She wakes the next morning in Granny’s magic wardrobe. The boy sleeps surrounded by his dreams, with the moo-gun in his arms. The wurse has dribbled a bit on Elsa’s sweater and it’s set like cement.
第二天早上，她在外婆的魔法衣橱里醒来。男孩还在睡梦中，身边围绕着“梦想”饼干，怀里抱着哞枪。呜嘶的口水滴在爱莎的套衫上，现在像水泥一样干成了硬块。
The fifth letter drops into Elsa’s lap. Literally.
第五封信自己掉落在爱莎的大腿上。真的是这样。
She lies in the darkness for a long time. Breathing in the smell of wood shavings. She thinks about the Harry Potter quotation that Granny nicked for one of her stories from the Land-of-Almost-Awake. It’s from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which is obviously ironic, and to understand this one would need to be fairly well informed about the differences between the Harry Potter books and Harry Potter films, as well as fairly well informed about the meaning of “ironic.”
她在黑暗中躺了好一会儿，呼吸着带木屑气味的空气。她想起外婆从《哈利·波特》里抄来放进她自己不眠大陆故事里的那句引用。那是抄自《哈利·波特与凤凰社》，这事非常讽刺。想明白为什么，你得非常了解“哈利·波特”小说和“哈利·波特”电影之间的区别，也得很清楚“讽刺”的意思。
Because Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the Harry Potter film Elsa likes the least, in spite of it having one of the Harry Potter quotations Elsa likes best. The one where Harry says that he and his friends have one advantage in the approaching war with Voldemort, because they have one thing that Voldemort doesn’t have: “Something worth fighting for.”
因为《哈利·波特与凤凰社》是爱莎最不喜欢的“哈利·波特”电影，但里面有爱莎最喜欢的一句“哈利·波特”台词。哈利说，在与伏地魔即将到来的战斗中，他和他的朋友们有一项优势，因为他们有一样伏地魔没有的东西，“值得为之战斗的东西”。
A minute later, Alf is standing in his doorway. He’s drinking coffee and looks like he hasn’t slept all night. He looks at the envelope. It just says “ALF” on it, in unnecessarily large letters.
一分钟后，阿尔夫站在他家门口。他喝着咖啡，看上去像是整夜没睡。他看着信封，上面用毫无必要的大字写着“阿尔夫”。
But this sort of thing is logical in fairy tales.
但这种事情在童话故事里很合情合理。
“I found it in the wardrobe. It’s from Granny. I think she wants to say sorry about something,” Elsa informs him.
“我在衣橱里找到的。外婆给你的。我觉得她是想为某事道歉。”爱莎告诉他。
It’s ironic because that quotation isn’t in the book, which Elsa likes a lot more than the film, though the book is not one of her favorite Harry Potter books. Now when she thinks of it, possibly it isn’t ironic after all. She has to Wikipedia this properly, she thinks, sitting up. And that is when the letter drops into her lap. It’s been taped to the wardrobe ceiling. She has no idea how long it’s been there.
这很讽刺，因为书里并没有这句话，而比起电影爱莎更喜欢书，即使这一本并不是她在“哈利·波特”系列小说里最爱的一本。现在想起来，也许这一点儿也不讽刺。她得好好在维基百科上查一下，想到这里，她坐起身。就在这时，这封信掉在了她的腿上。它原本粘在衣橱的天花板上，不知道在那儿多久了。
Alf makes a shush sound and points to the radio behind him, which she really doesn’t appreciate. There’s the traffic news on the radio. “There’s been some damned accident up on the highway. All city-bound traffic has been stuck for hours,” he says, as if this is something that will interest Elsa. It doesn’t — she’s too interested in the letter. Alf only reads it after a lot of nagging.
阿尔夫“嘘”了一声，指着身后的收音机，爱莎不怎么喜欢这样。收音机里是路况广播。“高速上发生了事故。去城里的路堵了几个钟头。”他说道，就好像爱莎会对这感兴趣似的。完全不——她只对那封信感兴趣。阿尔夫抱怨了好一番才开始读信。
Alf doesn’t quite look as if he trusts her. Again, he looks down at the letter skeptically.
