and the smaller white patch was Gåvasten. It was clumsily executed and light and dark were transposed in comparison to a normal maritime chart, but he was still annoyed that he hadn't spotted it long ago, as soon as the contours of Domarö began to form.

It was a revelation, along the lines of: at last the pieces fell into place, the penny dropped, the veil was swept aside. The discovery made Anders feel quite intoxicated, and he clapped his hands in pure delight, but stopped in the middle of a clap. He stared at the beads.

It's a maritime chart. Right. So?

What he had in front of him was a rudimentary chart showing

Domarö, Kattholmen and Gåvasten, with Ledinge gradually emerging. So?

It looked just like an ordinary chart, but executed less skilfully. An ordinary chart that he already had on the bookshelf. What was he supposed to do with this one? What could it tell him that he didn't already know?

'Why are you doing this? Why have you made this…messy chart?'

He was suddenly furious, and was seized by a powerful urge to throw the whole fucking thing away, had even reached out for the tile with both hands before he managed to stop himself. He looked at his hands, got hold of one hand with the other and shook it.

One of his own plays on words popped into his head. It hadn't gone down very well with Maja, but he'd thought it was funny. Swapping the word 'hand' for 'hound' in different expressions. Holding someone by the hound. Give me your hound, I am your right hound. And then there was his favourite. He looked at his hands and said it out loud, 'One hound doesn't know what the other is doing.'

That's it.

He sat down heavily on a kitchen chair. The sudden rage had not been his, it was Maja who could be so unreasonably angry over little things. Like her socks the day she disappeared. She had just got angry with the chart, through him. Just as she had been so happy when she saw that it was a chart showing the sea and the islands.

No. Yes.

He leaned over the bead tile again. If she was the one who had made the chart, then she couldn't be delighted at the discovery that it was a chart. And besides…how on earth could Maja build a maritime chart with beads? He had probably shown her the chart at some point when they were out in the boat, but there was no possibility that she would be able to make an…image of it.

He was the only one who could do that. Therefore, he was the one who had made the chart without knowing, and she was the one who had…

He put his head in his hands.

One hound, doesn't know what the other is doing.

If she wanted to communicate with him, why do it in this complex, time-consuming way? Why not just write or say what needed to be said?

Because one hound doesn't know what the other is doing.

And besides…

Anders took a deep breath and held it, listened inside himself and outside. There was nothing there. Nobody was watching him, nobody was after him. For the moment. But they did exist.

You can't he here either, little Maja. We'll take you too, in time.

It was a question of being careful. If you showed yourself too much, they would spot you. That was what had happened to Elin. Perhaps. So you had to be careful. Take a little bit at a time and avoid discovery.

Maja had been good at hide and seek. Almost too good. She could stay hidden for a long, long time if she found a good hiding place. She wouldn't even come out when they gave up and shouted to her. They always had to find her.

That last summer they had played hide and seek outside, and it was the same as always. She could be extremely impatient in other contexts, but when it came to games, her patience was endless. She would remain hidden far away until the person who was supposed to find her dropped their guard and set off in the opposite direction. Then she would come running out. She could wait for as long as it took.

Anders poured himself a cup of coffee and drank it slowly and methodically, visualising the hot, slightly poisonous liquid running through his body, once again cleansing the channels. His brain was beginning to feel clogged up again, and he didn't want that to happen.

He looked at the sea, the sky, the gulls, and concentrated on the warmth in his throat, his chest, his stomach.

It worked, to some extent, and with reasonably clear eyes he looked at the bead tile again. If it was as he thought, if Maja was playing some kind of hide and seek where the important thing was to avoid discovery, then there should still be some kind of clue.

He went and fetched the real chart, compared it with the bead tile. The distances and proportions were accurate, by and large. The shape of the islands was too square, but more or less correct. There was no noticeable deviation that stood out from the original.

He put down the chart and rubbed his eyes. When he looked again he spotted something that didn't stand out, quite the opposite.

There's something missing here…

He bent over the tile and studied the patch of white beads representing Gåvasten. At the top there was a narrow corridor where no beads had been fixed, a band of emptiness.

What does that mean? Does it mean anything?

He got the photographs out of the kitchen drawer and spread them out on the table. He concentrated on Maja's face, Maja's eyes. Yes, it was just as he had thought. Her attention was drawn to something over in the east, by that empty band.

Daddy, what's that?

Anders looked out of the window. Beyond the carpet of gulls covering the bay he could just see the tiny white lighthouse. No more than a glint in the morning light, a dot on the sky.

Ten minutes later he had pulled on his outdoor clothes, fetched his tools and mounted the outboard engine on the plank of wood. The temperature had fallen by several degrees and was now close to zero, but after yanking on the starter cord several times he was quite warm.

He checked everything that could be checked, sprayed lubricant on all the moving parts and starter fluid into the air filter, took out the spark plugs and dried them even though they were already dry, put them back, pumped up the petrol and slapped the engine with the palm of his hand.

'Now start, you bastard.'

He yanked the cord five times without the engine making the slightest effort to start, not even a cough from the carburettor.

He yelled, 'What the fuck's the matter with you, you evil fucking bastard!' and pulled on the cord as hard as he could. He put his entire body weight behind it, and when the cord ripped off in his hand he fell backwards and hit the bottom of his back on the hard ground.

A red mist descended in front of his eyes and he leapt to his feet, lifted the engine off the plank and staggered down to the jetty, where he pushed from the shoulder and hurled it as far out into the water as he could.

A few gulls bobbing close to the jetty panicked and flapped away as the engine hit the water and sank from view. Anders was panting with the exertion; he bent over, his hands resting on his knees, and whispered, 'That'll teach you. You weren't expecting that, were you?'

The gulls settled back on the surface, watching him with their black eyes.

When he came to his senses he realised that what he had just done wasn't particularly clever. It could have been a simple fault, and there were people in the village who knew about these things. At the same time he had a sudden urge to run away and hide. He had done something wrong, and now he needed to go and sit in a dark place where nobody would be able to find him.

The woodshed flashed through his mind. If he crept in beside a pile of wood and pulled a sack over his head, nobody would be able to see him.

Quick! Before somebody comes!

He turned and was halfway along the jetty, taking short, creeping steps before he pulled himself up. He shook his head and wrapped his arms around his body.

What am I doing?

He knew what he was doing: he didn't know what he was doing. One hound didn't know. They were circling around each other, sniffing at each other's tails. He hugged himself, said in a gentle, reassuring voice, 'It's OK. Everything's fine. I'm not cross. Nobody's cross.'

Sure?

'Yes, yes. Quite sure. The engine was stupid.'

Don't say that about the engine. It'll be upset.

It wasn't Maja's voice he was hearing, it was just his own thoughts, but they were being…guided. He was being led into patterns, ideas that were not his. He pressed his wrists against his temples.

This is driving me mad. That's the sort of thing people say, but this… this really is driving me mad.

He straightened up and took a couple of deep breaths. He was in control, he was Anders. He heard the faint soughing of the wind in his ears, the lapping of the waves and voices from over on the steamboat jetty. Agitated voices and the sound of children screaming. For a moment he thought it was something to do with him, but it was too far away. There were a lot of people standing on the jetty and there was some kind of quarrel, but he couldn't tell what it was about.

It's nothing to do with me.

He pulled himself together and walked away from the sea. Simon had said he could borrow his boat whenever he wanted, and that was precisely what he intended to do.

The confusion left him; with every step he took towards Simon's jetty, more and more of the morning's decisiveness and clarity returned. He knew what he had to do, he had a direction.

Now all he had to do was follow it.

Horrid children

Seven children in years 1 to 6 lived on Domarö. Seven children who stood on the steamboat jetty at quarter to eight every morning, waiting for the tender to the mainland, to Nåten and school. Adults and high-school children travelled earlier in order to get to their school in Radmanby or to their jobs in Norrtälje.

Despite the fact that the children's ages ranged from Marten and Emma in Year 1 to Arvid in Year 6, there was a sense of community in the group. The smaller ones were taught the routine by the older ones, and they travelled together, waited together and made sure everything happened as it should.

Up to a point this sense of community extended into life at school as well. If a younger Domarö child was teased or bullied in the playground, it could easily happen that one of the older children from the group would step in and put a stop to it. Perhaps it was for the honour of Domarö, perhaps it was so that they could look each other in the eye, perhaps it was due to a spontaneous empathy, acquired during those mornings in the rain and cold, or brilliant sunshine.

At any rate, they were a group, and they knew it. There were seven of them, and they were from Domarö.

On this particular morning, several of the children were preoccupied with the large number of gulls gathered in the bay. The temperature had fallen by several degrees during the night, and the birds looked frozen as they sat there drifting along with the currents, shaking themselves from time to time as if to try and keep warm.

The children were more warmly dressed. Marten and Emma wrapped up in snowsuits, Maria in Year 5 wearing an enormous hat and scarf, Johan and Elin in Year 3 somewhat more modestly but still warmly clad.

Arvid was inside the shelter, shivering. He had inherited a leather jacket from his grandfather and it was his most treasured possession, but it didn't provide much warmth on a day like today. His grandfather had worked for the coastguard and was immune to both the cold and the heat. He pulled nets out of holes in the ice with his bare hands and extinguished his cigarettes between his thumb and forefinger. He had been Arvid's idol, but he had died of cancer a few months earlier. Arvid had taken over his jacket and had discovered that it was much too big and provided little warmth. But it was Grandfather's and-if the truth were told-it also looked pretty good.

That made six children. There was no sign of the seventh yet. Sofia Bergwall, the daughter of Lasse and Lina. She was late this morning.

Maria gazed up towards the road. Despite the fact that Sofia was a year younger, she was Maria's best friend, and they had been together since they went to day care together. Waiting for the boat was boring when Sofia wasn't here. Maria turned towards the sea, and saw the tender approaching just beyond the carpet of gulls. It would be a few minutes before it hove to, but Sofia was always there in plenty of time. Maria chewed on her lip and spotted Sofia, walking up from the shop.

Maria waved, but her best friend didn't seem to notice her. There was something stiff and odd about the way she was walking; she was dressed in thin clothes and seemed preoccupied by some difficult problem. Maria knew what had happened to her father, Lasse, the previous day, and thought it probably had something to do with that.

Sofia didn't even say hello when she reached the jetty, she simply went and stood at the far end and stared at the gulls, which had begun to take off in disorganised flocks as the boat came closer.

'Soffi, what is it?' Maria placed a hand on her friend's shoulder, but Sofia merely snorted and turned away. Maria inspected her clothes and shook her head. It didn't make any sense. Sofia's mother always made sure Sofia was suitably dressed, but today she had no hat, no gloves, and only a thin anorak that wouldn't provide much protection from the wind.

There was an ache in Maria's chest. Ever since she was very small she had been a sensitive soul, who felt pain when someone else had a problem. Therefore she took off her scarf and began to wind it around Sofia's neck.

'You must be frozen, I mean it's-'

The words 'really cold' froze on her lips as Sofia turned around. The expression in her eyes was so horrible that Maria whimpered and let go of the scarf.

'Don't touch me!' snapped Sofia, and Maria held up her hands to defend herself or to indicate that she had no intention of doing anything else, but before she had time to say a word, Sofia grabbed hold of her jacket.

Arvid was studying the graffiti in the shelter. He heard Maria scream and didn't take any notice, assuming the girls were just being silly. But then the tone of the scream altered, and shortly afterwards he heard a splash.

Arvid looked out of the shelter just in time to see Sofia running over to Marten and Emma. She grabbed their snowsuits by the chest and pulled them towards her. Emma managed to twist herself free, which gave Sofia two hands to hold on to Marten. The little boy screamed at the top of his voice as Sofia dragged him towards the edge of the jetty and threw him over. The scream continued as he went over the edge, then stopped abruptly.

The tender was perhaps fifty metres from the jetty and the gulls rose into the air, hauled up into the sky like a flapping, screaming curtain.

The whole thing was so far beyond rhyme and reason that it took a few seconds before Arvid's brain was able to accept that they were not playing tag or some other game, that Sofia really had thrown little Marten down into the ice-cold water.

And where's Maria?

Sofia bared her teeth and rushed towards the other children, who fled from the jetty with terrified squeals. It was like What's the time, Mr Wolf?-but this wolf really was dangerous, and tiptoeing gingerly forward wasn't going to help.

As Arvid ran over to the edge of the jetty he could see th.it t In- tender was still too far out for Roger to be able to help. He looked down into the water and saw Marten's pale blue snowsuit just below the surface.

He hesitated. He shouldn't be the one doing this sort of tiling. He was only thirteen and the temperature of the water was close to freezing and there must be some adult who-

Grandfather. Grandfather would-

He didn't get any further before his hands took the initiative, unzipping the leather jacket and dragging it off. The pale blue of Marten's snowsuit grew darker as he sank, and there was no one but

Arvid who could save him.

He had just managed to get the jacket off and was about to take a deep breath when a hard shove from behind sent him over the edge. He half turned and saw Sofia staring at him with madness in her eyes before he fell two metres and hit the water.

The cold knocked all the air out of him and his lungs contracted, preventing him from taking in more. He could see the sharp prow of the tender perhaps ten metres away. It was heading straight for him, and he could hear the engines roaring as Roger slammed it into reverse.

Purely by exerting his muscles Arvid managed to take in a tiny amount of air, held his breath, put his face in the water and swam downwards. His nose, mouth and eyes froze instantly, but right now there was only one thing on his mind, and that was to reach the blue shape directly below him.

He swam another stroke and the roaring of the engines filled his head as he felt his feet leave the surface. There was an immense pressure in his ears and he tried unsuccessfully to kick off his heavy boots, but he took another stroke, the last one before he ran out of air, stuck out his arm and managed to grab hold of the fabric on Marten's back.

Incredibly, he had the presence of mind to swerve to one side before he swam to the surface. He flapped his free arm, pushed as hard as he could with his legs and forced Marten up out of the water as if he were lifting a trophy before following on himself, gasping for air.

Their heads broke the surface just a metre from the metal hull of the tender. He could no longer hear anything, it was as if he were wearing earplugs made of ice. Above his head, the sky was swarming with silent gulls.

Marten's snowsuit was full of water and would have dragged them both down, but Arvid managed to grab hold of one of the tractor tyres fixed to the edge of the jetty, then pulled himself along and switched his grip to the next tyre. When he reached the corner of the jetty he heard someone shouting to him from far away, but took no notice. He kept Marten's head above the water and made his way towards the shore.

He edged around the corner and became vaguely aware of another figure crawling ashore a few metres away.

Maria…good…good…

His hands were no longer prepared to obey him. When he tried to get a grip on the last tractor tyre his fingers were frozen stiff, and slipped on the hard rubber surface.

Someone reached down from the jetty with a boat hook, but he couldn't manage to close his fingers around the pole. He thought he was going to sink, but the hook caught the neck of his pullover and he was pulled towards the shore with his burden.

After a couple of metres he noticed that his legs were moving oddly, and realised they were dragging along the bottom. The hook was detached from his pullover and water splashed in his face as Roger jumped in and hauled him ashore. He noticed that Maria was already lying there, staring at him with wide-open eyes and a face as white as paper.

Somebody was tugging at him.

'Arvid, Arvid. Let go. You need to let go.'

Roger was pulling at his left arm, the arm that was holding Marten. Arvid tried to let go, but couldn't; the arm was locked. The only place where there was any warmth left was inside his mouth, and he managed to part his lips and say, 'I can't.'

He looked at Marten and saw something wonderful. His mouth was moving, and he coughed up a little water over Arvid's face. He was alive. With gentle force Roger managed to move Arvid's arm and release Marten.

While Roger worked to get Marten's snowsuit off and wrap him in his own fleece, Ulla and Lennart Qvist, who had been aboard the tender, came to look after Maria and Arvid.

There was the sound of screaming from up on the jetty, and when Arvid managed to get to his feet with some support, he could see that two adults were holding on to Sofia, who was flinging herself from side to side, howling like an animal and trying to bite them. The gulls were circling above the scene like an excited audience at a boxing match, flapping around them, screaming and urging them on.

Marten wept in Roger's arms as he was carried home, and Maria was also sobbing, her lips blue with cold, as Ulla led her along by the hand. Arvid took off his pullover and Lennart wrapped him in a big overcoat, patting him on the shoulder.

'Well done, Arvid. Well done.'

Arvid's jaws were trembling so much he could hardly speak. He nodded stiffly towards the crazed gulls and Sofia, who was being dragged along swearing and kicking. 'Why. Is it. Like this?'

'Nobody knows,' said Lennart. 'Nobody knows. Let's get you home.'

On shaking legs Arvid allowed himself to be led around the sea buckthorn thicket and up towards the village. When he saw that his path was going to cross Sofia's, he stopped.

'Could you do me a favour?'

'Of course,' said Lennart. 'Anything.'

'Could you get my jacket?'

While Lennart went back for the jacket, Arvid stood there with the overcoat tightly wrapped around him, watching as Sofia was bundled towards her home. The gulls pursued them, circling above their heads as if they had spotted their prey and were just waiting for the right moment to swoop.

When Lennart came back Arvid returned his coat, pulled the leather jacket over his bare skin and said he would be fine now. Then he staggered homeward, with water squelching in his boots.

When he reached the shop he stopped and looked along the track where Marten was being carried home to his mum and dad, still wailing loudly, but alive. Arvid pulled his jacket closer and thought about how he felt.

It was strange, somehow.

For the first time it felt as if the jacket was warming him. And it was no longer too big. It fitted. Perfectly.

Back to Gåvasten

The cold nipped at Anders' cheeks and brought tears to his eyes. He had wrapped up as warmly as he could and was wearing a lifejacket under his padded jacket, but the headwind found its way into every nook and cranny and by the time he was halfway to Gåvasten, he was frozen through.

At first he had thought there was something odd about his eyes, that he was seeing dots, but from this distance he could see that the dots swarming across the sky around Gåvasten were actually birds. It was impossible to tell what kind they were, but it looked as if they were different sizes, and therefore different species.

Simon's twenty-horsepower engine hummed monotonously and the fibreglass hull slapped against the waves. Anders' face was so stiff with the cold that he no longer felt it when a few drops flew up and hit his cheeks or chin. He kept his eyes fixed on Gåvasten and his left hand clenched around the throttle, turned up to maximum. He was an arrow fired from Domarö, heading straight for his target: the lighthouse.

And yet he couldn't prevent something from seeping in and eating away at his deep-frozen resolve. An unpleasant, jelly-like quivering was growing in his chest the closer he got to the lighthouse and the teeming birds. A feeling as familiar as an obnoxious relative: fear. Good old fear, causing the arrow to veer off-course and slow down.

The resonance of the engine deepened as he cut the speed and allowed the boat to chug along for the last hundred metres. The birds around the lighthouse really were a mixture of species. The wildly flapping wings of golden-eyes, the heavy bodies of the eider ducks and the elegance of the gulls, soaring along on the air currents. There were even a number of swans bobbing on the sea off the lighthouse.

What are they doing?

Many of the birds were up in the air circling around the lighthouse, but even more were gathered on the surface of the water. Their behaviour didn't appear to have any purpose, other than to show a united front, to say: Here we are.

And yet it was unpleasant. Anders hadn't see The Birds, but he could well imagine what it would be like if such a large number of birds decided to attack. They were showing no inclination to do so at the moment, but perhaps when he stepped ashore?

When the boat slipped in among the first group of birds, they paddled quickly out of the way glaring at him aggressively, he thought. He decided to use the only weapon, or at least protection, to which he had access.

He let go of the throttle and allowed the engine to idle as he picked up the plastic bottle, took a deep breath then took a couple of swigs of the wormwood concentrate.

The nausea seared his mouth, his throat, his stomach, and the flames shot up into his head, licking around his brain. He fought back the urge to vomit, put the top back on and grasped the throttle. The birds swam away, leaving him a feather-free route up to the rock.

He hesitated for a few seconds before setting foot ashore. Then he climbed out of the boat and looked around. The birds were still whirling around in the air and it seemed to him that their screams were becoming more intense. But they weren't attacking. He pulled up the boat as far as he could and fastened the mooring rope to a rock.

And so he was standing on Gåvasten once again.

The first and last time he had been here before, the rocks had been covered in snow. Now he could see that they had been polished by the sea, and that veins of pink and white ran through the grey rock, forming a pattern beneath the spatter of guano. He stood motionless, his arms dangling by his sides and his mouth open, as the pattern freed itself from its foundation and drifted together, forming itself into…an alphabet.

A language.

The lines running vertically and horizontally, the separate dots and curlicues were all characters, parts of a system of writing that was so complex his brain was unable to encompass it; he could only establish that it existed.

Like a baby who has picked up a bible and tosses it aside when it proves impossible to chew, Anders tore his gaze away from the writing on the rock and carried on up towards the eastern side of the island. It was not his language, it meant nothing to him.

He didn't know how to look because he didn't know what he was looking for, but his consciousness was sounding out the area as if it were a knot that must be untied. He needed to find the point where there was a little slack, where he could get his finger in and start to work it.

He couldn't find any such point. The world was impenetrably solid and filled with messages he was unable to interpret.

The formation of the rock was like a broken flight of steps leading down into the sea, the individual free-standing blocks of stone and the lines of gravel in the crevices formed new characters that wanted to say something. When he looked up it was to the disorienting sight of the flocks of birds creating figures against the sky, figures that continuously dissolved and reformed into new beings.

Everything is talking to me. And I don't understand what it's saying.

Anders crouched down and dipped his hands in a puddle of crystal clear rainwater, rubbed his face and eyes, closed his eyes for a while.

When he opened them a little of the visionary impression had left him, and he was able to walk up to the lighthouse, screwing up his eyes as he went. The door was unlocked, as it had been on the previous occasion. One thing he was grateful for: the hallucinatory effect of the wormwood blocked almost all his memories. In fact, what it actually did was to place him so powerfully in the here and now that it was painful. But it was still better than the alternative.

He opened the door and was welcomed by the little collection box and the request for money. He rummaged in his pockets but didn't find any, and walked past. He stopped and giggled.

Perhaps the birds will attack now.

No. As he walked up the stairs he could hear them outside, still screaming and clucking to one another. Did they understand each other's language, the different species? Probably not, but in that case how did they know they were supposed to gather like this?

Everything is talking. Everything is listening.

He stroked the outside wall with his right hand as he climbed upwards. He passed the circular room and carried on up the stairs to the reflector.

The room looked just as he remembered it, nothing had changed. The big windows and the gleaming mirrors on the reflector bounced the daylight around so that the room seemed brighter than outdoors. He went and stood in the spot where Maja had asked him What's that? and looked out across the sea, waiting to see what he might feel.

At first there was nothing.

His eyes were unusually sensitive to the light, and despite the fact that the sky was covered in clouds, he was forced to squint in order to be able to see out across the slightly foaming water. He looked down at the sharp edges of the rocks, the congregating birds, and felt the poisonous liquid running through his body like a fluorescent green thread.

Nothing.

Then it came. Faintly at first, like the perception of another person's breathing in a darkened room. Then stronger. A knowledge that was hard to describe. Anders gasped and stumbled, leaned against the glass case surrounding the reflector.

The depths.

The depths. How deep…

He was standing on nothing. The depths were everything.

It is said that only ten per cent of an iceberg protrudes above the surface of the water. What Anders perceived throughout his entire body in one cold, burning moment was similar, only much bigger, more intense: what was sticking up, what he was standing on wasn't even one per cent. It was almost nothing. A strand of cotton over an abyss.

His legs gave way and he sank down, falling backwards until his head hit the wooden floor.

We are so small. Just poor little people with our flashing lights.

He had foolishly thought that the lighthouse had something to do with it all. Its ghostly eye flashing across the sea at night had misled him. But what is a lighthouse? A human invention of wood and stone. A building with a lamp inside it, nothing more. The light can be extinguished and the building can decay, but the depths…

The depths remain.

The insight slipped out of him like a wave retreating from the shore, and he lay on the floor with only the dry knowledge left. The rivulets of poison were diluted in his blood, and he breathed deeply, out and in, out and in.

He rolled over on to his side and glanced over the graffiti on the whitewashed interior walls of the lighthouse.


FRIDA WAS HERE 21/06/98

JM

When in trouble, when in doubt

Run in circles, scream and shout

NÅTEN BOYS = IDIOTS


One sentence was written in bigger, clearer letters than most of the rest. Anders thought he remembered seeing it the last time he was here, but he hadn't attached any importance to it. Now he did.

Printed beneath the date 28/01/89 it said:


STRANGE WAYS, HERE WE COME.


Henrik and Björn had disappeared some time around that date.

Strangeways, Here We Come was the title of The Smiths' last album.

They had sat here and written, almost carved that final message on the wall with a ballpoint pen and then…set off. Along the strange ways.

They knew. They knew what they were doing.

Anders got to his feet and raced down the stairs.

'I'm going to get you, you bastards! I know where you're hiding and I'm coming to get you! Somehow, I swear to God, I'm going to get her back!'

Anders was standing on the eastern rocks screaming to the sea and the wind, screaming along with the birds that drifted past his face like a gigantic curtain that his arms were too short, his knowledge too limited, to be able to peep through. But he would do it. Somehow he would do it.

He went on screaming and threatening the sea until his throat was swollen and his rage had subsided.

When he came to his senses again he saw that the birds had moved closer. Almost all the golden-eyes, ducks and swans had gathered on the surface of the water off the eastern side of Gåvasten. They were there in front of him, bobbing on the waves. Thousands of birds packed so tightly together that it looked as if it would be possible to walk a hundred metres out to sea on their backs. The gulls had stopped circling around the island and were now flapping directly in front of him in a single white cloud that seemed to rise from the sea and drift towards the spot where he was standing.

At any moment an audible or inaudible command would reach them and he would drown in a swarm of hacking, tearing beaks.

They understand. I have to get away from here.

Slowly, one step at a time, he walked backwards towards the boat, never taking his eyes off the birds. If they showed the least sign of attack there was a chance he could make it into the lighthouse before they tore him apart-just as long as he made sure to keep watching them.

The lichen made the rocks slippery as soap on this side and he lost his footing once. But still he kept his eyes on the birds and although he banged his hip sharply, he managed to stop himself from falling.

The flock of gulls had moved closer; they were circling above the rocks on the eastern side as he undid the mooring rope without looking at his hands, and shoved the boat out into the water with his back. The agitated screams of the gulls shredded through the air and filled his head, making it impossible to think rationally. The only thing he could see in his mind's eye was: Get the boat out. Get away from here.

The boat moved smoothly away from the rocks and he walked backwards in the water, pushing off from the seabed with one foot as he climbed aboard. The boat glided a few metres away from the island. There was no longer any chance of making it to the lighthouse. He didn't dare turn his back on the gulls to start the engine, so he grabbed an oar and paddled backwards like a gondolier, one side at a time.

"When he was about a hundred metres from Gåvasten, the birds began to calm down. The flock of gulls broke up and spread out into a thinner cloud that encompassed the whole island. Anders dropped the oar, sat down and let out a long, quivering breath. He put his head in his hands and caught sight of the plastic bottle, rolling around on the deck.

He had forgotten about it, forgotten that its contents could have protected his retreat from the menacing birds. Perhaps it had done so anyway. He looked at the bottle, which did a half roll as a wave lifted the boat. The label with his father's childish handwriting came into view: WORMWOOD.

He understood. At last he understood what had happened to his father. That day and all the other days.

Wormwood

He really ought to go home and put the cash in his money box, but Anders wanted to hang out for a while enjoying the feeling of being rich. His pockets full of money. Like the boy with the golden trousers, he could simply peel off a note with a rustling sound, and another, and another.

He went up to the shop with no other plan in mind: just to saunter around as the richest boy on Domarö for the time being.

The boats were still out searching for Torgny Ek, but the crowd on the jetty had thinned out. Anders hesitated. If he went down to the jetty there would be a load of adults asking him questions, and he didn't know if he wanted that. 'Hi.'

Cecilia pulled up beside him on her bike. Anders raised a hand in greeting. When the hand was in the vicinity of his nose, he realised it smelled of fish. He shoved both hands in his back pockets and adopted a relaxed attitude.

'What are you doing?' asked Cecilia.

'Nothing special.'

'What's going on down on the jetty?'

Anders took a deep breath and asked, as if in passing, 'Would you like an ice cream?'

Cecilia looked at him as if he were joking, and smiled uncertainly.

'I haven't got any money.'

'I have.'

'Are you paying, then?'

'Yes.'

Anders knew perfectly well that it was a strange question to ask, a strange thing to do. But none of the others were around, and his pockets were full of money. He just had to ask her.

