PART TWO
Chapter 2: On Edge
The Hideout
Oskar and Eli leave the courtyard and move across the irregular terrain of the nature preserve. As they move through the dark forest, they tune their eyes and ears for other presences. The few words they speak are so hushed that only they can hear them.
"We’re just coming to the hideout," Eli murmurs, her voice as quiet as the breeze. She moves the moss-covered stone to one side. "There's a passageway that leads to a chamber. When you crawl in, be careful you don't make the entrance any bigger or else the stone won't fit good."
Eli slips through the small opening. "Your shoulders will just about clear. Pass me your backpack and give me a second to make room for you."
Once Oskar is in, Eli slides past him so she can move the rock into place. Now in total darkness, she pushes Oskar's backpack ahead of her as she slithers up the narrow passage. Oskar follows. As the passage levels out and widens into the chamber, Eli feels for the lantern and switches it on.
"Watch your head. Not much room to sit up. Sorry about the roots. Except for last night, I haven't been here for a while. We can use your hunting knife to get rid of the roots if we want to.
"It's not like the cool hideouts we've had since we left Blackeberg. It's kind of cramped, but it will be okay, right? Until we figure out something better?"
Oskar smiles—Cramped is good. The hopeful note in Eli's voice registers as Oskar looks around, big eyed. "Eli, it's really great! You're so smart to know how to make a hideout like this. We're in Vällingby, but we might as well be in the middle of the forest in Norrland."
Eli doesn't feel smart, not smart like Oskar, and she beams as she always does when he compliments her. She scoots over to make room on the pallet and they cuddle like the two children they are, hugging each other and kissing by mashing their lips against each other's cheeks.
When they lie still, Eli asks, "What was it like getting here from Örebro?"
"It was a snap. Since I had plenty of time, I hung out at the lake for a while and picked up a few babes."
Eli sits up sputtering. "You complete moron stupid idiot! You did not!"
Little Eli is blind-sided by her outburst, but this is the first time in her long life that she has had reason to experience jealousy about the behavior of someone her age.
"Gotcha! But, nah, I just ran the whole way. I ran for two nights. It felt great—I ran like a wolf, eating up the miles."
Eli recovers her composure and asks, "Is that how long you thought it would take?"
"That's what it looked like it would take. I used the map and the sky to avoid mistakes."
"I've got to learn how to do that. I mean it," she says with resolve. "Where did you sleep?"
"I have a smart teacher. The first night I used what you taught me to find an old farmhouse. The root cellar was perfect."
Eli smiles and wiggles as she snuggles against Oskar.
"What about the next night?"
"Another fast run got me to Södertälje. I found a padlocked warehouse and got in through the roof. After sunset I hunted and then took the train into Stockholm and the tunnel train to Blackeberg. Since Södertälje is on a different line, I figured I wouldn't run into that conductor who saw us in Karlstad. Hey! It was a great trip. I can show you on the map if you can sit still for it."
"Oskar, you don't know it yet, but I'm way ready to look at maps with you. Getting here took a bunch of decisions, and I had to depend on people to help me make them."
"Like?"
"Like a guy coming out of a store. Like a taxi driver. And I sort of know what a bellhop is now."
"A bellhop! I've got to hear all about this."
"Okay, but Oskar, what do we want to do? We've got to leave Blackeberg as quick as we can..."
"...because somebody could recognize us," Oskar finishes.
"And we can't leave a trail of bodies..."
"...because the police will start to put two and two together—the swimming pool, the bodies you and Håkan left all over the place."
"Did not! Not all over the place. But Oskar, isn't there someplace where we can walk around at night like other kids? Like we used to before we had to leave?"
"Yeah, but is there any place like that in Sweden?"
"I don’t know. We thought Göteborg was far enough away, but that couple recognized us. Or recognized you, I guess. But maybe we can figure out a way to stop running and hiding. It's no fun, and we love fun.
"Oskar, there's more. Figuring out how to get a cab, how to take the train, that showed me what a weenie I've been. I had to keep asking strangers to tell me stuff. Without you, it was confusing. I want you to teach me how to live in town like a person instead like a wild animal from the woods."
"Really? That would be good! I mean, it would be great! If something happens to me, what would you do?"
"Yeah, like if you decide to run off?"
"I don't ever want to do that again. It was too hard."
"Hard how?"
"I had this lump in my throat the whole time. When I wasn't focused on keeping going, I thought about you. It's funny—I didn't think about Blackeberg that much. I wondered if you stayed in the hideout or took off."
"Or came after you?"
"Nope. I figured you'd be so mad you wouldn't want me around anymore."
"Shows what you know."
"I'm sorry, Eli. I didn't feel happy and I didn't know what to do."
"Next time you feel like that, just tell me. I'll pound on you till you cheer up."
Oskar grabs Eli and starts wrestling with her. "You'll pound on me will you? You and what army?" More giggling and shushing. "We have to be a little quiet while we're here. Hikers could hear us."
"And then we'd have them for dinner?"
"Oh, be still, Oskar. Remember how I cleaned up before I showed you how I worked the Rubik's cube?"
"Mm-hm."
"I cleaned up because you said I smelled funny, and I know you meant I smelled gross."
"I remember, Eli." He wrinkles his nose, just as he did then. "You smell, um, sort of okay right now."
"Because I bought new clothes and because I bathed. You know, at our spot at the lake. If I didn't, I wouldn't have the nerve to take the train. But you smell like..."
"Yeah I know, like a cadaver somebody forgot to bury. Okay, we need to start bathing. We also start to smell bad when we need to hunt."