阿尔夫看上去并不相信她。他再次疑惑地看向信。
Alf sighs in the way he’s generally been sighing at Elsa lately.
阿尔夫叹了口气，最近他常常对爱莎这么叹气。
“Me and your grandmother had a bloody row before she died, all right? Just before she had to go to the hospital. She’d borrowed my electric screwdriver and never bloody bothered to give it back, but she said she bloody had given it back even though I knew damned well she never bloody did.”
“我和你外祖母在她死前吵了一架，行了吧？就在她住院前。她借走了我的电动螺丝刀，就他妈再也没还来，她说她还了，但我当然很清楚她还了个屁。”
“It’s my damned letter, isn’t it?”
“这他妈是给我的信，好吗？”
“Does she write sorry for always saying that you didn’t lift your feet when you walked and that’s why you have such worn-out shoes?”
“她是不是写，因为总说你走路不抬脚，鞋子全磨坏了，所以对不起？”
“They’re very nice shoes,” Elsa lies.
“这是双好鞋。”爱莎撒谎道。
“What does it say, then?” Elsa demands the second he seems to have finished.
“上面写了什么？”爱莎一见他读完就问。
“Nothing. There’s nothing at all wrong with your shoes,” mumbles Elsa.
“没什么。你的鞋子没什么不好的。”爱莎念叨。
“It says sorry.”
“上面写了对不起。”
“Yes, but sorry for what?”
“对，但为什么对不起？”
“I’ve had these shoes for more than five years!”
“这鞋我已经穿了五年了！”
“What’s wrong with my shoes?” says Alf, looking at his shoes. This doesn’t seem to have been one of the themes of the letter.
“我鞋子怎么了？”阿尔夫看着他的鞋子。这似乎不是这封信的主题之一。
“No,” says Alf, as if the question was seriously meant.
“没。”阿尔夫回答道，就好像这问题是认真问的。
“What else? I saw there was more than that in the letter. I’m not an idiot, you know!”
“还有什么？我看见信里还有好多内容。我不是个笨蛋好吗！”
Elsa presses her hands farther into her pockets. Peers down her chin at the Gryffindor emblem on her scarf. At the stitches, where Mum mended it after the girls at school had torn it. Mum still thinks it tore when Granny climbed the fence at the zoo.
爱莎把手深深插进口袋，低头盯着下巴底下围巾上的格兰芬多院徽。还有缝上的裂口，那是被学校里的女孩们撕坏之后妈妈补好的。妈妈到现在还以为是外婆爬动物园围墙时扯坏的。
“It says sorry about loads of things.”
“上面为很多事情道了歉。”
Alf puts the envelope on the hat shelf.
阿尔夫把信封放在帽架上。
Elsa sighs in that way she’s started generally sighing at Alf lately.
爱莎叹了口气，最近她常常对阿尔夫这么叹气。
“Did you ever hear about the bloke who swore himself to death?”
“你听说过，那个说脏话把自己给说死的家伙吗？”
He folds up the letter and puts it back in the envelope. Elsa stubbornly stays where she is.
他折起信，放回信封。爱莎固执地站在原地。
“Is it complicated?”
“很复杂吗？”
Elsa rolls her eyes.
爱莎翻了个白眼。
“She just writes sorry for losing it.”
“她说很抱歉把它弄丢了。”
“What does Granny write about the electric screwdriver, then?”
“外婆对电动螺丝刀的事写什么了？”
“Do you believe in life after death?” she asks Alf, without looking at him.
“你相信死后的世界吗？”她问阿尔夫，没有看他。
“There wasn’t a crap in your grandmother’s life that wasn’t complicated.”
“你外祖母的人生就没有一件事情是不复杂的。”
“Haven’t got a bloody clue,” says Alf, not unpleasantly and not all pleasantly, just in a very Alf-like way.
“我怎么知道。”阿尔夫没有不悦但也不怎么高兴地回答，正是典型的阿尔夫式回答。
“I mean, like, do you believe in… paradise… sort of thing,” mumbles Elsa.
“我是说，你相不相信…天堂…什么的。”爱莎小声说。
Alf drinks his coffee and thinks about it.
