When the Devil Holds the Candle Read Free

power as I scraped inside that anthill with the twig. It felt good. I looked around for something to feed them. A dead mouse, something like that. Then I could stand there and watch while they devoured it. They would drop everything, forget the catastrophe: having something to devour would come first, I was sure of that. But I didn't find anything, so I kept on walking. I came to a derelict farmhouse, sat down on the front steps, and thought about the story of the people who had lived there, Gustav and Inger and their twelve children: Uno, Sekunda, Trevor, Firmin, Femmer, Sexus, Syver, Otto, Nils, Tidemann, Ellef, and Tollef. It was incomprehensible, yet true, and all of them were dead now.
    Yes. The God that I don't believe in knows that I've seen Andreas. I think back to that terrifying moment when I felt it coming—the desire to destroy him. At the same instant I saw my own face reflected in a windowpane. And I remember the feeling, a sweet pressure, like warm oil running through my body. The certainty that this was evil. My face in the bluish glass: the hideous, evil person you become when the Devil holds the candle.

Chapter 2
    September 1.
    A boy was walking through the streets alone. He was wearing jeans and a Nike jacket, black with an olive green yoke and a red-and-white swoosh on the back. They were expecting him home by 6 P.M. He might make it. A faint glow from a hazy sky hovered over the town. The wind was picking up. It was September and perhaps a bit melancholy, but that's not what he was thinking. Up until now, life had been good.
    The boy was about seven, thin and nice-looking. He was walking along with his hands in his pockets. In one pocket there was a bag of sweets. He had been walking for fifteen minutes and had begun to sweat inside his jacket.
    He raised a hand to wipe his forehead. His skin was the color of coffee. His hair was thick and curly and black, and the eyes in his dark face sparkled.
    Then, behind him, a car turned into the street. In the car were two men, peering out of the windows. They both felt that right now life was very boring. This town wasn't exactly brimming with surprises. It just sat there, split in half by a gray river, in its mediocrity. The car was a green Golf. Its owner went by the nickname of Zipp: the sound of a zip fly opening in a tight pair of jeans, or more specifically, one being opened with
trembling fingers and blazing cheeks. His real name was Sivert Skorpe. Zipp had blond, wiry hair, and his young face always wore an inquisitive expression. Bordering on sheeplike, some might say, though he usually had luck with the ladies. He wasn't bad-looking, and besides, he was gentle, playful, and simple. Not entirely without depth, either, but he never turned his thoughts inward, living his life oblivious to what existed inside. His companion looked like a faun, or something else from a fairy tale. He didn't try to compete. He seemed to have set himself above the chase, as if girls should come to him, or something like that—Zipp could never understand it. He drove at a leisurely pace. Both young men were silently hoping that something would happen. Then they caught sight of the boy.
    "Stop!" said the passenger.
    "What the hell. Why?" Zipp grunted, and stepped on the brake. He didn't like trouble.
    "I just want to have a little chat."
    "Shit, Andreas. He's just a kid."
    "A little black kid! I'm bored."
    He wound down the window.
    "You're not going to find any money on that brat. And it's money we need. I'm thirsty as hell."
    The car drew up beside the boy. He cast them a glance and then looked away. It wasn't good to look people in the eye. Or dogs. Instead he fixed his gaze on his shoes and didn't slow his pace.
    "Hey, pops!"
    A young man with reddish-brown curls was staring at him from the car window. Should he answer? The man was grownup. The car was following him.
    "Helluva a nice jacket you've got." The man nodded with admiration. "And it's a Nike! Your dad must make