Blackwater by Kerstin Ekman Read Free Book Online

words. But the hole up there stayed light, like a blue disc. Nothing moved against it.
    His voice cracked. He was standing with his back pressed to the sharp, knobbly wall of the well. There was something down by his feet. Larger than a snake. He felt cold again. He had forgotten it when he was yelling.
    Whatever he did, nothing changed. The well wall and the blue lid in the sky were the same. And that powerful thing hitting out down by his feet.
    He tried shouting again, but that only hurt his throat. He had damaged something by screaming. For a moment it seemed to him as if the bottom of the well was being raised and he was being pressed up against the hard, blue-white disc.
    He got his knife free again, a small sheath knife, rather blunt. He used it only to gut fish. And how could he slash with it in the dark?
    He started stamping and kicking among the stones on the bottom, stirring up a smell of mould from the water. But no movement. He started stamping systematically round and felt the same movement by the wall, though more evasive this time. Then he kicked out so water flew and he stubbed his toes on the stones, but he ignored the pain. He was going to go on kicking until it was still. Kick it to death. Whatever it was. I’m bigger, anyhow, he thought.
    Something – was it a smell? – make him think of fish. And then there was the memory of a feeling like a snake against his hand.
    Eel.
    There’s an eel in the well.
    He knew that in the old days they used to let eels into wells to keep them clean of worms and insects. He wanted to piss and he was very tired. If I piss in the water, I can’t drink it, he thought. I must have a drink first. What if I’m to be here a long time. Maybe it’s not harmful to drink piss. It’d be diluted. Eels can live for a hundred years. Maybe it’s white. I can’t stand here much longer. Then I’ll have to sit with the eel. That doesn’t matter. But the water, the cold. How long has this well been dry or almost dry? How the hell can an eel live in so little water year after year?
    He had begun shaking with cold, so he kept beating his arms round his chest, but he couldn’t stop his body shuddering. He tried to get warm by stamping, though more cautiously this time. There was no need to stamp on the eel. Foul, pissing in the water, too, but he had to in the end, his bladder bursting. Then he sat down to rest. He fumbled among the stones and felt the eel. It wriggled away, but couldn’t get far. Fucking tough on the eel! And how often had it been hit by a stone?
    Pekka and Björne must have thrown stones to check how much water was down there. He didn’t think they’d wanted to drown him. Or dared.
    The chill of the water made him get up again. He could hardly see the well wall in the darkness but he could feel moss in the cracks. It must be a long time since there had been any water down there.
    The wall was made of shale, of course, like all the old stonework in the area. The slabs of shale had been displaced by the frost. It must be a crooked old well shaft.
    He tried standing absolutely still, listening for cars or voices, but he could hear nothing, not even birds. Up there where time and light existed, it was Midsummer Eve. People had had their meal. The Norwegians had started coming. Cars were skidding in towards the community centre. There would be much talk about Torsten and Vidart and that Torsten’s own lad had gone and reported him. Or whatever they made of it.
    The music had begun thumping away and they were dancing inside – or was it already over? He had lost all sense of time. Gudrun had washed up, of course, and put her white cardigan on over her dress. Had they gone down to the centre? Torsten wouldn’t care a fuck about the talk.
    Did Gudrun know that when he was young, Torsten had knocked down men he didn’t even know? And that with two others he had taken the Enoksson boy out and beaten him up because he’d left their lumber team and gone to work for