She pushed her bike up to the shop and he walked alongside her, still with his hands in his back pockets. She had put her hair up in two medium-length plaits, she had freckles on her nose and he was struck by an urge to touch her plaits. They looked so…soft.

Fortunately his hands were deep in his back pockets, which prevented him from giving in to that particular impulse.

Cecilia propped her bike against the wall and asked, 'So did you sell a lot of herring, then?'

'Yes, this morning. Loads.'

'I usually sell Christmas magazines.'

'Is that worth doing?' 'It's OK.'

Anders started to relax properly. This was the first summer he had really considered the fact that he was different from his friends, who were only summer visitors. That there might be something embarrassing about the fact that he sat outside the shop selling herring and ended up with his hands smelling of fish. That he was…a bit of a hick. But it turned out that Cecilia sold things too. Although presumably Christmas magazines didn't smell.

They went into the shop and studied the contents of the freezer.

'So what can I have?' asked Cecilia.

'Whatever you like.'

'Whatever I like?' She looked at him suspiciously. 'A Giant Cornet?'

'Yes.'

'Two Giant Cornets?'

'Yes.'

'Three Giant Cornets?'

Anders shrugged his shoulders and Cecilia opened the lid. 'What are you having?'

'A Giant Cornet.'

She picked up two Giant Cornets and when Anders leaned over to pick up another, Cecilia slapped him on the shoulder, said 'I was only joking, idiot!' and handed him one of the ice creams she was holding.

At the till Anders pulled a ten kronor note out of his pocket without managing to create that special rustle you always heard when the boy with the golden trousers took out his cash.

They sat down on the bench outside the shop to eat their ice creams. Anders told her what had happened that morning, and Cecilia was seriously impressed that he had seen a person drown himself for real.

While they were eating their ice creams, while Anders was telling his story, while they sat looking out over the water afterwards, a little prayer was running through Anders' head: don't let anybody come along, don't let anybody come along. He wondered if Cecilia was thinking the same thing, or if this sort of thing was perfectly normal for girls.

OK, it wasn't particularly embarrassing to be sitting here with Cecilia eating ice creams that he had paid for, but nor did he want the moment, the atmosphere to be broken. Even though he felt uncertain and didn't really know how he ought to behave, he was having such a fantastic time. It was just the best, sitting here with Cecilia.

When they had finished their ice creams and looked at the sea for a while, Anders' suspicion that girls were more used to this sort of thing was confirmed when Cecilia stood up, wiped her hands on her shorts and said, 'Shall we go back to yours?'

All he could do was nod. Cecilia picked up her bike and pointed to the parcel rack. 'Hop on. I'll give you a lift.' He sat astride the parcel rack and Cecilia kicked off and rolled the bike down the hill from the shop.

There was nothing else to do. It was completely natural. At first he tried to keep his balance by hanging on to the back of the parcel rack, but the track was uneven and he wobbled and nearly made the bike fall over. So he placed his hands on her hips.

He could feel the warmth of her skin on his palms, the sun was shining in the sky and the wind was caressing his forehead. They coasted through the village and he held on to her. The few minutes it took to coast and pedal to his house were the happiest he had experienced in his life, so far. They were…perfect.

Cecilia parked her bike by the woodshed and nodded in the direction of the smoker, which was still giving off a faint aroma.

'We were going to do some smoking, but we didn't get round to it.'

'Were you going to smoke buckling?'

'Mm.'

Anders didn't bother to correct her. Buckling was smoked herring. To say 'smoked buckling' was like saying 'a curved bend' or 'a cold ice cream', but this was probably the sort of thing a hick would know, and not something to show off about.

When Cecilia was with him he saw it so clearly: his garden didn't look like theirs. In his garden there was a woodpile and smoke and old rubbish his father had saved because 'it might come in handy'. No beautifully mown lawns or fruit bushes in neat rows. No badminton court and no hammock. He didn't usually notice. But now he noticed.

Cecilia walked towards the house and Anders thought that at least his room looked like the others' rooms, fortunately.

What are we going to do in my room? What are girls interested in?

He had loads of comics. He didn't know whether Cecilia read comics. He had books. Maybe they could bake something? He could bake sticky buns and scones. Did she like baking?

He didn't get any further in his pondering, because Cecilia had stopped and was looking down at something on the ground. He hurried over to her and when he saw what she was looking at, his lungs sank down to his thighs.

Beside the spindly gooseberry bush next to the house, his father was lying on his stomach with his arms by his side, face down on the ground. Cecilia was on her way over to him, but Anders grabbed her shoulder.

'No,' he said. 'Come on. Let's go.'

Cecilia pulled herself free. 'Don't be silly, we can't leave him like that. He could suffocate.'

Anders had never seen his father so drunk that he lay down and went to sleep like this in the middle of the day, but the drinking itself was nothing new to him. Sometimes when he got home in the evening his father would be sitting there with glassy eyes, talking rubbish, and at those times Anders tried to stay out of the house as much as possible. Right now he was so embarrassed he didn't know where to put himself.

Cecilia crouched down beside his sleeping father and shook his shoulder. 'Hey,' she said. 'Hello.' She turned to Anders. 'What's his name?'

'Johan. Look, just leave him. He's drunk.'

'Johan,' said Cecilia, shaking him more roughly. 'Johan, you can't lie here.'

Johan's body twitched and a deep cough rumbled up through his chest. Cecilia drew back as Johan raised his head and rolled over on to his side. He had been lying on a half-full plastic bottle that had been squashed out of shape by the weight of his body.

He caught sight of Cecilia and his eyes were made of dirty glass, a thread of saliva dangled from the corner of his mouth down to the grass. He smacked his lips, cleared his throat and slurred, 'Love one another.'

The humiliation crushed Anders into the ground and splashed his cheeks with red. His father's hand was groping for Cecilia's foot as if he wanted to get hold of it. When he couldn't reach he looked up at her and said, 'Just be careful of the sea.'

The shame of it all exploded into blind rage and Anders ran over to his father, aimed a kick. However, a faint glimmer of sense made him change the direction of the kick at the last moment, so that instead of his father's head he caught the plastic bottle, which bounced away across the overgrown lawn.

It wasn't enough. His father attempted a foolish smile, and Anders was about to hurl himself at him to beat the rage out of his body and into his father's when Cecilia grabbed his arm and pulled him away.

'Stop it! Stop it! There's no point.'

'I hate you!' Anders yelled at his father. 'I really hate you!'

Then he fled. He had no words to say to Cecilia, nothing that could excuse or explain. He was shit, with a shit father, and worse than that, he was a hick who was shit. None of the others had parents who did this sort of thing. They drank wine, they were fun. They didn't lie there dribbling outside their cottages in broad daylight. That's what the fathers of useless country kids did.

He ran across the rocks down to the boathouses in the harbour, he just wanted to get away, away, away. He would pick up a great big rock and jump in the sea, he would obliterate himself, he would no longer exist.

He passed the boathouses and ran out on to one of the small jetties where brightly-coloured leisure boats were moored, he ran all the way to the end and stopped, looking down at the sparkling water. Then he sat down, right on the edge of the jetty.

I'm going to kill him.

He'd been sitting there for a long time, weighing up different ways of killing his father, when he heard footsteps behind him on the jetty. He thought about jumping in the water, but stayed where he was. Then he heard Cecilia's voice.

'Anders?'

He shook his head. He didn't want to talk, he wasn't here, he wasn't Anders. There was a faint rustle of fabric from Cecilia's shorts as she sat down behind him on the jetty. He didn't want her to console him or to say something nice, something to smooth over the situation. He wouldn't believe it anyway. He wanted her to go away and leave him alone.

They sat like that for a while. Then Cecilia said, 'My mother's the same.'

Anders shook his head again.

'She is,' said Cecilia. 'Well, not quite as bad. But almost.' When Anders didn't say anything, she went on, 'She drinks a lot and then… she does the stupidest things. She chucked my cat off the balcony.'

Anders half turned around. 'Did it die?'

'No. We live on the first floor. But it was scared after that. Of practically everything.'

They sat in silence. Anders pictured the cat being hurled off the balcony on the first floor. So Cecilia lived in an apartment. He turned so that he could see her out of the corner of his eye. She was sitting cross-legged on the jetty, resting her chin on her hands. He asked, 'Do you just live with your mum?'

'Yes. When she's like that I usually go over to my grandmother's. She's great. She lets me sleep over and stuff.'

Anders had seen Cecilia's mother a couple of times, and she hadn't been drunk then. But when he thought about it now, she did have that look. Something strained about the face, something wet in the eyes. Maybe she had been drunk, but he hadn't been able to see it as clearly as in his own father.

They went on talking, and after a while the conversation moved on to other topics. It turned out that Cecilia enjoyed baking as well, and that she read books too, mostly by Maria Gripe. Anders had read only one story by her, but Cecilia told him about some of her other books, and they sounded good.

With hindsight Anders could see that that day had mostly brought good things. It wasn't until the following summer that he and Cecilia had kissed each other and become a couple up on the big rock.

But it all started on that day.

Homeward bound

The engine started first time and Anders roared away from Gåvasten. The speed made him feel safe, he didn't think a gull could manage fifteen knots. When he had travelled a few hundred metres he looked back. The gulls had reverted to circling around the lighthouse.

He picked up the plastic bottle and waggled it back and forth in his free hand. The liquid was cloudy, opaque. The same painful clarity of vision that had affected him when he drank the poison had been in his father's eyes as he looked at Anders and Cecilia that day. Love one another. Just be careful of the sea. That was probably the story of Anders' life since that day, in brief. But why had his father drunk the poison in the first place? After all, it wasn't the sea that got him in the end. Or was it?

Anders was twenty-two years old when it happened. By that time his father had taken early retirement, because he had 'lapses'. He would turn up to work at the shipyard feeling groggy, then he wouldn't turn up at all for a couple of days, then he'd come back, work normally for a week, then disappear again. It couldn't go on, and they managed to work out an early-retirement package.

However, he was still well liked, and if they needed an extra pair of hands they would ring him and see how things were. If he felt OK he would go along and pitch in wherever he was needed; he was paid in cash, no questions asked.

Among other things, he made a significant contribution to tin- building of the new shed for the storage of summer visitors' boats. When the topping-out party was being planned, he was naturally invited. The building wasn't completely finished, but the frame and the roof were in place, and it was a long time since they had thrown a party, so a party it was.

They drank and chatted, and it grew late. Towards the small hours Johan said goodnight and staggered down to the harbour to sail his boat home. There was nothing strange about that, everybody knew he could sail to Domarö blindfolded if need be.

So they said Good night and Safe journey and Try not to crash into any elks, and they never saw him again.

Nobody knew exactly what happened, but it was thought that when Johan got down to the harbour in the darkness, he was overcome by tiredness, or decided not to sail home. Instead he dragged a few tarpaulins together and made himself a bed. A few tarpaulins to serve as a mattress, and a few to cover himself up.

He was still lying there at seven o'clock in the morning when a lorry carrying sand backed down into the harbour area. TorBjörn, the driver, had been at the party and it had been a late night. When he saw the pile of old tarpaulins in his rear-view mirror he couldn't be bothered to get out and shift them, so instead he reversed straight over them.

The back wheel went over something, and he kept on going. The front wheel went over something smaller, and he kept on going. Only when he had gone a couple of metres further did he glance back at the pile of tarpaulins. He could see something trickling out from underneath them. Then he stopped and got out.

Afterwards TorBjörn would curse himself for failing to notice that Johan's boat was still in the harbour. If he had, he might perhaps have suspected something, because Johan did have a tendency to fall asleep just about anywhere. But he hadn't thought about it, and instead he had reversed over him with five tons of sand. What TorBjörn saw when he pulled back the tarpaulins would never leave him.

Something had been mentioned about a bottle of schnapps found beside Johan's body. Anders knew better now.

That night, faced with the sea, with the depths he must travel across, his father had suddenly been afraid. He had fetched the bottle of wormwood from his boat and tried to give himself courage, tried to protect himself.

Whether it was down to poisoning or a fear that would not pass, he had curled up under the tarpaulins. Like a child.

Like me.

Curled up under the covers, hoping it would go away and leave him alone.

Anders could see it in his mind all too clearly. The sea, the night, the fear. Leaving the lights and the people behind and suddenly being overwhelmed by the fear with which there can be no negotiation and for which there is only one cure: Hide! Don't let it see yon!

'Oh, Dad…poor Dad…'

The fishing spear

Simon was sitting up straight at the kitchen table, his hands neatly folded on his knee as Anna-Greta rummaged around in the hidey- hole. She was in the process of selecting her bridal gown, and he was waiting to be shown the shortlist.

The morning had been dedicated to preparations for the following day. They had rung around and invited the people they wanted to invite, the community hall had been booked for a small reception and a buffet had been ordered from a caterer in Norrtälje. In the morning, before the wedding, Anna-Greta would travel across to a friend in Nåten who used to work as a hairdresser, and still knew a fair bit about how to make a person look their best.

'So what shall I do, then?' Simon asked.

Anna-Greta had laughed. 'Well, I suppose you'd better make the most of your last few hours of freedom. Practise doing up your bow tie.'

Simon had called Göran to invite him and they had also decided that Simon would make use of his time to come over and sort out Göran's well at last. He had to do something, otherwise he would just end up wandering around and getting nervous.

Despite the way Anna-Greta had fast-tracked the whole process, as if she just wanted it out of the way, things had changed when it was clear it was really going to happen. First of all there was the reception, then the buffet and the invitations. Then this idea that she needed to go and get herself done up beforehand. And now the dress.

This sudden burst of activity was not without its effect on Simon. He was sitting here now worrying about whether or not he should wear patent-leather shoes, and whether they still fitted. And even if he should use pomade in his hair.

Everything went quiet out in the hidey-hole as Anna-Girt gathered things together. Then she emerged. Simon straightened his back. To be honest, he thought the whole thing was quite amusing. The wedding and everything surrounding it had brought out a new side of Anna-Gretleather, more feminine than her everyday persona. He liked it, as long as it didn't go too far.

She came into the kitchen with a pile of dresses over her arm and something in her hand, which she put down on the worktop. She held the dresses up in front of her one by one, and Simon expressed a preference for a beige one in a heavyish fabric, embroidered with white flowers. It turned out that this was Anna-Greta's favourite too, and so the matter was settled. When Anna-Greta had put away the rejected dresses, she picked up the item from the worktop and placed it on the table in front of Simon.

'Do you remember this? I found it out there.'

The object lying on the table was a small fishing spear made of metal. Simon picked it up and turned it over in his fingers.

Oh yes, he remembered it all right.

When Johan was eighteen, he and Simon had worked together to dig a herb bed next to Anna-Greta's house. While he was digging Johan had found the fishing spear. They had borrowed books to check it out, and had come to the conclusion that it was at least a thousand years old.

The find aroused Johan's interest, and during that summer he borrowed more books and read up on the subject. What fascinated him most was that their patch of land, the place where their house stood, had once been under water. Deep under water.

He had read about land elevation in school, of course, learned that the islands were rising out of the sea by about half a centimetre per year. But the spear made it real and concrete. A person in a boat, someone who was out spearing fish, had passed directly over their garden a thousand years ago, and dropped their spear. It was a thought that wouldn't let Johan be.

Reading had never been a passion for him, but all that summer he studied the history of the archipelago in general and of Domarö in particular. It went so far that he even considered applying to university to study geology or something similar, but when the autumn came he managed to get a place as an apprentice at the shipyard in Nåten, and his plans for higher education were abandoned.

The fishing spear was forgotten, and finally ended up in the hidey-hole.

Simon balanced the spear on his index and middle fingers. It weighed about half a kilo, and had probably been attached to a stick, which had rotted away long ago. The fish had been speared, lifted out of the water and eaten. The person who had been hunting the fish had probably made a new spear, hunted more fish and eaten them, but to no purpose. He too had eventually fallen to the bottom of the sea or on to the ground and rotted away. Only the spear still existed.

'Anna-Greta?' asked Simon. 'What actually happened to Johan?'

Anna-Greta folded the bridal gown carefully and placed it in a plastic bag to protect it. Simon didn't know if it was a stupid question, but in a way she had brought the topic up herself by bringing him the spear.

He had begun to think he wasn't going to get an answer when Anna-Greta laid the plastic bag on the kitchen sofa and said, 'Have you heard of something called Gunnilsöra?'

'Yes,' said Simon. 'It's that island you can only see sometimes. The one that appears and disappears. Why?'

'What do you think about it?'

Simon didn't understand where the conversation was going, but replied as best he could. 'I don't know that I think anything about it, really. I know it's been interpreted as everything from the shores of Paradise to the dwelling of the Evil One. But it's some kind of optical phenomenon, surely? Something to do with the weather.'

Anna-Greta ran her finger over the spear, which was clean and smooth after Johan had cleaned it. 'It called to him. He caught something he shouldn't have caught.'

'Called to him? What called to him?'

'He said it was an island over towards Gåvasten. But that it wasn't Gåvasten. That it kept moving. One night it was just off the Shack, he said. And it was calling to him. Don't you remember how frightened he was, Simon? How frightened he was all the time?'

'Yes,' said Simon. He remembered both the enthusiastic boy who had dug up the spear, and the increasingly confused and distant man the boy had become. 'But this sounds crazy. An island? Hunting a person?'

Anna-Greta leaned towards him and lowered her voice to a whisper. 'Haven't you heard the sea? Heard it calling?'

Only a week ago Simon would have been concerned about Anna-Greta's mental health if she had asked him a question like that with such quivering earnestness. A week ago he hadn't seen the depths, hadn't sunk a body into those same depths.

'I don't know,' he replied. 'Maybe. Have you heard it?'

Anna-Greta looked out of the window and her gaze reached far into the distance, to the outermost shipping lanes. 'Have I told you about Gustav Jansson?' she asked. 'The lighthouse keeper? On Stora Korset?'

'Yes. You knew him, didn't you?'

Anna-Greta nodded. 'It all started with him. For me.'

The keeper

Stora Korset is the last outpost facing the Aland Sea. The island is so remote that the lighthouse keeper there receives what is known as an isolation supplement in addition to his normal pay. A little bonus for enduring the loneliness.

From the end of the 1930s to the beginning of the 1950s, it was Gustav Jansson who ran the whole show out there. He originally came from Domarö, but found it difficult to get on with people, and when the post of lighthouse keeper became available he took it as an opportunity to be left in peace at last. Then he spent thirteen years there with four hens as his only company.

He did not like the war. The din of practice firing and drift mines that had to be rendered harmless was one thing, but the worst thing was that visitors came to the island. Military personnel knocking on his door and asking questions about this and that, boats mooring at his jetty on reconnaissance missions. For a while there was talk of some kind of fortification on Stora Korset, but fortunately the plan came to nothing.

How terrible would that have looked! A tower with a gun emplacement down on the rocks below, soldiers stomping around smoking and frightening the hens. No, if that had happened he would have demanded to leave forthwith.

However, the war did bring one good thing.

Gustav Jansson had never been married. Not because he had anything in particular against women, no, he disliked men just as much. He was a solitary soul by nature and not suited to the companionship of marriage.

However, the war brought a woman he was able to tolerate. Not that he would have married her even if the possibility had existed, but he could tolerate her company and gradually found himself looking forward to the days she came to the island with snuff and newspapers.

He was enough of a man to appreciate female beauty in spite of everything, but what he liked most about Anna-Greta was that she didn't talk unnecessarily. Gustav's taciturnity made other people nervous, and they would chat away even more as if there were some kind of quota that had to be filled.

Not Anna-Greta. It was only after they had been acquainted for a year or so that they said any more than was absolutely necessary to carry out their transactions. At that time Gustav had bought a jigsaw puzzle from Anna-Greta. When he had done that one he wanted to buy a new one, which led to a certain amount of discussion. What kind of picture, how many pieces?

He ended up being a subscriber, and was particularly fond of puzzles with a sea motif. Since he had neither the space nor the inclination to keep the puzzles once he had completed them, he would place the pieces carefully, then when he had finished he would take the puzzle apart and put the pieces back in the box. Once a month Anna-Greta would come and replace the completed puzzle with a new one. At half price, because she could sell the old one again.

Over the years they had the odd conversation that was unrelated to their business dealings. A certain level of intimacy grew between them.

A couple of years after the end of the war, the general view was that Gustav Jansson had lost his mind. He did his job as lighthouse keeper extremely well, there were no complaints on that score, but you just couldn't talk to the man. He had spent too much time reading the Bible.

Anna-Greta knew better. It was true that reading the Bible was Gustav's only diversion apart from jigsaw puzzles out on his little island. He knew it inside out, and would even conduct conversations with himself, where one party was an austere prophet and the other a free-thinker.

But he wasn't mad. Gustav had simply realised that the surest way of frightening away unwelcome visitors was to preach at them. People became strangely uncomfortable when they heard the word of the Lord being intoned as they were tying up their boats at Gustav's jetty, and visits were kept short. Gustav was left in peace with his lighthouse and his God.

One afternoon at the beginning of the 1950s, Anna-Greta arrived later than usual for her monthly visit. With the north wind blowing at twelve metres per second, Gustav was surprised to see her at all. As Anna-Greta unpacked Gustav's purchases in the lighthouse keeper's cottage, the wind picked up even more. Some gusts made the wind gauge shoot up to twenty.

It looked as if Anna-Greta was going to have to stay on Stora Korset overnight. Gustav managed to get in touch with Nåten via short-wave radio, and they promised to make sure that Torgny, Maja and Johan would be informed that Anna-Greta was fine and was waiting for better weather conditions before setting off for home.

Although Anna-Greta and Gustav had a working business relationship and could perhaps even be called friends, it was still slightly embarrassing for Gustav to have womenfolk in the house overnight. He didn't know what to do with himself, he felt like a spare part in his own cottage.

It was a relief to discover that Anna-Greta wouldn't say no to a drop of schnapps. They sat across the kitchen table from each other, looking out over the rough sea, the breakers picked out by the flashing light, and drank a few glasses. Their embarrassment melted away.

No one who hadn't heard it for themselves would have believed it, but as the evening wore on, Gustav became positively chatty. He built up the fire and, as the temperature rose, told tales of foundered ships, maritime maps scratched into flat rocks and birds that collided with the lighthouse during their autumn migration and died by the barrowload.

When he pulled off his woolly jumper, Anna-Greta noticed that he was wearing his vest inside out, and mentioned this to him. Gustav looked at her, his eyes half-closed. 'Well, you have to protect yourself as best you can.'

'Surely you don't believe that nonsense, Gustav.'

'No. But I do believe in this,' said Gustav, taking out a bottle containing a cloudy liquid. 'And so should you. If you're going to spend the night here.'

Just to be polite Anna-Greta drank a shot glass of the bitter brew. She knew that many lighthouse keepers grew wormwood to use as a spice for their schnapps, but Gustav's version was overdone to say the least. It tasted disgusting.

'It's not much of a pleasure to drink,' said Gustav as Anna-Greta slammed her glass down on the table, 'but it protects life, and that might be worth something after all.'

Anna-Greta wasn't prepared to settle for a statement like that. The schnapps had made her eager to ask questions and it had made Gustav communicative, and so it happened that Gustav explained for the first time what the situation was with the sea.

It wanted him, he said. It called to him. It showed him things and made him false promises. It threatened him. He had turned to the Bible and found some guidance, but if the wormwood hadn't been growing in such profusion around the lighthouse, he would never have got the idea.

And it seemed to work. The sea no longer dared touch him in a menacing way, and the whispers of the night had as good as fallen silent since he started thinning his blood with wormwood.

The next morning the wind had eased, and Anna-Greta was able to set off home. Before she left Gustav gave her a coffee tin in which he had planted a wormwood root in a little soil.

'Take good care of it,' he said, half-joking in his deep, prophesying voice, 'so that it may be fruitful and fill the earth.'

Anna-Greta waved goodbye to Gustav and headed away from Stora Korset. She had gone no more than one nautical mile when she heard a strange noise coming from the engine. She cut the power immediately, afraid of doing more damage, and started to check connections and gaskets.

But the noise was still there, even though the engine was switched off. It was a caressing, whispering sound. She turned this way and that, but was unable to locate the source of the noise. She leaned over the rail and looked down into the water. The water was soft and welcoming, like the open arms of a lover. That was where she wanted to be.

That was the first time she heard the call.

She managed to break the spell by starting up the engine and concentrating on its even throbbing, but behind the sound of the cranks and pistons working away she could still hear the wordless whispering that held such a promise of warmth and simplicity.

Gustav had maintained that there were people on Domarö who knew the secrets of the sea, but never spoke of them. Anna-Greta thought she now understood why. There was one important detail missing from Gustav's private insight.

You can't hear it if you don't know about it.

Anna-Greta continued with her trading around the islands for a few more years, but after meeting Simon she sold her boat to avoid hearing the siren call of the sea. As time went by it appeared to have lost interest in her, and the calling stopped.

She had planted Gustav's wormwood on the edge of the shore down below the Shack, and there it spread in silence without anyone asking any questions.

Together with Simon, Anna-Greta entered a different life where the sea had no access. And things would probably have stayed that way if Johan had not come to her one evening many years later and told her about the island that was nagging at him, the voices that spoke to him.

To cut a long story short, she eventually managed to get out of Margareta Bergwall what there was to know about the sea. She was holding a trump card, because she could also provide something that had been lacking until now: a defence. Within a few years the wormwood was flourishing in several gardens belonging to those in the know, and Anna-Greta went up in everyone's estimation.

She took care not to involve Simon. Even if the sea was capricious and sometimes selected its victims from those who knew nothing, it was evident that the more you knew, the greater the risk of hearing the call. Or being taken.

So what became of Gustav Jansson, then?

Nobody knew what had happened. Perhaps he ran out of wormwood, perhaps something else went wrong, but in the bitter winter of 1957 the lighthouse was suddenly dark. It was a night of heavy snowfalls, and it wasn't until the following morning that anyone was able to get out to Stora Korset.

Gustav's outdoor clothes and boots were not in the cottage, so therefore he must have gone out on to the ice. However, the snowfall during the night had obliterated any tracks.

It was not until spring, when the snow on the ice melted, that they were able to find an indication of what had happened to Gustav. On the shining ice off Stora Korset, footprints could be seen. The snow had been compressed where Gustav had walked, and was melting more slowly than the loose snow around it.

A line of ghostly white footprints led across the ice in the direction of the mainland. It was possible to follow them for over a kilometre. Then they stopped. In the middle of nowhere, with Ledinge barely visible, the last footprint could be seen. Then the trail came to an end.

Perhaps the wind had managed to sweep away the rest of the trail after all, perhaps Gustav had collapsed on that very spot and then been collected or dragged or lifted in some unknown way.

He was gone, at any rate, and the following year the lighthouse on Stora Korset was automated. The lighthouse keeper's cottage was rented out to an ornithology group who mounted warning lights around the lighthouse to alert small birds to the danger.

Correction

Anna-Greta had just finished her story when the outside door opened. From the way it was yanked open and the footsteps that followed, they could tell it was Anders. When he came into the kitchen his eyes were staring and he was rubbing his hands in a way that Simon recognised from Johan. Nervously, impatiently.

'Just wanted to let you know I borrowed your boat,' said Anders. 'And that I'll be there tomorrow. Congratulations.'

Anders seemed to be on his way out, and Anna-Greta said, 'Sit down. Have a cup of coffee with us.' Anders chewed his lips and rubbed his hands, but then took off his jacket and hat and pulled out a chair.

'You've been out in the boat, then?' said Simon, and Anders nodded. Anna-Greta poured him a cup of coffee and Anders drank with both hands wrapped around the thin cup, as if he were frozen. 'I was on Gåvasten.'

Anna-Greta laid her hand on his arm. 'What's happened?'

Anders shrugged his shoulder jerkily. 'Nothing. It's just that I'm possessed by my own daughter and she's somewhere out there in the sea and the gulls are keeping watch…'

'There are several people,' said Anna-Greta. 'Several people who have become…possessed.'

Simon was surprised that Anna-Greta was speaking openly about something to do with the sea. Perhaps she judged that the information could not be kept from Anders, that it was better if he found out like this. Anders' foot, which had been drumming on the floor, suddenly stopped and he listened carefully as Anna-Greta told him what had happened to Karl-Erik, and to the children on the jetty.

'Why?' asked Anders when she had finished. 'Why does this happen? How can it happen?'

'I can't answer that question,' said Anna-Greta. 'But it does happen. And you're not the only one.'

