From all of me to all of you (or something, I can't come up with an intro): a simple, lighthearted, and probably unnecessarily lengthy story to serve as a much-needed contrast against the last thing I posted here.
I wrote the first draft of this all the way back in February and March of this year but have been sitting on it until now for obvious reasons. The first draft was pretty bad in a lot of ways, so I've spent much of December rewriting it from scratch (maybe too much of December; I had originally hoped to be able to post it earlier in the month).
I also want to mention that I have something else in mind for the narrator character, but it might be kind of a stupid idea and even if I do decide to write it, it'll only be at some point in the future. For now, enjoy this.
******
I think of them every December. There aren't many Christmas celebrations that stick out in my memory, since most of them have remained the same from year to year, but that one winter when I was twelve years old and Sofie was eight is one of the exceptions.
Now that we find ourselves in that part of the year again—when the sun barely has the energy to show up during the day, when saffron buns and skumtomtar are washed down with bucketloads of julmust, when people complain about how the Christmas calendar on TV was better in the good old days and cheer over the fact that the Gävle Goat was finally burned down again this year—I sit and look out through the same black window as I did then. Through the white condesation veiling the glass I see a blur of lights moving, dancing colors and stars in the distance. A breath away. I wonder what became of them. Where they are now. If they long to return to the warmth, or if they've found someone else to celebrate the holiday with.
I never talk about that stuff with anyone, not even with Sofie. I don't know if she's occupied by the same thoughts as I. I hope she isn't. That would probably be for the best.
*
We met them in the sled hill.
Snow had come early that year, and a couple times a week, me and Sofie used to head together to the large slope where it lay in the park a couple hundred meters from our house. Mom insisted on coming along at first, but after a while, I guess she trusted me to fulfill my duty of being a protective big sister.
During evenings and weekends, the hill was a constant clutter of snowracers, sleds, mattresses, bum sliders, saucers, and children's shouts. The people sledding ranged from tots dressed in so many layers of clothing that they looked like balls with legs that would roll away down the slope if you tipped them over, to gangly teenagers (mostly guys) who urged each other to throw themselves out into the steepest parts in daredevil stunts. Me and Sofie had found a slightly out-of-the-way part of the hill where there was almost never any other people. It technically lay—lies, it looks the same today—in amid the birch trees, but there was a narrow opening running from the top of the hill down to the bottom that you could navigate through. With a bit of practice.
I relished those moments. It was an opportunity to turn off my brain, not think about school, and lose myself in the sucking feeling I got in the pit of my stomach when I tipped my pulk over the edge and raced down between the trunks. I tried to remember what Mom had said and keep an eye on Sofie all the while, but she was seven and could take care of herself, so we didn't talk much. We spent some time sledding—separately or together on my pulk—and walked home when we got bored, with flushed cheeks and frozen noses. We were happy with that arrangement.
The first evening, I didn't really notice them. It was early in December; I don't remember exactly what date. When we got to the hill they sat on a bench some distance away, talking. They'd left by the time we went home. Two faces among others, and I would neither have cared nor remembered them if it hadn't been for the days that followed.
The second evening, they were playing among the trees separating our part from the rest of the slope, half-hidden in the dark. They ran around among the snow drifts, fighting with sticks, shouting and laughing. A bit childish for people in my age, I thought. They looked to almost be teenagers, after all. But I supposed they could do as they wanted. Me and Sofie looked in their direction a few times and they looked back, but that was all.
The third evening, they came up to me and asked if they could borrow my pulk for a while. One could hear that they weren't from the area. Maybe Stockholmers.
"Don't you have ones of your own?" I asked.
They shook their heads in unison. "Nope."
"Seriously?"
"Yes."
"Shit. What a bummer."
"Yes."
I looked at the thin rope in my hand, the simple vehicle wrought in pink plastic, thought it over for a second, and then handed the rope to them. Their faces lit up in wide smiles.
"Thanks a ton."
They introduced themselves as Karl and Lisa. We became friends, of course. Every evening that we went to the hill, they were there. We usually took turns on my pulk. When it was their turn to go they usually did it together, with their arms tightly wrapped around one another. Sofie was untalkative around them at first. Sixth-graders. Older kids. But she has never been the shy type, and soon enough she was talking with them as happily as she did people her own age. Sometimes I saw them hanging out with other kids and teenagers in other parts of the hill, but they seemed to prefer us. Don't ask me why, because I don't know and I never asked. Maybe because the four of us had a similar sense of humor. Almost every time that all of us were at the hill at the same time, we stuck together until one half of the party went home, me and Sofie with our pulks dragging behind us or the two of them hand in hand.
A couple evenings after we first met them, Karl asked if he and I should try going together. I said yes while not quite being able to look him in the eyes. Despite myself I'd started feeling a kind of... embarrassment every time he looked at me or spoke to me with his soft voice, and I was thankful for the cold that I could blame my red cheeks on. When he sat down behind me in the pulk and held my waist, my stomach was so filled with fluttering moths that it felt as if one of them would slip out of my mouth at any moment and call down Gwaihir himself from the sky. I couldn't focus and steered us down the slope almost mechanically, on autopilot.
The awkwardness disappeared when Lisa suggested that we'd trying going together all three. At the same time. Cooped up on the pulk. Matters weren't made worse when Sofie—just as the pulk had started gliding over the edge with three twelve-year-olds attempting the feat of balancing on a space intended for a maximum of two people—hopped on from behind, clung to us, and thereby gave us an extra push forward so that we were thrown down the hill. The whole thing ended with a loudly laughing tangle of three twelve-year-olds and one seven-year-old who had to spit snow out of their mouths and help each other climb out of the deep snow drift we'd landed in after crashing out into the bushes. The giggly mood kept up for the rest of the evening until Karl and Lisa went home, but I still felt how a hard and cold knot formed in my stomach when I watched them clasp each other's hands. Stupid, but that's how it was.
*
In the days leading up to St. Lucy's, the weather got milder and the snow wetter. Me and Sis usually accompanied each other to and from school. One Friday afternoon as I stood waiting for her by the barrier separating the schoolyard from the parking lot—both of them artificially illuminated in the dark—I tried picking up some snow from one of the enormous piles that had been created when the janitor shovelled large parts of the yard so that people wouldn't have to wade to the doors. The snow easily let itself be squeezed into a firm ball.
Perfect war weather, I thought.
I tried my aim on a pine tree until Sofie and her friends exited the school and we could go home. As we'd done several times before, we only made a brief stop at home to leave our bags and pick up our pulks before continuing to the hill. When we got there, there was no sign of Karl and Lisa. I stopped and looked around until I saw something white in the corner of my eye flying toward me at high speed. I only just managed to turn my face away so that the snowball hit the back of my head instead and let out a frightened peep at the cold running down my neck and inside my parka. Next to me, Sofie bursted into laughter. I brushed away snow from my knit cap, my ponytail, and my neck as best I could and glared at the thick bush behind which Karl and Lisa were standing, giggling. The fucking nollåttorna had had the same idea as me.
The cold burned in my neck and the humiliation rose as tears in my eyes. Without a word, I let go of my pulk and walked away. I heard how the others quieted but kept walking without turning around. The whole time I kept trying to get rid of more snow from my neck with my hand. My motions got more and more irritated, and I was almost punching myself in the back of my head by the time I reached a bench under a rowan next to a streetlight some distance away. I sat down, wiped my eyes with my gloves, and glared at the ground. When I got bored of doing that I picked up my phone and glared at it instead.
After a while, I heard footsteps approaching, stopping next to me. I glanced at her feet but didn't look up.
"Listen, sorry", Lisa's shoes said.
I didn't reply.
"We can..." the shoes continued. "I mean, me and Karl are used to being... a bit rough with each other. Most of the time. But we should've..."
"Yeah, whatever", I interrupted. I kept my gaze locked on the screen in my hand, scrolled idly through memes I'd saved, and caught sight of one that had made me laugh the other day and still managed to make me snort.
"What're you looking at?"
I raised my head and met her gaze. Her cute-as-a-doll face wore an apologetic expression.
"Can I?" She gestured toward the bench.
I shuffled to the side to give her room. When she'd sat down I raised the screen to her, showed her the picture. She furrowed her brow and stared intently at the tiny rectangle as if it was a riddle to solve. Eventually she shook her head.
"I don't get it."
I shrugged and showed another meme which got her to expel air through her nose.
"Funny."
"Mm."
"How many of those do you have?"
I quickly scrolled through the images, trying to estimate the amount. Shrugged. "Dunno. Like a hundred, maybe."
"A hundred?"
"Yes? Maybe a hundred and fifty."
She looked up at the rowan branches hanging over our heads without saying anything. Then she asked: "What kind is it?"
"Huh?"
"Your phone. What kind is it?"
"A... 6S. iPhone. Thought about getting 7 when it came out, but decided it didn't have enough features."
It was obvious that she didn't comprehend a word of what I'd said. Still she nodded, said "Cool", and looked back up at the tree.
"Which one do you have?" I asked.
She pretended she hadn't heard me.
*
The next day, I got an idea and told Sis. She looked a bit skeptical when she looked up from her tablet, but I eventually managed to convince her to come along. It was during one of the few hours of daylight. Not that that day had much light to speak of. The sky was gray as smoke and the occasional white flakes drifting down looked like ashes. When we got to the opening running through the birches in our part, I gave Sofie the task of building up a stock of ammunition while I started constructing defensive walls and turrets. Most of the ground in the upper and lower parts of the park was well-trodden and dirty, and the snow on the slopes connecting the two was tightly packed and partially covered by ice as a result of all the hundreds of sleds that had passed over it, but in amid the trees and bushes there was untouched white snow lying in drifts large enough to drown a seven-year-old in, just waiting for someone to use it. The afternoon passed into evening and the gray sky became black. The large slope got filled with children as usual, and eventually Karl and Lisa came walking as well. When they caught sight of us they started jogging until they stood in front of our semifinished fort.
"That looks neat", they said.
"Thanks", I replied and tried to shape one of the larger turrets to look like Orthanc. It went so-so.
"What're you gonna use it for?"
"War!" Sofie peeped while flattening one of the outer walls.
"Against who?"
I exchanged a look with Sofie. A few seconds later, Karl and Lisa had been forced to flee laughing in among the trees to seek shelter from our bombardment.
The roles were quickly decided. The ones hiding among the trees were Dacke loyalists and snapphanes rebelling against the rightful state. The latter was of course represented by me—the queen—and my loyal ally, Archduchess Sofie. (Not that she knew what an archduchess was, but she liked the sound of it.) Our mission was to defend the fort at the top of the hill and use Sofie's arsenal of snowballs to pepper anyone who dared to venture into the no man's land between it and the trees.
I didn't see where they came from, but suddenly there were a couple of other kids—a bit older than Sofie—standing outside the fort and asking if they could join in. I split them up so that one stayed with us and the other got sent into the woods to join the rebels. More kids of varying ages—several of them Sofie's classmates—got wind of what was going on and joined the battle, ran to fetch others from the main part of the hill, and eventually both camps consisted of ten or so people working together to build up the defenses, craft ammunition, talk over each other, and toss snowballs and childish insults against the opposing side.
