The old-fashioned sleigh bed was full of dolls, huddling close together. They were all girls and all wore dresses and all had coiffed, shiny hair and a few of them looked very old and sensible.

The old lady’s paltry clothes were hung on a hook, a tattered gingham dress and a pile jacket. Her wig had fallen down and lay on the floor like an abandoned bird’s nest. Lennart picked it up and hung it back on the hook. Then he stomped his foot hard on the floor and tramped about until the tiny creatures who had been spying on him had darted out of the cabin. The last one to slink over the threshold was a field vole with a fat tail.

‘You can come in if you want.’

The wolf stood outside with its long nose pointed at the wet ground, glowering at him. Then it turned its head. It had heard something; Lennart stepped out to see what it might be.

They were on their way down to the kennel. Frode was carrying the old woman on his back and Fanny was stumbling after with the little boy in her arms.

‘There he is!’

When Frode had put Grete down and handed her her crutch, she waved the wolf over and eventually it padded up to her.

‘This, you see, Rune, this was the home of an adorable little old lady called Uksakka. But she’s gone now. And she’s probably never coming back.’

Grete disappeared into the cabin.

‘Come, let’s go inside so you can have a look. It’s very cosy! Very cosy.’

Fanny had set the boy down on the ground. He was sitting on his bottom, scratching at his bandaged cheek with his sock-wrapped hand. Lennart looked at the child and then looked away.

Kiruna had got it in her head…

Kiruna had got it in her head that walking was difficult for Susso and took her task of leading her down to the cabin very seriously.

Diana hadn’t been out in ages, but it was mostly the same. The diminutive red houses, scattered among the pines. The monumental brick firepit, the wagon wheel patio railing. On top of a cable reel her mother had painted lilac was a tin tub crammed full of petunias that trembled feebly in the wind and far below in the valley, the lake could be seen as a bare, grey clearing in the dense forest.