Anders nodded and stared into the bottom of his coffee cup. His lips were moving slightly, as if he were reading an invisible text in the coffee grounds. Suddenly he looked up and asked, 'Why are they horrible? I mean, it seems as if they're just…horrible.'

Anna-Greta replied as if she were weighing every single word before she uttered it. 'It's…it's virtually only horrible people…who have disappeared. Over the years. Horrible. Or aggressive. Elsa Persson. Torgny. Sigrid. And so on, back through time.'

Anders looked from Anna-Greta to Simon. 'Maja wasn't horrible,' he said, seeking support in their eyes. It wasn't there. Both of them avoided meeting his eye and said nothing. Anders leapt up from his chair and flung his arms wide.

'Maja wasn't horrible! I mean, she was only a child. She wasn't horrible!'

'Anders,' said Simon, reaching for his arm, but Anders pulled it away.

'What are you saying?'

'We're not saying anything,' said Anna-Greta. 'We're just-'

'No, you're not saying anything. You're not saying anything. You're saying that Maja…that she was horrible. She wasn't. That's completely wrong. It's crazy, what you're saying.'

'You're the one that's saying it,' said Anna-Greta.

'No, I'm not! It's completely wrong!'

Anders turned and rushed out of the kitchen. The outside door opened and slammed shut. Simon and Anna-Greta sat in silence at the kitchen table for a long time. Eventually Anna-Greta said, 'He's forgotten.'

'Yes,' said Simon. 'He's made sure of that.'

The way it was

Anders wandered around the village. He went over to Kattudden and looked at the devastation there, sat on the shore for a while tossing pebbles through the thin covering of ice closest to the shoreline, went back to the old village and stood for a long time on the steamboat jetty staring over towards Gåvasten.

It was starting to get dark by the time he got back to the Shack. There was a note on the door from Simon, saying that he should come up to Anna-Greta's so that they could have a sensible conversation. Anders ripped it off and screwed it up.

The house was cold but he didn't want to light a fire, they would see the smoke from the chimney and would come down wanting to talk. He didn't want to talk, he didn't want to discuss this matter at all.

He fetched a blanket from the living room, wrapped it around himself and sat down at the kitchen table. In the last of the fading light he studied the photographs from Gåvasten. Cecilia's smile, Maja's absent expression, her gaze turned to the east.

He had put everything from his apartment in storage, thinking that he would make a completely fresh start here on Domarö. He hadn't even brought the photograph of Maja, the photograph of that mask.

The devil troll.

Anders rubbed his eyes and shook his head. He knew the photograph off by heart, didn't need it there in front of him. Maja's expectant expression when she had scared them.

Father Christmess, Christmess presents…

'No!'

Anders got up from the table and put his hands over his ears, as if he could stop the memory of her voice from finding its way in. Her thin little voice as she sat next to the tree singing…

'I saw Daddy killing Santa Claus, I…'

All children do that sort of thing!

Anders tore open the door of the larder and found one last wine cask, which he ripped open and drank so greedily that it ran down the sides of his mouth.

It was a wonderful life, I loved her so much…

'Stupid stupid idiots! I hate you!'

He spun around and caught sight of the bottle of wormwood, took a swig and swilled down the burning nausea with more wine. His stomach churned in protest and he ran to the toilet to throw up, but when he leaned over the bowl he could manage nothing more than a couple of sour belches. He sat down on the floor with his back against the warm radiator.

It wasn't true that Maja was horrible. Yes, she got annoyed easily. Yes, she had a lively imagination. But she wasn't horrible.

Anders jerked his head and hit the back of his neck on the edge of the radiator; shades of red flickered before his eyes. He staggered into the kitchen and pulled the photographs towards him again, looking at his family. Cecilia's warm, kind eyes gazing into his. His lower lip trembled as he picked up the phone and keyed in her number. She answered on the second signal.

'Hi, it's me,' he said.

He heard a faint sigh at the other end of the line. 'What do you want?'

Anders dragged his hand through his hair a couple of times, rubbed at his scalp. 'I have to ask you something. I have to say something. Maja wasn't horrible, was she?'

There was no reply, and Anders scratched at his scalp so hard that he drew blood.

'That's what they're saying,' he went on. 'That's what they think. But you and I…we know that's not true, don't we?'

With every second that passed without a word from Cecilia, something was growing inside his head, something that was so big and hurt so much that he could have ripped off his entire skull.

'Anders,' said Cecilia at last. 'Afterwards…you turned her into something else. Something different from what she was.'

Anders' voice sank to a whisper. 'What are you saying? She was wonderful. She was just…wonderful.'

'Yes, she was. That too. But-'

'I never thought anything else. I thought she was terrific. All the time.'

Cecilia cleared her throat, and when she spoke again there was a sharp impatience in her voice. 'If that's the way you want it. But that's not the way it was, Anders.'

'How was it, then? I always thought she was…the best you could imagine.'

'You made that up afterwards. You couldn't cope with her. You once joked about swapping her for-'

Anders slammed the phone down. It was dark outside the window now. He was so cold he was shaking. He sank to his knees and crawled to the bathroom, where he sat down with his back to the radiator again, staring into the washbasin and gnawing on his lips until there was a metallic taste in his mouth.

His hands lay loosely, the backs resting on the floor. There was a faint smell of piss and his mouth was sticky after a day without any liquid apart from wine and wormwood. He was a dried-up little nothing, the shrivelled remains of something that had perhaps not even existed.

'I am nothing.'

He said it out loud to himself in the darkness and there was consolation in those words, so he said them again, 'I am nothing.'

The fact that his life had been shit for the past few years wasn't exactly news. He knew that. But at least he had believed he had his memories of a life lived in the light, those precious years together with Cecilia and Maja.

But that wasn't true either. Not even that.

He sniggered. He sniggered a little more. Then he lay down flat on his stomach and licked the floor around the toilet, carried on up the pedestal. It tasted salty. Odd hairs stuck to his tongue, but he went on licking. He cleaned along the edges, licked off the coating on the seat and finished off by swallowing the gooey mess that had gathered in his mouth.

So. That was that. So.

He hauled himself to his feet, took a couple of deep breaths and said it again, 'I am nothing.'

There, he'd said it. All done. On steadier legs he went and sat down at the kitchen table again, looked over at Gåvasten which had begun to send its signals out into the night. He was floating on a sea in a state of dead calm. No waves of expectation or false memories obscured his view.

You have left me.

Yes. He had not been able to put his finger on the feeling when it was there, but now it had left him he felt its absence. Maja was no longer within him. He had driven her out. She had left him.

Nothing.

He sat for half an hour with his head resting on his arms, chilled to the bone as he accepted the way things had been. Maja had been dreadful. He had often wished they had never had her. He had said it out loud several times: that he wished she would just disappear. That they could swap her for a dog, a well-behaved dog.

I wanted her to disappear. And she disappeared.

She wept and screamed and kicked as soon as she didn't get her own way. She immediately smashed things that didn't behave in the way she wanted. She had no boundaries. They didn't dare let her watch children's programs after she threw a vase at the screen when a cartoon character said something stupid. How many hours had they spent sweeping up beads after Maja had tipped them on the floor, how many hours dealing with ripped-up drawing pads and comics?

That was the way it was. That was the way it had been. Like having a monster in the house, you had to be wary of every step, constantly on the alert to avoid provoking its fury. They had been to the clinic, they had seen a child psychiatrist, but nothing helped. Their only hope was that it would pass as she got older.

Anders' teeth were chattering, and he pulled the blanket more tightly around him.

This was the reason behind his enormous burden of guilt, the one he had tried to get rid of by drinking, then managed to suppress with patient effort: the fact that it was all his fault. He had wished she would disappear, simply disappear, and that was exactly what had happened. He had made it happen.

'All parents blame themselves when something happens to their children,' the family therapist had said when Cecilia forced him to go along with her.

No doubt that was true. But presumably those parents were able to arrive eventually at the conclusion that it wasn't their fault their child had been run over, developed cancer or got lost in the woods. At least they hadn't wished for it to happen. And if they had wished for it to happen, then at least their child had disappeared in a natural way, insofar as such a thing exists.

Maja had ceased to exist as if she had never been there, as if she had been…wished away. That couldn't happen, and therefore the explanation that Anders had wished her away was just as reasonable as any other, and that was the one he was sticking to. Whichever way he looked at it, he always came to the same conclusion: he had killed his own child.

It was only when Cecilia had left him and he had drunk himself into oblivion that a last glimmer of hope had appeared in the darkness: he began reshaping his memories. Through drunken days and nights he crafted a new past. One where Maja had been wonderful all the time and he had just loved her, pure and simple.

He had never had a bad thought about her, and therefore her disappearance was incomprehensible. It was a great tragedy that had

nothing to do with him, he who had loved his daughter more than anything else in the world.

That's how his past had looked. Until now.

Anders gave a start as the telephone rang. He couldn't cope with answering it, and after six signals it fell silent once more. He couldn't talk to anyone. He didn't exist, he was nothing.

He rested his head in his hands again and listed to the emptiness. A new thought occurred to him.

So if I wanted to get rid of her…why was it so terrible when she disappeared? I mean, I should have been…pleased. In the end. What I wished for happened.

He got up from his chair. His stiff, frozen knees creaked as he took a turn around the floor.

The answer was obvious: deep down, right down inside he had never wanted that to happen. However difficult she was there were better times, good times. And they had started to become more frequent, last for longer. The change they had hoped for was on the way. That last day, the trip to Gåvasten was an example. She had almost behaved like a normal child for several hours.

And he had loved that child, that questioning, intense, living child, he had been prepared to wait for her through the hysterical outbursts and the smashed possessions. Things had been heading in the right direction. Then she disappeared, and he could remember only his bad thoughts, until it tipped over in the opposite direction.

I never knew her.

No. As he stood here now in the middle of the kitchen floor with the blanket around him, he realised the heart of the matter could In- expressed in those terms: he had never known who Maja was. There had been too much wheeling and dealing. If children can be horrible, was Maja horrible, really? He had no idea. He didn't know her.

And now she had left him.

Heaven

'Daddy? What happens when you're dead?'

'Well, there's…'

'I think you go to heaven, don't you think so?'

'…well yes.'

'So what's it like there? Are there angels and clouds and so on?

' 'Is that what'd you'd like?'

'No. I hate angels. They're horrible and ugly and they look stupid. I don't want to be with them.'

'So where do you want to he?'

'Here. But in heaven.'

'Then I expect that's what will happen.'

'No it won't! It's God who decides what happens!'

'In that case I expect God can decide that everybody can have things the way they want them to be.'

'But that's impossible.'

'Why?'

'Because then everybody would have their own heaven, and God wouldn't like that.'

'Don't you think so?'

'No. Because God is an idiot. He's made everything bad.'

Home visit

It was getting towards eight o'clock and Anders was still sitting at the kitchen table with the fragments of his former life spread out before him, trying to piece together something that might help him to get up, when he heard the moped. They're coming.

He had almost managed to forget Henrik and Björn. After his long sleep they had been reduced to a distant dream, something that had happened long ago and had nothing to do with him. But here they were. The saddest boys in the world who had decided to carry out the bidding of the sea. Now they were coming to get him.

Come on then.

The moped's engine was racing, as if it were stuck in first gear. Perhaps he'd managed to damage it with the fire. The roaring engine drew closer to the house, and he waited for it to be switched off and the outside door to be opened. He was resigned, and placed one hand on top of the other on the table, waiting for whatever was going to happen.

The engine didn't stop when it reached the house, but carried on along the outside wall and across the rocks until the revs slowed and it stopped outside the kitchen window, rumbling to itself. They were waiting for him. He leaned on the table and pushed himself up, with the blanket around his shoulders like a coat, and walked over to the window.

He could see them down on the rocks like dark shapes. Henrik was in the saddle and Björn on the platform. Anders undid the window latch and pushed it open. Henrik cut the engine, down to a muted chugging.

'What do you want?' asked Anders.

'We may be dead,' said Henrik. 'But we will be right by-'

'Stuff all that. What do you want?'

'We'd like to smash some teeth-every single one in your head actually-because you're bothering us. You have to stop bothering us. If I were you I wouldn't bother. Really.'

'Why?'

'Because something bad could happen to someone you care about. Or put it this way…' Henrik went on with his manic paraphrasing, but Anders was no longer listening.

He had turned away from the window and was looking for the torch. Björn had something in his arms, and it if was what Anders thought it was…

The torch was in the drawer where all the rubbish was kept. He grabbed it and switched it on, hurled himself at the window and directed the beam at Björn as Henrik droned on with esoteric references to 'Girlfriend in a Coma' and how there were times when he could have murdered, on and on.

The light fell on Björn. He was sitting cross-legged on the platform, and in his arms he was holding the body of a child dressed in a red snowsuit. The reflector strip along the side glowed white and it was Maja's snowsuit, the one she had been wearing that last day.

Anders may have spent hours doing nothing but thinking, but now every thought was swept away in a second, and there was only action. He ran through the kitchen into the living room as the moped engine behind him began to race once again.

The door to the veranda was stuck and he lost a couple of valuable seconds when it refused to open. He hurled himself at it shoulder first and stumbled out on to the veranda just as he saw the lights of the moped bouncing across the rocks, on its way down to the sea.

Now I've got you, you bastards. You've got nowhere to go.

If he had stopped to reflect for a moment he might perhaps have realised that Henrik and Björn weren't stupid enough to think that he would simply stand and watch as they rode off with his daughter. That the fact they were heading for the sea was rather strange.

But he didn't stop to reflect. He had seen that Björn had Maja in his arms, he had heard Henrik threaten to harm her and he was acting in accordance with those two facts. With only his socks on his feet he took the veranda steps in two leaps and saw that Henrik and Björn were down by the shoreline.

Anders' lips curled up in a predatory grin. They had nowhere else to go. Even if they were ghosts, the moped was an ordinary moped and a moped cannot travel across water. It didn't occur to him that he had met them before, that he had no weapons to use against them now either. The only thought in his head was: I've got you now, and the knowledge in his body, the wormwood's knowledge, that they couldn't harm him either.

He was only five metres behind them when they rode out on to the water. Anders' body continued moving forward of its own volition until he fell over on the shoreline. The moped moved across the surface of the water past the jetty, and Henrik waved goodbye to him. Anders was left standing on the shore with clenched fists and the blood rushing through his head.

That's impossible! They can't do that!

'Stop, you bastards! Stop!'

Henrik waved his fingers over his shoulder again, and in a blind fury Anders raced out into the water. Which was not water. He had travelled a couple of metres before he realised he was standing on ice. For a moment he stopped dead in sheer physical amazement. He was still holding the torch, and shone it around him, ahead of him.

The sea had not frozen yet, but behind Henrik and Björn stretched a causeway of ice just wide enough for the moped to run along, a bridge of frozen water extending from the point where they had ridden into the water and set off.

Anders ran.

Under different circumstances he would have been astonished at the fact that he was running past his jetty with little waves lapping on either side of him, but the only thing he could see was the straight line between his body and Maja's, the distance he had to cover before he had her in his arms.

He ran with long strides and with every step his wet socks froze on to the ice a fraction before they were pulled free, which give him an excellent grip, and he was gaining on them, he was gaining on them. Before he set off on the water they had been twenty metres ahead of him. Now the distance was shrinking a little with every step he took. The moped was not travelling fast, and he would be able to catch up with it.

And then?

He wasn't even thinking about that.

The moon was high in the sky, creating a silvery path that fell diagonally across the causeway of ice. The beam of the lighthouse on

Gåvasten was flashing directly towards him. That was where they were heading, but they weren't going to get there. He would take them. Somehow he would take them.

He had run approximately three hundred metres from the shore. He could no longer feel his feet, they were nothing but a pair of frozen lumps moving him forward. He was so close to the moped that he could see individual strands of Henrik's hair in the moonlight, and he was trying to urge his body to make one final spurt when something fell from the platform.

Anders slipped, stumbled, fell to his knees on the ice and shone the beam of his torch on the bundle in front of him as the moped continued on its way, out to sea.

Maja, Maja, Maja…

It was her, there was no doubt. When he shone the torch he could see the patch on the chest of her snowsuit. Maja had stuck a knife in it when she was having difficulty putting it on, and Cecilia had mended it with a patch with a picture of Bamse on it.

'Sweetheart? Poppet?'

He crawled over to her and pulled her close. When he had the snowsuit in his arms he screamed.

She had no head.

What have they done, what have they done, what have they…

Everything went black and he collapsed on top of the little body that was beyond all help. He fell right on top of her, and it didn't matter. She had no head, no hands, no feet.

As the darkness tied a knot around his head he heard the gulls in the distance. Gulls that were flying at night. Maja's body crunched beneath his, was squeezed together.

He curled up on the ice and raised his head slightly, shone the beam of the torch on the neck of the snowsuit. There was no body inside. He reached out weakly and touched what was there instead. Seaweed. It was filled with wet bladder wrack.

He lay completely still for a moment digesting this fact as the screams of the gulls drew closer. He felt something cold trickle over his ear and raised his head, drew his legs up under him and managed to get to his feet with the snowsuit in his arms.

A hundred metres out to sea he saw the moped swing around. The headlight was facing him like an evil eye, and it was getting closer.

A trap. It was a trap.

He turned and staggered a few steps towards the shore. The surface beneath his feet squelched and splashed. The ice he had run along earlier had begun to melt. He covered perhaps another ten metres, and then his feet were under water and the ice bridge w.is swaying beneath him.

He clutched the snowsuit tightly and kept going. After a few metres more the ice broke beneath him and he sank down into the water. He had no weapons, and only the moon could see him. He lay in the cold sea and the headlight kept on coming closer.

Clever. Clever of them.

One tiny, tiny detail they had overlooked. The bladder wrack they had used to fill the snowsuit was acting as a kind of a float. He didn't sink immediately. He gained another minute's respite before the cold and the water took him.

Movement was almost impossible. His body had been frozen already, now it felt as if his skeleton itself was clinking with splintering ice as he began paddling towards the shore out of a pure and meaningless instinct for self-preservation.

The moped passed him and Henrik and Bjorn braked, blocking, his way. He saw them only vaguely, as if a film of ice had formed over his eyes. Behind them hundreds of thin silhouettes moved against the starlit sky.

The gulls want to join in, too.

A kind of peace sank into his body, a hint of warmth. It was over now. His efforts had been in vain, but it didn't matter any more. Ii had given him something. He had at least got to see her snowsuit once again. That was something. He would have it with him in his watery grave. The only sad thing was that the gulls would tear at him too, perhaps even peck out his eyes before he…

'Come out,' screamed Henrik as a cloud of birds enveloped him, 'find the one that…' The high-pitched screams of the gulls filled the night as they dived on the boys on the moped and ripped at their hair, pecked at their faces.

Björn stood up on the platform, hitting out at the savagely flapping birds, but for every bird he managed to chase away, there were five more who settled on him, stabbing at his clothes, driving their beaks into his inhuman flesh.

Anders' eyelids twitched and all he wanted to do was sleep, sink down. It was warm now, and a beautiful spectacle to watch. The white wings of the gulls shimmering in the moonlight, their ferocious defence of him, one small human being.

Thank you, beautiful birds.

His left hand was clutching Maja's snowsuit tightly and the movements of his legs stopped as Henrik and Björn shot away on the moped, disappearing in the direction of Gåvasten with the flock of seagulls after them. Anders paddled feebly with his right hand, just to stay afloat long enough to enjoy the beautiful sight for a little while.

Good night, little lapping waves. Good night little lapping waves…

He thought it was Henrik and Björn coming back, having shaken off the gulls. But the sound of the engine that was getting louder was different, somehow. His frozen thoughts moved slowly around in his head as he began to sink. The water had just begun to cover his eyes and run into his mouth when he worked out that it was probably Simon's engine.

The engine slowed and switched to neutral, and Anders just had time to take in a mouthful of cold water before a hand grabbed his hair and pulled him upwards.

Then he was lifted into the boat in a way that was impossible to understand. It was as if the water threw him upwards, away from itself, and he tumbled on to the deck.

He lay on his back looking up at the stars and Simon's face. A clenched fist was laid on Anders' brow and before he fainted he

thought he could see the water lifting from his body in clouds of steam, could feel a wave of real heat sweeping through his blood. Then he saw and felt nothing more.

Strange Ways

So carry me. Carry me all the way home.

Carry me up the path,

round the side of the house, over the threshold, into the house.

Lift me inside in your hands opened gently like eyelids.

Mia Ajvide -If a Girl Wants to Disappear


Another one to the sea

The boat was lying by the jetty and Anders was lying on the deck. With the help of Spiritus, Simon carried on drying his clothes and warming his body. He had asked the water to cast Anders away from itself, but there was no help to be had in getting him ashore.

During the afternoon Simon and Anna-Greta had kept an eye on Anders' house to see if the light came on, if Anders came home. They had taken a walk around the village to look for him, they had phoned but got no reply. When the evening came they had begun to think he had caught the tender and left Domarö. Hopefully.

But Simon had a bad feeling as he went down to his house to try on his clothes for the following day.

Since Anders came back to the island, Simon had never questioned his readjusted picture of Maja, had never seen any reason to do so. This was Anders' way of dealing with his grief, and as long as it worked for him he was welcome to carry on living under his illusions, as far as Simon was concerned.

But the situation had changed.

It had changed when Elin Gronwall started burning houses on Kattudden, when Karl-Erik and Lasse Bergwall ran amok with their chainsaws and Sofia Bergwall pushed the other children off the jetty. When the horrible people returned to Domarö.

Simon didn't know if you could actually call Maja horrible. He too had had his tussles with her, and she was definitely not a 'good' child. She was moody, hyperactive and quick to anger. Yes, she laughed if someone fell over and hurt themselves. Yes, she enjoyed crushing butterflies to dust between her hands. But horrible? Simon had also seen a fierce appetite for life and a vivid imagination which, in a best- case scenario, would stand her in good stead in the years to come.

But even so. Even so.

If Anders really was carrying Maja or a part of Maja inside him, it was not a good thing if he regarded himself as being pregnant with an angel. There was no guarantee that Maja wished him well, and he ought to be aware of that.

That was more or less Simon's reasoning earlier in the day when he had failed to give Anders the assurances about his daughter's goodness that Anders had sought. In the current situation it was no longer possible to do that.

Anders twitched on the deck and Simon placed his fist on Anders' forehead, sending another pulse of warmth through his blood. Anders was still clutching the red snowsuit tightly in his left hand, the suit that Simon also recognised.

How can this be?

Simon had been standing in front of the mirror in his bedroom holding items of clothing up in front of him when he heard the cry, 'Stop, you bastards! Stop!' He had thrown down the clothes and rushed to the kitchen window.

It wasn't easy to see in the moonlight, and what he saw down by the jetty flew in the face of reason. However, he recognised an emergency when he saw one and began to hobble as quickly as he could to the outside door, then down to the jetty.

By the time he got in the boat, Anders had stopped far out in the bay.

Spiritus, Spiritus…

Fortunately Simon had had the matchbox in his pocket, and as his fingers closed around it he thought he could see how things stood. Anders also had a Spiritus, but like Simon he hadn't said anything about it. How else could the strip of ice lying in a black line across the sea be explained?

Simon had pumped petrol into the engine, pulled out the choke and started her up. In his agitated state he had forgotten to push the choke back in when he accelerated, and the engine died. It had taken a while to get it going again, by which time Anders had turned for the shore and started sinking.

When Simon saw the headlight of the moped heading straight for Anders across the water, he had realised that another Spiritus might not be the right explanation. That nothing he knew applied any longer. He had managed to get so far in his thoughts before the mooring ropes were untied and he set off at full speed towards the flock of birds falling from the moon.

Anders coughed a couple of times and opened his eyes. He looked at Simon and nodded slightly. Then he pulled the snowsuit close and clutched it to his chest, saying, 'They tricked me.'

For a long time he said nothing more. He lay still on the deck, twisting and turning the snowsuit in his hands. Then he hauled himself into a sitting position and leaned his back against the central seat. He looked down at his body, pulled at his shirt.

'Why aren't I…wet?' He looked at Simon and frowned. 'How did you get me out of the water?'

Simon scratched his neck and studied the patch on the snowsuit. Bamse had a pile of honey jars. Presumably he was very happy but the moonlight wasn't bright enough for Simon to see what mood he was in.

Anders turned his head and looked back at the bay, towards the spot where Simon had picked him up. 'Didn't it happen? Was it just… didn't it happen?'

Simon closed his eyes tightly, opened them again, cleared his throat and said, 'Oh, it happened. And I think…you need to be told. Quite a few things.'

The television was on up at Anna-Greta's, even though she wasn't watching. This was an occasional habit, or vice, of hers, so it was against a backdrop of people yelling and shouting at each other that Simon sat Anders down at the kitchen table, wrapped a blanket around him and poured him a glass of brandy.

When Anna-Greta went into the living room to switch off the television, Simon followed her. A sweaty man standing in front of a steel-grey skyscraper vanished from the screen and Simon said quietly, 'He has to know. Everything.'

Anna-Greta's expression didn't change. She looked closely at Simon's face, then gave an almost imperceptible nod and said, 'Then he will also be-'

'I know,' said Simon. 'But that doesn't matter. It's already after him. He has to be told what it is.'

He told Anna-Greta very briefly what had happened out in the bay. Then they went into the kitchen together, sat down opposite Anders and told him the whole story.

Left

Tempered by fire. Anders had never really understood the concept, something being tempered by fire in order to change it. He still didn't really know what it meant, but he had an idea of how it felt.

He had despaired and been nothing, then he had chased after a burning hope. He had gone from the depths of cold to a rapid warming process in the course of just a few minutes, the opposite process to tempering steel, and that was just how it felt. He had been softened. Every nerve was on the surface, and his body was as loose as a rotten pear. If he didn't hang on to the edge of the table he would dissolve into a puddle. With every glass of water he drank, he felt more and more diluted.

Anna-Greta and Simon talked and told stories. Of Domarö's past, of the pact with the sea and the people who had disappeared. Of the island that had persecuted his father, and the recent change in the sea.

Anders listened and understood that he was being told astonishing facts. But it wasn't really hitting home, it was passing him by. His gaze returned over and over again to the red snowsuit, hanging up to dry in front of the kitchen stove.

He listened as attentively as he could, but it still seemed like any old story, a story in which he had no part. His story had been about Maja, and that story was over now. It was that thought which kept on going around and around in his head like the whine of a dentist's drill: They tricked me. They. And Maja.

Maja had been a participant in all of this. She had left him and gone back to them. She was one of the evil spirits now, one of all those horrible people who had been put to death, sacrificed, or gone to the sea of their own free will. Everything had been a game to trick him, to entice him.

To Gåvasten.

And he had gone. Presumably they would have taken him during the day if it hadn't been for the gulls. They hadn't been after him at all, they had protected him and formed a wall between him and the thing that wanted to take him.

You took me with you. And then you left me.

He had been aware of Maja's presence all the time. At first he had thought it was in the house, then he had realised it was inside his own body. It had left him now. He knew that. She had done what she had to do. And then she had left him.

The hours passed and he asked questions where necessary so that the narrative continued. He was afraid of being left alone with his thoughts.

Gåvasten.

Which means the stone of the gifts. Which gave. And took. And took.

Now it had taken everything. Anders could no longer hear Simon and Anna-Greta's voices. He stared at Maja's red snowsuit, and it really was the end now. There was, to put it bluntly, nothing to live for any longer.

Why should I live?

With the voices buzzing in the background he made an effort to come up with one reason why he should continue to crawl around between heaven and earth. He couldn't find one. A person is given a certain number of opportunities, and certain number of roads to follow. He had reached the end of every single one.

All that was left was the fear of pain.

He didn't notice that Simon and Anna-Greta had stopped speaking as he went through the alternatives.

The last thing he wanted was to drown himself. Hanging was horrible, and by no means foolproof. He had no tablets. Drinking himself to death would take too long.

For a brief moment he saw himself from outside, as it were, and found that these thoughts brought him peace. He had finally made his mind up, and it felt…not good, but less painful. There was even a hint of tingling anticipation deep inside.

Things will be better.

That last, faintly flickering possibility that something really did exist on the other side. A place or a state where there was joy, happiness. A place that was made for him. That wasn't his belief, but…

Anything is possible.

Yes, anything is possible. Hadn't that been proved during the last few weeks? "We know nothing and anything is possible, so why not a heaven or a paradise?

And then it occurred to him. The shotgun. The one that had featured in the story of Simon and Anna-Greta. He knew that Anna- Greta found it difficult to get rid of things, so presumably the gun was in the house somewhere, possibly in the hidey-hole.

