Chapter 6
I’ve managed to eat half the orange when I hear the sound of a boat mooring up at the dock. The last bite expands in my mouth. I turn around to look out the window, but the curtains are still drawn.
It doesn’t matter. I recognize the sound of our boat.
It’s dusk. It will be dark by the time we get home, even if we hurry.
I spit the orange flesh out into my hand. I can’t swallow any more.
The door opens a few minutes later and it’s my mother, followed closely by Officer Berggren.
Officer Henriksson, who has been sitting in the classroom this whole time, stands up and holds out his hand. “Hello. Officer Henriksson, Nacka Police.”
Mom ignores him, walks straight over, and wraps her arms around me. For the first time in hours, I’m able to relax. Just a little.
Her fingers cling to my shoulders for a few seconds. Then she asks the police officers, in a tone that I’m grateful to have heard only a handful of times in my life, “What’s going on here?”
Officer Berggren is taken aback.
I can’t say I blame him. I know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of that voice, that glare.
“As I said on the phone, a classmate of Tuva’s has gone missing,” replies Officer Henriksson. “His name is Axel Sundin. We’re out looking for him now.”
“And what’s that got to do with Tuva?” Mom’s fingers dig deeper into my shoulders.
“Tuva found the boy who had been paired up with Axel,” says Officer Henriksson.
“So you wanted to ask her some questions?”
“Yes,” Officer Berggren replies.
He stands a little taller.
“And are you finished?” asks Mom.
“Yes, I think we’re done for the time being.”
“Good,” says Mom. “Then I’m taking my daughter home.”
She lets go of my shoulders, and I get up from the chair. My legs feel shaky.
Mom’s face doesn’t give anything away.
“Wait,” Officer Henriksson says just as we’re about to walk out the door.
Mom stops. “Yes?”
Officer Henriksson tears off a piece of paper from his pad, scribbles something, and holds it out.
“If you think of anything else, Tuva, please give us a call.” He hands me the paper.
I look at the number and wonder what he would say if I did tell the whole truth.
“Perhaps we’ll speak again,” says Officer Berggren.
“The school has our contact details,” Mom replies bluntly and turns her back on them.
The sun has all but disappeared below the horizon, but the last of the fog has lifted. I can see the islands across the water again and the streetlights in Stavsn?s Harbor, where the Vaxholm ferries dock. Lights shine from the bus stop to Stockholm.
It’s getting dark much too quickly.
I jump into the boat and cast off the stern line while Mom starts the engine.
We are perfectly safe on the water, I think. The archipelago is in our blood, Mom’s and mine. The sea is our friend. And we’ve sailed after sunset hundreds of times.
But I find myself staring intently at the boat floor to avoid seeing the black water and sea-foam already lapping at the bow.
I feel sick.
As soon as we set off, I realize that my cell phone still isn’t in my pocket. I must have left it at school. Too late now; I’ll have to get it tomorrow.
“What were they asking you about?” Mom breaks the silence. Her voice isn’t particularly loud, but I can hear her clearly over the hum of the engine.
“They just wanted to know what happened.”
She doesn’t ask And what did happen out there in the woods, Tuva?
Mom keeps a steady gaze on the darkening sky. With a dogged expression, she sets course for our island, Haro. With the smell of gasoline in my nostrils, I recall that stench in the woods, and those flickering lights.
Rasmus’s unseeing eyes.
“Did they ask if you hurt him?” Mom says after a little while, her attention still fixed straight ahead, toward some unknown point in the fairway.
“I didn’t do anything.”
Night has fallen now. Mom grips the steering wheel with both hands. Her knuckles glow white in the darkness.
My mind screams that we should have stayed on Runmaro instead of traveling home in the dark.
I stare straight ahead, trying to make out the line where sea meets sky, the nexus where it all merges together. Nausea rises in my throat.
Behind us, Runmaro has disappeared from view, but up ahead distant lights twinkle from one of the large ferries on its way to Sandhamn.
The lights flickering in midair feel disturbingly familiar.
As if they want to drive us deeper into darkness, lure us to some unknown place, just like those things in the woods.
I wonder if Rasmus is okay.