The pain filled his skull, but Maja was still there. His head throbbed as he turned over so that he was lying on his stomach, with his face only two metres from her back. The small fingers picked out the beads, sorting them neatly one by one into the right pile.
I am here. She is here. I am home.
For a long time he just lay there looking at her as the headache eased. His teeth were no longer chattering. He had travelled such a long way to see exactly this. And now she was sitting there, two metres away from him.
And he couldn't reach her.
'Maja?' he said. There was no sound. She didn't react.
He wriggled across the floor, over the threshold until he was right next to her, he could see the milk stain on the knee of her tracksuit. He sat up and placed his hand on her shoulder.
He felt the soft curve beneath the fabric, not much bigger than an egg. He stroked her shoulder, enjoying the sensation in his hand, and squeezed gently as silent tears poured down his face. He stroked her upper arm, and the tears ran into his mouth. They tasted of salt. They were coming from him.
But she didn't turn around. She didn't know he was there. He was just a pair of mute, weeping eyes, watching her.
'Sweetheart. Maja, sweetheart, little one, I'm here now. Daddy's here. I'm with you. You're not on your own anymore.'
He hugged her back, rested his cheek on the back of her neck and carried on weeping. She should have turned around, she should have complained: Daddy, your stubble's all scratchy and I'm getting wet, but nothing happened. As far as she was concerned he didn't exist.
He sat like that until the tears dried up, until he could weep no more. He let go of her and shuffled half a metre backwards, letting his gaze roam over her back, the contours of her spine protruding beneath the material.
I will sit here forever. When she gets up, I will follow her. Like a ghost. I am with her, as she was with me.
He closed his eyes. He felt brave enough to close his eyes now.
Would she experience it the same way? Like the vague, elusive presence of another person, following her wherever she went? Would it frighten her? Could she be frightened? Could he have any effect on her at all?
With his eyes still closed he reached out and touched her back. It was there. The feel of the soft velour against the palm of his hand was there, even though he had his eyes closed.
Can I…
He shuffled forward and to the right as his hand slid over her back, over her shoulder. He moved around her on his knees, still with his eyes closed, felt her collarbone beneath his fingertips. He sat directly in front of her and followed the line of her throat up to her face. There it was. Her face. The round cheeks, the snub nose, the lips that moved as she hummed.
He opened his eyes.
His hand was resting on the back of Maja's head, and he was sitting exactly where he had been sitting before he started shuffling around. He had run his fingers over her lips and she hadn't noticed a thing. He didn't exist. He wasn't even a ghost to her.
He leaned back, stretched out on the floor and looked up at the ceiling, which was not stained with smoke or marked by cobwebs, but was a beautiful white ceiling of carefully laid tongue and groove. Exactly the kind of ceiling he liked best.
He could sit next to Maja, he could look at her and touch her, but he couldn't reach her. Their worlds were not permitted to meet.
But she came to me. I knew she was there. She came to me. Through the water.
Everything within him became still. The disappointment and frustration faded away. He tried to see it, tried to think.
She came to me…
He raised his head and looked at the little blue figure next to the bed who had now picked up a heart-shaped bead tile and was busy pressing beads into place. Maja.
But this was not Maja. The person who was Maja, who had memories and pictures and who could talk, had come to him, had somehow managed to escape into the sea. What was sitting by the bed was only her body, or that part of her that was necessary to enable him to see what he wanted to see.
Maja?
There was a point where both worlds collided and mingled together. That point was himself, since she existed within him. He closed his eyes and searched for her.
We're not playing hide and seek any more, little one. You can come out. Out you come! The game is over, it's safe now.
He concentrated on what had happened with Elin. The thing that had been in the bucket, that had been forced out of her and had to be returned to the sea. Somewhere inside him was something similar. He called to it now, searched in the darkness of his own body.
Where are you…where are you…
Like the silvery flash of a fish in the net far below the surface, he caught sight of it. It was dispersed throughout his entire body, but he approached it from all directions at the same time and made it come together, gather into a formless, hovering mass that he could take hold of and localise with his consciousness. It was in his stomach now, circling around the insect down there that was floundering and thrashing about in a panic.
Everything around him was gone, was unreal. His strength and his thoughts were focused on one single thing: holding on to something intangible. As he moved towards Maja's body on the floor, his eyes closed, he had to divert a minute amount of his attention to his own movements, and the other thing threatened to slip from his grasp like the eel had slipped through his father's fingers.
He pushed away the eel, couldn't think about the eel, couldn't think about his own knees as they slid across the floor, couldn't hope or wish for anything as his fingers once again moved over Maja's body until he was sitting right in front of her. He still hadn't lost his grip, she was still there in the darkness in his hands, in his mind as he leaned forward and placed his mouth over hers.
Come. Out.
He pushed it in front of him, up from his stomach, up through his throat, and he really could feel it like a little body, a stream of silky liquid sliding over his tongue, out through his lips and into her mouth.
He gasped and collapsed. Part of him had left his body. He didn't dare look. There was nothing more now. He closed his eyes, and there was only silence. Then he heard Maja's voice:
'Daddy, what's the matter?'
Slowly he opened his eyes. Maja was sitting there looking at him with a puzzled frown.
'Are you sad? Why have you got Bamse?'
He looked into her eyes. Her hazel eyes that were looking enquiringly at him. A large body shifted position, and a shudder ran through the world.
The rattle that emerged from his throat told him that he too was now capable of producing sound. Maja's concerned expression was on the point of tipping over into fear, because he was behaving so oddly. He swallowed down everything that wanted to come spurting out of him, pulled Bamse free and held him out to Maja.
'I brought him for you.'
Maja grabbed Bamse and hugged him, rocking back and forth. Anders could hear a faint rustling as her elbows moved across her knees, he leaned towards her and smelled the familiar scent of her shampoo. He stroked her cheek.
'Maja, sweetheart…'
Maja glanced up, looked at him. Another shudder passed through the house and he felt it as a powerful vibration in the floorboards. Maja screamed.
'What's that?'
'I think…' said Anders, taking her hand and getting to his feet,..1 think we have to go now.'
Maja was pulling away. 'Where are we going? I don't want to go!'
The house shook, and Anders saw the poker fall over next to the fireplace. Maja's piles of beads collapsed and mixed together, and she freed herself from his grasp so that she could start sorting them out again.