If any of my own classmates had shown up and seen me playing with little kids, I might've thought it was embarrassing. But Karl and Lisa engaged in the game without hesitation, and their enthusiasm was infectious. They didn't care what anyone else thought of them, and for the moment I therefore didn't either.
Looking back, I think there was something of importance in that. That they didn't care. I was about to enter my teens, with everything that that meant. Was going to turn thirteen next year. Maybe I sensed that something was about to end and be replaced by something else. Not childhood, that sounds too dramatic, but... the freedom to play and to not even have to try to be a grownup. Maybe Karl and Lisa were—for me, at least—a chance to hold onto that for a while longer. Maybe. I don't know.
The rebels emerged victorious from the great battle of the slope. We royalists had a much stronger position terrain-wise, but a dispute regarding titles led to the eruption of a spontaneous civil war, several people deserted to the enemy, and in the end we had no defenses left that could shield us from the rebels' attack. We capitulated and went our separate ways in peace.
*
"Iguanas are cool too." Sniffle. "But I think I read that bearded dragons are better for newbies."
On our way to the hill again, the day after St. Lucy's. Sofie was holding a monologue and I listened to maybe half of it. Sis loved dinosaurs and dragons the same way other girls her age loved horses, and she'd consequently nagged at our parents that she wanted a pet lizard. Personally, I mostly thought that reptiles were gross and wished that she'd asked for a guinea pig or something instead. I could concede that geckos were a little bit cute, until I remembered their habit of climbing on walls and ceilings like cockroaches and how I absolutely didn't want to experience anything like that at home.
During the pauses in Sofie's monologues, the only sound was the scraping of her bright green pulk against the shoveled sidewalk, and every now and then the sound of how she wiped her nose with the arm of her coat. I hadn't brought my own pulk since I didn't feel like it, insted walked with my eyes on my phone and pretended to reply to her with a humming every now and then while my thoughts were elsewhere.
"You listening?" Sofie asked suddenly.
"What?"
"I said, they're called Pogona vitticeps in Latin."
"Who?"
She rolled her eyes and wiped her nose. "Bearded dragons, I said." Sniffle, sniffle. Her nose had been running continuously since we'd left home.
"Uh-huh. What were they called? Pollen triceps?"
"Po-go-na vitt-i-ceps", she over-enunciated.
"Yeah, that's what I said. Triceps."
"No, vitticeps."
"Miniceps."
She looked about to say "Ughhh" in that special way that only an annoyed seven-year-old can, but then she saw my grin and concluded that she wouldn't get anywhere. Instead she wiped her nose again and asked: "Can you pull me the last bit? On the pulk?"
I snorted. "Forget about it."
"But come ooon."
"You're gonna get a nosebleed if you keep that up."
"What?"
"With your nose."
"Yeah, whatever", she said and wiped her nose. "I can't keep pulling this."
"Sure you can. You're not a baby."
"It's heavier than it looks. Try." She tried handing over the rope to me. As if I would fall for that. The moment I grabbed the rope, she'd hop into the pulk and refuse to get up until I'd pulled her where she wanted.
"Go home then if it's so tiresome."
"But!"
"No, I said. We're basically already there, anyway."
"Exactly. Don't have to pull me that far." Sniffle.
We kept going like that until we reached our destination. Karl and Lisa lay next to each other on the ground in a snow angel each and looked up into the black sky. They noticed our arrival but remained in the same position. I went up to Karl and leaned over him a little so I could look him in the eyes. "Hey."
"Hey."
"Don't feel like sledding today, but Sofie wanted me to come along."
"Okay." He had dark bags under his eyes, as if he'd slept poorly. I realized that there was a risk of me falling over him if I leaned forward too much. The thought alone was embarrassing enough to make me want to commit seppuku, so I quickly took a step back. He sat up halfway leaning on his elbows, looked at Sofie. "Should we go together?"
"Okay", she replied and wiped her nose.
"I told you to stop that", I said.
"But! What am I supposed to do? Just let it...?"
"You could've brought some tissues or something."
"You could've said that before we left." Sniffle.
"You could've thought of that before we left."
She made a face and repeated my line in a squeaky voice, then walked over to the slope without waiting to see if Karl came along, which he did. I turned to Lisa, who remained on the ground with her hands clasped over her chest. The wings of her snow angel were formed a little bit like a dragon's. Or a bat's.
"Aren't you gonna...?" I asked.
"Nah. Don't feel like it."
"Okay." I smiled at the fact that she'd used the same choice of words as me. "Doesn't it get, like, cold as shit lying in the snow like that?"
"It's alright." She looked thoughtfully at me and smiled a little. She had bags under her eyes just like Karl. "You remind me of my big sister. A little."
What is one supposed to reply to that? If I remember correctly, I think I said "Really" or something equally meaningless, and then: "How old is she?"
Lisa got an expression in her eyes that I couldn't interpret. Looked straight up at the sky again for a few seconds. Then got to her feet and said, while brushing away snow from her back and rear without looking at me: "Meh. She's dead."
It took a few moments for me to conclude that I'd heard correctly. Again: What is one supposed to reply to that? That I don't know, but what I eventually decided to say was: "Oh. When... did that happen?"
"Nevermind. It was a long time ago." She brushed the last of the snow off her shoulders, smiled at me again, and said as if nothing was out of the ordinary: "Wanna do something?"
Not long thereafter, we sat on the regular bench by the streetlight. I opened a mobile game and showed it to her, the one where you're supposed to slide and combine numbered tiles on a grid to create as large a number as possible. It was a couple years old, but I still used to waste way too much time on it when in reality I had better things to do.
"Played this?"
"No. How's it work?"
It was a bit trickier to get the screen to register my touch when I had gloves on, so I pulled them off, demonstrated how the game worked, and then handed over the phone to her. As usual, she wasn't wearing any gloves at all. At first it seemed like she barely dared to touch the screen, as if she was afraid that her fingers would damage it in some way, but after a while she'd gotten used to it and sat slightly hunched over and completely absorbed.
"Are you good at math?" I asked.
She shrugged without looking up. I pulled on my gloves again and thought of what she'd said earlier. My view of her had changed, from a carefree girl to someone who carried a great sorrow and yet managed to hide it behind a smile. I wondered how old her sister had been, what she'd looked like, how old Lisa herself might've been when it happened. For that matter, what had even happened? The images in my head automatically turned to Sofie. I tried to imagine it. The sense of loss. It was impossible and I pushed away the thoughts. No and never and don't think of such things.
Lisa still sat hunched over and stared at the screen. As usual she was wearing a coat and scarf but no hat. Karl was the same: never wore a hat nor gloves. I gently touched a strand of her black hair. Some moisture from the snow lingered in it, but up close it still looked drier than usual, as if it'd lost some of its luster. My touch made her look up.
"What are you doing?"
"Nothing", I said in a single syllable and pulled my hand back. I'd pictured how me and Tova and Linnea used to sit and braid each other's hair, but the heat rising on my cheeks scorched away the images. I rested my hands in my lap and looked at the opening through the birches where Karl and Sofie were sledding together on the pulk, then farther away toward the regular slope. There weren't very many there that evening and the usual cloud of shouts and voices was absent. I wished that I'd remembered to turn on the sound on the phone so that the sound effects from the game could fill the silence with something other than our smoking breaths. I looked at the screen again. Even though she'd never played it before, she seemed to have quickly found a strategy and had now gotten about a fourth of the way to my personal high score.
I don't know how long we sat like that before I heard Sofie call my name. Both me and Lisa looked up at her where she came heading toward us from the birches. Karl followed a few meters behind, carrying the green pulk under his arm. She'd taken off one of her gloves and held it pressed against her right nostril. I sighed loudly. "What did I say?"
"Wasn't my fault. Karl steered badly so I fell off." She removed the glove from her nose, looked at it, and put it back. A single dark drop fell without a sound and created a stain in the snow at her feet. Karl had stopped nearby and stared at the blood stain as if he'd never seen anything like it. The streetlight's yellow glow made his eyes look enormous.
Have they always been that big?
"Is it true?" I asked.
He started a little and looked at me. "Yes, it..."
"No worries." His eyes remained as big as before. "What's wrong?"
"No, I just..." He gestured toward the stain. "I'm... kinda afraid of blood."
"Oh. But she'll be fine. Right?" I said, with the question directed at Sofie. She nodded.
Beside me, Lisa glanced down at the phone and handed it to me. "Should be going now."
"Already?"
"Yes."
"Is it just 'cause of..."
"No. I forgot that... my parents said I should be home about now, is all."
I said: "Mm" and didn't believe a word she said. Karl handed over the pulk to Sofie, we exchanged goodbyes, and they left. They didn't hold each other's hands this time. I looked at Sofie. "Did it stop bleeding?"
"Almost."
While I pulled her home on the pulk, I wondered when Karl had found out about Lisa's sister and how he'd reacted to it. There wasn't a chance that he didn't know, that Lisa would reveal something like that to me that she hadn't revealed to him. Those two seemed to share all kinds of things. I sometimes got the sense that they were in a way cut off from me in a world all their own and that I never managed to do more than scratch the surface.
*
I had tried.
One evening, I'd decided to ask about the fact that they never wore gloves. I'd gone up to them where they sat on the bench and watched me and Sofie's sledding, gestured to his unprotected fingers, and asked: "Don't you feel cold?"
He shrugged. "I guess I've forg—" He was interrupted by Lisa nudging him with her elbow and instead said: "Left the gloves at home." Then they looked each other in the eyes and giggled a little. That kind of thing happened sometimes. One of them said something seemingly completely ordinary that made the other grin, as if they shared an inside joke. That time I got a little annoyed that he hadn't answered the question.
"Fine, then, keep your secrets." Before they could say anything more I'd turned my back to them and went back to the slope.
And yes, what I said was a paraphrased Frodo line from Fellowship of the Ring. The Jackson version. 2001. This was at the start of my obsession with Tolkien, which truth be told has continued uninterrupted since then. I loved the movies from the first time I watched them and loved the books even more from the first time I read them. Sofie had noticed my new interest and gotten curious about it, of course. One weekend day when our parents were away, I'd shown her the first movie. Parts of it scared her quite a bit, but she still liked it so much that she wanted to watch The Two Towers straight away. At that point it had gotten pretty late and our parents would soon come home, and since I suspected that they wouldn't exactly be overjoyed by the fact that I'd shown a violent movie with an age rating of 11 to a seven-year-old, I told her it would have to wait until another time and that she couldn't tell on me. So far, she'd incredibly enough managed to keep her promise.
Sorry, this was a tangent. Where was I? Right. The surface. I of course reconciled with Karl and Lisa again before we went home that evening. I settled for the fact that I liked hanging out with them even though... well, even though I honestly didn't understand them.