He studies the dark circles under Eli's eyes, stark against her pale face. "And, by the way, I see you haven't hunted. Your eyes look like two piss holes in the snow."
"I haven't hunted in over a week, potty mouth." Eli punches Oskar and then jumps on him and starts tickling him, but she stops when his shrieks become too loud.
“Anyway, I'm okay for now. I last hunted in Örebro.”
Her stomach rumbles.
"Uh huh, real okay."
"Oskar, wanting to smell good is why I haven't slept in these clothes. I want to keep them kind of new looking. It freaked me out going into a store to buy them because I was so dirty.
"I have an idea. Let's bathe when we wake up, like when it's dark enough. There are creeks and ponds here, but we don't want to leave any signs. We can just go down to the shore, like at Örebro.
"And, Oskar," she adds demurely, "I have my own bar of soap.”
That touches Oskar. She’s such a mystery.
"Hey, I know! When I first made the hideout, I fell in love with this bit of forest. Will you go outside with me? And just sit? We can never watch a sunrise, but..."
They sit and hold each other, enchanted as the twilight brightens and the forest wakes. Small animals rustle the foliage, and birds begin their predawn chorus. The sound reaches a crescendo minutes before daybreak, when Oskar and Eli must go back in. Neither says a word. They fall into their deep sleep, hugging each other, their faces a picture of the sublime peace that all children deserve.
Witnesses
When they wake at dusk, Eli says, "Oskar, see if you've got a half-way clean shirt and pants in your backpack. I want to use them as a size guide when I buy new clothes for you."
"You're going shopping?"
"Yeah, we don't know what will come up the next few days. We don't need to seem weird because of our clothes or how we smell."
"Smart you." Oskar rummages and pulls out pants and a shirt. "These will have to do. They're kind of dirty, but maybe they don't smell too bad."
Oskar accompanies Eli to the edge of the forest and points her in the direction of the Vällingby town center, less than a mile away.
Knowing that she looks halfway presentable, she goes into Åhléns, an upscale department store. She explains to a clerk that she's shopping for her brother. The clerk measures the waist and the inseam of Oskar's pants. Eli buys outfits for him, and the clerk helps her pick out outfits for herself.
Leaving the store with her two big shopping bags, she thinks, That felt better than those little stores in Örebro. I don't feel like everybody's watching me.
But they are. After she leaves the store, the young clerk who waited on her says, "She must be really poor."
The older clerk asks, "Why do you say that?"
"Did you see how she was dressed? And her brother's clothes were none too clean."
"Dearie, most the young girls who come in here all dolled up don't have anything but a credit card and an attitude. That child is too rich to care what people think of her."
"But..." the younger clerk starts to protest.
"She didn't look at a single price tag. And no credit card for her. She peeled off those hundred-krona notes like they were nothing. And I'll bet that was your biggest sale of the day."
As Eli carries the shopping bags on her way back to the hideout, she doesn't get far from the square before she walks past a club with loud music and billows of smoke coming from its open door. A punk band is covering Ebba Grön's "Hatred and Blood," not well, but with great energy.
Two teenagers lounge outside the club wearing leather jackets with studs and lots of bling. They fall in behind Eli and move to box her in. She tries to blow them off, but because of her small stature, they laugh when she barks, "Beat it, punks!" That sounds funny anyway considering the kind of music and the boys' hair, dyed black and gelled into tall spikes. They continue to block her way and to make dirty suggestions. An alley is now a few steps away, so Eli keeps edging forward until she can back into it.
Another young person comes out of the club in time to see the three disappear into the alley, but he doesn't think about it at the time, not even when he sees the girl come out alone a few minutes later.
When Eli gets back to the hideout, she tells Oskar, "Two boys tried to make me do something in an alley."
"What!"
"One had his knife out. I killed him. The other one had something else out. I drained him of blood and twisted his head around. I left their bodies sort of out of sight behind a trash bin."
"Wow! Good that you fed! But it's a reminder that we don't have a lot of time. Maybe we don't have any time. What do you think?"
"I think I want us to bathe. After that, let's look at what I bought, and then we'll need that map of yours. However it goes, I don't think we want to hang around here any longer."
"Okay. Sounds like a plan."
They strip off their clothes and run down to the beach, two pale wraiths flitting silently among the dark trees. They wash off the necrotic layer of skin, and to Eli's delight, they wash each other's backs. All's right with the world. A warm breeze dries them, and a few minutes later they are back in the hideout where they try on the new clothes. Oskar teases Eli about her taste, but she's used to Oskar teasing her, and she can tell he's pleased with what she bought—mostly dark stuff, but she also bought a light-colored summer outfit for each of them.
"Oskar, can we do the map now? I sort of get it, but will you show me how to use it like you do?"
"You bet I will." He takes the map from his backpack and unfolds it. "There isn't much you need to know, really. Direction, distance, and the size of towns. Roads."
"I can see roads on the map, but how do I know what direction to go in?"
"Okay, the top of the map is always north, and there's the night sky you can use, too. Let's save that for another lesson. Size of towns is easy. The bigger the letters, the bigger the town. I mean, the more people that live there."
"Like Norrköping is bigger than Nyköping?"
"You've got it."
"And, hey, Karlstad is smaller than Örebro. And here's our lake, right? It's pretty big."
"Yep, pretty big. You asked me if I had an idea of how long it would take me to get to Blackeberg. See this?"
She looks where Oskar is pointing. "It says that line is 20 miles long, right? Oh! You use that to see how far apart places are?"
"Precisely. How far is Södertälje from Örebro?"
Eli uses her thumb and index finger as calipers. "Wow, a hundred miles, right?"
