Itsy Bitsy by John Ajvide Lindqvist Read Free Book Online Page A

Refsnäs in the archipelago in southern Roslagen, a considerable distance in from Söderarm and Tjärven.
    You will need to move some of the islands out of the way, create empty expanses of water between them in order to catch sight of Domarö. Then you will also be able to see the lighthouse at Gåvasten, and all the other landmarks that arise in this story.
    Arise, yes. That’s the right word. We will be in a place that is new to people. For tens of thousands of years it has been lying beneath the water. But then the islands rise up and to the islands come the people, and with the people come the stories.
     
    Let us begin.

1
Banished
    Where the waves thunder and the storms cry.
    Where the breakers crash and the salt water whirls,
    that is where the place that is ours rises from the sea.
    The legacy that passes from father to son.
    L ENNART A LBINSSON —R ÅDMANSÖ

The sea has given and the sea has taken away
    Who flies there in the feather-harbour, who climbs up there out of the black, shining waters?
    G UNNAR E KELÖF —T JÄRVEN
    Sea buckthorn
    Three thousand years ago, Domarö was nothing but a large, flat rock sticking up out of the water, crowned by an erratic boulder the ice had left behind. One nautical mile to the east it was possible to glimpse the round shape that would later rise out of the sea and be given the name Gåvasten. Apart from that, there was nothing. It would be another thousand years before the surrounding islets and islands dared to poke their heads above the water, beginning the formation of the archipelago that goes under the name of Domarö archipelago today.
    By that time the sea buckthorn had already arrived on Domarö.
    Down below the enormous block left by the ice, a shoreline had formed. There in the scree the sea buckthorn worked its way along with its creeping roots, the hardy shrub finding nourishment in the rotting seaweed, growing where there was nothing to grow in, clinging to the rocks. Sea buckthorn. Toughest of the tough.
    And the sea buckthorn produced new roots, crept up over the water’s edge and grew on the slopes until a metallic-green border surrounded the uninhabited shores of Domarö like a fringe. Birds snatched the fiery yellow berries that tasted of bitter oranges and flew with them to other islands, spreading the gospel of the sea buckthorn to new shores, and within a few hundred years the green fringe could be seen in all directions.
    But the sea buckthorn was preparing its own destruction.
    The humus formed by its rotting leaves was richer than anything the stony shores could offer, and the alder saw its chance. It set its seeds in the mulch left by the sea buckthorn, and it grew stronger and stronger. The sea buckthorn was unable to tolerate either the nitrogen-rich soil produced by the alder, or the shade from its leaves, and it withdrew down towards the water.
    With the alder came other plants that needed a higher level of nutrition, competing for the available space. The sea buckthorn was relegated to a shoreline that grew far too slowly, just half a metre in a hundred years. Despite the fact that it had given birth to the other plants, the sea buckthorn was displaced and set aside.
    And so it sits there at the edge of the shore, biding its time. Beneath the slender, silky green leaves there are thorns. Big thorns.
    Two small people and a large rock (July 1984)
    They were holding hands.
    He was thirteen and she was twelve. If anyone in the gang caught sight of them, they would just die right there on the spot. They crept through the fir trees, alert to every sound and every movement as if they were on some secret mission. In a way they were: they were going to be together, but they didn’t know that yet.
    It was almost ten o’clock at night, but there was still enough light in the sky for them to see each other’s arms and legs as pale movements over the carpet of grass and earth still holding the warmth of the day. They didn’t dare look at each