by Isa Hansen
Yvonne pounced on Celia. Forced her head under the surface.
Pushed down, Celia gulped water.
Stinging chlorine barbed through her nose and mouth.
She sparred to get out of Yvonne’s grip.
Her legs kicked, her arms flailed.
She was hit by a streak of clarity. Yvonne’s hold on her was too firm: she wouldn’t be able to break free. This was it. She was going to die. And yet her body kept fighting.
The water around her swirled heavy.
The seconds dragged. Turned into a minute or more.
She was struggling, losing air.
She thrust and fought.
Time stopped.
Her mind went blank, her limbs thrashing.
The oppression of water was taking over.
Colors shifted; everything around her was turning to white, her body now in violent spasms.
A ringing shot. Seemed far away. Like it happened in another room or a different world.
The weight against her head released.
The pressure stopped.
Delirious, she swam to the surface.
She shot up, gasping, spitting water. Her eyes stung, she thought she might vomit. She coughed, violent coughs, her hands to her throat.
She treaded water and lifted her face in terror.
Squinted at the blurry silhouette.
He came into focus.
Alex, at the edge of the pool.
He held a hunting rifle, still in aim.
Reflections of stone and water played across his face. His eyes were blank, as if he’d just died.
Celia gulped and gasped and shivered while Alex just stood there, deadlocked.
Lifeless in the water floated Yvonne.
Blood seeped from her body, circling around in little streams of red. Outside there was a thunderous boom of shooting fireworks. And from upstairs—sounding distinct yet far away—voices from the party, counting down: Tio, nio, åtta, sju…
CHAPTER 46
When Celia later sat through her police interviews, she struggled to remember the details of what happened at the Rosensköld estate. She remembered Alexander’s eyes, the reflection across his face, his rifle. The blood in the pool. But the rest of the images blurred together, creating a woolly, blacked-out version of events. The haziness continued into the hours that followed: time was intangible and her senses were numbed.
She was taken to the hospital in the back of a police car. At the hospital she lay on a cot, her head drowsy. She thought she may have been given something for her nerves. Ebba, Zari, and Oskar paced—moving anxiously and wide-eyed—between Celia and the police officers outside of the room.
What she could remember from the hospital was Ebba hugging her, Zari telling her everything was going to be all right, and Oskar. She couldn’t remember what Oskar did. She just knew he was there.
Maybe the police tried to talk with her while she was at the hospital. She thought they might have. Later Oskar’s father arrived. His face was distraught, he held up a bag: “Stella’s clothes.”
Someone helped her out of her hospital gown and into a pair of sweat pants and a hoodie. Maybe it was a nurse. Maybe Zari.
Then her friends and Oskar’s father discussing with the police. Voices speaking on the phone.
Simon came back into the room to the backdrop of bleary nurses and police uniforms. He hunched down in front of her: “I just spoke with your aunt. She and Erik are coming back from Stockholm first thing in the morning.”
Celia nodded.
“Are you comfortable staying with us until they arrive?” Celia watched him through dazed eyes. “With Oskar and Stella and me. You’ll stay with us?”
She nodded again.
Then, in the wee hours of the first morning of the new year, they drove Celia back to their home. She recalled being wrapped in a blanket and tucked into the backseat of Simon’s car. She listened to Oskar and Simon talking in hushed voices before drifting to sleep against the car window.
***
The time that followed was challenging in myriad ways.
When Erik and Anette arrived back from Stockholm, Celia began the task of filling them in on the story, starting with her Liv investigation and then detailing how she finally ended up at Rosenlunden herrgård on New Year’s Eve. It was an incomplete account as there were several questions that she could not answer. She didn’t know why Alex stalked her or why he ultimately chose to kill his aunt and save her life. But now she had a much more clear idea of what had happened to Liv, and as best she could, she described what she knew and how her Liv probe brought her into harm’s way. Erik showed more emotion than Celia had seen in him over the past months. In his face she saw genuine concern and regret. Both Anette and Erik stated how they’d let Celia down, repeating it often and emphatically.
Then there were the phone conversations with her parents. Upon hearing the news, they went into parental hysteria and wanted her to come home immediately. But Celia wasn’t ready. She wanted to stay in place and gain back a sense of ground under her feet before being whisked off to the States.
With that, her parents made the swift decision to travel to Sweden.
Before they arrived, there was an afternoon where Celia found herself alone with Erik. He was emptying the dishwasher. She went up to give him a hand. She asked him point blank why he hadn’t been upfront about his knowledge of Liv or the summer house.
Erik was just about to put away a stack of plates. He set them down and shifted his weight against the counter. He took his time answering. It wasn’t that he was trying to think of a way to lie, it was that he was finally tackling the truth.
Yes, he had found out about the house, years ago.
He was a young adult at the time with his own apartment in central Björkby. It was a modest place but could easily accommodate a guest. However, Erik’s father would often stay elsewhere during his visits to Sweden, though he wouldn’t say where.
