A STIFFENED WELCOMING committee of tombstones stood just inside the cemetery gate. Anette walked closer. A dark stone named The Deaf-Mute Bengtsson Sisters, followed by their first names and birth and death dates.

How little space we take up when we die, she thought. A stone with a few words and some numbers to cover a whole life story.

She lifted her gaze and saw Mads Teigen standing on the hill’s highest point, in front of the church, looking out over the town below. In the sunlight, his body drew a sturdy silhouette against the sky, like a mythological hero with strong arms. The little hairs on Anette’s arms stood up. Here by the church, far from the bustling harbor area, it was deserted and they were all alone. The thought made her feel strange, as if she were seeing herself from the outside, a woman and a man with no onlookers.

“Enough now!” Anette snapped out loud to herself, and kicked at a box hedge. She continued along the path behind the church without waiting for her traveling companion. One of her strengths had always been the ability to see the big picture without emotional quivers, but now it seemed as if her thoughts were all backing up. Maybe some vital part of her brain cells had been lost while breastfeeding or from the lack of sleep.

Behind the church the burial sites extended toward a wilderness of trees and bushes that continued along the ridge of the hill. Footpaths were trampled down in the tall grass, and the air hummed with insects. Anette tromped through the idyll, still flummoxed by her unwelcome reflections, and so preoccupied with her own thoughts that she didn’t see him till she practically stepped on his foot.

A young man lay in a clearing between the bushes. He was naked, his skin gleaming an unnatural white in all the yellowy greens around him. Next to him was a backpack and articles of clothing strewn about like wreckage on a stormy sea.

Anette instinctively took a step back and tried to get her shocked breathing under control. She could hear Mads approaching from behind her and held up a warning hand to slow him down in time.

“He’s here.” She whispered without at all knowing why. Some strange form of respect, maybe.

He caught up, and they both bent down over the body in the grass. Just a big kid, really, with a hint of stubble on his jaw and grass stains on his skinny knees. His hair was dark and his face covered in freckles. A deep snore broke the concentrated silence in the clearing.

“Well, at least he’s not dead,” Mads commented dryly.

Anette couldn’t hold back a relieved smile.

“What are you doing here?” A young girl appeared from the bushes, wearing only her underwear. “Gösta, wake up!”