It was the Noween who brought the fears to the Land-of-Almost-Awake, in another of Granny’s tales, more eternities ago than anyone could really count. So long ago that at the time there were only five kingdoms, not six.
在外婆的另一个故事里，在多到数不清个“永恒”之前，是诺温将恐惧带到不眠大陆的。那时只有五个王国，而不是六个。
O’BOY
22。
Elsa has been chased hundreds of times before, but never like in that churchyard. And the fear she feels now is something else. Because she had time to see his eyes just before she ran, and they looked so determined, so cold, like he was ready to kill her. That’s a lot for an almost-eight-year-old to handle.
爱莎以前被追逐过上百次，但从没有像墓地这次一样。她现在感受到的是另一种恐惧，她在逃跑前看到了他的眼睛，它们看上去那么坚定、冷酷，像是准备杀死她。这对一个快八岁的孩子来说，很难承受。
Elsa tried never to be afraid while Granny was alive. Or at least she tried never to show it. Because Granny hated fears. Fears are small, fiery creatures from the Land-of-Almost-Awake, with rough pelts that coincidentally look quite a lot like blue tumble-dryer fluff, and if you give them the slightest opportunity they jump up and nibble your skin and try to scratch your eyes. Fears are like cigarettes, said Granny: the hard thing isn’t stopping, it’s not starting.
外婆在世时，爱莎试过不去害怕，至少她试着不表现出害怕。外婆痛恨恐惧，恐惧是不眠大陆上一种暴躁的小生物，皮毛粗糙，看起来正像是烘干机里的蓝色毛球。只要有一点点机会，它们就会跳起来咬你的皮肤，试图抓瞎你的眼睛。恐惧就像是香烟，外婆说，困难的不是戒掉，而是不要开始。
The Noween is a prehistoric monster that wants everything to happen immediately. Every time a child says “in a minute” or “later” or “I’m just going to…” the Noween bellows with furious force: “Nooo! IT HAS TO BE DONE NOOOW!” The Noween hates children, because children refuse to accept the Noween’s lie that time is linear. Children know that time is just an emotion, so “now” is a meaningless word to them, just as it was for Granny. George used to say that Granny wasn’t a time-optimist, she was a time-atheist, and the only religion she believed in was Do-It-Later-Buddhism.
诺温是一头史前怪兽，它希望所有的事情立即发生。每次当一个孩子说“马上”或“回头”或“我正要去…”的时候，诺温就会用愤怒的声音大吼：“不！现在就去！”诺温讨厌孩子，因为孩子们拒绝相信诺温的谎言——时间是线性的。孩子们认为时间只是一种情绪，所以“现在”对他们来说是一个毫无意义的词语，对外婆也一样。乔治常说外婆不是个“时间乐观主义者”，她是一个“时间无神论者”，唯一信奉的宗教是“以后再说”教。
The Noween brought the fears to the Land-of-Almost-Awake to catch children, because when a Noween gets hold of a child it engulfs the child’s future, leaving the victim helpless where it is, facing an entire life of eating now and sleeping now and tidying up right away. Never again can the child postpone something boring till later and do something fun in the meantime. All that’s left is now. A fate far worse than death, Granny always said, so the tale of the Noween started by clarifying that it hated fairy tales.
诺温把恐惧带到不眠大陆，并且抓捕孩子。它每抓到一个孩子就会吞噬这个孩子的未来，留下无助的受害者在原地，从此面对“现在吃饭、现在睡觉、立刻整理”这样的人生。那个孩子将再也不能为有趣的事情而推迟做无聊的事情了，他只剩下现在。这是比死亡还可怕的命运，外婆以前总这么说，诺温的故事起始于它对童话故事的痛恨。
Because nothing is better at making a child postpone something than a fairy tale. So one night the Noween slithered up Telling Mountain, the highest mountain peak in the Land-of-Almost-Awake, where it caused a massive landslide, which demolished the entire peak. Then it lay in wait in a dark cave. For Telling Mountain is the mountain the enphants have to climb in order to release the tales so they can glide over into the real world, and if the tales can’t leave Telling Mountain the whole kingdom of Miamas will suffocate, and then the whole Land-of-Almost-Awake will suffocate. For no stories can live without children listening to them.
