Anna-Greta gave him a penetrating look, and Anders followed his comment with a thoughtful nod, as if they really had given him something to think about, despite the fact that he had only heard fragments of what they had been telling him.
'Anders,' said Simon. 'You can't stay down there in the Shack while...all this is going on.'
Anna-Greta finished off, 'You're staying here.'
Anders nodded for a long time, then said, 'Thank you. That's great. Thank you.' He looked at Simon. 'Thank you for everything.'
Why didn't you let me sink?
When Simon continued to look at him suspiciously, Anders searched his memory for some detail that would make it sound as if he had been listening. He found it and added, 'It's unbelievable, all that business with...Spiritus.'
'Yes,' said Simon, but the tense, watchful atmosphere did not ease. Anders realised he wasn't performing very well, and that it had been noticed. If this went on, the conversation would take a new turn and he didn't want that. He let his body slump and said, 'I'm absolutely shattered.'
That at least was true, and the reaction was exactly what he had hoped for. Anna-Greta went to make up the bed in the guest room and Anders remained in the kitchen with Simon.
'Is there any more brandy?' asked Anders, just for the sake of something to say, and Simon fetched the bottle and poured him another drink. Anders took note of where the bottle was kept, in case he might need a drink to help him carry out his plan.
He knocked back the contents of the glass and it had no effect whatsoever, it merely went down and was dispersed into the darkness of his body. Simon was still looking at him, he seemed to be on the point of asking a question but Anders forestalled him by taking up another of the threads he remembered from their story.
'It's strange about the Bergwalls,' he said. 'The fact that they all seem to have been...influenced.'
To his relief Simon took the bait. 'I've thought about that a lot,' he said. 'Why only certain people have been affected. Elin, the Bergwalls, Karl-Erik. And you.'
Before Anders could stop himself he had said it. 'She's gone.'
Simon leaned across the table. 'Who's gone?'
Anders could have bitten his tongue, but he shrugged his shoulders and tried to say it as casually as possible. 'She's left me. Maja. I'm free. Everything's fine.'
He heard Anna-Greta's footsteps coming down the stairs and stood up, folded the blanket over the back of the chair. Simon also got to his feet, and Anders precluded any possible follow-up questions by going over to him and giving him a hug. 'Good night, Simon. Thanks for this evening.'
Anders didn't feel remotely tearful as Simon patted his back and hugged him in return. The decision had been made with such clarity that he was already dead in every meaningful sense. It was merely a question of establishing the time and place for his death in the physical world.
Anna-Greta went through the arrangements for the following day and Anders nodded at everything. It was easy. Everything was generally much easier when you were dead, he noticed. It was the perfect solution, a miracle cure. Everybody should try it. On his way upstairs he glanced over at the door to the hidey-hole.
When?
As soon as possible. The vague euphoria currently floating in his chest wouldn't last long, he realised that. If he postponed the deed, the roaring, bottomless darkness would return. It had to happen soon, very soon.
He could hear Simon and Anna-Greta's voices downstairs as he went into the guest room across from Anna-Greta's room. She had put out some clothes for him to borrow for the following day. He undressed and got into bed, feeling as excited as a child the night before its birthday, he could see Maja in his mind's eye, jumping up and down in bed and ripping open her presents while she—
No. Go away. Go away.
He felt a stab of pain in his chest as he pushed away the picture of Maja and evoked the taste of metal on his tongue, felt his lips closing around the barrel of the gun, his finger on the trigger. He sucked on the image and was at peace once more.
A little while later he heard Anna-Greta and Simon come upstairs and go into the room opposite. By this stage he was so far into his own death that he really did slip away from this world, and fell asleep.
Divining rod
'You old fool, how did you come up with such a thing?'
'It just felt as if it was time.'
'Was it your idea?'
Simon hesitated. Göran laughed and patted him on the shoulder. 'No, I thought not. It's not like you at all. But it's very much like Anna-Greta!'
Simon pulled a face and said childishly, 'Yes, but I want to get married too.'
'Yes, yes, I don't doubt that,' said Göran. 'But I just found it difficult to picture you...going down on one knee.'
Simon glanced at Göran's stiff legs and awkward gait. 'I find it difficult to picture you going down on one knee as well.'
They emerged from the forest and headed down towards Kattudden. The worst of the devastation had been cleared away, but when they cut across the Carlgrens' garden, where the outhouse had been damaged by some of the trees that had had to be felled, they had to pick their way among lopped-off branches and rough wood that would presumably lie there for some time. Göran kicked an empty plastic bottle out of the way and said, 'I wonder if there's any point, really.'
'In what?'
