SET ME AS A SEAL UPON YOUR HEART
Set me as a seal upon your heart,
As a seal upon your arm:
For love is strong as death;
Jealousy is cruel as the grave:
The coals thereof are coals of fire.
Acknowledgement
The book and screenplay, Let the Right One In, the short story, "Let the Old Dreams Die," and the characters and ideas found therein were created by John Ajvide Lindqvist, who wrote the novel, screenplay, and short story upon which Set Me As a Seal upon Your Heart is based.
BOOK ONE
A SEAL UPON HIS HEART
Chapter 1: Urchins
Oskar. Near Dawn.
Minutes from sunrise, pale 12-year-old Oskar lies beside his young companion and waits for her breathing to become light and regular. When the child's purr confirms that she’s asleep, Oskar quietly gets up from their pallet. In their windowless basement room he feels his way to his backpack and takes out a neatly folded sheet of notebook paper. He sets it on the floor beside the pallet and covers it with his Rubik's cube.
His heart is pounding so hard that he wonders it doesn’t wake Eli. As he closes the door behind him and climbs the steps to the first floor of the abandoned house, he experiences the exhilaration of shrugged-off responsibility, the same feeling he used to get when he would stay home from school after his mom left for work.
Although the sun is still below the horizon, the Scandinavian twilight makes the front room of the house as bright as day. Aware that time and distance will be his masters during the next few days and nights, he glances at the big watch on his slender wrist, opens the front door, and sprints to a nearby garden shed a few steps ahead of the sunrise.
After he secures the shed door and checks for light leaks, he takes a heavy blanket from his backpack for extra protection from any cracks he may have overlooked. He covers himself completely and surrenders to unconsciousness.
Eli. Dusk.
Stirring as she wakes, the child reaches to lay her arm across Oskar but finds an empty space on his side of the pallet. With her enhanced senses, she hears only her own beating heart. The old house they’ve used as a hideout for the last few weeks is empty.
She checks the pallet for the impression of Oskar’s body. It's room temperature.
If he had gone out just now, his side of the pallet would still be cool. He must have waited for me to fall asleep. He must have known he could get to a safe place before the sun burned him.
Eli's next thoughts are of things that had irritated her during the past few weeks, such as the times Oskar had declined her invitation to go out and have fun—spying on young lovers from the shadows or creating spooky urban legends by running and shrieking through the woods.
Soon, though, Eli acknowledges that they've both been getting on each other’s nerves. She had argued with Oskar when he announced he wanted to start hunting alone in the rough parts of town, although at one time Eli might have encouraged that as a sign of his growing skill and confidence. And Oskar was unhappy when Eli told him she didn't feel like him reading to her. Neither wanted to play the board games or work the puzzles that the other wanted to.
Eli gets up from the pallet and climbs the basement stairs. She sits on the dusty floor of the front room, draws her knees up, and hugs them to her chest.
He knew he was leaving but he didn’t tell me goodbye. A wave of sadness pushes aside her feeling of irritation, replacing it with grief, which neither child had acknowledged as they grew apart.
Eli's throat tightens and she begins to cry, softly at first, but sobs soon shake her skinny body as her eyes swell and her face becomes a mess of tears and runny nose. She tries to rein in her feelings, but the thought returns—He didn’t even say goodbye. The tears start again and a choked wail competes with the sobs.
When Eli has no more tears and her breathing becomes less ragged, she sits cross-legged with her chin sunk onto her chest. There will be time to wonder how it could have been different, but for now a single thought drives out all others—
He’s gone. My Oskar is gone.
A Child on His Own
Oskar lies covered by his heavy blanket as shadows lengthen and grow indistinct. The sun sets and he wakes. He pushes open the shed door and checks his watch again. Knowing that Eli will be waking, too, he wants to put some distance behind him in case she looks for him. Such fussing over him had become unbearable during the last few months.
Jeez, I've shown her I can hunt on my own and that I'm way past making rookie mistakes. Why can't she just let me be myself? It's like I traded one mom for another.
Oskar steps out into the bright May dusk and allows a smug feeling to push aside other emotions as he thinks about how well he planned his exit from Eli's life. Eli’s mind sure doesn’t work this way. She’d lose interest pretty quick. She doesn’t even have a watch. That's the way Eli is—not caring about where we go, not interested in looking at our map with me.
