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

fading glow of the torch. Both were exhausted by the unfamiliar storms of emotion, and their hearts were aching with the unaccustomed exercise. They held hands and that was conversation enough, but once they had emerged from the forest, Simon said, ‘I want to know.’

Anna-Greta squeezed his hand.

‘I’ll tell you.’

When they were back in Anna-Greta’s house they flopped on the sofa for a while, regaining their strength. It was as if they were shy, and found it difficult to look each other in the eye. Every time it happened they smiled hesitantly at one another.

Like teenagers, thought Simon. Teenagers on Mum and Dad’s sofa.

Perhaps teenagers didn’t behave like that nowadays, but to keep the analogy consistent Simon went into the kitchen and fetched a bottle of wine. To lighten the atmosphere. Loosen tongues and…make things happen.

Not like that, though, no thank you. That would just be…

He paused with the corkscrew halfway to the cork. Was it three days ago he and Anna-Greta last made love? It felt like much longer. But the fact they were behaving like teenagers didn’t mean their bodies were singing from the same sheet.

The cork was stuck. Simon pulled as hard as he could, and realised that wasn’t actually all that hard.

As I said…

He took the bottle in to Anna-Greta, who sat up, pushed the bottle firmly between her thighs and managed to extract the cork. As if to excuse Simon, she said, ‘It was stuck pretty firmly.’

Simon sank down on to the sofa. ‘Mm.’

Anna-Greta poured and they both took a sip, rolled the wine around their mouths and swallowed. The unaccustomed taste remained on his tongue, and Simon sighed with pleasure. He didn’t often drink wine these days. He gave Anna-Greta a challenging look; she put down her glass and rested her hands on her knee.

‘Where shall I start?’

‘Start with the question I asked you. Why didn’t people move away, why don’t people move away? And what did you mean when you said you didn’t tell me for my own good? Why has no one—’

Anna-Greta raised her hand to stop him. She picked up her glass again, took a tiny sip, then ran her finger round the rim.

‘In a way it’s the same question,’ she said. ‘If I tell you this, you won’t be able to move away from here either.’ She glanced out at the dark sea. ‘Although it’s probably already happened. You probably can’t leave.’

Simon tilted his head on one side. ‘Like I said. I have no intention of going anywhere. You don’t need to scare me into staying.’

Anna-Greta gave a wan smile. ‘It comes looking for us. If we try to leave this island, there is a considerable risk that it will come looking for us.’

‘“It”’, Simon interrupted. ‘What do you mean by “it”?’

‘The sea. It comes looking for us and it takes us. Wherever we are.’

Simon shook his head dubiously. ‘But you go to Norrtälje, you go to Stockholm sometimes. We go over to Finland on the ferry, you and I. It’s all been fine, up to now.’

‘Mm. But you’ve suggested going further afield now and again. To Majorca, places like that. And I’ve said no, because…then it might think I’m trying to get away.’

Anna-Greta licked her index finger, ran it around the rim of the glass and produced a sound. A lonely, wailing sound rose from the glass and spread through the room like the voice of a ghost. A perfect note, so pure and clear that it seemed to strengthen itself by using the air as a sound-box. Simon placed his hand on Anna-Greta’s finger to silence it.

‘But this sounds crazy,’ he said. ‘You mean the sea goes ashore and finds you? That just doesn’t happen.’

‘It doesn’t need to,’ said Anna-Greta. ‘It exists everywhere. It’s connected to everything. The sea. The water. It doesn’t need to go anywhere. It already exists everywhere.’

Simon took a bigger swig of wine. He thought back to the experience he had had the previous day. When he held Spiritus in his hand and saw how the water ran through everything, how everything basically consisted of water. Now he widened the perspective in his mind, and saw all the seas connected by rivers, creeks, streams. The veins of water running through the bedrock, the bogs and the pools. Water, water, everywhere.

It’s right so far, but…

‘I’m just wondering what you mean by “take”. How does it “take” you?’

‘We drown. In the most unreasonable places. In a little creek. In a puddle. In a handbasin.’ Simon frowned and was about to ask the logical follow-up question, but Anna-Greta pre-empted him, ‘No. I have no idea how it happens. Nobody has. But those who…belong to Domarö and try to get away…they are found drowned, sooner or later. Usually. Those who stay, survive. Usually.’

Simon placed his hand on top of Anna-Greta’s, which was still resting on the rim of her glass. ‘But this just sounds completely—’

‘It doesn’t matter what it sounds like. That’s the way it is. We know that. And now you know it too. To use a word that has fallen out of use, we are damned. And we live with it.’

Simon folded his arms over his chest and flopped back against the sofa. It was a lot to take in at once, to put it mildly. The answers he had been given led to even more questions, and he didn’t feel as if he could cope with much more tonight. The small amount of wine he had drunk was enough to make him sleepy, since he wasn’t used to it.

He closed his eyes and tried to see everything in front of him. The fishermen who had made their pact with the sea, how it had continuedand propagated itself over the years, continued and spread like the sea itself, seeping into every crack.

Seeping into…

He smacked his lips as he thought about the water he had drunk from the well at the burnt-down house. The faint taste of salt, the sea that had found its way in.