I take another step back and look down.
“The police will get here tomorrow,” I say. “It’s going to be OK, Max. We’re not going to die here. It’s going to be OK.” I swallow.
When I look up again, Max’s teeth are clenched hard, then he swallows, sending his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his neck. A vein is pounding on his temple.
“Max…” I say, pleading, the tears welling up again. My jaws ache. “Please, don’t do this to me. Not now.”
“You’re so fucking selfish.” He shakes his head, and says it again: “You’re so fucking selfish.”
Then he turns and walks out of the room, slamming the door so hard behind him that the doorframe shakes.
NOW
I drop back down onto the sofa. I don’t know how long I’m sitting there before I stand up, my feet slightly unsteady, and step out into the hall.
No one there.
I sense Robert before I can fully see him, a shadow in the corner of my eye, and when I turn into the kitchen he’s already looking up at me.
He’s slightly too big for the chair he’s sitting on, and the sharp contrast of his red hair, the turquoise blue kitchen furniture, and the thick rag rug gives the entire kitchen a Wonderland feel.
At first I hesitate, but then I pull out one of the chairs and sit down. I choose the wall closest to me, so that there’s a chair on either side between us. The chair leg scratches lightly against the floor as I scoot in under the table.
A clock hangs on the wall above the doorway, with a white face and boxy white numbers. The minute hand has fallen off, and it lies like a dividing line at the bottom of the clock. The hour hand has stopped on three.
“Have you seen Max?” I ask.
He nods.
“He said he was going out,” he says. “He was going to go to the church to fetch what was left of the honey.”
“Oh,” I say.
Seconds pass.
“How are you doing?” I ask.
He seems to mull over his response. Or perhaps he, like me, doesn’t quite know how to answer. He opens and clenches his fist a few times on the table, looks at it thoughtfully. His knuckles are red and bloody.
“I tried to punch a wall,” he says, sounding almost taken aback. “For some reason I thought it would help,” he goes on. “But I didn’t feel that, either.”
“Here?” I ask.
“Nope,” he says. “In the school.”
Silence.
I lick my lips. They are dry, and still taste of Max. I swipe the thought away, and say:
“I don’t understand.”
I don’t know if it’s a statement or a question, but it’s the truth. I test saying it again, and this time it sounds like a prayer.
“I don’t understand.”
Robert puts his hands flat on the table, palms down. His hands are big and bulky, disproportionate to his slender wrists. Faint freckles run all the way up his forearms.
“No,” he says. “I don’t, either.”
I don’t know if we’re talking about Tone or Emmy or Silvertjärn. Perhaps we’re talking about all three; perhaps none.
My lips tremble, and I press them together.
“There’s water,” he says, nodding at a ceramic pitcher on the counter.
I raise my eyebrows.
“I found it in the cupboard,” he goes on. “It seemed the best option.”
“Where’s the water from?” I ask.
“I went down to the river. An hour or so ago.”
I hear something upstairs, a creaking plank.
“Has she had anything to drink?” I ask.
“No,” he says, without looking me in the eye. His voice is strained, squeezed. “I can’t think about her being up there, I just can’t. Because then I think about what she did, and Emmy, and I just want to—”
He clenches his fists so tightly on the table that one of the cuts reopens. Sharp little drops of blood emerge from under the broken scab, like jewels.
I don’t know how long I’m holding my breath for. All I know is that I feel the seconds as heartbeats, and that my chest starts to hurt before Robert breaks the silence:
“You take it up to her. She has to drink something.”
I waver.
“If you hear me stamping on the floor, come up.”
Robert nods slowly.
“OK.”
His fists are still tightly clenched.
THEN
Elsa wakes up when Ingrid opens the door to her office. She had dozed off in the chair, her head against the wall. Her mouth must have dropped open, because her throat is dry, and her breath tastes revolting.
“How have things been?” Ingrid asks quietly.
It’s still dark outside, and there’s hardly any light on the horizon. It must still be night. Ingrid is no more than a shadow among shadows.
“Fine,” Elsa replies, quietly, so as not to wake the others. “It’s been fine.”
The girl has slept better than either of her own ever did: she woke up and whimpered twice, but went back to sleep when Elsa rocked her.
“Has she fed her?” Ingrid asks, looking at Birgitta’s sleeping form.
Elsa shakes her head.
“I haven’t dared wake her,” she admits.
Elsa feels trapped between the two of them. The little one must surely be starting to feel hungry by now. Elsa has given her a towel dipped in milk from the school canteen to suck on, but she knows that won’t be enough. At the same time, she’s wary about even going near Birgitta, let alone waking her.
Birgitta has slept all through the night, and Elsa can’t deny that she’s afraid of what she will do when she wakes up. How much will she understand?
Elsa can’t make out Ingrid’s face in the darkness, but she sees that she nods.
“No,” says Ingrid. “That I can understand.”
Elsa hears the weight on her own chest reflected in Ingrid’s voice.
Ingrid sits down on the floor next to Elsa’s chair, and looks over at the little sleeping bundle lying a few feet away. They have layered some sheets up to create something of a cot for her. Dagny had rambled on