阿尔夫喝了口咖啡，想了想。
Elsa considers this. Realizes the logic of it. Paradise for Elsa is, after all, a place where Granny is, but paradise for Britt-Marie must probably be a place totally dependent on Granny not being there.
爱莎想了想，意识到这件事的逻辑问题。对爱莎来说，天堂说到底就是外婆所在的地方，但对布里特—玛丽来说，也许天堂取决于外婆不在那里。
“It would be bloody complicated. Logistically, I mean. Paradise must be where there aren’t so many damned people,” he mutters at last.
“这事太复杂了。我是说，从逻辑上来说，天堂一定在没那么多人的地方。”他最后说。
He drinks coffee and looks as if he finds that a bit of a bloody mouthful for an almost-eight-year-old.
他喝了口咖啡，似乎惊讶于这句评价竟然出自一个不到八岁的孩子之口。
“You’re quite deep sometimes,” she says to Alf.
“你有时候真的很深刻。”她对阿尔夫说。
Elsa is intending to ask him something else about the letter, but she never has time. And when she looks back she will think that if she’d made some different choices, this day would not have worked out as terribly as it did in the end. But by then it’s too late for that.
爱莎本打算再问他更多信里的内容，但没来得及。当她回想起来时，她觉得如果那时她做出不同的选择，也许这天就不会像后来那么可怕了。但一切为时已晚。
And Dad is standing on the stairs behind her. He’s out of breath.
爸爸站在她身后的楼梯上，上气不接下气。
Which is not at all like Dad.
一点儿都不像平常的爸爸。
Elsa’s eyes open wide when she sees him, and then she looks at Alf’s flat. At the radio. Because there’s no coincidence in fairy tales. And there’s a Russian playwright who once said that if there’s a pistol hanging on the wall in the first act, it has to be fired before the last act is over. Elsa knows that. And those who can’t understand by now how Elsa understands things like that just haven’t been paying attention. So Elsa understands that the whole thing with the radio and the accident on the highway must have something to do with the fairy tale they’re in.
爱莎瞪大眼睛看着他，然后看向阿尔夫的公寓，看向收音机。童话故事里是没有巧合的。有位俄国剧作家曾经说过，如果在第一幕时墙上挂着把手枪，那么在最后一幕结束前枪必须得响。爱莎知道这一点。爱莎明白收音机和高速公路上的车祸一定与他们所在的这个童话故事有关。
“At the hospital,” answers Dad.
“在医院。”爸爸回答。
“What accident?”
“什么？”
“Is she at the hospital?”
“她在医院吗？”
Dad looks spectacularly puzzled.
爸爸看上去一脸迷茫。
“But the car accident? What’s it got to do with the car accident?” she mumbles.
“那车祸呢？这跟车祸有什么关系？”她喃喃自语。
Dad nods and throws a nervous glance at Alf. Elsa’s face trembles.
爸爸点点头，紧张地看了眼阿尔夫。爱莎的脸颤抖起来。
It doesn’t quite go into Elsa’s head, it really doesn’t. It’s quite obvious. Although she’s very familiar with what happens when the water breaks.
爱莎一时没弄明白，真的没明白，虽然她很清楚羊水破了会发生什么。
“Nothing, I think. Or, I mean, what do you mean?”
“没有关系，我觉得。我是说，你在说什么？”
“No… no!” And then he smiles. “You’re someone’s big sister now. Your mum was at the meeting when her water broke!”
“不…不是的！”他笑了，“你现在是个姐姐了。你妈妈开会的时候羊水破了！”
“The car accident!” Elsa repeats, quite beside herself.
“车祸！”爱莎慌乱地重复。
Dad looks breathtakingly tentative.
爸爸看上去极其犹豫。
Elsa looks at Alf. Looks at Dad. Thinks about it so hard that she feels the strain right inside her sinuses.
爱莎看看阿尔夫，又看看爸爸，努力思考，脑子都快打结了。
“Yes, she was called in this morning to take part in a meeting. There was some kind of cri –” Dad starts, but Elsa interrupts him: “She was in the car accident, wasn’t she? The one on the highway?”
“是，她今早被叫去开会。发生了一…”爸爸开始说，但爱莎打断了他：“她出车祸了，是吗？高速上的那起？”
“Where’s George?” she asks.
