Sweden. Midsommar.

I can still see Siri with her backpack, eighteen years old, lightly crossing transoms of age and language to make me feel comfortable among her teenage friends. In dreams she leads the way through Gamla Stan’s crowded caramel streets, turning to smile at me as I follow behind. Back in the US, before I impulsively accepted the invitation to travel home with her for the summer, I had been Siri’s teacher.

The issues Siri had in composition were not the boring grammatical errors typical of most students I taught, so we had the luxury of talking through the content of her essays. I said, put down your pen. Just tell me about it. What colors do you see when you think of home?

And then we were there. In Olofstorp, lush canvasses of wet meadow opened one upon the other. They were bright green oceans that undulated and tipped with the wind like liquid. I would have been content to run barefoot through those fields all summer, but Siri arranged for a group of us to drive to the island of Öland, where we would camp out and celebrate Midsommar.

Though it barely warmed us, all of Sweden was intoxicated with the seemingly endless June sun. The animals, too, seemed doped and confused. In Kalmar, right before we started across the great Ölandsbron Bridge, a moose walked slowly across the road, and he blocked traffic for a while, blinking peacefully at the honking cars.

Siri’s friends slumbered in the backseat, a mash of black clothes, smeary eyeliner, and punky hair. They reminded me of puppies sleeping on top of one another in a laundry basket.

“There is an old legend,” Siri said. “It says you mustn’t go swimming on Midsommar, because an evil spirit named Näcken waits out there in the sea, waiting to pull you down. If he gets you, he’ll make you live under the water with him forever.” She smiled mischievously. “So will you swim with me?”

I laughed, but softly, afraid that her friends would awaken and commandeer the conversation back to Swedish. “You know I will,” I said. “But I might be the one Näcken pulls down.”

We drove through a long stretch of woods, sunlight streaming through the trees overhead, clicks of light behind my closed eyes. When they woke me, we were parked on a sandy road beside a rugged beach called Neptuni Åkrar. The slope that the girls ran down was shining blue and green in the sun. Ropes of blue algae swung lazily in the gentle waves, and the rocks were fuzzy with it underfoot. “You said you’d swim!” Siri yelled, rushing down ahead of me.

I picked my way down the rocks and sat down upon Siri’s yellow inner tube while the girls splashed in the sea. Suddenly, they were running toward me. They each grabbed hold of the tube and pulled me into the water with a few yanks. I went under smiling, and got a mouthful of water.