I pull off the blanket and sit up. I stretch out my arms and legs. My joints are stiff and aching. My whole body aches, especially my hip. I’m barefoot, my socks are gone. I’m hungry. Despite a down jacket I’m shivering from the cold.
There’s a rustling sound inside the walls. Is it a mouse? A rat? I pull my feet up from the floor and look around me in the dark. A table, a few chairs, an old chest of drawers, and a bookcase stand against one wall.
There is a tin bucket and a roll of toilet paper in the corner. I get up from the mattress, pull down my jeans, and squat over the bucket. When I’m done peeing I go over to the door. I stand very still, breathe as quietly as I can and listen. Nothing. I push down on the handle.
Locked.
I go back to the mattress. Feel something under my foot. I bend down and pick it up.
A brochure.
Welcome to Strandgården
The Pearl of the Baltic Coast
Sun, Wind, and Water
for the Whole Family
Under the text on the front is a picture of a happy family romping around the water’s edge on a sun-drenched beach. The brochure disintegrates as I try to peel apart its moisture-damaged pages.
After a while I hear steps. Yellow light streams under the door. A key rattles in the lock. The door opens.
Mom is holding a kerosene lamp. Her face is illuminated from below, and I barely recognize her. She’s humming and smiling. Her eyes are as blank and glassy as marbles. I don’t dare ask her what she’s planning to do.
Without a word she takes me by my arm and leads me from the room. We walk through a hallway and enter a kitchen. There’s more light in here than in the locked room; there are no shutters over the windows. I see, in the kerosene lamplight, that it’s just as dirty. Nobody’s been here for many years. But it’s warm. The heat from the woodstove fills the room, and my feet tingle as they thaw.
I look around. The kitchen is large and open; there are windows facing a garden and the sea. There are benches along the walls, pale green cabinets. A wide-planked table stands in the middle of the room with six chairs around it.
Above the sea, the sky is ablaze in colors a child would delight in. Orange and pink and red. It will soon be night.
Mom hums continually. She cleans the blood from my forehead, says all will be well again soon. Poor baby, such bad luck you had. But you were careless, you have no one to blame but yourself.
I recognize how she’s looking at me. That glimmer in her eyes. I saw it every time I hurt myself and she tended to me afterward. She loves to tend to, to care for, to lavish attention. Show everyone what a loving mother she is.
For the first time, I realize this is what she’s always done.
The insight makes the pain in my head fade. The fear deep in my body recedes. It’s as if I’m waking up from a stifling, lifelong dream. I’m not terrified anymore.
I’m angry.
“Every time I hurt myself, all those injuries. It was you. It was always you,” I say.
Mom stops. She tilts her head and looks at me.
“My darling,” she replies. “You needed to learn. I thought you understood that.” She bathes the wound again with a soft cotton ball. It stings, and I jerk my head away, look at her.
“And when I wanted to go to Gröna Lund with my class? You slammed my arm in the car door. Many times. You didn’t care that I screamed and begged you to stop. Why? What did you get from hurting me?”
“I couldn’t let you run around down there. Not with her close by.”
“Who? Who was close by?” I want to make her say it. I want to hear the truth.
“I’ve never hurt you, Isabelle. Never. I protected you. I raised you.” She takes out a Band-Aid and puts it on my forehead. “I wanted to make you strong. That’s what a mother does. She cares for you, protects you.”
“Where are we?” I say.
“This is our very own hideout. It might not look like much to the world, but it’s ours. We’re going to have a lovely time here together.”
“At Strandgården? Where is that?”
“In paradise.”
She whirls around, takes a saucepan from under the kitchen counter, and opens a jar of pea soup. “We should start by eating, I think. You must be starving.”
Mom smiles at me and caresses my cheek. Her touch sends a shiver down my spine.
“You’re sick,” I say. “You are completely insane.”
She laughs. Laughs loudly like I’ve just said something very silly. I, too, press out a laugh, just to show her I’m not afraid of her anymore.
“I think it’s time to go home,” I say in a calmer voice. “We can start over at home. It’ll be like before. It’ll be even better. Now that we’ve gone through this together. We are even stronger now. Stronger than ever.”
I’ll say anything to convince her. Maybe it will work, if I just say what she wants to hear. If I pretend that what she did doesn’t matter. If I pretend everything is normal.
“And I really have to call Johanna,” I say. “I’ve missed some mandatory seminars. She’s probably starting to wonder.”
Mom sighs. “She wasn’t good for you, Isabelle.”
“If you want, I’ll move home. We can be together all the time.”
She stares out through the window while slowly stirring the ladle in the saucepan. The reflection of her face in the window reveals a hollow-eyed and twisted creature. Is she even listening?
Mom stops stirring. “It hasn’t been long since you were going to leave me,” she says. “You were planning to meet her.” She says the word with disgust.
“I quit therapy. I will never see her again.”
“It was your fault that her boy was run over. I had no other choice. And that awful umbrella misled me. I thought it was her. And she should be busy with him now. Instead of trying to get ahold of you. Making you snoop around. But she doesn’t care about her other child, either. That’s who she is. Always thinking about herself.”
