It’s like the nordic museum said katarina who was savvier about things like museums than the rest of us. Her dad was in management at mo&domsjö. No simple working stiff or small-holder like father.

We wandered round in the house. Opened cupboards. Snooped in wardrobes breathless with excitement and dread. Behind the kitchen a sitting room and then the bestroom. Just as things were in most smalångerhouses. Furniture stood in places where furniture always stood. They even had a telly set.

The stairs to the first floor were wide and worn. We went up the creaking steps together. A pair of plainly furnished bedrooms wall to wall one looked like a child’s room the other the room where the parents slept. No one had had time to make the beds.

So effing weird johan whispered. As if they had just been in the house and decided to go on a trip. Shouldn’t we leave soon katarina whispered back. What if they suddenly turn up.

Don’t be a coward I said and opened the door to the last room on the first floor. Unlike the other two its door was properly shut. 70When katarina was scared I was brave and the other way round in perfect harmony.

It was a weaving room.

The loom stood in the middle of the floor. A rag rug sat in the warp. A ball of thin strips cut from old jeans had rolled out of its basket.

We followed its course with our eyes. The ball had stopped against a body on the floor. A skeleton with ribs askew pointing at the ceiling. Katarina ran first or maybe I did. We got out on the veranda in what seemed a few steps. Someone slammed the door behind us and then we ran all the way to the afta hill then up it until we were furthest out on the steepest part. It was steaming with the scent of wild rosemary heather and bog myrtle. The midges were biting in huge swarms.

So fucking awful tony said again. Poor dog. I think it was a dog. A frightened thirsty hungry dog that had been playing with a ball of clothstrips until it realised nobody would come for it.

71

THIRTEEN

John stomped through the snow to the rickety veranda. I followed in his fitstaps. He swept the snow from the seat and sat down.

I’ve been in here once I said. One summer. We found the skeleton of a dog and the beds weren’t made. Maybe you know what happened to the family who lived here.

Didn’t you know he said sounding surprised. They were called holmström. Two kids. They actually came from holmsund but settled here because the man had got a job at mo&do. They rented this place. The site was split off from johansson’s land. Their youngest was born here.