'Well, we've tried to keep a bit of a watch out here at night. So that nothing else will happen. But I mean, we can't go on like this forever.'
'You're thinking about your own cottage?'
'Yes. If this carries on, I imagine that's bound to go as well, eventually. Unless we catch them, of course.'
Göran's cottage was at the southern end of Kattudden. A line of trees separated it from the area Holger's father had sold to the broker. However, Simon understood Göran's unease. With a big fire and the wind in the wrong direction, the flames would soon reach Göran's house. And in that case a newly-dug well wouldn't be much help.
'Let's see how it goes,' said Simon. 'I mean, you can always do the actual digging later.'
'True.'
They passed through the village and glanced over at what used to be the Grönwalls' summer residence. Simon's throat went dry as he thought about what had happened to the girl who had lived there. They took the short path to Göran's house.
'What's your take on all this?' asked Göran. 'Can you make any sense of it?'
'None at all,' lied Simon, taking out the divining rod made of rowan which he used for appearances' sake.
'Do you think you'll be able to find a pure source here?' asked Göran. 'I know there have been problems in the past.'
'Let's wait and see,' said Simon, starting to scan the ground as they moved towards the house.
Göran sat down on the porch and watched Simon as he moved slowly across the garden with the divining rod in one hand and the other hand in his pocket. He thought this was a strange technique. Twice before he had watched people using a divining rod, and they had held the forked branch steadily in both hands. He had neither seen nor heard of Simon's one-handed grip before.
Oh well, Simon was welcome to walk backwards with the branch in his mouth as far as Göran was concerned, as long as he found clean water. For what it was worth.
Göran sighed and looked sideways at the front of the little cottage his grandfather had built more than a hundred years ago. He thought what a dreadful waste it all was. One little spark, and the entire history of this part of the family would be wiped out.
When he looked back at the garden, Simon had stopped and was looking down at the ground.
So there was water after all.
Göran got to his feet to go over to him, but froze as Simon raised his head and their eyes met. Something was wrong. Simon's eyes were wide open and his mouth was gaping, the branch fell from his hands and he wobbled as if he had been dealt a powerful blow.
'Simon!'
Göran got no reply, and went over to Simon, who was swaying on the law
n with unseeing eyes. A couple of words forced their way out and Göran thought it sounded like: 'I...know.'
Old lead
Anders woke to a silent and empty house, inside and outside. Nothing was moving, and he could hear only the faint sounds of the house itself. He lay there for a while staring up at the white-painted wooden ceiling. Nothing had changed. The darkness was ready to pounce, only his decision was keeping it at bay.
He got up and dressed slowly and carefully in the clothes Anna- Greta had laid out. Then he crept down the stairs. The kitchen clock was showing quarter-past eleven, and Simon and Anna-Greta were out attending to their respective tasks. Everything was as it should be. He opened the door at the bottom of the stairs.
The hidey-hole consisted of two rooms, each approximately seven or eight metres square, and originally intended for children who never came. Now they were filled with all kinds of rubbish and long-forgotten memories, things that might come in useful but never did, and closest to the door more practical things, such as tools and painting equipment.
He passed a pile of old clothes and rags covered with a Swedish flag and went into the inner room. It was darker in here because the window was partly covered by an old table standing on end, and the smell of mould and age was more noticeable. He switched on the light.
The room was full of old nets, agricultural tools, spinning wheels and similar items. Someone from Antiques Roadshow would probably have been able to sniff out the valuable items amid all the rubbish.
The thing he was looking for was straight ahead of him, propped up against a broken chair as if it were waiting for him.
He crouched down and picked up the double-barrelled shotgun, turned it over and broke it open. The chambers were empty. Anders lowered his head. The darkness pricked up its ears and crept closer to him, he could feel it as a pain in his stomach, growing stronger by the minute.
He placed the barrels in his mouth, closed his lips around them and curled his finger around the trigger. The darkness halted, moved back a little way. He had gained some respite.
His hands were trembling as he put down the gun and started looking for cartridges. He looked on the floor, on tables, behind nets. His fear of the darkness made his whole body shake as he swept aside piles of old newspapers, pushed his hands behind a chest of drawers and felt granules of dried mouse droppings slip through his fingers.
He sat up straight, pulled out the bottom drawer and there, among old whetstones and keys to locks that no longer existed, he found the box. An unassuming brown cardboard box containing seven cartridges. He breathed out, a panting sound, then took out one cartridge and studied it.
This little instrument of death was considerably newer than the gun. A cylinder of thick, red cardboard enclosed a densely packed clump of lead shot. Right at the bottom sat the gold-coloured detonator with its charge of primer.
