The Blood Spilt Page 0,1

right on the temple. I kneel down beside her and lay my cheek against her mouth. A warm puff of air against my skin. I haven’t finished with her yet. The dog rushes out like a mad thing, straight for everything in its way. Its claws rip the earth, leaving great wounds. I am rampaging. I am racing into the far country that is madness.

And now I am lengthening my stride.

Pia Svonni the churchwarden is standing in her garden smoking. She usually holds the cigarette the way girls are supposed to, between her index and middle fingers. But now she’s holding it firmly between her thumb and her index and middle fingers. There’s a hell of a difference. It’s nearly midsummer, that’s why. You get kind of crazy. Don’t want to sleep. Don’t need to either. The night whispers and entices and draws you in, so you just have to go outside.

The wood nymphs are putting on their new shoes, made of the finest birch bark. It’s a real beauty competition. They forget themselves and dance and sway in the meadows, even though a car might pass by. They wear out their shoes while the little ones stand hidden among the trees, watching with huge eyes.

Pia Svonni stubs out the cigarette on the base of the upturned flowerpot that serves as an ashtray and drops the stub through the hole. She suddenly decides to cycle down to Jukkasjärvi church. Tomorrow there’s a wedding there. She has already done the cleaning and made everything look nice, but now she has the idea of picking a big bunch of flowers for the altar. She’ll go out into the meadow beyond the churchyard. Buttercups grow there, and globe flowers and purple cranesbill in a haze of cow parsley. And forget-me-nots whisper along the edge. She pushes her cell phone into her pocket and pulls on her tennis shoes.

The midnight sun casts its glow over the yard. The thin light falls through the fence and the long shadows from the slats make the lawn look like a homemade rag rug, woven in stripes of greenish yellow and dark green. A flock of thrushes is screeching and playing havoc in one of the birch trees.

* * *

The whole way down to Jukkasjärvi is one long downhill run. Pia pedals and changes gear. Her speed is lethal. And no helmet. Her hair streams out behind her. It’s like when she was four years old and used to swing standing up on the old swing made out of a tire in the yard, until it felt as if it were going to swing right round. She cycles through Kauppinen where some horses gaze at her from under the trees. When she passes the bridge over the river Torne she can see two little boys fly-fishing a little way downstream.

The road runs parallel with the river. The village is sleeping. She passes the tourist area and the restaurant, the old Konsum supermarket and the ugly community center. The old folk museum’s silvery timber walls and the white veils of mist on the meadow in front of the fence.

At the far end of the village, where the road runs out, is the wooden church, painted Falun red. A smell of fresh tar comes from the roof timbers.

The bell tower is part of the fence. To get into the church, you go in through the bell tower and walk along a stone path that leads to the church steps.

One of the blue doors to the bell tower is standing wide open. Pia clambers off her bicycle and leans it against the fence.

It should be closed, she thinks, walking slowly toward the door.

Something rustles among the small birch trees to the right of the path down to the rectory. Her heart races and she stops to listen. It was only a little rustle. Probably a squirrel or a shrew.

The back door of the bell tower is open as well. She can see straight through the tower. The door of the church is also open.

Now her heart is really thumping. Sune might forget the door of the bell tower if he’s been celebrating—after all, it’s the night before midsummer’s eve. But not the door of the church. She thinks about those kids who smashed the windows of the church in town, and threw burning rags inside. That was a couple of years ago. What’s happened now? Pictures flash across her mind. The altarpiece sprayed with graffiti and piss. Long slashes with a