英语小说网

Every fairy tale has a dragon. Thanks to Granny, that is…

Elsa is having terrible nightmares tonight. She's always dreaded closing her eyes and no longer being able to get to the Land-of-Almost-Awake. The worst thing would be a dreamless sleep. But this is the night she learns of something even worse. Because she can't get to the Land-of-Almost-Awake, and yet she dreams about it. She can see it clearly from above, as if she's lying on her stomach on top of a huge glass dome, peering down at it. Without being able to smell any smells or hear any laughter or feel the rush of wind over her face when the cloud animals take off. It's the most terrifying dream of all the eternities.

She sees all the princes and princesses and the wurses and the dream hunters and the sea-angel and the innocent people of the Land-of-Almost-Awake running for their lives. Behind them the shadows are closing in, banishing imagination and leaving nothing but death as they pass. Elsa tries to find Wolfheart in the inferno, but he's gone. Cloud animals, mercilessly butchered, lie in the ashes. All of Granny's tales are burning.

Miamas is burning.

Elsa wakes up when she throws herself out of the bed and lands facedown against the floor. She cowers there, her chest heaving, her hands covering her throat. It feels as if millions of eternities have passed before she can trust that she's back in the real world. She's not had a single nightmare since Granny and the cloud animals first brought her to the Land-of-Almost-Awake. She had forgotten how nightmares feel. She stands up, sweaty and exhausted, checks to see that she's not been bitten by one of the shadows, and tries to get her thoughts into order.

One figure wanders among the shadows. A slim man enveloped in a cloud of cigarette smoke. That's the only scent Elsa can smell up there on top of the dome, the smell of Granny's tobacco. Suddenly the figure looks up and two clear blue eyes penetrate the haze. A shroud of mist seeps between his thin lips. Then he points directly at Elsa, his forefinger deformed into a gray claw, and he shouts something, and in the next moment hundreds of shadows launch themselves from the ground and engulf her.

"I see! But surely you understand, Ulrika, that it's a bit odd for them to be calling you. Why don't they call Kent? Kent is actually the chairman of this residents' association and I am in charge of information, and it's common practice for the accountant to call the chairman with these types of errands. Not just any old person!"

She hears someone talking in the hall and has to muster all her powers of concentration to scatter the mists of sleep and be able to hear what's happening.

Elsa opens the bedroom door and stands in her pajamas in the doorway. Not only Britt-Marie is standing there in the hall; Lennart and Maud and Alf are also there. Samantha is sleeping on the landing. Mum is wearing only her dressing gown, hurriedly tied across her belly. Maud catches sight of Elsa and smiles mildly, with a cookie tin in her arms. Lennart gulps from a coffee thermos.

Elsa understands that "any old person" is an insult. Mum's sigh as she answers is so deep that it feels as if Elsa's sheets are ruffled by the draft:

"I don't know why they called me, Britt-Marie. But the accountant said he would come here today to explain everything."

"So the landlords have suddenly had the notion that they might be willing to sell the flats to us? After all the years that Kent has been writing them letters! Now they have suddenly decided! Just like that, easy-peasy? And then they contact you instead of Kent? That's curious, don't you find that curious, Ulrika?"

For once Alf doesn't look entirely in a bad mood, which means he only looks irritated in an everyday way. He nods curtly at Elsa, as if she has forced him into a secret. Only then does Elsa remember that she left him and the wurse in the garage yesterday when she ran up to the flat. Panic wells up inside of her, but Alf glares at her and makes a quick "stay calm" gesture, so that's what she tries to do. She looks at Britt-Marie and tries to figure out if she's worked up today because she has found the wurse, or if it's a quite normal fuss about the usual Britt-Marie stuff. It seems to be the latter, thank God, but directed at Mum.

Mum tightens her dressing gown sash. "Maybe they couldn't get hold of Kent. And maybe since I've lived here so long they thought --"

"Isn't Kent away on a business trip?" asks Mum.

"Granny has lived here the longest," Elsa mumbles, but no one seems to hear her. Especially not Britt-Marie.

"We've actually lived here the longest, Ulrika. Kent and I have lived here longer than anyone else!"

Britt-Marie pauses at this and nods imperceptibly.

"Alf has lived in the house the longest," Mum corrects her.

"Maybe that's why they didn't get hold of him. That's why I called you as soon as I hung up after speaking to the acc --"

"But surely it's common practice to contact the chairperson of the leaseholders' association!" says Britt-Marie with consternation.

"It isn't a leaseholders' association yet," Mum sighs.

"But it will be!"

"And that is what the landlords' accountant wants to come and talk about today -- he says they're finally willing to convert our rental contracts into leaseholds. That's what I've been trying to tell you. As soon as I'd hung up the phone after talking to him, I contacted you. And then you woke up the whole house and now here we are. What more do you want me to do, Britt-Marie?"

"What sort of nonsense is that, coming here on a Saturday? Surely one doesn't have meetings like this on a Saturday, surely one doesn't, Ulrika? Do you think one does? Probably you do, Ulrika!"