That left Erik confused. It wouldn’t be at his mother’s house, of course. All he could do was speculate, because his father wouldn’t tell him. And he was hurt, that even when his father was in the same country, he was still being pushed away.
Then one day, Erik followed Lars. That’s when he saw the cottage.
He didn’t understand why his father would keep a house a secret. It was yet another wound caused by the distance in their relationship.
Here Erik paused in his story.
He leaned down for a handful of silverware from the dishwasher. He sorted them into the utensil drawer with stoic precision. Focusing on their placements, he said, “Some time later, after I’d found out about the summer house, I decided to go back. To see the place up close. When I came up on the grass plane, there were girls there. But I only saw one girl. Her hair was so light it was almost white, eyes bluer than I’d ever seen, and tanned like a goddess. She was glowing in the sun.” Erik gazed upward, the memory crossing his face. “She was mesmerizing, and I lost myself, just staring at her … and then before I knew it my father stood beside me. And he was yelling. He was accusing me of checking out my sister.”
Erik recoiled back into the drawer. “At first I was just confused. Because I didn’t even know I had a sister. For a second I thought the blond girl was my sister, and I just thought, Oh God, what is happening? Later, when I began to piece it all together, the anger came. Here was my father, someone who’d never attempted to get to know me … here he was accusing me of being perverted, against my own sister no less. A sister he’d never even informed me that I had.”
Erik faced Celia.
“I had never been so mortified in my life. And never so furious. And that was it. That killed our relationship for me. That was the final nail in the coffin. I never bounced back.”
All the while Erik talked, Celia slowly put away dishes, arranging them in the cupboards, staying tacit. This was Erik’s story, and one she instinctively felt was important for him to tell. But here she stopped to as
k: “Why would your father…? Why would he say such a thing to you? That’s an awful accusation.”
After a tight, bitter laugh, Erik said, “Yes, it is. And I can only speculate as to why. Maybe it was a knee-jerk response to a situation he didn’t know how to handle. Guilt, perhaps, that he’d never told me about my sister. Anger, that I’d found out about her. That I’d found his secret abode. Some time after it happened, my father regretted what he’d said. He bought me a ticket to Seattle, so that I could come and visit and we could try to reconnect. But we never did.”
Erik swallowed and went on: “My father always had this way of treating me like a misfit. Just because he didn’t understand me. Just because I wasn’t like Jonas; easy and extroverted. And instead of trying to get to know me, he pushed me away, like I was a weed in his life.” Erik’s jaw was set tight. “Of course none of this justifies that I wasn’t honest with you. In terms of why I lied—I guess I did because there was so many emotions I’d hidden within myself. Deep feelings of resentment and disgrace that I’d never dealt with and didn’t want to deal with. I didn’t want you to know anything because I didn’t want to have to go there myself. It was a defense mechanism, to lie.”
Celia quietly asked, “When I came here, to Sweden, did I remind you of Liv?”
“Not physically. I only ever saw Liv that one time and it was so quick. I was all eyes on the blond girl, I hardly even noticed anyone else. But you did remind me of what a failure I’d become.”
He gave a pensive sigh, swaying a stemmed glass in his hand.
“When I was young, I thought things would work themselves out with time. I thought once I got older I’d have my emotions together. They’ve always been a mess. Then you came around and reminded me that here I am, over fifty, and I still don’t have them together. And I was ashamed. That I hadn’t been better at dealing with the hurt. That I hadn’t moved on and let go … and so I did what I’ve always done. I hid the truth. I did everything to avoid it.”
Celia nodded, eyes downcast. “Why did farfar keep Liv a secret?”
Erik shrugged. “Maybe because he felt guilt and shame over his own failures. Or maybe he just never knew how to piece together the different parts of his life.”
“I had been looking for a mystery, in trying to figure out why Liv was a secret in our family.”
“No mystery.” Erik leaned down for a set of mugs. “Just a culture of silence.”
And in silence, they continued unloading the dishes.
Celia picked up a wine glass, glimpsing herself in it. Her image in the glass was cut in half—the left side of her face upside down. She frowned. Even my reflection is telling me I’m screwed up. She didn’t realize she’d spoken out loud until Erik said, “Sorry?”
She turned to him. “I was just thinking how stupid I feel. Here I was with this completely different picture of farfar. And I loved him, so much. I never knew … and I just kept on loving him even though he’d done horrible things to people in our family. I feel so guilty now. And ashamed.”
“No.” Erik shook his head. “You shouldn’t see it that way. Your grandfather showed you all his best sides. He gave you everything he had to offer. All the good he had in him—he gave it to you. And for that you loved him.”
