Free The Cold Song by Linn Ullmann

like it or as if she didn’t care, but she did. Siri’s cheeks and nose reddened andher eyes narrowed into slender arcs whenever someone said something nice about her.
    Now Siri said, “Go on out and pick some flowers to decorate the tables.”
    As if Alma and Liv were her little flower girls.
    The meadow and the woods were behind the house. To the front of the house was the big garden and in the garden Irma had set up rows of trestle tables; Jon had helped her suspend two old cotton sails between the trees, in case of rain. Early on the morning of the big day Siri had covered the tables with linen tablecloths that fluttered in the breeze, but some hours later, when it started to drizzle, she ran out, removed the cloths one by one, and hung them around the house, over chairs, doors, the banister, and a little later, when the sun appeared she went back out to the garden in her well-worn, filmy white dress and spread the cloths over the tables once more, then the mist crept in and she removed them again.
    Alma and Liv kneeled on the couch in the living room, still in their nightdresses, with their faces pressed against the window. They watched their mother, who could never decide whether to leave the cloths on or not.
    “Tablecloth, cover thyself with all manner of exquisite dishes,” Alma whispered to Liv, and Liv laughed and wrinkled her nose and said she thought Mama looked pretty out there in the sea of mist, drifting between the tables with all those white cloths swirling around her.
    Liv wrinkled her nose when she laughed. She was the only one in the family who did that. And she laughed even morewhen Alma said, “What shines and shines and never becomes a princess?”
    “Don’t know,” she said eagerly. “What?”
    “Nope,” said Alma. “Figure it out for yourself.”
    Siri and Jon worked constantly during the summer, Siri most of all. Siri knew exactly how much time she would have to spend at work and
I can’t really rely on Jon, can I
(she would mutter under her breath, just loud enough for everyone to hear), which was why she had insisted on hiring someone to help with the children. Not that they really needed help with looking after Alma, but they did need help with Liv, who had only just turned four. Alma could look after herself. Alma could look after others too. Sometimes she looked after Liv (but only for short spells) and sometimes she looked after a little boy called Simen who lived at the foot of the road, but only occasionally and only for short spells, and this summer Simen was so big that he no longer needed looking after.
    The day after her family arrived for the summer, Alma had rung the doorbell of the house where Simen lived. Simen’s mother had opened the door. She wore a little diamond crucifix around her neck and looked very serious, she always did. Simen had once told Alma that his mother called him “little song thrush,” like in the song. She wasn’t sure exactly why. Simen didn’t look like a song thrush, a crow maybe but not a song thrush, and his mother didn’t look like a song thrush either.
    “Hi,” Alma said, and came straight to the point. “Maybe I could look after Simen for you this summer.”
    But Simen’s mother was shaking her head even before the words were out of Alma’s mouth. Alma wondered why. Did Simen’s mother think she was odd? Sometimes that dark cowlick of hers stuck straight up and then she looked really odd. Or was there something wrong with her voice? Had her voice been too shrill? Had she said something stupid? Should she have gotten the conversation going with a few chatty remarks before coming to the point, said something like: Long time no see, Mrs. Dahl, hard to believe it’s been a whole year, how have you been? Or something like that?
    Simen’s mother stood behind the door, which she was clearly keen to close again as soon as possible.
    “No, Alma, Simen’s too old to have a babysitter,” she said. “He’s nine now, you know. You’re