them have to sit down and rest on the front steps of the cabin.
The whistling of the wind.
A whisper, above the noise of their bodies.
Their heads seem to be boiling, in spite of the cold. Breath rising like smoke from a dying fire out of Zeke’s mouth.
‘Fuck, fuck,’ Zeke says, as he catches his breath. ‘If only I was as fit as Martin.’
‘We have to go on,’ Malin pants.
They get up.
Chase off, deeper into the forest.
78
Are you coming?
Are you coming to let me in?
Don’t hit me.
Is it you? Or the dead?
Whoever’s out there, tell me you’re coming in friendship. Tell me you’re coming with love.
Promise me that.
Promise me that much.
Promise.
I hear you. You aren’t here yet, but you’ll be here soon. I lie on the floor, hearing your words out there as muffled cries.
‘We’ll let him in now,’ you cry. ‘Now he can be one of us. Now he can come in.’
It feels good.
I’ve done so much. There’s none of that other blood left. Surely we can ignore the bit that’s flowing through my veins?
You’re closer now.
You’re coming with her love.
You’re coming to let me in.
The door to my hole isn’t locked.
Elias Murvall sees the smoke rising from the little pipe above the bulge in the snow. Sees in his mind’s eye how Karl is cowering in there, scared, pointless.
He must have done it.
Doubt is a weakness.
We’re going to bite him, kick him, all that.
What Mother said must be right: that he was a monster from the very start, that all three of us felt it, that he raped Maria.
Karl found this hideaway himself, when he was ten and cycled up to the forest and the cabin without telling anyone, then he had proudly showed it to them, as if they were likely to be impressed by some ruddy hole in the ground. Blackie used to lock him inside, leave him there for days with nothing but water when they were at the cabin. It made no difference what time of year. Karl protested to start with; they had to drag him there, the old man and the brothers, but then he seemed to get used to it and even made himself at home in there, turning it into his own little hovel. It was no fun shutting him in there if he was happy with it, and for a while they considered filling it in, but no one could be bothered to go to that much effort.
‘Let the little bastard keep his grave, then,’ their old man bellowed from his wheelchair, and no one protested. They knew he was still using the hole; they would sometimes see the tracks of his skis leading to the cabin. Sometimes there were no tracks, so they assumed he came from the other direction.
Elias and Jakob get closer.
The bastard. Get rid of him.
The green-painted box in Adam’s hands is heavy and he follows their footsteps steadily through the white and black landscape.
‘Do you hear that, Zeke?’
‘What?’
‘Aren’t those voices up ahead?’
‘I don’t hear any voices.’
‘But there’s someone talking, I can hear it.’
‘Don’t be daft, Fors. On we go.’
What are you saying?