“乔治在哪儿？”她问。
“Is it… Mum?” she manages to say.
“是…妈妈？”她说。
And she decides that maybe the radio by now has in some way earned its place in this fairy tale, in spite of it all. Then she bursts out anxiously: “But how are we going to get to the hospital if the highway is blocked?”
不管怎样，她还是认为，也许这收音机在这童话故事中确实赢得了一席之地。然后她焦急地大喊：“但现在路堵上了，我们要怎么去医院呢？”
“How did he get there? They said on the radio all traffic on the highway is stuck!”
“他怎么去的？收音机里说高速路全堵住了！”
“He ran,” says Dad, with a small twinge of what dads experience when they have to say something positive about the new guy.
“跑去的。”爸爸说，带着一丝像是被迫为乔治说好话的不悦情绪。
And that’s when Elsa smiles. “George is good in that way,” she whispers.
爱莎这时终于笑了。“乔治很有一手。”她小声说。
“Yes,” Dad admits.
“对。”爸爸承认。
And there’s the moment right there when Elsa is thinking that she and the wurse will go in Taxi. But then she changes her mind and decides they’ll go in Audi instead, because she doesn’t want Dad to be upset. And if she hadn’t changed her mind it’s possible that the day wouldn’t have ended up as loathsome and terrible as it will soon become. Because when terrible things happen one always thinks, “If I only hadn’t…” And, afterwards, this will turn out to be one of those moments.
爱莎有一瞬间想和呜嘶一起坐出租车，但后来她改变了主意，决定去坐奥迪，她不想让爸爸失望。如果她当时没有改主意，也许这天就不会落入即将发生的悲惨而可怕的结局了。当可怕的事情发生后，人们总会想：“如果我当时没有…”不久之后，坐上奥迪的那一刻，就将成为这样的时刻。
“You take the old bloody road,” Alf says impatiently. Dad and Elsa look at him as if he’d just spoken to them in a make-believe language. Alf sighs. “The old road, damn it. Past the old slaughterhouse. Where that factory used to be where they made heat exchangers before the bastards moved everything to Asia. You can take that road to the hospital. Young people today, I tell you — they think the whole bloody world is a highway.”
“走老街。”阿尔夫不耐烦地说。爸爸和爱莎看着他，表情像是听到了外星语言。阿尔夫叹了口气。“见鬼的，老街呀。穿过那个老屠宰场，就是他们把所有东西都搬到亚洲去生产之前，造换热器的旧工厂那里。你可以从那条路开去医院。现在的年轻人啊，我跟你说——他们觉得整个世界都他妈是条高速路。”
Maud and Lennart also decide to come along to the hospital. Maud has brought cookies and Lennart decides when he gets to the house’s entrance to bring the coffee percolator, because he’s worried they may not have one at the hospital. And even if they do, Lennart has the feeling it will probably be one of those modern coffeemakers with a lot of buttons. Lennart’s percolator only has one button. Lennart is very fond of that button.
莫德和莱纳特也决定一起去医院。莫德带上了饼干，莱纳特走到大门的时候决定带上咖啡机，因为他担心医院里可能没有。即使那里有，莱纳特也预感到可能是那种有许多按钮的现代咖啡机。莱纳特的咖啡机只有一个按钮。他很喜欢那个按钮。
In retrospect, Elsa will recall that she paused briefly by the locked stroller in the stairwell. The notice with the crossword was still on the wall above it. And someone had solved it. All the squares were filled. In pencil.
回想起来，爱莎记得自己在楼梯间那辆锁着的婴儿车前停了片刻。填字游戏那张纸还在墙上。有人已经填完了。所有空格都填满了，用的是铅笔。
The boy with a syndrome and his mother are also coming along. Also the woman in jeans. Because they’re sort of a team now, which Elsa is very pleased about. Mum told her yesterday that now, when so many people are living in Granny’s flat, the whole house feels like that house Elsa always goes on about where all the X-Men live. She rings at Britt-Marie’s door as well. But no one opens it.
