Two minutes later.

“What did you do?” Schnappi asks.

“I kept a promise, that’s all,” Nessi replies, wipes the tears away, and puts the car in gear. You speak up from the back. Your voice is quiet because you actually don’t want to hear what exactly happened in the hotel, but what must be must be. So speak louder, “And when are you going to tell us everything?”

“First let me drive a bit, please.”

You breathe out with relief. The car rolls down the road. It’s pleasantly quiet. Only the engine and the tires. Only your heads and the thoughts locked inside them.

“Sweetie, don’t cry again.”

Schnappi hands Nessi a tissue, she drops it, Schnappi picks it up again, leans over, and starts dabbing away the tears from Nessi’s right eye. Nessi laughs. You offer to do her left eye. Nessi warns you that she’s going to crash into the next tree if you don’t stop treating her like a baby. Schnappi decides it’s been quiet long enough and puts on a CD. You hear a guitar that sounds like waves coming closer and receding again, coming closer and receding again. Then Damien Rice sings tiredness fuels empty thoughts, and Ulvtannen disappears in the rearview mirror, and you know that Nessi will tell you everything after the song. You think the same during the next song and the one after that. You wait for her words. Words that don’t hurt. Words that will make everything better. Words that no one has yet pronounced.