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Sorry I left you and sorry for this bloody cancer. Sorry I was a shit moor than a not-shit sometimes.

Sorry I have to dye. Sorry I dyed. Sorry I got old.

I luv you more than 10000 eternities of fairytails. Tell Halfie the fairytails! And protect the castel! Protect your frends because they will protect you. The castel is yours now. No one is braver and wyser and stronger than you. You are the best of us all. Grow up and be diffrent and don't let anyone tell you not to be diffrent, because all superheros are diffrent. And if they mess with you then kick them in the fusebox! Live and larf and dream and bring new fairytails to Miamas. I will wait there. Maybe grandad as well -- buggered if I know. But it's going to be a grate adventure anyways.

To my knight Elsa.

Sorry I was mad.

Epilogues in fairy tales are also difficult. Even more difficult than endings. Because although they aren't necessarily supposed to give you all the answers, it can be a bit unsatisfying if they stir up even more questions. Because life, once the story has ended, can be both very simple and very complicated.

Damn, how I luv you.

Granny's spelling really was atrocious.

I luv you.

Harry is christened in a little chapel in the churchyard where Granny and the wurse are buried. Mum insists on all the windows being kept open, even though it's snowing outside, so everyone can see.

"And what will the boy's name be?" asks the vicar, who's also an accountant and a doctor and, it's emerged, works a bit on the side as a librarian.

Elsa celebrates her eighth birthday with Dad and Lisette. Dad drinks three glasses of mulled wine and dances the "spruce dance." Lisette and Elsa watch Star Wars. Lisette knows all the dialogue off by heart. The boy with a syndrome and his mum are there, and they laugh a lot, because that is how you overcome fears. Maud bakes cookies and Alf is in a bad mood and Lennart gives Lisette and Dad a new coffee percolator. Lennart noticed that Lisette and Dad's coffee percolator has loads of buttons, and Lennart's is better because it only has one button. Dad seems to appreciate this observation.

And it's getting better. It's going to be fine.

"Harry," says Mum, smiling.

"He doesn't need any godparents! He has a big sister!"

"And will the child have godparents?"

Elsa snorts loudly.

And she knows that people in the real world don't understand that sort of thing. But in Miamas a newborn doesn't get a godparent, newborns get a Laugher instead. After the child's parents and granny and a few other people that Elsa's granny, when she was telling Elsa the story, didn't seem to think were terribly important, the Laugher is the most important person in a child's life in Miamas. And the Laugher is not chosen by the parents, because Laughers are far too important to be chosen by parents. It's the child who does the choosing. So when a child is born in Miamas, all the family's friends come to the cot and tell stories and pull faces and dance and sing and make jokes, and the first one to make the child laugh becomes the Laugher. The Laugher is personally responsible for making it happen as often and as loudly and in as many situations as possible, particularly those that cause embarrassment to the parents.

The vicar nods and winks at Elsa.

They go back to the house, where the people continue to live their lives. Once every other week, Alf gets into Taxi and drives Maud and Lennart to a large building where they get to sit in a little room and wait for a very long time. And when Sam enters through a small door with two large security guards, Lennart gets out some coffee and Maud produces some cookies. Because cookies are the most important thing.

Of course, Elsa knows very well that everyone will tell her Harry is too small to understand the whole thing about having a big sister. But when she looks down at him in her arms, the two of them know damned well that it's the first time he's laughing.

And probably a lot of people think Maud and Lennart shouldn't do that, and that types like Sam shouldn't even be allowed to live, let alone eat cookies. And those people are probably right. And they're probably wrong too. But Maud says she's firstly a grandmother and secondly a mother-in-law and thirdly a mother, and this is what grandmothers and mothers-in-law and mothers do. They fight for the good. And Lennart drinks coffee and agrees. And Maud bakes cookies, because when the darkness is too heavy to bear and too many things have been broken in too many ways to ever be fixed again, Maud doesn't know what weapon to use if one can't use dreams.

So that's what she does. One day at a time. One dream at a time. And one could say it's right and one could say it's wrong. And probably both would be right. Because life is both complicated and simple.

Wolfheart comes back to the house on New Year's Eve. The police have decided it was self-defense even though everyone knows it wasn't himself he was protecting. That could also be right or wrong, possibly.

Which is why there are cookies.

He stays on in his flat. The woman in jeans stays on in hers. And they do what they can. Try to learn to live with themselves, try to live rather than just existing. They go to meetings. They tell their stories. No one knows if this is the way they are going to mend everything that's broken inside them, but at least it's a way towards something. It helps them breathe. They have dinner with Elsa and Harry and Mum and George every Sunday. Everyone in the house does. Sometimes Green-eyes also comes. She's surprisingly good at telling stories. And the boy with a syndrome still doesn't talk, but he teaches them all how to dance beautifully.

"Yes," mutters Alf.

"I've been a bloody idiot," mutters Kent.

Alf wakes up one morning because he's thirsty. He gets up and has some coffee and is just on his way back to bed when there's a knock on the door. He opens it, taking a deep slug of coffee. Looks at his brother for a long time. Kent is supporting himself on a crutch and looking back at him.

Kent's fingers grip the crutch even harder.

They stand there in craggy silence, with a whole life of conflict between them. As brothers do.

"You want some coffee, or what?" grunts Alf.

"If you have some ready," grunts Kent.

"The company went bankrupt six months ago."

And then they drink coffee. As brothers do. Sit in Alf's kitchen and compare postcards from Britt-Marie. Because she writes to them both every week. As women like Britt-Marie do.

They all still have a residents' meeting once every month in the room on the bottom floor. They all argue, as ever. Because it's a normal house. By and large. And neither Granny nor Elsa would have wanted it any other way.

A few days go by. Maybe a few weeks. But after that, one by one, other different children start tagging along with Alex and Elsa in the playground and corridors. Until there are so many of them that no one dares to chase them anymore. Until they're an army in themselves. Because if a sufficient number of people are different, no one has to be normal.

Elsa will always love her for that.

The Christmas holidays come to an end and Elsa goes back to school. She knots her gym shoes tightly and carefully tightens the straps of her backpack as children like Elsa do after the Christmas holidays. But Alex starts in her class that day and she is also different. They become best friends immediately, as you only can when you've just turned eight, and they never have to run away again. When they're called into the headmaster's office the first time that term, Elsa has a black eye and Alex has scratch marks on her face. When the headmaster sighs and tells Alex's mum that she "has to try to fit in," Alex's mum tries to throw the globe at him. But Elsa's mum gets there first.

Because all seven-year-olds deserve superheroes.

When they go back in, Elsa and Alex are also dressed up as princesses. Spider-Man princesses.

And after that, they're the boy's superheroes.

In the autumn, the boy with a syndrome starts in the first year. When there's a costume party, he comes dressed up as a princess. A group of older boys laugh and make fun of him, until he starts crying. Elsa and Alex notice this and take him outside into the parking area and Elsa calls her dad. He arrives with a bag of new clothes.

And whoever disagrees with that needs their head examined.