A wave of nausea washes over me. What has she done? How many more has she killed?
“What are you talking about?” I whisper.
Mom looks at me. She smiles again, puts out a loaf of bread and a knife. “Sorry, my darling. We can’t go home. She won’t give up. She never will. She found us there. She’ll find us here, too.”
“And why does she want to find us? Tell me.”
“It’s her fault that we have to flee. Everything is her fault. Think about it, Isabelle. How have you felt since you met her? You haven’t been yourself. What do you think it’s like for me to see my daughter feeling so terrible, changing so much, and still be unable to do anything about it? You won’t listen to me, either.”
She starts cutting the bread, but holds up the knife and looks at it. It’s not a bread knife. It’s sharp and pointed, a deboning knife for meat.
Her facial expression shifts.
Rage. Sorrow. Bitterness.
“She had everything, but she didn’t deserve it. She never cared about you. Believe me, I did you a favor. Haven’t we had it good, you and me?”
“I’m not your daughter,” I say. “I have the wrong blood type. You’re not my mother.”
“None of that matters. You are my child now. And I’m your mother.”
“Who was the baby in those hidden photos?”
Mom spins around. She raises her arm and throws the knife at me before I can respond. It passes by my arm, and I hear it strike the wall behind me, then land on the floor.
The silence afterward is deafening. Mom pinches her eyes closed, stands with her hands pressed against her head. She shakes, rocks. I look at the front door and wonder if it’s locked. But even if it was wide open, I wouldn’t get far.
“My sweet girl. Now look what you did.” Mom’s face is friendly again. Her voice is mild.
She walks over to me and touches my hair. Stroking it over and over again.
“You’ve always been mine. I knew immediately that you’d come back to me. Don’t worry, Isabelle. We will always be together. Hans tried to destroy the connection between us. But I stopped him.”
I don’t want to hear any more. But Mom goes on.
“I had no choice, you have to understand. I had to let him go. But don’t be sad, my love. He didn’t feel it. It didn’t hurt.”
She lifts my chin and tries to catch my eyes. I look aside.
“You don’t understand yet, Isabelle. But a mother has to be ready to do anything to protect her child.”
Stella
It’s evening by the time I turn onto the road that leads to Strandgården. I park the car, step out, and close the door. The only thing I hear is the wind in the trees, the waves beating against the shore.
The sunset has turned the sky pink, orange, and yellow. It all feels surreal. The knowledge that Alice is here, at Strandgården. The knowledge that I’ve been heading toward this moment since the day she disappeared.
Over the years I’ve imagined so many different scenarios. How I’d get her back, how we’d reunite. I’ve had daydreams and nightmares. My longing for her and the fear that it would consume me.
I walk to the main building. There are no signs that someone has been here. The shutters are still locked. The cottages are empty and deserted. I turn and walk toward the Path of Problems. The house up on the hill must have been Lundin’s home. I walk past the Ring of Troubles, but after a few feet I stop and turn back. I pick up a rock, weigh it in my hand. I put it in my pocket and keep going.
I climb up onto the plateau and see the house. A yellow light shines in the windows, and a car is parked outside. A dark Nissan.
The car was dark, maybe black. Or dark blue. A hatchback or SUV. When it slowed down I turned around and looked. Then the driver stepped on the gas. Headed straight for me.
I pick up the phone and call Henrik. He doesn’t answer. I send a text message and tell him where I am. Then I walk on toward the house. It’s adorable with gingerbread-like trim on the windows. I’m almost to the doorstep when the door opens and a woman in a baggy sweater steps out. She’s holding a kerosene lamp in her hand.
“I knew you’d come,” she says. “Would you like a cup of coffee?” Kerstin looks at me and smiles. She’s been waiting for me.
She goes back into the house.
I follow her.
The hall is spacious with high ceilings; the kitchen is located directly to the left.
More kerosene lamps have been placed around in here. It’s dirty and the windows need cleaning. The electricity seems to have been shut off—and no wonder, the house has been uninhabited for more than two decades. The heat in the kitchen comes from an old wood-burning stove.
A toaster and a marble mortar and a few cans of food stand on the kitchen benches along with a full water can. A stack of newspapers lies on the table; the top one is dated 1994. All covered with dust.
“What a nice house,” I say.
Kerstin tilts her head. Stares out through the window. “Yes, it was. But now it may as well burn down.” She lights another kerosene lamp and smiles once more.
Eva.
Kerstin.
My new friend.
“That would be a shame,” I say, looking at the knife on the floor beneath the kitchen table. Kerstin has her back to me; I take a few steps toward the table. I can see myself bending down, grabbing it, holding it up to Kerstin, and forcing her to tell me where Alice is.
“And we’ve met before,” I say. “In the Kronobergs Park.” One more step. I move slowly: one more step, then another.
Kerstin swings around, hurries over to the table. She bends down and grabs the knife. She points it at me and slowly shakes her head.
“You should have listened to me then,” she says. “I warned you. Didn’t I tell you to let it be? Didn’t I tell you to leave things as they were?”