因为没有比童话故事更能让孩子们拖拖拉拉的了。所以某天晚上，诺温爬上“讲述山”——不眠大陆最高的山峰，制造了一次大规模的山崩，摧毁了整个山峰。然后它躺在漆黑的洞穴里守着，因为蚁象必须在这座山上将故事放生，好让它们滑翔进入真实世界，而如果故事不能离开讲述山，整个不眠大陆就会窒息。没有孩子听故事，故事们就会死去。
When the warriors from Mibatalos came up the mountain, the Noween released the fears, and they immediately transformed themselves into each individual soldier’s worst nightmare. For all beings have a mortal fear, even the warriors from Mibatalos, and the air in the Land-of-Almost-Awake slowly grew thinner. Storytellers found it increasingly difficult to breathe.
密巴塔洛斯的战士登上山时，诺温释放出恐惧，它们即刻变化成每个士兵最害怕的噩梦。所有的生物都有各自害怕的东西，即使是密巴塔洛斯的战士也不例外。然后，不眠大陆的空气慢慢变得稀薄。故事讲述者们发现自己呼吸困难。
When dawn came, all the bravest fighters from Mibatalos tried to climb the mountain and defeat the Noween, but no one managed it. Because the Noween was breeding fears in the caves. Fears need to be handled carefully, because threats just make them grow bigger. So every time a parent somewhere threatened a child, it worked as fertilizer. “Soon,” a child said somewhere, and then a parent yelled, “No, nooow! Or I’ll –” And, bang, another fear was hatched in one of the Noween’s caves.
黎明来临时，密巴塔洛斯最勇敢的战士来到山上，想要打败诺温，但没人做得到。诺温在洞穴里繁殖恐惧。处理恐惧得很小心，威胁只能让它们变得更大。每当某个家长威胁孩子，他的话就变成了恐惧的肥料。“马上。”某个孩子说，而家长则大叫：“不！现在！不然的话我就——”“砰”的一声，诺温的洞穴里又诞生了一只恐惧。
(Elsa obviously interrupted Granny at this point because her whole thing about fears transforming themselves into what you are most afraid of was actually nicked from Harry Potter, because that’s how a boggart works. And then Granny had snorted and answered, “Maybe it’s that Harry muppet who nicked it from me?” And then Elsa had sneered, “Harry Potter doesn’t steal!” And then they had argued for quite a long time about that, and in the end Granny gave up and mumbled, “Fine, then! Forget the whole bloody thing! Fears don’t transform themselves, they just bite and try to scratch your eyes, are you SATISFIED now or what?” And then Elsa had left it there and they went on with the story. )
（爱莎在这里打断了外婆，因为恐惧变形成你最害怕东西的情节明显是从《哈利·波特》里抄来的，这是博格特[1]的能力。然后外婆就哼了一声，说：“也许是哈利那个小鬼从我这儿偷的呢！”爱莎冷笑说：“哈利·波特才不会偷东西！”她们为此吵了很长时间，最后外婆放弃：“好吧，好吧！忘记这回事吧！恐惧没有变形，它们只是咬人，还会划瞎你的眼睛，你现在满意了吧？”于是爱莎放过了她，然后继续听外婆讲故事。）【注：[1]《哈利·波特与阿兹卡班的囚徒》中出现的变形生物，能看透人的内心，变成他最害怕的东西。】
That’s when the two golden knights showed up. Everyone tried to warn them about riding up the mountain, but they didn’t listen, of course. Knights can be so damned obstinate. But when they came up the mountain and all the fears welled out of the caves, the golden knights didn’t fight. They didn’t yell and swear as other warriors would have done. Instead the knights did the only thing you can do with fears: they laughed at them. Loud, defiant laughter. And then all the fears were turned to stone, one by one.