"Yep, and now you know everything I know about using a map."
"That's it? Oh, Oskar, thank you! I can do this! Now let's figure out where to go."
They look at the map together until Eli says, "Göteborg is a really long way from here. We covered a lot of ground last year. Malmö's a long way from anywhere. Örebro is a lot closer."
"Well, we could go back to Örebro. If we could get set up near the college, we could make friends with students and pay them to wash our clothes when they wash theirs."
"That could work."
"But look how close Malmö is to a really cool city. Copenhagen. I don't know anything about Malmö, but everybody says Copenhagen is a big party, like all the time."
"I'm kind of up for Malmö, then."
"Yeah, we can play in Copenhagen and be back in Malmö pretty quick. But Eli, here’s the problem. If we can’t get a safe place to live, we’re back to living on the run."
“I know, Oskar. It keeps coming back to that, doesn’t it? If we don’t hire a grownup, then that’s what we’re stuck with—only having what we can carry in our backpacks…”
“…and no way to bathe every day.”
Eli frowns. “Maybe we’re overlooking something. It could be good if we had a grownup to talk to.”
“But who?” Oskar folds his map and puts it in his backpack. “If he’s still around, Mr. Ávila might talk to us.”
Eli laughs. “Or he might run screaming into the night if he thinks you’re a ghost."
“Or call the police. We wouldn’t have long to get out of town if he did that.”
“Still, if you can look up his number, we could ring him. If he freaks, we just split real quick.”
“To?”
“I’m thinking we start out toward Örebro.”
“Okay, and then try to hire a grownup to help us when we get there?”
“We'll see.” She grows quiet at the thought of a stranger having such power over her. Even though it turned out that her last helper was devoted to her, having to put their wellbeing in the hands of another person underscores their vulnerability.
When Eli stirs out of her brief reverie, Oskar asks, "What should we do?"
"I think you call Mr. Ávila as soon as we wake up, and, however it goes, I think we leave."
As the first rays light up the forest, the children slide into their dreamless sleep.
Eli holds Oskar a little tighter than usual.
An Investigation Begins
While the children sleep, a shopkeeper finds the bodies of the two teenagers when he opens his alley door to empty trash into the bin. He calls the police, and a black-and-white pulls up in minutes. The constable takes in the situation and puts up blue and white crime scene tape.
When Detective Sergeant Per Morkus arrives, the two discuss what they see, and the constable observes, “Looks like this one has a broken neck.”
“Yes and the lacerations to the throat would have done in this one, although his head is at an impossible angle, too.”
The detective begins taking pictures.
"Inspector, the victims were moved to behind the trash bin, weren't they? You can't see them from the street.”
“Yes, you can see the blood in this spot and the trail to the bin. It looks as though the killer wiped blood off something on this one's shirt."
But he thinks, Odd that there isn't more blood. A lot more.
“No blood on the knife,” the constable says. “Finger prints will tell you who the knife belongs to, right?”
“Or not, if it wasn’t one of them. What the…what do you make of this?”
He snaps pictures of a partial footprint made by a child’s sneaker. "Damn. That complicates the picture.”
“Well, couldn’t a kid have come back here, seen the blood, and run off?”
“Yes, but you can see that the print was made while the blood was still fresh.”
A car pulls up and a civilian gets out. “Here’s Dr. Andersson. Hello Agnetha. What brings a busy M.E. like you to a crime scene?"
She lifts the tape and ducks under it. "Hello, Per. I picked up the call on my radio. I was nearby, so I called your chief to see if I could help."
"I just got here, too. Nothing has been touched. A shopkeeper found the victims at 2:15 and reported it.”
“Guys, this is a bad one.” She opens her notebook. “It might be hard to figure out what caused lacerations of this severity. Got any ideas?”
“Sort of. But my idea is not about the weapon; it’s the degree of violence. Because this one had his pecker out, I’m going to start by treating it as a crime of passion. Suppose a person, maybe from the club next door, followed them and caught them having it off. If my idea is right, we’ll have a suspect soon. I’ll talk to the club owner in a bit and get names.”
An ambulance arrives as they go about their separate investigations, and a small crowd begins to form at the mouth of the alley. The constable waits for the inspector to give the word for the ambulance crew to take the bodies to the crime lab.
The medical examiner continues her physical exam and records the information in her notebook. "I'll try to give you a more accurate time of death after I get them to the lab and check their internal temperature, but I would put it between 9:00 pm and midnight based on how warm weather speeds up rigidity."
Magister Ávila
Mr. Ávila puts down his book and gets up from his easy chair. He crosses his small sitting room to answer the wall-mounted telephone in his kitchen.
"Hello."
"Mr. Ávila, before I say my name, could you keep this phone call secret?"
"Oskar, I know your name. Are you okay?"
"Yes, Mr. Ávila, but I need a grownup to help me with something. Can we talk?"
"Where are you?"
"At the T-bana in Vällingby."
"You're close, Oskar. A half-mile from my apartment. Do you want to come here or...?"
"I could do that?"
"Yes. I'd like to see you."
Mr. Ávila tells Oskar the address of his apartment on Ångermannagatan.
Oskar repeats the address, and Mr. Ávila asks, “Have you seen your mom?"
"Mr. Ávila, please don't call her, okay?"
"I won't promise, Oskar, at least not until I see that you're okay."
"Thanks. I'm coming. Oh, and Mr. Ávila, I have another kid with me."
Mr. Ávila replaces the receiver and experiences a rush of relief—His former student is alive after all.