Anders nodded to himself. The shotgun was good. It would satisfy all his requirements. It was quick, it was certain, and there was a perverse beauty in using the gun that had saved his father's, and thus his own life. To end things with the same weapon.

So he it.

Once the decision was made and the method established, he became aware of the silence in the kitchen. He was worried that he might have been speaking out loud without being aware of it and, venturing a neutral little smile, he turned to Simon and Anna-Greta.

'Yes,' he said. 'There's a lot to think about.'

Anna-Greta gave him a penetrating look, and Anders followed his comment with a thoughtful nod, as if they really had given him something to think about, despite the fact that he had only heard fragments of what they had been telling him.

'Anders,' said Simon. 'You can't stay down there in the Shack while…all this is going on.'

Anna-Greta finished off, 'You're staying here.'

Anders nodded for a long time, then said, 'Thank you. That's great. Thank you.' He looked at Simon. 'Thank you for everything.'

Why didn't you let me sink?

When Simon continued to look at him suspiciously, Anders searched his memory for some detail that would make it sound as if he had been listening. He found it and added, 'It's unbelievable, all that business with…Spiritus.'

'Yes,' said Simon, but the tense, watchful atmosphere did not ease. Anders realised he wasn't performing very well, and that it had been noticed. If this went on, the conversation would take a new turn and he didn't want that. He let his body slump and said, 'I'm absolutely shattered.'

That at least was true, and the reaction was exactly what he had hoped for. Anna-Greta went to make up the bed in the guest room and Anders remained in the kitchen with Simon.

'Is there any more brandy?' asked Anders, just for the sake of something to say, and Simon fetched the bottle and poured him another drink. Anders took note of where the bottle was kept, in case he might need a drink to help him carry out his plan.

He knocked back the contents of the glass and it had no effect whatsoever, it merely went down and was dispersed into the darkness of his body. Simon was still looking at him, he seemed to be on the point of asking a question but Anders forestalled him by taking up another of the threads he remembered from their story.

'It's strange about the Bergwalls,' he said. 'The fact that they all seem to have been…influenced.'

To his relief Simon took the bait. 'I've thought about that a lot,' he said. 'Why only certain people have been affected. Elin, the Bergwalls, Karl-Erik. And you.'

Before Anders could stop himself he had said it. 'She's gone.'

Simon leaned across the table. 'Who's gone?'

Anders could have bitten his tongue, but he shrugged his shoulders and tried to say it as casually as possible. 'She's left me. Maja. I'm free. Everything's fine.'

He heard Anna-Greta's footsteps coming down the stairs and stood up, folded the blanket over the back of the chair. Simon also got to his feet, and Anders precluded any possible follow-up questions by going over to him and giving him a hug. 'Good night, Simon. Thanks for this evening.'

Anders didn't feel remotely tearful as Simon patted his back and hugged him in return. The decision had been made with such clarity that he was already dead in every meaningful sense. It was merely a question of establishing the time and place for his death in the physical world.

Anna-Greta went through the arrangements for the following day and Anders nodded at everything. It was easy. Everything was generally much easier when you were dead, he noticed. It was the perfect solution, a miracle cure. Everybody should try it. On his way upstairs he glanced over at the door to the hidey-hole.

When?

As soon as possible. The vague euphoria currently floating in his chest wouldn't last long, he realised that. If he postponed the deed, the roaring, bottomless darkness would return. It had to happen soon, very soon.

He could hear Simon and Anna-Greta's voices downstairs as he went into the guest room across from Anna-Greta's room. She had put out some clothes for him to borrow for the following day. He undressed and got into bed, feeling as excited as a child the night before its birthday, he could see Maja in his mind's eye, jumping up and down in bed and ripping open her presents while she-

No. Go away. Go away.

He felt a stab of pain in his chest as he pushed away the picture of Maja and evoked the taste of metal on his tongue, felt his lips closing around the barrel of the gun, his finger on the trigger. He sucked on the image and was at peace once more.

A little while later he heard Anna-Greta and Simon come upstairs and go into the room opposite. By this stage he was so far into his own death that he really did slip away from this world, and fell asleep.

Divining rod

'You old fool, how did you come up with such a thing?'

'It just felt as if it was time.'

'Was it your idea?'

Simon hesitated. Göran laughed and patted him on the shoulder. 'No, I thought not. It's not like you at all. But it's very much like Anna-Greta!'

Simon pulled a face and said childishly, 'Yes, but I want to get married too.'

'Yes, yes, I don't doubt that,' said Göran. 'But I just found it difficult to picture you…going down on one knee.'

Simon glanced at Göran's stiff legs and awkward gait. 'I find it difficult to picture you going down on one knee as well.'

They emerged from the forest and headed down towards Kattudden. The worst of the devastation had been cleared away, but when they cut across the Carlgrens' garden, where the outhouse had been damaged by some of the trees that had had to be felled, they had to pick their way among lopped-off branches and rough wood that would presumably lie there for some time. Göran kicked an empty plastic bottle out of the way and said, 'I wonder if there's any point, really.'

'In what?'

'Well, we've tried to keep a bit of a watch out here at night. So that nothing else will happen. But I mean, we can't go on like this forever.'

'You're thinking about your own cottage?'

'Yes. If this carries on, I imagine that's bound to go as well, eventually. Unless we catch them, of course.'

Göran's cottage was at the southern end of Kattudden. A line of trees separated it from the area Holger's father had sold to the broker. However, Simon understood Göran's unease. With a big fire and the wind in the wrong direction, the flames would soon reach Göran's house. And in that case a newly-dug well wouldn't be much help.

'Let's see how it goes,' said Simon. 'I mean, you can always do the actual digging later.'

'True.'

They passed through the village and glanced over at what used to be the Grönwalls' summer residence. Simon's throat went dry as he thought about what had happened to the girl who had lived there. They took the short path to Göran's house.

'What's your take on all this?' asked Göran. 'Can you make any sense of it?'

'None at all,' lied Simon, taking out the divining rod made of rowan which he used for appearances' sake.

'Do you think you'll be able to find a pure source here?' asked Göran. 'I know there have been problems in the past.'

'Let's wait and see,' said Simon, starting to scan the ground as they moved towards the house.

Göran sat down on the porch and watched Simon as he moved slowly across the garden with the divining rod in one hand and the other hand in his pocket. He thought this was a strange technique. Twice before he had watched people using a divining rod, and they had held the forked branch steadily in both hands. He had neither seen nor heard of Simon's one-handed grip before.

Oh well, Simon was welcome to walk backwards with the branch in his mouth as far as Göran was concerned, as long as he found clean water. For what it was worth.

Göran sighed and looked sideways at the front of the little cottage his grandfather had built more than a hundred years ago. He thought what a dreadful waste it all was. One little spark, and the entire history of this part of the family would be wiped out.

When he looked back at the garden, Simon had stopped and was looking down at the ground.

So there was water after all.

Göran got to his feet to go over to him, but froze as Simon raised his head and their eyes met. Something was wrong. Simon's eyes were wide open and his mouth was gaping, the branch fell from his hands and he wobbled as if he had been dealt a powerful blow.

'Simon!'

Göran got no reply, and went over to Simon, who was swaying on the lawn with unseeing eyes. A couple of words forced their way out and Göran thought it sounded like: 'I…know.'

Old lead

Anders woke to a silent and empty house, inside and outside. Nothing was moving, and he could hear only the faint sounds of the house itself. He lay there for a while staring up at the white-painted wooden ceiling. Nothing had changed. The darkness was ready to pounce, only his decision was keeping it at bay.

He got up and dressed slowly and carefully in the clothes Anna- Greta had laid out. Then he crept down the stairs. The kitchen clock was showing quarter-past eleven, and Simon and Anna-Greta were out attending to their respective tasks. Everything was as it should be. He opened the door at the bottom of the stairs.

The hidey-hole consisted of two rooms, each approximately seven or eight metres square, and originally intended for children who never came. Now they were filled with all kinds of rubbish and long-forgotten memories, things that might come in useful but never did, and closest to the door more practical things, such as tools and painting equipment.

He passed a pile of old clothes and rags covered with a Swedish flag and went into the inner room. It was darker in here because the window was partly covered by an old table standing on end, and the smell of mould and age was more noticeable. He switched on the light.

The room was full of old nets, agricultural tools, spinning wheels and similar items. Someone from Antiques Roadshow would probably have been able to sniff out the valuable items amid all the rubbish.

The thing he was looking for was straight ahead of him, propped up against a broken chair as if it were waiting for him.

He crouched down and picked up the double-barrelled shotgun, turned it over and broke it open. The chambers were empty. Anders lowered his head. The darkness pricked up its ears and crept closer to him, he could feel it as a pain in his stomach, growing stronger by the minute.

He placed the barrels in his mouth, closed his lips around them and curled his finger around the trigger. The darkness halted, moved back a little way. He had gained some respite.

His hands were trembling as he put down the gun and started looking for cartridges. He looked on the floor, on tables, behind nets. His fear of the darkness made his whole body shake as he swept aside piles of old newspapers, pushed his hands behind a chest of drawers and felt granules of dried mouse droppings slip through his fingers.

He sat up straight, pulled out the bottom drawer and there, among old whetstones and keys to locks that no longer existed, he found the box. An unassuming brown cardboard box containing seven cartridges. He breathed out, a panting sound, then took out one cartridge and studied it.

This little instrument of death was considerably newer than the gun. A cylinder of thick, red cardboard enclosed a densely packed clump of lead shot. Right at the bottom sat the gold-coloured detonator with its charge of primer.

Anders picked at the little circle in the centre of the cartridge's base. One blow to that circle and the primer was ignited, exploded and hurled out the shot.

So simple, really.

He pulled the gun towards him, pushed the cartridge into the bore and snapped the barrels into place. He ran his finger over the hammer and pulled it back until it too clicked into place.

So simple.

The entire construction of the gun was nothing more than a loop around the thin hammer that would peck at the detonator with its beak and then…all over. In a few seconds it would all be over at last.

The best thing would probably be to prop the stock of the gun in one corner so that the recoil wouldn't displace the gun, with the risk that the shot would tear him to pieces without actually finishing him off. He looked around the room, and just as he established that it would be easy to clear the corner behind the nets, he became aware of his own selfishness.

It's their wedding day.

But he couldn't wait. He carefully put down the gun and lifted up the first of the nets.

You can wait. You can wait one day.

He stopped with the net folded over his arm and shook his head.

You have to. However hard it might be. For their sake. You can't do this to them.

He knew it was true. With the net pressed against his chest he waited for the darkness to pounce, to punish him for his hesitation. But it didn't come. It trusted him. It could wait.

Tomorrow.

He knew that Simon and Anna-Greta were going on their little honeymoon to Finland the following day. He could do it then. And he could also show them the consideration of not doing it here, in their house. That would be inestimably selfish, and besides he knew exactly where it should be done, the perfect place for gifts and sacrifices.

Gently he moved the cock back and hid the loaded gun behind the nets, went back into the kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee while he waited for Simon.

Simon didn't come.

It had been agreed that they would catch the one o'clock boat together, but it got to half-past twelve, quarter to one and there was no sign of Simon. Anders thought he must have misunderstood in his preoccupied state the previous evening, and that they were supposed to meet at the jetty.

He would pretend to be alive for one more day, for their sake. Then that would be an end to his consideration for others. It was bad enough that they would find out when they came back from their trip, but it couldn't be helped. He couldn't carry on living just to make them happy.

But he would pretend for one more day, so while he smoked a cigarette he checked his appearance in the hall mirror to see if he would pass muster for a wedding. The white shirt and trousers were slightly too big for him, but the shoes were a surprisingly good fit. On the coat hooks he found one of Simon's old jackets and pulled it on.

When he closed the door behind him to be welcomed by yet another grey, overcast day, he thought he could probably get through this too. The gun was loaded and ready, it was only a matter of perhaps twenty hours before it would be put to use.

For the moment the darkness seemed satisfied that the preparations had been carried out, and it even took its eyes off him a couple of times as he made his way down to the steamboat jetty.

Simon wasn't there either. There were about twenty people gathered on the jetty, all dressed up in their best clothes and all on their way to Nåten and the wedding, but the bridegroom was missing. Anders went over to Elof Lundberg. He was wearing a very grand overcoat, which didn't go with the inevitable cap at all.

'Have you seen Simon?'

'No,' said Elof. 'Isn't he already there, then?'

'Yes. I suppose he is.'

Anders moved away and tried to remember what Simon had said.

He was going to look for water at Göran's place, wasn't he?

Anders looked around, but Göran wasn't on the jetty either. He wasn't proud of it, but a terrible little hope flickered into life within Anders: something had happened. Something that would mean the wedding had to be postponed. Something that would allow him to go back to the hidey-hole today, after all.

The tender glided alongside and there was chattering and laughter as the wedding guests climbed aboard. As it reversed out Anders stood in the prow, looking over towards Simon's jetty. Perhaps he had taken his own boat over to Nåten?

But the boat was by the jetty, and there was no sign of the bridegroom anywhere.

Proof of eligibility

Anders stayed in the prow for the whole crossing and didn't speak to anyone; when they hove to he was the first one off, and walked quickly towards the church. Behind him came the wedding guests, chattering noisily.

Nåten church was in a beautiful spot on a small hill close to the sea, and the churchyard covered the entire slope down to the shore, where the emblematic anchor that adorned every written communication from the church lay like a brake, as if to stop the headstones and crosses from tumbling down into the sea.

The wedding ceremony wasn't due to start for half an hour. Anders guessed that those who were about to be married would usually wait for the exact moment in the community centre beyond the churchyard gate. He went up the steps and knocked on the door. When no one answered, he stepped inside.

Two long tables were laid for the guests, and an extravagantly decorated buffet was displayed on a smaller table in the middle of the room. He could hear women's voices from behind a door at the far end.

She has to be told.

The sound of the guests' voices was getting closer. Anders walked to the other end of the room, tapped on the door and opened it.

Despite the fact that he was committed to death and that nothing mattered any more, he couldn't help but be taken aback at the sight of his grandmother in her wedding finery.

Anna-Greta's long, grey hair had been arranged in a wave-like style that caught the pale light from the window, so that it poured down over her in cascades of silver. The white flowers on her beige dress reinforced the impression of a borrowed starlit glow that reached all the way up to her forehead. Her face had been skilfully made up to bring out the sparkle in her eyes.

Next to her, two women of the same age sat fiddling with something on her dress. Anders looked quickly around the room. No Simon.

'How do I look?' asked Anna-Greta.

'Wonderful,' said Anders honestly. 'Has Simon been here?'

'No.' The sparkle in Anna-Greta's eyes dulled a little. 'Hasn't he arrived?'

Anders shook his head and Anna-Greta made a move to go out and check for herself, but one of the women held her back and said, 'Don't worry, he'll come. Now stand still.'

Anna-Greta flung her arms wide in a helpless gesture as if to show that she was a captive. 'Go and wait with the others,' she said. 'I'm sure he'll be here.'

Anders backed out of the room and left her in the hands of her guards. He had done what he could. It was no longer his problem. And yet he felt sorry for Anna-Greta. So pretty, so dressed up, so full of anticipation. His little grandma.

Because he knew that Simon would not come. That somehow or other he had been captured by the forces that were on the move. End of story. Simon was gone, and Anders intended to catch the three o'clock boat back and put an end to all his sorrows.

It was quarter to two when Anders walked up to the church and looked in through the open door. Some thirty people were seated in the pews. The guests who had come over on the tender had been supplemented by people from Nåten and those who had come in their own boats. Up by the altar the priest was adjusting a bunch of white roses in a vase.

The slope drew Anders down to the churchyard, and he wandered among the gravestones. He stood for a long time in front of the family grave where both his father and his grandfather stood alone with their names beneath Torgny and Maja. Presumably Anna-Greta would make sure that his own name was added at the bottom of the column of lone men.

And Simon? Where will Simon end up?

At just after two, people started coming out of the church to see what was happening, or rather to see why nothing was happening. Anders carried on down to the water's edge to avoid being spoken to. He stopped in front of the huge anchor and read the plaque.


IN MEMORY OF THOSE LOST AT SEA


Anders ran his hand over the rusty cast iron, over the treated wood. It would be more fitting for him to be buried here, beneath the anchor, because he had been lost at sea and then wandered around pointlessly on dry land for a couple of years. He followed the chain that ran from the top of the anchor down into the ground.

Where does that go?

He saw the chain disappearing deep underground or out across the bottom of the sea; in his mind he hurled his body in the direction of the chain and followed it downwards…

…burrowing down into the slime on the seabed, down into the mud and the blue clay, down to the point where nothing can live, where there is complete silence…

His thoughts were interrupted by shouts from the direction of the church. People were pointing out to sea, and when Anders turned around, his lips curved into a smile in spite of everything. A boat was heading towards them from out in the bay. A rickety fibreglass boat with a twenty-horsepower Evinrude engine. Simon's boat.

The wedding guests poured down the slope like a flock of eager sheep and gathered on the shoreline as the boat approached. There were two people on board, and when the boat was about a hundred metres from land, Anders could see that it was Simon and Göran.

Göran was driving, and Simon was sitting up in the prow with his hair blowing around his ears. People clapped and cheered.

The magician's final entrance.

The boat didn't head for the harbour, but made straight for the incline below the anchor. Göran put the engine into neutral and floated the last few metres into the shore. Simon climbed out, and the guests combined their efforts to haul the boat safely ashore.

Simon's eyes sought out Anders and he started to say something, but the guests grabbed him by the arms and pulled him up towards the church, where Anna-Greta was now waiting for him, her arms folded across her chest. Without doubt the entrance was effective, but Anna-Greta could be forgiven for wishing that on this particular day there had been slightly less spectacle and slightly more solemnity.

Anders followed a couple of steps behind and waited until everyone else had disappeared into the church before he walked in and took a seat at the back.

Let love come

The description of the wedding has been omitted.

Strangely enough, descriptions of weddings aren't all that interesting. I mean, two people promising each other eternal commitment and fidelity before God really ought to be something enjoyable, but actually it isn't.

It's like a horror story, but in reverse. When the monster shows its ugly mug at the end, it's always a disappointment. It can never match up to our expectations. It's the same with a wedding. The journey along the winding paths of love is spine tingling, the lead-up in some cases is a real battleground and the basic idea behind the whole thing is beautiful and mind blowing.

But the ritual itself?

You would have to call in Marc Chagall, Wolfgang Amadeus

Mozart and David Copperfield's tech team to do the idea justice. People would hover above the ground, there would be flashes of lightning, waterfalls and a symphony that would make the plaster fall off the walls and swirl in flakes around the conjoined couple like confetti spiralling up to the ceiling.

Nothing like that occurred in the church at Nåten.

Suffice to say that Simon and Anna-Greta exchanged vows, that some appropriate music was played on the organ, and that many people were moved. However, there was one beautiful thing that happened. Anna-Greta was a radiant bride, and Simon was rather a mess. Despite the fact that he had managed to get into his wedding outfit, it looked as if he had done so in rather a hurry. His tie was crooked, his socks didn't match his trousers and his hair was tousled.

But let joy be unconfined nevertheless! Let love come! Let it be victorious!

Let the couple walk out on to the church steps and let Anna-Greta's two friends, who know how these things should be done, shower them with confetti, and let us hear the choirs of angels in the background and see the cascades of eider feathers that have been collected from the islands for months, let them fall from the heavens like snowy apple blossom strewn from the hands of God the Father as he opens his warm embrace.

Yes!

Yes, yes, yes!

And then let us go together to the community centre and help ourselves to the buffet. This day is not over yet. Not by a long way. Let us go.

The water

People spread themselves out around the tables and, to Anders' relief, Anna-Greta took him by the arm so that he ended up next to her, with no one on his other side. Opposite him sat Anna-Greta's two friends, and after Anna-Greta had introduced them as Gerda and Lisa, the two ladies concentrated on each other.

The guests filled their plates and helped themselves to beer or soft drinks. It certainly wasn't a showy affair, and it was almost fortunate that Simon's entrance had made it something to remember.

But Simon wasn't done yet.

After Anders had congratulated his grandmother and told her once again how lovely she looked, he leaned over to pass on his good wishes to Simon too, but Simon was preoccupied with something going on inside himself. He was staring down at the table with concentration etched on his face, his lips moving slightly.

Anders was about to say something to bring him back to reality when Simon suddenly got to his feet and tapped on his neighbour's bottle with a fork.

'Dear friends!' he said. 'There are certain things that…' He stopped and looked at Anna-Greta, who was looking at him questioningly. He cleared his throat and tried again. 'First of all I would like to say how happy I am. That you have come here today, that I have been given…the blessing of marrying the most wonderful woman ever to have sat in a boat. Or not sat in a boat.'

A few people laughed and scattered applause broke out. Anna- Greta lowered her eyes becomingly.

'And there was another matter…and I don't know how to…there's something I have to tell you, and I don't really know…there are so many…'

Simon looked around the room. There was total silence now. One person had their fork halfway to their mouth, and lowered it slowly as Simon groped for the right words.

'What I wanted to say,' said Simon, 'is that since so many people from Domarci are gathered here together…and perhaps this isn't the most suitable occasion and I don't really know how to put it, but…'

Simon stopped speaking again and Anders heard Gerda whisper to Lisa, 'Is he drunk?' Lisa nodded and clamped her lips together thinly as, under the table, Anna-Greta gave a hesitant tug at Simon's trouser leg in an attempt to get him to sit down.

Simon made a decision and straightened up, speaking more clearly, 'There is no sensible way of putting this, so I'm just going to say it and you must take it as you wish.'

Lisa and Gerda had leaned back in their seats, folded their arms, and were looking at Simon with distaste. Other guests were looking at each other and wondering what was to come. Eyebrows were raised when Simon seemed to be starting on a completely different tack.

'The wells on Domarö,' he said. 'I know that several people have had problems with salt water getting in, that the drinking water is contaminated by the sea seeping in.'

There were nods here and there. Even if it was impossible to understand why Simon had brought up this issue, at least what he said was a well-known fact. When Simon started to speak again, his eyes flickered over towards Anders from time to time.

'We have also had a number of other problems recently. People suddenly being odd or even…wicked. People who don't seem to be themselves, if you see what I mean.'

There were nods of agreement here and there. They could go along with that too. Before long he would probably mention that the cod had been fished out as well, another tedious but incontrovertible fact.

'What I wanted to say,' said Simon, 'is that I've worked out that these two things are connected. This…illness or whatever we ought to call it, affects those who have salt water in their wells. So…those of you who have salt water in your well, don't drink it!'

If Simon had hoped for gasps of amazement and recognition from his audience, he was disappointed. Most of them were looking at him with expressions ranging from scepticism to incomprehension. Simon flung his arms wide and raised his voice.

'That's how the sea gets in! Don't you understand? They're in the sea and they…find their way in through the water in the wells. If we drink it they get inside us and we…change.'

When Simon still didn't get the reaction he was looking for, he sighed and said in a more resigned tone of voice, 'I'm just asking you to believe what I say. Don't drink water that has become salty. Let's say it's poisonous, just for simplicity's sake. Don't drink it.'

Simon slumped back down on his chair and there was a long silence. Gradually murmured conversations sprang up around the table. Anna-Greta leaned over to Simon and said something. Lisa and Gerda still had their arms folded, and looked as if they were waiting for the next instalment.

And Anders…

It was as if he had heard only snatches of a melody until now. Sometimes faintly, as if it was coming through the wall from another room. Sometimes louder but quickly fading, as if from a passing car with its stereo turned to full volume. Sometimes just a note or two in the soughing of the trees and the dripping of the water during the night.

With Simon's words, the entire orchestra stepped forward out of the darkness and crashed into life, deafening him and silencing his whole body.

The water. Of course. The drinking water.

Despite the perception that Maja was running through his body, it had never occurred to him that that was actually the way it was. He had been going around knocking back wine from plastic bottles, sometimes several litres per day. Wine diluted with water from the tap. He had woken feeling thirsty and hungover, and had drunk lots and lots of water.

And what really made him almost slide off his chair as he sank further and further into the music: Maja had not left him at all. He just hadn't been drinking water. During the whole of the previous day he had drunk only undiluted wine and wormwood concentrate. It was only when he got to Anna-Greta's house that he had taken in liquid in the form of water. And their water wasn't…infected.

Anders felt a hand on his back and Simon leaned over him. 'Do you understand?' he whispered.

Anders nodded vaguely as the music of all the connections continued to reverberate in his head. The eternal sea, always one and the same, that could work its way into every crack, could spread and extend but always returned to itself. One vast body with billions of limbs, from thundering waves to rivulets as thin as a spider's leg that found their way in, found their way through. The sea. And those who existed within it.

Simon pulled at his arm and Anders got up and followed him as if he were in a trance.

No one has such long fingers.

In his mind's eye he could see the sea groping its way across the rocks on the islands, through fissures in the bedrock, down into the ground, into the wells, and it was like a mantra running through his head as Simon led him outside: No one has such long fingers. No one has such long fingers.

'Anders, are you still with us?'

Simon waved a hand in front of his eyes, and with an effort Anders managed to bring himself back, to discover that he was standing on the porch of the community centre. His right hand was resting on the cold iron railing; he gripped it tightly, holding himself firmly in place.

'How did you work it out?' he asked.

'When I was looking for water for Göran,' said Simon, 'and I felt all the brackish water coursing through the rock-'

'Felt?'

'Yes.' Simon pulled the matchbox out of his pocket and showed it to Anders, then put it away again. Anders nodded. He did actually remember that part of the story.

And then I thought about what your water is like,' Simon went on, 'and above all what Elin's water was like. After the fire I was by her well, there was something that drew me to it, there was something there. I didn't pick up on it at the time, but I tasted the water and it was salty. More salty than yours. Since then that thought has been in the back of my mind and…today I caught sight of it.' Simon sighed and glanced at the closed door of the community centre. 'Although I don't really think I managed to convince anybody.'

'Why were you so late?'

Simon shrugged his shoulders. 'I had to check. Karl-Erik's well and the Bergwalls' well. It was the same there. Salt in the water. When they were sawing they probably had flasks of water with them, and drank as they worked. I think it reaches some kind of critical point and then…it breaks out. The other person.'

Anders leaned on the railing and looked down towards the harbour. It was an hour until the next tender crossed the sea. Was permitted to cross the sea.

No one has such long fingers. No one has such strong fingers.

Unannounced, a memory popped into his head. He was perhaps ten years old when his father put out a hoop net for fun and caught one solitary eel. Anders had stood on the jetty watching his father trying to grab hold of the eel to get it out of the boat. It had been impossible.

Eventually his father managed to push the eel into a plastic bag. It slithered out. He got the eel into the bag once again and held the top closed with both hands as he climbed out of the boat with great difficulty.

When he got up on to the jetty he stopped and stared at the bag and laughed out loud. Despite the fact that his hands were strong and he was clutching the bag as tightly as he could, the eel had still managed to brace itself against the bottom of the bag and was slowly and inexorably forcing its way past his clenched fists and out of the bag. It fell on to the jetty, hurled its body forward and slid into the water.

'Well, there's a thing,' said his father with a kind of admiration in his voice. 'That one certainly wanted to live.'

Afterwards they had laughed about it. His father so big and strong, the eel so small and tough. And yet the eel had won.

No one has such long, such strong fingers.

And yet it is still possible to slither through. If you just want to live enough.

Come in

At half-past six the tender moored at the jetty on Domarö, and a man who no longer wanted to die left the group of cheerful people getting off. He ran to the west. When he drew level with the ramblers' hostel he had to slow down, since a renewed desire to live does not bring with it new lungs.

Anders jogged to the point where the track divided in two. He was forced to walk the last stretch because his windpipe was whistling and he felt as if he was breathing through a straw. He passed the straight pine tree, pulled open the door of the Shack and went straight into the kitchen without taking off his shoes. He leaned over the sink, turned on the tap and drank like a man who has walked across the desert. He panted, breathed in deeply, drank again. Straightened up, panted, drank again.

He drank until his stomach was distended and the cold water was threatening to come back up through his throat. Then he lay down on the floor. When he rocked from side to side he could hear the water lapping in his stomach.

Come in. I will carry you.

He closed his eyes and listened, checked what he was feeling.

He had promised Simon and Anna-Greta that he would go back up to Anna-Greta's house as soon as he had done what he had to do at home. But still he lay there on the floor, waiting as the water in his stomach gradually ceased to be a cold, separate clump, as its temperature rose to body heat and became a part of him.

Are you there?

There was no answer, and doubt sank its claws into him. What if Simon had been wrong? What if Simon had been right, but it still didn't mean that Maja was on his side? The snowsuit. How had Henrik and Björn actually got hold of the snowsuit?