生病男孩和他妈妈也一起来了。还有穿牛仔裤的女人。他们现在算是结成了某种团队，爱莎对此很满意。妈妈昨天告诉她，外婆的公寓楼里住着这么多人，整栋楼就像是爱莎常说的X战警的基地。她按响了布里特—玛丽的门铃，但没人开门。
Alf convinces the police to make a pass around the block “to make sure everything is safe.” Elsa never finds out exactly what he says to them, but Alf can be quite persuasive when he wants to be. Maybe he says that he’s seen footprints in the snow. Or heard someone in the house on the other side of the street tell him something. Elsa doesn’t know, but she sees the summer-intern policeman get into the car, and sees Green-eyes do the same after lengthy deliberation. Elsa meets her gaze for a second, and if she had only told Green-eyes the truth about the wurse, then maybe everything would have ended up differently. But she didn’t. Because she wanted to protect the wurse. Because that’s the sort of friend she is.
阿尔夫说服警察去这个街区巡视一下，“以保证一切都安全”。爱莎一直没有弄明白他到底对警察说了什么，但只要阿尔夫想的话，他是很有说服力的。也许他说在雪地里看见过脚印，或者街道另一头房子里的某人跟他说过什么。爱莎不知道，但她看见“暑期工”警察坐进车里，绿眼睛考虑一番也做出同样的决定。爱莎跟她的目光交汇了一秒钟，如果她告诉绿眼睛呜嘶的真相，也许一切事情都会不同。但她没有。因为她想保护呜嘶。因为她就是这种朋友。
If it hadn’t gone with Elsa, maybe things would have worked out differently.
如果它没有跟着爱莎，也许事情会不同。
If Elsa had stopped and reflected a little on it, maybe things would have turned out differently. But she didn’t. So they didn’t. It’s possible that the wurse hesitated for a moment outside Britt-Marie’s door. Elsa would have understood if it had done that, just like she supposes that wurses hesitate sometimes when they’re unsure about who in this fairy tale they’ve really been sent to protect. Wurses actually guard princesses in normal fairy tales, and even in the Land-of-Almost-Awake Elsa was never more than a knight. Yet if the wurse had any hesitation, it didn’t show it. It went with Elsa. Because that’s the sort of friend it is.
如果爱莎就此停下，对它做出一些反应，也许事情也将会不同。但她没有，所以事情也没有跟着发生变化。有可能呜嘶在布里特—玛丽的门前犹豫了片刻。爱莎能理解它这么做的原因，她猜呜嘶们有时会犹豫，不确定自己被派到这个童话故事中，到底是要保护谁。呜嘶们在普通的童话故事里通常保护公主，而爱莎即使在不眠大陆也是一名不折不扣的骑士。然而就算呜嘶有过犹豫，它也没有表现出来。它跟爱莎一起走了，因为它就是这种朋友。
When the police car swings around the corner at the end of the street, Elsa and the wurse and the boy with a syndrome scurry out of the front entrance and across the street and into Audi, which is parked there. The children jump in first.
当警车呼啸转过街尽头的拐角后，爱莎、呜嘶和生病男孩跑出大门，穿过马路，钻进停在那里的奥迪。孩子们先跳了进去。
Alf goes back into the house and down into the garage to fetch Taxi.
阿尔夫回屋，去地下室开出租车。
Probably only a few seconds go by, but it feels like forever. Afterwards Elsa will remember that it felt both as if she had time to think a billion thoughts and as if she didn’t have time to think at all.
也许只过了几秒钟，但感觉上过了很久。后来爱莎回想那时，好像她既有时间思考十万种方法，又仿佛根本没有一点儿时间去思考。
The wurse stops midstep. Its hackles rise.
呜嘶则在中途停下脚步。它脖子上的毛竖立起来。
There’s a smell inside Audi that makes her feel surprisingly peaceful. She doesn’t quite know why. She looks at the wurse through the open door, and before she has time to realize what is about to happen, she wonders if maybe it doesn’t want to jump into the car because it’s in pain. She knows it is feeling pain, pain the way Granny had pain everywhere in her body at the end.
