On the twenty-third of December Mille packed her suitcase. It was made from a matchbox, with a strap of woollen thread, and it was already full before she had begun. Because what you collect in December weighs more than it looks.
A picture from Lea, folded down to the size of a stamp. A biscuit, no, half a biscuit, Jonas had needed the rest. The note with the recipe. A crumb of flour that stuck to the blanket and would not come off. A sock that Molly had laid outside her door that afternoon, without explanation.
“You are taking too much,” said Tove, who was not coming. Tove stayed, because little sisters stay where the winter is warm. “I am taking everything,” said Mille. “Otherwise, at the North Pole, I won’t remember where I have been.”
Grandfather Aske sat on the step and watched. He was too old for the journey and too proud to say so, so instead he said that the owl flew too fast and it gave him cold ears. Mille promised to fly slowly. Both of them knew you cannot promise anything on behalf of an owl.
Late in the night, when the suitcase stood in front of the door and the mat was rolled up, Molly came. She lay down beside the suitcase, so close that her fur touched the matchbox, and stayed. Mille sat down next to her. For a while neither of them said anything, which in a cat goes unnoticed and in a gnome is very noticeable indeed.
“I will come back,” Mille said at last. “When it gets dark. You will know, because then it will smell of cinnamon behind the door again.” Molly blinked slowly, which in the language of cats means roughly the same thing.
Then Mille wrote the last letter. She wrote it three times, because the first two were too sad, and a farewell letter must not be sad, or it is not a farewell but a hole. The third began with Hej, dear ones and ended with a sentence she had from Aske: Leave the door up. Then I will find my way back.
On the morning of the twenty-fourth the suitcase was gone, the lantern out, the letter leaning against the door. Jonas read it aloud, Lea listened, and when he had finished she said only: “Then we leave it up.” And they did. The door is still there. And every year, when it gets dark, the hallway smells just a little of cinnamon.