"Well we can't have the meeting without Kent," Britt-Marie splutters.

Mum massages her temples. Britt-Marie inhales and exhales fairly demonstratively and turns to Lennart and Maud and Alf for support. Maud tries to smile encouragingly. Lennart offers Britt-Marie a shot of coffee while they are waiting. Alf looks as if he's now approaching his usual level of ill-humor.

"No, of course, only if Kent can make it back," Mum agrees exhaustedly. "Why don't you try calling him again?"

Alf grunts something behind them. Britt-Marie spins around. Alf pushes his hands into his jacket pockets and grunts something again.

"His plane hasn't landed yet! He's actually on a business trip, Ulrika!"

"Sorry?" say Mum and Britt-Marie at the same time, but in diametrically opposed tones of voice.

"I'm just bloody saying that I sent Kent a text twenty minutes ago when you started making a bloody racket about this, and he got back to tell me he's on his bloody way," says Alf, and then adds, "The idiot wouldn't miss this for all the tea in China."

George comes out of the kitchen behind Mum, wearing jogging shorts, a very green sweater, and an even greener apron. He gives them an amused look, while holding a smoking frying pan.

"Ja, Klaus! JA! We will dizcuzz thiz in Frankfurt!"

Britt-Marie seems not to hear the last bit. She brushes invisible dust from her skirt and folds her hands and gives Alf a superior glance, because she knows quite clearly that it's impossible for Kent to be on his way here, because, in fact, his plane hasn't landed yet and, in fact, he's on a business trip. But then there comes the sound of the door slamming on the ground floor and Kent's footsteps. You can tell they're Kent's because someone is screaming German into a telephone, the way Nazis speak in American films.

"Anyone want some breakfast? I've made eggs." He looks as if he's going to add that there are also some newly bought protein bars on offer, but seems to change his mind when he realizes they may run out.

Britt-Marie immediately sets off down the stairs to meet him and tell him about the impudence that's been impudent enough to take place here in his absence.

"I've brought some cookies," says Maud expansively, giving Elsa the whole tin and patting her tenderly on the cheek. "You have that, I can get some more," she whispers and walks into their flat.

Kent strides up the stairs and appears in the doorway. He is wearing jeans and an expensive jacket. Elsa knows that because Kent usually tells her how much his clothes cost, as if he's awarding points in the final of the Eurovision Song Contest. Britt-Marie hurries along behind him, mumbling repeatedly, "The rudeness, the sheer rudeness of not calling you, of just calling any old person. Isn't that just so rude? Things can't be allowed to go on like this, Kent."

"I want to know exactly what the accountant said when he called."

"Is there coffee?" asks Lennart nervously, having another shot of standby coffee as he follows her.

Kent doesn't really acknowledge his wife's raving, but points dramatically at Elsa's mum.

But before Mum has time to say anything, Britt-Marie brushes off some invisible dust from Kent's arm, and whispers to him in a radically changed tone of voice. "Maybe you should go down first and change your shirt, Kent?"

"Please, Britt-Marie, we're doing business here," Kent says dismissively, more or less like Elsa when Mum wants her to wear something green.

Mum opens her mouth to try to say something again, but Kent catches sight of George.

"I can throw it in the machine, come along, Kent. There are freshly ironed shirts in your wardrobe. You really can't be wearing a wrinkly shirt when the accountant comes, Kent, what will the accountant think of us then? Will he think we can't iron our shirts?" She laughs nervously.

She looks crestfallen.

"Ah! You've got eggs?" Kent bursts out enthusiastically.

Mum ties the sash of her dressing gown round her a little tighter, and says, with a deeply controlled sigh, "Just come on in, all of you. Make yourselves at home."

George nods with satisfaction. Kent immediately darts past Mum into the flat. Britt-Marie hurries after him with a frown. When she passes Mum, Britt-Marie looks bothered as she lets slip, "Oh well, when one is busy with a career like you are, Ulrika, there's no time to clean, of course not." Even though every inch of the flat is in perfect order.

Elsa dives into her room and changes out of her pajamas into jeans as quick as she can, so she can run down and check on the wurse in the cellar while everyone is busy up here. Kent interrogates Mum in the kitchen about the accountant, and Britt-Marie echoes him with an "mmm" after every other word.

"Thanks for not saying anything about the…" she starts to say, but she stops herself before she has to say "wurse."

The only one who stays in the front hall is Alf. Elsa sticks her thumbs in her jeans pockets and pokes her toes against the edge of the threshold, trying to avoid looking him in the eye.

"I'm not a bloody kid!" snaps Elsa.

Alf shakes his head grumpily.

"Touché," Elsa whispers at the threshold.

"You shouldn't have rushed off like that. If you've taken that animal on, you have to bloody shoulder your responsibility for it, even if you're a kid."

"So quit behaving like one, then."

"The animal is in the storage unit. I've put up some sheets of plywood so people can't see inside. Told it to keep its mouth shut. I think it got the point. But you have to find a better hiding place. People will find it sooner or later," says Alf.