奥迪里有一种气味，让她觉得格外祥和，说不上原因。她透过摇下的车窗看着呜嘶，在意识到即将发生的事之前，她奇怪呜嘶为什么不想跳进车里来，是因为它不舒服吗？她知道它正感受到疼痛，就像外婆最后浑身上下的疼痛一样。
Elsa starts getting out a cookie from her pocket. Because no real friend of a wurse would leave home nowadays without at least one cookie for emergencies. But she doesn’t have time, of course, because she realizes what is causing that smell in Audi.
爱莎想从口袋里掏出一块饼干。只要是呜嘶的真朋友，就一定会在离家时至少带上一块应急饼干。但她没来得及掏出饼干，因为她意识到奥迪里的气味是什么了。
And then the wurse’s jaws close around Sam’s other wrist, just as he’s making a grab for the boy. Sam roars. Elsa has a split second to react, when he lets go of her. She sees the knife in the rearview mirror.
然后，正当他想伸手抓男孩时，呜嘶咬住了山姆的另一只手腕。山姆怒吼一声。他放开爱莎，她瞬间做出反应。她从后视镜里看见了那把刀。
And everything after that is black.
之后的所有事情陷入了一片黑暗。
Sam comes darting out from behind the backseat, Elsa feels the coldness against her lips when his hand closes over her mouth. His muscles tense around her throat; she feels the hairs on his skin scraping like gravel through the gaps in the Gryffindor scarf. She has time to see the brief confusion in Sam’s eyes when he sees the boy. It’s the moment when he realizes he’s been hunting the wrong child. She has time to understand that the shadows in the fairy tale didn’t want to kill the Chosen One. Only steal him. Make him their own. Kill whoever stood in their way.
山姆从后座冒出来，用手捂住爱莎的嘴巴时，她的嘴唇感觉到一阵冰凉。他手臂上的肌肉紧绷，包围了她的脖子，他的汗毛穿透格兰芬多围巾的空隙，像沙砾一般刮擦着她的皮肤。她有时间注意到山姆看见男孩时眼中的迷茫。这一刻他意识到自己追错了孩子。她忽然明白童话故事里的暗影并不想杀死天选之子，只想把他偷走，把他据为己有。任何人胆敢阻拦，都将被暗影杀死。
Elsa sees her feet moving, but she’s not guiding them herself. Her body is running by instinct. She thinks that she and the boy have had time to make half a dozen steps when she hears the wurse howling in horrendous pain, and she doesn’t know if it’s the boy who lets go of her hand or if she lets go of his. Her pulse is beating so hard that she can feel it in her eyes. The boy slips and falls to the ground. Elsa hears the back door of Audi opening and sees the knife in Sam’s hand. Sees the blood on it. She does the only thing she can do: picks the boy up as best she can and runs as fast as possible.
爱莎看见自己的脚在移动，但感觉它们不受控制。她的身体被本能支配。她觉得她和男孩还有时间再跑几步时，呜嘶传来痛苦的哀嚎，她不知是男孩松开了她的手，还是她松开了他的。她的脉搏跳得很快，快得仿佛是在她的眼睛里跳动。男孩滑了一下，摔在地上。爱莎听见奥迪后车门打开的声音，看见山姆手中的刀，还看见刀上的血。她做了她唯一能做的：尽力扶起男孩，尽可能以最快的速度离开。
Elsa can feel herself running, she feels the boy’s hand in hers, and she knows that they have to make it to the front entrance. They have to have time to scream so Dad and Alf can hear them.
爱莎感到自己在奔跑，她感觉到自己握着男孩的手，她知道他们必须跑到大门口。他们必须有时间尖叫，让爸爸和阿尔夫听见。
She’s good at running. But she knows it won’t be enough. She can hear Sam straining behind her, feels the tug at her arm as the boy is torn from her grasp; her heart lurches, she closes her eyes, and the next thing she remembers is the pain in her forehead. And Maud’s scream. And Dad’s hands. The hard floor in the stairwell. The world spins until it lands, swaying upside down in front of her, and she thinks that this must be how it is when you die. Like falling inwards, towards who-knows-what.