*
The question came a normal evening, Monday a week before Christmas. Karl, Lisa, and Sofie raced down the hill. Karl borrowed Sofie's pulk, while Lisa and Sis teamed up in mine. I stood at the bottom of the slope to serve as judge. I wasn't exactly impartial. I knew I would always judge in Karl's favor if a race was close, simply so I could see him smile at me. Luckily, none of the races were close enough that they had to be decided by me. The girls won 4-2.
As me and Sofie prepared to go home, Karl came up and asked: "Emma?"
"Yeah?"
He dabbed the tips of his index fingers together and glanced at Lisa standing behind him. "Are you guys going to have a lot of visitors on Christmas Eve?"
"No. It'll just be us and our parents. Why?"
He nodded as if that was the answer he'd hoped for and gathered himself. "The thing is that... both me and Lisa's parents usually drink a lot on Christmas. It isn't very fun for us to be home then, so we're wondering if... if we could stay at your place that evening. Just for a while."
My eyes widened and I exchanged a look with Sofie, who looked equally surprised. I scratched my neck and didn't know what to say. As far as I could remember, our family had always celebrated Christmas by ourselves. Our relatives all lived in other towns, and our parents were—are—not the most social of people to boot. Christmas had always been a time for cozying up with only the immediate family, and I'd never even thought about inviting friends over during the holiday.
I realized that three people were looking at me and waiting for me to say something. I wasn't going to get any help from Sofie—I was the oldest sibling, therefore it was up to me to make a decision here. "Well..." I said hesitantly. "I guess it's fine by me..."
"By me too!" Sofie put in.
"...but we have to ask Mom and Dad first."
Karl nodded. "Yes. Of course."
"Are you gonna be here tomorrow?"
He and Lisa nodded in unison. I hadn't expected anything else.
I had trouble sleeping that night. Our parents had agreed to it, and I honestly hadn't expected anything else on that front either. I'd barely had time to step inside the house before Sofie had taken her shoes off and rushed into the living room with the rest of her reflector-equipped outerwear still on to present our errand to Mom and Dad. They'd initially looked a bit surprised, but after they'd exchanged some gestures and half-sentences to see what the other thought, Dad had said: "Well, of course they can, as long as their parents are okay with it."
During the entire walk home, Sofie had hyped herself up with ideas of how fun it would be on Christmas Eve when Karl and Lisa were there, so when Dad's reply came she did a little hop of happiness that set her straw-colored hair to swirling around her head. I looked forward to it as well, of course, but couldn't quite share in her happiness during the rest of the evening. While I did the last of the homework that had to be turned in before the vacation, while I brushed my teeth, and while I lay under my sheet staring into the ceiling, I thought of what Karl had said, and other things.
I eventually got out of the bed, put on my bathrobe, and went over to the window, where Mom had, as usual, placed a red advent star of cardboard. It was the only source of light in the otherwise dark room. The light bulb's yellow glow filtered through the red cover created a soft, inviting ball of light. I stretched out my hand to touch it but felt only air under my fingers.
When I got tired of staring at the star, I opened the blinds so I could look down on the empty street: a black streak between sidewalks that glowed white under the streetlights. Above them and the surrounding roofs there was nothing, only a sea of darkness. A last outpost before outer space. White, black, and red. I don't think it was something I knew about then, but I've read somewhere that white, black, and red are the most important and primordial colors, the ones that were named first in many cultures, since they signify light, dark, and blood. Among other things.
I remained standing by the window until the automatic timer in the lightbulb turned it off with a faint click. At that point I went out, past the door to Sofie's room, and down the stair to the living room where my parents sat close together on the sofa watching an old movie with the sound turned down to low. When they noticed my presence, they paused the film and waited for me to explain myself. The question lay ready on my tongue. "Is it too late to buy more presents?"
*
On Tuesday, the second-to-last day before the start of the vacation, Sofie came up to me in the corridor during a break with a shout of "Emmi!". She told me that she was going to play with a friend after school and that I "had to remember" to tell "you know who" about "that thing". As if I would've forgotten. Linnea, whom I'd been standing and talking with, gave me a questioning look after Sofie left.
"What was that about?"
I didn't know how she would react to me planning on celebrating the holiday with two friends she'd never heard of, so instead I shrugged. "No idea."
I didn't bring the pulk that evening. When I arrived they were busy fighting with sticks, as I remembered that they'd done before. We exchanged a "Sup" and I told them that they were welcome to our home on Christmas Eve, which of course made them very happy. After they'd asked where Sofie was and I'd answered, they asked if I wanted to do something. I shrugged. "Dunno. Just hang out a bit."
Karl looked thoughtful. I noticed that he looked kind of... dry again. He asked me to wait, gestured to Lisa to follow him to a spot farther away, and started whispering with her about something. They talked so long that I started feeling a bit uncomfortable, shifted from one foot to the other to keep warm. Eventually they came back and Karl asked: "Wanna see something?"
"Sure."
"See that big tree over there?" He pointed at a pretty tall tree on the right-hand side of the opening through the birches.
"Yep."
"Okay. Close your eyes for a bit."
"And put your hands over your ears", Lisa added.
"Um, okay. Why?"
"Won't take long. Just count to... thirty seconds. After we've said 'start'. Then you can look."
"Okay, but... alright then."
They went over to the tree, nodded at me to begin. I closed my eyes and pushed my gloves over my ears. I probably looked pretty weird standing there like that, but there was a... naturalness to their request that caused me not to question it. When I'd counted to thirty, I only just had time to remove my hands from my ears before I heard a whistle above my head and to the side. I looked up, blinked, and blinked again.
They were both seated on a thick branch several meters above ground, pretty close to the top, waving at me. My eyes traveled along the trunk. There were a couple more branches below them, but after that it was smooth all the way to the ground. I went up to the trunk, put my hand on the dark gray bark, and looked up at them again. The bark was a bit rough but didn't have anything close to something that could act as a hand- or foothold unless you were... a squirrel, or something. I tried looking at the surrounding trees, but they didn't have any branches that were low enough for someone to be able to swing onto them from the ground either.
"How the hell did you do that?" I shouted at them while making a few attempts to leap up on the trunk and wedge my shoes or fingers into uneven parts of the grayness, which only resulted in small fragments of bark getting chipped off.
Without replying, they climbed together down several branches to one that was thinner but still thick enough to support their weight and stretched down their arms toward me. I gave them a skeptical look.
"Come on", Karl said. "We'll lift you up, if you want. We'll help you down afterward."
I looked around me, along the hill. It was basically empty tonight. No one nearby. No one who could come to the rescue if I...
I raised my arms.
"Take off your gloves first. Better grip", Lisa said.
I did as she said, raised my arms again, and grabbed one each of their hands. I felt a sucking sensation in my stomach when they carefully pulled me upward and my feet left the ground. They continued lifting me until I could take hold of the branch they sat on, heave myself onto it, and sit down between them, panting.
"Wanna go higher up or should we stay like this?" Karl asked.
I looked at my dangling legs and the flattened carpet of snow I'd just left. A faint, dizzy feeling in my stomach, but I've never been particularly afraid of heights. Fuck it, I thought, and said: "Higher."
They nodded, stood up on the branch—the fact that they dared to balance on it like that—and heaved themselves onto the branch above them before stretching their arms down to me again. We repeated the process all the way up to the branch I'd first seen them sitting on, high up in the tree. They moved as nimbly as a pair of gibbons, seemingly without any fear of getting hurt if they fell, but they handled me as gently as if I was a sack filled with fragile objects that wasn't allowed to be tossed nor dropped. I felt heavy and unwieldy compared to them.
I climbed up the last part and sat down between them. The branch felt a bit uncomfortable under me and was just wide enough that I wouldn't risk tipping forward nor backward. I sat wedged between them and they each held an arm around me so I wouldn't fall off. A few twigs as thin as whips hung down in front of my face and a light breeze caused them to rustle against my cheeks.
It's crazy how different things can look with only a few meters of difference in elevation. Black canopies surrounded us and the ground had become a land far away, something you could observe from a distance as if it was a movie screen. All that was left of me and Sofie's fort was a barely noticeable protrusion in the white surface down there. The city was a black mass with a hundred glittering eyes of gold that surrounded us. The wind stroked our faces and an endless ocean of unclouded night sky vaulted above us. A few lonely stars shone faintly.
"Wow", I said quietly.
"Mm", they replied.
After simply sitting there for a long while and trying to take in the view, I removed my cap and held it in my hands. Closed my eyes, allowed the cold wind to brush over my cheeks, and thought of how Mom and Dad would've lost their minds if they'd seen me up there.
I started, opened my eyes, and straightened when I realized that I'd inadvertently leaned onto Karl's shoulder. Predictably enough, my face flushed with heat that burned against the cold. I quelled an impulse to jump, and since I could not look at Karl, I looked at Lisa instead. Her black hair fluttered in the wind, unruly, and for some reason I came to think of Ronia the Robber's Daughter, the movie version. On a whim, I pulled off my pink hair tie and handed it to her. My straw-colored hair erupted around my face and the wind grabbed hold of it, made it flutter around my head just like hers. Lisa looked at the tie with raised eyebrows. I brushed away a lock from my eyes and said: "Try it."
She took the elastic little ring, turned it a little as if she didn't know what it was good for, and then used it to put up her hair in a loose ponytail. She and Karl looked at each other and giggled. Their laughter spread to me. After a while she took off the tie, handed it back to me, and mussed her hair until it went back to Ronia mode.
"Don't think it fits me. Thanks, though."
I didn't put the tie back on until I, Ronia, and Birk had climbed down and stood on solid ground again. They asked where I lived. I felt stupid for not thinking of that slightly important little detail earlier and offered to show them the way.
The world was full of crystals. Scattered lights in every color glowed in windows, on the sides of buildings, from wreaths and leaf arrangements strung up high over the streets, blended together in fuzzy contours where red shifted to blue to green to red again above the snow. If the lights in the sky were sparse, the snow glittered with uncountably many more crystals in reply. Yule goats, candelabra, and white trees crowded in shopwindows to peer at us where we slipped on ice patches on the sidewalks and hurried over roads in between the sparse traffic of headlights and last-minute Christmas shoppers.
Further into the residential areas, the sound of footsteps and cars receded to a distant background noise. Everything was still. The myriad of colors from shops and pizzerias was replaced by the more monotone yellow and white glow from people's homes and from the streetlights marching off into the evening. There were stars and candelabra in every window no matter where you looked. The snow crunched under three pairs of feet. We passed by an apartment building where a balcony door opened and a man threw out a cigarette butt before closing again. The cigarette descended like a lone red firefly into the snow and fizzled out. A couple of the villas' lawns still had the summer's trampolines out. In one case, only the round metal frame remained and looked a little bit like an oversized St. Lucy's crown. In another, snow drifts had piled up on the bounce mat. In the gloom behind the safety net they looked like dead bodies.
"By the way", Lisa said and broke the silence. "Do you have any pets?"
"Why?"
"I'm allergic to cats."
"Oh. Well, no, we don't have any. Sofie has asked for a lizard for Christmas, but..."
"A lizard?" She looked amused.
"Yeah."
We continued talking about pets. Karl mentioned that he'd had a dog a long time ago. When we reached the street my family lived on, I pointed out my house and said the number.
