“Mibatalos not exist. I don’t fight. Never more fight.”
And Elsa understands, the way you always understand such things when you see them in the eyes of those saying them, that he did not hide in the forests at the far reaches of the Land-of-Almost-Awake because he was afraid of the shadows, but because he was afraid of himself. Afraid of what they made him into in Mibatalos.
His eyes flit past her and she hears Alf’s voice. When she spins around, Taxi is parked with its engine running by the edge of the pavement. Alf’s shoes shuffle through the snow. The policewoman stays by Taxi, her eyes making rapid hawklike sweeps over the park. When Alf picks up Elsa, still rolled up in Wolfheart’s sleeping bag–size coat, he says calmly: “Let’s get you home now, shall we, you can’t bloody stay here getting frozen!” But Elsa hears in his voice that he’s afraid, afraid as one can only be if one knows what was chasing Elsa in the churchyard, and she can tell by the watchful gaze in the policewoman’s green eyes that she also knows. They all know more than they are letting on.
Elsa doesn’t look around as Alf carries her towards Taxi. She knows that Wolfheart has already gone. And when she throws herself into Mum’s arms back at the church, she also knows that Mum knows more than she’s letting on. And she’s always known more than she lets on.
Elsa thinks about the story of the Lionheart brothers. About the dragon, Katla, who could not be defeated by any human. And about the terrible constrictor snake, Karm, the only one that could destroy Katla in the end. Because sometimes in the tales, the only thing that can destroy a terrible dragon is something even more terrible than the dragon.
A monster.
22
O’BOY
Elsa has been chased hundreds of times before, but never like in that churchyard. And the fear she feels now is something else. Because she had time to see his eyes just before she ran, and they looked so determined, so cold, like he was ready to kill her. That’s a lot for an almost-eight-year-old to handle.
Elsa tried never to be afraid while Granny was alive. Or at least she tried never to show it. Because Granny hated fears. Fears are small, fiery creatures from the Land-of-Almost-Awake, with rough pelts that coincidentally look quite a lot like blue tumble-dryer fluff, and if you give them the slightest opportunity they jump up and nibble your skin and try to scratch your eyes. Fears are like cigarettes, said Granny: the hard thing isn’t stopping, it’s not starting.
It was the Noween who brought the fears to the Land-of-Almost-Awake, in another of Granny’s tales, more eternities ago than anyone could really count. So long ago that at the time there were only five kingdoms, not six.