Dandelion Girl

by Isa Hansen

  “Where do you need to go?” the man asked. He’d switched over to English—his tone helpful.

  The man was polite. So far so good.

  “I’m going to the dentist, you see.”

  “The dentist office is closed at this hour.”

  “Oh, I know, but I need to find it tomorrow and … can one see the dentist building from the windows?” Celia pointed toward the windows on the other side of the tunnel. One could, she had already made sure of that.

  The man scrunched his brows. “Well, yes.”

  Celia clasped her hands together. “Could you show me? Please? I’m so nervous about getting lost tomorrow.”

  The man gave his head a little shake and sighed, but he rose from his desk. Together they walked through the tunnel. The windows were set at an angle and boxed in, so one had to hover to get a good view. The man leaned in. “See the building on the other side there, the one with the teeth in the windows?”

  “Teeth?” Celia angled in, craning her neck. “You mean the babies?”

  “Babies? No, teeth.” The man huddled next to her, pointing.

  She thought she sensed a body moving soundlessly past them.

  “Hmm,” Celia said. “Really?” She leaned in farther, squinting. “I don’t have my glasses.”

  She had to keep the man with her.

  “Yes, that enormously large tooth poster, just on the other side. In the window.”

  “Aaah,” Celia said slowly. “That one. I was looking at the wrong one.”

  The man seemed happy that she was finally with it and straightened himself. “That’s where you need to go.”

  “Wait,” she blurted.

  “Yes?”

  “Does it hurt?”

  He gave her a confused look. Over his shoulder, she glimpsed Ebba hustling at the other end of the tunnel.

  “I mean, going to the dentist. Does it hurt?”

  The man frowned. “You’ve never been to the dentist?”

  “Not in Sweden.”

  “I’m sure it’s not very different from wherever you’re from,” he said, starting to turn around.

  “But I’ve heard you don’t do anesthetics here,” she said quickly. “And the dentists are sadists.”

  At this the man apparently took great offence. He zoned in on Celia, brows pulled together. “Our dentists are not sadists,” he said, his voice going flat. “They are immaculately trained professionals who do their job very well.”

  Celia put up her hands in a shrug. “Well, I’ve heard stories.”

  “Excuse me,” the man said. He turned on his heel with a huff.

  Ebba had better be in because there was no more delaying him.

  “Thank you!” she called after him.

  He lifted one hand in response.

  She waited for him to get to back to his desk.

  She couldn’t hear any altercations from the other side so she could only assume Ebba was safe. She speed walked back to the entrance, her adrenaline rushing. She left the bright lights of the hospital and hurried along the main road, turned, and passed through the parking lot to the ravine.

  Her breath streamed out in cloudy wisps before her, evaporating into the thin cold air.

  She stepped onto the path between the archives building and the riverside woodland and moved toward the green light over the door. The light turned everything a shade of chartreuse, including her foggy clouds of breath.

  She tapped on the metal door frame.

  Soon after the door swung open.

  Celia stayed still for a moment, listening. No alarm.

  Ebba stood in the doorway to the backdrop of lit-up rows of folders. “Good job.” Her voice was high and breathy. She ushered Celia in and took a quick peek outside. “It worked.” After making sure the door was securely shut, she said, “The good news and bad news is that the lights are on. It means we might be screwed if someone comes in. On the other hand it’ll be much easier to find what we’re looking for.”

  Expansive rows of folders on metal shelves stood before them. The room looked like a labyrinth with all of the shelves and stacks of folders in tidy columns.

  Ebba scanned her phone for the information that she’d prepared in order to find Liv’s folder. Celia followed Ebba down the rows. Ebba looked from the labels on the shelved folders to her notes.

  First they moved past several rows to get to the right aisle. After that they searched for the right section, then shelf.

  Ebba slowed her gait, getting closer.

  She halted to a stop. Her thumb stopped on a folder that she pulled out. She continued the process a few times.

  Then she wetted her lips. “Ah.”

  “Liv?”

  “Liv Sörensson.”

  Ebba handed the file to Celia.

  Clutching it, she sat down on the cold, concrete floor.

  “I’ll help you read,” Ebba said, squatting next to her.

  They hunched over the papers that were yellow with age and smelled of stale dust. They waded through a few pages of medical jargon, searching for a gleam of anything informative. Several of the pages were hand-written and nearly impossible to read.

  But then something jumped out at Celia, amidst the jumble of words. She had to take a long hard look to make sure she wasn’t mistaken. There was a name she knew.

  Sten Lagerkvist.

  “Look!” she called in a whisper, index finger on the name. “That’s Skullface’s name.”

  Ebba focuses on the section that mentioned Sten’s name: “Liv went to the doctor. Twisted her ankle in gym class. Sten was the doctor who saw her.”

  Celia considered that for a second. Sten had been a doctor. She’d just found that out at her last shift at the Warbler. She homed in on the section. “The date of the appointment was September 10, 1984.” She paused. “I think that would have been a few weeks before she died.”