"Okay. See you Saturday, then", they said.
"Aren't we gonna... see each other before then?"
"No, we have to... our families want us to stay home."
"Oh. Okay, then."
We talked a bit longer about how much we looked forward to the 24th. Then we said nothing more of value and parted ways. While they walked off hand in hand I heard them start whistling a holiday song. I remained on the sidewalk for a while and looked at their receding forms, listened to their whistling until I felt cold and went home.
[Continued in next post.]
Lights (or: A Yule Tale)
Lights (or: A Yule Tale)
Last edited by Siggdalos on Sat Dec 25, 2021 6:58 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Lights (or: A Yule Tale)
[Continued.]
I don't remember anything of the days in between, not the end-of-term on Wednesday nor the lazy Thursday and Friday. I guess that at some point I must've told Sofie what I'd planned for Karl and Lisa, but I can't remember anything of the conversation.
On the morning of Christmas Eve, me and Sofie received some small presents, like usual. Boxes of chocolate, socks, letters from relatives and so on. In honor of the date, I wore an unbelievably ugly knitted sweater with reindeer on it that I'd inherited from an older cousin, and Sofie insisted on walking around with a Santa hat indoors. We spent the forenoon playing board games and Mario Kart with Mom and Dad, like usual. At three o'clock we watched the Disney special, like usual. But nothing felt like usual. The whole time I walked around with a sense of anticipation and vague uncertainty for how things would turn out when our guests arrived, and I saw that Sofie felt the same way. I was so distracted by my thoughts that I couldn't even be bothered to roll my eyes at Dad when he dropped his annual tired jokes in the sofa in front of the Disney special.
After the program, me and Sofie remained in the sofa while our parents prepared the julbord. It was snowing a little outdoors. More and more, I started wondering whether Karl and Lisa were intending to show up at all and wished that I'd remembered to ask what time they were planning on coming over. Finally, around four, the doorbell rang. Mom peered out from the kitchen. "I think that's your friends coming."
Sofie flew out of the sofa as if she'd been launched from a catapult at the word your. I hurried after her into the hallway, shoved and squabbled with her a bit over who would get to open the door, won, opened.
"God jul", they said.
"God jul", me and Sofie replied in unison. They remained where they stood and wiped their shoes on the ground to get rid of snow.
"Can we come in?" Karl asked.
I realized that I was blocking the doorway where I stood and felt stupid, took a step back to let them through. "Right, sorry. Come on in."
"Thanks."
I looked at them while they took off their outerwear. Lisa had put up her hair in a neat ponytail and smiled when she noticed that I'd noticed. It rested in the cowl of her thin grayish-black hoodie and made her look even cuter than usual. Karl looked like he always did with his cropped blond hair and wore a red turtleneck shirt. It struck me how thin they looked without coats and scarves. Their arms and legs were almost like twigs.
We'll lift you up, if you want.
Before I had time to think more about that, Mom and Dad came out from the kitchen, said that our guests were welcome to stay as long as they liked, and offered to let them join us at the julbord. They politely declined and said that they'd already eaten. Sofie pulled them with her into the living room to show what it looked like and I felt obligated to come along.
"You have it really nice", Lisa said while she looked around. Karl made a hum of agreement.
I looked around the room, at the tree, at the TV where the Christmas host was talking, at the decorations, and at all the regular furniture, and wondered what their own homes looked like. Before I met them I'd never consciously thought of my family as particularly "rich". Now I did, and felt pretty ashamed for it.
Sofie wanted to hurry along, back into the hallway and up the stair to show her own room as well. I sighed at my Sis' hecticness but came along. When they'd seen what there was to see in her room, their eyes were of course drawn to my room as well. I considered denying them entry, didn't know if there was anything there that could be embarrassing, but decided to let them take a look anyway. They became especially interested in my bookshelf, which mostly consisted of fantasy and the like. When Mom and Dad called that dinner was ready, I said that they could stay and look through the books if they wanted to. They did.
After filling our bellies with potatoes, prince sausage, and meatballs (plus, in Sofie's case, Jansson's temptation since she for some incomprehensible reason liked it as much as Dad did), me and Sofie hurried from the dinner table and up the stair again. When we asked our guests if they wanted to do anything special while our parents did the dishes, they both immediately looked out the window, where the snowfall had intensified.
Three minutes later we were all standing out on the lawn and had started working on a snowman. The villa neighborhood lay empty and only the occasional car passed on the road. All of our neighbors were huddling in the warmth indoors. The project was completed pretty quickly since all four of us rolled a ball each and thereafter helped stack them. I drew eyes and a mouth on the topmost ball and Sofie found a pair of fallen icicles that she planted on the man's head so that they looked like horns. "Now he turned into a... what's it called?"
"What?" I asked.
"Like that big one that Gandalf fights." Sniffle.
"A balrog?"
"Yeah!"
"But aren't balrogs more fiery?"
"Mm. But not this one. It's a snow balrog."
"Those don't exist."
"Sure they do. He's standing right there."
Karl and Lisa giggled behind my back. I made a tired gesture at them, sort of like Are you hearing what kind of nonsense I have to put up with every day?.
Sofie looked at the snowfall around her and wiped her nose. "Are any of you good at catching snowflakes? With your tongue?"
Karl and Lisa exchanged a look. Both had quite a lot of snowflakes in their hair. Karl shrugged. "Dunno. What counts as being good?"
"I'm great at it!" she replied. "Look!" She stretched out her tongue and started hopping to and fro over the lawn to catch some of the endless white flakes, loudly said "Two", "Three" and so on for each one she caught so we'd all see exactly how great she was. Lisa and Karl looked at her with smiles on their faces, and after a while, Lisa entered the game as well. With cries of "Five!" and "Eight!" they moved further out to the edge of the lawn and finally out on the sidewalk and the deserted street. Me and Karl followed them and stopped on the sidewalk to serve as audience.
I leaned back on the fence separating our lawn from the sidewalk. The way I remember it, I already felt at that point that the evening was a kind of way for them to say goodbye, but maybe that's only something I've made up after the fact. He and I stood quietly beside each other. I wanted to say something to him, something big, but couldn't. It was like the words I wanted to form didn't fit in my mouth. I kept quiet instead and glanced at his face. He looked at Lisa where she ran around with a peaceful smile on his face and eyes shining with something like awe, as if he'd caught sight of something beautiful for the first time. Even though they seemed to have known each other for so long.
I didn't really see what happened, but suddenly Lisa stopped in place and whirled around in a kind of pirouette, apparently to try to catch a flake that fell down behind her head. She stumbled backward, waved her arms like a cartoon character, and landed on her bum. Karl laughed, but she didn't seem to mind, only gave him an annoyed face that quickly melted into a smile before she was back on her feet and resumed trying to catch up with Sofie's score.
I didn't look at him as I quietly said: "You guys really love each other, don't you?"
He looked at me for several seconds, then said: "Yes. I wouldn't trade him for anything else in the world."
I nodded. Registered the word him but didn't think anything of it. He could've said that there were green dolphins living on the moon and I would've accepted it just as readily. There was that sort of mood in the air. It fell down before our eyes and around us and on top of our heads in soundless flakes. Christmas magic or some shit. I don't know.
Since I couldn't say any of the things I wanted to say, I said: "You know there are places you can call, right? If you... need help."
"Help?"
"Like... organizations that help children. Our parents can help you if your parents... drink too much or..."
"Oh, you mean... No, it's... thanks. But we'll be fine."
"I don't want you to just... be fine. You should, like, have it good, too. For real."
He gave me a warm look. "Emma. You're kind for thinking of that. But we have it good. For real. It's not like you think."
"No? How is it, then?"
He shook his head and didn't reply. Sofie had reached seventeen points. I suspected that she was cheating with the numbers. Karl looked down at his shoes, kicked at the snow at his feet a little. "All this is... Is there anything you want help with?"
"Like what?"
"Well, I dunno. Something you want. As thanks for letting us be here."
A word appeared in my head. I looked at him and tried to be as brave as Éowyn. Make myself say it. Think: Now I'll say it and let things turn out as they may. The seconds passed. I opened my mouth.
But I wasn't the Éowyn type and the word didn't come. Instead I just stood there, opening and closing my mouth until I shrugged and meekly said: "No. There's... there's nothing I want." I sought an escape in my phone, saw on its clock that we'd been outside for almost half an hour, and said: "Probably gift-giving time soon."
Sofie heard me. She stopped mid-movement, said "Twenty-two, sixteen, I won" to Lisa, and rushed inside before anyone else had time to react.
Dad met us in the hallway. He said that he'd just been about to ask us to come inside since Santa would probably be arriving soon. He added: "We're almost out of julmust, so I'll have to hurry over to the grocery before he gets here."
It was the same thing he'd said last year and I discreetly rolled my eyes at Karl and Lisa while Sofie equipped her Santa hat again and went into the living room. They looked a bit uncomprehending. I was struck by a thought and asked if they never had anyone who acted as Santa at home.
"No... what do you mean?" Lisa asked.
I had to explain the whole deal of how Dad always said he was heading out to "buy julmust" before he went out to the garage to get the bag and put on the Santa suit and fake beard. I said it quietly so that Sis wouldn't hear. Truth be told, she'd stopped believing in Santa a long time ago, but she usually played along anyway—I think partially to make our parents happy and partially because she still wanted to believe, at least a little—and I didn't want to ruin the whole thing by speaking the truth out loud.
We went in to the sofa where Mom and Sofie sat waiting. Mom gestured at the bowl of candy she'd placed on the coffee table and told Karl and Lisa that they should feel free to take some if they wanted. They both shook their heads, but I noticed Karl looking for quite a long time at the bowl with something resembling... wistfulness. About a minute later, Santa knocked on the door.
Both me and Sis got what we'd wished for: hardcover copies of The Hobbit and The Silmarillion, and a lizard. Sofie let out a little squeal of delight when Santa came in carrying the glass cage containing a small white bearded dragon. He said in his exaggeratedly deep voice that the animal was a big responsibility for a seven-year-old and that the whole family would have to help out with taking care of him, and handed over a small booklet with information about the species that Sofie solemnly promised to memorize.
"What should he be called, you think?" Mom asked.
Sofie looked at the bearded dragon behind the glass for a few seconds and then said: "Saruman, since he's so white and beardy."
"Saruman?"
"Yeah. Like the wizard in Lord of the Rings."
Mom and Santa looked at me and I tried to look innocent. It went so-so.
Like usual, Santa also handed over some wrapped presents to Mom and Dad (and no, I don't remember what they contained) with some comment about how typical it was that the family father would happen to be absent this year again. Meanwhile, I sat with the books in my knee, chewed on a piece of candy, and glanced at Karl and Lisa, who sat close together and smiled peacefully at the spectacle. Their faces changed into ones of surprise when Santa last of all turned to them and said that while he didn't have anything more to hand out from his bag, he was "quite certain that there's something waiting for the distinguished guests out in the hallway".
The pulks were identical to mine except for the fact that both were silver gray in color. On top of each was a batch of knit caps and gloves in varying colors.
