Fire (3 page)

‘Sure.’

They start crossing the meadow. The brittle, crackling stems of dry grass reach up to Minoo’s knees and she thinks nervously about hordes of starving ticks scenting blood.

‘Do you want to stay on in Engelsfors?’ she asks. ‘I mean, after leaving school?’

‘I suppose I’ll have to study first. Then … I don’t know. In some ways, I quite like the town. It is home. But there’s no future here. On the other hand, maybe that’s precisely why people ought to come back later in life. To build something new.’

‘What, like opening a restaurant?’

‘Do you think they’d come if I was the owner?’

Yes, Minoo thinks. They’d come all right. Because you’re you.

‘I guess so. You’re no city incomer.’

Close up, it is easy to see how run-down the house is. The paint is flaking off the walls and here and there patches of bare wood show. The ground-floor windows are shuttered. Minoo thinks of the work done by the previous owners. Now the old place is decaying again.

Gustaf starts climbing the steps to the veranda, but stops halfway. Listens.

‘What’s the matter?’ Minoo asks.

‘I think there’s someone in there,’ he says quietly.

He sets out along one of the wings. Minoo trails after him, nervously eyeing the first-floor windows. They swing round the gable end and step out in front of the house.

A dark green car is parked on the gravelled area near the main entrance. The passenger side door is wide open. Minoo makes out a man seated inside.

He notices them and gets out of the car in one agile movement.

The man is young, their own age, and taller than Gustaf. Wavy, ash-blonde hair frames his face. His features are near-perfect and so is his smooth skin. His looks would fit just right in one of those upmarket ads where everyone is sailing or playing golf non-stop.

‘Hi,’ Gustaf says. ‘Sorry, we thought the house was empty …’

‘You’re mistaken, obviously,’ the guy says.

He speaks with exactly the kind of ‘posh’ Stockholm accent which instantly gets under the skin of most Engelsforsers, regardless of how nice the speaker is. In this case, there isn’t a trace of niceness in his voice.

Gustaf stares at him in blank amazement.

Of course he’s baffled, Minoo thinks. Gustaf must be totally unused to people being rude to him.

‘Sure, yes, our mistake,’ Gustaf replies. ‘Are you moving in?’

‘Yeah, that’s right,’ the stranger drawls, sounding utterly fed up.

Minoo’s ears are glowing. She wants to leave. Now. No point in trying to chat, not even Gustaf’s charm will have any effect on this guy. He slams the car door shut, flattens the creases in his trousers. Then he looks up and stares intently at Minoo.

She feels as though he can see straight through her and that he isn’t impressed.

‘Come on. Let’s go,’ she mutters and grabs Gustaf’s arm to pull him along.

‘Hardly the type to improve the reputation of Stockholm folk round here,’ Gustaf says as they cross back over the meadow.

‘Too true.’

When they reach the edge of the wood, Minoo turns for a last view of the manor house. She catches a glimpse of what might have been someone moving upstairs.

‘What would you like to do now?’ Gustaf asks.

‘I don’t know.’

Her mobile pings in the pocket of her skirt. She checks it.

It’s a text from Linnéa.

‘Has anything happened?’ Gustaf asks.

‘No,’ she lies. ‘Nothing at all.’

Under the large trees the ground is in the shade, but it is not cool. On the contrary, the heat feels more oppressive in the forest. The air is heavy to breathe and smells of resin, needles and sun-warmed wood. And that special forest scent, too, which Anna-Karin can’t quite define in words. She inhales deeply as she walks along a narrow path through the blueberry shrub between the rough tree trunks.

Around her, the forest is completely still. But she doesn’t feel the peace of mind she has come here to find.

Anna-Karin’s safe places have always been with animals, with her grandfather and in the forest. But she only understood how much these places of refuge truly mattered after she and her mother had moved into a flat in the centre of Engelsfors.

The farm is sold. Grandpa has moved to Sunny Side care home. But the forest still belongs to her. Anna-Karin has been here practically every day of the summer holidays. Hiding away from other people who are crowding in on her, away from their eyes and from the town, its tarmac and bricks and concrete and ugliness. Here, she breathes more easily. She even dares to dream.

Yes. That is how it is,
usually
. But today is different.