Oskar wonders whether Eli noticed that their moves during the last few months were bringing them closer to the Stockholm city region. Does she even know where we are right now? Beyond Örebro, the name of the city?
But just thinking about Eli, however ungenerously, triggers the first pangs of loneliness and doubt. The feelings pass. They barely register. And Oskar doesn't feel guilty yet about abandoning his friend. Instead, he experiences a sense of confidence as he concentrates on his task. He lengthens his stride as he nears the outskirts of the old Örebro neighborhood.
The Note
Eli returns to the basement, switches on their lantern, and takes in the room at a glance. She smiles at the puzzles and games still scattered on the dirty floor.
He took his backpack, but he didn't pack any of our stuff in it.
Hey! The Rubik’s cube wasn’t out when we went to sleep. Eli picks up the Rubik's cube and unfolds the note she finds hidden under it.
Eli. My feelings for you haven't changed. I’ve been unhappy for a while and I think we need to go our own way. This way you can stop worrying so much about me. You see I can hunt on my own and not screw up. I know what I’m doing. I have a place nearby I can get to. By the time you read this I’ll be gone from there, too. I have to do it this way so you won’t talk me out of it. I don’t want to talk about it anyway.
Eli's swollen eyes crinkle into a smile. You did say goodbye. Oh Oskar.
But when did he write it? It had to be after he started hunting by himself. And he would have had time to find a place he could get to as he raced against the sunrise.
Hm. He didn’t really say much. I don’t have a clue about why he wanted to leave. But the word clue nudges her like a poke in the ribs. Oskar is my Sherlock, so what clues would he see? Okay, he says he’s unhappy. Duh. What’s this about me worrying about him? Is that what this is about?
A feeling of anger or something like it—frustration maybe—rises in Eli’s chest. We could've talked about that, Oskar. She sees the words, "I know what I’m doing." I know you do. Don’t I tell you how proud I am of you? Don’t I call you my brainiac?
Well, I knew we weren't having fun. I guess I didn’t want to talk about it either. I guess I was thinking we’d get to a new place and things would be okay again.
Is Oskar nearby? Seems like not, since he wrote, “I’ll be gone from there too." He didn't say where he was going though.
Eli switches off the lantern and lies back on the pallet. Folding her arms behind her head, she lets her mind wander. In a minute, a thought intrudes with such certainty that she sits up.
Not Blackeberg! For such a brainiac as Oskar, that would be the dumbest thing ever. Everybody knows his face.
But things start to fall into place. She thinks about their journey during the past year after they fled from Göteborg, where a couple recognized them as they were shopping and trying to blend in. And she remembers the hours Oskar spent pouring over his map, an activity that Eli found to be too static for her restless need for activity.
I'm not any good with maps. Not like Oskar. But weren't the last few moves sort of toward Stockholm?
Her heart races at the thought of Oskar in Blackeberg without her to help him. Okay, Oskar. Right. I worry. But Oskar on his own in Blackeberg? I’d have to be a durn stone to not worry.
Eli jumps up, switches on the lamp, and starts throwing their stuff into her backpack.
Like a Wolf
As Oskar’s long strides take him away from where Eli is just waking, he reviews his decision to choose the longer route along the south shore of the large Lake Hjälmaren.
It would attract attention if I took the main roads north of the lake. Taking the train is out. This close to Stockholm, people will remember my face from the TV and the newspapers—"Missing and Feared Dead."
Oskar smiles as he thinks of the joke he likes to bug Eli with—"Missing and Feared Undead." She always punches him when he says it.
But for more than a year, he and Eli have used dark clothing, shadows, and stealth to make themselves invisible. After a conductor in Karlstad got a look at them and the couple in Göteborg seemed to recognize them, people have gotten no more than a fleeting glimpse of the children.
Eager to reach Blackeberg, Oskar considers what will speed him along his way as well as circumstances that will cost him time. As for his own ability to cover ground, he is confident that no wolf could run more swiftly or tirelessly, especially in open country. Once into the long stretches of forest, maintaining a due east course will take much of his attention.
There are lakes and marshes to skirt. Probably have to backtrack some because of them, but I'll make what progress I can and keep a sharp eye for where I can hole up while I wait out the hours of sunlight.