Karl and Lisa looked as if they'd never seen a present in their entire life. They just stood there with circular eyes and stared at the pulks. Then they turned around and looked at us where we stood all four, awaiting their reaction. Mom and Santa nodded encouragingly at them, as if to assure them that yes, everything was really intended for them and no one else.
Karl opened his mouth to say something, hesitated, and then instead went up to Santa and hugged him. Lisa followed his example soon thereafter. Dad looked surprised behind his mask but hugged them back.
They hugged Mom, they hugged Sofie, and finally they hugged me. During the brief seconds when Karl put his arms around me, it felt as if my stomach turned into one big swarm of moths.
*
"How long can we stay?" Lisa asked a while later.
We sat and watched as Sofie and Dad—who, as usual, had come back with a bottle of must shortly after "Santa" had left—fed Saruman with dried insects from a bag. Both Lisa and Karl had put on one of their new caps, which meant I was the only child there who wasn't wearing any headgear.
"When do your parents want you home?" Mom asked.
Lisa shrugged. "Well, it's... it doesn't matter that much. Mine said I have to be home again before tomorrow morning, is all."
"Mine said basically the same thing", Karl added.
The line caused Mom and Dad to exchange a look, but before they said anything, Sofie tore her eyes away from Saruman's terrarium and said: "Do you wanna sleep over?"
Our guests looked at each other. Then Karl said: "If... if you'll let us."
It was decided that it'd be in my room. Mom fetched an extra mattress from the guest room and carried it up the stair to place it on the floor next to my bed. Sofie could fit beside me in the bed. Karl and Lisa claimed that they both tended to wake up early in the morning, probably while the rest of us were asleep, and that they'd call their families so they could come pick them up. I thought of the fact that I'd never seen either of them use a phone but didn't say anything.
We played board games until Sofie said she felt sleepy and wanted to go to bed. When me and Sis had brushed our teeth and we all laid tucked in, Mom asked us to try not to lay awake all the way till midnight. We made a solemn promise with no intention of keeping it whatsoever.
After she'd closed the door, we talked to each other for a long time. The only lights in the room came from the star in the window and the lamp on my nightstand. Sofie lay on my left-hand side, between me and the wall. She would most of all have liked to sleep with Saruman in her arms, but Dad had said that it was probably for the best if the dragon could sleep in his terrarium where he felt the most comfortable for the time being. Sis had instead brought Plufse, a stuffed animal bought at a yard sale that she'd slept with every night since she was three and which was so poorly made that I'd never managed to figure out if it was supposed to be a badger, raccoon, or ferret. On my right side, below the bed, Lisa lay with her arms wrapped around Karl under their sheet. I saw that he held her hands where they lay pressed over his chest.
"We're gonna be moving soon", Karl said apropos of nothing.
"What?" me and Sofie replied in unison. I added: "Both of you?"
"Yes. Unfortunately. In a few days."
"Why?"
"Doesn't matter, really. It's just how it is."
"It's a bummer", Lisa added.
"Yes", Karl said. "We... probably won't see each other after that. At least not for long. When... when we're older."
He mumbled the last part and it almost sounded like he said "When you're older", but I assumed that I'd misheard. I glanced at Sofie, who looked sad with Plufse tightly clutched to her. Sis hated having to say goodbye.
No one said anything for a while. I tried to think of a way to lighten the mood and said: "Guess we'll have to stay up extra long tonight, then. So that we make the most of it."
Among other things, we talked about books and movies. I thought of the night in the tree and asked if they'd read or seen Ronia the Robber's Daughter. They hadn't. No other Astrid Lindgren stories either, for that matter. I summarized the story as best I could, with input from Sofie. When I was done they looked thoughtful.
"Sounds a bit like Romeo and Juliet", Lisa said.
"Mm", Karl said.
"Never seen it", I replied. "Or read."
They looked at each other. "We can tell it to you, if you want."
They turned out to be much better storytellers than I. They sat upright beside each other on the mattress, wrapped in the sheet, and took turns recounting different parts of the story. They used theatrical voices and gestures to recreate characters and scenes, and both me and Sis sat spellbound. I wondered how many times they must have read or seen the play to know it so well from memory and made a mental note to read it myself sometime. When they were done, they kept going with other Shakespeare stories. Halfway through A Midsummer Night's Dream, the star in my window was shut off by the automatic timer. Shortly thereafter I heard how Mom and Dad went to bed downstairs. They probably heard us talking, but I guess that they decided that we could stay up if we wanted.
As we got closer to the end of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Sofie started yawning more and more frequently, and when the story was over she said she wanted to sleep. We said goodnight to each other and I turned off the lamp. Pretty soon, I heard from my sister's breathing that she was asleep, but I remained awake and stared up into the darkness where contours gradually returned as my eyes adjusted, thought of Bottom and Titania and all the rest. After a while I heard Karl whisper: "Emma? You asleep?"
"No."
"Can you... stretch down your hand?"
Without thinking of why, I did as he said while I kept looking into the ceiling. Their right hands gently grasped mine, squeezed it. "Thank you", Karl whispered. "For all of this."
I didn't know what to reply and eventually simply said: "You're... you're welcome." It felt wrong somehow, and after a few seconds I realized why. "Wait a bit." Without looking in their direction I let go of their hands, twisted around on my stomach, took Sofie's right hand without waking her up, and then stretched down my left hand to Karl and Lisa so they could grab it instead. There. Better. Now all four of us were linked together like in a chain. My palm felt slightly sweaty against their fingers.
I don't remember what it was that made me look down at them. Maybe it was the realization that it felt weird that I hadn't looked in their direction since I turned the lamp off. At any rate I raised my head from my pillow. To this day, I don't know whether or not I regret it.
It took a moment for my brain to take in what my eyes registered. Once it'd done so, my skin erupted in goosebumps and I instictively jerked my left hand back. They let go of it without resisting.
Their eyes were glowing.
It wasn't something I imagined. Four distinct, glowing points looked at me from the black silhouettes that were their heads. The points flickered, darkened, disappeared. But I knew: human eyes couldn't look like that. Animals, yes. Monsters. Not humans. It looked very unsettling.
I kept staring at the contours of their faces, and they stared back. Sofie stayed asleep. Eventually I managed to whisper: "What... how'd you do that?"
"Sorry", Karl replied. "You weren't supposed to see that."
"What was it?"
"Nothing."
"What do you mean 'nothing'? I saw..." I paused, realized I'd started raising my voice, and tried to hear if Sofie was about to wake up. She wasn't. Thoughts flew through my head. Things that couldn't be explained. Searched for a connection. Saw one. It was so obvious at the same time as it was impossible. I suddenly didn't want to be near them anymore. Instinctively crept away from the edge of the bed, closer to my sister.
"What are... Are you..."
"We're children. Just like you."
"No."
"Yes."
"Then why'd your eyes glow?"
He didn't reply. Lisa started saying: "You don't need to..."
"Don't need to what?"
"To... be afraid."
It was the wrong thing to say. After all, the only reason for them to say something like that was that there really was something to be afraid of. They weren't my friends anymore. They were something else only pretending to be human. Who had hung out in the slope evening after evening, begged to be let into our home and be among us to see what it was like to be human.
I'm kinda afraid of blood.
The way they'd stared that evening when Sofie had a nosebleed. Hadn't their eyes been glowing a little back then too? I put an arm around my little sister. Hugged her gently. Created a barrier between her and them.
"I want you to go", I whispered.
"What?"
"I don't want you to stay here anymore. Go. Please."
Things were quiet for a few seconds. Then they stood up from the mattress. Their forms towered over the edge of the bed and for a second I was afraid that they were going to throw themselves over me, but they only bent down to gather their clothes and then left without a word. My eyes followed them until they'd carefully closed the door to my room, continued to listen to the sound of their footsteps, followed shortly thereafter by the muffled noise of the front door opening and closing.
For a long time I lay looking at the contours of the mattress. Felt an impulse to call them back and apologize, but knew that it was impossible. Beside me, Sofie twisted a little and murmured something in her sleep. I held her as tight as I dared without risking waking her up. In the end I managed to fall asleep.
*
On the morning of Christmas Day, I told my family that Karl and Lisa had been gone when I woke up and that they must've left while me and Sofie were asleep, just as they'd said they would the preceding evening.
Sofie spent the whole day sitting in the living room and petting Saruman. I was willing to admit that he wasn't as gross up close as I'd imagined lizards to be, but I still couldn't quite comprehend how Sis could think he was, quote, "adorable". He didn't seem to do much other than sit there and stare dully out into the cosmos while his new owner talked with him (or rather at him) and stroked his coarse pale scales.
In the forenoon I offered to accompany Dad outside and help him shovel. He looked a bit surprised since I didn't usually help out with that kind of thing, but agreed to it. My thinking was that the cold and the physical work would serve as a distraction and make me not think too much about what had happened the preceding night. It worked.
I discovered the note only once we went back inside in the afternoon to have dinner. I hadn't noticed it when I'd put my knitted socks in my shoes, but now that I pulled my feet out, it fluttered out with them and landed on the floor. It read:
Thank you again for everything. And sorry.
We'll be moving on the 26th. Far away from here. We don't really know where yet.
We understand if you don't want to see us again. If you change your mind: think of the iron tongue and the normal place.
We hope you have a happy new year. We will, thanks to you.
— K + L
*
Another sleepless night. There had been quite a few of those lately. It had taken a while to figure out what the hell they meant, but in the end I'd figured it out. Or... okay, fine: Google had reminded me. It was one of the lines they'd quoted from A Midsummer Night's Dream.
The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve. Lovers, to bed! 'Tis almost fairy time.
Now I lay awake and twisted this way and that, brooding, weighing for and against, remained awake even after the star in the window went out and the lights outside my room did the same. I don't know if I would've reached a decision at all if I hadn't ultimately picked up my phone from the nightstand to surf until I got tired. My heart skipped a beat when I saw that the clock was already displaying 00:07. I put down the phone, stared into the ceiling for a while.
Last chance.
While I was standing in the hall and putting my outerwear on I heard a sound behind me and started. Sofie was standing in the stair, dressed in pajamas and only just awake. Goddammit.
"Whatcha doing?"
"Go back to bed."
She furrowed her brow. "Where're you going?"
"You can't come along."
"I'll wake up Mom and Dad."
I realized I didn't have any counterargument or bribe that would work. Swore something under my breath. Made a gesture with my head telling her to come down and whispered: "Fine, but hurry and be quiet."
It was windless outside. She adjusted her coat and asked again where we were headed.
"The hill."
"Why?"
"Karl and Lisa are there now."
"How do you know?"
"Got a message." I was intentionally vague with my wording, let her think it was a text message on my phone I meant, since I didn't want to show her the note. She would wonder why they'd written We understand if you don't want to see us again, and I was not about to tell her what had happened on the night of Christmas Eve.
"Why didn't I get one?"
"No idea. They don't have your number, I guess."