He never receives visitors, yet it doesn't take long to straighten books and soccer magazines, hang up a jacket that was on the sofa, and set an empty coffee cup in the sink.
Sooner than he expected, Oskar rings his doorbell.
"Good to see you, Oskar. Everybody at the school thought something bad happened to you. And this is..."
"This is Eli. May we come in?"
"Of course. Come in. I’m pleased to meet you, Miss Eli. Can I get you anything?"
Oskar answers for them. "We're good, Mr. Ávila." He pauses and says, “Mr. Ávila, Eli, saved my life at the pool. They meant to drown me, but she saved me and we ran away together. We've been moving around since then, but we want to stay in one place now."
"Whoa! That's a lot for me to take in. You mean you want to stay in Blackeberg?"
"No, Mr. Ávila. Almost anywhere but Blackeberg. We want to go where we can do regular stuff, like walk around, go to movies, maybe hire a tutor."
"Hire a tutor? Why can't you just go to school...oh, I see. I guess you and Miss Eli might have a lot to answer for. Like, what do you mean, Miss Eli saved you?"
Oskar stares at Mr. Ávila. "I'm not really ready to talk about that yet. Is that okay? Anyway, Jimmy was holding my head underwater while all that was going on, and Eli got us away quick after she pulled me out of the water. I didn't see much, and what I did see didn't make any sense."
Mr. Ávila pictures the carnage at the pool. The hair rises on the back of his neck. "Oskar, I'm starting to get nervous. Was I not wise to invite you and Miss Eli here?"
"Mr. Ávila, I know you tried to look out for me."
"Oskar thinks you're great, Mr. Ávila."
"Okay, I don't sense you mean me harm. But what if I don't agree with what you want? What if I feel I have to ring your mom?"
Oskar and Eli look at each other.
"We didn’t talk about that. We don't know what you’ll decide. I guess we're just hoping you'll talk to us."
Mr. Ávila takes a moment to look Oskar over. "If you’re really okay, I don't see any need to call her yet."
He motions them to the couch and settles into his easy chair. "Tell me what kind of help you're looking for."
Eli looks at Oskar. "May I? Before I met Oskar, I hired grownups to help me with stuff. They could lease an apartment. They knew what to do. But I was uncomfortable with my last helper. I was worried he would rob me and run off."
Oskar adds, "We talked about how we could hire another grownup, but he would know where we live and all. And what if he blabbed?"
"Okay, but Oskar, one way to stop running is just go to the police and clear everything up."
The children stare at him.
"Okay, I don’t have this in focus yet, do I?"
They move closer together on the couch.
"I see. And you don't want to take a chance on being separated. Am I right about that too? I suppose that's another reason for not calling your mom."
"The police have probably stopped looking for me, haven't they? The first thing Mama would do is call them. And who knows? What if they tried to grab Eli? I miss Mama horribly, but I can't even send her a postcard to tell her I'm okay. A manhunt would follow as sure as night follows day."
"Ah, yes—Polonius, right? You're bright, Oskar. Miss Eli mentioned a lease?"
"We don't know. We thought you could help us think it through."
"I can do that. People might have lots of questions for you, so you have to stay out of sight, right? If I agree to help you, I'm starting to see it would have to be all or nothing. It's just...I have to think."
Mr. Ávila runs his hand from his forehead to the back of his bald head. He gets up and paces, his long legs taking him the width of the small sitting room. Glancing at Oskar and Eli from time-to-time, he nods to himself or shakes his head as though he were weighing the pros and cons of helping them, but his feelings of guilt about the tragedy and his relief that Oskar is alive derail each thought.
At last he gives up and stops pacing. He senses he has one chance to come up with the right answer. He shrugs and stands looking down at them.
"Okay, Oskar. What is it people say? ‘In for a penny, in for a pound?'" He holds out his arms and the children scramble to their feet to hug him. "I know you're a good kid, Oskar, and Miss Eli seems like a good kid, too.”
Over the next little while, Oskar and Eli talk about their dream of a settled life. They discuss possible destinations, such as Malmö, and the dangers that two children living alone might face, like coming to the attention of the police or Child Protection Services. Mr. Ávila says he'll consider these factors when he calls real estate agents, and Oskar and Eli agree to come again the next night.
"It will be more convenient for me if you could come around 4:00. Is that okay?"
"Mr. Ávila, we need to stay out of sight until dark. Please? May we come about the same time as we did today?"
Mr. Ávila agrees, but a bemused smile plays about his lips.
After the children leave, he thinks about how pale they are and that Oskar hasn't changed since he last saw him.
I should turn Oskar over to Social Services, but I want to know more. A lot more. I can do the right thing later, but once the authorities are involved, I may not have another chance to learn about this profound mystery.
Chapter 3: "In Heaven and Earth"
The following night, Oskar rings Mr. Ávila's doorbell not long after sunset. He opens the door and greets the children with a warm smile.
"Come in. I was able to get descriptions of a number of places that might do. Oh, and I made sandwiches for us. What would you like to drink?"
"Oh...uh...we're good."
"Miss Eli, what would you like?"
"I don't need anything. I'm okay."
Mr. Ávila motions for them to sit on the couch.
"Oskar, although you look a little thinner now, you seem to be in good health. And yet you still look 12. You're not any taller. You should have added a couple of inches by now, and your voice should have begun to change. On top of that, you and Miss Eli are both exceptionally pale for this time of year."
The children stare at Mr. Ávila.
"I pressed you to meet me here this afternoon, but you wanted to put it off until after dark. That was a test."
Eli looks at Oskar and then glances at the door.