This was the last chance. He was balancing on the edge of a precipice, and only a touch as light as a feather, the right touch, could save him. If it didn't come, there was nothing but the downward plunge and the darkness.

Come. Touch me.

Inside his body was a hollow space that was much bigger than his body. A summer breeze off the sea wafted through the room, bringing with it a single fluffy dandelion seed that floated around on the air currents until it finally landed on the inside of his skin. It tickled and settled down. That was what it felt like. So faint. But he knew.

You are here.

After that first, microscopic touch it grew stronger. What the water had carried with it spread through his blood, into his muscles, and the tickle became a soft caress and a greater presence, as if the downy seed really had brought with it other seeds that had now taken root in his flesh, causing small dandelions to bloom. He couldn't see them, but beneath the horizon they lit up his world, and his eyes filled with tears.

Hello, sweetheart. I'm sorry I…forgive me. For everything.

He looked in cupboards and drawers and got out every bottle he could find, then filled them from the kitchen tap. He ended up with about ten litres of water in large and small bottles, which he stuffed into two carrier bags. He found room for the bottle of wormwood too.

Finally he fetched some Bamse comics from the bedroom and slipped the photographs from Gåvasten into his pocket. Then he left the house. Before he even got to Anna-Greta's house he fished out one of the bottles and took a couple of swigs.

The newlyweds were sitting in the kitchen, and had changed into their everyday clothes. Everything was as usual, and everything was different. New bonds had been formed without anything changing on the surface. When Simon caught sight of the carrier bags, he asked, 'Is that…water?'

'Yes.'

'Can I have a look at one of the bottles?'

Anders dug out one of the bottles and placed it on the table in front of Simon. It was an old plastic bottle; the label had fallen off, and the slightly cloudy water was clearly visible through the plastic. All three of them gathered around the bottle as if it were a relic, a sacred object.

There was nothing special to see, Anders had already established that when he was filling the bottles. The water in the Shack had always been cloudy because of methane gas or chemical deposits, it had always had that misty, slightly ghostly appearance; it needed to stand in an open container for a while before it cleared.

Simon pulled a glass towards him, looked at Anders and asked, 'May I…?'

A pang of…a protective instinct ran through Anders, but before he could open his mouth Anna-Greta had said what he was about to say, 'You're not going to drink that?'

'I've drunk it before,' said Simon. 'But this time I was only intending to pour it out. Is that OK?'

Anders nodded, finding the situation slightly absurd. Simon was asking for permission to pour water out of a bottle. But it wasn't absurd. Not anymore.

Anders felt uncomfortable as Simon unscrewed the cap and poured the water. Maja was in that water, and Simon knew that, which was why he had asked for permission. It was like handling someone's ashes. The relatives must be consulted.

She isn't dead. She isn't gone. She…

Anders suddenly thought of something Simon had told him a long time ago, or was it just a few days ago? Time had lost its meaning as days and nights, hope and powerlessness slipped in and out of each other in strange ways.

He was about to ask, but Simon's experiment caught his attention. Simon had picked up the matchbox and tipped the insect into his left hand. He now moved his right hand towards the glass, glanced at Anders, then dipped his index and middle finger in the water. Closed his eyes.

There wasn't a sound in the kitchen as Simon waited. Thirty seconds passed. Then Simon removed his fingers from the glass and shook his head.

'No,' he said. 'There is something there. Particularly now that I know. But it's too faint.'

For a moment Simon didn't know what to do with his wet fingers. He was about to dry them on his trousers purely as a reflex action, but stopped himself and allowed them to dry on their own. Anders raised the glass to his lips and drank the water.

'Do you really think that's a good idea?' asked Anna-Greta.

'Grandma,' said Anders. 'You have no idea how good it is.'

It couldn't be helped, all that drinking had made him desperate for a pee. Presumably all the fluid that left his body, tears, sweat, urine, somehow made what was in the water…evaporate from him, but there it was. He would just have to drink some more afterwards.

On the way to the toilet he passed the closed door to the hidey- hole, and through the wall he waved goodbye to the shotgun inside. He made a mental note to take out the cartridge when he had the opportunity, so that nobody would come to grief.

He emptied his bladder while contemplating the framed picture above the toilet. A classic motif: a little girl with a basket over her arm is walking along a narrow footbridge across a ravine. Beside her hovers an angel with great big wings and outstretched arms, as if to catch the girl if she should fall. The girl is completely oblivious to both the danger and the presence of the angel, she is simply the roses in her cheeks and the sunshine in her eyes.

That's what it's like, thought Anders, that's exactly what it's like.

He had no idea what he meant, what this particular picture had to do with his story, but one thing he did know: the great stories were true, the timeless pictures portraying need, beauty, danger and grace were meaningful.

Everything is possible.

When he got back to the kitchen Anna-Greta was busy lighting a fire. Simon was still staring at the bottle as if he were gazing into a crystal ball, where a glimpse of something might appear at any moment. Anders sat down opposite him.

'Simon,' he said. 'What happened with Holger's wife? With Sigrid?'

Simon looked up from the bottle. 'I know,' he said. 'I've been thinking about that too.'

'What have you come up with?'

'Don't you remember what happened?'

Anders grabbed the bottle and drank deeply. 'No,' he said. 'There's so much that I…a lot of things have just disappeared. Those first days here on the island are very…foggy.' Anders smiled and had another drink. 'And I probably haven't…been myself, not really. If you know what I mean.'

'How does it feel now?'

Anders ran his hand over his chest. 'It feels…warm. And less lonely. What about Sigrid?'

Anna-Greta placed a steaming pot of coffee on the table and sat down between them.

'I have to say one thing,' she said, looking from Anders to Simon, then back at Anders. 'Bearing in mind what we know and what has happened, this might sound…harsh. But what I want to say is…don't try to do anything. Don't try to…challenge the sea. It's dangerous. It could go wrong. It could go very, very badly wrong. Much worse than we can imagine.'

'What do you mean?' asked Simon.

'I just mean that…it's bigger than us. Infinitely bigger. It can crush us. Just like that. It's happened before. And this is not just about us. Other people live here too.'

Anders thought about what Anna-Greta had said, and it certainly made sense, but there was one thing he didn't understand.

'Why are you saying this now?' he asked.

Anna-Greta's hand was unsteady as she poured coffee into her saucer and reached for a sugar lump. 'I thought it might be appropriate,' she said. 'To remind you.' She pushed the sugar lump into her mouth and slurped a little of the boiling-hot coffee.

'Sigrid hadn't been in the water for very long when I found her,' said Simon. 'Just a few hours. Despite the fact that it was a year since she disappeared.'

'But she was dead, wasn't she?' said Anders.

'Oh yes,' said Simon. 'Then she was dead.'

Anna-Greta held the coffee pot out to Anders, and he waved it away impatiently. She put it back on the tablemat, ran her hand over her forehead and closed her eyes.

'What are you saying?' said Anders. 'I thought she'd…been dead for a year, but only in the water for a few hours. That was the odd thing about it.'

'No,' said Simon. 'She'd been gone for a year. But she'd died from drowning just a few hours before I found her.'

Anders looked at his grandmother, who was still sitting with her eyes closed as if in pain, a deep furrow of anxiety between her eyebrows. He shook his head violently and said, 'So where was she, then? All that time?'

'I don't know,' said Simon. 'But she was somewhere.'

Anders sat motionless as goose bumps covered his entire body. He twitched. Stared straight ahead. Saw the picture. Twitched again.

'And that's where Maja is now,' he whispered. 'Without her snowsuit.'

Nobody said anything for a long time. Anna-Greta pushed away her saucer and looked anywhere but at Anders. Simon sat there fiddling with his matchbox. Outside and around them the sea breathed, apparently asleep. Anders sat still, twitching from time to time as yet another horrible picture pierced his breast like a cold blade.

Something inside him had known this. Perhaps he had actually remembered what had happened with Sigrid, somewhere right at the back of his mind. Or perhaps he simply knew. That a part of Maja existed inside him, and another part existed…somewhere else. Somewhere where she couldn't reach him and he couldn't reach her.

Anna-Greta broke the silence. She turned to Anders and said, 'When your great-grandfather was little, there was a man in the western part of the village who lost his wife to the sea. He would never talk about how it had happened. But he never stopped searching for her.'

Anna-Greta pointed to the east.

'Do you know about the wreck? On the rocks on Ledinge? There were bits left when I was young, but it's all gone now. That was his boat. I don't know what he did to…annoy it. But at any rate his boat was found there eventually. Way inland, up on a hill. Smashed to pieces.'

'Sorry,' said Simon. 'Did you say he was from the western part of the village?'

'Yes,' said Anna-Greta. 'That's what I'm getting at. His house and all the houses around it…disappeared. A storm came from the west. And as you know perfectly well: storms don't come from the west, from the mainland. It's not possible. But this one did. It came in the night, blew up to hurricane force in a moment. Eight houses were… smashed to kindling. Five people died. Three of them were children who didn't get away in time.'

She uttered the last sentences with her gaze firmly fixed on Anders. 'Plus the man who set out in the first place. The one who started it all.' When Anders didn't say anything she added, 'And you know what happened to Domarö even further back in the past. We told you that yesterday.'

Anders grabbed the bottle and took another couple of swigs. He didn't respond. Anna-Greta's face was distorted into an expression somewhere between sympathy and rage-more of a grimace, really.

'I understand how you feel,' she said. 'Or at least…1 can guess. But it's dangerous. Not only for you. For everyone who lives here.' She reached across the table and placed her hand on the back of Anders' hand, which was ice cold. 'I know this sounds terrible, but…1 saw you standing looking at the anchor yesterday. In Nåten. There are many people who have drowned, who have disappeared…naturally, if I can put it like that. Maja could have been one of them. You could look at it like that. And forgive me for saying this, but…you have to look at like that. For your own sake. And everyone else's.'

The handover (we are secret)

Anders was sitting on the edge of the bed in the guest room. Among all the pictures that had flashed through his mind during the course of the evening, there was one that wouldn't go away, that left him no peace.

She hasn't got her snowsuit.

He had brought it up from the kitchen and hung it carefully over the back of the wooden chair by the window. Now he had it in his arms as he rocked back and forth.

She'll he freezing, wherever she is.

If he could only dress her in her snowsuit, if he could only do that. He caressed the slightly worn fabric, the patch with Bamse and the jars of honey.

Simon and Anna-Greta had gone to bed an hour ago. Anders had offered to sleep on the sofa downstairs if they…wanted to be alone on their wedding night, if they didn't want anyone nearby. The offer had been met with an assurance that it was absolutely fine to have someone nearby, that as far as the wedding night was concerned, this was a night like any other. A quiet night.

Anders hugged the snowsuit, torn between two worlds. A normal world, where his daughter had drowned two years ago and become one of those lost at sea, a world where you could talk about sleeping on the sofa and receive an indulgent reply, where people got married and put on a buffet.

And then there was the other world. The one where Domarö lay in the arms of dark forces that held the island in an iron grip. Where you had to watch every step and be prepared to be torn away from relationships at any moment. So that not everything will disappear.

Bamse, Bamse, Bamse…

That was probably why Maja had always liked the stories about Bamse so much. There were problems, there were baddies and there were those who were stupid. But it was never really dangerous. There was never any real doubt about how you ought to behave. Everybody knew. Even Croesus Vole. He was a baddie because he was a baddie, not because he was splintered and anxious.

And Bamse. Always on the side of good. Protector of the weak, unfailingly honest.

But he really loves fighting…

Anders snorted. Bamse was much more interesting in Maja's version. A bear who means well, but can't help getting into a fight as soon as he gets the chance.

Just like Maja.

Yes, perhaps. Perhaps it was because she broke the songs that she broke things as well. They had to become splintered, to become like her. But more interesting.

Anders took out one of the Bamse comics he had brought with him and found that the story was ridiculously appropriate for what was going on. Little Leap wins a holiday in a ski resort. The hotel turns out to be haunted. The ghost seems to be after Little Leap, but Shellman understands, as always.

He builds a machine that makes a Little Leap costume drop down over the invisible ghost. The ghost sees himself in the mirror and stops being horrible. He wasn't after Little Leap at all. He just wanted i‹› be like him.

Anders felt something switch off inside his head while he w.is reading the story; he came back to himself only when he put the comic down.

I am the costume. The apparition.

He wanted to sleep. He wanted Maja to take over and give him some kind of guidance. Before he undressed he placed the chair next to the bed. On the chair he placed a pen and an open notepad. Then he drank three gulps of water, got undressed, climbed into bed and snapped his eyes shut.

It didn't take many minutes of keeping his eyes screwed tightly shut to realise that he was wide awake. There was absolutely no chance of falling asleep, however much he wanted to. He sat up and leaned back against the wall.

What shall I do? What can I do?

The paper on the chair glowed white, and his eyes were drawn towards it. The clarity of his vision shifted. He was seeing in a different way. For a fraction of a second he managed to think: I am seeing through my eyes, and then he was no longer a part of himself.

A creaking sound brought him back to his body. He didn't know how much time had passed, but he found himself sitting on the floor with the Bamse comic in front of him and the pen in his hand. The quilt was in a heap on the bed.

The comic was open at a short story, just two pages, which was called 'Brumma's Secret Friends'. Brumma hid in the cupboard under the sink and made friends with the brush and shovel. When Mummy shouted for Brumma, the brush was terrified; it said, 'We are secret, secret', and turned back into an ordinary brush.

There were drawings on the pages. Lines and shapes on every available surface. No letters. The only thing Anders could in any way interpret as meaningful was a zigzag line across several frames, which looked more like a temple than anything else.

Was there a reason why this particular story had been chosen, or was it just a coincidence, like the story of the haunted hotel? Had Maja just been reading and drawing, as she used to do sometimes?

The creaking sound came again, this time just outside the door. Anders gave a start and pulled the quilt towards him, threw it over his head and curled up, lay as still as still could be. The handle was pushed down tentatively and the door opened. Anders stuck his thumb in his mouth.

Anders?' Simon's voice was no more than a whisper. The door closed behind him. 'What are you doing?'

Simon was standing in front of him in his dressing gown as Anders crawled out from under the quilt. 'I was scared.'

'Can I come in?'

Anders waved in the direction of the bed, but stayed where he was on the floor with the quilt round his shoulders. Simon sat down on the bed and looked at the comic. 'Have you been drawing?'

'I don't know anything,' said Anders. 'I don't know anything about anything.'

Simon linked his hands together and leaned forward. He took a deep breath. 'It's like this,' he said. 'I've been thinking things over. There's a lot to say, but I'll start with a question. Would you like Spiritus?'

'The insect? In the matchbox?'

'Yes. I thought it might protect you. The thing is, Anna-Greta and I are going away tomorrow. I don't like the idea of you being… unprotected.'

'Didn't you say it involved some kind of pact?'

Simon took the matchbox out of his dressing-gown pocket. 'Yes. And I don't know what that really means. But I think something pretty awful happens when you die.'

'And you want to give it to me.'

Simon turned the box over in his hands. A faint sound of scraping and ticking could be heard from inside as the larva shifted its position.

'I have been afraid. You enter into some form of pact with what is deep and dark in the world. I have regretted doing so. But I couldn't help myself. I was stupid, to put it mildly.'

Simon fingered the unfamiliar wedding ring and went on, 'But I wouldn't suggest this if I didn't believe it could help you. Whatever is after you has something to do with water, and this…can tame water.'

Anders looked at the box in Simon's hand; his eyes moved up over the green towelling of the dressing gown and stopped at Simon's face, which suddenly looked immensely old and tired. The hand holding the box was almost touching the floor, as if the insect weighed a hundred times more than its appearance suggested.

'What shall I do?' asked Anders.

Simon drew the hand holding the box towards him and shook his head. 'Do you know what you're getting into?'

'No,' said Anders. 'But it doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter. At all.'

Now Simon had got what he wanted, he seemed to be struck by remorse. Perhaps he didn't want to expose Anders to the risks involved after all. Perhaps he didn't want to be parted from his magical Spiritus. He ran his thumb distractedly over the boy on the box.

'You have to spit,' he said eventually. 'Into the box. You have to give it saliva. And you have to keep on doing that every single day for as long as you live. Or until you…pass it on.'

Anders gathered saliva in his mouth. After a while he nodded to Simon and took the box from him, pushed it open. Anders allowed the gob of saliva to emerge from his lips, to drip down…

'No, wait!' said Simon. 'Let's not-'

But it was too late. The tear-shaped, bubbling gob had already left Anders' mouth and fell straight on to the insect's leathery skin just as Simon's hand reached out.

Anders had thought nothing could taste more disgusting than the wormwood concentrate. He was wrong. Whatever penetrated his mouth now and spread throughout his body had a non-physical dimension that a taste could never match. As if he had bitten into a piece of rotten meat and at the same moment become the meat.

He opened and closed his mouth in a series of dry retches and his body shook in small convulsions, causing the box to fall from his grasp. Simon sat on the bed with his hands covering his face as Anders slumped sideways, clutching his stomach. He vomited and vomited without anything coming out of him.

The box was lying roughly twenty centimetres in front of him. A round black shape appeared over the edge, and the next moment the whole insect was out of the box. It had grown. Its skin was shiny and its body was moving smoothly across the floor, heading for Anders' lips. It wanted more of this manna, directly from the source.

Even though he felt so ill, Anders managed to sit up so that the insect couldn't find its way into his mouth. With trembling hands he placed the box over it and slid it shut without harming the insect.

There was a great deal of activity inside the box, and it moved across the floor in jerks and thrusts. Anders swallowed a bubble of vileness and asked, 'Is it angry?'

'No,' said Simon. 'Just the opposite, I should think.'

He looked into Anders' eyes. For a long time. Something happened between them, and Anders nodded.

Before Simon left the room he said, 'Take care of yourself.' He pointed at Anders, at the matchbox. 'That only happens the first time. The taste.'

Anders sat on the floor watching Spiritus bounce around in his little prison like some kind of morbid toy.

He still didn't know what he was going to do or how he was going to do it, but one thing he did know: during that long look, Simon had given his approval. Do what you have to do.

Anders conquered his revulsion and cupped his hand over the box. The insect calmed down as it felt the warmth of his body, his presence, and he became aware of everything that flowed.

His body was an immense system of larger and smaller channels, where water ran in the form of plasma. He had learned about this in school: the plasma carried corpuscles, thrombocytes, but he could neither see nor feel those, he could see only cloudy water being pumped around by the heart, out into his arteries, and he saw and knew that he was a tree, all the way out to the most fragile twigs. A tree made of water.

He was also able to feel very clearly all the water flowing or standing still in the house, although this feeling did not have the same intensity of revelation. The network of water pipes was visible through the walls, just like an X-ray, and the bottles of water he had brought with him…

Now… now…

He curled his hand around one of the bottles on the floor as he held his other hand over the matchbox. Yes, he could feel the water in the bottle. But nothing else. It was just the same as with his blood: he could feel only the water, but he felt that all the more strongly.

He looked at the hand cupped over the box and a couple of lines by the poet Tomas Tranströmer came into his mind. He didn't really read much poetry, but he had made a start on Tranströmer's collected poems so many times that he knew the first one by heart.

In day's first hours consciousness can grasp the world

As the hand grips a sun-warmed stone.

That was exactly how it was, with the reservation that the world his consciousness grasped was the part that consisted of water. He could follow it through the cold-water pipes, feel the drips from the leaking kitchen tap where he lost contact with it for half a second until it joined the thin film of water finding its way into the waste pipe and continuing downwards, out and eventually into a larger body of water that lay outside his range.

He let go of the box and the perception faded as he moved his hand away, centimetre by centimetre. When the hand reached his face and moved across it, the feeling was gone. He was a person, not a tree.

It would take less than this to make you lose your mind.

Once when he was about twenty he had been at a party and had ended up next to a guy who had just swallowed a blue pill. They were sitting at a glass table, and the guy had stared at that table. After a couple of minutes he had started to cry. Anders had asked him why he was crying.

'Because it's so beautiful,' he had replied, his voice thick with emotion. 'The glass. I can see it, do you understand? What it's made of, what it really is. All the crystals, the strands, the tiny, tiny bubbles of air. Glass, you know? Do you understand how beautiful it is?'

Anders had looked at the table and had been unable to discover anything special about it, apart from the fact that it was an unusually ugly and clumsy glass table, but he had decided not to mention this. The guy might well have taken something else, because he was found later in a snowdrift into which he had dug his way. The reason he gave was that his blood had begun to boil.

You could lose your mind.

Perhaps a human being has the ability to see through glass, as it were, to experience water if we have a tool to help us use our brains and sensory perceptions to the full. But we don't do it, because of the toll it takes. We refrain, so that we may live.

Anders took a couple of swigs of water and got back into bed. The powerful experience of becoming aware of the water's secret life had made him feel exhausted but not sleepy, and for several hours he lay curled up, staring at the wall opposite where the pattern on the wallpaper formed itself into the molecular structures of unknown elements.

Only when the first light of dawn began to seep in through the window, painting the wallpaper grey, did he begin to drop off. As if from far away he heard the alarm clock ring in Simon and Anna-

Greta's room, and he could see them in his mind's eye, getting up and dressing for their short honeymoon. Enjoy yourselves, my darlings. There was a faint smile on his lips as he fell asleep.

Those Who Have Turned Away

Staircases that go upwards although in fact they’re going downwards…

Kalle Sandare


Maja

'Let go of me! Let go of me!'

I don't like him. He looks horrible. I scream. The other one comes and puts his hand over my mouth. I bite him. It tastes of water. Why don't Mummy and Daddy come?

They're carrying me somewhere. I don't want to go. I want to go in Mummy and Daddy. I'm too hot. My snowsuit is too hot. We're going down some steps. I scream again. Nobody can hear me. That '.s when I start crying. There are a lot of steps.

I try to look so that I can remember the way back. There is no way back. There are only steps. And they don't work.

I'm crying. I'm not as frightened anymore. I don't want to scream any more. Just cry.

Then it gets warmer and something smells nice. They're not holding me as tightly any more. I'm not struggling. I stop crying.

The moped

Anders was already sitting up in bed when he discovered that he was awake. His body was drenched in sweat and his heart contracted; he thought for a moment that he was in a cell. Then he recognised the walls, the pattern on the wallpaper, and realised he was still in the guest room at his grandmother's house.

But he had been there, inside Maja's memory.

He had felt the fear, the heat, and screamed from the depths of own lungs. He had seen the incomprehensible flight of steps and he had seen Henrik and Björn. Henrik had carried him and Björn had put a hand over his mouth when he screamed.

A dream. It was a dream.

No. Elin too had been tormented by memories that were not her own. Pictures she could not possibly have known about. The memories of others. This was the same thing.

Henrik and Björn. Hubba and Bubba.

He knew what he had to do. The clothes he had worn to the wedding were hanging on the bedpost, but he rejected those and picked up his own clothes, which lay in a heap in the corner. Despite the fact that they had been accidentally rinsed by the sea, the fluffy Helly Hansen top and the scruffy jeans still smelled unpleasant. They were impregnated with the smell of smoke, spilt wine and the sweat of fear, and it would take a proper wash to get rid of all that.

But still. This was his uniform. He pulled it on with the intention of wearing it until the whole thing was over. He gathered up his bottles and comics from the floor. When he looked at the lines on the Bamse cartoon, he could see that the zigzag line he had taken for a temple could just as easily be a flight of steps.

He took a few gulps of water. The perception of Maja's presence in his body was once again so familiar that he didn't even feel it, he simply knew that it was there. When he had swallowed the water, he opened the matchbox.

The insect had grown, and was now so fat that it only just fitted in the box. When Anders let a heavy gob of saliva fall on to it, it came to life and began to writhe in its narrow confines. Anders pushed the box shut and closed his hand around it, once again feeling that all-encompassing awareness of the water around him, within him.

He could feel the movements of the larva through the thin cardboard and felt a little sorry for it. But this was not the right moment to reflect on cruelty to animals and the rights of insects. In any case, Simon had said at the kitchen table that it wasn't an insect. It had no will of its own, no purpose other than to be a source of power for its bearer. A kind of battery. Spiritus.

Anders tucked Maja's snowsuit under his arm and went down to the kitchen. It was just after eleven o'clock. There was a note in Anna- Greta's handwriting on the table. He was to take care of himself, and everything he needed was there in the house, there was absolutely no need for him to go out.

There was coffee in the machine, and Anders poured himself a cup. As he drank it he could feel every tiny movement of the liquid passing through his body. When he had finished he fetched a plastic bucket from the cleaning cupboard and half-filled it with water from the tap. He sat down on a chair with the bucket between his thighs, held the matchbox firmly in one hand and dipped the fingertips of his other hand in the water.

He simply knew.

As if the hand in the water were holding a remote control, or rather had become a remote control with which he was so familiar that he no longer needed to look at the buttons, he was now able to direct the water. His hand did not exist, the signals went directly from his brain to the contact surface.

He asked the water to move clockwise, anti-clockwise. He asked it to climb up and run over the top of the bucket so that his legs were soaked. Then he put down the bucket, placed his hand on the wet fabric and asked the water to leave it. A burst of steam rose up towards his face.

I can do it.

When he had emptied the bucket and put the matchbox in his pocket, he went and fetched the shotgun. He stood for a while weighing it in his hands, wondering whether it might be of any help to him. Its metallic weight was reassuring, its polished wood; a weapon.

But it wasn't a weapon he needed, at least not one like this. He removed the cartridge, replaced it in the drawer where he had found it and rubbed his hands. He was clean.

A pair of Simon's well-worn boots from the army surplus store stood in the hallway. They were only slightly too big for Anders. He pulled them on, fetched Maja's snowsuit from the kitchen and went out.

Regardless of what kind of creatures Henrik and Björn might be these days, whatever they were composed of, however they lived, one thing was clear: the moped was an ordinary moped. It had weight and solidity, it could be damaged or destroyed. And it had to be somewhere.

When Anders reached the village road he could feel how cold it was. The air was raw, the temperature around freezing. He wrapped Maja's snowsuit around his neck and tucked the ends down inside his top to keep himself warm.

He looked around. The ramblers' hostel was on his right, the path down to the jetties on his left. Unlikely

A place where nobody goes.

The western side of the island was more or less uninhabited, with just a few isolated, newly built villas on the side facing the mainland. It struck him that he had virtually never gone that way, not since he was little. At that time he and the others in the gang had occasionally embarked on an expedition into the unknown. The western part of the island was simply not part of their world, because no one they knew lived there.

Anders pushed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, and was immediately aware of the water as his hand brushed against the matchbox; he moved his hands to his back pockets instead. It wasn't the most comfortable way of walking, but he could only cope with that heightened awareness for short periods at a time. It was there anyway, because the box was so close to his body.

He passed the Bergwalls' house and stopped. There was no sign of life from inside the house; perhaps the family had been moved to the mainland. The outside tap was shining.

Who's there?

The house lay on top of a little hill and had a view of the sea, but it was a hundred metres or more to the water's edge. Anders lit a cigarette and tested his feelings. He couldn't see the water down inside the rock, but it must be there, must have found its way with its long fingers until it was able to look out through shining taps and enter into the people.

He made his way along paths where people seldom went, he found some of the overgrown foundations of the houses that had once made up the western village. He finally reached the rocks and looked over towards Nåten, almost indistinguishable in the fog over the sea. He continued on into the forest, walked across uncultivated agricultural land. When he found an old barn that was even more crooked than the Shack, with the roof on the point of collapse, he thought he had found the right place, but the barn contained nothing but rotten wood, rusty tools and a few piles of slates meant for a roof that had never been built. Anders sat down on one of the piles and blew out a long breath.

Where are you? Where the hell are you?

His plan was simple. If he found the moped, he would also find Henrik and Björn. He would wait for them, and when they turned up he would…that was where the plan came to an end. But he had Spiritus, and something would be done.

He was exhausted and hungry after searching for many hours. He would have to go home for something to eat if he was going to be able to carry on.

When he reached the village road again he considered going back down to the Shack to wait, after all they might come looking for him again. Yes, that's what he would do. He would spend the night at the Shack and wait for them, whatever happened.

Since there was more food in his grandmother's house he went there first and made himself a couple of roast beef sandwiches, which he ate gazing out across the sea. It was almost twilight, and he was waiting for the lighthouse at Gåvasten to start flashing.

He took a few swigs of what he had started to think of as Maja- water and ran his fingers absent-mindedly over the telephone dial. Anna-Greta had never bothered to get a phone with a keypad, despite the fact that this made any contact with computerised organisations so much more difficult. She wanted to talk to a real person, that was how she put it.