就在那时，出现了两位金色骑士。所有人都警告他们不要上山，但他们没听。骑士们还真的挺固执的。他们来到山上，所有的恐惧从山洞中涌出，金色骑士没有战斗。他们只做了对恐惧唯一可做的那件事：嘲笑它们，笑得非常大声。结果所有的恐惧就变成了石头，一只接一只。
Granny was fond of rounding off fairy tales with things being turned to stone because she wasn’t very good at endings. Elsa never complained, though. The Noween was obviously put in prison for an indeterminate length of time, which made it insanely angry. And the ruling council of the Land-of-Almost-Awake decided to appoint a small group of inhabitants from each of the kingdoms, warriors from Mibatalos and dream hunters from Mirevas and sorrow-keepers from Miploris and musicians from Mimovas and storytellers from Miamas, to keep guard over Telling Mountain. The stones of the fears were used to rebuild the peak higher than ever, and at the foot of the mountain the sixth kingdom was built: Miaudacas. And in the fields of Miaudacas, courage was cultivated, so that no one would ever again have to be afraid of the fears.
外婆喜欢用变成石头来结束整个童话故事，因为她不善于结尾。但爱莎也从不抱怨。诺温自然被关进了监狱，无期徒刑，这让它气炸了。不眠大陆的统治议会决定从每个王国指定一小群居民，密巴塔洛斯的战士、密瑞瓦斯的捕梦人、密普洛瑞斯的悲伤保管人、密莫瓦斯的音乐家以及密阿玛斯的故事讲述者，一同守卫讲述山。恐惧变成的石头用来重建山峰，建得比以前更高。最后在山脚下建造了第六个王国：密奥达卡斯。在密奥达卡斯的田野里，种植着勇气，让人们再也不为恐惧而担惊受怕。
“Are you scared?” asks Mum.
“你怕吗？”妈妈问。
Or, well. That is what they did until, as Granny once told Elsa, after the harvest they took all the courage plants and made a special drink of them, and if you had some of it you became incredibly brave. And then Elsa did a bit of Googling and then she pointed out to Granny that it wasn’t a very responsible analogy to divulge to a child. And then Granny groaned, “Oh, right, okay, let’s say they don’t drink it, it’s just THERE, okay?!” So that’s the whole story of the two golden knights who defeated the fears. Granny told it every time Elsa was afraid of anything, and even though Elsa was often quite right in her criticism of Granny’s storytelling technique, it actually worked every time. She wasn’t at all as afraid afterwards.
好吧，故事本来到这里就算是结束了。可有一次外婆又告诉爱莎，在丰收后，他们会收走所有的勇气植物，制成特殊的饮品，如果你喝过，就会变得特别勇敢。爱莎后来在谷歌上查了查，她对外婆指出，这个比喻说给孩子听很不负责[2]。外婆只好投降：“好吧，行吧，那他们没有喝，就到前面打住，可以了吧？！”这就是两位黄金骑士打倒恐惧的整个故事。爱莎每次感到害怕的时候，外婆就会讲这个故事，虽然爱莎对外婆讲故事的技巧深表怀疑，但每次都挺奏效的。她后来就没有那么容易害怕了。【注：[2]英语中“勇气饮料”（liquid courage）指的是酒精。】
“Yes,” admits Elsa.
“怕。”爱莎承认。
Mum doesn’t tell Elsa not to be afraid, and she doesn’t try to trick her into believing that she shouldn’t be. Elsa loves her for that.
妈妈没叫爱莎不要害怕，也没有试着骗她说不用害怕。爱莎因此爱她。
The only thing the story never worked on was Granny’s fear of death. And now it wasn’t working on Elsa either. Because not even fairy tales defeat shadows.
故事唯一一次没起到效果就是外婆对死亡的恐惧。现在在爱莎身上也不管用了，因为即使是童话故事也不能打倒暗影。
Elsa reaches out and feels Mum’s belly and Halfie contentedly kicking in there. Halfie is not afraid either. Because she/he is completely Mum and George, whereas Elsa is half her dad and Elsa’s dad is afraid of everything. So Elsa gets afraid of about half of everything.
爱莎伸手摸了摸妈妈的肚子，“小半”在里头心满意足地踢腿。“小半”也不害怕，因为她／他是完整的妈妈加乔治。而爱莎有一半是她的爸爸，爱莎的爸爸害怕一切。于是爱莎对差不多半数的东西感到害怕。
They are in the garage and have pushed the backrest down in Renault. The wurse floats out over everything between them, and Mum unconcernedly scratches its pelt. She wasn’t even angry when Elsa confessed that she’d been keeping it hidden in the storage unit. And she wasn’t scared when Elsa introduced her. She just started stroking it behind its ear as if it were a kitten.
