by Samuel Bjork
Lukas bowed his head even further and nodded silently.
“You want to come to heaven, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course,” Lukas mumbled.
“Would you like me to show you?” The pastor smiled.
“Show me?”
“The devil,” the pastor answered.
Lukas felt happy and a little scared at the same time. Of course he wanted the pastor to show him, to help him see, but then again he’d heard a great deal about the devil and he wasn’t sure that he was ready to face him.
“Take off your clothes and step out into the water,” the pastor ordered him.
Lukas was taken aback. It was not a warm day. It was almost spring, and there were pretty green leaves on the trees around them, but the air was still quite chilly. The water was bound to be terribly cold.
“Well?” the pastor said with a frown.
Lukas rose slowly and started to undress. Soon he stood naked in front of the pastor. His skinny white body shivered in the cool air. The pastor watched him for a long time without saying anything. Sized him up from head to toe. Lukas felt a strong urge to cover himself—he felt really uncomfortable—but he believed that this must be a part of the initiation. He needed to go through this stage to reach a higher level, and for that he would just have to endure a bit of discomfort.
“Now go into the water,” Pastor Simon said, gesturing.
Lukas nodded and walked down to the water’s edge. He dipped one toe in but quickly withdrew it. The water was freezing. A big bird took off from a tree and flew up toward the clouds. Lukas hugged himself and wished that he could fly. Then he would fly straight up to God and stay there forever. Not that he didn’t want to be on the Ark. Of course he wanted to be on the Ark—after all, they were God’s chosen people on earth—but had he been able to fly, he would not have needed to do things like this in order to be included. He looked up at the pastor, who sat like a pillar of salt on the bench. Lukas steeled himself and stepped into the icy water. It hurt. It was like standing in ice cubes. He wanted to ask the pastor how far out he had to go, but the pastor said nothing. He had risen from the bench now and come down to the water’s edge. He was only a few meters away, still with the sun like a halo around his big white hair.
“Can you see the devil?” the pastor asked him again.
“N-n-n-o-o-o,” Lukas stuttered.
He forced himself to go farther in, felt the icy water against the part of his body he was not supposed to talk about, took another step so that the water reached up to his waist.
“Can you see him now?” the pastor said.
The voice was no longer as gentle as it had been earlier. It was colder now, icy like the water. Lukas could barely feel his body; it seemed to be disappearing. He bowed his head and shook it. He felt utterly useless. He couldn’t see the devil. He saw nothing. Perhaps he did not deserve to go to heaven after all. Perhaps he would have to stay in this world with all the whores and thieves, and burn slowly so that his flesh would be scorched and fall off his bones while the others went up to God’s eternal kingdom.
Suddenly the pastor moved; he leaped into the water in several great bounds, and Lukas felt a cold, hard hand on his neck. He tried to resist, but the pastor was too strong. The pastor pressed down his head, and suddenly Lukas was submerged. His head was underwater, and he couldn’t breathe. He panicked and flailed his arms about. He had to get some air. But the pastor did not release his grip. He forced Lukas even deeper down.
“Can you see the devil!” Lukas heard the pastor shouting from above.
Lukas opened his eyes, and his body grew completely limp. He was going to die now. That was how it felt. It was his time to die. This was why the pastor had brought him out into the forest. To this lake. Not to be initiated but to die. Lukas made a final attempt to free himself from the pastor’s grip, but he didn’t stand a chance. The pastor seemed almost possessed. His hand, no longer human, was heavy like an iron claw. Lukas’s eyes started to mist over. His lungs were screaming for air, but he could not shake off the pastor’s death grip. He was submerged in water. He had been robbed of all power to make decisions about his own life. To move. To grieve. The water no longer felt cold. It was warm now. His body felt warmer. A little farther away, he watched his fingers twitch. The pastor kept shouting, but Lukas couldn’t hear him. He had no idea how long he had been under, because time wasn’t time anymore, it was just eternity. He was going to die now, it was his time to die. There was no point in fighting it.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, his head was yanked from the water and up into the cold spring air. Lukas coughed and spluttered, spewed up the remains of his breakfast, and his lungs felt as if they were about to explode. The pastor dragged him ashore by his neck. Lukas lay by the water’s edge, panting. He could not feel his body.
The pastor knelt by his side and stroked his wet hair. Lukas looked up at him with huge, shocked eyes.
“Did you see the devil?” the pastor asked him again.
Lukas nodded. He nodded so hard that it felt as if his neck might snap.
“Good.” The pastor smiled, softly stroking Lukas’s cheek. “Then you’re ready.”
56
Mia Krüger was standing in Malin Stoltz’s apartment, and she knew exactly why Kim had reacted the way he had.
“I’ve never seen so many mirrors in all my life,” Kim said, still reeling. “Now do you see why I jumped when I came in here?”
Mia nodded. Malin Stoltz’s apartment looked like a hall of mirrors at a carnival. There were mirrors everywhere. Every square inch of her apartment was covered with them. From floor to ceiling in every single room.