Before he had even considered how and why, he found himself dialling Cecilia's number. Just because it was such fun to use a phone with a dial, and he couldn't think of another number to ring.

He didn't think Cecilia would be at home, and as the signals rang out an immense desolation began to echo in his ears. He felt so horribly and irrevocably lonely. This wasn't a feeling of panic, or the fear that had seized him so many times in the past; this was a great sorrow, and the overwhelming feeling that he was totally alone in the world.

'Hello?'

Anders took a deep breath and forced back the sorrow as much as possible, but his voice was weak as he said, 'Hi, it's only me. Again.'

There was the usual pause as Cecilia switched from anticipating a pleasant chat to expecting a difficult conversation.

'You shouldn't call here, Anders.'

'No, I don't suppose I should. But at least I'm sober.'

'Well, that's good.'

'Yes.'

There was a silence between them, and Anders looked down towards the Shack, waiting in the twilight.

'Do you remember that time when you gave me a lift on your bike? After I bought you an ice cream?'

Cecilia gave an exaggerated sigh. However, when she replied her voice was slightly less dismissive than in previous conversations. At least he was sober, as he had said.

'Yes,' she said. 'I do.'

'Me too. What are you doing?'

'Now?'

'Yes.'

'I was having a little sleep.' She hesitated before adding something a little more personal, 'I didn't really have anything else to do.'

Anders nodded and looked out over the sea; his gaze had just reached Gåvasten when the first flash came.

'Are you happy?' he asked.

'Hardly ever. What about you?'

'No. What happened with that bloke you met?'

'I don't want to talk about that. How about you?'

'What do you mean?'

'What are you doing?'

One flash, two flashes, three flashes. It was still much too light for the intermittent beam to build a pathway across the sea. Four flashes.

'I'm looking for Maja,' he said.

There was no reply from Cecilia, just a click in Anders' ear as she put the receiver down. He waited. After a while he could hear her crying some way off.

'Cilia?' he said, and then louder, 'Cilia?'

She picked up the receiver, her voice thick, 'How…how can you be looking for Maja?'

'Because I think I can find her.'

'You can't, Anders.'

He had no intention of starting to explain everything, it would take hours and Cecilia wouldn't believe him anyway. One flash, two flashes. Something happened. He suddenly felt as if the flashes from the lighthouse were warm. And good. A light found its way inside

him and a terrified little pocket of joy leapt in the air.

'Do you remember that song they sang at Dad's funeral?' he asked. 'As long as the little boat can sail, as long as the heart can beat, as long as the sun sparkles on the blue billows?'

'Yes, but…'

'That's how it is. That's exactly how it is. It doesn't end. Everything is still here.'

Cecilia sighed again, and he could picture her slowly shaking her head.

'What are you saying, sweet-'

Cecilia swallowed the last word. Out of habit she had been about to end the sentence with 'sweetheart'. Just the way they used to talk to each other. She cleared her throat and said in a controlled voice, 'I don't think we should talk anymore now.'

'No,' said Anders. 'You're probably right. But I wish you well. I might not ring you again.'

'Why do you say that?'

'Do you want me to ring you again, then?'

'No. Well…but why did you say that?'

'Just in case.' Anders swallowed a lump that had started to grow in his throat and said quickly, 'I love you,' then hung up. He sat for a long time with his hand resting on the receiver, as if to prevent it from jumping up in the air or ringing.

He hadn't known before he said it out loud. Perhaps it wasn't even true. But after hearing her voice, her more-friendly voice in his ear for several minutes, it had suddenly come over him. Perhaps it was just the longing for another person, or nostalgia evoked by happier memories, perhaps he idealised her now that he no longer saw her, perhaps it wasn't true.

But love? Who can say what is just a mire of dark needs and desires, and what is true love? Does such a thing exist? Can't it be that if we say, 'I love you' to another person and know that we mean it, then that is love, regardless of the motive?

Maja or no Maja, he loved the person sitting at the other end of the line far away from him. What the reason might be, what had changed, he had no idea. That was just the way it was.

It was almost dark over the bay now, and when Anders rested his elbows on the windowsill he could see the beam of the lighthouse on Gåvasten flickering like a golden street across the water, disappearing for five seconds and then reappearing, disappearing.

Where the streets are paved with gold.

He blinked a couple of times then shook his head at his own stupidity. Why should the moped necessarily be on Domarö just because that was where they used to ride around? It could be anywhere, on any island, he of all people ought to know that. The sea was their highway.

The sea is so big, the sea is so big…

But they couldn't just go riding around whenever they felt like it; if that were the case, then somebody would have spotted them. It must be somewhere that wasn't too far away, a place where there weren't too many people…

Anders went into the kitchen and fetched the big torch, checking that the batteries were working. Then he pulled Simon's jacket on over his Helly Hansen top and zipped it up with Maja's snowsuit tucked inside, with the result that he looked pregnant. He moved Spiritus to the jacket pocket.

When he got outside it wasn't quite as dark as it looked from inside, but in about half an hour it would be evening. He quickened his steps down to the jetty, keeping his fingers crossed that Göran would have brought back Simon's boat, as he had promised.

He had. The scruffy boat that had been involved in so much over the past few days lay scraping gently against the jetty and Anders climbed aboard, untied the ropes and started the engine.

It seemed perfect, almost too perfect, and he didn't know whether Henrik and Björn had a feeling for such coincidences, but he suspected that they did. You can't idolise Morrissey and The Smiths without nursing a longing to go back to the beginning, to the times and places where everything started, for good or evil.

Anders swung the boat around half a turn, opened the throttle and set off, heading straight for Kattholmen.

Back to the old place

The trees felled by the storm lay here like long-necked, thirsty dinosaurs, stretching out all the way to the water's edge. A general amnesty had been declared. If the sea froze in the winter, anyone who was interested could make their way over to Kattholmen and chop up as much wood as he or she wanted; the main thing was to get it cleared.

But there were only these enormous fir trees, which were very hard to handle. Difficult to saw up, tough to chop, and the wood wasn't much good either. There was very little interest. If it had been birch, which is fairly easy to work with, there would have been no need to wait for the ice; people would have come over in boats to grab what they could, and Kattholmen would have been cleared in no time.

But the fallen fir trees were still here, dark, gloomy tree trunks lying across the rocks, with the odd branch sticking up out of the water here and there like the arms of skeletons pleading for help, ignored and rejected by one and all.

The moon had begun to tire and shrink, balancing helplessly on the branches of the few firs still standing. Veils of cloud drifted past, and as Anders drew closer Kattholmen was bathed in a light with no luminosity, like aged aluminium. He rounded the northern point where a concrete buoy marked a shipping lane that was no longer used, and continued along the rocky shore on the eastern side of the island.

The boathouse was still there. It would be hundreds of years before wear and tear took its toll on its walls, built with horizontally placed logs, and none of the trees had fallen on it. Anders slowed down and drifted the last few metres, turning off the engine and folding it inboard to avoid damaging the propeller. When the keel scraped along the seabed he clambered into the water, which immediately seeped into his boots. He pulled the boat ashore and switched on the torch, directing the beam towards the boathouse.

Nothing had changed. It looked exactly the same as the last time he had been here. The place where the fire had been was still there, the fire from which glowing coals had been kicked at Henrik's naked back. But the grass flattened by Henrik and Björn's bodies had long since grown tall again. It glittered wetly in the beam of the torch.

Anders looked over at the door and could almost hear the fanfare behind it, the voice singing, 'It's the final countdown…' but the only sound was the whispering of the wind in the dry pine needles.

He took a few steps to the left, shone his torch along the side of the house, and there it was. The wooden platform had been damaged by the fire but was still in one piece, the petrol cap gleamed as Anders swept the torch over Henrik and Björn's moped. There were tyre tracks in the grass leading down to the water.

So here we are…

Anders sat down on the bottom step and looked out across the water. Simon's boat rocked gently as a wave hit the stern. The aluminium light of the moon made the world frozen and metallic. A dry tree trunk creaked behind his back and he found himself at the beginning of everything and the end of everything. The fixed point. The final countdown.

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six…

He counted backwards slowly from ten to zero perhaps thirty times while nothing happened, still staring out across the water as he waited for those who had the key. The ones who knew, and were going to help him whether they wanted to or not.

He pushed his hand inside his jacket and rubbed the smooth fabric of the snowsuit with his fingers. The moon hauled itself laboriously away from the tops of the fir trees, looking down at him as he sat there on the step. Ill at ease, he stood up, pulled the peg out of the door and pushed it open, shone his torch inside.

It was obvious that people had been here since his last visit. A different generation had taken over where theirs had ended, a more careless generation. A wooden chair had been smashed and a pack of cards lay scattered across the floor. In one corner there was a pile of empty bottles, and there were no mattresses or covers on the beds.

Anders went over to the table and sat down on a chair that wobbled under his weight. Through the little window he could see the moped up against the wall. He bent down and started gathering up the cards, thinking he might play a game of solitaire, but gave up. There seemed to be some cards missing in any case, he could only see about twenty.

While he was still leaning forward he heard a splash from outside. It sounded different from the water slapping against the boat, and he stiffened. Immediately afterwards he heard Henrik's voice. 'Don't come here tonight,' he yelled. 'Someone here's going to put a hatchet in your head!'

Anders slowly straightened up and dropped the card he was holding in his hand. It was the five of diamonds. He stared at the rhomboid symbols and found no meaning, nothing to interpret. He got up from the table, adjusted Maja's snowsuit so that it lay like a band around his stomach, and went to the door.

Henrik and Björn were standing at the foot of the steps. The ridiculously long blade of the knife was sticking straight out from Henrik's raised hand.

'This old house,' said Björn. 'Too many bad memories.'

Anders sat down on the top step and looked at them. They hadn't really changed much since that time after all. The place where they found themselves made him see them through a filter of memories, and he no longer saw two vengeful ghosts, but two miserable boys who had no one but each other. And he knew the song, so he said, 'I really liked you and I meant to tell you. But I never did.'

Henrik lowered the knife and the scornful expression left his eyes. Anders extended his hand towards them, palm upwards, and said, 'It was me who gave you the tape, do you remember?'

Björn nodded and began to speak, but Henrik silenced him with a gesture. 'What do you want?' he asked.

Anders ran his hand over his stomach, over the snowsuit. 'I want my daughter back. And I think you two have the key.'

The distorted smile returned to Henrik's lips. 'The key?'

'You're the ones who can help me.'

Henrik and Björn looked at one another. The knife swung to and fro in Henrik's hand. Anders couldn't work out what silent decision had been reached between the two of them as they sat down side by side on the step below him. Since it had worked the last time, Anders thought quickly and said, 'Please, please, please…

It was like a game in a minefield. Once again Henrik's face relaxed. The three of them sitting close together, huddled on the steps, passing Smiths' references back and forth. It could be normal, it could be tender. Anders didn't know if it was.

Close together…

He tried not to let it show on his face as a cold shiver of fear ran down through his chest, filling his stomach with anxiety. His eagerness had made him miss out an essential part of the plan, to say the least. He hadn't drunk any of the wormwood. Not today, not yesterday. And they knew it. Otherwise they wouldn't be sitting so close to him.

Björn was looking at Henrik as if waiting to see what he would say. Henrik remained silent, looking at a point just below Anders' chin. Then he raised the knife and brought it slowly towards Anders' face. Anders jerked back a fraction.

The wormwood. How could I…

'Wait,' said Henrik. 'Wait.' The corners of his mouth twitched. 'Chill out and wait.'

Anders sat still and tried to summon up an expression of friendly interest as Henrik rested the blade against the left side of his neck. He looked into Henrik's eyes, but could read nothing through the thin, gelatinous film covering Henrik's iris and pupil. The cold metal was resting on Anders' skin just a few centimetres below his chin, on the carotid artery.

'I can see your face,' said Henrik. 'And it's kind, in a desperate way. But that thing in the back of your mind…what is that?'

A pulse of black emotion came from Henrik, and Anders realised that he had lost, that perhaps he had never had any chance of winning. The pulse passed into his body like a spasm, a command to his muscles to flee, but before he had time to leap up or hurl himself to one side, Henrik had made the cut.

A burning thread seared Anders' skin and before he had time to react, his blood began pumping out of his body. The blood came pouring out in a series of powerful spurts, splashing over Henrik's face and hands, the steps and Anders' legs. An artery had been sliced open and as he instinctively pressed his left hand to the wound, he realised he was beyond help.

His lifeblood was forced out in time with the rhythm of his heartbeat, squeezing out beneath his fingers with an incomprehensible force. Only now, when his heart was working against him, could he feel its full power. He could feel every beat beneath the palm of his hand like a blow, as fresh blood found its way out of the circulatory system. It ran down under his jacket and soaked his top in a matter of seconds.

His eyelids fluttered and he was vaguely aware of Henrik getting up and positioning himself in front of the steps as if he were about to give a speech. Björn and the dying Anders were to be his audience.

'So, the end of the world. Night time?' asked Henrik, and Björn replied, 'I really don't know.'

'Day time then?'

'I really don't know.'

Anders slipped to one side and his right hand landed on top of his jacket pocket. He felt the hard box through the fabric, and just as Henrik said, 'And what about having children? Any point?' Anders pushed his hand into his pocket and took hold of the box. His fingers were stiff and cold as if they were frozen, and his nails scrabbled helplessly over the smooth surface. The blood from his throat was coming in weaker pulses now, but they were still powerful enough for a faint cascade to splash up into his eyes. And he saw the water, saw the water in the blood plasma leaving him, but he didn't have the strength to do anything about it. Then he felt a tickling movement against his skin as the box opened by itself and Spiritus crawled into the palm of his hand, as Henrik said, 'So…no debate. Just chill out and wait.'

It's flowing. The water is flowing.

He asked it to stop. The prayer shot up from his hand and spread throughout the tree that was his veins and arteries. When it reached the cut the prayer stopped, drawing towards itself everything in the flowing blood that was water, until only solid, coagulated elements remained around the wound. In order to compensate for the loss of fluid, the artery on the right hand side of his neck began to throb so strongly that it could be felt as spasms beneath the skin.

Anders closed his hand carefully around Spiritus, and through a veil of red he could see that Björn was now sitting right in front of him, with his back towards him. Henrik was searching for a suitable final comment. His face lit up as he found it. He flung his arms wide and he was about to start declaiming, but at that moment Anders jumped on Björn from behind and wrapped his arms around him.

Water.

He could see it. A cucumber. It is somehow incomprehensible that a cucumber can consist almost entirely of water and yet still have a solid form, and that's exactly how it was with Björn. His blood, his internal organs, his skeleton were all made up of water in varying degrees of inertia, and Anders had this water in his hands.

Björn tried to stand up and shake himself free, but Anders asked for heat. He asked for all the heat that could be summoned, he asked the water in his arms to boil.

Boil, you bastard!

Björn fell back on the steps as a wave of heat washed through him. Within a couple of seconds he was transformed into a mass of boiling water, scalding Anders on the arms and chest. Henrik ran towards the steps, and just as he got there Björn opened his mouth to scream.

No scream came, but out of his mouth spurted a fountain of bubbling, boiling water which hit Henrik in the face and chest, so that he staggered backwards and fell over in a cloud of steam. Björn collapsed on the steps and vomited one last shower of boiling water over Henrik before he fell headfirst to the ground and rapidly shrank. In just a few moments he was reduced to a pile of wet, steaming clothes.

Henrik writhed around on the grass, rolling back and forth as if to try and extinguish his burning body. Then his movements slowed and he lay still.

Anders leaned forward and tried to stand up. It was impossible. His legs had lost all their strength when the blood left him. He was a wrung-out rag, and like a rag he allowed himself to tumble helplessly down the steps, only just managing to put out his hands to save himself as he landed.

He crawled forwards. The steam from Björn's clothes rose up and evaporated into the night sky, and as Anders crawled past them he could feel the heat from inside the heap, like a little dormant volcano. Henrik was lying flat on his back on the grass, staring up at the sky. Anders crawled over to him as quickly as he could, feeling Maja's snowsuit sliding over his stomach.

Don't die. Don't die.

Henrik's face was in the process of melting away. His chest was collapsing. The thin skin around his eyes had already dissolved into liquid, and his eyeballs looked like painted porcelain marbles placed in a hollow of inflamed flesh. Henrik's fingers were moving slightly over the grass, as if he were stroking it.

As Anders made his way over to Henrik, the process of disintegration slowed down as the heat of the boiling water diminished. A few final curls of steam rose from what was left of Henrik's face, and the attack was over.

It was not a human being lying there on the grass. A human being cannot fall apart in the way that Henrik had done. The water had sliced through him without distinguishing between the hard and soft parts of a human body. The left side of his chin and neck were gone, his cheeks were perforated with a series of large and small holes that went right through his head.

A human being who had recently sustained such injuries would give off a stench of blood or burnt skin, but there was no smell coming from Henrik. A face sculpted in sand that had had a bucket of water thrown over it. Some parts had been washed away or fallen off, others were intact.

'Henrik…'

Anders leaned on his elbow so that he could look into Henrik's eyes, which were still there, but were staring in an insane, pop-eyed manner since the skin around them had disappeared. Henrik's pupils moved in his direction. It was impossible to tell if Henrik was smiling, since his lips had more or less gone.

'Can I see…' said Henrik. His voice was unclear, gurgling, as if he were speaking through a film of liquid. 'Can I see…what you've got…'

Anders didn't know what he meant, but just at that moment Spiritus moved in his hand, twisting like a finger trying to escape from his grasp. He held his hand up in front of Henrik's eyes. Opened it and closed it quickly.

Henrik's head moved almost imperceptibly. 'Thought so-' he said.

'Henrik,' said Anders. 'You have to tell me-'

Henrik interrupted him with his inhuman, bubbling voice. 'Are you feeling bad for me? Don't. Deep down, you know, I really want to go.'

'Asleep,' said Anders. 'I know. We listened to it in your cottage We were sitting on your bed. Please, please, please, Henrik. Tell me.'

'The key…' said Henrik.

'Yes. What do I have to do?'

Henrik emitted a puff of steam or air that was transformed into steam by the cold, it was impossible to tell which. His chest collapsed a few centimetres more. His voice was now no more than a faint hiss, and Anders placed his ear close to Henrik's mouth so that he could hear.

'It's in your hand.' There was a brief silence, then Henrik added, 'Dickhead.'

Anders' extra finger was burrowing and bumping against the palm of his hand as if in response, and he pulled himself forward so that his mouth was right next to Henrik's completely undamaged ear, but before he had time to ask anything more, Henrik let out a final, whispering sigh, 'There must be another world. A better one.'

Then he said no more. Anders gave in to his neck muscles, which were insisting on rest, and sank down with his forehead on the grass next to Henrik's head.

Farewell. Dickhead.

The loss of blood and the exertion had finished him. All he could do was lie there, just managing to turn his head to one side so that he could breathe. The minutes passed and the chill of the ground began to make the right side of his head go numb. Spiritus was crawling around in his hand but not trying to escape. Anders could feel the streams and veins of water in the ground beneath him, and was barely able to distinguish them from his own weakened circulation.

I am… sinking…

The only heat that existed was coming from the burning, agonising wound in his throat. The warm wound remained on the surface, while he sank down into the coolness of the earth and it grew dark around him. He lost contact with his body and fell.

Sing me to sleep…

He no longer knew what was up or down, he was in freefall, unaware of anything beneath him or any approaching conclusion. He was floating. He was in dark waters, and he was drowning.

His lungs contracted as he tried to breathe in air that did not exist. He had only seconds left to live. But the seconds passed and still his consciousness drifted in the formless darkness, refusing to die away and thinking: I have been here before. I know what happens next.

The horror of what was to come made a heart begin to beat quickly somewhere out in the darkness. It could be his own heart, but such distinctions were meaningless here. There was a beating in fear, and there was something coming closer.

It's coming…

The darkness grew thicker, a shadow began to form inside a shadow. He was nothing against this shadow and he was being sucked towards it like krill about to be strained through the baleen plate of a whale. It wasn't interested in him, it was too immense to bother about him, but he was in its way and he was being drawn into it.

Come with me…come with me…

A hand crept into his, a little hand. It tugged and pulled. Maja's hand.

You have to come now!

No. I am Maja. Daddy's hand is so big. When we go for a walk I just hold on to his forefinger. His forefinger is in my hand. Why doesn't he come?

Daddy, come on!

Her hand is in mine, it's so tiny and slender, it's as if I'm holding a finger, come on Daddy, now Daddy, we have to go!

I'm coming.

He followed the hand that was pulling him, he pulled on the finger that was following him and the darkness shifted in shades of aluminium as the finger and the hand turned into an insect and the salt-laden sea air was drawn into his lungs in a single deep breath.

I'm coming.

He was able to see once again. He was able to breathe. His body was lying on a grassy slope. The wind sluiced across his face. Beside him lay wet clothes, as if laid out to dry in the moonlight. Judging by the position of the moon in the sky, he had been gone for a long time, perhaps several hours. Ten metres away from him lay the boat, pulled up on the shoreline.

I can't do it.

He saw before him the effort required to push the boat out into the water, to get the engine started. He didn't think he could do it. He wanted to carry on sleeping, but without dreams.

Come on!

'Yes, yes…' mumbled Anders, getting unsteadily to his feet and tottering over to the boat. The wind had picked up and was helping him. The little waves had been working on the boat, and had started to draw it towards them. In a little while longer it would probably have drifted away. He only had to give it a gentle nudge, and it was floating out on the water, then he followed it, scrambled up and fell over the rail.

He tried to open the hand holding Spiritus, but his fingers were locked. With the help of the other hand's slightly more flexible fingers, he managed to force the hand open and tip Spiritus back into the matchbox. He stared at the engine.

One pull. I can manage that.

He was on the point of giving up again when the engine didn't start first time, but he gritted his teeth, prayed a wordless prayer and tried again. The engine started. Before he grabbed the controls he checked that he still had the snowsuit inside his jacket.

To no purpose.

Slumped on the seat in the prow so that he could barely see over the rail, he left Kattholmen and headed for Domarö. He knew what he must do, but he had to rest first, regain a little of his strength.

He was almost unconscious when he reached his jetty and it wasn't until he was halfway up to the Shack that he caught sight of himself for a brief moment and asked himself a question:

Did you make the boat fast?

He didn't know, he couldn't remember, and he didn't even have the strength to turn around and check. If he hadn't tied the boat up, he wouldn't be able to do anything about it anyway. A while later he was vaguely aware of opening the outside door, closing it behind him, finding a bottle of diluted wine on the bureau and knocking it back. Then he collapsed on the floor and knew no more.

The first

Anders will be the last. Let him sleep and rest. He will need it. Meanwhile, let us listen to the tale of the first one.

It is a kind of fairy tale, and as in all fairy tales, the details have drifted away on the tide of time and we are left behind on the shore with at best part of a keel, a ship's figurehead or a log book damaged by the water.

Something happened. It happened at some point. That is all we need to know. At the time when the inhabitants of Domarö made their living from herring fishing and an unholy alliance with the powers of the deep, the tale may have been better known. Now only fragments remain, and we must let our imagination build the ship.

Because the story is about a ship. Or rather the wreckage of a ship. It might have been a small cog, that is of no importance. The ship had been transporting salt, presumably between Estonia and Sweden, following some route or other.

The crew could have been Swedish or Estonian, but in any case we have only one survivor to take into account. We will assume he is Swedish, and we will call him Magnus.

We find him on the Aland Sea. His ship has drifted off course and has foundered in an unusually thick October fog. Terrified and frozen to the marrow, Magnus has managed to scramble up on to part of the stern, which has broken away. He calls to his shipmates, but there is no reply. The fog lies like a blanket around him, preventing him from even seeing the size of the piece of wreckage that is carrying him.

But he is floating. He has been lucky in the midst of the disaster. The piece of the ship on which he finds himself is shaped in such a way that no part of his body is in the water. He has been lucky. If only he were not so dreadfully cold!

We do not know how long Magnus drifts in this way. It could be days, but it is probably only hours, since the fog does not lift. He is floating through a milk-white world and he cannot hear anything, apart from the sounds he himself makes when he changes position or cries for help out into the emptiness.

The first thing he becomes aware of is not a visual impression or a sound. It is a smell. And the smell alone, the aroma is enough for him to feel that warmth is beginning to seep into his body. It is the smell of animals.

Once before he got lost in the fog at sea. On that occasion they reefed the sails and waited for the mists to disperse. But before that happened they made contact with the land through that smell. Manure, animals' bodies, land! Animals mean people, and rescue. They rowed in the direction of the smell and found their way into the harbour.

Hence the spark of hope in Magnus's terrified guts. He grabs hold of a loose plank of wood and paddles in the direction he thinks the smell is coming from. He must be heading in the right direction, because the smell grows stronger.

He can hear a cow lowing. The fog begins to dissolve into veils and separate sections. The cold diminishes, and the light breeze carrying the smell is warm, a summer breeze, no less.

Presumably Magnus is a believer. Presumably Magnus is praising God as the fog lifts and he can see land at last. But he can hardly believe what his eyes are seeing.

Paradise.

It is the only possible explanation. That he has drifted so far off course that he has ended up in paradise. He has heard that the Garden of Eden could well have been on an island. It seems as if he has found that island.

A few more strokes with his improvised paddle bring him to a beach with fine, pale sand. Where the beach ends, a meadow of lush grass takes over. A number of well-fed cows are grazing there. On a slope he sees sturdily built houses, surrounded by fruit trees in blossom.

And it is warm, pleasantly warm. For a long time Magnus does nothing but sit on his piece of wreckage, staring open-mouthed. He hardly dare step ashore, he is afraid that this paradise will melt away like the fog if he touches it with his feet.

There is a freshness about everything. Everything is sparkling and gleaming as if it were new, created just for him. Yes, that is exactly how it feels. There is a film of moisture over everything and water drips from the leaves of the trees, as if this island has risen from the sea just to meet him.

Tentatively he lowers his foot into the water and discovers that the sandy seabed is firm. He wades ashore, he walks across the beach, up towards the meadow and the houses. He disappears from history, never to be heard of again.

Time to start a fight

When morning came, Anders no longer had a body. He had a wound. All his limbs were aching after a night on the hard floor, his head hurt, and his throat was pulling and throbbing. His fingers were stiff and his bladder made its presence felt, joining in the chorus of pain.

When he opened his eyes, which had managed to gum themselves shut during the night, he felt the pain deep inside the pupil itself as the daylight stabbed its way in. He lay still, looking over towards the toilet door and trying to find one part of him that wasn't hurting. He flicked his tongue around inside his mouth and discovered that his tongue was uninjured, that neither the inside of his mouth nor his teeth had been damaged over the past few days. It felt sticky in there, and it tasted disgusting. But it didn't hurt.

He rubbed his eyes and bits of dried blood came away, colouring the tips of his fingers pale red. He had lost all feeling in the ear that had been pressed against the rag rug during the hours of the night. He sneezed, and snot mixed with blood shot out of his nose.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

He managed to sit up, and grabbed hold of the door handle. Using the handle for support, he got to his feet and staggered to the toilet, where he drank from the tap until he could drink no more. White spots were dancing in front of his eyes, and he had to sit down to pee. He sat there for a long time with his head in his hands.

When the worst of the dizziness had passed, he stood up and pulled out Maja's snowsuit. It was no longer wet, but it was blotchy with patches of dark, dried-in blood. He threw it out on to the hall floor and got undressed.

The Helly Hansen top was stiff, and his jeans and T-shirt were stuck fast to his skin. He pulled them off and felt a searing pain as the cut on his right thigh opened up again and began to bleed. A smell of putrefaction rose from his body, and he didn't dare look at himself in the mirror.

The boiler wasn't much good, and he turned up the heat on the shower to maximum. Then he stood beneath the running, lukewarm water with his face upturned. From time to time he drank a couple of gulps. The blood that had flowed out of his body must be replaced. When the water began to cool he soaped himself and carefully cleaned the gash in his thigh.

He closed his eyes and moved his soapy fingers to the wound in his throat. The skin was split in a gash half a centimetre wide, and the flesh was sore when he touched it. He could feel his pulse beneath his fingertips. The artery had repaired itself during the night, but was almost exposed in the absence of protective skin. He cleaned the area carefully and rinsed it with clean water, which was now almost cold.

He stood there until the water was ice cold, letting it sluice over his face, and drank and drank. He turned off the shower and when he had rubbed and patted himself dry with a hand towel, he found that the white spots had disappeared, that he could see clearly.