她擅长逃跑，但知道这还不够。她能听见山姆紧跟在她身后，能感觉到巨大的力量正把男孩从她的手中拉走。她的心脏猛跳，她闭上眼睛，之后她能记起的便是前额上的剧痛。还有莫德的尖叫。还有爸爸的手。楼梯间的坚硬地板。整个世界在旋转，在她眼前颠倒摇晃，她想这一定就是死去的感觉，像是朝着不知何处坠落。
She hears banging without understanding where it comes from. Then the echo. “Echo,” she has time to think, and realizes she is indoors. She feels as if she’s got gravel under her eyelids. She hears the light feet of the boy running up the stairs as a boy’s feet can run only when they have known for many years that this could happen. She hears the terrified voice of the boy’s mother, trying to keep herself calm and methodical as she runs after him, as only a mother can do and only when she has grown accustomed to fear as the natural state of things.
她听见撞击声，却不明白从哪里传来。然后是回声。“回声。”她想着，意识到自己在室内了。她感觉眼皮底下进了沙子。她听见男孩跑上楼梯的轻巧脚步，仿佛他的双脚在多年前就知道会有这样的事情发生。爱莎听见男孩母亲惊恐的声音，他的母亲跟在他身后跑着，试着让自己冷静和理智下来，只有一位早已熟知恐惧的母亲才能做到这点。
Sam is afraid.
山姆在害怕。
The door of Granny’s house closes and locks behind them. Elsa feels that Dad’s hands aren’t holding her up, they’re holding her back. She doesn’t know from what. Until she sees the shadow through the glass in the entrance door. Sees Sam on the other side. He’s standing still. And something about his face is so deeply uncharacteristic of him that, at first, Elsa can’t quite shake off the feeling that she is imagining the whole thing.
公寓楼的大门在他们身后关上并锁了起来。爱莎感觉爸爸的手不是在拉起她，而是在向后拉住她。她不知道为什么。直到她透过大门玻璃看到了阴影。山姆在门的另一边一动不动地站着。他脸上的表情非常不像他，以至于刚开始爱莎还以为这是她自己的想象。
In the blink of an eye another shadow descends over him, so enormous that Sam’s shadow is engulfed in it. Wolfheart’s heavy fists rain down with fury, with a violence and a darkness no fairy tale could describe. He doesn’t hit Sam, he hammers him into the snow. Not to make him harmless. Not to protect. To destroy.
眨眼间，另一个影子笼罩在他身上，那么巨大，吞没了山姆的阴影。狼心的重拳如雨点一般落下，带着狂怒，带着暴力，带着黑暗，没有一个童话故事能够描述它。他不是在打山姆，而是将山姆锤进了雪地里。不是为制服他。不是为了保护，而是为了摧毁。
Elsa’s dad picks her up and runs up the stairs. Presses her against his jacket so she can’t see. She hears the door flung open from inside and she hears Maud and Lennart pleading with Wolfheart to stop hitting, stop hitting, stop hitting. But judging by the dull thumping sounds, like when you drop milk cartons on the floor, he isn’t stopping. He doesn’t even hear them. In the tales Wolfheart fled into the dark forests long before the War-Without-End, because he knew what he was capable of.
爱莎的爸爸抱起她，跑上楼，把她按在自己的外套里，不让她看见一切。她听见门从里面猛地开启，听见莫德和莱纳特求狼心不要再打了，不要再打了，不要再打了。但从沉闷的撞击声来判断，从那像是把牛奶盒掉在地板上的声音来判断，他并没有停手。他甚至没有听见他们的声音。在故事里，狼心在无尽战争以前很久就逃进了幽暗森林，因为他知道自己会干出什么。
Elsa tears herself free of Dad and sprints down the stairs. Maud and Lennart stop screaming before she has reached the bottom. Wolfheart’s mallet of a fist is raised so high above Sam that it brushes the stretched-out fingers of the cloud animals before it turns back and hurtles down.
爱莎挣脱了爸爸，跑下楼。在她到达底层前，莫德和莱纳特已停止了尖叫。狼心如同锤子般的拳头高举在山姆上方，高得几乎擦到了云兽的利爪，然后急转直下，呼啸着砸下来。
But Wolfheart freezes in the middle of the movement. Between him and the blood-covered man stands a woman who looks so small and frail that the wind should be able to pass right through her. She has an insignificant ball of blue tumble-dryer fluff in her hand, and a thin white line on her finger where her wedding ring used to be. Every ounce of her being seems to be yelling at her to run for her life. But she stays where she is, staring at Wolfheart with the resolute gaze of someone who has nothing left to lose.