她们在车库里将雷诺车座的靠背放平。呜嘶趴在她们之间，覆盖了所有东西，妈妈漫不经心地挠着它的毛皮。当爱莎坦白她一直把它藏在储藏室里时，妈妈竟然没有生气。爱莎将她介绍给呜嘶时，她也没有害怕，只是抚摸着它的耳后，好像它是只小猫咪。
“Do you know who he is? The man who was chasing me?” she asks.
“你知道他是谁吗？那个追我的人？”她问。
Shadows more than anything.
尤其是暗影。
The wurse buffets its head against hers. Mum gently caresses her cheek.
呜嘶用脑袋轻蹭着爱莎的脑袋，妈妈温柔地抚摸她的脸颊。
“Yes. We know who he is.”
“是的，我们知道他是谁。”
Mum takes a deep breath.
妈妈深吸了一口气。
“Lennart and Maud. And Alf. And me.” It sounds as if she’s going to reel off more names, but she stops herself.
“莱纳特和莫德。还有阿尔夫，还有我。”看起来她本想说出更多的名字，但停下了。
“Who’s we?”
“‘我们’是谁？”
“Lennart and Maud?” Elsa bursts out.
“莱纳特和莫德。”爱莎惊讶地喊出声。
“I know,” whispers Mum.
“我知道。”妈妈小声说。
“No. I know you had things there that she never showed me. And it was long ago. I was about as old as you are now. The Land-of-Almost-Awake was very small then. The kingdoms didn’t have names yet.”
“没有。我知道有些东西是她从来没告诉我的。很久以前的事了，我那时跟你差不多大。不眠大陆那时候还很小，王国也还没有名字。”
Mum shakes her head.
妈妈摇摇头。
“I didn’t want to scare you.”
“我不想吓到你。”
“And Miamas?” asks Elsa.
“密阿玛斯呢？”爱莎问。
Mum nods. “I’m afraid they know him best of all.”
妈妈点了点头。“恐怕他们最了解他。”
“So why did you never tell me about him, then?” Elsa demands.
“为什么你从来没有跟我说过他的事？”爱莎质问。
“Do you?”
“是吗？”
“Your grandmother tried to tell me the stories, darling. About the Land-of-Almost-Awake and the shadows.”
“你外婆以前试着告诉过我这些故事，亲爱的。不眠大陆和暗影。”
“It’s a shadow,” whispers Elsa.
“是暗影。”爱莎小声说。
Mum sighs. Scratches the wurse’s pelt. The wurse, in turn, licks Elsa’s face. It still smells of sponge cake mix. Unfortunately, it’s quite difficult to be angry when someone smelling of sponge cake mix is licking your face.
妈妈叹了口气，挠了挠呜嘶的皮毛。呜嘶反过来舔爱莎的脸，闻上去还是那股海绵蛋糕粉的气味。很不巧的是，当有个海绵蛋糕粉味儿的东西在舔你的脸时，你很难保持愤怒状态。
“That hardly worked, did it?”
“没啥用，对吧？”
Elsa interrupts impatiently: “I know! They got their names when Granny met Wolfheart, she named them after things in his mother’s language. And she took his own language and made it into the secret language so he’d teach her and she could talk to him. But why didn’t she bring you with her, in that case? Why didn’t Granny show you the Land-of-Almost-Awake?”
爱莎不耐烦地插嘴：“我知道！外婆遇见狼心之后，它们才有了名字，她用他母亲的语言给王国起了名字。然后她将他的语言变成秘密语言，他教会她，于是她就能和他聊天了。但这么说来，为什么她没有带你去呢？为什么外婆不带你去看不眠大陆？”
“Why not?”
“为什么不去？”
“She wanted to bring me, darling. Many times. But I didn’t want to go.”
“她想带我去的，宝贝。很多次。但我不想去。”
Gently, Mum bites her lip.
妈妈轻轻咬着嘴唇。
“I wasn’t an easy child, darling. I argued a lot. I said no to everything. Your grandmother always called me ‘the girl who said no.’ ”
“我不是个听话的孩子，亲爱的。我总是争吵，对任何事都说不。你外婆经常叫我‘那个说不的女孩’。”
“I was getting older. I was an angry teenager, and I didn’t want my mother telling me fairy tales on the phone anymore, I wanted to have her here. I wanted her in reality.”