It felt eerie walking on our own outside this late. The streetlights glowed white, but all the windows were black. Basically no traffic. Only now and then could you hear the distant whoosh of cars driving by in the distance. Compared to the background noise during the days, it was as if the entire neighborhood was being suffocated by silence. Our footsteps were deafeningly loud. Anyone could hear us strolling by. I quickened my steps and Sofie had to put in effort to keep up. From time to time we stumbled over a patch of ice.
As we approached the slope I heard it: the rustling noise of pulks over snow, punctuated by high voices. In the absence of all the regular noises, the everyday sounds seemed vaguely out-of-place. Eerie. They weren't the type of sounds you were supposed to hear when you headed outside at midnight. Instead of heading straight for our part where we'd be clearly visible, I headed off the path and crouched down beside a thick birch tree. Sofie followed my example. She didn't ask why we were hiding. There we stood, and from there we looked out over the slope.
They were sledding in one silver-gray pulk each. Both were wearing a cap and gloves. They went down to the bottom, pulled the pulks up to the top, and went down again. Sometimes when they reached high speeds they let out shouts of delight. They kept going like that. Over and over again. They were all alone in the hill under a pitch-black sky, and yet they seemed completely happy, as if the simple, childish pastime was all that they needed. I got the vague feeling of being an intruder, like someone peeping on something private and sacred. Like seeing faeries dancing on a mistshrouded meadow at dawn.
Neither me nor Sofie said anything. After an eternity they seemed to be done sledding. They pulled their pulks up the slope one last time, then turned around and looked straight at us, as if they'd known that we were there all along. They smiled. And waved.
Sofie ran up to them before I could stop her. I had no choice but to lumber after her. When I looked at them I felt no trace of the fear from the Christmas Eve night. They looked like normal. Our buddies. Normal kids that we'd played with hundreds of times, it felt like. Their eyes were normal eyes.
I don't remember exactly what we said to each other. Or rather what they and Sofie said. Hi. It was fun yesterday. Thanks for the presents. Hope the place you move to is good. Hope we'll see each other again. And so on. Meaningless lines that had been spoken before. Personally I didn't say anything, stood a bit apprehensively off to the side with my hands in my pockets. At last they turned to me.
Karl asked: "Have you thought any more about... the question I asked yesterday?"
"What?"
"If there's anything that you..."
"Oh." I remembered the moment at the fence. "No, it... No."
He looked thoughtfully at me. I looked at my feet. Then he said: "Wait a bit."
He and Lisa walked off a bit and talked about something. Pretty much like the night in the tree. The night when they'd climbed up a trunk that they really shouldn't have been able to climb. Beside me, Sofie wiped her nose. I saw Lisa smile a slightly sorrowful smile at Karl and heard her say: "So do it."
Karl came back, leaned forward, and pressed his lips against mine.
I almost stumbled backward in surprise. Then decided not to be surprised and to instead close my eyes and accept what was being given, with my hands still in my pockets.
We stood like that for maybe a few seconds. In that time I realized how dry my lips were. His were cold and soft. His breath didn't smell of anything. In the darkness behind my eyelids, images began to appear. Shapes. A blur of lights moving, dancing colors and stars in the distance. A breath away.
He let go and took a step back. I opened my eyes, blinked a few times, and heard Sofie pretend to vomit beside me. She stood bent over and coughed exaggeratedly as if she'd never seen anything more disgusting in her short life. I felt an urge to kick her in the stomach, but looked at Karl instead, felt how my whole face glowed red, and managed: "...thanks."
He nodded at me and smiled. Without saying anything more he turned around and joined up with Lisa. They picked up their pulks under one arm each, clasped each other's free hands, and left. I stood still, looked after them, blinked a couple more times to try to see the lights behind my eyelids again, but they were gone.
The last I saw of them was how their backs disappeared behind a bend in the footpath that was obscured by a couple birches. Beside me Sofie kept trying to throw up air.
"Listen", I said, "you're really hilarious, but it's probably best if we go home now."
She paused her performance, straightened, and nodded. Wiped her nose again.
I glanced briefly at the point where Karl and Lisa had disappeared. Then said: "And another thing."
"Yeah?"
"Promise to never say anything about this to Mom and Dad."
She nodded at me with a solemn expression and pulled an imaginary zipper over her mouth. "Promise."
That was the last time we saw them. She has kept her promise.
I don't remember anything of the days in between, not the end-of-term on Wednesday nor the lazy Thursday and Friday. I guess that at some point I must've told Sofie what I'd planned for Karl and Lisa, but I can't remember anything of the conversation.
On the morning of Christmas Eve, me and Sofie received some small presents, like usual. Boxes of chocolate, socks, letters from relatives and so on. In honor of the date, I wore an unbelievably ugly knitted sweater with reindeer on it that I'd inherited from an older cousin, and Sofie insisted on walking around with a Santa hat indoors. We spent the forenoon playing board games and Mario Kart with Mom and Dad, like usual. At three o'clock we watched the Disney special, like usual. But nothing felt like usual. The whole time I walked around with a sense of anticipation and vague uncertainty for how things would turn out when our guests arrived, and I saw that Sofie felt the same way. I was so distracted by my thoughts that I couldn't even be bothered to roll my eyes at Dad when he dropped his annual tired jokes in the sofa in front of the Disney special.
After the program, me and Sofie remained in the sofa while our parents prepared the julbord. It was snowing a little outdoors. More and more, I started wondering whether Karl and Lisa were intending to show up at all and wished that I'd remembered to ask what time they were planning on coming over. Finally, around four, the doorbell rang. Mom peered out from the kitchen. "I think that's your friends coming."
Sofie flew out of the sofa as if she'd been launched from a catapult at the word your. I hurried after her into the hallway, shoved and squabbled with her a bit over who would get to open the door, won, opened.
"God jul", they said.
"God jul", me and Sofie replied in unison. They remained where they stood and wiped their shoes on the ground to get rid of snow.
"Can we come in?" Karl asked.
I realized that I was blocking the doorway where I stood and felt stupid, took a step back to let them through. "Right, sorry. Come on in."
"Thanks."
I looked at them while they took off their outerwear. Lisa had put up her hair in a neat ponytail and smiled when she noticed that I'd noticed. It rested in the cowl of her thin grayish-black hoodie and made her look even cuter than usual. Karl looked like he always did with his cropped blond hair and wore a red turtleneck shirt. It struck me how thin they looked without coats and scarves. Their arms and legs were almost like twigs.
We'll lift you up, if you want.
Before I had time to think more about that, Mom and Dad came out from the kitchen, said that our guests were welcome to stay as long as they liked, and offered to let them join us at the julbord. They politely declined and said that they'd already eaten. Sofie pulled them with her into the living room to show what it looked like and I felt obligated to come along.
"You have it really nice", Lisa said while she looked around. Karl made a hum of agreement.
I looked around the room, at the tree, at the TV where the Christmas host was talking, at the decorations, and at all the regular furniture, and wondered what their own homes looked like. Before I met them I'd never consciously thought of my family as particularly "rich". Now I did, and felt pretty ashamed for it.
Sofie wanted to hurry along, back into the hallway and up the stair to show her own room as well. I sighed at my Sis' hecticness but came along. When they'd seen what there was to see in her room, their eyes were of course drawn to my room as well. I considered denying them entry, didn't know if there was anything there that could be embarrassing, but decided to let them take a look anyway. They became especially interested in my bookshelf, which mostly consisted of fantasy and the like. When Mom and Dad called that dinner was ready, I said that they could stay and look through the books if they wanted to. They did.
After filling our bellies with potatoes, prince sausage, and meatballs (plus, in Sofie's case, Jansson's temptation since she for some incomprehensible reason liked it as much as Dad did), me and Sofie hurried from the dinner table and up the stair again. When we asked our guests if they wanted to do anything special while our parents did the dishes, they both immediately looked out the window, where the snowfall had intensified.
Three minutes later we were all standing out on the lawn and had started working on a snowman. The villa neighborhood lay empty and only the occasional car passed on the road. All of our neighbors were huddling in the warmth indoors. The project was completed pretty quickly since all four of us rolled a ball each and thereafter helped stack them. I drew eyes and a mouth on the topmost ball and Sofie found a pair of fallen icicles that she planted on the man's head so that they looked like horns. "Now he turned into a... what's it called?"
"What?" I asked.
"Like that big one that Gandalf fights." Sniffle.
"A balrog?"
"Yeah!"
"But aren't balrogs more fiery?"
"Mm. But not this one. It's a snow balrog."
"Those don't exist."
"Sure they do. He's standing right there."
Karl and Lisa giggled behind my back. I made a tired gesture at them, sort of like Are you hearing what kind of nonsense I have to put up with every day?.
Sofie looked at the snowfall around her and wiped her nose. "Are any of you good at catching snowflakes? With your tongue?"
Karl and Lisa exchanged a look. Both had quite a lot of snowflakes in their hair. Karl shrugged. "Dunno. What counts as being good?"
"I'm great at it!" she replied. "Look!" She stretched out her tongue and started hopping to and fro over the lawn to catch some of the endless white flakes, loudly said "Two", "Three" and so on for each one she caught so we'd all see exactly how great she was. Lisa and Karl looked at her with smiles on their faces, and after a while, Lisa entered the game as well. With cries of "Five!" and "Eight!" they moved further out to the edge of the lawn and finally out on the sidewalk and the deserted street. Me and Karl followed them and stopped on the sidewalk to serve as audience.
I leaned back on the fence separating our lawn from the sidewalk. The way I remember it, I already felt at that point that the evening was a kind of way for them to say goodbye, but maybe that's only something I've made up after the fact. He and I stood quietly beside each other. I wanted to say something to him, something big, but couldn't. It was like the words I wanted to form didn't fit in my mouth. I kept quiet instead and glanced at his face. He looked at Lisa where she ran around with a peaceful smile on his face and eyes shining with something like awe, as if he'd caught sight of something beautiful for the first time. Even though they seemed to have known each other for so long.
I didn't really see what happened, but suddenly Lisa stopped in place and whirled around in a kind of pirouette, apparently to try to catch a flake that fell down behind her head. She stumbled backward, waved her arms like a cartoon character, and landed on her bum. Karl laughed, but she didn't seem to mind, only gave him an annoyed face that quickly melted into a smile before she was back on her feet and resumed trying to catch up with Sofie's score.
I didn't look at him as I quietly said: "You guys really love each other, don't you?"
He looked at me for several seconds, then said: "Yes. I wouldn't trade him for anything else in the world."
I nodded. Registered the word him but didn't think anything of it. He could've said that there were green dolphins living on the moon and I would've accepted it just as readily. There was that sort of mood in the air. It fell down before our eyes and around us and on top of our heads in soundless flakes. Christmas magic or some shit. I don't know.
Since I couldn't say any of the things I wanted to say, I said: "You know there are places you can call, right? If you... need help."
"Help?"
"Like... organizations that help children. Our parents can help you if your parents... drink too much or..."
"Oh, you mean... No, it's... thanks. But we'll be fine."
"I don't want you to just... be fine. You should, like, have it good, too. For real."
He gave me a warm look. "Emma. You're kind for thinking of that. But we have it good. For real. It's not like you think."