"The bloody leaseholds."

"What are they talking about?" she asks Alf, with a nod towards the kitchen, to shake off the thought.

Alf snorts.

Elsa understands that when he says "people" he means Britt-Marie. And she knows he's right. She has a terribly bad conscience about abandoning the wurse yesterday. Alf could have called the police and they would have shot it. Elsa abandoned it like Granny abandoned Mum, and this scares her more than any nightmares.

"What does it mean?"

"Jesus, I can't stand here explaining everything," he groans. "The difference between a rental contract and a leasehold in a bloo --"

"I'm asking what it means; why are they all talking about it!" Elsa clarifies, in the way one clarifies things without being very clear at all.

"I know what a bloody leasehold is, I'm not bloody thick," says Elsa.

"Why are you asking, then?" says Alf defensively.

"Kent has been going on about these sodding leaseholds ever since he moved back in, he won't be satisfied until he can wipe his ass with the money he's shat out first," explains Alf, in the manner of one who doesn't know very many seven-year-olds. At first Elsa is going to ask what Alf meant when he said that Kent "moved back in," but she decides to take one thing at a time.

"And that's what Kent wants, the bastard. He's always wanted to move out of here."

Elsa ponders. Alf creaks his leather jacket.

"Won't we all make money? You and Mum and George and all of us?"

"What?"

"If we sell the flats and move, yeah," grunts Alf.

That is why she's having all these nightmares, she realizes. Because if the creatures from the Land-of-Almost-Awake turn up in the house now, then maybe the house will start to become a part of the Land-of-Almost-Awake, and if they all want to sell their flats, then…

The door slamming at the bottom of the house echoes through the stairwell. Then discreet footsteps, heading up. It's the accountant.

"Then we won't be escaping Miamas. We'll be leaving of our own free will," says Elsa out loud to herself.

Britt-Marie drowns out Kent's voice in the kitchen. She doesn't get any response from Kent insofar as the shirt change goes, so she compensates with a lot of indignation about other things. There is a rich supply of such topics. It's difficult for her to decide which is most upsetting, of course, but she has time to run through several matters, including her threat to call the police if Elsa's mum doesn't immediately move Granny's car from Britt-Marie's space in the garage, and also that Britt-Marie will make the police break the lock of the stroller that's still chained up by the entrance, and that she won't hesitate to put pressure on the landlord to put up cameras on the stairs, so they can stop the vile malpractice of people coming and going as they please and putting up notices without first informing the head of information. She's interrupted by the very short man with the very friendly face now standing in the doorway, knocking tentatively against the doorframe.

"Nothing," mumbles Elsa.

The accountant points amicably at his briefcase and makes an amicable gesture towards the kitchen.

Kent breaks in impatiently. "So about the leaseholds: what's your price?"

"The door was open," says the accountant amicably.

"Well, well? What about these leaseholds, then?" he demands at once. "What price per square foot are you offering?"

"Please excuse the mess, they're all so preoccupied with their careers in this family," says Britt-Marie well-meaningly. Mum does her absolute best to pretend she didn't hear that. As they all head into the kitchen, Britt-Marie stops, turns to Elsa, and clasps her hands together.

Britt-Marie storms out of the kitchen from behind and points at the accountant accusingly. "How did you get in?"

And when he catches sight of Elsa, he winks at her. As if they share a secret. Or at least Elsa thinks that's what he means.

"Should we sit down, perhaps?"

"I'm the accountant," he says amicably.

"There's coffee," Lennart says expansively.

Kent steps authoritatively out of the kitchen with his hands on his hips over his overcoat and looks the accountant up and down.

"And cookies," Maud says with a nod.

"And eggs!" George hollers from the kitchen.

She almost asks, "Was it Wolfheart?" and then stops herself, because she can't imagine how Britt-Marie could possibly know that Wolfheart is her friend.

"You do understand, dear, I would obviously never ever think you and your grandmother's friends had anything to do with junkies. Obviously I'm not to know if the gentleman who was looking for you yesterday took drugs or not. That's not at all what I mean to say."

Elsa gawks at her, puzzled.

"What? What friends? Who was asking for me yesterday?"

"Your friend who was here looking for you yesterday. The one I jettisoned from the premises. There's a smoking ban on the stairs, you can tell him that. That is not how we behave in this leaseholders' association. I understand that you and your granny have very curious acquaintances, but rules apply to everyone, they really do!" She straightens an invisible wrinkle in her skirt and clasps her hands on her stomach before continuing: "You know who I mean. He was very slim and stood here smoking on the stairs. He was looking for a child, a family friend, he said, and then he described you. He looked exceedingly unpleasant, actually, so I told him that in this leaseholders' association we do not allow smoking indoors."

Because every fairy tale has a dragon.

Elsa's heart shrinks. Consumes all the oxygen in her body. She has to hold on to the doorframe to stop herself collapsing. No one sees her, not even Alf. But she understands what's about to happen in this adventure now.