“My little girl’s in it.”
Julia’s dad’s words were like glowing embers in Samuel’s mind, burning each time he touched them.
“And you look so fucking ridiculous, so ridiculous in fact that I would’ve laughed myself sick if Julia hadn’t been on that tape. And you know what? I’m going to share my enjoyment with as many people as I can think of. I have the best business plan ever. Now listen carefully.”
Samuel heard rattling. Mike was probably shoving the receiver closer to his mouth.
“I’ve got editing equipment, the works. I’ll turn this into a hit movie, and it’ll be so popular you won’t even believe it. I’ll make ten copies. You understand me? Ten.”
He stared at his reflection in the mirror. A fragile creature looked back at him. A defenseless creature waiting to be crushed completely.
“Nine of them will go to porn producers all over the world. Yeah, I know people like that, too. I’ll make you a star, I guarantee it. The tenth copy will be delivered to a very special address. Can you guess where?”
Samuel didn’t speak.
“One day, when you’re least expecting it, I’ll be at your parents’ door and hand it over personally.”
My mom’s dead, Samuel wanted to correct him. My mom’s dead.
“I won’t drop it off through the mail slot, so don’t think about waiting at the door. I’ll hand it to them personally. Got it? I’ll tell them that it’s a fucking special delivery, and that the tape contains something about their son they should know. And I’ll tell them that the girl on that tape, forced to perform all sorts of things, is my . . .”
His voice broke at the last word.
“Is my little girl. Get it, loverman?”
“Don’t do it,” Samuel whispered hoarsely. “Please.”
“Oh, you’re begging now? Where’s your spine, son? I’ll tell you what will happen now. You’ll bring Julia to me within the next hour. If you’ll do it I might . . . I just might not do what I told you.”
Mike hung up.
Samuel begged the phone once more, “Please don’t do it.”
He set the receiver down slowly. His ears were ringing. Now the reflection looking back at him was a jumbled expression of vulnerable skin, startled eyes, and stupid clothes. His dad asked who called, but Samuel didn’t hear him. He slipped into his shoes and walked out to the stairwell. As he raced up the stairs, a stupid tune invaded his mind.
Maisa, Maisa, will you let Samuel fuck ya . . .
The world was a sinister machine, and its only purpose was to crush one Samuel Autio. It would all be over in a second, because the world would do it at full force. Yet the world would barely feel a thing. It would chew Samuel up in its cogs and then go on existing like it always had. His shame would be instantly revealed to anyone he passed by. His dad and Aki. His grandma. Even his mother would see it, although she was dead. He’d be forced to stand naked in front of people, like in his worst nightmares. And they’d laugh, and he’d know nothing would ever make them forget. Game over.
And it was all because of Julia. Out of all the people in the world, it had been Julia.
Samuel opened the attic door and marched to the storage unit. Julia’s flashlight shone faintly through the drapes. He’d been stupid to think of it as their nest. It was just a cage made out of unfinished wood and metal wire. If the Big Bad Wolf marched over and huffed and puffed, it would collapse instantly.
“Samuel?” Julia said. “Is that you?”
He’d told her to turn the flashlight off if she heard the door open. He stressed how important it was to never say anything. He opened the little door and walked in. Julia’s smile died on her face.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
Samuel told her.
He spoke like an automaton sent to play back Julia’s dad’s words from the recording inside his brain. He remembered each detail and turn of phrase.
“Why did you do it?”
Julia didn’t speak. Her chin began to twitch.
“Why did you film it?”
“I film everything.”
“But why?”
“Because of Dad,” she said. “He told me to. After Mom died he’s made me film all the people I ever hang out with.”
“Has he watched everything we’ve filmed?”
“No. Not everything. Or . . .”
Julia lowered her eyes.
“Now he has.”
They both stared at a spot on the storage floor, a tiny dent in the concrete, like a tiny cave burrowed by a small animal. A rat, Samuel thought. Maybe there were rats in the attic, although his dad said Mom had just tried to scare them.
“I’m sorry,” Julia said. “I hated him so much that I . . . I wasn’t thinking straight.”
Samuel shook his head slowly.
“What do we do now?” she asked. “I can’t go home.”
That was a good question. A scary question. Where would they find a place where the crushing machine that the world had become would not find them? Where all the bullies with their songs and evil eyes and Julia’s dad’s gun wouldn’t reach them? A place where shame and fear would slowly die with the years, and the wound would stop bleeding like the cut on Julia’s cheek. Samuel still stared at the dent in the floor until he lost a sense of perspective. The dent became a sinkhole in the desert. Or maybe on the moon. The moon’s left eye.
