The Quarry

Öland 1958

Vendela is running across the alvar, competing with the setting sun. But it all feels so hopeless — not only must she find someone she can trust, she must also persuade that person to accompany her back to the kingdom of the elves and help Jan-Erik home. If she can’t find anyone she must collect food and blankets from the farm, then she and her older brother will have to spend the night out on the alvar — unless she can persuade him to get up and try to walk.

She must hurry — everything depends on it.

On the way back her progress is constantly hindered by all the water, by all the lakes of meltwater spread across the grass, reflecting the sky. She has to go around them, sometimes to the left, sometimes to the right, and when the sun slips behind thick cloud it is difficult to remember exactly where she is.

She has also lost track of the time, she has no watch.

The blood is pounding in Vendela’s ears. She scrapes her legs on bushes and small rocks, her leaky boots sink down into the grass and suck up the water, but she doesn’t slow down.

She runs and runs, she doesn’t stop until a wall built of big round stones looms up in front of her. The wall is almost up to her chest, and she can’t see the end of it in either direction. She doesn’t recognize it — where is she? The sky is overcast, and she is no longer sure which direction she is supposed to be going in.

In the end she turns away from the wall and runs in the opposite direction, but now she can’t find her way back to the stone. The paths between the lakes are like a labyrinth, she is utterly disorientated in this watery world.

Vendela’s spring clothes are damp with sweat; she is cold and starting to feel hungry. She wants to slip her small fingers into the reassuring hand of some adult, but there is no one. Everything is silent. She keeps on moving, and when she gets tired of walking around the meltwater she begins to wade through the lakes instead. Most of them are not very deep, and her boots are soaking wet anyway.

Eventually she sees a stone wall a couple of hundred metres away. She approaches it slowly, looks at it and measures its height against her body; she is convinced it’s the same wall she was standing next to a little while ago. She has gone round in a circle on the alvar.

Vendela just cannot take another step, and sinks down next to the wall. She shuts her eyes and keeps them closed for a long time before opening them.

She sees shadows around her. Pale shadows. They shouldn’t be there, but she can see them. And as they slip towards her she realizes the elves are coming. They have been to the stone to fetch Jan-Erik, and now they are coming for her.

And Vendela wants them to take her, she reaches out her hand to them.

‘Come,’ she whispers.

But the misty shapes slip away, they do not want to play with her, and gradually their contours fade. Eventually they disappear completely.

‘Hello?’

She can hear shouts in the darkness.

‘Hello? Hellooo?’

Vendela opens her eyes. She is lying beside a stone wall, and she’s very, very cold.

‘I’m here!’ she shouts.

She doesn’t know if anyone can hear her, but the shouts are coming closer. Swishing footsteps move through the grass, dark figures take shape. Vendela sees a woman in a cape and a man in a hat and coat. She recognizes them.

‘Vendela, what are you doing out here? We’ve been looking for you!’ Aunt Margit takes hold of her frozen hands and helps her up.

She looks around. It is almost completely dark out on the alvar now.

‘Let’s get you home and make you a hot drink,’ says Margit. ‘Then we’ll set off for Kalmar.’

She and Sven start walking, but Vendela cannot go with them. ‘No,’ she says. ‘We can’t go!’

Sven keeps moving, but Aunt Margit stops. ‘What do you mean?’

Vendela points. ‘I left Jan-Erik by the stone.’

Her aunt just stares at her, and Vendela has to explain that Henry has gone down to the quarry, and that she has dragged her brother out on to the alvar. She runs up and grabs her aunt by the arm. ‘We have to go and get him,’ she says. ‘Come on!’

Her aunt and uncle follow slowly, and this time Vendela somehow finds her way along the paths between the silver mirrors made of water. They reach the stone among the juniper bushes as the twilight deepens to dark grey.

But it’s too late. There is no sign of Jan-Erik, and the silver chain Vendela placed on the elf stone has also disappeared.

Only the wheelchair is still there, stuck in the mud.

The three of them stand there for a while shouting across the alvar, but there is no reply. It is almost pitch dark now.

‘Time to go home,’ says Uncle Sven.

Margit nods. Vendela feels the panic rising, but cannot protest.

Her aunt and uncle take the wheelchair back to the farm. They push it through the garden and put it in the tool shed. Vendela is sitting in the kitchen when they come back. The house feels very cold.