"I made the sandwiches as a kind of test, too. I didn't think you would eat them. Oskar, you warned me off when I asked about what happened at the pool, but we can't leave it at that. You have to tell me everything."
"Mr. Ávila, I called you because I respect you, but the other reason is I think you like me."
"Yes, Oskar, I like you a lot."
"If I tell you what you want to know, you're not going to like us. Period."
"Just listen a minute, kids. You two are Swedes. I'm not. Swedes only believe in what they can stack in the summer and burn in the winter. But I'm from the south, you know. We haven't made our minds up about everything. 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio...'"
Mr. Ávila pauses for a moment while he considers his next words. "You need to understand that, except for children, I don't care much for people. And I think the bullies at the pool may have been asking for what happened to them."
Oskar and Eli both swallow.
"Good. Just listen. You said Miss Eli here saved you. Now answer me this—When you disappeared, you weren't running from whatever killed the three boys, were you?"
"No."
Mr. Ávila looks at Eli.
"How did the boys die?"
She looks at Oskar, who hesitates and then shrugs.
Eli answers, "Mr. Ávila, I expect you to call the police if I tell you what happened. If you decide to do that, could you maybe give us a head start before you call them?"
"I could do that."
"Okay, whatever you decide, you will be the only person who knows what happened that night. The reason I feel I can tell you is because we really, really need to talk to omebody."
Mr. Ávila nods.
"I killed them, Mr. Ávila."
"That's what Oskar meant when he said you saved him, isn't it?”
Eli nods solemnly.
If I don't call the police, if I delay, that could make me an accessory to murder, or at least to manslaughter. But he follows that thought with, So what? Oskar's the victim, and this child saved him. I'm holding off doing anything until I get a better handle on this.
"You don't eat regular food, you avoid daylight, and you’re pale. Oskar must be close to 14 now, but he still looks 12. And I noticed an odor about you when you hugged me last night. I'm guessing you're not vegetarians."
Oskar looks at Eli. After a moment, she says, "We might as well go for it. Mr. Ávila needs to know what we are."
Oskar looks down at his sneakers. "Mr. Ávila, we live off blood. We kill people. We don't like it, but we do it to live."
Oskar raises his head and meets Mr. Ávila's eyes. "We don't think of ourselves as spooky or weird. We're just the way we are. We attack people, but we think vampires are horrible monsters who like to hurt people. We're not like that."
Now Mr. Ávila knows the worst. The pale children are vampires, supernatural creatures. His face betrays nothing of the revulsion he feels nor of the realization that he has to contact the authorities or be held responsible for the death of future victims.
If I decide to report what I know, at least I can give them a few hours to get out of the area. But—oh God—what would such a disclosure do to Oskar's mom?
He sits in silence for a moment as he looks at Oskar. At last he responds, "I can just imagine how much you miss your mom, but what you said last night is right—She must never know."
"Yes, I've sorted that out. To Mama, we would be monsters, and Eli would be the demon from hell that stole her son."
"I imagine that about sums it up."
Mr. Ávila turns to Eli.
"Miss Eli, how old are you?"
"I'm..." She starts to laugh. "I know it's not funny. It just reminds me of when Oskar asked me that. I gave him a dumb answer—I said I’m about 12. I didn’t have the idea yet that everybody knows their birthday. But I am 12. That's how old I was when I was infected. I didn't get any older after that."
"How long ago was that, Miss Eli?"
"I've been 12 for more than 220 years."
Mr. Ávila takes in a sharp breath and waits for her to continue.
"The vampire that infected me kept me locked in a cage. I think he's dead. Or, anyway, I never saw him after I got away. There were men and fighting. A servant opened the cage and let me out. I didn't know what was happening, so I ran for a long time. It was getting close to daylight when I found a hut to hide in. I didn't know where I was when I woke up the next night, but I was in the forest, so..."
Mr. Ávila murmurs, "I'm sorry." He bows his head and looks down at his hands for a minute.
"You know, Miss Eli, everything about you says you're 12. I have to believe my senses. And Oskar still looks 12. When did Oskar become..."
"When we got off the train in Karlstad. It was my decision, Mr. Ávila. I want to be with Eli forever. Nothing else matters."
"Spoken like a true 12-year-old, Oskar." Mr. Ávila smiles to himself and thinks, And an immortal one at that. In love forever.
“You're wrong about one thing. I still like you. I don't feel you've become someone other than the Oskar I know."
"So, I mean, so..."
"So I'll help you. In every way I can. I failed you, Oskar. I dropped the ball. It was my job as your teacher to know how bad Conny's gang was bullying you. It must have been pretty hard for you."
Oskar nods and his face scrunches up as though he might cry. Mr. Ávila gets up and puts his hand on Oskar's shoulder.
"It's okay. That's past. And something good came of it—You're alive and you and Miss Eli are together."
Oskar relaxes and manages a crooked smile. Mr. Ávila returns to his chair. "What else do I need to know about you?"
Oskar turns to Eli and raises his arms, his palms up in a universal gesture—What should I do?
Eli looks at Oskar for a moment then shrugs and says, "Mr. Ávila said he'd give us a head start."
"So? Tell him everything?"
Eli looks distressed, but after a pause she says, "Oskar, this is our chance to get ideas from a grownup."
Oskar turns to Mr. Ávila. "Okay. I guess you need to know that sunlight will kill us. Even one minute of direct sunlight burns our skin."
"And you need to know we're strong like an elephant,” Eli says.
"...unless we go too long without hunting," Oskar adds.
"We hunt about once a week, two weeks at the longest. We don't kill kids and mostly not young people."
Mr. Ávila interrupts: "Miss Eli, you kill young people?"