Every single child in Engelsfors learns that ‘you must stick to the forest paths’. It is part of growing up. Maps and
compasses don’t seem to function as they should and all attempts to organise orienteering on sports days were abandoned long ago. In the past, such efforts had invariably ended with search parties being mobilised. The forest seems somehow larger when you are in it than when you look at it from the outside.

Several people disappeared without trace during Anna-Karin’s childhood. Even so, this is the first time she feels the typical Engelsfors response to the forest: a sense of unease. It dawns on her that she has heard not one note of birdsong, not one buzz of an insect.

But she walks deeper into the forest, allows herself to become engulfed.

Sweat starts trickling down her temples. The slope she has been walking up is too gradual for her to have noticed it at first, but now she feels it in her legs. To her right, the sun gleams on a water-filled mining hole. The luminous surface reminds her of how thirsty she is. How could she forget about bringing something to drink?

The path becomes steeper and stonier. It feels as if someone has turned the heat up higher still. Dry leaves are rustling as she pushes branches out of the way. She tastes the salty sweat on her lips and hears her own heavy breathing.

Near the top of the hill the ground flattens and the trees are fewer. Gasping for breath, she sits down on a rotten tree stump. Her lips feel dry under the film of sweat. She is thirstier than ever and dizzy if she closes her eyes. Trying to breathe deeply and slowly doesn’t help, it just feels like breathing the same old stale air over and over again.

She opens her eyes.

The air is shimmering. Colours suddenly seem stronger, smells more distinct.

A dead tree stands in front of her. It looks like a human
being who is stretching his arms towards the sky. A hole in the trunk is like a mouth. The flaking bark is the colour of ash.

That tree was not there before.

Obviously, that’s ridiculous. Trees don’t sneak up on you. Let alone dead trees.

Anna-Karin gets up. The dizziness hits her again. She must get back home. Must find some water.

But the dead tree beckons her. She leaves the path and walks towards it. Dead branches crackle under her feet. The sound is loud in the heavy silence. Drooping branches of blueberry bushes are so tinder dry they pulverise when she steps on them. She reaches out, touches the hot tree trunk, then carries on walking as if in a dream.

Behind the ghostly tree, the ground falls away abruptly, precipitously. She can see the chimneys of the closed-down factory in the distance.

There is a scattering of other lifeless trees. Tall trunks, bleached bone white by the sun.

It is not only the drought that’s killing the forest, she realises, without knowing how she knows. The forest is dying for another reason.

She turns slowly. It takes her a few seconds to discover the fox standing very still, close to the tree stump she had been sitting on. Its amber eyes coolly meet hers.

The sun on Anna-Karin’s skull feels like a burning hot weight. As she and the fox watch each other, the sweat is nearly blinding her. She doesn’t dare move, doesn’t want to alarm it.

But in the end she must rub her eyes to try to remove the stinging saltiness.

When she takes her hands away, the fox is gone.

Anna-Karin steps out of the lift in the Sunny Side home. The soles of her shoes make sucking noises against the lino flooring in the corridor. Her grandpa is sitting in a wheelchair near the window in the day room. He is so thin. Every time she sees him, he seems to have shrunk a little more.

An old lady with old-lady-style permed curls is snoozing in an armchair. She is the only other person in the room. Grandpa spots Anna-Karin and recognises her. He smiles at her, his eyes are bright. He is having a good day. Anna-Karin’s heart swells with love for him, almost bursting her ribcage.

She hands him the crossword magazine she bought for him in Leffe’s kiosk.

‘What, no hug today?’ he says and puts the magazine down on the little table-top attached to his wheelchair.

‘You wouldn’t want to. I’m covered in sweat.’

‘Silly girl! Come here.’

Grandpa used not to go in for hugs. But he is changing in so many ways. Anna-Karin puts her arms gently around the old man’s frail body.

‘Have you eaten anything today, Grandpa?’ she asks once they let go of each other.

‘I don’t get hungry now that I’m not allowed to move about. All I do is sit or lie down.’

Guilt instantly overwhelms her. She will never forgive herself. It had been her fault that the barn went on fire. It had led to Grandpa’s injuries.

‘Besides, it’s far too bloody hot.’

‘But you’re drinking properly, right?’ she adds, eyeing the half-empty glass of apple juice on the side table.