"No? How is it, then?"
He shook his head and didn't reply. Sofie had reached seventeen points. I suspected that she was cheating with the numbers. Karl looked down at his shoes, kicked at the snow at his feet a little. "All this is... Is there anything you want help with?"
"Like what?"
"Well, I dunno. Something you want. As thanks for letting us be here."
A word appeared in my head. I looked at him and tried to be as brave as Éowyn. Make myself say it. Think: Now I'll say it and let things turn out as they may. The seconds passed. I opened my mouth.
But I wasn't the Éowyn type and the word didn't come. Instead I just stood there, opening and closing my mouth until I shrugged and meekly said: "No. There's... there's nothing I want." I sought an escape in my phone, saw on its clock that we'd been outside for almost half an hour, and said: "Probably gift-giving time soon."
Sofie heard me. She stopped mid-movement, said "Twenty-two, sixteen, I won" to Lisa, and rushed inside before anyone else had time to react.
Dad met us in the hallway. He said that he'd just been about to ask us to come inside since Santa would probably be arriving soon. He added: "We're almost out of julmust, so I'll have to hurry over to the grocery before he gets here."
It was the same thing he'd said last year and I discreetly rolled my eyes at Karl and Lisa while Sofie equipped her Santa hat again and went into the living room. They looked a bit uncomprehending. I was struck by a thought and asked if they never had anyone who acted as Santa at home.
"No... what do you mean?" Lisa asked.
I had to explain the whole deal of how Dad always said he was heading out to "buy julmust" before he went out to the garage to get the bag and put on the Santa suit and fake beard. I said it quietly so that Sis wouldn't hear. Truth be told, she'd stopped believing in Santa a long time ago, but she usually played along anyway—I think partially to make our parents happy and partially because she still wanted to believe, at least a little—and I didn't want to ruin the whole thing by speaking the truth out loud.
We went in to the sofa where Mom and Sofie sat waiting. Mom gestured at the bowl of candy she'd placed on the coffee table and told Karl and Lisa that they should feel free to take some if they wanted. They both shook their heads, but I noticed Karl looking for quite a long time at the bowl with something resembling... wistfulness. About a minute later, Santa knocked on the door.
Both me and Sis got what we'd wished for: hardcover copies of The Hobbit and The Silmarillion, and a lizard. Sofie let out a little squeal of delight when Santa came in carrying the glass cage containing a small white bearded dragon. He said in his exaggeratedly deep voice that the animal was a big responsibility for a seven-year-old and that the whole family would have to help out with taking care of him, and handed over a small booklet with information about the species that Sofie solemnly promised to memorize.
"What should he be called, you think?" Mom asked.
Sofie looked at the bearded dragon behind the glass for a few seconds and then said: "Saruman, since he's so white and beardy."
"Saruman?"
"Yeah. Like the wizard in Lord of the Rings."
Mom and Santa looked at me and I tried to look innocent. It went so-so.
Like usual, Santa also handed over some wrapped presents to Mom and Dad (and no, I don't remember what they contained) with some comment about how typical it was that the family father would happen to be absent this year again. Meanwhile, I sat with the books in my knee, chewed on a piece of candy, and glanced at Karl and Lisa, who sat close together and smiled peacefully at the spectacle. Their faces changed into ones of surprise when Santa last of all turned to them and said that while he didn't have anything more to hand out from his bag, he was "quite certain that there's something waiting for the distinguished guests out in the hallway".
The pulks were identical to mine except for the fact that both were silver gray in color. On top of each was a batch of knit caps and gloves in varying colors.
Karl and Lisa looked as if they'd never seen a present in their entire life. They just stood there with circular eyes and stared at the pulks. Then they turned around and looked at us where we stood all four, awaiting their reaction. Mom and Santa nodded encouragingly at them, as if to assure them that yes, everything was really intended for them and no one else.
Karl opened his mouth to say something, hesitated, and then instead went up to Santa and hugged him. Lisa followed his example soon thereafter. Dad looked surprised behind his mask but hugged them back.
They hugged Mom, they hugged Sofie, and finally they hugged me. During the brief seconds when Karl put his arms around me, it felt as if my stomach turned into one big swarm of moths.
*
"How long can we stay?" Lisa asked a while later.
We sat and watched as Sofie and Dad—who, as usual, had come back with a bottle of must shortly after "Santa" had left—fed Saruman with dried insects from a bag. Both Lisa and Karl had put on one of their new caps, which meant I was the only child there who wasn't wearing any headgear.
"When do your parents want you home?" Mom asked.
Lisa shrugged. "Well, it's... it doesn't matter that much. Mine said I have to be home again before tomorrow morning, is all."
"Mine said basically the same thing", Karl added.
The line caused Mom and Dad to exchange a look, but before they said anything, Sofie tore her eyes away from Saruman's terrarium and said: "Do you wanna sleep over?"
Our guests looked at each other. Then Karl said: "If... if you'll let us."
It was decided that it'd be in my room. Mom fetched an extra mattress from the guest room and carried it up the stair to place it on the floor next to my bed. Sofie could fit beside me in the bed. Karl and Lisa claimed that they both tended to wake up early in the morning, probably while the rest of us were asleep, and that they'd call their families so they could come pick them up. I thought of the fact that I'd never seen either of them use a phone but didn't say anything.
We played board games until Sofie said she felt sleepy and wanted to go to bed. When me and Sis had brushed our teeth and we all laid tucked in, Mom asked us to try not to lay awake all the way till midnight. We made a solemn promise with no intention of keeping it whatsoever.
After she'd closed the door, we talked to each other for a long time. The only lights in the room came from the star in the window and the lamp on my nightstand. Sofie lay on my left-hand side, between me and the wall. She would most of all have liked to sleep with Saruman in her arms, but Dad had said that it was probably for the best if the dragon could sleep in his terrarium where he felt the most comfortable for the time being. Sis had instead brought Plufse, a stuffed animal bought at a yard sale that she'd slept with every night since she was three and which was so poorly made that I'd never managed to figure out if it was supposed to be a badger, raccoon, or ferret. On my right side, below the bed, Lisa lay with her arms wrapped around Karl under their sheet. I saw that he held her hands where they lay pressed over his chest.
"We're gonna be moving soon", Karl said apropos of nothing.
"What?" me and Sofie replied in unison. I added: "Both of you?"
"Yes. Unfortunately. In a few days."
"Why?"
"Doesn't matter, really. It's just how it is."
"It's a bummer", Lisa added.
"Yes", Karl said. "We... probably won't see each other after that. At least not for long. When... when we're older."
He mumbled the last part and it almost sounded like he said "When you're older", but I assumed that I'd misheard. I glanced at Sofie, who looked sad with Plufse tightly clutched to her. Sis hated having to say goodbye.
No one said anything for a while. I tried to think of a way to lighten the mood and said: "Guess we'll have to stay up extra long tonight, then. So that we make the most of it."
Among other things, we talked about books and movies. I thought of the night in the tree and asked if they'd read or seen Ronia the Robber's Daughter. They hadn't. No other Astrid Lindgren stories either, for that matter. I summarized the story as best I could, with input from Sofie. When I was done they looked thoughtful.
"Sounds a bit like Romeo and Juliet", Lisa said.
"Mm", Karl said.
"Never seen it", I replied. "Or read."
They looked at each other. "We can tell it to you, if you want."
They turned out to be much better storytellers than I. They sat upright beside each other on the mattress, wrapped in the sheet, and took turns recounting different parts of the story. They used theatrical voices and gestures to recreate characters and scenes, and both me and Sis sat spellbound. I wondered how many times they must have read or seen the play to know it so well from memory and made a mental note to read it myself sometime. When they were done, they kept going with other Shakespeare stories. Halfway through A Midsummer Night's Dream, the star in my window was shut off by the automatic timer. Shortly thereafter I heard how Mom and Dad went to bed downstairs. They probably heard us talking, but I guess that they decided that we could stay up if we wanted.
As we got closer to the end of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Sofie started yawning more and more frequently, and when the story was over she said she wanted to sleep. We said goodnight to each other and I turned off the lamp. Pretty soon, I heard from my sister's breathing that she was asleep, but I remained awake and stared up into the darkness where contours gradually returned as my eyes adjusted, thought of Bottom and Titania and all the rest. After a while I heard Karl whisper: "Emma? You asleep?"
"No."
"Can you... stretch down your hand?"
Without thinking of why, I did as he said while I kept looking into the ceiling. Their right hands gently grasped mine, squeezed it. "Thank you", Karl whispered. "For all of this."
I didn't know what to reply and eventually simply said: "You're... you're welcome." It felt wrong somehow, and after a few seconds I realized why. "Wait a bit." Without looking in their direction I let go of their hands, twisted around on my stomach, took Sofie's right hand without waking her up, and then stretched down my left hand to Karl and Lisa so they could grab it instead. There. Better. Now all four of us were linked together like in a chain. My palm felt slightly sweaty against their fingers.
I don't remember what it was that made me look down at them. Maybe it was the realization that it felt weird that I hadn't looked in their direction since I turned the lamp off. At any rate I raised my head from my pillow. To this day, I don't know whether or not I regret it.
It took a moment for my brain to take in what my eyes registered. Once it'd done so, my skin erupted in goosebumps and I instictively jerked my left hand back. They let go of it without resisting.
Their eyes were glowing.
It wasn't something I imagined. Four distinct, glowing points looked at me from the black silhouettes that were their heads. The points flickered, darkened, disappeared. But I knew: human eyes couldn't look like that. Animals, yes. Monsters. Not humans. It looked very unsettling.
I kept staring at the contours of their faces, and they stared back. Sofie stayed asleep. Eventually I managed to whisper: "What... how'd you do that?"
"Sorry", Karl replied. "You weren't supposed to see that."
"What was it?"
"Nothing."
"What do you mean 'nothing'? I saw..." I paused, realized I'd started raising my voice, and tried to hear if Sofie was about to wake up. She wasn't. Thoughts flew through my head. Things that couldn't be explained. Searched for a connection. Saw one. It was so obvious at the same time as it was impossible. I suddenly didn't want to be near them anymore. Instinctively crept away from the edge of the bed, closer to my sister.
"What are... Are you..."
"We're children. Just like you."
"No."
"Yes."
"Then why'd your eyes glow?"
He didn't reply. Lisa started saying: "You don't need to..."
"Don't need to what?"
"To... be afraid."
It was the wrong thing to say. After all, the only reason for them to say something like that was that there really was something to be afraid of. They weren't my friends anymore. They were something else only pretending to be human. Who had hung out in the slope evening after evening, begged to be let into our home and be among us to see what it was like to be human.
I'm kinda afraid of blood.
The way they'd stared that evening when Sofie had a nosebleed. Hadn't their eyes been glowing a little back then too? I put an arm around my little sister. Hugged her gently. Created a barrier between her and them.
"I want you to go", I whispered.
"What?"
"I don't want you to stay here anymore. Go. Please."