"Yes, like if older boys try to like grab me away from Oskar, maybe try to take our stuff. Or we see them being mean to other kids or old people."
"Yes, I could see that happening."
Oskar says, "When we attack someone, we make sure they don't become like us..."
"...because we twist their heads around so they're dead."
Mr. Ávila shudders and looks at Oskar. "Where do you and Miss Eli stay during the day?"
"We sleep in a sort of cave. Usually we find an empty building or house or whatever, but Eli dug this cave when she first came here."
Mr. Ávila nods and turns to Eli. "I feel I know Oskar fairly well, but may I ask you a few more questions?"
"I...sure."
"You said you're over 220 years old. Have there been other Oskars?"
"No, Mr. Ávila."
"Okay, but two centuries..."
"Until I came this far north, I lived alone in the forest or on the edge of towns. I just about never talked to people. I used to bring seashells to a little boy. We'd talk at his window, but he moved away. A couple of old men at different times. They were happy as I was to have somebody to talk to."
"You left the forest because..."
"The forest changed. More people. Lots more people. Trails turned into roads. People cutting trees. Horrible noisy machines digging big holes in the ground. I kept moving deeper into the forest. I finally decided I had to come to town before town came to me."
"But Miss Eli, there must be more people like you. Wouldn't they help you?"
"Mr. Ávila, I only ever met one person like me. She started talking to me. When she got close, she tried to grab me. But I was quicker. I ran and I never saw her again."
Mr. Ávila holds his head for a moment as though so much new information were making it heavy.
"This is pretty important to me, Miss Eli.” He coughs theatrically and forces a smile. “What happened to the grownup who was helping you?"
"You already know. He was horribly hurt. I found his hospital room, and he offered his throat so I could finish him."
"He was the man the police came for at the school, then."
"Yes. He messed up his face so the police couldn't identify him. To give me time to get away. I'm sorry now that I didn't trust him. I didn't know."
"But you didn't leave."
"I did. I left. A few nights after the hospital I said goodbye to Oskar."
"And then you came back?"
"I...yes…I thought I would just move on, like I always do when I'm in danger. But I wanted to see Oskar, even if I didn’t let him see me. I wanted to be there for him, like if he ever needed me. I mean my feelings were all jumbled up, but..."
Mr. Ávila smiles. Love can do that.
"Miss Eli, we all wondered at the school why Andreas didn't die too."
"The other kid? I didn't think about it. I killed the ones that were trying to hurt Oskar. After I pulled him out of the water, we ran to the locker room and grabbed his clothes. We took off through the fire door. Nobody even saw us leave."
"You must have gotten out of Blackeberg before people saw the photo of Oskar on TV."
Oskar answers for them. "Yeah, we did, Mr. Ávila. We took a train the next day. Eli got in her box. We left in the afternoon so the sun would be down when we got to Karlstad."
“Oskar, how did you come to be like Miss Eli?”
“It’s funny, but I didn’t think about it before Eli left. I mean, I only wondered what it was like for her. But then she saved me and we were running, so I had to think about how it might be down the road.”
“Like?”
“Well, like I would keep getting older. And I wasn’t strong like Eli—I wouldn't be much help in a jam. And like why would Eli want me around if she had to take care of me?”
"Did you consider just coming back to Blackeberg without Miss Eli?"
"Yes, I thought about it on the train. But Mr. Ávila, the police would make me tell them all about Eli. They would know who they were looking for."
Loyalty. Would I have the strength of character to go to the mat for such a friend?
“Miss Eli, what did you think about making Oskar like you?”
“I wanted it. I didn't think about all that stuff. I knew I was being selfish, but I wanted Oskar to be with me forever."
Now it's Eli who looks as though she might cry.
"It's okay, Miss Eli. It's okay."
She recovers and says, "We got to Karlstad and Oskar got our stuff off the train. When he opened my box, I saw we were in some trees next to the station. We sat on the box and Oskar told me what he was thinking. I told him I wanted it too, but I spent a lot of the time telling him how much I hate being like this and about everything he would lose. He wanted me to decide, but I couldn’t make the decision for him, the decision to be cursed like me. I told him he had to decide.”
“I decided. I took out my hunting knife and we cut our palms. We held hands so our blood would mix.”
“And just like that you became…?”
Eli laughs. “No, Mr. Ávila. It was two days of me cleaning Oskar as his body emptied everything out. And me keeping him safe.”
“It sounds like an ordeal, child.”
“For Oskar, I guess, but I was never so happy in my life—taking care of my Oskar, being with him.”
Oskar and Eli beam at each other.
Mr. Ávila thinks, I can't turn them in. They trust me. But I could send them on their way and not do anything, not report them. That would keep my name out of it, although it would still be morally indefensible.
But could I live with knowing I let Oskar down again? If I had been doing my job I could have shut down the bullying. That would have prevented the deaths at the swimming pool, and Oskar would still be just another middle-school kid instead of…
Mr. Ávila makes an all-or-nothing decision.
If I ever wonder whether I've made a mistake by helping these children, I only have to remember this moment, how much they mean to each other.
Mr. Ávila's face gives the children no indication of his decision as he describes the available houses he found—near Stockholm, like Uppsala, farther away, like Norrköping, and distant cities farther south, like Malmö and Göteborg.
As they discuss their options, it seems to Mr. Ávila that Oskar and Eli have given Malmö the most thought. He makes a case for a big house on Järavallsgatan in the Limhamn neighborhood.