  Ebba drew her finger along the lines. “It says here that Sten was filling in for another doctor when he saw Liv that day.”

  Celia glanced over at Ebba. “What do you think that means?”

  “I don’t know,” Ebba said. “Maybe nothing other than that he wasn’t her general physician.”

  She swayed a little. “What about her death?”

  Continuing through the file, Ebba gave a little jump. “Here! Her death record.”

  They both huddled closer, skimming through the details.

  Drowned at Björnsjön. On Oct 2. Time of death around three in the afternoon.

  “There’s nothing here that contradicts what we’ve been told,” Celia said, “although…”

  “What?”

  “Doesn’t it look to you like the date of her death has been whited out and typed over?”

  Ebba looked closer. “It does.”

  “That would be illegal in the States, I think. Wouldn’t it be here, too?”

  Ebba shook her head. “Yeah, maybe, probably … maybe it was a mistake.”

  “Or someone did it purposefully, after the fact.”

  They fell silent; the room hummed from the flicker of fluorescent lights overhead.

  “This is strange.” Ebba pulled a page from the folder. “This is about someone else. A report on the death of some … Günther Weber.” She crouched over the page. “Suicide is mentioned as the cause of death. He died in his home from”—she scrunched her eyes—“some kind of poisoning, I think.” Her head came up. “Why this would be in Liv’s file?”

  A sound interrupted them.

  Celia stilled. She looked over at Ebba. In their excitement, they’d forgotten to keep it down.

  There was something going on in the reception area. Voices.

  She recognized the voice of the night receptionist. Talking to someone. Another male. Right outside the door to the archives.

  Ebba snapped the folder shut. “We should go.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Ebba swiftly rose with the folder in her grasp.

  “Wait!” Celia said, careful to kee
p her voice down. “Let’s take photos.”

  The pages came back down and they silently tore through them, snapping shots with their phones. Celia cursed herself for not doing that right away.

  She and Ebba both froze at the sound of the door swinging open. The voices were in the room now. Some aisles away. They hurried through the last pages. Frenzied, they scrambled to their feet. Ebba pushed the folder into its place.

  Footsteps and voices coming closer.

  Celia shot a glance toward the illuminated exit sign. She pointed, this way.

  Sprinting in the direction of the exit sign, they navigated their way out of the labyrinth of files. Celia didn’t know if anyone was behind them or if anyone saw them, she ceased to hear the voices. She just had one thing on her mind: get out.

  They approached the door, pushed their way out. Bolted through the brush toward Ebba’s car. A sharp branch sliced across Celia’s face. They dashed toward the parking lot.

  Ebba jingled her keys and they tumbled into the Volvo.

  Celia slammed the passenger door shut.

  Headlights lit up behind them.

  “Uh, Ebbs—” Celia whipped her head around. “I think someone was waiting for us.”

  Ebba started the car and they screeched out of the parking lot.

  The lights followed.

  “Yeah,” Ebba said, her grip tight on the steering wheel.

  Celia stayed twisted around. “Ah! Their brights are killing me.”

  “Time to do some creative driving,” Ebba muttered. “See how badly they want to follow us.”

  Ebba’s old car mumbled and groaned as she maneuvered it, taking a sharp turn onto a small side street.

  They zigzagged through the darkened medical town, the car following.

  “You want to cozy up to us?” Ebba looked up into the rearview mirror. “Let’s give you the chance to get close. Let’s have you show your ugly face.”

  She sped up, hitting a curb on the way out of the hospital area. Soon they were back on a main road, in the direction of downtown. The car stayed on them. They arrived at a floodlighted parking lot, close to the river, the stark headlights on their tail.

  “This is good, very public,” Ebba said, turning the car into the parking lot. They came to a shrill stop.

  Ebba flung herself out of the Volvo. Celia did the same.

  The car didn’t follow. It launched on past them.

  Ebba watched it zip away, her face furious: “Fan ta dig!” she yelled out at the top of her lungs. The words bounced between the buildings around them, echoed back, and evaporated into silence.

  ***

  Days after the incident at the archives, Celia was still reeling from the experience.

  Someone had followed her and Ebba to the hospital; someone knew they were there.

  That someone was watching her every move.

  Now she had to decide what to do. Contacting the police was out of the question with Petter looming close by. Not that going to the police would help anything anyway. She had no proof she was being followed. Not to mention, she herself had just been involved in an illegal break-in. If the police were to investigate, she could be the one doing time.

  She might have thought the encounter would turn her away from the investigation. That the stress of being followed, chased, would cause her to give up. And yet it didn’t.

  Because something was happening.

  It was subtle but still palpable: a shift—she was drawn toward the investigation. Had taken on a sense of ownership over it. She couldn’t define it exactly, but she thought the draw might be something like an addiction.

  Those little thrills, the skittish jumps, the jagged edge on her existence. She didn’t like to admit it, but she found it all strangely enticing.

  She felt it for the first time when she and Ebba met with Hans at Ming House. And she felt it again, so much stronger, when they broke into the archives. She felt alive, vigorous, like she were tight-roping, the air around her electric and blistering.

