Olli has frozen. Greta lets out a laugh and teases him for being out of shape.
Aino and the boy have stopped a few steps above them. They’re both suntanned. Her face looks tired. The boy sees his father and smiles.
They stare at each other.
Greta tightens her grip on Olli’s arm.
He waits.
The other woman has started down the stairs. A pale blonde—the same woman Olli had a brief dialogue with at the film club. The one with the scooter. His feet stumble on the steps.
Anne Blomroos.
She’s dying, but she is still cinematically elegant. As she comes closer she smiles wearily, one arm hanging heavily at her side.
Aino looks at Greta unconcerned and says to Olli, “Well, we’re finally here. It was quite a trip. She’s brought us, but she seems disappointed. She said to tell you something about how you were supposed to follow a script and apparently you didn’t.”
“Daddy ate the pear and he forgot,” the child mumbles, his brow furrowed.
Olli turns cold.
Aino strokes the boy’s head. “Yes, that’s what the nice lady said,” she murmurs. “She said that the second part of some previous agreement wasn’t carried out and so that changes your agreement… But I guess it doesn’t have anything to do with me. Whew! What a trip! We can talk about all of it later. Right now we just want to go straight home and have a shower. What do you say, Olli? Are you coming home for dinner, or do you still have work to do?”
Olli shrugs. He glances at Greta.
She looks back at him questioningly and squeezes his arm.
The falling snow fades the world around them to invisibility. Everything else is gone; all that’s left are the five of them and the massive Nero’s Steps, and even those are being covered little by little in a blanket of white.
Anne Blomroos is standing a few steps above. She raises both arms in front of her. Olli barely has time to think that the black thing she’s holding looks a bit like a pistol, when a bang closes up his ears.
His son falls face-down on the steps as if he’s been shoved, and tumbles head over heels to Olli’s feet.
“Oopsy-daisy,” Olli says.
The second bang makes Aino flinch, as if she’s just remembered that she left the stove on. She spreads her arms, bends over and throws herself at Olli’s feet, taking hold of his left shoe.
Olli looks down in surprise, first at Aino, then at his shoe. His ears are ringing. Anne’s voice sounds like it’s coming from somewhere very far away.
“After the beautiful ending Karri was supposed to come and take me back into the secret passages,” Anne says. “It was my one and only wish in all this world. Oh, Olli. You should have known that you can’t take away a girl’s one and only wish.”
A third bang.
Greta sighs and falls on her side, still holding Olli’s hand. Her green eyes stare up at him, her pupils dilating, her mouth gulping for air.
Something red starts to mingle with the new-fallen snow on the stones.
Olli turns and looks at Anne.
She looks back at him, pistol raised, tears in her eyes. The snow falls thicker and thicker.
It is quite a cinematic moment.
Praise for The Rabbit Back Literature Society
‘Unnerving, enigmatic… Hints of Let the Right One In and Haruki Murakami’s elliptical early science fiction novels flavour a creepy tale about mutating books, buried secrets and ghostly encounters’
‘Wonderfully knotty… a very grown-up fantasy masquerading as quirky fable. Unexpected, thrilling and absurd’
‘Mixes the small-town surrealism of Twin Peaks with the clandestine-society theme of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History’
‘Charming and intriguing, switching from playful to creepy to heartfelt and back again’
‘Odd, strange and beautifully written’
‘A novel about big questions… wonderful characters… amazing’
‘Thoughtful, intelligent, and at times playful, this story about Ella and her encounters with the Rabbit Back Literature Society will leave you smiling, and at times scratching your head in wonder at the imagination of the author… marvellous’
‘Strangely magical… a wonderful and unusual story’
‘An intriguing exploration of how stories can define us, and what it means if reality doesn’t measure up’
‘The Rabbit Back Literature Society is a lobster pot of a book… an exquisite balance of suspense, precision-engineered structure and darkly playful humour… fascinating. And fun’
‘Charming, chilling and gripping from its very first page’
About the Publisher
MIRROR, SHOULDER, SIGNAL
Dorthe Nors
Translated by Misha Hoekstra
‘Sonja is a thoroughly modern heroine… nothing at all like Bridget Jones. Comical and clever, with a knife-twist of uneasiness’
KARATE CHOP
Dorthe Nors
Translated by Martin Aitken
‘Beautiful, faceted, haunting stories… Dorthe Nors is fantastic!’
MINNA NEEDS REHEARSAL SPACE
Dorthe Nors
Translated by Misha Hoekstra
‘Darkly funny and incisive’
MY CAT YUGOSLAVIA
Pajtim Statovci
Translated by David Hackston
‘A strange, haunting, and utterly original exploration of displacement and desire… a marvel, a remarkable achievement’
THE STOCKHOLM TRILOGY
1. CLINCH
2. DOWN FOR THE COUNT
3. SLUGGER
Martin Holmén
Translated by Henning Koch
‘Ferociously noir… If Chandler and Hammett had truly walked on the wild side, it would read like Clinch’
A WORLD GONE MAD
The Wartime Diaries of Astrid Lindgren, Author of Pippi Longstocking