"The agent I talked to said the house was built in the late 1950s for two or three families. Manufacturing was booming in Malmö at that time. She said it has large common areas, such as the kitchen, dining room, and a big front room. Oh, and it has a large attic. I think you could fix it up so you would be safe while you sleep."
"That sounds great," Oskar says, and Eli nods in agreement.
"Okay then, I'll call the agent and wire a reserve deposit on it tomorrow. And I'll ask the agent to put a key where you can find it. When you come tomorrow night, bring all your stuff. That way you'll be ready if the deal goes okay."
They agree and return to the hideout, relieved that they won't have to stay in the area much longer.
An Investigation Grows Cold
Detective Sergeant Morkus takes a seat in his boss' office. "Chief, the murders took place two days ago. Our last hope is just about down to someone else coming forward. Interviewing the people at the club petered out. You'll recall that I thought the amount of violence suggested jealous rage. The one loose end is a long shot—the little girl with the shopping bags a witness saw coming out of the alley."
"Any chance you'll locate her?"
"Our press release yesterday could have gotten a response, but either she doesn't read newspapers or watch TV, or she doesn't want to be found."
"Where do we go from here?"
"The department store clerk who waited on her came forward, so we have a better description of her. My detectives took pictures of the style of clothes the girl bought, and we have an idea of her brother's height and build. The clerk remembered the waist and inseam of his pants."
"Will another press release help?"
"Yeah, Chief, I think a second press release would be good. And I have one more angle I'd like to try. It's nutty—and please, for God's sake, don't let Karin get wind of it—but Agnetha said the injuries to the victims reminded her of the Ibsengatan case."
"That case! Don't worry. Karin won't hear anything about that from me. Anyway, the department is all out of wooden stakes."
The detective forces a smile, as though he were amused by the chief's joke. "Okay, I got creative here. I used a compass to draw two arcs on the map using the apartment as one center and the department store as the other."
"And?"
"It was puzzling. The overlapping area was just about all Grimsta Forest, and the direction the girl was headed would have taken her there, which would make no sense—It was after sundown. But even if she were headed into the forest, she would have to go through the middle of two big apartment complexes between Vittangigatan and Jämtlandsgatan."
"Haven't the local police been keeping an eye out for her?"
"Yes, but she wasn't even a person of interest at first. Just a potential witness. Now I would like to focus on that area and shift to that time of evening. Maybe she wants to go shopping again."
"Well, what do you need? And for how long?"
"Two patrol cars. Three days."
"Okay, I'll ring the chief in charge of the local police and request it."
"Good. Thanks. And I'll assign a team of my detectives to start knocking on doors in the apartment buildings."
"Before you leave, give my assistant the photos and the new description of the girl and her brother for the press release. And you'll put the description and the photos in the hands of the constables on patrol. Two days without a suspect—The case is already growing cold. As you said, the girl may be our last shot, even though it's a long one."
Third Visit—Fear and Trembling
Oskar and Eli stuff everything into their bulging backpacks and say goodbye to Grimsta Forest. They head directly to Mr. Ávila's apartment using Årevägen, which carries them along the edge of the area of the increased police patrols rather than through the middle of it, which had been Eli's route the night she shopped.
When Mr. Ávila opens his door to them, he seems upbeat but at the same time serious. "The place is yours. The owner accepted the security deposit and we agreed on a one-year lease."
Eli's face brightens. "We can move in?"
"You could move in now if you were there."
"Eli, we need to go soon..."
"...before somebody recognizes us."
"And we have to hunt. A few bodies and the police will start getting ideas."
"Then it's good you brought your stuff," Mr. Ávila says and picks up the newspapers from beside his easy chair.
"I imagine this is what you mean. I saw this yesterday in The Day's News and wondered about it."
Mr. Ávila reads, "'Police Seek Leads in Shocking Double Murder in Vällingby.' It describes the discovery of the bodies of two teenage boys in an alley next to a popular club, and the article tells us the police are asking for help from anyone who could provide information. There's an inset that says a girl, possibly as young as 10, may have been the last person to see the victims alive."
"Ten!"
"Sorry, Miss Eli. But look at today's paper. This update now says the girl they are seeking is thought to be about 12. There's a picture of the kind of clothes you bought and a good guess at how tall Oskar is."
"Mr. Ávila, we had the idea that we needed to look normal while we figure out the best way to leave here. Oskar stayed in the forest while I went into Vällingby to buy clothes."
"Because you couldn't be recognized and Oskar could."
"Yes. And because I was dressed sort of okay. My pants and shirt were new. On the way back to the hideout, I walked past a club. Two teenagers started bothering me and crowded me into an alley. They started saying dirty things they wanted me to do, and one took out a knife. I killed him, and then I drained the blood from the other one. I wiped my face on his shirt."
Mr. Ávila shudders at the image of the child using her victim's shirt to clean the blood from her face. Setting the newspapers aside, he observes, "Even when you're trying to keep the body count down, things happen."
Eli looks worried. "Mr. Ávila, how much danger do you think we're in from the police?"
“Someone gave the police a description of you. Now that the police are asking people to come forward again, others might remember seeing you.”
Oskar says, “Eli, your instincts already tell you it's time for us to go."
"Yes. And the feeling is stronger than ever. The police are probably stopping every young girl they see."
"I'm sure you're right, Miss Eli, and it hasn't been that long since you had to leave the first time. If the police start putting things together...
"So let's talk about getting you to Malmö. The train takes over four hours, but it leaves in the morning and gets there at midday. Flying would be great, but every flight starts or ends during daylight. The travel agent I spoke to today said I could drive it in six hours. Seems like there's no other way."
"You would take us?"
