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Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2014
Copyright © Camilla Lackberg 2011
Published by agreement with Nordin Agency, Sweden
Translation copyright © Tiina Nunnally 2014
Cover design layout © HarperCollinsPublishers 2014
Cover photographs © Tony Watson / Arcangel Images (forest); Johner Images / Getty Images (girl)
Camilla Lackberg asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authorâs imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780007419593
Ebook Edition © DECEMBER 2014 ISBN: 9780007419609
Version 2018-09-24
They had decided to renovate their way out of the grief. Neither of them was sure it was a good plan, but it was the only one they had. The alternative was to lie down and slowly pine away.
Ebba ran the scraper over the outside wall of the house. The paint was coming away easily. It had already started to flake off in big chunks, so all she had to do was help it along. The July sun was so hot that her fringe was sticking to her forehead, which was damp with sweat, and her arm ached because it was the third day in a row sheâd carried out this same monotonous, up-and-down motion. But she welcomed the physical pain. The worse it got, the more it muted the ache in her heart, at least for a while.
She turned around and looked at Tobias, who was working on the lawn in front of the house, sawing boards. He seemed to sense that she was watching him, because he glanced up and raised a hand in greeting, as if she were an acquaintance he was meeting on the street. Ebba felt her own hand respond with the same awkward gesture.
More than six months had passed since their life had been shattered, but they still didnât know how to react to each other. Every night they would lie in the double bed with their backs turned, terrified that some involuntary touch might release something that they wouldnât know how to handle. It was as if the grief filled them to the point there was no room for any other feelings. No love, no warmth, no empathy.
Guilt, heavy and unexpressed, separated them. Things would have been easier if they could have defined it and worked out where it belonged. But it kept shifting back and forth, changing strength and shape, constantly attacking from new directions.
Ebba turned back to the house and continued scraping at the wall. Under her hands the white paint came off in big pieces, revealing the wooden boards underneath. She stroked the wood with her free hand. This house seemed to have a soul in a way that sheâd never noticed anywhere else. The small terraced cottage in Göteborg had been almost new when she and Tobias had bought it together. Back then she had loved the fact that the whole place had shone so brightly, that it was so untouched. Now all of that newness was a thing of the past, and this old house with all its flaws was better suited to her present state. She thought again about the leaky roof, the boiler that regularly needed a good kick to get it started, and the draughty windows that made it impossible to keep a lighted candle on the windowsill. Rain and wind also swept through her soul, mercilessly blowing out the candles that she tried to light.