“我渐渐长大，成了愤怒的青少年，我不想我的母亲再通过电话给我讲童话故事了，我希望她在身边。我希望她在现实中。”
Elsa’s eyes open wide. Mum sighs and smiles at the same time, as if one emotional expression is trying to swallow the other.
爱莎睁大了眼睛。妈妈叹了口气，同时露出微笑，好像一种表情想要吞噬另一种。
Elsa hardly ever hears her say “my mother.” She almost always says, “your grandmother.”
爱莎几乎从没听过她说“我的母亲”。她经常听到的是“你的外婆”。
Elsa lies in silence staring up at the ceiling, with the wurse breathing softly in her ear. She thinks about Wolfheart and the sea-angel, living next door for so many years without anyone knowing the first thing about them. If holes were drilled in the walls and floors of the house, all the neighbors could reach out and touch one another, that was how close their lives were, and yet in the end they knew almost nothing about the others. And so the years just went by.
爱莎安静地躺着，看着车顶，呜嘶在她耳边轻轻地呼吸。她想到了狼心和海天使，住在隔壁那么多年，也没有人知道他们的任何事情。如果能在墙壁和地板上钻洞，让所有的邻居都可以触摸到彼此，该多有趣。他们住得那么近，最终却几乎完全不了解其他人。于是岁月流逝。
“Well, I was probably many things in your grandmother’s stories. Both the girl and the queen, I think. In the end I didn’t know where the fantasy ended and reality began. Sometimes I don’t even think your grandmother knew herself.”
“好吧，我大概是你外婆故事中的很多人，既是女孩也是女王。最后我不知道幻想何时结束，而现实又何时开始。有时，我觉得你外婆自己也并不知道。”
Mum shakes her head.
妈妈摇摇头。
“Have you found the keys?” asks Elsa, pointing at Renault’s dashboard.
“你找到钥匙了吗？”爱莎指着雷诺的仪表盘问。
“Does Britt-Marie even have her own car?” asks Elsa, because from where she’s lying she can clearly see BMW, Kent’s ridiculously oversize car.
“布里特—玛丽自己有车吗？”爱莎在这里能清楚地看见肯特那辆可笑的超级大宝马。
“I think your grandmother hid them. Presumably just to tease Britt-Marie. That must be why it’s parked in Britt-Marie’s space…”
“我觉得你外婆把它藏起来了。大概只是为了逗逗布里特—玛丽吧，所以停在了她的车位上…”
“No. But she had a car many years ago. A white one. And it’s still her parking spot. I think it’s about the principle. It’s usually about the principle with Britt-Marie,” says Mum with a smirk.
“没有。她很多年前有一辆车，白色的。而这里还是她的车位。我觉得这应该是原则问题。对布里特—玛丽来说，一般都是原则问题。”妈妈笑着说。
Elsa doesn’t quite know what that means. She doesn’t know if it makes any difference either.
爱莎不知道那是什么意思，也不知道那会有什么不同。
“How did Renault get here, then? If no one has the key for it?” she thinks aloud, although she knows Mum won’t be able to answer because she doesn’t know either. So she asks Mum to tell her about the shadow. Mum brushes her hand over her cheek again and levers herself up laboriously from the seat, with one hand over Halfie.
“雷诺怎么跑这儿来的，如果没人有车钥匙的话？”她这么想，但明白妈妈不能回答，因为她也不知道。所以爱莎叫妈妈告诉她暗影的事情。妈妈又摸了摸爱莎的脸颊，从座位上吃力地坐起来，一只手放在“小半”上。
“I think Maud and Lennart will have to tell you about him, darling.”
“我想，莫德和莱纳特一定会告诉你他的事情的，宝贝。”
They put blankets over the wurse in the backseat and Mum calmly cautions it to stay still if it hears anyone coming. And it agrees. Elsa promises it several times that she’ll find a better hiding place, although it can’t seem to see the point of this. On the other hand, it looks very pleased about her going off to find more cookies.