"It's not that I would, Oskar; it's that I will. I said I’d help you every way I can. Look, kids, the reality of your situation is this—Because of your age, you are never going to be safe living in an urban area by yourself. That is, unless you're willing to keep moving."
Eli and Oskar look at each other. "Eli, I guess we were starting to figure that out."
"I guess so, Oskar. It's starting to look like our dream of a halfway normal life isn't ever going to happen."
"Yeah, that's the benefit of being cursed, having to always live like vampires in a book. We hoped we were overlooking something, Mr. Ávila, but if it's that clear to you..."
"I think your choices are that clear, Oskar. Either head back to the forest, go from hideout to hideout in towns, or settle down with a grownup helper."
Eli looks doubtful. "A helper. I suppose we could try to hire one in Malmö."
"Miss Eli, I mean a grownup you trust."
Eli looks puzzled. "But Mr. Ávila, you're the only grownup we trust."
Mr. Ávila waits.
"You mean you?" Oskar asks.
"Yes."
"But, Mr. Ávila, your job..."
"I retired at the end of the term after what happened at the pool. I sit here and read or listen to the radio all day and wonder if there's a chance that my life might still add up to something."
"Eli?"
"Yes! That would be wonderful! What do you think?"
"I think asking Mr. Ávila for help was the second best idea I ever had."
The three of them hug for a long time.
"I was hoping it would go this way. Take a look at the bedroom."
They see that Mr. Ávila has put a blanket over the bedroom window.
"With the door closed, it should be completely dark. Will that work?"
"Probably will. Plus we have heavy blankets we can pull over us for extra protection. Once dawn comes, Eli and I will be unconscious until nightfall."
Mr. Ávila says they can't leave for Malmö until then anyway because he still has to arrange for a mover to pack and ship his books and furniture, and he has to check with the agent to make sure the wire transfer went through.
"It's a long drive, and I only want to make it once. I also need tomorrow to arrange things with my bank and with the agent here for this place. There's still time left on the lease, but I'm sure it will rent quickly because it's close to the tunnel train."
Eli says, "About the Malmö lease—We have money."
"As do I, miss Eli. Enough for us to get by. And Malmö has a lot of empty properties right now, so rents are low."
Eli digs through her backpack and pulls out a small roll of ready money and an outsized roll of large denomination bills. She follows this by taking out her collection of priceless rings, antique puzzles, and a Faberge-like egg puzzle.
It takes a moment for the extent of Eli's resources to sink in. "That's a lot, Miss Eli. If we need it, it's good to know we have it."
They go into the bedroom so Mr. Ávila can get a night's sleep on his couch before the long drive. He puts towels out for them so they can shower. Once they close the bedroom door, it's noises off while they pack so they can be on the road just after sunset.
The children shift their voices to an almost inaudible register and talk about the chance for a new life. At dawn, they fall asleep in each other's arms.
Detective Sergeant Morkus
Detective Sergeant Per Morkus feels sick at heart. The murder of the two teens stands as an indictment of the mistakes he made during the investigation. He had pursued a theory of the murders before he and his team of detectives had collected all of the facts, and pursuing that theory cost him time and blinded him to other explanations. Jumping to conclusions is a rookie mistake, but it had seemed so clear! Two teens had gone into the alley and a third person followed them in and killed them in a jealous rage.
He pictures the alley and the bodies of the two teens. Above all, he sees the partial print made by a child’s sneaker while the blood was still fresh. The photo of the footprint is in the file, but he never referred to it in his written reports. By the time he realized the importance of it, he dared not draw attention to the footprint or to any aspect of the case.
He thinks about how the witness described the child who went into the alley with the teens and who came out a few minutes later alone. His detectives had grilled the witness who had stepped outside the club for a breath of air, but that led nowhere. Questioning others who were at the club yielded no new information and no suspects, and it was not until the next day that the department store clerk who waited on the girl gave them a better description, including examples of the clothes the girl had bought for herself and her “brother.” The second press release brought in no new information, and increased patrols didn’t turn up the girl.
But how could she have stepped in the fresh blood without witnessing the attack? And where were the tracks of the perpetrator? The killer couldn’t have followed the girl and the victims into the alley or the witness would have seen him. He must have been in the alley already.
He had sent a team of his detectives back to question everyone in the vicinity of the murders. Did the perpetrator enter from the alley door of a shop? No. They had all been closed since 7:00, and the murders happened around 10:00. Was the perpetrator already in the alley and then found another way out? Not unless he had wings or could scale walls.
The medical examiner, Agnetha, had made an offhand remark at the time that the lacerations and twisted neck reminded her of the injuries to an adult male found in an apartment in Blackeberg at Ibsengatan, a murder that took place fifteen months ago. And the Ibsengatan murder itself had taken place a few days before the sensational Blackeberg swimming pool massacre during which two boys and a teen had been killed with such violence that reconstructing the sequence of events had proved impossible. There was a witness then, too, who said an angel had done it to protect another kid, Oskar Eriksson, who was still missing.
Finally, the inescapable explanation for the crime shakes Detective Sergeant Morkus so deeply that for days he questions whether the case has unhinged him. He can no longer avoid the conclusion that the Ibsengatan killer, the “angel” at the pool, and the little girl in the alley are the same person.
Karin is officially still working the Blackeberg massacre case, more as a way of the chief humoring her. The case is effectively closed. Her conclusion that the massacre was done by a vampire made her a laughingstock in the department. Sergeant Morkus knows that he would be looked at the same way, so he dares not share his conclusions with anyone, not even Karin. The unsolved Vällingby case quietly becomes inactive.
After all, neither angels nor vampires exist, do they?