As he leaves the sparsely settled outskirts of the old neighborhood, Oskar starts to run.
Eli Shops
With all of their stuff now in her backpack and the pallet rolled up, Eli stops. But where is Örebro? This is so not like the old days when I just wandered around wherever I wanted to, following a road or trail from one place to the next.
Eli thinks of the grownup helper she depended on before she met Oskar. This is more like the days of Håkan, but without Håkan. And without my Oskar.
Örebro will have a train station, or at least a bus connection to one. Somebody can point me in the right direction.
But I probably can't just go up to somebody as dirty as I am. Once the restaurants start turning off their lights, I can bathe up by the lake where Oskar and I bathed. Our soap was in his backpack, though. I'll have to buy a bar. I can guess what the clerk will think. "Yeah, you need it, kid." But my clothes will still stink. Well, I know how to buy new clothes.
No steps forward and a bunch of steps back. Buy a bar of soap. Buy pants and a shirt. Sneakers. Get moving before the shops close. Lose a day and somehow still beat Oskar to Blackeberg.
Eli rummages in her backpack and pulls a few banknotes from a roll. She heads for the shops strung out along a road not far from the basement hideout.
The little stores, bypassed by fortune and fashion, hang on as best they can in the old neighborhood. Eli enters a small grocery, walks past dusty shelves, and takes a bar of soap.
A woman standing on line at the single checkout counter frowns at the child and wrinkles her nose. When it's Eli's turn, she hands the clerk a small denomination banknote. He fans the air in front of his face but says nothing as he rings the sale and gives her the change.
Eli steps outside and thinks, One down, a zillion to go.
She spots a variety store at the next bend in the road. When she enters, she finds the children's section and picks a dark top and bottom by holding them up and guessing that they'll fit—the same way she shops when she steals clothes from used clothing bins on the street. She picks a pair of sneakers the same way. As the shopkeeper rings the sale and puts the garments in a bag, he looks Eli up and down. When his eyes meet her steady gaze, he blinks and looks away. He doesn't know what he saw in the child's eyes, and he doesn't want to know.
Uncomfortable about the people in the stores getting a look at her, Eli checks that no one is staring after her, and she keeps to the shadows until she is back in the basement room.
I'll have to hang out until places at the lake close and the restaurants and all turn out their lights. I can’t bathe till they do. This day is shot for getting out of here.
Or of getting any idea of how I'm going to beat Oskar to Blackeberg.
When it grows late enough so there are few lights on near the lake, Eli makes her way to where she and Oskar bathed. After she kicks out of her sneakers and peels off her top and bottom, she wades up to her knees in the frigid water and lathers herself, including her hair, feet, and everything in between. As she rinses off the soap, she thinks of how she and Oskar wash each other's backs when they bathe.
After the warm breeze dries her, she takes her new clothes out of the bag and pulls them on, although water is still dripping from her long black hair. She thinks of how quickly Oskar's white-blond mop of hair dries.
She transfers the money from her unspeakable pants, which she puts into the bag with the shirt and sneakers. On the way back to the basement, she tosses the bag into a refuse bin behind a restaurant.
It's May and sunrise comes way early. Anyhow, it's too late now for a kid to be asking about trains, even if I could find anybody to ask.
Eli repacks for a quick exit come the next nightfall. She unrolls the pallet, takes off her new clothes to keep them fresh, and lies down. No Oskar to talk to or play games with. Nothing to do. Or nothing to do but think. With Oskar, this would all be easy. But I got myself into this. Stuck with what I know, like how to keep us safe, how to hunt. I didn't pay attention to other important stuff, like how to make a plan beyond just the next night.
If I can connect again with my beloved Oskar—if he still wants me—we're switching roles. He's going to be the teacher now. He'll see.
"If he still wants me" is just about the last doubt Eli will entertain. Instead of dwelling on possibilities, she is quick to take action, letting results answer unasked questions. And action has to take the place of staring into the abyss—the possibility that Oskar will get in trouble before she can find him.
As dawn approaches, Eli allows herself a fleeting and final moment of doubt. What if I'm wrong about Blackeberg? But I’m not wrong. Nowhere else has such a pull on Oskar.
This is how it goes. Your life goes to hell, you just chatter to yourself and keep moving.
