1. Dark Stains DARK STAINS Busy as they were, wrapping presents and composing clever Christmas rhymes, none of the inhabitants of Mälaröarna noticed the dark stains in the snow behind Färentuna church. Nor did they see how they grew bigger and bigger after the second Sunday of Advent. And no one had reacted to the strange sounds and rank smells rising from drains and water faucets during the entire month of December, nor noticed how the Field Hat in Sätuna had been encased in a strange sculpture of brown ice since before Christmas. But then Christmas Eve came around. In the early morning hours, it became clear to most of the inhabitants of northern Färingsö that Christmas of 1994 would go down in history for very different reasons than the Christmas rhymes. Most households woke up to the fact that their basements were being flooded by brown, ice-cold water.