The bathroom mirror had steamed up; he cleared a patch with his hand and inspected the wound in his throat. It didn't look too bad, but he could see the artery moving beneath the connective tissue like a small fish in a net. He found a couple of pressure bandages and some surgical tape, and dressed his wounds as well as he could. His throat really needed stitches, but to go all the way to Norrtälje, wait in the

Emergency Department, try to explain to a doctor…it just wasn't going to happen.

And besides…

When he was fighting with Henrik and Björn, and afterwards when he was wading through the water to get into the boat, he had acquired a kind of knowledge. It could be down to his own traumatised state, but he didn't think so, and Simon had said something along the same lines: it was weakened.

There was a weakness in the sea. That was why Sigrid had floated ashore, and that was why some element of the people who had disappeared had managed to escape and penetrate the wells. There was a tiredness, a lack of attention, and he intended to make the most of it. If he could. If it was there at all.

He walked through the hallway naked, picked the snowsuit up off the floor and continued into the bedroom. The cold was giving him goose bumps, and he put on some clean clothes out of the suitcase he had brought from the city. Underwear, a pair of black corduroy trousers and a blue and white checked shirt. In the wardrobe he found his father's thick green woolly jumper, and pulled it carefully over his head. The polo neck made his throat itch, but it was good because it held the dressing in place.

He felt as if he were getting dressed up, smartening himsell up lot his own execution, and it was a good feeling. That was the point lie had reached. He ought to have cleaned the house as well, left it tidy, but he had neither the time nor the energy.

He examined Maja's snowsuit and decided that the stains wouldn't come off without washing it, and he had no time lot that either. He wound it around his stomach and managed to knot the sleeves and tuck in the legs so that it ended up like a very large waist bag.

He went into the hallway and picked up Simon's jacket. His fingers found the matchbox, half hidden in the torn lining of the pocket. He took it into the kitchen, sat down at the table and looked out of the window.

Evidently he had made the boat fast after all, at least at the stern end. The prow was facing away from the jetty at a right angle and the engine was scraping against the stonework, but the sea was almost dead calm, and there was nothing to worry about. Beyond the jetty, out in the bay he could see the lighthouse on Gåvasten, a white dot in the morning light. A reflector suddenly glinted like a beckoning flash.

Don't you worry. I'm coming.

Spiritus was moving slowly around the sides of the box when Anders opened it and let a gob of saliva fall. When he tried to push the box shut, the skin wrinkled, because the insect had grown so fat there wasn't really enough room any more.

He could poke it with his finger and push it in, but it was too much. After all, it had saved his life the previous night. In the junk drawer he found a box of matches for lighting the fire, which was slightly bigger. He tipped the matches out and moved Spiritus into the bigger box.

Anders couldn't tell whether the insect was happier in its new prison, but at least he could close the box without resistance. He stood up and put the new box in his trouser pocket.

He should have been hungry, but he wasn't. It was as if his stomach had solidified around its own emptiness, and was unwilling to let in any food. And that was fine. In any case, he couldn't begin to imagine what he might eat.

He filled a glass with water from the kitchen tap and drank it, cheers, sweetheart, filled it up again. And again. His stomach, already stiff, contracted around the cold liquid.

On the worktop stood the bottle of wormwood. Without weighing up the pros and cons, Anders raised it to his lips and took a couple of deep swigs. His mouth tasted like shit and the dizziness went straight to his head, making him sway where he was standing.

With his back to the sink, he slid giggling to the floor. When his bottom hit the linoleum with a hard thud, the giggling turned into gasps of laughter. He slapped the palm of his hand on the floor but couldn't stop laughing, he just had to get it out, so he sang in a loud voice:

'Thunder honey, Grandma's thunder honey, that's what he eats when it's time to start a fight.'

Still giggling, he staggered into the bedroom and found Bamse. He pushed the bear underneath the knotted sleeve of the snowsuit so that Bamse's head was sticking up above his hip and the short legs were dangling down his left thigh. He patted Bamse's hat, said, 'How lucky I am to have such a friend!', and by leaning on the walls and the furniture, he managed to make his way through the house and on to the porch.

His head cleared slightly once he got out into the fresh air. He rubbed his eyes hard with his knuckles and stopped giggling, blinking in the sunlight. It was a beautiful, calm day, a wonderful autumn day not unlike the winter's day almost two years ago that had brought him to this point.

His legs carried him steadily down towards the jetty. He could see the natural world around him with exaggerated clarity, he could feel the water inside, beneath and in front of him. He was an oversensitive consciousness transported in a fragile body, an infinitely complex organic computer inside a shell of rusty metal.

And the strongest hear in the world!

He loosened the mooring rope and clambered down into the boat, sat down and picked up the fuel can, gave it a shake. The liquid splashed to and fro ominously. He looked up and gazed over towards Gavasten.

Well, I'm only going in one direction, aren't I? I'm hardly likely to be coming back.

He looked at the bubble of air that marked the level of the fuel. It sank to the bottom when he put the can down, and at the same time something sank inside him. The fatalistic calm that had filled his spirit since he got dressed faded in the face of this practical fact: there was no need for him to fill up with fuel, because he wouldn't be coming home.

Slowly, slowly the boat drifted south, while he sat with his arms resting on his knees, staring towards Gåvasten. Then he nodded briefly, pumped up the petrol, pulled out the choke and yanked on the starter.

As long as the little boat can sail…

The engine started and he shut down his mind against any questions, engaged the clutch and set off as slowly as possible. Gåvasten was gliding towards him across the sea and he was thinking about nothing at all, he just kept his eyes firmly fixed on the lighthouse and watched the distance diminish. When he was about halfway he could see that the birds were still out there. Hundreds or perhaps thousands of little white dots swarmed around the glowing white walls of the lighthouse like moths around a bright light.

With only a few hundred metres to go, the engine coughed. He was running out of fuel, but the strange thing was that the boat seemed to be moving even more slowly. When he had travelled another hundred metres or so, he heard a cracking noise.

Terrified, Anders looked along the sides of the boat, because it sounded as if the old fibreglass were splitting. There was no sign of anything, but the noise grew louder and the boat began to vibrate.

What the fuck…

The engine coughed again and when it got going once more it felt as if it were struggling into a headwind. It was roaring for all it was worth, but the boat was barely moving forward. The vibrations became jolts and jerks and the engine began to cough.

'Come on! Come on!'

Anders turned around and slapped the engine as if to stop it from falling asleep. When his hand flew back from the cowling, he saw something that made him realise his efforts were pointless. He could whip the engine until it bled, he still wouldn't get anywhere.

The whole bay had frozen. He was surrounded by ice in all directions. The engine gave a couple of final coughs, then died.

No lapping of the waves, no wind, no engine humming. The only sound was the screaming of the gulls as they moved around the prayer wheel of the lighthouse like white-clad pilgrims. Anders tilted his head to one side and looked at them. They were moving in a clockwise direction.

The central axis.

It wasn't difficult to see, alone in the stillness on the desolate sea, where the only sound and the only movement was coming from the gulls. They were the ones keeping the world in motion by circling around the central axis.

His thoughts were about to fly away, but were interrupted by a fresh cracking sound. This time it was not the boat's progress through the freezing water that was creating the noise. This time it was what he had first thought. The fibreglass hull of the boat was cracking as the ice grabbed hold of it and squeezed. Anders shook his head.

Sorry. It's not going to be that easy.

If there was some form of thinking entity behind what was happening, it wasn't particularly intelligent. It had certainly managed to bring the boat to a standstill. But it wasn't so easy to bring him to a standstill. Anders patted Bamse tenderly and clambered over the rail.

The ice bore his weight. He left the boat and set off across the water towards the lighthouse.

The honeymoon

The ferry was a floating microcosm of pleasures. You walked a few steps to eat, a few more to enjoy duty-free shopping You went around the corner to dance and up or down a flight of stairs when it was time for bed. Simon usually thought this was a pleasant change from all the difficulties caused by the distances on Domaro, but on this vovage the ship was inducing a feeling of claustrophobia rather than freedom And yet he and Anna-Greta had a bigger and better cabin than on previous trips. It wasn't exactly a suite, but it was above deck and had windows. Simon was usually quite happy in a cabin below deck as the throbbing of the engines lulled him to sleep, but the previous night he had lain awake with Anna-Greta beside him and a lump in his chest.

Did I do the right thing?

That was the question that was tormenting him. He had given Spiritus to Anders, and had done it in a way that could only be interpreted as encouragement to tackle things as he saw fit. Had it been the right thing to do?

Simon lay awake in his bunk, listening to the sea surging along the sides of the ship and feeling weightless with doubt and anxiety. He had committed himself to following his fate, together with Spiritus, to whatever the bitter end might be. He had not been particularly afraid.

Or had he?

Had he in fact been afraid, and made use of Anders to get rid of his fear? He could no longer say for sure. He had lost his foundation and his ballast when he gave away Spiritus, and it was not relief he felt now, but an unpleasant weightlessness.

Thus Simon's night passed as the ferry ploughed through the darkness, reaching the outer rocky islets of the Roslagen archipelago towards morning. When Anna-Greta woke up, they got dressed and went down to breakfast.

When they had helped themselves to rolls, various spreads and coffee, and settled down at a window table, Anna-Greta looked searchingly at Simon and asked, 'Did you sleep last night…' she smiled, '…husband?'

Simon smiled. 'No…wife…it was a bad night.'

'Why?'

Simon rubbed the palm of his hand with his forefinger and stared at the scrambled egg quivering on his plate with the vibrations of the ship. It looked like his brain felt, and he couldn't come up with a good answer. After he had remained silent for a while, Anna-Great asked, 'Isn't there something you have to…do?'

'Like what?'

Anna-Greta nodded towards his jacket pocket. 'With the box.'

The movement of the forefinger became more frantic, and the palm of his hand started to hurt. Simon looked out of the window and saw that the rocky islets had become islands. They had just passed Söderarm. In an hour or so they would arrive in Kappellskar. The finger stopped rubbing and he placed his hands on the table, palms down.

'Well, you see…I gave it to Anders.'

'Gave?'

'Yes, or…handed it over. Passed it on.'

Anna-Greta frowned and shook her head. 'Why?'

'Because…'

Why? Why? Because I'm a coward, because I'm scared, because I'm brave, because Anders…

'Because I thought he might need it.'

Anna-Greta's eyes were fixed firmly on his. 'For what?'

'For…for what he had to do.'

As Simon had feared, Anna-Greta was lost for words. Her hands dropped to her knees and she gazed open-mouthed out of the window at the islands, which seemed to be spooling past on a slow film. Simon picked up his fork and put a small amount of scrambled egg in his mouth. It tasted of ash. He put down the fork again just as the ship gave a jolt and the egg lurched towards the middle of the plate like an amoeba.

Anna-Greta looked at him. Simon's eyes darted away. The ship jolted again, more sharply this time, and when he finally made the supreme effort to look into Anna-Greta's eyes, he found something else there.

They looked at each other. The engine's revs increased and all around them they could hear clinking and clattering as glasses and cutlery trembled and collided. A faint lurch ran through the entire ship; Simon was pushed forward slightly, but didn't take his eyes off Anna-Greta.

The engines roared and everything shook. Raised voices from the tables around tried to make themselves heard above the rattling and roaring. There was a more powerful jolt and Simon's stomach hit the table. Anna-Greta was almost tipped backwards off her chair, but managed to save herself by grabbing hold of the windowsill. They had stopped.

Their eye contact had been broken during the ship's last convulsion, and they both looked out of the window. Simon thought he could just make out Ledinge and Gåvasten in the distance, in a sea that had frozen solid. The ship was trapped in a thick layer of ice, and Simon was intelligent enough to understand.

What have I done? What have I done?

People had got up from their tables and were conducting loud conversations as they ran to the windows to see what was going on. A man and a woman pushed in at their window, obscuring the view and exclaiming incredulously, 'This is just ridiculous…this just can't be happening…how can this happen, we were in open water a few minutes ago…'

Anna-Greta caught his gaze once more. She nodded slowly and said, 'So there we are. Whatever will be, will be.'

She reached out and placed her hand on the table between them, palm upwards. Simon grabbed it and squeezed it.

'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I couldn't do anything else.'

'No, I realise that,' said Anna-Greta. She let go of his hand and looked at it as it lay there open on the table. With her forefinger she traced the lines on his palm. 'I realise that. My husband.'

A better world

The screams, the racket of the gulls had become part of normality by the time Anders set foot on the rocks of Gåvasten for the third time in his life. He hardly noticed them, they were merely a carpet of sound, a part of the place, now that he no longer feared them.

He climbed up from a sea covered in ice on to an islet where it was still autumn. Where there was no snow, and where odd bushes still had leaves, and the tufts of grass in the crevices were green.

The place he was heading for was on the eastern side of the island. He had seen it the last time he was here, and it was just visible in the background in the photographs, but he hadn't noticed it until now, hadn't dared to formulate the thought.

Standing on the rocks on the eastern side, he couldn't understand how he had been so blind. Maja had tried to show him with the beads, with the lines in the Bamse comic, and it had been right there in front of him all the time: the flat rocks on the eastern side led steeply down into the sea in a broken step formation.

But it wasn't a step formation. It was a flight of steps.

From where he was standing, the top four steps were clearly visible, disappearing down beneath the ice. He recognised them from the dream-like vision when he had been Maja. They were just about three metres wide, and each step was more than half a metre deep. They were so worn down by the water and wind that you could be forgiven if you didn't see immediately what they were.

But it was a flight of steps. Steps leading downwards. Once upon a time, many hundreds of years ago, they must have been completely underwater, but the land elevation had brought them up into the light. Or perhaps they had been there before the ice pressed down the land. Anders stood with his arms wrapped around him and looked down the steps.

Who goes there?

He had to use his hands to help him clamber down the first step. These steps had not been built for human beings, or even by human beings, in all likelihood. Who could possibly have carried out this work in prehistoric times under water?

He moved down another step. It was perhaps slightly less deep than the first one.

Who?

Someone or something beyond the scope of his imagination. Once upon a time, long long ago, it had used this route to make its way up and down, but then stopped because it had grown too old or too weak. Or too big. Now only the route remained.

Another step. And another.

Anders was standing on the ice at the foot of the visible section of the flight of steps. The sky was teeming with white birds on the edge of his field of vision. He pushed his hand into his trouser pocket and took out the box. Then he sat down on the step above with his feet dangling just above the ice.

He opened the box and tipped Spiritus into his hand, closing his fingers around the insect in a gentle fist. The knowledge of the water flowed through him, and with it came a fresh insight. He opened his hand again, looked at the black insect, now as thick as his middle finger, writhing around on his palm.

You belong here.

The wound in his throat was chafing, and Anders scratched it cautiously as he stared down at the semi-transparent layer of ice. Spiritus was tickling his palm as it sleepily moved around in circles.

This is where you come from.

The insect was a part of what was beneath the ice, at the bottom of the steps. Why else would it have turned up on Domarö, a godforsaken-in the true meaning of the word-a godforsaken island in the southern Roslagen archipelago? Because this was where it came from, of course.

He raised his hand to eye level and studied the black, shining skin, the vestigial segmentation of the body that was like a single small, dark muscle. He breathed on it.

Are you mine?' he whispered, but there was no reply. He kept his mouth close to the insect and breathed warm air over it. Are you mine?'

He allowed a thick blob of saliva to drop, and the insect rolled around, hugging itself like a contented cat in the viscous liquid until its skin shone.

I know nothing.

But still he shuffled off the step so that he was standing on the ice once again. He crouched down and touched it with his fingertips, asked it to melt. A layer of water formed on the surface, and the next moment he sank through ten centimetres and was standing on rock.

The water seeped into his boots, chilling his feet. A semi-circle of open water extended two metres from where he was standing. Through the clear water he was able to glimpse three more steps, disappearing down into the darkness.

The ice was easily a metre thick at the edge, and Anders' chest contracted. The power that must be required to cover an entire sea with such thick ice. He felt as if his chest were being compressed by strong hands, and he could hardly breathe. He looked up at the sky.

The birds were going crazy. It seemed as if every single bird was desperate to occupy the space directly above his head, and it was barely possible to distinguish individual bodies among the flapping, screaming lid of feathers and flesh hovering above him.

He closed his eyes and ran his fingers over the tuft on Bamse's hat, the tuft Maja used to suck on as she lay there listening to her tapes. The deep sea lay beneath his feet, the birds screamed and yelled above his head. He was standing on the brink of something, and as a little man he was incapable of grasping its proportions.

Where's the little man? No sign! Not there! Blood will flow, ho ho ho…

Ronia the Robber's Daughter had been on TV and by mistake Maja had happened to see just as the wicked fairies arrived. She had run sobbing out of the room.

Anders grasped the tuft on Bamse's hat in his left and, closed his right hand around Spiritus and asked the water to part.

There was a swell and a slapping around his feet. The water spurted over the edge of the ice in cascades, cold water spattered his face. A V-shaped wedge formed diagonally below him, as if the water had been sucked down into a hole rather than being forced over the edges. However, the wedge was not deep enough to free the next step.

Part!

The power from Spiritus flowed like a low-voltage current through his body, down into his feet and out into the water, but nothing happened. He tightened his hand around Spiritus as much as he dared. He knew that the power to achieve what he wanted was there. He just couldn't quite manage to pass it on. Expelling a breath he let the prayer go, and the water swirled over his feet once more.

A blob of bird shit plopped on to his head and ran down his forehead. His left arm had been hit too, and a milky white stream of excrement was working its way along his ribbed sleeve. He shook his arm before the shit reached Bamse, wiped his forehead, tipped his head back and yelled, 'So what am I supposed to do? Tell me, instead of shitting on me! Tell me what to do!'

The gulls had no answer for him. They tumbled towards each other in a rustle of feathers, still screaming at the top of their little lungs and dropping strands of slimy waste into the water, on to the ice.

Disgusting. It's disgusting.

Anders looked at Spiritus. The insect resembled a lump of excrement as well.

It should he beautiful. But it's just revolting.

The feeling of physical revulsion sank its claws into him, because he knew what the next step was. What he could do to provide the power source with a better connection, create a stronger contact between himself and…the battery.

It's a battery. I am a machine and it is a battery. Nothing else.

His stomach did not accept this argument and curled up, twisting away as if from a threatening blow as Anders moved his right hand towards his mouth. A wave of resistance rose from his frozen feet and up through his body, aiming to stop him, prevent it from happening, protect itself.

Anders screwed his eyes tight shut and opened his mouth wide, slapped his right hand to his mouth as if he were terrified. Spiritus flew into his mouth and crawled over his tongue. Before he had time to change his mind, before his body had time to come up with any further resistance, he swallowed.

Making a decision is one thing, seeing it through is something else entirely. The fat, slippery body got stuck before it had gone very far, and his throat closed up, refused to let it go down. Anders swallowed again as Spiritus' movements tickled his soft palate, threatening to trigger the vomiting that was lying in wait.

He cupped his hands and scooped up a handful of sea water, tipped it into his mouth and swallowed again. The pressure in his throat eased, and Spiritus slipped down.

He stood with his arms dangling by his sides and breathed deeply in and out several times. All the sounds around him slowly quietened, and the world in front of his eyes stratified and flickered, as if he were looking at it through layers of cobwebs.

Then it came.

Earlier he had felt as if his hand were a remote control; now that feeling spread throughout his whole body. And it wasn't just that he could exercise control. He was whatever he controlled. When he looked down at the surface of the water, he no longer saw water, he saw what he himself was made of, what he was a part of.

He ran his hand over his face. It was still there. He pinched his cheek. The skin resisted and it smarted a little. He was a person made of flesh and blood, but a different person. Someone whose body was a space he inhabited. Outside that space he could hear the screaming of the birds, through the windows of his eyes he saw himself, and he was the sea.

He asked for safe passage for his carrier, and began to make his way down the steps. No water foamed over the edges, it was as if the sea were actually parting, gathering on either side of him, and he walked down the steps between two shimmering walls of water.

The steps were slippery with seaweed, and the bladder-wrack bubbles popped quietly as he cautiously moved downwards. He slipped and grabbed the step above to save himself.

It isn't meant for humans…

The feeling of being the sea remained, but his former consciousness came to the fore and began to talk through the ease with which he was walking down a flight of steps into the depths.

It isn't meant for humans. You're going to die.

Yes. But he'd already accepted that, hadn't he? He didn't even have enough fuel to take him back to the normal world, he no longer needed fuel. He was going to go down these steps and see where they led. Then there was nothing more.

Maja.

He was going to see Maja.

He had walked down six steps. His left hand closed around the tuft at his hip and brought him even closer to his human body and consciousness. There was the sound of flapping and fighting above his head, and almost all the light disappeared. He turned around.

Only faint dots of light from the sky penetrated through the furiously fighting block of birds that had crowded down into the passageway to follow him. The flapping of their wings fanned air across his face, and as if the birds' lungs were being compressed, or the acoustics had altered, all he could hear was whistling and croaking from their throats as they struggled to keep their distance from him, while still following.

The odd gull was forced out along the edges, passed through the walls of water and was sucked up to the surface. An injured bird dropped two steps away from him, hit the rock and lay still.

This is impossible…

Anders asked the water to close slowly around the gulls. The passageway shrank, and the birds hurled themselves up over the edges or dived out into the water, swam a short distance and then rose to the surface. Silence fell. Anders was standing on the sixth step in a bubble of air, and it was as dark as late twilight. He could sense the next step, but nothing more.

He carried on downwards.

After seven more steps it was almost completely dark around him. The seaweed and bladder wrack thinned out and disappeared. If he raised his head he could still see the surface up above, dark blue like a summer night sky, but hardly any light penetrated. He kept on going.

The steps became shallower the deeper he went. When he had covered thirty or forty metres in total darkness, they had the same dimensions as a normal staircase. He had no concept of time or space, he was merely a body moving downwards. To avoid losing contact with himself and being swallowed up by the darkness, he began to count the steps.

He conjured up the numbers in yellow against the graffiti wall of the darkness. He embellished them with flowery touches and had little animals hopping around them, to fend off the final separation from the essence of himself, a thinking being. He walked. He walked.

Seventy-nine… eighty… eighty-one… eighty-two…

He was so busy creating flourishes and colours around his numbers, asserting his humanity in the great darkness, that he didn't notice when it happened. He was just considering whether to have a squirrel or a magpie on the branch sticking out from step eighty-two when he noticed that the steps were no longer heading downwards, but upwards.

He stopped. Looked around. Pointlessly. He was in total darkness. He could swear he hadn't reached any kind of landing, any place where the steps leading down had stopped and the steps leading up had begun. At some point the flight of steps had just…changed direction.

He tried to picture it, to see how such a construction might be possible. He couldn't do it. The only idea that came close was a flight of steps that turned itself inside out, becoming an upside-down mirror image of itself.

There is no way hack. There are only steps. And they don't work.

These were Maja's words from the dream. Now he understood them. The steps didn't work. They were all wrong. But he kept on going. Upwards.

After twenty more steps he could just make out the summer night sky above him. Ten more and it became an ordinary sky, seen through water. The steps had become deep once more, and when he tried to climb up on to the next one he stumbled and banged his knee on the edge.

He sat down and looked up at the sky. The air in his bubble was beginning to run out, and he asked the water to part all the way up to the surface. The passageway opened up as if he had used unnaturally long arms to draw back a pair of curtains. What he saw made him lower his head in despair.

No, no, no! All this, and now…

The windows of Gåvasten lighthouse were glittering in the sunlight far above him. Now he understood what the impossible behaviour of the steps meant. He had been led back to his starting point. Spiritus had allowed him to slip through, but he was not allowed to slip inside. The only thing he had got for his efforts was a sore knee.

He leaned back against the next step and pulled up his trouser leg. The jagged edge of the step had gashed his skin, and a small amount of blood was seeping out. He grinned scornfully at it and tipped his head back. The sky was clear, and what he could see of the lighthouse over the edge of the rock was shining white. He wondered what would happen if he simply asked the water to close around him. Presumably he wouldn't die, but there was always that possibility.

Exhausted, he blinked at the bright light up above and decided to wait a while after all. It was beautiful anyway. There was nothing to hope for, but…

The gulls.

Where had the gulls gone? His field of vision was limited, but at least one bird should have been visible. But nothing was moving across the sky except thin veils of cloud, and he could hear nothing of the birds.

He got to his feet and climbed up the next step. And the next. He had to heave himself up the last step, and once again he was standing on the rocks of Gåvasten.

It was late spring.

The air was pleasantly mild, and flowers were growing in every crevice. Mayweed and chives danced in a gentle breeze coming off the sea. The lighthouse glowed chalk-white beneath an afternoon sun that was just warm enough. A wonderful day.

Anders looked around. No gulls on the water, no gulls in the sky. Not a single bird as far as the eye could see. His woolly jumper was making him itchy in the warmth, and he pulled it off and knotted it around his waist, over the top of Maja's snowsuit.

He wandered dumbstruck over the rocks. When he caught sight of Simon's boat, neatly pulled up on to the shore instead of lying abandoned out at sea, he sat down and rested his chin on his hands.

Where am I? When am I?

He squinted into the sun, sparkling on the sea, and studied the boat. It didn't look the same, somehow. It looked newer, or…healthier. There were no scratches or cracks in the hull, and the engine cowling shone. Anders was seized by a sudden sense of unease, and turned his head to the south.

Domarö was exactly where it should be. A tangled thickening of the horizon, a brushstroke of fir trees against the pale sky. But it was just the same as with the boat, it somehow looked more…newly made. Healthier. Stronger.

He felt a movement in his stomach, like the first perceptible movements of a foetus. He stuck his hand inside his shirt, placed it over his stomach and, with a feeling of disgust, realised that the black larva in there was living its own life. They had moved apart and were no longer one and the same. He was Anders, and an insect was crawling around inside his stomach.

He stood up and walked down to the boat. The mooring rope lay neatly coiled up on the prow; the freshly varnished oars shone. He pushed off and the boat slipped easily off the pebbles as he climbed in.

He pulled the string and coolant sprayed out through the little hole beneath the cowling. He felt the engine. It was vibrating. It was running. It just wasn't making any noise. He engaged the gear lever and the boat moved smoothly forward. He accelerated and the boat moved more quickly, still without a sound.

He turned the prow towards Domarö and picked up speed. The mild air should have been cold against his face as he moved faster, but it maintained exactly the same pleasant temperature whether he increased his speed or slowed down. Everything was perfect, and the fear inside him grew stronger and stronger.

The trip across to Domarö passed with incomprehensible speed, as if the distance had contracted while he was travelling. After no more than a minute he swung in alongside one of the smaller jetties next to the steamboat jetty, tied up the boat with the soft, white cotton rope and climbed out.

The boathouses were prettily painted Falun red, and looked as if they were made of velvet in the soft afternoon light. Anders looked around and noticed someone up on the steamboat jetty, with their back turned towards him.

He walked along the shoreline and when he looked up in the direction of the village he could see that the shop was open and the pennants advertising ice cream were fluttering gently. Giant Cornet, Pear Split. Neither of those was available nowadays, as far as he knew. Someone was standing up there studying the advertising posters.


MINCE 7.95/KG, GHERKINS 2.95/KG.


I know what this is, thought Anders, as he climbed up on to the steamboat jetty and went over to the person standing with his back to him. I know where I am.

'Excuse me,' said Anders, and thought he had uttered the words only in his mind, as they didn't come out of his mouth. The person in front of him was a man dressed in blue jeans and a checked shirt, not unlike the one he himself was wearing. The man did not react to the inaudible words. Anders moved closer.

'Excuse me?'

Anders felt at his lips, licked his index finger. Yes, his mouth was there, his tongue was there. It was so quiet here. Not a sound from machines or voices, no birdsong from the trees.

When the man still showed no sign of hearing, Anders walked around so that he would be able to look him in the eye or give him a shake. He passed the man's side and his stomach flipped over, everything flickered before his eyes as the whole thing turned into its opposite.

Anders was standing where the man had just been standing, staring at the man's back as he began to walk up towards the shop. Anders ran up to the man and around him, and the same thing happened again. Something switched over in his head, and he was following a man on his way down to the jetty, once again able to see only the man's back and the back of his head.

He stopped. The man resumed his previous position down on the jetty, gazing out to sea. Anders turned around and walked up to the shop. He half-expected to see his own herring box up there, his own hand-written sign.

Because it was that day. The day when a man had walked out into the water, and Cecilia had given him a lift on her bike. The best moment of his life. The same weather, the same signs, the same feeling. Apart from the fear bubbling inside him.

You want me to stay. You want me here. You're showing me what you think I want to see. My heaven. That's what you're doing.