What a scary question.
“We have no other choice,” Samuel mumbled.
There was one place.
In one pocket Maisa carried a box, its cover depicting a ship struggling in a raging storm. In the other she carried a newspaper clipping.
She strode past the beech whose branches looked like petrified tentacles. She brushed hastily through the reeds, much more clumsily than that first time so long ago, although her dog had been pulling her forward. The leaves had been green then, and their sharp edges cut her skin. But now, in the glow of the flashlight, she saw only faded yellows waving on both sides of the path, like rustling papyrus paper.
The shore was unchanged except for the rocks. Each of them was now clearly visible above the sea level. The ground around the Bondorff villa was slowly rising, and eventually the island would connect with the mainland. It was an unpleasant thought.
Maisa shone her light on the three rocks nearest to her and estimated how slippery they’d be. As a teenager she’d had to get her shoes wet. It was here where she had let go of Nippu’s leash. The dog had rushed into the sea straight away, swimming furiously toward the shore with loud splashes.
“Stay,” Maisa said quietly. She reached out with her right hand as if to touch an animal right next to her. At first she thought her fingertips touched something, like the smooth hair of a dog. She pulled her hand away and turned to see what it was.
But Nippu wasn’t there. Nobody knew where Nippu had gone, but by now she would’ve died of old age, even if she had run away and found someone else to take care of her.
Madame Blavatsky was here.
Maisa reached out her hand, trying to steady the shaking. She was no longer a child. She was an adult, and she was in control of things that back then had felt like earthquakes. The waves licking at the toes of her shoes looked tiny and pathetic. They had no power over her. The adult Maisa had seen it all. In the Mediterranean she had let huge waves slam her onto the beach so hard that she’d lost the top of her bikini. She had swum in waters so clear that she thought she was flying high above the ground, able to see all the way down to the bottom of the ocean. It had made her feel like an inconsequential speck in the rushing rapids. These puny waves were nothing.
The waves that slowly soaked her shoes didn’t care. They were like northern animals who kept on surviving, sure about their importance in the world because they didn’t know any better.
Maisa jumped from rock to rock until she re
ached Bondorff Island’s shore.
The villa hadn’t changed. The paint was slightly stripped on the side where the bay winds hit it the hardest. She didn’t see anyone around. She only heard a sudden rustling, which made her turn and shine her flashlight toward the sound. She saw a flash of shiny, wet fur. A dog. Once her hand steadied she realized the knee-high brush rustled in the wind like an animal’s footsteps.
Maisa pulled her cell phone out and tried to call Pasi once more. No answer. She put the phone away and turned off the flashlight. Darkness closed in around her. The lack of light made her more conscious of the freezing-cold wind, as if it had suddenly turned into a tangible substance. She smelled the muddy waves lapping in from the north, as they roared toward her face. The darkness was subsiding quickly, and Maisa saw the horizon behind the trees already turning from black to light gray. The sun would eventually rise. The Bondorff villa wouldn’t be able to hide anything from the piercing fall-morning light.
But it had been light when she was here the last time. It had been a sunny summer day, and what consolation had that light offered then? The sun could be taken away at any time. Just pull a bag over your head.
Maisa turned the flashlight on again to get a better look at the yard before walking determinedly toward the house. No one had mowed the lawn. The tall grass hissed against her legs, but despite it all this was still just an ordinary old house, with an ordinary yard, and an ordinary wind howling in the woods. Her footsteps became lighter as she felt her body become more fragile. She felt like a stubborn animal that had to be properly hidden away from curious eyes. Maisa forced herself back into adult mode to face the imposing villa with defiance.
The villa’s windows reflected the fall night sky and the waves of the sea. Maisa held on to the railing and took the first step. The planks creaked under her shoe. She stopped.
“Pasi?” she said, first with a whisper, then louder.
Nothing. The door wasn’t thrown open. Nobody grabbed her hands.
And why would anyone grab her? Couldn’t an adult, a researcher who had enough money and was in good health and quite charming for her age, just walk into an abandoned building out of sheer curiosity without someone attacking her?
She opened the door. She wasn’t surprised to find it unlocked. She stepped into the familiar smells of the house. Familiar, yet without its former edge, like the reeds outside.
Maisa shone the light on the walls and the hallways, still calling Pasi’s name.
Silence. Then a response in the dark.
She tilted her head, trying to figure out where it came from.
“Pasi, where are you?”
She heard the voice again. Not deeper within the house, not from upstairs. From below. Maisa turned the flashlight toward the stairs.
