Now, like I said, I didn’t know anything about the other traps, the new ones. All I knew was never to take the path left around the juniper bush in order to reach the house, or walk between the tall birches before the thicket, or down the path through the scrub south of the house. If you chose to ignore the gravel road, which was the most obvious route, then they were the most likely ones.
There were also certain places around the farmyard where I wasn’t allowed to go, and Dad had given me routes to follow in between the piles. Unless I followed them, I would cause terrible damage, he said. I didn’t know how, but I didn’t want to cause terrible damage, so I always did exactly as he said – except for taking a rabbit to the container. And also because he had looked at me with those eyes as he said it. I could tell from them that it was very important.
Now the sound changed from a scream to a howl, which grew inside my head. I stared out through the peepholes in the container and held my breath. My heart was pounding so hard that I could hear that too.
And then I spotted it. Down by the juniper bush. Something was moving. It looked like a dog, a big dog, but I only saw it in flashes when it threw itself to one side.
We were supposed to be kind to animals. I was kind to animals. And the dog couldn’t possibly have come to take me away. But it might bite me. I was a bit scared of dogs because they had teeth, and because I believed that Dad was a bit scared of them too. He had certainly always avoided visiting any houses with dogs that might make a noise.
OK, so we had been able to visit the insurance salesman, because his dog, which was very long as well as having long ears, never made a sound if we gave it some wine gums. I wasn’t sure that it could get up from its spot by the door to the pantry, even if it wanted to. But it would wag its tail non-stop, and the trick was to put a long, thick sock around it straightaway so it wouldn’t make a noise when it bashed it against the floor. Once we forgot to take the sock off its tail before we left and that caused such a fuss that Dad heard about it when he was queuing in the post office a few days later: the insurance salesman had been showing the sock at the pub. And it turned out to be a sock which the chemist’s wife had knitted for her husband – one of a pair, I mean. Now the chemist was accusing the insurance salesman of having nicked his priceless socks, and the insurance salesman accused the chemist of having treated his Basset hound badly. We still have the other sock somewhere. We must take good care of it.
Then it struck me that the howling dog might be heard as far as the main island. Perhaps Dad could hear it, wherever he was. Perhaps lots of doctors would come running and make us ill or take me away if they heard it.
I had to stop the howling.
My bow lay near me in the container. I put the teddy bear away and reached for it. And my quiver. Everything was ready for action, only my bow hadn’t seen much use recently, because we didn’t eat that kind of food any more. Tins were easier, Dad said. But I still practised from time to time.
As I ran down towards the juniper bush, I discovered that I had been crying, but also that I had stopped. My eyes stung a little. Or perhaps it was the daylight.
My heart was still pounding, but the rest of my body was doing what I told it to. I jumped silently over grassy knolls and zigzagged between the small trees, which were shooting up everywhere, like a forest for very small people. My baby sister would probably think the trees were tall. I could see across them as I ran. The quiver slapped my back softly with every jump; I had made it myself with the pelts from four wild rabbits. And I had moulded the tips and turned the arrows, while Dad told me everything about what wood could do and smiled at everything his daughter could do.
The dog was lying on its side, and the howling had become long and high-pitched, as if it were about to run out. But it was there. Like an ice pick in my ear.
Horrified, I stared at its hind leg, which lay twisted on the grass. The lower part was trapped in a metal monster, which seemed to be fixed with a chain somewhere in the ground under the grass and the twigs. Although the grass was taller here, there was a natural passage between the juniper bush and some trees. This was a place I wasn’t allowed to go. One of them. The metal monster looked like a giant set of teeth which had snapped around the dog’s hind leg. The dog had made some attempts to free its leg, but every time the big teeth seemed to sink deeper into its flesh. Its blood was very red in the daylight. There was way too much light. And way too much blood. I’d never seen anything as red as that blood.
I tried. I really tried my best to pull the metal teeth apart, but I couldn’t. I also tried twisting them apart with a branch, but it snapped. The metal was super-strong.
I started crying again. And I looked at the dog lying on its side, watching me. I looked at its teeth, which were disappearing in white foam. Its tongue hung limply down on the grass. This dog wasn’t going to bite me, no matter how scared it was. It was desperate for help.
Its chest was heaving and sinking in front of me. It was almost as if the howling was coming from in there. I took a step back, got ready and aimed. It was my best arrow.
I’m sure I shot it straight through the heart. I looked into its eyes and, for a brief moment, the dog and I were as one.
Then it was dead.
I hadn’t decided what I was going to do next. Nor did I have time because, as soon as the howling stopped, I heard shouting.
‘Ida!’ someone called out in the distance. A man. ‘Iiiida!’
I ran faster than I’ve ever done. Although I wanted to run straight back to the container more than anything, I didn’t dare because the man might spot me crossing the open area, and I didn’t know how much time I had. So instead I decided to run the shorter distance to the edge of the forest. I could hide between the tall trees and, if he decided to follow me, I could lose him in the forest. Whoever he was, he wouldn’t know the forest as well as I did.
I found the spot where I would be completely hidden by pine branches but still have a good view down towards the juniper bush. I could see him now. He wore a big, green coat – and he had something around his neck. I think it was a lead. It was probably his dog.
I was sure that I had seen him before, but I couldn’t remember where. I had never seen the dog. I hoped that he had been good to his dog, but people down on the main island probably weren’t as kind to animals as we were. Seeing as they weren’t particularly kind to people.
I tried not to think that it was my dad who had made that metal trap and set it. But I couldn’t get it out of my mind.
What if the man was a doctor? But surely Dad wouldn’t have…? And who was Ida? Was that the dog? I hadn’t even noticed if it was female. But it had a beard, a grey beard. White almost. I hoped that it was an old dog.
The man was kneeling by it now. He was saying something to it, I could see. He stroked it. And wiped its mouth. And tried to prise the metal teeth apart with his hands. And he gently pulled out the arrow. And he pressed his face to the dog’s chest. And he sat up again and looked at it. And he spotted the long end of the branch I had used and tried separating the metal teeth from one another with the branch. Until it snapped. Again. And he shook his head.
I think he was crying.
I saw him get up. He dried his eyes on his sleeve and stared at the dog for ages. Then he bent down, picked up my arrow and spent a long time staring at it. It looked as if he was examining it, and I hoped that he would think that it was a really fine arrow. I had worked very hard on it.
Then he turned and looked up towards our house. From where he was standing, he could see the container and, behind it, the wooden building with the workshop and the white room. There was a single small window into the white room, but I knew it was impossible to see anything through it. To the left of the workshop the man would probably see the roof of the house. There was a cluster of spruces and birches that gave some privacy. The gravel road ran alongside them and disappeared into the corner between the house and the workshop before the yard began. The yard where, it has to be said, there was very little free space these days.