“You ran over my son,” I say. “You almost killed him.”
“You left me no choice. I had to stop you.”
“Still, you were the one who told me to find the truth.”
“Because I understand you,” she says. “Losing your daughter like that. What a tragedy, especially when it was your own fault. I feel for you, I really do. But you have to understand that Isabelle is my daughter. That’s the truth.”
She believes what she says. She’s convinced she’s right.
“You’ve been outside my house,” I say. “I’ve seen you on the street, in a raincoat with your face hidden under a hood. You left a death threat in my mailbox. You’ve called me, told me lies about my son. Why?”
Kerstin laughs. Then she turns serious. “You’ve always been so self-righteous. Thought you were superior to other people. Despite the fact you were always walking on the edge. It wasn’t hard to push you over.” She pours water from a plastic can into a coffeepot, puts it on the stove, and measures out some powdered coffee. We’re like two old acquaintances about to make small talk over some coffee. I sit down at the kitchen table.
“You made it easy for me,” she says. “Told me everything I wanted to know. My husband, he’ll never believe me. He’ll think I’m crazy. You felt so sorry for yourself, of course. It must not have been easy for someone as remarkable as you to end up in the funny farm.”
Her voice is compassionate and understanding.
“You don’t know me,” I say. “You have no idea who I am.”
“Don’t be so sure about that. I know more than you think.”
“Tell me, I’m curious. Have you been keeping an eye on me all these years?”
Her eyes narrow; her face stiffens with rage. At first I think she’s going to attack me with the knife. But in the next second she’s calm again.
“You’re not so important as that,” she says. “But of course I found out who you were, what you were up to. You met that upper-class fellow. You married rich and came up in the world,” she says. “He’s very pleasant, your husband, I’ll give you that. When I met him, told him about you, he behaved in the right way. And he’s handsome—you wouldn’t be happy with anything less. But I know how men are. Deep down. Like pigs. Like wild animals. There aren’t many who show you respect, not like Hans did. He left me alone, never touched me.”
Kerstin sits down opposite me.
“And of course you had a kid. You apparently thought you were meant to be a mother again. And you bought a nice house in a good neighborhood. You had everything you could wish for. You didn’t deserve it, not after what you did. But I was happy for you, you should know that. Cried a tear or two.”
“It must have been terrible for you,” I say. “Isabelle came to me. Of all the therapists, she was referred to me. Do you believe in fate, Kerstin? In karma? Do you think our bad deeds are punished? That truth wins in the end?”
Kerstin rises and wipes off the kitchen table. Then she sets out a tray of buns. Still holding the knife in her hand.
“That sort of thing is for cowards,” she says after a while. “For the weak ones. Like you.”
“But you’re strong? You have the right strength?”
“You’ll never understand,” Kerstin says. “You haven’t been tested by life like me. At the slightest misfortune you fell apart completely.”
“I know Isabelle is my daughter,” I say. “She’s Alice.”
Kerstin looks at me. “You never deserved her. You said it yourself, that you may not have it in you. You’re a bad mother, we both know that. You let your daughter disappear, let your son get run over. You’re really a worthless mother. This was for the best. Don’t you think so, too?”
“You ran over my son. You took my daughter. What kind of person does something like that?”
Kerstin’s voic
e is scornful. “The kind of person who does what needs to be done. The kind of person who takes control. Don’t you think I’ve suffered?” she says. “Don’t you think I know what it means to be excluded from what everyone else takes for granted? Do you know what it feels like to be broken? To have your life destroyed? I don’t think so. And why should you escape? Why should you get everything for free, without paying dearly for it, as I have?” Kerstin pours the boiling water over the powder.
I put my hand in my pocket and squeeze the stone. I could do it now. Beat her in her head with it. Beat her unconscious.
But I wait. First, I have to find out where she hid Alice.
“Where is she?” I say.
At the same moment my phone rings. I put a hand in my other pocket, fumble for it, turn off the sound. I take up the phone under the table and check the display.
Henrik.
Kerstin gently puts the coffeepot on the table. She looks at me and stretches out her hand. If I answer, I’ll never see Alice again. I hand over the phone. Kerstin takes it, watches it ring. Then she opens the door to the stove, throws the phone into the fire, and closes it.
“You don’t need that anymore.”
“I’ll ask you again,” I say. “Where is she?”
Kerstin doesn’t respond. She takes a kerosene lamp, goes out to the hall, and gestures with the knife for me to follow her. We pass a living room with furniture covered in white sheets. I jump at the dull bang of the phone battery exploding in the stove.
The sun has gone down, only a few glowing red stripes linger in the sky. The long windows offer a striking view of the sea.
We stop in front of a door at the far end of the corridor. I dread what I’m about to see. My hand squeezes the stone in my pocket. Kerstin puts a key in the lock and turns it. She opens the door.
Furniture is stacked in one corner. In the other corner there is a bucket and a roll of toilet paper. It stinks strongly of urine. There’s a mattress on the floor, a dirty blanket.
And there she lies.
She doesn’t move. Am I too late?
“What have you done?” I say. “What did you do to her?”
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