  She had always lived such an easy, sheltered, and comfortable life. She never knew there was this whole other way of living: one that kept her muscles flexed and eyes wide open—that jolted her senses like a chug of crazy strong coffee.

  Now that she’d had her first taste, she wanted more, craved more. It was like everything else ceased to matter; she needed to solve this thing.

  ***

  And it was with that ringing desire that realization hit her.

  She’d stood, analyzing the facts, leaning against the kitchen counter with a glass of water that she’d just poured for herself.

  That’s when it snapped together for her.

  Be aware of the doctor.

  Earlier in the fall, back at the Warbler; her grandmother told her to not trust the doctor.

  At the time she had thought Maj-Britt was referring to Dr. Kassis. But Sten had also been there that day. In fact, she had just spoken to him before Maj-Britt issued her warning.

  Sten was almost certainly the doctor that Liv saw for her broken ankle.

  Had he done something to Liv? Threatened her, hurt her?

  Did her grandmother know what it was?

  She set the glass down, her eyes scanning the room, searching for her coat.

  For some reason she always did her best thinking outdoors.

  She locked the door behind her and walked briskly.

  What did her grandmother know?

  If anything.

  Sten was a highly unlikable figure.

  Maj-Britt could have just been referring to his unsavory manner.

  Or, maybe in her grandmother’s often muddled state, she had mixed things up again. Maybe her warning meant nothing at all.

  And yet it was so easy to imagine Sten as someone abusive, someone willing to take advantage of his position of power and stature.

  Like the way he’d grabbed Celia that one time. As though she were his property. As though he owned her.

  She needed to talk to Maj-Britt.

  See if she could extract anything more from her.

  Celia was walking in the heart of the city now.

  She looked into the bars and restaurants along Björkby’s main street; took in the amber glow from the restaurants and the merriment from the people inside.

  She passed the old city tavern that sat in a stucco building alongside the channel. The lights from the tavern reflected in the near-frozen river. She stopped at a window—thought she saw Anette. Sitting at one of the long tables at the far end of the pub. She went closer to the window and narrowed her vision.

  Yes, that was Anette. Talking to a man she couldn’t see for all the bobbing heads and shoulders in the foreground. Her first thought was that it was Erik, but then she remembered that Erik was—where was it this time? Karlskrona? Kristianstad? Somewhere with a K. She decided to go in and say hi. Unless it was one of those bars with an age limit of 20 or 25. She could try at least.

  Celia yanked open the door that was currently unmanned.

  The place was bustling with lively conversation, laughter, people gripping pints of beer.

  Closer now, she saw that it was Anette for sure. She looped around, moving past a crowd of pubgoers.

  She lifted her hand to wave.

  Anette and the person she was with—a dark-blond man, jaunty and fit—seemed kind of intimate. They sat a little too close; laughed and gazed a little too deep. There was a whole group of people at their table, but they seemed to only see each other.

  Celia drew her hand back down. Nope. She was not going to get involved with that.

  She was just about to tiptoe back away from the scene, but then someone at the edge of the table caught her eye. His hand curved around his beer as he listened to the conversation around him.

  The man spoke and both Anette and her friend looked up and nodded. Anette said something back. A forth person made a remark and everyone at the table laughed.

  Celia steadied herself.

  The room ar
ound her disappeared, everything turned into a blur.

  She shuffled backwards, like a zombie in reverse, murmuring. No, no, no….

  It couldn’t be.

  Back outside, she leaned against the building, her head against the cold stucco.

  For a moment she thought about going back in, just to make double sure. But she didn’t need to. She knew what she saw.

  There was no doubt that it was him.

  The man at the edge of the table, the one who’d just exchanged words with Anette, was the driver.

  The airport driver.

  Jug ears.

  CHAPTER 28

  September 10, 1984

  Liv observes Petter from the other end of the corridor. He stands by his locker, collecting his books. They’ve attended Björkby gymnasium for a few weeks now. High school is supposed to be a good experience, supposed to be that place where you find yourself and come into your own.

  It isn’t. Not for Liv.

  She feels like she’s caught in a web.

  Because they didn’t stop with the fire.

  No, they kept going: vandalism, robberies, insanity.

  They’ve gone crazy, all of them. Even Hans. She’s not sure this is actually what he wants. But then they don’t talk anymore. Not like they used to.

  Never mind what Hans wants, she wants out of the group. They aren’t thinking straight. It’s like they’re drunk on power.

  The newspapers are writing about them: “Summer crime wave in Björkby—youths suspected though no one implicated.” They’re moving on adrenaline and loving the attention, especially Katja. But Liv constantly worries what they’ll get up to next. She’s sick of the anxiety and she’s done.

  She’s not going to be part of it anymore.

  She draws air into her lungs and limps in Petter’s direction. She hurt herself in their last misadventure. They robbed a pharmacy. Running from the scene she stepped wrong, twisted her ankle.

  “I don’t feel good about it,” she says when she’s within Petter’s hearing range.