Chapter 19

I hadn't slept for shit. No surprise there. I'd been going through all the possible scenarios over and over, from teaching myself how to insulate a Dalsland cottage during the summer break to selling the lot with the loss it would entail and returning to Stockholm. The last part made me want to weep into my pillow.

I'd fallen in love with my cottage, my strawberry beds, the forest, the muddy walks to school, and with Gryta—nosy, interfering citizens notwithstanding.

And I couldn't leave Bj?rn.

Giving up seemed impossible. Yet the amount of work that lay in front of me… I wasn't sure I could do it. Hell, I'd only just taught myself how to properly handle a screwdriver.

A long run was a sure way to clear my mind. My usual trails didn't appeal, though. It would feel like going in circles in my own head. I checked the map on my laptop and memorized a route that would lead me north of the lakes. I might as well explore the forests there before Bj?rn's loggers took them down.

Bj?rn had called it monoculture.The term was more fitting than I'd realized. The endless rows of spruce looked the same everywhere.

I was sure I'd run this way before. Almost sure. Fairly certain.

Or not.

Turning around, I jogged backward for a while, looking at the dirt road from a different angle. The moss and blueberry bushes interspersed with granite boulders looked familiar.

I stumbled and regained my balance, bracing myself against a tree trunk. The beautiful green forest with its thick moss and blooming blueberries seemed to be mocking me. My legs were burning, and my wet shirt clung to my back, cooling my skin. I was hungry and a little dizzy. My phone had died what felt like eons ago, and I had no idea how long I'd been stumbling around here.

The dirt roads must have changed compared to the satellite photos online. The loggers created new roads all the time, while the old tracks disappeared in the growing vegetation. It was time to start panicking because I truly had no idea where I was. With the heavy gray blanket of clouds above, I couldn't even determine north. Wasn't there a type of lichen that grew on the north side of the tree trunks? But even if I knew where north was, would I know which way exactly lay Gryta? The answer to that question was a resounding no.

I was fucked.

I was too exhausted to run anymore, which meant I must have done more than twenty kilometers already. I could still walk, but I felt cold and achy, and my shoes and socks were drenched from accidentally running through a marsh a few minutes ago.

Think.

The loggers. They must come here from the main roads. One of the tracks I passed just a minute ago looked fresh. If I followed the tracks, they would lead me to a proper road sooner or later.

With new determination, I walked back to the muddy track and looked from left to right. Which way? I might as well flip a coin. The forest looked thinner to the left, so I went that way.

Was it just the clouds, or was it getting darker? I left the cottage around two in the afternoon. Had I been out for so long already?

My stupid head began conjuring worst-case scenarios one after another. It was May and more than ten degrees, so I probably wouldn't die of hypothermia. Hopefully. I might pass out from exhaustion. Was there anything in the forest I could drink or eat? Not this time of the year. The blueberries were barely blooming.

Nobody knew where I'd been headed. I hadn't told or messaged anyone that I was going running today. How long would it take for Bj?rn to start looking for me? He'd just assume I'd ghosted him. Nobody would realize I was gone until Monday morning at school.

But this wasn't a complete wilderness, dammit. There were farms and cottages around Gryta. Sooner or later, I was bound to find some sign of civilization.

I climbed a hill and looked around. The dirt tracks zigzagged through the forest in all directions, and piles of fresh logs were scattered about. This was obviously the work site. I should have gone in the other direction.

I sat down on a dry patch of pine-needle-covered ground and tried firing up my phone again. The empty battery icon flashed and died again.

The chill seeped into my muscles and mosquitoes began buzzing around my ears. I got up with a grunt, stretched my stiff back, and began walking back to where I'd come from.

A flash of something caught my eye, and I squinted through the vegetation. The view was obscured by bushes for a moment, but then it peeked out again. A gravel road.

Oh, yes, please!

I jogged down the incline, avoiding stumps and boulders. It was most definitely a road, a well-maintained one. Some of the gravel looked newly added.

My heart pounding from sheer hope, I sped up.

I hopped over the ditch onto the gravel and looked left, then right. Left again.

No signs, no markings, no cars, no cottages. Only a road, looking the same both ways.

As my excitement dissipated, exhaustion took over. I blinked and rubbed my face, swearing uselessly into the silence.

