and cycled home. The house was still there.
She rang Johannes and told him she’d had a puncture. The experience remained in her body. It wasn’t that she was afraid of leaving her own garden, it was just that she did so less and less often.
One Saturday Johannes came over to her house on his bike, although they hadn’t made any arrangements. He was wearing a pair of crumpled shorts that reached down to his knees, and a yellow T-shirt that emphasised his tan. Teresa felt almost shy as they hugged.
He had been to Majorca for a week with his mother, he explained as Teresa got out crispbread and peanut butter. His mother had met some guy who lived in Norrkoping, and she had gone off to spend the weekend with him, so Johannes was as free as a bird. Maybe he could stay over?
Teresa wasn’t prepared for this disruption of her normal routine, so she replied evasively that she would have to check with her parents. As they sat opposite one another at the kitchen table, she felt for the first time that she didn’t know what to say to Johannes. It was as if he came from another world. The world outside her garden.
The situation was saved by Olof who came in to make himself a sandwich; after a while he and Johannes were deep in a discussion about Runescape. When Olof went to the toilet, Johannes asked, ‘Do you fancy going for a swim?’
‘I haven’t got a swimsuit.’
‘Well, we can always go skinny dipping.’
Teresa would gladly have given every last krona of her savings to avoid what happened next: a blush began to spread across her whole face, and she stared down at the floor. She heard Johannes snort.
‘Oh, come on. We sorted all that out, didn’t we?’
‘Well yes, but…’
That kiss. Teresa had thought Johannes wouldn’t remember it, but obviously he did, and that made her even more embarrassed. She wanted to slither out of her skin and dissolve into a puddle. Just to have something to do, she took out another piece of crispbread. The knife scraped loudly as she spread the peanut butter right to the very edges with exaggerated care. She took a bite and the crunch was deafening. Johannes looked at her and she looked out of the window.
When Olof came back and asked Johannes if he fancied a game of Runescape, Johannes glanced at Teresa and she shrugged. They sat down at the computer in the living room and Teresa watched as they took it in turns to kill off monsters and evil wizards.
She never got around to asking Maria and Goran if Johannes could stay over. He had dinner with them, chatting mainly with Arvid and Olof. After dinner he went out and got on his bike. Teresa followed him to say goodbye.
When he had rung the bell and set off, it was as if something occurred to him. He swung around and pulled up next to Teresa, his feet on the ground to balance the bike.
‘Teresa?’
‘What?’
‘We are friends, aren’t we? Even if things are a bit different, sort of.’
‘What do you mean?’
Johannes swirled his foot around in the gravel in a way that she remembered from when he was little.
‘Just…I don’t know. I mean, things aren’t the same anymore. But we can still be friends, can’t we?’
‘Is that what you want?’
Johannes frowned and considered the question. Then he looked Teresa in the eye and said very seriously, ‘Yes. That’s what I want.’
‘Then we’re friends.’
‘But is that what you want?’
‘Yes. That’s what I want.’
Johannes nodded several times. Then he gave a big smile and said, ‘Good,’ leaned forward and kissed Teresa on the cheek. He pushed down the pedals and disappeared down the drive, waving over his shoulder.
Teresa stood there with her arms dangling and watched him disappear along the gravel track. She saw the track dissolve in that same mist, she saw Johannes cycling along the track. In a minute he would be swallowed up by it, and there was nothing she could do.
Normally the members of the family lived in separate little worlds, but that summer they surrounded Teresa more closely. At first she thought it was because Johannes had moved away. Or perhaps it was his absence that made her notice her family’s presence.
Whatever the reason, Arvid and Olof started to ask if she wanted to join in when they were playing computer games. Maria tried to get her to come along when it was time to go shopping, and Goran was usually available for a game of cards. She began to suspect there had been a secret family meeting, and a decision had been made:
At first she accepted it. She played and surfed the net with Olof and Arvid, she helped Maria in the kitchen and she played Cheat and Old Maid with Goran until they knew each other’s strategies so well they had to double and triple bluff to get anywhere.
But after a couple of weeks she began to feel there was something rather strained in their efforts, as if they were staff at a summer camp she was visiting.
One morning when she was standing in front of the mirror pulling her cheeks back to see what she would look like if she was Chinese and not fat, she saw something else instead. She let go of her cheeks and examined her face.
She had brown hair and thick, brown eyebrows. Her nose was small and slightly upturned, her lips were thin. The rest of the family also had brown hair and brown eyes, but in a lighter shade. They had fuller lips, and their noses were straighter and more slender than Teresa’s. She couldn’t see any resemblance between them.
It struck her with absolute certainty:
The thought didn’t upset her; quite the reverse. It explained a great deal. She didn’t belong, it was that simple.
Something inside her told her it wasn’t true. She had seen the announcement of her birth that had appeared in the newspaper, she had seen her christening photo. Something else told her these things were fake. Her heart told her this, stubbornly pounding the new message into her blood:
In the middle of July, Arvid and Olof were going to a football camp. Maria and Goran had taken the opportunity to book a weekend away with Silja Line, along with Teresa. Now Teresa said she didn’t want to go. They tried to persuade her, but behind their pleading she thought she could hear an undertone of relief. The idea of getting away from the changeling for a couple of days. She thought they deserved it. They were nice people really, both of them. She had realised this now she didn’t belong to them anymore.
They left her with a supply of ready-cooked meals, and Maria wrote completely unnecessary little notes for her about how various things worked, but Teresa just let her carry on. Eventually they got in the car and drove off, waving furiously to Teresa as she stood on the porch. She went inside and closed the door behind her.
Silence.
And silence.
She crept through the hallway. Silence.
It wasn’t the first time she had been home alone, but the silence took on a completely different weight when she knew she was going to be on her own for forty hours. Goran and Maria would be home the following evening. The thought that the house was now hers was exciting and a little bit frightening. She could do whatever she wanted without the risk of anyone coming home and catching her.
She had no plans. The only thing she had thought about, or rather heard in her mind, was this very silence. The fact that every sound in the house would come from her. She tried not to make any noise at all as she padded into the kitchen.
Humming and buzzing. The fridge, humming quietly; the flies buzzing hysterically as they banged against the kitchen window. Teresa stopped and stared at them. There must have been ten flies dancing across the window