Anders picked at the little circle in the centre of the cartridge's base. One blow to that circle and the primer was ignited, exploded and hurled out the shot.
So simple, really.
He pulled the gun towards him, pushed the cartridge into the bore and snapped the barrels into place. He ran his finger over the hammer and pulled it back until it too clicked into place.
So simple.
The entire construction of the gun was nothing more than a loop around the thin hammer that would peck at the detonator with its beak and then...all over. In a few seconds it would all be over at last.
The best thing would probably be to prop the stock of the gun in one corner so that the recoil wouldn't displace the gun, with the risk that the shot would tear him to pieces without actually finishing him off. He looked around the room, and just as he established that it would be easy to clear the corner behind the nets, he became aware of his own selfishness.
It's their wedding day.
But he couldn't wait. He carefully put down the gun and lifted up the first of the nets.
You can wait. You can wait one day.
He stopped with the net folded over his arm and shook his head.
You have to. However hard it might be. For their sake. You can't do this to them.
He knew it was true. With the net pressed against his chest he waited for the darkness to pounce, to punish him for his hesitation. But it didn't come. It trusted him. It could wait.
Tomorrow.
He knew that Simon and Anna-Greta were going on their little honeymoon to Finland the following day. He could do it then. And he could also show them the consideration of not doing it here, in their house. That would be inestimably selfish, and besides he knew exactly where it should be done, the perfect place for gifts and sacrifices.
Gently he moved the cock back and hid the loaded gun behind the nets, went back into the kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee while he waited for Simon.
Simon didn't come.
It had been agreed that they would catch the one o'clock boat together, but it got to half-past twelve, quarter to one and there was no sign of Simon. Anders thought he must have misunderstood in his preoccupied state the previous evening, and that they were supposed to meet at the jetty.
He would pretend to be alive for one more day, for their sake. Then that would be an end to his consideration for others. It was bad enough that they would find out when they came back from their trip, but it couldn't be helped. He couldn't carry on living just to make them happy.
But he would pretend for one more day, so while he smoked a cigarette he checked his appearance in the hall mirror to see if he would pass muster for a wedding. The white shirt and trousers were slightly too big for him, but the shoes were a surprisingly good fit. On the coat hooks he found one of Simon's old jackets and pulled it on.
When he closed the door behind him to be welcomed by yet another grey, overcast day, he thought he could probably get through this too. The gun was loaded and ready, it was only a matter of perhaps twenty hours before it would be put to use.
For the moment the darkness seemed satisfied that the preparations had been carried out, and it even took its eyes off him a couple of times as he made his way down to the steamboat jetty.
Simon wasn't there either. There were about twenty people gathered on the jetty, all dressed up in their best clothes and all on their way to Nåten and the wedding, but the bridegroom was missing. Anders went over to Elof Lundberg. He was wearing a very grand overcoat, which didn't go with the inevitable cap at all.
'Have you seen Simon?'
'No,' said Elof. 'Isn't he already there, then?'
'Yes. I suppose he is.'
Anders moved away and tried to remember what Simon had said.
He was going to look for water at Göran's place, wasn't he?
Anders looked around, but Göran wasn't on the jetty either. He wasn't proud of it, but a terrible little hope flickered into life within Anders: something had happened. Something that would mean the wedding had to be postponed. Something that would allow him to go back to the hidey-hole today, after all.
The tender glided alongside and there was chattering and laughter as the wedding guests climbed aboard. As it reversed out Anders stood in the prow, looking over towards Simon's jetty. Perhaps he had taken his own boat over to Nåten?
But the boat was by the jetty, and there was no sign of the bridegroom anywhere.
Proof of eligibility
Anders stayed in the prow for the whole crossing and didn't speak to anyone; when they hove to he was the first one off, and walked quickly towards the church. Behind him came the wedding guests, chattering noisily.
Nåten church was in a beautiful spot on a small hill close to the sea, and the churchyard covered the entire slope down to the shore, where the emblematic anchor that adorned every written communication from the church lay like a brake, as if to stop the headstones and crosses from tumbling down into the sea.
The wedding ceremony wasn't due to start for half an hour. Anders guessed that those who were about to be married would usually wait f
or the exact moment in the community centre beyond the churchyard gate. He went up the steps and knocked on the door. When no one answered, he stepped inside.
Two long tables were laid for the guests, and an extravagantly decorated buffet was displayed on a smaller table in the middle of the room. He could hear women's voices from behind a door at the far end.
She has to be told.
The sound of the guests' voices was getting closer. Anders walked to the other end of the room, tapped on the door and opened it.
Despite the fact that he was committed to death and that nothing mattered any more, he couldn't help but be taken aback at the sight of his grandmother in her wedding finery.
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