Okay. The road had to lead from somewhere to somewhere. I decided on a direction and went.

My feet began chafing in my wet shoes. I started jogging a little to warm myself up, but I was so tired it only made me lightheaded. Then I slowed down too much and began shivering. Gritting my teeth, I walked faster and clenched my fists a few times to get the blood flowing into my fingers.

Movement in the distance stopped me in my tracks. A wolf?

"Selma?" I breathed. Oh please, Lord, yes. Let it be her!

The dog ran toward me, tongue lolling, and hopped around my feet.

It wasn't quite the rescuer I'd been hoping for, but a definitive step-up from just a minute ago.

My lips stretched into a smile as I crouched to hug her. She wriggled, licking my face.

"Selma, hi. I'm so happy to see you. Where's your master, huh? Let's go find him. Can you show me?"

I kept walking in the direction she came from, and she trotted by my side, sniffing here and there.

"Selma!"

When old Henke appeared behind a left turn, I could have wept. He had his long wizard staff with him. Relieved beyond words, I limped to meet him.

"Hello, Henke."

"Who is this?"

"I'm Eric, your neighbor."

"Oh! Eric. How are you?"

"I'm very happy to see you and Selma. I got lost. I've been trying to find my way back to Gryta."

"Heavens! Really?"

"I'm hoping you can point me in the right direction."

Henke grinned, leaning on his staff. "Ha, dear young man, I have no idea where I am. All of this is just a colorful blur to me."

I gaped. He wasn't being serious, was he?

"But this one knows." He pointed at Selma.

How did he know where she was if he couldn't see? Did he simply hear her breathing?

"Let's go home, Selma," he said in Swedish. "We'll have dinner."

Selma perked up and took off down the road, pausing to wait for us every few yards. Henke turned and began walking leisurely after her, tapping his staff, presumably to trace the edge of the gravel road.

I hugged myself and rubbed my arms up and down in a futile attempt to warm myself as I walked beside him. "How did you teach her that?"

"I didn't. I just say the magic word, dinner, and she'll take me home."

Chuckling, I shook my head. "Brilliant. Thank you so much. You've saved me."

"Nah. You'd have come home this way eventually. So how are you doing? Is the cottage still standing?"

I scoffed. "Barely. I knocked off a part of the facade, and the support beam on one side is rotten."

"Helvete. That's bad."

"Looks like old moisture damage. I'll need to somehow replace the rotten parts of the beam and the bearing wall, then new insulation and a new facade."

Selma ran toward us, bumped Henke's hand with her nose, and trotted off again, turning around to check on our progress at regular intervals.

"People here will help you," Henke said. "Talk to Peter and Bj?rn, and you'll figure it out."

"I can't ask for so much. It's weeks of work. I've already let Bj?rn do more than I should have. He still hasn't let me pay for the firewood he brought me in April. He says it was from a fallen birch and that I shouldn't worry about it."

Henke reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a round box of snus. He paused to poke out one small tobacco sachet and pushed it under his upper lip in the classic move I'd seen many Swedish men do. He dropped the puck-shaped box back into his pocket and resumed walking.

"That's how we do things around here," he said. "You can say what you want about these people—their world is small—but we help each other. That's how we survived. This is still a poor man's country at heart, you know, and folks lean on each other. Peter brings my groceries every week, and Bj?rn plows my road. But I don't go around saying they should stop unless I pay them because twenty years ago, it was me plowing the roads for everyone. You're a part of this community now, and we want to keep you, so we'll help you."

What Henke said sounded profound, and I should have been paying more attention, but I was too cold to keep a train of thought going. A shudder went through me.

Henke reached out and put a hand on my shoulder, then squeezed my upper arm.

"You're cold, aren't you?" he said, his white eyebrows flying up above his thick glasses.

"It's okay. We're close, aren't we?"

"Half an hour to the village." He rested the staff against his chest and patted my shoulders with both hands, then cupped my face. "You're shaking, young man, barely standing up. Why didn't you say anything?"

I opened my mouth, but Henke was already pulling out a new-looking phone from his inner pocket. He unlocked it with a thumbprint and said, "Bj?rn Eklund."

"Calling Bj?rn Eklund," an automatic voice replied.

I huffed. "I can walk…"

Henke only lifted his palm to shut me up.