Chapter 59
The November air sparkles as I open the door and take a cautious breath. Autumn break is over. Time to go back to school.
Bellman comes out and sniffs around behind me, but I gently push him back with one foot.
“You’ll get to go out a little later. Not yet, boy.”
Colors appear brighter than usual, and pale rays of fall sun glisten on the water. ?sterman’s boat has just rounded the headland and come into view.
I’ve never been so happy to see him.
“The last day of fall,” Mom says behind me. “The first snow is coming tomorrow.”
That must be what this scent means. This cold, crisp air.
?sterman approaches the dock, where our new blue boat, purchased with insurance money, is moored.
“Time to go,” Mom says.
She gives me a quick hug and adjusts the scarf around my neck. It’s carefully wound several times around.
“Make sure it doesn’t slide down,” she says.
As if I could forget.
“Take care, now,” Mom calls after me with that new worry in her voice. It appeared after the accident and hasn’t left her since. She tries her best to hide it.
“I will, Mom.”
I run toward the dock. My new phone vibrates in my pocket. I take it out and read Rasmus’s brief text:
overslept. stall o-man.
I smile, check if ?sterman is looking, and text back:
Just hurry up!
He responds with an angry emoji.
The boat fills up. Hanna and Isabelle sit on the front bench, as usual, wearing matching fluffy winter coats. I’m hiding inside one of my father’s old oilskin coats. It’s green and has a stain on the elbow. It smells like him.
Rasmus comes running from the big house on the hill just as ?sterman is about to leave without him. His hair is disheveled and his open jacket flaps in the wind. Someone in the boat laughs, and I can’t help but smile too. He jumps aboard and comes dangerously close to slipping.
“I told you to hold the boat,” he complains as he sinks breathlessly down beside me.
“You made it, didn’t you?”
He gives me a playful little shove.
“Thanks for nothing.”
Rasmus and I are heading toward the dining room when someone grabs my arm.
Ms. Granberg is leaning against the wall outside. “Have you got a minute?”
“I’ll save you a seat,” Rasmus says, and carries on without me.
He knows what she wants to talk about. Rasmus has already heard the whole story. He was the first person I called when I woke up in my own bed the next day. Mom didn’t want to take me to the hospital, so she took care of me at home.
Which was lucky. I don’t know how we would have explained my new gills.
I follow Ms. Granberg into the nurse’s office. It’s tidier than last time, though I do spy a crumb-covered cake dish lurking behind one of the curtains.
Ms. Granberg shuts the door and sits down. She looks more like she used to, with slicked-back hair and a light-green shirt to match her earrings.
She gets straight to the point. “You did it, then?”
“Yeah. I suppose so,” I say uncertainly.
“You must have,” she says. “I can’t sense them anymore. And the Ancient Ones have returned; I can feel their presence.”
Ms. Granberg leans forward across the desk. Her eyes display a keen curiosity mixed with something like respect. “How did you do it?”
“I sang them to sleep.”
She stares at me for a few seconds. Then she shrugs and chuckles to herself.
“I told you that you could do it.” She sounds unabashedly pleased with herself.
“No thanks to you,” I mutter.
But she’s still smiling.
“You weren’t the one helping me, were you?” I ask as the memory of that voice in my head returns to me.
Ms. Granberg looks confused. “What do you mean?”
I think I always knew it wasn’t her. That voice—it was something else. Something bigger. More powerful.
“Forget it.”
Ms. Granberg bites her lip.
“Did you know that they’ve dropped the investigation into Axel’s disappearance?” she says.
I wince. I think of Axel’s mother, her vacant eyes, and his little brothers, how quiet they have become.
“No,” I say. “I didn’t know that.”
“The police think he ran away from home,” she says. “It’s been almost a month, and they haven’t found a body.”
“How’s his family?” I ask in a small voice.
“Devastated, of course,” says Ms. Granberg. There’s a heaviness in her eyes. “At least they can live in hope that he’s alive. That he might come back.”
She and I both know that isn’t going to happen.
“How did you know that the police investigation has been dropped?” I ask.
Ms. Granberg smiles, revealing the little gold star on her canine tooth.
“I have my sources.”
She lifts up her left hand and spreads her fingers slightly. Her ring finger boasts a shiny gold ring that I never noticed before.
“My fiancé’s name is Daniel Berggren,” she says smugly.
Now I get it. The policeman’s reactions when we were sitting in the kitchen. How irritated and disbelieving Officer Berggren sounded when we accused Ms. Granberg of abducting Axel.
Whoops. I feel my jaw go slack.
Ms. Granberg laughs.
“Blaming Axel’s disappearance on me probably wasn’t the smartest idea.”
I stand up to leave, but Ms. Granberg stops me.
“That scarf,” she says. “You wear it indoors too?”
It’s a question, not a statement.
“May I see?” She has guessed what I’m hiding underneath.
I’m not sure it’s the right thing to do, but can’t think of a reason to say no. So I pull down the scarf.
Ms. Granberg sits completely still and studies the smooth slits in my neck. The wounds have healed, but the gills haven’t closed over. I’ve made sure of it. I’ve been practicing over the break, floating below the surface and letting the water flow freely through the openings.
As soon as I was back on my feet, I went into the water.
“Gills?” she says finally.
I nod and pull the scarf back up to my chin, then hesitate for a few seconds.
The Nurmand?r slumber deeply in their grave. The voice in my head promised that they wouldn’t return for a very long time.
I want to believe it. But every time I’m by the sea, I can’t help but check for them.
I taste the water to make sure that the horror hasn’t returned. I listen tensely for the telltale splash of razor-sharp black fins.
They are dormant now. I have to trust that fact.
But then, who are the ones who know that I exist now?
The voice’s final whispering words repeat in my mind.
Now everyone knows you exist
When I lie in bed at night, I can’t stop the questions swirling around my head. What awaits me? What’s next? Where is the real Tuva?
Somehow, somewhere, I hope that there are more like me. That I’m not the last of my kind. All alone.
Maybe Ms. Granberg knows, but I don’t dare ask her. I can’t face hearing the answer—not yet. First I have to gather my strength, practice my new skills.
Grow strong.
So I stand up, open the door, and give Ms. Granberg a nod. “See you later.”
The aromas of lunch waft through the air as I walk toward the cafeteria. It smells like stew. I hope there’s still bread left.
What a relief. The freedom to worry about such a little thing.
When I pass the large window opposite the gym hall, I suddenly glimpse a small figure reflected in the glass.
I stop and turn around. Squint in the sunlight.
Faint background chatter comes from the cafeteria. Slowly, I realize what I’m looking at.
The gnome is hardly noticeable, standing there at the edge of the woods, at the beginning of the path.
His gray woolen clothes blend in with the trees behind him, and his beady eyes are like peppercorns in his little face.
His leathery skin is the color of old firewood. He’s not much larger than a cat.
He doffs his cap in greeting, as if he has been waiting for me to notice him for a very long time.
Then he scuttles away, hidden among the shadows.