They speed up. These two half-bald troll-carvers speed up and I look back in horror.

‘What do you want?’ I say.

‘Stop running away, girl’ says Cornelia. ‘You ain’t paid for your mask yet. One thousand.’

She’s right. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, handing over the cash.

‘Ain’t got no receipts, girl. We didn’t see you, you didn’t see us. Look.’

She points an index finger with no nail at her own shopfront. The window is full of trolls. Demonic little shin-high dolls with rat teeth and moustaches made from polecat bristles. One is a curvaceous, girl troll with bright blue eyes pointing in different directions. She has a thatch of dark hair between her legs. Looks like rat fur. They’ve carved the pine heartwood to form cleavage. Wooden cleavage.

‘Thirty-one per cent off,’ says Cornelia.

‘Sale,’ says Alice.

‘One-day special on account of the date,’ says Cornelia.

And then I see the bottle in Alice’s hand. It glints in the streetlight.

It’s not whisky or brandy. It’s not moonshine or potato wine or homemade vodka.

It’s a plastic bottle of Svensson’s own-brand chainsaw oil.

38

My pillow alarm shakes me awake at seven.

I have the groggy remnants of a bad dream playing on loop in my head. I can’t remember what happened but it feels like it lasted a day and a night. No recollection of the depth of the thing, but I do have an image in my mind’s eye: Cornelia standing at the feet of Arne Persson, keeping lookout. Alice standing at the head end, one calloused hand gripping the pull cord of a chainsaw.

I shower and eat Coco Pops and then I grab my bag and head out.

Something on the mat by my door. Inside my apartment, next to the shelf where I leave my keys each night.

A postcard?

I bend down and pick it up, my hair still a little damp.

It’s a card with a vintage image of Visberg on the front. The square is there, complete with bandstand and statue. The Grill is a pawn broker and the gamer café is a hair salon. Konsum is a greengrocer and the clock shop is a butcher. There are whole sides of pork hanging from hooks where the alarm clocks are now displayed. The ones Hans Wimmer takes in each night and probably keeps safe down in his basement museum. The Hive is not painted black and yellow, it’s sickly green, and there is no bee on the roof. A cross is bolted above the door but I can’t tell if it’s religious or medical. There are bars on all the windows.

I flip the card over.

Anonymous.

No greeting, no signature.

Text printed by an old-fashioned typewriter.

Roses are red.

Violence is blue.

It’s a heady time of year.

And I want you.

The hairs on my arms stand up.