Sune guffaws so loudly that the puppy jumps. It lets out an irritable yap before getting back to chewing the furniture.

“I really just miss you shouting at Holger.”

“Me too.”

More whisky. A touch more coffee. Silence and memories, withheld words and suppressed sentences. Until Sune eventually says: “It’s shameful, what Kevin did. Utterly damn shameful. And I’m worried about the club. It’s been here almost seventy years, but I wouldn’t like to bet that it will be here next year. I’m worried people will try to blame the boy’s actions on hockey, if he gets found guilty. It’s going to be all hockey’s fault.”

Ramona slaps him so quickly and hard across his ear with the palm of her hand that the fat old man almost falls off his barstool. The angry old bag on the other side of the bar snarls: “Is that why you’re here? To talk about that? Sweet Jesus . . . you men. It’s never your fault, is it? When are you going to admit that it isn’t ‘hockey’ that raises these boys, it’s YOU LOT? In every time and every place, I’ve come across men who blame their own stupidity on crap they themselves have invented. ‘Religion causes wars,’ ‘guns kill people,’ it’s all the same old bullshit!”

“I didn’t mea . . . ,” Sune tries, but has to duck when she tries to slap him again.

“Keep your trap shut when I’m talking! Fucking men! YOU’RE the problem! Religion doesn’t fight, guns don’t kill, and you need to be very fucking clear that hockey has never raped anyone! But do you know who do? Fight and kill and rape?”

Sune clears his throat. “Men?”

“MEN! It’s always fucking men!”

Sune squirms. The puppy curls up, shamefaced, in a corner. Ramona adjusts her hair, carefully and thoroughly, empties her glass, and admits to herself that perhaps it isn’t so complicated after all, this business about coffee.

Then she fills both their glasses, fetches a bit of salami for the puppy, goes around the bar, and sits down next to the old man. She sighs deeply and reluctantly admits: “I miss Holger too. And do you know what he would have said if he was here?”

“No.”

“That you and I already know what’s right. So there’s no need for him to tell us.”

Sune smiles.

“He always was a smug bastard, that man of yours.”

“That he was.”

*

In another part of town, Zacharias creeps out of his family’s apartment without waking anyone. He’s carrying a bag on his back and a bucket in his hand. Headphones in his ears, music in his whole body. He turns sixteen today, and all his life he has been teased and rejected. About everything. His looks, thoughts, manner of speech, home address. Everywhere. At school, in the locker room, online. That wears a person down in the end. It’s not always obvious, because the people around a bullied child assume that he or she must get used to it after a while. Never. You never get used to it. It burns like fire the whole time. It’s just that no one knows how long the fuse is, not even you.

*

Jeanette is woken by a call from her brother telling her that the alarm has gone off again. Bleary-eyed and annoyed, she drives to the school. Searches the whole building with her flashlight without finding anything. She’s just about to tell her brother it’s time to give up, thinking it must have been snow on one of the sensors again, when she puts her foot down in something wet.

*

The second-best hunter in Beartown is washing the elk blood off the back of a rusty pickup truck. The girl and her dad followed the trail all night, until they found the badly wounded animal lying down; it had dragged itself deep into the darkness of the forest. They gave it a humane and painless end. Ana closes the tarpaulin over the bed of the truck and gets the two rifles from the cab, and checks them with the practiced hands of a far older hunter.

A few boys of about seven or eight are playing hockey farther down the street. One of the neighbors, a man in his eighties, is standing by his mailbox. His rheumatism makes movement painful, as if he were dragging invisible blocks of stone behind him as he reaches for his newspaper. He’s on his way back to the house when he suddenly stops and looks at Ana. They have lived next to each other all Ana’s life. The neighbor used to go hunting with her dad until just a few years ago; when she was little he used to give her homemade toffee at Christmas. Neither of them says anything now, the man just spits derisively on the ground in front of him. When he goes back into his house he slams the door so hard that a green flag just outside with a bear logo on it sways on its hook.

The boys playing hockey look up. One of them is wearing a jersey with the number “9” on it. They look at Ana with expressions that reveal what their parents are talking about at home. One of the boys spits on the ground as well. Then they turn their backs on her.

Ana’s dad walks over and puts his hand on his daughter’s shoulder. He feels her shaking beneath his fingers, and doesn’t know if it’s because she’s about to cry or scream.

*

For almost half his life, Zacharias has thought about ending it. He has been through the details time and time again in his head. Somewhere they can see it. Force the bastards to live with that image of him. “You did this.” You don’t need much: a rope, a few tools, something to stand on. A stool would be good, but an upside-down bucket would do just as well. He’s holding it in his hand. He’s got everything else he needs in his backpack.

The only thing that’s stopped him from doing it earlier, several years ago, was Amat. One single friend like him—that can be enough. Lifa and Zacharias were never friends in the same way, only through Amat, so when Amat was moved up to the juniors and chose a different life, everything disappeared for Zacharias.

Amat was the reason he stayed alive. Amat was the one who told him, on all the darkest, hardest nights: “One day, Zach, you’ll have more money and influence than all those bastards. And then you’ll do great things. Because you know how much it hurts to have no power. So you won’t hurt them, even though you could. And that will make the world a better place.”

Never again do you have the sort of friends you have when you’re fifteen. Zacharias turns sixteen today. He breaks into the school without caring if he sets the alarm off. Puts the bucket down on the floor.

*

Jeanette looks down at the floor with her heart practically bursting out of her chest. It’s a large puddle, spreading out slowly in front of her. She standing close to the entrance, near the rows of lockers belonging to the high school students. There’s an acrid smell; it catches in her nostrils. Her brother comes closer; two flashlights point in the same direction.

“What’s that on the floor?” he asks.

*