Meriem was standing in the doorway looking at them, perplexed. Sara wrapped the bedspread around her shoulders and got out of bed, squatting down to hug her daughter. Jeppe disappeared under the covers.

“Aw, sweetie, well, it’s over now. Come on, let’s put you back to bed. I’ll sit with you for a bit.”

Sara carried Meriem into the bedroom that the two girls shared and tucked her into the floral bedding in the bottom bunk. She sat on the edge of the bed, holding her daughter’s hand, and tried to stifle her irritation that she couldn’t just let Meriem sleep in the double bed with her. Would it be different if Jeppe were her father? Or just a little bit more interested?

She stayed, looking at Meriem, feeling the warmth of her small palm. When she finally slept again, Sara snuck back into her own bedroom.

Jeppe had fallen asleep.

Darkness surrounds the boy’s body like a heavy quilt, stifling. He closes his eyes and opens them again, but it makes no difference. His heart is racing in his chest. He tries to breathe slowly to calm himself down, but the blindness makes it hard. It is cold around him, and he is shivering in his thin denim jacket. He tries to stop himself from shaking, knowing that it will only make him feel colder.

It is a claustrophobic little room. The ceiling is low, the space cramped. It is hard to get his bearings in the dark. The walls crumble under his fingers, and it is dripping from the ceiling. He can hear the ocean, but he can’t see it anymore. He is hungry. And tired.

He sits down on the floor and leans against the wall. He tries not to think too much about the confined space or the darkness; that is no use. There is no way out. He is trapped.

The boy knows he is here to die. He has given up hope and just wishes it will happen quickly now, that his suffering won’t drag on.

He knows what awaits.

When his heart stops, the blood in his body will stop circulating and slowly cool down to the temperature of his surroundings. His skin will grow clammy and change color, turning pale and yellowish. His eyes will either be closed or open, the whites reddish and runny. Livor mortis will appear first where his body is in contact with the surface below. If a long time passes before they find him, the pathologists will scoop reddish, yellowish fluid out of his lung cavities with a ladle.

The boy tries to think of the process as natural, like a biology assignment, a condition of getting to be alive at all. But he is still scared. Not so much of what awaits on the other side, but of what he has to go through before then.

SUNDAY, APRIL 14

CHAPTER 7