And just like that, Eli is asleep.
A Shadow
Keeping close to the south shore of Lake Hjälmaren, Oskar is able to use small roads, trails, and streets to keep moving at a brisk pace. His enhanced hearing lets him anticipate groups of people he might otherwise encounter. He skirts happy families with their grills on low bluffs that remained after glaciers created the lake, or campers outside their cabins or tents on the water. Oskar sees them. They don't see him, although a child might stare into the dark trees, and a dog might whine once and lie down.
As it grows late and people begin to retire for the night, Oskar has the whole world to himself. He parts company with the big lake halfway between Läppe Marina and the small settlement of Äsköping. Having left the irregular shoreline, he takes a heading due east using the forest to conceal his mile-eating pace.
Lacking trails or roads, maintaining this heading is the new task. The sky is clear and Oskar knows he has to keep Polaris to his left to avoid wandering off track. But the long hours of summer twilight in northern latitudes makes the stars hard to see.
Once in the forest, he gets an occasional glimpse of the pole star. When he does, he sees that his route is drifting to the south—Polaris trails Oskar’s outstretched arm.
That doesn't surprise me. People drift when there are no landmarks. It’s why they end up walking in circles. Getting lost is not on. Have to "stay found," as the camping books say.
Oskar knows that the best bet would be to pick a distant landmark and keep walking toward it, but it’s hard to see far ahead in a forest, so he keeps going, making small corrections as he goes and checking Polaris when he can.
Oskar's watch shows that midnight is near. The half moon sets behind him, and the twilight fades, too, so that the sky darkens and Polaris becomes easier to see. Now he has an hour until the twilight will begin to brighten the sky again.
A growing chorus of birds alerts Oskar that night will end soon. Using one of the techniques Eli taught him for how to find shelter, he begins to pick up signs of where the forest was once under cultivation—rusting farm equipment and fields of wildflowers instead of crops. He follows a narrow lane that has seen no recent traffic, and it soon leads him to an abandoned farmstead.
He sees a root cellar with a stone front and oak door dug into a hill beside the farmhouse. Although the door looks sturdy, Oskar patiently clears vegetation that has encroached at its bottom edge. Supporting the door’s weight, he moves it enough so he can drop his backpack through the opening. He enters, eases the door closed, and checks for light leaks.
Now he can switch on his flashlight and spread out his excellent map, much used since he bought it in Göteborg during their interrupted stay there last year. He sees that he has covered just under half the line-of-sight miles to Stockholm, and going the safer way around the south shore of the lake added many actual miles.
Not a bad night’s work. The next night's run will be mostly forest until I get close to Södertälje. From there to Blackeberg, people, cars, and trucks will be everywhere.
Oskar scans the map again for a way to avoid Stockholm, but the city region is an archipelago. Except for one narrow strait to the west of the city, served by a daytime ferry, Oskar sees no way to connect with the network of roads and streets that would take him directly to Blackeberg.
It will have to be Stockholm, and from there I can take the tunnel train to Blackeberg. Given the diversity of the city, a school kid with a backpack will probably not raise eyebrows, even a kid as dirty looking as I am.
Oskar switches off his flashlight, lies down on the floor of the root cellar, and covers himself with his heavy blanket. He becomes aware of how strange it feels to lie down without little Eli beside him. Except for the garden shed yesterday, this is the only time he has not slept beside her since they ran away from Blackeberg fifteen months earlier.
He doesn’t want to think about that. He expects to slip into unconsciousness at once, but first he swallows to clear the lump in his throat. It doesn’t go away. He realizes the lump has been in his throat for most of the night.
I wonder what Eli is doing now. I wonder if she stayed in the hideout or took off.
Oskar starts to face the fact that, turn it anyway you want to, he abandoned his dear and only friend. His growing feelings of loneliness and guilt persist until he falls asleep.
Second Night
Eli gets moving. She puts on her new pants, top, and sneakers and stuffs a few hundred kronor into her pocket. She rolls up the pallet and fixes it to the top of the backpack, squares her little shoulders, and goes out into the bright May night.
When she gets to the road with the shops, she approaches a man coming out of one and asks, "Excuse me. I've been camping and I need to get back to Stockholm. Do you know if there’s a bus or train I can take?"
