Ane Riel - Resin

She carefully unclenched her fist and showed him a small piece of amber. ‘It’s my dad’s. There’s an old ant inside it.’

‘Really,’ Roald said. ‘Let’s take a look at it when we get back to my house.’

She nodded and put the amber into his pocket herself.

‘Would you like to carry on holding your teddy?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered, pressing the teddy bear to her chest.

He spotted the parcel lying on the tree stump. ‘That parcel… Do you know what’s inside?’

Liv shook her head.

‘Shall we take it with us?’ Roald looked anxiously at the fire eating its way towards them. He shouldn’t have asked. They needed to leave now.

‘No,’ Liv said, looking back up towards the burning house. ‘I want to get away from here.’

She grabbed his hand. And they ran.

They followed the sharp bend to the south and ran down the gravel road along the spruces, through the birch grove, over the small clearing and onwards past the low-growing pines and the large area of wild roses, which were well past flowering for this year. Eventually they reached the Neck. Roald was starting to feel an unaccustomed lightness. His feet danced underneath him in an even rhythm, and her noiseless steps flew past him like a steady pulse in double time.

When they were almost at the bottom of the Neck they stopped and turned around. A thick black plume of smoke rose from the middle of the Head, and they could see a red glow behind the southernmost trees. Perhaps all of the Head would burn. Perhaps it was the right thing.

Roald placed his hands on the girl’s shoulders. He could hear her breathing and feel her shoulders rise and fall, so she wasn’t wholly supernatural. She could fly, but she was still breathing.

‘I believe that you have a nice uncle and that we need to find him. But I’ll look after you whatever happens, so don’t you worry.’

‘I’m not worried,’ she said. ‘Are you?’ She tilted her head and looked up at him.

He stroked her hair.

‘No. Not any more.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Roald.’

‘My name is Liv. And I’m not dead.’

‘I know that.’ He smiled.

‘Where do you live?’

‘Down at the pub.’

‘I’ve been there.’

The lady with the white name badge says it’ll take time. She has read everything Mum wrote to me. We’ve a lot to talk about, she says.

She says that I haven’t learned things which other children my age have learned. However, I can do some things which they can’t, and I’ve seen someone get killed.

She says that my life has been turned upside down. I don’t really get what that’s supposed to mean. It’s to do with me being neither a child nor a grown-up; that sometimes I think like a child and sometimes I think like an adult, and every now and then I do things which no one ought to do. I think they mean to teach me how to think and what to do.

I’m not allowed to lock the door to my room or barricade it. But it’s OK for me to still snap and shake my biscuits, and it’s really good that I write down my thoughts. I’m also allowed to repeat myself. The lady says I’m very good at writing and speaking, and that it doesn’t matter at all if time and things get muddled up a bit.

When I asked her if it’s also OK that people get muddled up, she looked at me strangely and nodded. But she didn’t understand. I don’t think I’m going to tell her everything.

She also says that it’s not my fault.

I already know that.

Sometimes I dream about Dad. It’s the same dream every time. He’s standing in the doorway of our burning house, and he has an arrow through his heart. I know that it’s my arrow, my best arrow. I also know that he’s dying.

But he doesn’t fall down immediately. He takes a few steps towards me before he lies down in the gravel in front of me. His hair and beard are as wild as ever before, but when his cap falls off I see that he has started to go bald. His movements are slow, and he seems very calm. Just like the stag in the moonlight. I’m sure that he’s looking into my eyes and that he’s not angry with me. It wasn’t my fault.

Then he closes his eyes.

And then I wake up.

In one way it’s a good dream, although it makes me cry. Perhaps I’ll tell it to the lady one day, but not yet. I would like to dream it a little longer just for me.

The garden outside the windows is very quiet and full of grass. There’s nothing on the grass – nothing – but at the back of the garden there’s a tree which I go to say hello to every day. Its leaves have fallen off, but they’ll come back.

Behind the garden is a field with a scarecrow, which I also talk to from time to time. It doesn’t say anything, but that doesn’t stop it from listening. The farmer came to take it away, but agreed to leave it because I asked him to. He smoked a pipe. I liked that. The next time I went to say hello to the scarecrow, it had a pipe.

Perhaps we’ll have snow soon.

There’s also a Christmas tree here, but it’s nothing like the Christmas tree at the Head because it’s standing on the floor and the decorations are colourful. I’ll need time to get used to that.

I’ll also need time to get used to there being so much space.

When the lady and I have finished talking and writing, I usually go to my room. I like sitting there, reading or sewing or looking at the ant in the amber.

I also like turning over my hourglass and staring at it. It’s incredible how much sand can trickle through that small neck when you just give it time.

Things take the time they need , the lady says.

I wonder whether it shouldn’t be Time takes the things we took . I’ve got plenty of time, but I haven’t got very many things now.

I would like to know how many hourglasses of time time had to take before the small piece of resin turned into that small piece of amber with the ancient ant inside it. It exists, the ant. Because I can see it. So even though you’re dead, can you still be present? It must be so. After all, I was still alive, although I was dead.

I can also see Mum. She hangs on the wall over my bed.

I’ve stopped being angry at them for taking away my dagger. I was allowed to keep Robin Hood . And my teddy bear, fortunately, although everyone says it stinks. I think it has a nice smell. Of the forest.

Roald has been here with a picture of Mona Lisa. As far as I can tell, it has been on show in another country and used to be very famous, but now it hangs here. He’s right that she smiles just like Mum. They hang next to each other, Mum and Mona Lisa. Mum is nicer, I think. I’ve almost forgotten that she grew so big.

Almost.

I miss her. But whenever I pull out a letter from the green file and read what she wrote to me, it’s a little bit like talking to her. Then I reply as best I can and put her letter back. One day, when I’ve read all of them, I’ll probably start again, so that we can keep talking. There are so many things I want to tell her.

Sometimes I fetch a book from the common room and read it aloud to Mum and Mona Lisa. I’m not sure if Mona Lisa is listening, but at least she’s looking at me wherever I sit in the room. I know that Mum is listening. She’s the best listener.

They’ve told me that everything on the Head burned to the ground. It’s not very sad because soon new things will grow, small trees – and new grass and new flowers. Everything comes back. Even the animals. One day my uncle Mogens will build a house up there, he says, and once I’m finished here, I’ll go and live with him. So I, too, will be coming back.

Mogens is Dad’s big brother. They don’t look very much alike, but I like him all the same because I can feel that he really loved Dad. He seems nice, but also a bit odd. For instance, he keeps talking about how he has invented a clever Christmas-tree stand which you can buy in every shop. I haven’t got the heart to tell him that it’s a much better idea to hang your Christmas tree from the ceiling. And that that costs nothing at all.