The man who had been looking at the adverts was just walking away. On the village road to the south, a woman in an old-fashioned summer dress was also walking away. A woman in a skirt made of rough homespun fabric with a scarf around her head was standing on a slope picking lily-of-the-valley, facing away from him.

No one is seeing the same thing.

The woman picking flowers belonged neither to this century nor the last one. Presumably she couldn't see a shop, and she certainly couldn't see any adverts for ice cream. She might possibly be seeing the bakery that Anders knew had once stood on the spot where the shop was nowadays. In her eyes the steamboat jetty was probably no more than a fairly small wooden structure.

Nowadays. What is nowadays? Where are we?

Anders closed his eyes and rubbed them so hard that he squashed the eyeballs back into his head. When he opened them, he saw the same thing as before. A beautiful landscape, a beautiful day, and people moving away or with their backs turned towards him.

He kicked at the gravel and little stones rolled away without making a sound. He took a deep breath and yelled 'Maja!', but didn't. The air came out of him, his vocal cords vibrated, but nothing could be heard. The silence was so dense that it deafened him, as if he were deep under water.

Which is exactly where I am.

He turned on to the southern village road and walked towards the ramblers' hostel. Like all the buildings on this version of Domarö, it was lovelier than ever. It wasn't that it looked newly built. Brand new buildings are seldom particularly attractive. No, it was more the fact that everything was so perfectly aged that it merely emphasised the beauty of the building.

Skansen. The Swedish folk museum.

Something along those lines. Every building, every object, every plant looked as if it was part of an exhibition. As if they represented something rather than actually being something. Themselves. Life- size models.

A woman in a white dress with black spots and a man in trousers, a waistcoat and a shirt with the sleeves rolled up were playing croquet in the hostel garden.

The mallets hit the wooden balls silently, inaudibly, and they rolled through the hoops or past the hoops. Apart from the lack of sounds, the only strange thing about this scene was that the man and woman never looked at each other and were never facing him. The match continued until the woman's ball hit the wooden peg at the end of the course.

The man and the woman picked up their balls without attempting to say anything to one another, and turned back towards the hostel as if in a choreographed pantomime, where the only requirement was that their eyes must never meet.

Just as the man's body turned towards the hostel, towards Anders, he felt that powerful surge in his chest and found himself standing at the bottom of the steps watching the man and woman walk up them, open the door and disappear inside the building.

It's just me.

Everyone else on board this unreal island was caught up in the pantomime, and was behaving exactly as they should. Only he was a deviation, a disturbance that Anders had to be moved around with force so that the dance would not be interrupted, or collapse.

It must be that way.

If all the people who were walking around here really were seeing different things, different worlds, then it was also essential that they never looked at each other, because then they would see something different, and the illusion that was being presented only to them would shatter.

The narrow gravel track leading down to the Shack was edged with lily-of-the-valley. Anders crouched down and grabbed a bunch, stuck his nose into them. Nothing. There were no smells here either. He put one of the poisonous berries in his mouth and chewed. Nothing. He could feel the berry on his tongue, so that sense was still intact, but there was no taste.

He came out onto the rocks and there stood the Shack, just as in the other world.

No…

Anders closed one eye and looked along the length of the straight pine tree. The house was no longer crooked and warped. He hail always thought the house looked ugly with its uneven slant, wished he could do something about it. Now he had his wish. The house was straight, and of all the things he had seen so far, this frightened him the most. The fact that the Shack was no longer the Shack. It was a well-constructed summer cottage situated in the most beautiful location.

Cautiously he walked up to the door and opened it. A colony of fly pupae hatched in his chest and began to fly around, searching for a way out and making his chest quiver inside. It was no longer the day when Cecilia had given him a lift. The interior of the Shack came from the time when he and Cecilia had lived here and been happier than ever.

Because that's what I want it to be.

Trembling, he walked across the rag rug Cecilia had bought for ten kronor at an auction, or the image of it. Everything he could see was taken from inside his own head. He walked into the living room, and as he noticed that the door leading to the bedroom was ajar, there came the first sound he had heard in this place: an irregular ticking that seemed to be coming from inside his ears.

He put his hand over his mouth and realised his teeth were chattering. Not even this silence could swallow internal sounds. He crept across the floor of the living room, even though creeping was meaningless here.

The ticking changed to an agitated knocking as he reached the door and looked in.

There she was.

On the floor next to her bed sat Maja, digging into the bucket of beads. In front of her lay small piles of different coloured beads which she was busy sorting. He heard her humming to herself without actually hearing it. He knew she always hummed when she was preoccupied with something.

A few strands of her thin brown hair lay across the back of her neck, some were tucked behind her slightly protruding ears. She was barefoot, and had on the blue velour tracksuit she had been wearing under her red snowsuit.

Anders' legs gave way and he fell silently and helplessly to the floor. The back of his head hit the thick floorboards, and flashes of white seared his retinas. Before the flower of pain had time to come to full bloom, he raised his head so that he could carry on looking, afraid that the image would be ripped from his grasp, torn away from his eyes if he lost concentration for even a second.

The pain filled his skull, but Maja was still there. His head throbbed as he turned over so that he was lying on his stomach, with his face only two metres from her back. The small fingers picked out the beads, sorting them neatly one by one into the right pile.

I am here. She is here. I am home.

For a long time he just lay there looking at her as the headache eased. His teeth were no longer chattering. He had travelled such a long way to see exactly this. And now she was sitting there, two metres away from him.

And he couldn't reach her.

'Maja?' he said. There was no sound. She didn't react.

He wriggled across the floor, over the threshold until he was right next to her, he could see the milk stain on the knee of her tracksuit. He sat up and placed his hand on her shoulder.

He felt the soft curve beneath the fabric, not much bigger than an egg. He stroked her shoulder, enjoying the sensation in his hand, and squeezed gently as silent tears poured down his face. He stroked her upper arm, and the tears ran into his mouth. They tasted of salt. They were coming from him.

But she didn't turn around. She didn't know he was there. He was just a pair of mute, weeping eyes, watching her.

'Sweetheart. Maja, sweetheart, little one, I'm here now. Daddy's here. I'm with you. You're not on your own anymore.'

He hugged her back, rested his cheek on the back of her neck and carried on weeping. She should have turned around, she should have complained: Daddy, your stubble's all scratchy and I'm getting wet, but nothing happened. As far as she was concerned he didn't exist.

He sat like that until the tears dried up, until he could weep no more. He let go of her and shuffled half a metre backwards, letting his gaze roam over her back, the contours of her spine protruding beneath the material.

I will sit here forever. When she gets up, I will follow her. Like a ghost. I am with her, as she was with me.

He closed his eyes. He felt brave enough to close his eyes now.

Would she experience it the same way? Like the vague, elusive presence of another person, following her wherever she went? Would it frighten her? Could she be frightened? Could he have any effect on her at all?

With his eyes still closed he reached out and touched her back. It was there. The feel of the soft velour against the palm of his hand was there, even though he had his eyes closed.

Can I…

He shuffled forward and to the right as his hand slid over her back, over her shoulder. He moved around her on his knees, still with his eyes closed, felt her collarbone beneath his fingertips. He sat directly in front of her and followed the line of her throat up to her face. There it was. Her face. The round cheeks, the snub nose, the lips that moved as she hummed.

He opened his eyes.

His hand was resting on the back of Maja's head, and he was sitting exactly where he had been sitting before he started shuffling around. He had run his fingers over her lips and she hadn't noticed a thing. He didn't exist. He wasn't even a ghost to her.

He leaned back, stretched out on the floor and looked up at the ceiling, which was not stained with smoke or marked by cobwebs, but was a beautiful white ceiling of carefully laid tongue and groove. Exactly the kind of ceiling he liked best.

He could sit next to Maja, he could look at her and touch her, but he couldn't reach her. Their worlds were not permitted to meet.

But she came to me. I knew she was there. She came to me. Through the water.

Everything within him became still. The disappointment and frustration faded away. He tried to see it, tried to think.

She came to me…

He raised his head and looked at the little blue figure next to the bed who had now picked up a heart-shaped bead tile and was busy pressing beads into place. Maja.

But this was not Maja. The person who was Maja, who had memories and pictures and who could talk, had come to him, had somehow managed to escape into the sea. What was sitting by the bed was only her body, or that part of her that was necessary to enable him to see what he wanted to see.

Maja?

There was a point where both worlds collided and mingled together. That point was himself, since she existed within him. He closed his eyes and searched for her.

We're not playing hide and seek any more, little one. You can come out. Out you come! The game is over, it's safe now.

He concentrated on what had happened with Elin. The thing that had been in the bucket, that had been forced out of her and had to be returned to the sea. Somewhere inside him was something similar. He called to it now, searched in the darkness of his own body.

Where are you…where are you…

Like the silvery flash of a fish in the net far below the surface, he caught sight of it. It was dispersed throughout his entire body, but he approached it from all directions at the same time and made it come together, gather into a formless, hovering mass that he could take hold of and localise with his consciousness. It was in his stomach now, circling around the insect down there that was floundering and thrashing about in a panic.

Everything around him was gone, was unreal. His strength and his thoughts were focused on one single thing: holding on to something intangible. As he moved towards Maja's body on the floor, his eyes closed, he had to divert a minute amount of his attention to his own movements, and the other thing threatened to slip from his grasp like the eel had slipped through his father's fingers.

He pushed away the eel, couldn't think about the eel, couldn't think about his own knees as they slid across the floor, couldn't hope or wish for anything as his fingers once again moved over Maja's body until he was sitting right in front of her. He still hadn't lost his grip, she was still there in the darkness in his hands, in his mind as he leaned forward and placed his mouth over hers.

Come. Out.

He pushed it in front of him, up from his stomach, up through his throat, and he really could feel it like a little body, a stream of silky liquid sliding over his tongue, out through his lips and into her mouth.

He gasped and collapsed. Part of him had left his body. He didn't dare look. There was nothing more now. He closed his eyes, and there was only silence. Then he heard Maja's voice:

'Daddy, what's the matter?'

Slowly he opened his eyes. Maja was sitting there looking at him with a puzzled frown.

'Are you sad? Why have you got Bamse?'

He looked into her eyes. Her hazel eyes that were looking enquiringly at him. A large body shifted position, and a shudder ran through the world.

The rattle that emerged from his throat told him that he too was now capable of producing sound. Maja's concerned expression was on the point of tipping over into fear, because he was behaving so oddly. He swallowed down everything that wanted to come spurting out of him, pulled Bamse free and held him out to Maja.

'I brought him for you.'

Maja grabbed Bamse and hugged him, rocking back and forth. Anders could hear a faint rustling as her elbows moved across her knees, he leaned towards her and smelled the familiar scent of her shampoo. He stroked her cheek.

'Maja, sweetheart…'

Maja glanced up, looked at him. Another shudder passed through the house and he felt it as a powerful vibration in the floorboards. Maja screamed.

'What's that?'

'I think…' said Anders, taking her hand and getting to his feet,..1 think we have to go now.'

Maja was pulling away. 'Where are we going? I don't want to go!'

The house shook, and Anders saw the poker fall over next to the fireplace. Maja's piles of beads collapsed and mixed together, and she freed herself from his grasp so that she could start sorting them out again.

He bent down and picked her up. She kicked and protested in his arms, but he took no notice, he held her close to his body and ran through the house, towards the front door.

He was through the garden and running down towards the steamboat jetty when Maja relaxed in his arms and started to laugh.

'Gee up, Daddy!' she screamed, clicking her tongue.

He heard the sound of his own feet moving along the track, but he was no longer running on gravel. The gravel was disintegrating, collapsing in on itself, and the lilies-of-the-valley along the edge of the track wilted, were drawn down to the ground and disappeared.

He took the shortest route across the rocks, but they had become dark and slippery. The sky was dissolving like a cloud in a storm. Down by the jetty, two people in old-fashioned clothes stood screaming at each other as they looked around in terror.

Everything except the people was shrinking and imploding in slow motion, and as Anders ran out towards the boat with Maja in his arms, he saw for a fraction of a second what he was not permitted to see. What this world actually consisted of. He would have fallen on his face in terror or adoration if he hadn't-

'Gee up, Daddy!'

– if he hadn't had to get Maja away from here.

When he jumped down into the boat and placed Maja on the seat, he realised the run had taken no more than a few seconds. He had come out on to the rocks and thought that they looked slippery, and then he was past them without even noticing how it had happened.

He started the engine and just about managed to turn the boat, and then they had reached Gåvasten. Distances were being drawn in on themselves, and everything was getting closer to everything else.

Gåvasten was still there. The white lighthouse still extended up towards the sky, which was now as dark as night, but when Anders turned around towards Domarö, the island was only a few dozen metres away. The perspective had shifted. Domarö was the same size as when he had seen it from a kilometre away, but he understood that it was closer because he could see the people. Could see their waving arms, their running bodies.

And the height of Domarö continued to diminish. The island was sinking.

'Come on, sweetheart! Quick as you can!'

Maja crawled out of the prow and jumped down on to the rocky shore. She had seen what he could see, and was frightened. 'Where are we going?'

She lifted her arms up to him; he picked her up and ran towards the eastern side of the island.

Let it still be there, let it still be there…

The steps were still there, but when he got to the rocks on the eastern side, the sea too had begun to drop the mask, and was in the process of dissolving into a leaden mist with the flight of steps running down through it.

Anders put Maja down; she was hugging Bamse tightly. He crouched down and said as cheerfully as he could manage, 'Up you come. You can ride on my shoulders.'

Maja stuck her thumb in her mouth and nodded. Anders moved down from the top step, and with some difficulty Maja climbed on to his shoulders with her legs around his neck. She didn't want to take her thumb out of her mouth, or let go of Bamse. He held on to her knees tightly so that she wouldn't fall, and started the downward climb.

They were moving in their narrow corridor of air, and the downward climb became an upward climb without him even noticing. Somewhere along the way the steps changed direction and the mist around him turned into water. The sweat was pouring into his eyes; it didn't occur to him to ask it to stop. His legs were aching, his back, the back of his neck, but he clutched Maja's knees and kept on moving upwards, constantly afraid that he would trip and fall on the uneven steps.

His lungs were burning by the time he was standing on the rocks on the other Gåvasten once again, and every gasping breath brought with it puffs of ingrained tobacco smoke, loosened during his flight. When he crouched down to let Maja slide off his shoulders, he fell over. Maja shrieked and tumbled sideways on to the rocks, but landed on Bamse.

She neither cried nor screamed. She sat there curled up with her eyes open wide and her thumb in her mouth, hugging Bamse. Anders reached out a feeble hand and touched her foot, as if to check that she was really there. She looked at him with those same wide eyes, but said nothing.

The inside of his body was blasted as if it had been in a furnace, he had used up the very last of his strength in running and climbing, and all he could do was lie there full length on the rocks, gasping for breath and looking at his terrified daughter.

She'll he fine. She doesn't understand. She'll he fine.

It wasn't Anders who was shaking, it was the rock itself. A roaring rumble was rising from the very bowels of the earth, and it was growing in strength. He was lying with his ear to the ground, and he could hear it.

It's coming…

For a brief moment he had caught sight of it through the webs of illusion in which it concealed itself. The thing that held the people captive, the thing that needed their strength in order to live and grow. The threat from the underworld, the spirit of the sea, or the creature whose presence gave rise to legends. The monster.

There was no point in trying to describe it. It was great power and many-headed vision, a black muscle with millions of eyes, blind and without a body. It did not exist. It was all that existed.

The vibrations in the rock were transmitted into Anders' skull. His little brain splashed around inside trying to frame an idea of what he had been through, but without success. The important thing was not to be here when it came.

Anders rolled over on to his back and sat up, placed a hand on Maja's knee. He didn't really have the strength, but as some sergeant had said to him during his military service, 'You're going to run until even your own mother thinks you're dead, and then you're going to run a little bit more.'

His mother was out of the picture, he had only himself to rely on, and he didn't think he was dead. So there must be something left inside him. He wiped the sweat from his eyes and looked out across the ice-covered sea.

The birds…

They were no longer circling around the island, but they had not disappeared completely as in the other place. The whole flock had now gathered in an area about a hundred metres to the east. Many were flying around as before, but even more were standing on the ice, walking restlessly to and fro as if waiting for something.

There was no time to think. They were back in this world now, where it was October. His body was still steaming with heat, but…

'Here, little one.'

He untied the snowsuit from around his waist and moved closer to Maja, who was still sitting with her knees drawn up, sucking her thumb. Her eyes were staring in a way that made him uncomfortable. He tried to ease Bamse from her grip so that he could put the snowsuit on. She wouldn't let go.

'Sweetheart, it's cold. You need to put this on.'

Despite the fact that it impeded what he was trying to do, he was relieved when she shook her head violently. He tugged at Bamse's hat to get the bear away from her. The vibrations in the ground were getting stronger, and he had to make a real effort to speak calmly.

'Come on now, poppet, you'll catch a cold…'

He pulled at Bamse's hat and Maja held on tight. He felt a kind of cough in his chest, and a laugh burst out of him. He was laughing. His stomach was bubbling with sheer joy, and he carried on laughing. It was just so stupid.

He had fetched her from the other side, an earthquake was approaching from somewhere beneath them, and he was sitting here tugging at Bamse's felt hat while she held on tight and shook her head.

Maja tilted her head on one side and took her thumb out of her mouth, 'I'm not cold, Daddy. Just my feet, a little bit. Where's Mummy? I want her to come too.'

'OK,' said Anders, swallowing the laughter. 'OK. Mummy's coming later.

Maja looked critically at the snowsuit in his hands. 'And that's dirty. Really dirty.'

The fabric was stained with patches of dried blood, which in places had become sticky with the heat of his body during their flight. Yes, it certainly was really dirty.

Maja looked around her. 'What's that noise?'

'I don't know,' he lied. 'But we have to go now.'

He picked Maja up in his arms again and she let go of Bamse so that she could wrap her arms around his neck, while Bamse lay safely pressed between them. The rumbling was growing louder, and by the time they reached the shore on the south side, the layer of ice covering the sea had broken away from the island. He had to leap across a strip of open water so that he could run to the boat, which was still stuck fast in the ice out there.

By the time he reached the boat and put Maja down, the ice had begun to crack and explode. Deep cracks were beginning to run through the shining surface, and all the birds rose into the air, screaming excitedly as the ice broke and dark strips of water appeared.

I am the sea.

He turned the ice in front of the boat into water, he grabbed hold of the boat and pulled it along. Maja almost fell as the boat shot through the passageway of open water appearing ahead of the prow. She clung to the rail and laughed.

'Faster! Faster!'

Anders shook his head. She wasn't interested in how this was possible. The important thing was that it was fun, that they were going fast. He was the sea and he thrust the boat ahead of him with greater power. Maja's hair fluttered in the wind as she held on to the rail, bobbing up and down with her upper body as if to help, to urge the boat on.

A loud bang echoed through the air, and Anders turned. East of Gåvasten a black shape rose up, smashing the thick ice to pieces along its edges. It was already about a metre high and twenty metres wide, growing in size as it rose.

They were so far away that Anders could barely make out individual birds, but he could see the flock diving at the thing that was rising from the sea, attacking it, doing no more damage than a mosquito bite with their little beaks.

He turned to face Domarö, which was coming up rapidly. A mosquito was tiny, nothing compared with a man, who could squash it with his little finger. But a thousand mosquitoes was another matter. Perhaps the gulls' battle was not as hopeless as it seemed.

The ice had broken up into huge pieces as Anders steered the boat in towards the same jetty where he had moored it in the other world. He helped Maja up on to the jetty and turned to face the sea once again.

Next to Gåvasten there was now a new island, the same height as the rock on which the lighthouse stood, and at least five times as wide.

Gunnilsdra. Gunnil's ear. Gilded ear. The island of dreams.

A shudder ran through the sea and the jetty rocked beneath his feet. Both Gåvasten and the other island disappeared, and Anders blinked in bewilderment. The line of the horizon was moving, undulating like tarmac in hot sunshine.

He understood. Once again he picked Maja up and carried her ashore. As he was running towards the steamboat jetty he saw Mats, the shopkeeper, standing up there looking through a telescope. His wife Ingrid was next to him. Mats lowered the telescope and shook his head, said something to her.

'Hello!' yelled Anders. 'Mats! Hello!'

Mats caught sight of him. 'Anders, what…' He stared at the blue bundle in Anders' arms and pointed. 'Is that…?'

Anders made it on to the jetty.

'Yes,' he said. 'Sound the fire alarm, now!'

'But how…1 mean…'

'Please Mats, just trust me. It's all going to hell. Sound the fire alarm and…' Anders glanced out to sea. The horizon had risen a little further towards the sky.'…get out of here. Right now!'

Mats looked out to see and his jaw dropped as he too saw what was coming. With Ingrid beside him he raced up to the shop. Anders followed them with Maja in his arms, and arrived just as Mats was opening the cupboard. He pressed the alarm button and it sent its mournful wail out across the island.

'People aren't at home,' said Mats, locking the cupboard again out of habit.

As they ran uphill Anders thanked some lucky star that the children were still in school, and that those who had jobs on the mainland were at work.

He turned around.

The wave was now only a few hundred metres away. Despite the fact that Anders was now on higher ground, the wave was so tall that it obscured the view of Gåvasten and the thing beside it. Maja saw it too.

'Daddy, are we going to die?'

'No, sweetheart,' said Anders, following Mats and Ingrid as they moved higher still. 'We're not. Not after all this. No way.'

'Is Mummy going to die?'

'She isn't here. She's a long way away. She's fine.'

'Why is she a long way away?'

An elderly couple whose names Anders couldn't recall, who lived a couple of blocks up from the shop, opened their from door and looked out. 'Where's the fire?' asked the old man. Mats stopped and pointed out to sea.

'A wave is coming. Get out of here.'

The old man peered out to sea and his eyes opened wide. I le grabbed his wife by the hand. 'Come on, Astrid.'

By the time the old couple had put on their clogs and got down their front steps, there was a deafening crash from the harbour, and a blast of air made Anders wobble forwards. Maja squealed, thinking he was going to fall on top of her, but he managed to regain his balance and staggered on towards the forest.

He could hear a thundering sound like a waterfall behind him, and a few seconds later sea water was swirling over his feet. A sharp pain shot up his leg as a shard of ice hit his right foot. He gritted his teeth and limped along, picking his way between large and small pieces of ice that were floating on the water as it was sucked back towards the sea.

Fortunately the old couple were of tough archipelago stock, and they plodded along with their clogs splashing through the water a couple of metres ahead of him, just behind Mats and Ingrid. Maja hauled herself up and looked over his shoulder.

'Daddy, there's another one coming!'

He looked back. The boathouses down by the harbour were gone, and the shoreline had risen by several metres, as if Domarö too had shaken itself up and risen from the sea to meet the threat. Unfortunately this was not the case. It was the wave sucking the water towards it. The next wave.

Mats noticed that Anders was limping, and offered to carry Maja, but Anders shook his head. He had carried her this far, he would carry her all the way. The only problem was that he could hardly walk.

'Wait, just hang on a minute!' the old man shouted to Anders, waving the others on. Anders stood with Maja in his arms as the man ran back to his house. Now he remembered the man. He used to buy herring from Anders; he was already an old man in those days, and Anders thought he had such an unusual name for an old man.

Kristoffer, Anders thought. His name is Kristoffer Ek. Torgny's dad.

Kristoffer disappeared out of sight and Anders looked anxiously at the sea. It would take a while before the next wave reached them, but when it did…

I am the sea.

He was still standing with his feet in water and the water linked him directly to the wall of sea water that was approaching from out in the bay. He rose against it and Spiritus burned in his stomach as lie left his consciousness and became one with the hurtling wave.

Stop! Stop!

He was in the wave and the wave was in him, its insane power ran through Spiritus and out into his fingers, clenching into fists around Maja's body as he tried to restrain, to brake. The insect in his stomach tensed like a muscle strained to breaking point, and this was not meant for humans.

He knew it was pointless. Like trying to hold back a bolting horse with a fishing line. And yet he resisted until it all became too much, and something burst inside him. He felt a searing pain in his stomach. His contact with the water was broken.

'Ouch, Daddy! You're pinching!'

He returned to the solid world, where his arms were squeezing his daughter tightly. He relaxed; he had to concentrate to stop his legs giving way beneath him. Close by his ear, Maja asked, 'Why is Mummy a long way away?'

'We'll ring her later, sweetheart. Afterwards.'

The wave shimmered like a gigantic mirror being dragged across the surface of the sea, the broken pieces of ice were like cracks and marks on its shining surface. It was not within human power to stop it. Anders had turned and started to run once again when he heard the sound of an engine starting up, and the next moment Kristoffer pulled out of his drive on a bright blue platform moped.

'Jump on!' he shouted.

Anders clambered on to the platform with Maja in his arms, and as Kristoffer accelerated along the forest track, she whispered in his ear, 'Who's that?'

'That's Kristoffer,' said Anders. 'He's helping us.'

Maja nodded. 'He looks nice. A bit like Simon.'

Anders hadn't given Simon and Anna-Greta a thought since this all started, he had just registered the fact that they were out of the way and therefore safe. Either at sea or in Kapellskar.

Domarö. It only wants to get at Domarö.

They caught up with the others. Kristoffer braked and Astrid perched gratefully on the edge of the platform. Kristoffer waved to Mats and Ingrid, but Mats shook his head and kept on running with his wife. Presumably the moped would lose so much speed with them on board that it was quicker to keep running.

'To the rock!' shouted Anders. 'The erratic boulder. That's the highest point.'

Kristoffer nodded, and they shot off along the track. As they passed Mats and Ingrid, Anders shouted the same thing to them. After a hundred metres Kristoffer turned off and they bounced along over roots and stones. But they were moving upwards, climbing all the time.

It was impossible to ride along the last bit, and despite the fact that his feet were hurting so much it brought tears to his eyes, Anders clung to Maja and she clung to him as they got down from the platform and began to climb.

They reached the boulder just in time to see the wave come crashing in over Domarö. Like a dark blue fifteen-metre wall with a crown of ice shards, it came down over the community. Anders sank down at the edge of the rock and watched as what the first wave had left of the Shack was swallowed up by the mass of water.

The chunks of ice flew off the crest of the wave and destroyed the roofs of Anna-Greta and Simon's houses just seconds before the alarm bell tower collapsed under the pressure and the wall of water smashed the whole thing to driftwood dancing in the foam, and then were was nothing left. The six refugees were standing on a tiny island a dozen or so metres above a rushing, roaring sea, with wreckage swirling around them.

Anders looked up. Gåvasten lighthouse could no longer be seen. The little island was still out there, but the lighthouse itself had disappeared, swept away by the wave. A shudder ran from the sea through the earth, continued into their bodies through the rock, and the island that had appeared next to Gåvasten began to sink.

The water beneath their feet ebbed away. Above his head, Anders heard Mats say, 'There were people there…'

Anders leaned back and saw that Mats was looking through his telescope. He lowered it and shook his head as he gestured out towards the sinking island. 'There were people out there. On the island. Lots of people. They're gone now.'

Anders hugged Maja and buried his nose in the hollow at the back of her neck. The water sank down, exposing a village that was no longer there. Beneath them lay nothing but a muddy mess of fallen trees and the wreckage of houses and outbuildings. Here and there lay large or small pieces of smashed boats. The only thing that was left was the lump of concrete that formed the steamboat jetty.

It's dangerous. Not only for you. For all those who live here.

This was what Anna-Greta had meant, what she had wanted to prevent. Anders pushed his nose harder into Maja's neck, rubbing his cheek over her back.

'Ouch Daddy, you're all prickly. Stop it.'

Anders smiled and turned her to face him, stroking her cheek gently with one finger. Maja clamped her lips together in a way that meant she was thinking.

'Daddy?'

'Yes.'

'I dreamed I was calling to you. A lot. Was I?'

'Yes, you were.'

Maja nodded grimly, as if this confirmed something she had suspected for a long time.

'What did you do then?'

Anders looked into her serious, worried eyes. He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and kissed her forehead.

'I came to find you. Of course.'

In the churchyard in Nåten there is an anchor. An enormous anchor made of cast iron, with a memorial plaque:


IN MEMORY OF THOSE LOST AT SEA


After the incomprehensible storm, the anchor was no longer there. From the spot where the anchor had been, a fresh trench ran down to the shore. As if the anchor had been dragged along by its chain, dragged through the earth like a plough, leaving the furrow behind it before it disappeared into the sea.

Whatever had been fastened to the anchor had torn itself free. Or been set free.

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