"Sure. The train is your best bet. The Örebro Train Station is in town, but it's a long hike from here. Sorry I'm not going that way. Do you have money for a taxi?"
"Yes."
"Well, why don't you call one, then?"
"Er..."
“They have taxis in Stockholm, don't they?"
"We haven't lived there long."
"Yeah, I get it. Country girl. Okay, here's what you do. I'm headed home, but I go right past a hotel. I'll drop you in front of it. Just ask the bellhop to call a cab for you."
Eli wonders what a bellhop is but doesn't ask. She takes off her backpack and gets in, placing it between her legs on the floor of the old car.
"Seat belt," the man says. Eli gives him a blank look. "Never mind. We aren't going far."
When the car pulls up to the front of the hotel, a young man comes out and starts to help Eli with the backpack. "She isn't going to register. I just wondered if you would call a cab for her. She's going to the Örebro Train Station." The young man says “Sure” and goes into the hotel to make the call. He comes back out and says it will only be a few minutes. Eli sees the man hand the bellhop a 5-krona note.
The man turns to Eli. "Are you going to be okay now?"
"I...yes. I'm good. Thank you for the ride and all."
As she watches the man drive away, Eli feels like a complete idiot, like she doesn't know anything. Poor Oskar, he must have felt like a durn babysitter. This has got to change.
When the taxi arrives, the driver asks, "Train Station?" as he lifts her backpack.
At least Eli learned from Håkan that you sit in the back seat of a taxi.
“Looks like you've been camping. Where ya going?"
"Stockholm. Er, do you know how long it takes?"
"Sure. It takes just over two hours, but the last train is scheduled for about now. If you run like hell, you might make it."
At the station, Eli digs the bills out of her pocket and hands one to him. When the driver gives her change, she hesitates for a moment and hands the driver a 5-krona note.
"Is that good?" she asks.
"Sure. Thanks."
But Eli wonders if it was the right thing to do or if it was enough.
The driver helps her out and points to the entrance of the station.
Eli runs like hell.
Oskar Reviews His Plan
Oskar wakes at dusk, but he doesn’t want to leave the root cellar until he looks at the map to coordinate distance with clock time. He knows the times of sunrise and sunset set in early May at Stockholm’s latitude. It’s my job. It’s how we live now.
Oskar sees that he could cover the distance to Södertälje and maybe a little beyond by daybreak, but he foresees two problems. The farther east he goes, the more bodies of water he will encounter, such as the narrow lakes that lie across his route. He notes the placement of the lakes and plans where he needs to jog north, where to jog south, and where to take advantage of bridges. The second problem is finding a safe place where he can hole up in the inhabited and busy area, but he will have to do it. He plans to stop his run at least an hour before daybreak to attend to that need.
I really will have to take my chances with the train from Södertälje to Stockholm and the tunnel train to Blackeberg. That would get me to Blackeberg around midnight, four hours before sunrise. I need to find a way to hole-up after I get there. A kid on the street at midnight would be a magnet for attention.
Oskar's stomach rumbles, a warning that he will need to hunt before his energy becomes critically low.
Better to hunt in Södertälje before I take the train to Stockholm. Like Eli taught me, it's not a good idea to kill first and then hole-up nearby, even if my prey is a homeless person who won’t be missed right away.
Well, that’s it then. He puts away his map and flashlight, closes his backpack, and steps out into the twilight for another fast run.
Eli in Blackeberg
A station agent at Stockholm Central directs Eli to the platform for the tunnel train to Blackeberg. When Eli gets off the tunnel train, she walks to the apartments on Ibsengatan where she and Oskar met after she moved into his building. The apartments are acr0ss the street from a patch of woods marking the start of Grimsta Forest, a large nature preserve in Vällingby where Eli has an old hideout.
Eli enters the courtyard and hangs out for a while in the wooded part farthest from the apartments. I don’t think Oskar beat me. Only way is if he took a train or got a ride. Wouldn’t be like him. He’s too careful to risk being recognized. Anyway, my Oskar is a planner. Not like him to act on impulse.
The short May night is already half over, so it doesn’t surprise Eli that Oskar’s old apartment soon goes dark. Eli waits a while longer to see if Oskar is going to show up and then walks to the jungle gym where she first met him. She seeks his smell and doesn’t find it. Gathering her courage, she looks around and goes to the door of the stairwell that leads to the apartment. Nothing in the stairwell. The strong scent of her beloved is absent. Oskar hasn't been here.