Erik paused and gave Celia a nod. “There is no shame in that,” he said decisively. “No shame at all.”
part four
SPRING
CHAPTER 47
With the arrival of Celia’s parents, there was a frenzy of tears and hugs. And intense conversations. Between everyone. Erik came clean about wanting to sell Celia’s house, and Anette admitted to the airport driver saga, and following that there were apologies and muffled talks and long silences and long glances, but once the worst of the dust settled something had begun. A new line of communication was open. For the first time in their lives, Erik and Jonas talked about what had happened between them; how they grew up in different worlds and what that meant to them respectively. What it meant to be separated from one brother and one parent. What it meant to be left behind, what it meant to go. It was a silence that had gone on for too long and led to emotional downfall, especially for Erik. At the same time, Jonas was for the first time learning about his sister and the side of his family that he’d never known about.
It was a time filled with heartbreak but also renewal.
All around Celia, wounds were healing, her family was coming together and as painful as it all was, it was progress. And as it tends to do—life went on. Celia’s parents returned to the States. They wanted her to come along, but Celia had made up her mind. She wanted to stay in Sweden and finish her semester. It was something she learned about herself that year. That once she began something, she had to follow through. It was a trait that would end up being both a blessing and a curse in her life.
Outside of her world, things were also moving. Alexander, she learned, had been taken to a psychiatric facility. Alex’s family would be going to trial, Yvonne was dead, and a few days into the new year, Erik had come to Celia and told her that Sten was also dead. Had happened in the night, most likely from natural causes. Celia nodded, trying to register, though her mental cache was full.
She did think of Alex often.
She wondered how he was doing. She pondered where his mind had been. When he stalked her, scared her, saved her.
One day, when her thoughts of him had been particularly pressing, she brought up the email address in her phone: [email protected].
She wrote a short message.
Why did you do it?
She wasn’t actually expecting to hear from him, and she never did receive a response.
***
But there was one thing that had yet to be resolved. Something Celia needed to do before she could put her investigation to rest. That didn’t happen until weeks later, when she’d become somewhat emotionally stable again.
On a balmy day at the end of February, she traveled to Gothenburg, to the island of Hisingen.
Central Hisingen was a mash up of old and new: waterfront condos and glass balconies and modernistic business centers mixed in with old brick warehouses and industrial cranes.
Celia had tracked down the IT business where Petter was now working. It was inside a flashy, colorful building by the ferry port. She stalled outside the building, took a breath for bravura and headed toward the entrance.
As it was, she ran into him before she got to the glass doors.
He was just leaving the building.
“Petter,” she said.
“Celia,” he said briskly. “Heard you’ve been busy.”
She summoned her courage. “I need a few minutes of your time.”
Petter gave her a nod. “Come on then,” he said. “Walk with me.”
They started down the road alongside the frozen channel. She had to walk fast to keep up with his long strides. “You probably already know this considering your connections with the Björkby police department, but I want to assure you: when I was talking to the police I kept what I found out about Vi fem to myself.”
At this, Petter slowed his steps.
“I want you to know that it stays with me. It’s not going anywhere.”
Celia wrung her hands. She’d been worried about this moment, and now it was here. This was something that she had to do. Petter could find out from her paper trail that she’d continued to investigate the group. She needed to come clean. For herself and for the sake of her friends. They’d all be better off—safer—if she put her cards on the table.
“Because I don’t feel anyone needs to know about that,” she added.
“And what do you know?” Petter asked, halting to a stop.
“I know about the fire. I know about the robberies, and I know about Günther Weber.”
Petter was watching Celia now, carefully, but his demeanor seemed more curious than threatened.
“At first I thought Hans might have killed Günther,” Celia told him. “I thought maybe Gü
nther molested Liv and Hans killed him as a form of revenge. But I was wrong.”
Celia inhaled.
“You were the molested child.”
With that she looked away, letting her gaze trail along the cracks of ice in the water.
The narrative around Günther Weber began to fall into place when she saw Petter at Liv’s grave. But she wasn’t able to see the full pattern then.
Her eyes moved from the ice in the channel to the lines of the rigid cranes against the skyline. She spoke again: “Neither Hans nor Lottis—or even Katja for that matter—were hesitant to speak about Liv. In fact, Hans offered information voluntarily. And both Lottis and Katja spoke relatively freely about how they believed Liv was afraid and that her death seemed suspicious. But what hit a nerve with Hans was the fire, and with Lottis it was the mention of Günther. That made them incredibly nervous. So I deemed that it was the mystery surrounding the fire that they were involved with, not Liv’s death.”
Celia still stood with her face away from Petter. There was silence from him, so she continued: “You changed your appearance. Grew a lot: went from being a small child to big and rather imposing. Liv’s mother told me so. And that’s why the witness—the counselor who saw you on the roof of the school—didn’t recognize you at first. You must have gone to see her earlier, when you were younger.”
Celia paused; now she looked at Petter, holding her breath.
He seemed neither angry nor flustered and when he spoke his words came out even, composed: “I did grow bigger, thankfully. It happened the summer after seventh grade—a sporting event for kids who had nowhere to go during their vacation. By the time I was out of junior high, I was much taller. I also started working out obsessively. He wasn’t going to touch me again.” Petter’s face was relaxed except for a determined tightness around the eyes. “No one was ever going to touch me again.”