‘Yes, yes, of course.’ He waves away her question.

Anna-Karin makes a mental note that she must quiz the staff. Is Grandpa really getting enough to drink? Earlier this
summer, he was so badly dehydrated they had to put him on a drip.

‘What have you been up to today, Anna-Karin? Have you been in the forest?’

‘Yes, I have …’

She hesitates. Every time she visits him in Sunny Side, he asks her to describe every detail, all the scents, sounds and small changes that she has observed in nature. But she is not sure that it would be right to tell him what she has seen today in the forest. She doesn’t want to worry him.

‘What’s troubling you, my dear?’

She makes up her mind. She will tell Grandpa about the ominous silence and the dieback in the forest. After all, if there’s anything that makes Grandpa perk up, it is feeling useful. Feeling needed by someone who is keen to find out what he has to say.

As Anna-Karin describes the forest, Grandpa’s face is expressionless but she realises how tense he is from the way he sits.

When she begins to speak about that dead tree, he takes her hand.

‘You had left the path,’ he says. ‘And that you mustn’t do.’

‘Just a tiny bit.’

‘A step is enough in the forest. It will take you. Something is going on in there. Stick to the path, Anna-Karin.’

She looks at him, full of concern. He has taught her to respect nature, but never tried to frighten her.

‘What do you mean?’ she asks.

But he doesn’t reply. He is looking towards the corridor. Åke, one of his oldest friends, comes in, waving happily. Anna-Karin notes the confusion in her grandpa’s eyes.

‘Oh, there’s Åke,’ she says.

Grandpa clears his throat.

‘Ah, yes. Hello, Åke. Good to see you.’

Anna-Karin smiles at the visitor.

‘Dear girl, you’re becoming more and more like your mother every time I see you,’ Åke tells her.

Anna-Karin forces herself to keep smiling.

A ping from the pocket of her tracksuit top. She fumbles for her mobile.

A text from Minoo.

Ida goes outside to stand on the terrace at the back of the house. The wooden decking is soft against the soles of her feet. She leans against the railing and breathes in deeply. The air is heavy with sweetish perfume.

The Holmström family’s garden looks suspiciously green and flourishing. The city council issued a hosepipe ban, but at night Ida’s father runs the sprinklers all the same. It had worried her mother who mumbled about the neighbours noticing, but in the end she decided to look the other way. When all is said and done, why should she allow her select, specially ordered and jolly expensive roses be sacrificed just because Engelsfors council is too incompetent to provide enough water?

Right now, Mum is kneeling by one of the flowering shrubs with a basket full of gardening tools next to her. She attacks the weeds with focused fury.

‘Mum-my!’ Lotta shouts. She is bouncing up and down, down and up, on the huge trampoline further away in the garden. ‘Mum-my, we are hung-ry!’

‘There’s milk and cereals in the kitchen,’ Mum shouts back as she tugs at a tough root system in the border.

‘We don’t want milk! We want bang-cakes!’ Rasmus screams. He is bouncing too, next to his big sister.

Mum sighs, pulls off her gardening gloves and dumps them in the basket.

‘You want “bang-cakes”, do you? Oh, all right then,’ she says.

The kids, eight and six respectively, howl with delight.

‘We love Mummy! We love Mummy!’ they shout in time as they bounce, blonde hair flying around their heads.

‘My little sweethearts!’ Mum is laughing as she gets up.

Ida tries to suppress her irritation. It is childish and silly, she realises that, but the feeling is strong. When she was little, no way did Mum run around frying ‘bang-cakes’ on demand. Besides, Ida thinks, at their age I could speak properly.

‘Aren’t you off to the lake yet?’ Mum asks on her way into the house.

‘You know I’m waiting for you.’

‘But, darling, I’m so busy today.’

Mum pulls off her sandals, walks through the open French windows to the terrace and then, on light bare feet, across the white-stained floorboards. Ida follows her to the kitchen.

‘But we were going for a practice drive,’ Ida says.

‘We talked about it but didn’t actually make any plans.’

She pulls a white bowl out of one of the white-painted cupboards and puts it down on the white marble worktop. The words
HOPE
and
LOVE
, against a white background, hang on the wall above the worktop. Mum owns an interior-decorating boutique in Borlänge and has turned their home into a three-dimensional sales catalogue.