Eli leaves the courtyard, crosses Ibsengatan, and enters the nature preserve. The old forest appealed to her because it was similar to how she had lived most of her life, as a semi-feral forest creature. She thinks about her decades-long retreat from southern Sweden ahead of the steady advance of farming, mining, and lumbering.
When she first arrived in the Stockholm area, she chose a hill in the nearly 800-acre nature preserve that was well away from the trails and roads used by students, picnickers, and sporting clubs. She had dug a hole at the base of the hill, tunneled in at an upward angle for drainage, and then dug out a small chamber.
Whether she is in the hideout or not, the moss-covered rock hiding the entrance—a little wider than Eli’s shoulders—appears no different from the forest's other rocks, left in abundance by the retreat of the last ice sheet.
Eli goes unerringly to her hideout. She moves the rock, drops her backpack into the opening, and darts in like a lizard. With the rock in place again, the entrance is invisible.
The incline levels out to widen into the small chamber. She takes the lantern from her backpack and examines the space, which is barely high enough to sit up in. It is further crowded with spider webs and by a new growth of dangling roots. Eli makes short work of the spider webs, but the roots will have to wait. Tugging at them would bring down a shower of dirt.
Eli unrolls the pallet, lies down, and breathes in the refreshing smell of clean earth. After a while, she sits up, takes out Oskar’s Rubik’s cube, and solves it a few times. She doesn’t know how she can always solve the puzzle quicker than her Oskar can. She knows she’s not a brainiac like he is. Eli takes out a box that holds an old and complex puzzle, but she’s just putting off the inevitable, which is to think about a plan for tomorrow night.
At last Eli's internal clock tells her that dawn is at hand. Oskar will show up. Yes. He will. He’ll be in Blackeberg tonight. Yep. For sure. She goes along like this, stalling for time, but no plan emerges other than hanging out in the courtyard and waiting for Oskar to show up.
Hey, that’s a kind of plan, and she feels proud that she at least made the effort.
Beyond that, Eli trusts her ability to respond instantly to emerging situations, counting on survival skills and personal abilities that have served her well during her long life. There will be time to practice how to make plans once she has her Oskar back.
She falls asleep purring and doesn’t stir until nightfall.
Third Night
Eli wakes at dusk and switches on the lamp. She puts away the puzzles but leaves the pallet in place. After using her enhanced senses to determine that there are no sounds or vibrations near the hill, she moves the stone and slips out into the twilight.
After fitting the stone into place, she moves silently through the forest until she reaches the apartments and the wooded part of the courtyard. She springs from the ground to a large branch and climbs to where she is no more than a shadow, but with a clear view of the jungle gym and the apartment windows.
Hours pass. Eli is fine with that. She has a single purpose for being here, and that purpose suffices. Midnight approaches and the lights go out in the apartment. Eli sees the flickering light of the TV and knows Oskar’s mom is still awake.
She first hears Oskar and then catches his strong smell as he makes his way through the wooded part of the courtyard to the jungle gym, where he drops his backpack on the ground and sits facing the apartment building, his back to Eli and the trees. Because of his lowered head and drooping shoulders, Eli thinks that Oskar doesn't seem happy.
By the light of the TV, Oskar catches glimpses of his mom moving around in the apartment. His high spirits at the start of his run have long since dissipated. As he passed familiar storefronts and landmarks on his way from the tunnel train, Oskar did not feel as though he had come home.
Why did I do this? I’m not relieved to be here. This is not what I wanted. As for Mama, I would not knock on the apartment door now. No, not in a million years. Mama could never be quiet about seeing me. She could not accept that I would have to leave in a few hours. Tomorrow she would go the police and start the whole thing up again. The police would reopen the investigation, and that would just lead to more exposure and more danger for me…Oskar swallows the lump in his throat…and for Eli.
At last the TV goes off. Eli climbs down and stands watching her beloved, but Oskar sits on the jungle gym, not moving.
Eli slides next to him. She gently puts her arm around Oskar’s waist and lays her head on his shoulder. After a moment, Oskar puts his arm around Eli’s shoulders and draws her close.