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organized.
    She leaned back and continued to write:
     
When the hunter saw the queen of the elves standing before him, he lowered his gun and sank to his knees. And the queen took out a silver goblet and bent down to a murmuring brook. She filled the goblet to the brim, and when she stood up and offered it to the hunter, he tasted the sweetness of white wine. He felt free and happy, and did not want to return to the world of men. So he stayed with the queen all evening and all through the night, and fell asleep in her arms .
The hunter woke as the sun was rising, but he was back in his bed in the cottage on the edge of the alvar, and the beautiful woman was gone. And even though he searched and searched out on the alvar, he never found the gateway to the kingdom of the elves again .
    Vendela paused. She heard a dull roar, and looked out of the window. A car was coming slowly up the gravel track, and Vendela recognized it immediately.
    It was the Saab from the car park.
    The car passed their house on its way to the old cottage by the north-eastern end of the quarry. Behind the wheel sat the fair-haired man who had flattened Max. His teenage son was sitting next to him.
    When Vendela saw the man in profile, she realized who he reminded her of: Martin. He bore a slight resemblance to her first husband.
    Perhaps that was why Max had been so angry with him. Vendela had bumped into Martin by chance one day five years ago and had lunch with him, and she had been stupid enough to tell Max about it. He still brought the matter up from time to time.
    So she had already met a couple of the neighbours, in fact. But did she really want to invite these people to a party? She was going to have to discuss it with Max.
    She bent over her book and wrote a final paragraph, the end of the story:
     
The hunter lived in his cottage for many years after the encounter on the alvar, but he never fell in love again and he never married, for no human woman could match the queen of the elves. He never forgot her .
    ‘That was a story about the elves,’ her father had said, getting up from the edge of the bed. ‘Time to go to sleep now, Vendela.’
    Henry had told her stories about the elves on several occasions after that. He never mentioned his late wife, but the queen seemed to fascinate him. And the story of the elves had remained in Vendela’s thoughts. It made her begin to dream of doing as the hunter had done, setting off for the place where she could meet them.

Öland 1956
    It is spring when Henry Fors shows his daughter Vendela traces of the elves and trolls, the year before she goes to primary school.
    First of all they go to the elves. Henry takes Vendela with him out into the meadow behind their little smallholding to fetch the cows in for milking.
    Henry has three cows, but even Vendela can see that he doesn’t really want to be a farmer. Not in the least. He runs his little farm simply in order to survive.
    ‘This is where they dance,’ he says as they stand on the grass, the cows lumbering towards them with their udders full to bursting.
    Vendela looks out over the meadow, which is enclosed by a high stone wall. Beyond the wall the world of the alvar begins, with its grass and juniper bushes. Nothing is moving out there.
    ‘Who?’ she asks.
    ‘The elves and their queen. You remember her, don’t you?’
    Vendela nods, she remembers the story.
    ‘You can even see the traces they’ve left behind,’ says Henry, pointing with his right hand, dry and cracked from working with stone. ‘Look, a fairy ring.’
    Vendela looks at the meadow and sees a circle of paler grass, perhaps three feet in diameter, in the midst of all the green. It looks as if someone has trodden on the blades of grass and broken them. Only the centre of the ring is fresh and green.
    As Henry gathers the cows ahead of him, he takes a wide sweep around the ring in the grass. ‘You mustn’t walk across the places where the elves dance – it brings bad