They’d waited outside for an hour, but no one had appeared. The decision to go in had been made by Munch. Mia had disagreed, but she’d said nothing. He was the boss. She would have preferred to stay in the car, wait a little longer. That would have been better. Now they had made their presence known. Munch had asked for a full team to search the apartment. Their police presence was broadcast across the whole neighborhood. Malin Stoltz would never come back now. Mia knew it, and Munch knew it. Even so, he had made the call. Perhaps Anette had been right after all. Perhaps Munch was too close to the case. With Miriam and Marion hidden away in a safe house in Frogner. With his mother linked to the church.
“Have you ever seen anything like it?” Kim asked.
Mia shook her head. She had not. She had never even come close. No matter where she went or turned, she saw her own reflection. She felt a strong sense of unease, but there was nowhere she could rest her eyes, there was no escape. She looked exhausted. She did not look like herself. The alcohol and the pills had left their traces, both in her skin and in her usually bright blue eyes. Mia wasn’t vain, but she definitely did not like what she saw. And they had lost Malin Stoltz.
Munch entered the kitchen where the others were, and he did not look particularly pleased either. He heaved a sigh as he stood in front of the mirrored fridge; it was clear that he was not used to spending much time in front of a mirror. Mia could see him looking at himself. She wondered what he was thinking.
“We have issued a description,” Munch said after a pause. “We have stationed people at Gardermoen Airport, Oslo Central Station, TORP Airport, and cars in strategic locations, but I have a feeling that she’s tricked us again.”
Munch scratched his beard and glanced at his face in the mirror once more. “What the hell is this about, Mia?”
Mia shrugged. She knew that everyone expected her to answer this question, but right now nothing came into her head. An apartment filled with mirrors? Who liked to look at themselves all the time? Someone who was frightened of disappearing? Who had to keep looking at herself to reassure herself that she existed? Something started to come into focus, but it refused to materialize fully. She was overtired. She strangled a yawn. She really had to get some sleep soon. It
was apparent from multiple angles just how much she needed a rest.
The head of the search team, a short man in his fifties whose name Mia had forgotten, appeared in the doorway.
“Anything?” Munch said, sounding hopeful.
“Nothing,” the short man said.
“What did we find?”
“No, I mean nothing. There’s nothing here. No photographs. No personal belongings. No handwritten notes. No newspapers. No plants. Just some clothes in the wardrobe and quite a lot of makeup in the bathroom. It’s almost as if she did not live here.”
Mia had a sudden flashback to her house on Hitra. She had done exactly the same. No personal belongings. Just clothes, alcohol, pills, a coffee machine. It seemed so far away now. A distant memory, even though it had been barely three weeks since she’d raised her last toast to heaven, ready to disappear.
Come to me, Mia, come.
“She doesn’t live here,” Mia said.
“What?” Munch said.
Mia still felt incredibly tired, but she pulled herself together. “She doesn’t live here. Malin Stoltz lives here, but that’s not her. She lives elsewhere.”
“What do you mean?” Kim said. “Is she not Malin Stoltz?”
“There is no Malin Stoltz registered anywhere. It’s a false name,” Munch said irritably.
“So where does she live?” Kim asked.
“Somewhere else, keep up,” Munch snapped.
It was clear that he, too, was exhausted.
“There’s nowhere here you could hide the girls,” Mia said.
She sat down at the table. She was so exhausted she could no longer stand up. Her eyes were stinging. She could feel that she had to get out of this apartment soon, before all those mirror images got the better of her.
“Malin Stoltz lives here. Malin Stoltz isn’t real. She keeps her personal stuff elsewhere. A place she can be herself. And that’s where she keeps the girls. A cabin or an isolated house. Call off your people at Gardermoen and TORP. She’s not going to leave the country.”
“How do you know?” Munch said.
“She likes being at home.” Mia sighed. “Don’t ask me why.”
“We’ll have them stay there for the rest of the day,” Munch said. “And we need to go back to the nursing home. Someone there must know something about Malin.” He turned to Kim. “Would you organize that? Interviews with all staff members?”
Kim nodded.
“I’m going to need some sleep soon,” Mia mumbled.
“Go home. I’ll keep you informed.”
“You need some sleep yourself.”
“I’ll be fine,” Munch said cantankerously.
“So do you want us to pack up?” the short man asked.
“No,” Mia said.
“Why not?”
“Something is missing. She has a place where she hides things.”
“We’ve already searched the whole place,” the short man said, a little vexed and in a tone suggesting that they knew how to do their job.
Mia did not have the energy to be polite. She was too tired now.
“The lenses,” she said.
“Eh?”
“Her lenses. She wore contact lenses. If she left behind makeup and clothes, she would also have kept lenses here.”
“How do you know that she wears contact lenses?” the short police officer said.
Mia could feel herself starting to lose patience with him.
“When I saw her, she had blue eyes. Others have seen her with different-colored eyes. There must be contact lenses here somewhere. If she has hidden them, we might find something else as well.”
“But we have searched—” the short man began.
“Search harder,” Munch barked.
“But where?”