Things were quiet for a few seconds. Then they stood up from the mattress. Their forms towered over the edge of the bed and for a second I was afraid that they were going to throw themselves over me, but they only bent down to gather their clothes and then left without a word. My eyes followed them until they'd carefully closed the door to my room, continued to listen to the sound of their footsteps, followed shortly thereafter by the muffled noise of the front door opening and closing.
For a long time I lay looking at the contours of the mattress. Felt an impulse to call them back and apologize, but knew that it was impossible. Beside me, Sofie twisted a little and murmured something in her sleep. I held her as tight as I dared without risking waking her up. In the end I managed to fall asleep.
*
On the morning of Christmas Day, I told my family that Karl and Lisa had been gone when I woke up and that they must've left while me and Sofie were asleep, just as they'd said they would the preceding evening.
Sofie spent the whole day sitting in the living room and petting Saruman. I was willing to admit that he wasn't as gross up close as I'd imagined lizards to be, but I still couldn't quite comprehend how Sis could think he was, quote, "adorable". He didn't seem to do much other than sit there and stare dully out into the cosmos while his new owner talked with him (or rather at him) and stroked his coarse pale scales.
In the forenoon I offered to accompany Dad outside and help him shovel. He looked a bit surprised since I didn't usually help out with that kind of thing, but agreed to it. My thinking was that the cold and the physical work would serve as a distraction and make me not think too much about what had happened the preceding night. It worked.
I discovered the note only once we went back inside in the afternoon to have dinner. I hadn't noticed it when I'd put my knitted socks in my shoes, but now that I pulled my feet out, it fluttered out with them and landed on the floor. It read:
Thank you again for everything. And sorry.
We'll be moving on the 26th. Far away from here. We don't really know where yet.
We understand if you don't want to see us again. If you change your mind: think of the iron tongue and the normal place.
We hope you have a happy new year. We will, thanks to you.
— K + L
*
Another sleepless night. There had been quite a few of those lately. It had taken a while to figure out what the hell they meant, but in the end I'd figured it out. Or... okay, fine: Google had reminded me. It was one of the lines they'd quoted from A Midsummer Night's Dream.
The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve. Lovers, to bed! 'Tis almost fairy time.
Now I lay awake and twisted this way and that, brooding, weighing for and against, remained awake even after the star in the window went out and the lights outside my room did the same. I don't know if I would've reached a decision at all if I hadn't ultimately picked up my phone from the nightstand to surf until I got tired. My heart skipped a beat when I saw that the clock was already displaying 00:07. I put down the phone, stared into the ceiling for a while.
Last chance.
While I was standing in the hall and putting my outerwear on I heard a sound behind me and started. Sofie was standing in the stair, dressed in pajamas and only just awake. Goddammit.
"Whatcha doing?"
"Go back to bed."
She furrowed her brow. "Where're you going?"
"You can't come along."
"I'll wake up Mom and Dad."
I realized I didn't have any counterargument or bribe that would work. Swore something under my breath. Made a gesture with my head telling her to come down and whispered: "Fine, but hurry and be quiet."
It was windless outside. She adjusted her coat and asked again where we were headed.
"The hill."
"Why?"
"Karl and Lisa are there now."
"How do you know?"
"Got a message." I was intentionally vague with my wording, let her think it was a text message on my phone I meant, since I didn't want to show her the note. She would wonder why they'd written We understand if you don't want to see us again, and I was not about to tell her what had happened on the night of Christmas Eve.
"Why didn't I get one?"
"No idea. They don't have your number, I guess."
It felt eerie walking on our own outside this late. The streetlights glowed white, but all the windows were black. Basically no traffic. Only now and then could you hear the distant whoosh of cars driving by in the distance. Compared to the background noise during the days, it was as if the entire neighborhood was being suffocated by silence. Our footsteps were deafeningly loud. Anyone could hear us strolling by. I quickened my steps and Sofie had to put in effort to keep up. From time to time we stumbled over a patch of ice.
As we approached the slope I heard it: the rustling noise of pulks over snow, punctuated by high voices. In the absence of all the regular noises, the everyday sounds seemed vaguely out-of-place. Eerie. They weren't the type of sounds you were supposed to hear when you headed outside at midnight. Instead of heading straight for our part where we'd be clearly visible, I headed off the path and crouched down beside a thick birch tree. Sofie followed my example. She didn't ask why we were hiding. There we stood, and from there we looked out over the slope.
They were sledding in one silver-gray pulk each. Both were wearing a cap and gloves. They went down to the bottom, pulled the pulks up to the top, and went down again. Sometimes when they reached high speeds they let out shouts of delight. They kept going like that. Over and over again. They were all alone in the hill under a pitch-black sky, and yet they seemed completely happy, as if the simple, childish pastime was all that they needed. I got the vague feeling of being an intruder, like someone peeping on something private and sacred. Like seeing faeries dancing on a mistshrouded meadow at dawn.
Neither me nor Sofie said anything. After an eternity they seemed to be done sledding. They pulled their pulks up the slope one last time, then turned around and looked straight at us, as if they'd known that we were there all along. They smiled. And waved.
Sofie ran up to them before I could stop her. I had no choice but to lumber after her. When I looked at them I felt no trace of the fear from the Christmas Eve night. They looked like normal. Our buddies. Normal kids that we'd played with hundreds of times, it felt like. Their eyes were normal eyes.
I don't remember exactly what we said to each other. Or rather what they and Sofie said. Hi. It was fun yesterday. Thanks for the presents. Hope the place you move to is good. Hope we'll see each other again. And so on. Meaningless lines that had been spoken before. Personally I didn't say anything, stood a bit apprehensively off to the side with my hands in my pockets. At last they turned to me.
Karl asked: "Have you thought any more about... the question I asked yesterday?"
"What?"
"If there's anything that you..."
"Oh." I remembered the moment at the fence. "No, it... No."
He looked thoughtfully at me. I looked at my feet. Then he said: "Wait a bit."
He and Lisa walked off a bit and talked about something. Pretty much like the night in the tree. The night when they'd climbed up a trunk that they really shouldn't have been able to climb. Beside me, Sofie wiped her nose. I saw Lisa smile a slightly sorrowful smile at Karl and heard her say: "So do it."
Karl came back, leaned forward, and pressed his lips against mine.
I almost stumbled backward in surprise. Then decided not to be surprised and to instead close my eyes and accept what was being given, with my hands still in my pockets.
We stood like that for maybe a few seconds. In that time I realized how dry my lips were. His were cold and soft. His breath didn't smell of anything. In the darkness behind my eyelids, images began to appear. Shapes. A blur of lights moving, dancing colors and stars in the distance. A breath away.
He let go and took a step back. I opened my eyes, blinked a few times, and heard Sofie pretend to vomit beside me. She stood bent over and coughed exaggeratedly as if she'd never seen anything more disgusting in her short life. I felt an urge to kick her in the stomach, but looked at Karl instead, felt how my whole face glowed red, and managed: "...thanks."
He nodded at me and smiled. Without saying anything more he turned around and joined up with Lisa. They picked up their pulks under one arm each, clasped each other's free hands, and left. I stood still, looked after them, blinked a couple more times to try to see the lights behind my eyelids again, but they were gone.
The last I saw of them was how their backs disappeared behind a bend in the footpath that was obscured by a couple birches. Beside me Sofie kept trying to throw up air.
"Listen", I said, "you're really hilarious, but it's probably best if we go home now."
She paused her performance, straightened, and nodded. Wiped her nose again.
I glanced briefly at the point where Karl and Lisa had disappeared. Then said: "And another thing."
"Yeah?"
"Promise to never say anything about this to Mom and Dad."
She nodded at me with a solemn expression and pulled an imaginary zipper over her mouth. "Promise."
That was the last time we saw them. She has kept her promise.
Last edited by Siggdalos on Mon Feb 07, 2022 4:28 pm, edited 3 times in total.
De höll om varandra i tystnad. Oskar blundade och visste: detta var det största. Ljuset från lyktan i portvalvet trängde svagt in genom hans slutna ögonlock, la en hinna av rött för hans ögon. Det största.
Re: Lights (or: A Yule Tale)
What a warm, sweet, wonderful, and yet wistfully sad tale. Your keen attention to detail pulled me deeper into the story, which made it even more poignant. I especially liked the exchange between Emma and Eli after Emma was ambushed with the snowball. How quickly children anger and how quickly they forgive one another. You've captured it perfectly here.
Oskar was sweet, even after he realized Emma had a crush on him. And the final gift from Oskar to Emma, with Eli's permission, shows how solid their faith in, and love for each other truly was. An excellent Christmas story indeed. I find myself hoping they meet again someday.
Oskar was sweet, even after he realized Emma had a crush on him. And the final gift from Oskar to Emma, with Eli's permission, shows how solid their faith in, and love for each other truly was. An excellent Christmas story indeed. I find myself hoping they meet again someday.
We never stop reading, although every book comes to an end, just as we never stop living, although death is certain. (Roberto Bolaño)
Re: Lights (or: A Yule Tale)
What an excellent story. Not unnecessarily long at all, I could have read more. The bitter-sweet ending made up for the lack of murdering and blood letting 
"For a few seconds Oskar saw through Eli’s eyes. And what he saw was … himself. Only much better, more handsome, stronger than what he thought of himself. Seen with love."
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cmfireflies
- Posts: 1153
- Joined: Sun Jun 21, 2009 7:39 pm
Re: Lights (or: A Yule Tale)
that was very sweet and made me feel warm and fuzzy.
"When is a monster not a monster? Oh, when you love it."
Re: Lights (or: A Yule Tale)
Thank you all for the kind words. It means a lot to me.
De höll om varandra i tystnad. Oskar blundade och visste: detta var det största. Ljuset från lyktan i portvalvet trängde svagt in genom hans slutna ögonlock, la en hinna av rött för hans ögon. Det största.
Re: Lights (or: A Yule Tale)
Missed the season, but just wanted to say this was really very sweet (and appropriately sad). I also read your 'history lesson' story. I appreciate how you write the dialogue - you get it 
Re: Lights (or: A Yule Tale)
I absolutely loved this!
What a beautifully sad, but completely relatable take on some interesting topics. A girl infatuated with a mysterious boy she simply can't have. Oskar and Eli are absolutely taken by the chance to hold onto their childhood despite clearly being a bit more wise (especially since they can sense Emma likes Oskar so much, and, despite being clearly in love, are willing to indulge her just enough to make a memory). And really just a fun look at their life together in the present after so long together.
Great tone and storytelling, I was really engrossed in this from beginning to end.
I haven't gotten a chance to read through all of your writing on here yet, but now I'm really looking forward to.
What a beautifully sad, but completely relatable take on some interesting topics. A girl infatuated with a mysterious boy she simply can't have. Oskar and Eli are absolutely taken by the chance to hold onto their childhood despite clearly being a bit more wise (especially since they can sense Emma likes Oskar so much, and, despite being clearly in love, are willing to indulge her just enough to make a memory). And really just a fun look at their life together in the present after so long together.
Great tone and storytelling, I was really engrossed in this from beginning to end.
I haven't gotten a chance to read through all of your writing on here yet, but now I'm really looking forward to.