My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry(67)

She’s gone about fifty yards between the headstones when she picks up a smell of smoke. At first there’s something familiar about it, something almost liberating. Something that Elsa wants to turn and embrace and bury her nose in, like a freshly laundered pillowcase on a Sunday morning. But then there’s something else.

And her inner voice comes to her.

She knows where the man between the headstones is before she has even turned around. He’s only a few yards away from her. Casually holding his cigarette between his fingertips. It’s too far from the church for anyone to hear Elsa scream, and with calm, cold movements he blocks her way back.

Elsa glances over her shoulder towards the gate at the road. Twenty yards away. When she looks back he’s taken a long stride towards her.

And the inner voice comes to Elsa. And it’s Granny’s voice. But it isn’t whispering. It’s yelling.

Run.

Elsa feels his rough hand grasping her arm, but she slips out of his grip. She runs until the wind scrapes her eyes like nails against a frosty windshield. She doesn’t know for how long. Eternities. And when the memory of his eyes and his cigarette crystallizes in her brain, when every breath punches into her lungs, she realizes that he was limping; that’s why she got away. Another second of hesitation and he would have grabbed her by her dress, but Elsa is too used to running. Too good at it. She runs until she’s no longer sure whether it’s the wind or her grief that is making her eyes run. Runs until she realizes she’s almost at her school.

She slows down. Looks round. Hesitates. Then she charges right into the black park on the other side of the street, with her dress tossing around her. Even the trees look like enemies in there. The sun seems too exhausted to go down. She hears scattered voices, the wind screaming through the branches, the rumbling of traffic farther and farther away. Out of breath and furious, she stumbles towards the interior of the park. Hears voices. Hears that some of them are calling out after her. “Hey! Little girl!” they call out.

She stops, exhausted. Collapses on a bench. Hears the “little-girl” voice coming closer. She understands that it means her harm. The park seems to be creeping under a blanket. She hears another voice beside the first, slurring and stumbling over its words as if it’s put on its shoes the wrong way round. Both of the voices seem to be picking up speed as they come towards her. Realizing the danger, she’s on her feet and running in a fluid movement. They follow. It dawns on her with sudden despair that the winter gloom is making everything look the same in the park, and she doesn’t know the way out. Good God, she’s a seven-year-old girl who watches television a hell of a lot, how could she be so stupid? This is how people end up on the sides of milk cartons, or however they advertise missing children these days.

But it’s too late. She runs between two dense black hedges that form a narrow corridor, and she feels her beating heart in her throat. She doesn’t know why she charged into the park—the junkies will get her, just as everyone at school said they would. Maybe that’s just it, she thinks. Maybe she wants someone to catch her and kill her.

Death’s greatest power is not that it can make people die, but that it can make people want to stop living.

She never hears the snapping of branches in the bush. Never hears the ice being crushed under his feet. But in an instant the slurring voices behind her are gone. Her eardrums grate until she wants to scream. And then everything goes back to silence. Slowly she’s lifted off the ground. Closes her eyes. Doesn’t open them until she’s been carried out of the park.

Wolfheart stares down at her. She stares back, lying in his arms. Her consciousness seems to float off. If it wasn’t for the realization, in some part of her inner self, that there aren’t enough paper bags in the whole world to breathe into if she dribbles on Wolfheart in her sleep, she would probably have gone to sleep there and then. So she struggles to stay awake and, after all, it would be a bit impolite to go to sleep now that he’s saved her. Again.

“Not run alone. Never run alone,” growls Wolfheart.

She’s still not quite sure if she wanted to be saved, although she’s happy to see him. Happier than she expected to be, actually. She thought she’d be angrier at him.

“Dangerous place,” growls Wolfheart towards the park, and starts putting her back down on the ground.

“I know,” she mumbles.

“Never again!” he orders, and she can hear that he’s afraid.

She puts her arms around his neck and whispers, “Thanks” in the secret language before he can straighten up his enormous body. Then she sees how uncomfortable it makes him and she lets go at once.

“I washed my hands really carefully, I had a mega-long shower this morning!” she whispers.

Wolfheart doesn’t answer, but she can see in his eyes that he’ll be, like, bathing in alcogel when he gets home.

Elsa looks around. Wolfheart rubs his hands together and shakes his head when he notices.

“Gone now,” he says gently.

Elsa nods.

“How did you know I was here?”

Wolfheart’s gaze drops into the asphalt.

“Guard you. Your granny said . . . guard you.”

Elsa nods.

“Even if I don’t always know you’re close by?”

Wolfheart’s hood moves up and down. She feels that her legs are about to give way beneath her.