It was really his father he wanted to talk to. The sense of loss that he had refused to recognise came crawling up through his chest, reaching for his heart with its long claws. He pushed it back and went into the bedroom.
Elin was sitting just as he had left her. Cautiously he sat down beside her on the edge of the bed. 'Shall I put the light on?'
Elin shook her head. The light from the kitchen was enough for him to be able to see her face. In the half-light it was even more like Elsa's. Elin had had quite a prominent chin. It was gone now, running on from her throat just like Elsa's.
His eyes moved to the signs of blood and mud at the foot of the bed. 'We need to…get you bandaged up.'
Elin pulled the quilt more tightly around her. 'No. I don't want to.'
Anders didn't have the strength to insist. It was as if he had an anchor chain around his neck. His head kept trying to droop, and all he wanted was to go to bed. From time to time flashes of white shot through his eyes, and he didn't know if it was just tiredness, or if the wormwood really had poisoned his exhausted body.
'There's something wrong with me,' whispered Elin. 'I'm insane, I ought to kill myself.'
Anders sat there with his elbows on his knees, staring at the wardrobe. He didn't know what was best: to tell or not to tell. In the end he sought refuge in one simple sentence: It's better to know. He'd heard it in the context of illness, and didn't know if it was appropriate here, but he hadn't the energy to work it out.
'Elin,' he said. 'Somebody is making you do all this. All these operations. The things you do at night. Your dreams. They're not yours.'
In the silence that followed Anders noticed that the fire alarm had stopped, he didn't know how long ago. He could hear Elin breathing. The sound of his own poisoned blood in his ears.
'Whose are they then?' she asked.
'Someone else's. Another woman. She's inside you.'
'How come?'
'I don't know. But she lived at Kattudden before your house was built. She wants revenge, and she's using you.' Anders hesitated, then added, 'She looked exactly the way you do now. She's the one who's made you… recreate her through all this surgery.'
If Anders had had the energy to be surprised, he would have been surprised by what happened next. Elin exhaled, a long, deep sigh, and her body slumped, relaxed. She nodded slowly and said, 'I knew it. Deep down.'
Anders put his head in his hands and closed his eyes. The white flashes flared up and disappeared.
He must have fallen asleep for a few seconds, because he only woke up when he was about to fall over sideways. Elin said quietly, 'Go to bed.'
Anders stood up, took one step and collapsed on Maja's bed. He laid his head on the pillow, scrabbled for the quilt and managed to pull it over him. As he was falling asleep he heard Elin say, 'Thank you. For coming after me. For helping me.'
He parted his lips to answer, but before the words had time to emerge he was asleep again.
A child was screaming. A single long, wailing note.
Screaming is the wrong word, wailing is the wrong word. Child is the wrong word. It was the monotone sound of pure fear that a human being can produce when it is trapped in a corner, and the thing it is most afraid of in all the world is approaching inexorably. The tongue is not used, the lips are not used, it is only air being forced out of the lungs and resonating through a closed-up throat. A single note, the primeval note that quivers through the breastbone as death approaches.
Anders woke up and saw everything through a fog. The room was still dark, and the sound was coming from the big bed. It was so horrible that he was terrified as well. He curled up inside himself, pulled the quilt more tightly around him. The sound continued to pour out of Elin. Something was frightening her out of her wits.
He heard steps on the porch, then someone was banging on the door. Three hard, sharp blows. Elin s long drawn-out scream became a little louder and penetrated Anders' body like a vibration, transmitted itself to him and made him start shaking.
Something sensible within him stared at the axe propped up by the door, told him he ought to dash over and grab it, but blind fear anchored his body to the bed.
The outside door was smashed open and Anders pulled the quilt over his head. His teeth were chattering and he pulled his feet up, not one tiny part of him must be visible outside the quilt.
Heavy steps moved through the hallway, but he was incapable of movement. Through a tiny gap in his cocoon he looked at the axe and his will reached out for it, but his body refused. Elin's song of horror went up another notch and Anders' buttocks suddenly felt warm as he shat himself.
Steps through the living room and then Henrik's voice, 'Hellooo? Anyone home?'
He closed his eyes and put his hands over his ears. Silence fell. The footsteps stopped as well. There was the stench of excrement under the quilt. Despite the fact that he didn't want to, he opened his eyes again and peeped out through the gap.
Henrik and Bjorn were standing in the room. Henrik had his knife in his hand, Bjorn was holding a bucket, a white plastic bucket full of water.
Like a child Anders pinched his arm hard so that he would wake up, but Henrik and Bjorn were still standing there. They were facing the big bed, from which Elin's note of terror continued to pour out into the room.
Anders stayed put as they dragged Elin out of the bed and said, 'Sorry, darling, this can't go on any longer. You know what they say about pretty girls, don't you? They make graves.'
He bit his knuckles as they dragged her into the middle of the floor and forced her head down into the plastic bucket. Bjorn grasped her legs while Henrik held the back of her neck in an iron grip, pushing her head further down into the bucket so that the water surged over the sides. Her legs jerked, but Bjorn held her ankles firmly, pressing them against the floor.
A muffled scream could be heard from the bucket and bubbles rose up, making the water splash on to the floor. Elin's body suddenly arched, then slumped and lay still. Henrik wound her hair around his hand and yanked her head up out of the bucket. He looked at her face and said regretfully, 'Fifteen minutes…1 don't think I would have said no,' at which point he let go. Elin's face hit the floor with a wet crunch.
As if on a given signal they turned towards the little bed. Anders curled up into a tighter ball and gnawed the skin off his knuckles. 'Please,' he whimpered. 'Please. Don't hurt me. I'm so little.'
Henrik walked over to him and ripped off the quilt. 'Little children, how they suffer.' He raised his eyebrows as if he were pleased with himself, and clicked his fingers. 'That's just perfect, isn't it?'
He grabbed hold of Anders' shoulder, but withdrew his hand as if he'd had a shock. An expression of revulsion distorted his face.
'What's the matter?' asked Bjorn. 'He's shat himself, has he?'
Henrik contemplated Anders as he lay there with the only weapon he had left: his pleading eyes. Henrik gazed into them as if he were searching for something. Bjorn came over to the bed and put the bucket down. There was something in it, something that was making the small amount of water that was left move around. Something invisible.
Bjorn looked at Henrik and said, 'Is he hidden?'
Henrik nodded and squatted down by the bed. Anders exhaled in a trembling, panting breath, and Henrik looked as if he was about to throw up when the smell hit his face. Without speaking to Anders, he said, 'So how did you find out?'
'What shall we do?' asked Bjorn.
'Nothing we can do,' said Henrik. 'Just at the moment.'
He glanced down into the bucket and seemed happy with what he saw. Something was whirling around down there, splashing about. Henrik stood up, towering over Anders. He leaned down and whispered in his ear, 'You can't be here either, little Maja. We'll take you too, in time.'