她们在后座的呜嘶身上盖上毯子，妈妈平静地提醒它，如果听见有人来，它就要保持不动。它同意了。爱莎保证了好几次，她一定会去找个更好的藏身之处，虽然它似乎觉得没有必要。另一方面，爱莎说还要去找更多饼干时，它很满意。
Elsa wants to protest, but Mum has already climbed out of Renault, so Elsa doesn’t have much choice but to follow her. That is Mum’s superpower, after all. Mum brings Wolfheart’s coat. She says she’s going to wash it so he can have it when he comes home. Elsa likes thinking about that. How he’s coming home.
爱莎想抗议，但妈妈已经爬出雷诺，所以爱莎没有别的选择，只能跟上她。毕竟那是妈妈的超能力。妈妈带着狼心的外套，说要洗一洗，这样他回家的时候就能穿了。爱莎很喜欢这个说法——他回家的时候。
“I made coffee,” he mutters.
“我煮了咖啡。”他小声说。
Mum gratefully accepts a cup. Alf hands Elsa the other cup.
妈妈感激地接过一杯。阿尔夫递给爱莎另一杯。
Elsa peers into the cup, surprised.
爱莎惊讶地朝杯子里看了一眼。
Alf is standing guard at the bottom of the cellar stairs.
阿尔夫在地下室楼梯的尽头站着守候。
“Where’d you get this from?” she asks. Mum never lets her have O’boy at home because there’s too much sugar in it.
“你从哪儿弄来的？”她问。妈妈在家里从不让她喝欧宝，因为里面糖分太多了。
“It’s not bloody coffee, it’s one of those O’boy drinking-chocolate bastards,” Alf answers indignantly.
“这不是该死的咖啡，这是那种什么欧宝巧克力粉冲出来的鬼玩意儿。”阿尔夫愤然回答。
“I told you I don’t drink coffee,” says Elsa tiredly.
“我告诉过你我不喝咖啡。”爱莎疲惫地说。
“I can bloody go to the shop, can’t I?” says Alf sourly.
“我他妈可以去商店买的，好吗？”阿尔夫酸酸地说。
“From home,” mutters Alf.
“家里。”阿尔夫说。
“So you also know who was chasing me in the churchyard, don’t you?” she asks Alf, with half of the cup’s contents in the corners of her mouth and on the tip of her nose.
“所以你也知道在教堂里追我的人是谁，对吧？”她问阿尔夫，勺子里一半的东西在她嘴里，另一半在她的鼻尖上。
“You have O’boy at home?” Elsa asks skeptically.
“你家有欧宝？”爱莎怀疑地问。
“It should bloody taste of something, shouldn’t it?”
“这玩意儿本来就应该味道浓点儿，不是吗？”
“How many spoonfuls of O’boy did you put in this?”
“这里面你放了几勺欧宝？”
“Yes. But you’re not the one he’s hunting.”
“是的。但你不是他要追踪的那个人。”
“It’s not you he’s after.”
“他不是来找你的。”
“You’re supposed to put in, like, three!”
“你应该放，差不多，三勺！”
Elsa grins at him. She’s thinking of calling Alf the Knight of Invective because she’s read about invective on Wikipedia and she feels all in all there are too few knights of it. Then she takes a deep gulp and comes close to spitting it out all over Alf’s leather jacket.
爱莎冲他咧开嘴笑了。她在想，可以叫阿尔夫“谩骂骑士”，她在维基百科上查过“谩骂”这个词。总之，她觉得这应该是个稀有的骑士头衔。她喝了大大一口，然后差点儿全喷到阿尔夫的皮夹克上。
“I don’t know. Fourteen or fifteen, maybe?” Alf mutters defensively.
“我不知道。十四五勺，也许吧？”阿尔夫戒备地回答。
“Err, hello? He was chasing me.”
“呃，你在开玩笑吗？他的确是在追我啊。”
Elsa eats the rest with a spoon.
爱莎用勺子继续挖剩下的欧宝。
Alf looks indignant. Or at least Elsa thinks so. She put “indignant” in Dad’s word jar one time, and she imagines that’s what it looks like.
阿尔夫看上去恼羞成怒，至少爱莎是这么认为的。她曾经把“恼羞成怒”这个词放进过爸爸的生词罐，她想象中的“恼羞成怒”应该就是这个样子。
Alf just slowly shakes his head.
阿尔夫慢慢地摇了摇头。
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