但狼心的动作在中途停止了。在他和被血浸没的男人之间，站着一个女人，她瘦小脆弱，感觉上风一吹就会倒。她的手上拿着一团烘干机里的蓝色小毛球，原本戴着婚戒的手指上如今只剩下一圈白色的印痕。她身体的每一个细胞似乎都在叫她快点儿逃命。然而她站在原地，用刚毅的眼神盯着狼心，那眼神透露着她已经没有任何还能失去的东西。
She rolls up the tumble-dryer fluff in the palm of one hand and puts that hand against her other hand and clasps them together on her stomach; then she looks with determination at Wolfheart and says, with authority: “We don’t beat people to death in this leaseholders’ association.”
她用一只手的手心卷起烘干机毛球，然后双手交叠在腹部，坚定地看着狼心，用命令的口气说：“在这个租户协会里，我们不能把人打死。”
When she feels Dad’s soft hands picking her up off the ground, she calls out loudly, so the wurse will hear her even if it’s already halfway to the Land-of-Almost-Awake: “YOU CAN’T DIE! YOU HEAR?! YOU CAN’T DIE BECAUSE ALL CHRISTMAS TALES HAVE HAPPY ENDINGS!”
她感觉爸爸轻柔地将她从地上抱起，她大声地喊，让呜嘶在去不眠大陆的路上也能听见她的声音：“你不能死！你听见了吗？！所有圣诞故事都有圆满的结局，所以你不能死！”
She is still standing between Wolfheart and Sam, between the monster and the shadow, when the police car comes skidding into their street. The green-eyed policewoman jumps out, her weapon drawn, long before the car has stopped. Wolfheart has dropped on his knees in the snow.
警车驶入他们这条街时，她还站在狼心和山姆之间，在怪物和暗影之间。绿眼睛的女警察没等车子停下就跳下车，拔出武器。狼心已双膝跪倒在雪地中。
Elsa shoves the door open and charges outside. The police roar at Wolfheart. They try to stop Elsa, but it’s like holding water in cupped hands: she slips through their fingers. For reasons she won’t understand for many years, Elsa has time to think about what her mother said to George once when she thought Elsa was sleeping. That this is how it is, being the mother of a daughter who is starting to grow up.
爱莎推开门，冲了出去。警察朝狼心大吼。他们想拦住爱莎，但就像徒手捧水，她从他们的指尖溜走。此后多年她都想不明白，自己为何会在那一刻想起，某次妈妈以为爱莎睡着时对乔治说的话——给一个正在长大的女孩当妈妈，就是这样的心情。
The wurse lies immobile on the ground halfway between Audi and the front entrance. The snow is red. It tried to get to her. Crawled out of Audi and crept along until it collapsed. Elsa wriggles out of her jacket and the Gryffindor scarf and spreads them over the animal’s body, curling up in the snow next to it and hugging it hard, hard, feeling how its breath smells of peanut cake, and she whispers, “Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid” over and over again into its ear. “Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid, Wolfheart has defeated the dragon and no fairy tale can end until the dragon has been defeated.”
呜嘶一动不动地躺在奥迪和大门之间的地上。雪地里一片鲜红。它曾试着靠近她，于是从奥迪里一路爬行，直到体力不支倒地。爱莎扭着身体脱掉外套，摘下格兰芬多围巾，盖在这只动物身上，然后蜷曲身子跪在雪地里，紧紧、紧紧地抱着它，感受它带着花生蛋糕气味的呼吸，小声地说：“不要害怕，不要害怕。”一遍又一遍在它耳旁说：“不要害怕，不要害怕。狼心打败了恶龙，直到恶龙被打败，童话故事才能完结。”
Wolfheart’s fist is still vibrating in the air. His chest heaves up and down. But his arms slowly fall down at his sides.
狼心的拳头还在空中颤抖。他的胸膛起起伏伏，但他的手臂慢慢地放到身侧。
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