“Contact lenses must be kept in a cool place,” Mia said. “Check the mirrors.”
“But—”
“Start in the bathroom,” Mia said. “That’s the place where people keep their contact lenses, isn’t it? Try pushing the mirrors, push the damned mirrors.”
She got up, and for a second she blacked out. Her legs buckled underneath her, but Kim managed to grab her before she hit the floor.
“Mia?”
“Mia, are you okay?”
She came around and straightened up. She hated looking weak. Not in front of her colleagues. Damn.
“I’m fine. I just need some sleep and some food. Call me, okay?”
She stumbled toward the door and felt much better the moment she reached the stairwell. An apartment full of mirrors. Every wall from floor to ceiling, nothing but mirrors—who the hell did that?
Mia Krüger staggered down the stairs and got one of the police officers to drive her home. “Home” was an exaggeration. What sort of home was this? It wasn’t a home. She didn’t have a home. She was staying in a hotel in Oslo, she had her belongings in storage, and she owned a house on Hitra. That was who she was now. A nobody. That explained why seeing herself reflected in the mirrors had been so painful.
She fell facedown on the bed and slept with her clothes on.
57
“Mommy, what are you doing?”
Marion Munch looked across to her mother, who was sitting on the sofa by the window. Miriam had been told to keep the curtain closed at all times, but she could not take the isolation any longer. She had to sneak a peek, reassure herself that the world outside existed.
“I’m just having a look, darling. Why are you not in bed?”
Marion padded over to her mother and snuggled up on her lap. “I can’t sleep.”
“You need your sleep, you know,” Miriam Munch said, stroking her daughter’s hair.
“I know, but surely I can’t sleep unless I’m asleep?” the little girl said, tilting her head slightly.
“It’s called falling asleep for a reason, darling,” Miriam said with a little smile.
Her daughter had become rather precocious and argumentative recently. Miriam had been given a reminder of what she’d been like when she was little. Stubborn and headstrong. Old for her age. She sighed and closed the curtains again. She had blocked out much of her childhood. After her parents split up, part of it seemed to have disappeared as if it had all been built on a lie. Her parents were divorcing. She remembered being fifteen and starting to have her doubts about them. She thought that they must have been lying to her for a long time. But that was all in the past now. She’d been angry. Very angry. Mostly at her father. Holger Munch, the homicide investigator. For years she’d been proud of him. My dad is a police officer. He’ll put your dad in prison if he does something bad. But he had hurt her. He had pushed her mother into the arms of another man. A man Miriam had never really learned to like. She was older now, but it still gnawed at her. They’d been so close, the two of them. She and her father. She should have resolved it a long time ago. Gone to him and said, Sorry, Dad, I’m sorry for giving you such a hard time, but she’d been unable to. Stubborn and headstrong. She was starting to feel that the time had come. Soon. Soon she would talk to him.
“Yes, but then you have to tell me to, Mom.”
“Okay, Marion, go to your bedroom and fall asleep. Can you do that?”
“But it’s so hard,” the little blond girl objected. “I keep thinking about Draculaura and Frankie Stein. They’re home alone.”
The dolls her grandfather had bought Marion recently.
“Oh, they’ll be fine.”
“How do you know?” Marion asked.
“I spoke to your daddy just now, and he said that they were both fine. He says they send their love.”
Marion looked sly. “I think you’re lying, Mom.”
“Me, lying? No, why do you say that?” Miriam smiled.
“Dolls can’t talk.”
“T
hey talk when you play with them.”
“Oh, Mom, that’s my voice, didn’t you know?”
“Is it?” Miriam said, feigning surprise. “Your voice? I thought they could talk.”
Marion giggled. “Sometimes it’s very easy to trick you, Mommy.”
“Is it?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Do you trick me a lot?”
“Yes, I guess I do.”
Marion reached for the blanket lying on the sofa and covered herself with it. She rested her head against her mother’s chest. Miriam could feel her daughter’s little heartbeat against her sweater.
“So when do you trick your mom?”
“When I say that I’ve cleaned my teeth.”
“But you haven’t cleaned them?”
“Yes, but not very well.”
“So when I ask you, did you brush your teeth properly, then you haven’t?”
“No.” The little girl giggled again.
“Then how did you clean them?”
“Quite well, sort of.”
Miriam smiled again and stroked her daughter’s hair.
Marion rubbed her face against her mother’s neck and closed her eyes. Her thumb was inching its way toward her mouth, but she stopped herself and returned it to her tummy. Good girl. They’d spent ages trying to make her stop sucking her thumb. It hadn’t been easy. But now it looked as though she was succeeding. Miriam tucked the blanket close around her daughter and held her tight.
“Mom?”
“I thought you were falling asleep?”
“I can’t fall asleep when I’m talking,” Marion said, precocious once more.
Miriam laughed. “No, obviously not.”
It was a mistake, no doubt about it. Laughing. Reacting would merely encourage her, but Miriam couldn’t help it. To be honest, she liked her daughter being awake. The apartment was silent and empty when she slept.
“What did you want to ask me?”