Harbor by John Lindqvist (classic novels for teens txt) 📕

for a fraction of a second what he was not permitted to see. What this world actually consisted of. He would have fallen on his face in terror or adoration if he hadn’t—

‘Gee up, Daddy!’

—if he hadn’t had to get Maja away from here.

When he jumped down into the boat and placed Maja on the seat, he realised the run had taken no more than a few seconds. He had come out on to the rocks and thought that they looked slippery, and then he was past them without even noticing how it had happened.

He started the engine and just about managed to turn the boat, and then they had reached Gåvasten. Distances were being drawn in on themselves, and everything was getting closer to everything else.

Gåvasten was still there. The white lighthouse still extended up towards the sky, which was now as dark as night, but when Anders turned around towards Domarö, the island was only a few dozen metres away. The perspective had shifted. Domarö was the same sizeas when he had seen it from a kilometre away, but he understood that it was closer because he could see the people. Could see their waving arms, their running bodies.

And the height of Domarö continued to diminish. The island was sinking.

‘Come on, sweetheart! Quick as you can!’

Maja crawled out of the prow and jumped down on to the rocky shore. She had seen what he could see, and was frightened. ‘Where are we going?’

She lifted her arms up to him; he picked her up and ran towards the eastern side of the island.

Let it still be there, let it still be there…

The steps were still there, but when he got to the rocks on the eastern side, the sea too had begun to drop the mask, and was in the process of dissolving into a leaden mist with the flight of steps running down through it.

Anders put Maja down; she was hugging Bamse tightly. He crouched down and said as cheerfully as he could manage, ‘Up you come. You can ride on my shoulders.’

Maja stuck her thumb in her mouth and nodded. Anders moved down from the top step, and with some difficulty Maja climbed on to his shoulders with her legs around his neck. She didn’t want to take her thumb out of her mouth, or let go of Bamse. He held on to her knees tightly so that she wouldn’t fall, and started the downward climb.

They were moving in their narrow corridor of air, and the downward climb became an upward climb without him even noticing. Somewhere along the way the steps changed direction and the mist around him turned into water. The sweat was pouring into his eyes; it didn’t occur to him to ask it to stop. His legs were aching, his back, the back of his neck, but he clutched Maja’s knees and kept on moving upwards, constantly afraid that he would trip and fall on the uneven steps.

His lungs were burning by the time he was standing on the rockson the other Gåvasten once again, and every gasping breath brought with it puffs of ingrained tobacco smoke, loosened during his flight. When he crouched down to let Maja slide off his shoulders, he fell over. Maja shrieked and tumbled sideways on to the rocks, but landed on Bamse.

She neither cried nor screamed. She sat there curled up with her eyes open wide and her thumb in her mouth, hugging Bamse. Anders reached out a feeble hand and touched her foot, as if to check that she was really there. She looked at him with those same wide eyes, but said nothing.

The inside of his body was blasted as if it had been in a furnace, he had used up the very last of his strength in running and climbing, and all he could do was lie there full length on the rocks, gasping for breath and looking at his terrified daughter.

She’ll be fine. She doesn’t understand. She’ll be fine.

It wasn’t Anders who was shaking, it was the rock itself. A roaring rumble was rising from the very bowels of the earth, and it was growing in strength. He was lying with his ear to the ground, and he could hear it.

It’s coming…

For a brief moment he had caught sight of it through the webs of illusion in which it concealed itself. The thing that held the people captive, the thing that needed their strength in order to live and grow. The threat from the underworld, the spirit of the sea, or the creature whose presence gave rise to legends. The monster.

There was no point in trying to describe it. It was great power and many-headed vision, a black muscle with millions of eyes, blind and without a body. It did not exist. It was all that existed.

The vibrations in the rock were transmitted into Anders’ skull. His little brain splashed around inside trying to frame an idea of what he had been through, but without success. The important thing was not to be here when it came.

Anders rolled over on to his back and sat up, placed a hand on Maja’s knee. He didn’t really have the strength, but as some sergeanthad said to him during his military service, ‘You’re going to run until even your own mother thinks you’re dead, and then you’re going to run a little bit more.’

His mother was out of the picture, he had only himself to rely on, and he didn’t think he was dead. So there must be something left inside him. He wiped the sweat from his eyes and looked out across the ice-covered sea.

The birds…

They were no longer circling around the island, but they had not disappeared completely as in the other place. The whole flock had now gathered in an area about a hundred metres to the east. Many were flying around as before, but even more were standing on the ice, walking restlessly to and fro as if waiting for something.

There