The kitchen clock is ticking.

Suddenly they hear the sound of heavy boots out on the steps.

The front door opens and Henry walks into the little porch. His breathing is heavy and he seems very tired; he stops in the doorway when he sees his sister and brother-in-law in the kitchen. He says nothing, and doesn’t remove his peaked cap.

Margit and Sven don’t say anything either; it is Vendela who speaks first.

‘Dad... where’s Jan-Erik? Have you seen him?’

‘Jan-Erik?’ says Henry, as if he can barely recall the name. ‘He’s gone.’

‘Gone?’ asks Vendela. ‘Gone where?’

There is a brief silence in the kitchen, then her aunt chips in: ‘Did he go up to the station?’

Henry won’t look at his daughter; he looks at the floor and nods. ‘That’s right... Jan-Erik has gone on the train. He was heading for Borgholm, then the mainland.’

‘You mean... he’s run away?’ says Sven.

‘Yes. And I couldn’t stop him... He’s seventeen years old.’ Henry looks up. ‘Shall we make a move, then?’

No one says anything; everyone seems to be thinking of Henry’s destination. The prison.

He goes into his room and comes back with his bag.

‘Well, we’d better make a start on locking the house up,’ says Aunt Margit.

Vendela goes to her room and packs her bags in silence.

Suddenly she hears a scream from downstairs. Her aunt shouts at the top of her voice: ‘It’s empty! Everything’s gone, every single thing!’

When Vendela gets down to the kitchen, her mother’s jewellery box is standing open on the table, and Aunt Margit is as white as a sheet. She has lowered her voice, but she is just as angry. ‘Jan-Erik has stolen all his mother’s jewellery,’ she says. ‘Did you see him do it, Vendela?’

Vendela shakes her head in silence. Her father is standing next to his sister, looking even more gloomy. ‘I should have locked it away.’

He gazes blankly at Vendela; she lowers her eyes and goes back to her room to fetch her bags. She knows that Jan-Erik did not take the jewellery, and she doesn’t believe he has run away on the train. She was the one who left him, not vice versa.

He sat on the grass and waited until he realized she wasn’t coming back. Only then did he get up and walk away from the stone.

Jan-Erik has gone to the elves. That’s what must have happened. He has gone to the world behind the mist, where the sun always shines.

When they reach Kalmar an hour later, Henry gets out with his bag in front of the well-lit entrance to the prison.

‘Thanks for the lift,’ is all he says.

He turns up his collar, grips his bag firmly and leaves Vendela without a word. He walks up to the guard at the gates and doesn’t look back.

Time passes. When Jan-Erik doesn’t arrive at the station for his journey to the mental hospital, the police are informed, but a retarded teenager on the run isn’t a major issue. The police have other priorities, and he is never found. It is as if Vendela’s older brother has been swallowed up by the ground.

Time passes, and the little farm belonging to the Fors family is sold that summer.

Time passes, and Vendela does not visit her father in prison, not once.

When he finally comes out he is a much subdued man. Late in the autumn he returns to Öland and settles in Borgholm, where he is less well known than in his home village. Henry becomes a labourer, lives in one room with no cooking facilities, and muddles along somehow.

By this stage Vendela is settled in Kalmar and doesn’t want to go back to Öland. She has a whole new life with Margit and Sven. Soon the children in her class at school forget that she comes from the island, and stop teasing her. Her aunt and uncle have no children of their own, and they are very fond of Vendela.

Everything works out for the best.

She is given new clothes, a red bicycle and a record player.

She is given almost everything she asks for, and no longer has to wish for things.

She grows up, passes her exams and meets a nice man who owns a restaurant. They have a daughter.

The memories of Öland slowly fade away, and Vendela hardly ever takes the ferry across the sound to see her father. His little room is always littered with empty spirit bottles, and they have nothing to say to each other when she does visit.

After Henry’s death at the end of the sixties, she has no reason to go back. She no longer has any family left on the island — just a collection of graves in the churchyard. In her room she has a few objects made from beautifully polished limestone which she inherited from her father, along with an empty jewellery box.

It is not until she is in her forties, when her marriage to Martin is over and she has married Max Larsson, that Vendela begins to think about her childhood on Öland, and to feel a desire to return there.

And a growing urge to follow her brother to the elves.