The cellar. Of course. Pasi would’ve headed down there straight away because Maisa had told him about it. He wanted to prove he was a fearless pioneer who’d storm a place like this and wave his hand dismissively at his or other people’s traumas.
The way to the cellar was clear in the light. Welcome, Maisa thought. Whatever she’d find down there wouldn’t be able to destroy her. She talked herself into moving forward—there were no other options. Decades had smoothed and rounded the stone steps, so she had to be careful her shoes wouldn’t slip. That was the only thing to worry about.
“I’m coming down,” Maisa said.
She descended easily. No slipping, no fear. The cellar door was locked.
That’s when she lost her cool. The disgusting wave that reeked of mud was rearing its head again, slowly oozing into the house toward her from behind the closed door.
Maisa yanked at the door twice.
“It’s locked,” she said, then realized she sounded like she was about to cry. Pasi didn’t need to hear that.
“Let me out.”
The words came from right behind the door. It wasn’t Pasi’s voice.
“What did you say?” Maisa asked, just to hear the voice again.
“Let. Me. Out.”
A girl. Sagal. Maisa pulled her fingers off the door handle. She swore her fingertips were on fire. They tingled and ached as if blood were trying to force her fingernails to grow through the skin.
“Let me—”
Maisa noticed a large plank blocking the door. The most primitive lock in the world, the easiest in the world to open.
But did she have the guts to face Sagal? After all the worry and guilt, Maisa wasn’t so sure anymore. How would it feel to comfort a girl who had been captive in the darkness, surrounded by muttering voices, where she scratched at the door and slowly turned into a tortured animal? Maisa wasn’t sure she could do it.
“Let me out,” Sagal whispered.
How could she control her voice that well? Maisa squeezed the flashlight so hard, the beam of light shivered and made the small space seem even more claustrophobic. Did Sagal even deserve to be let out if she hadn’t lost her voice from profound fear? If someone else survived the cellar’s darkness without mentally collapsing, it would make Maisa a special case, a weak human being.
“Everything’s all right,” she said.
Her voice sounded unfamiliar to her ears. It belonged to the adult Maisa, the one who thought that this sort of nonsense and panic had become unbearably boring a long time ago.
The plank screeched as she lifted it up. She tossed it onto the stone floor with a loud clang. Yet the door remained closed. No human wreckage rushed out into Maisa’s arms, smelling of piss and fear.
She opened the door.
Her light beam found Sagal huddled on the floor. Her eyes were round. Her scarf was covered in black stains.
The marks of an invisible hand, Maisa thought. A hand that felt you all over to estimate whether you fit the part or not, like testing out a slave or cattle.
She had no idea what her next move should be. Everything was wrong. Pasi wasn’t here. Instead Sagal was there, not even moving, screaming, or tearfully thanking Maisa for overcoming her greatest fear and opening the cellar door.
“How long have you been—”
Sagal interrupted Maisa by sharply lifting a finger to her lips. The finger trembled. Her shoulders heaved silently.
Maisa listened.
Footsteps. High above them on the second floor. Then they descended the stairs to the main floor. It had to be Pasi.
Maisa started to say, “Oh, that’s just my friend who—”
Sagal shook her head furiously. She pressed her finger tighter against her lips.
The footsteps were approaching. They were coming right toward Sagal and Maisa.
Sagal slowly let her hand fall. She reached out to Maisa, gesturing for her to come inside the cellar.
“No,” Maisa whispered. “Let’s go—”
The footsteps had almost reached them.
Sagal’s hand now motioned faster, demanding. The fear in her eyes was on the edge of rage. Maisa couldn’t say no to it.
She stepped through the doorway and pulled the door closed silently behind her, although her fingers had gone numb and warmth began to spread down her thighs, as if she’d already peed herself. Sagal grabbed her hand, which still held on to the flashlight. Maisa looked at Sagal’s panicked gesturing and realized the light had to be turned off. Maisa did as she was told.
Now they were in complete darkness. The old familiar darkness. The kind of darkness where she could hear and feel anything.
The footsteps had reached the stairwell leading down to the cellar. They came to a halt.
Maisa heard a mumbling voice. A man’s voice.
She concentrated on the voice because everything else was unbearable to think about.
Whatever horrible things the man had done to Sagal, it couldn’t have been worse than this darkness.
It sounded like the man was talking to himself.
There were no replies or pauses.
Then a thought came to Maisa, and it made her fears subside temporarily. The voice didn’t belong to Pasi, but it was familiar. She leaned toward the door, cocked her head, and listened.
The voice stopped talking. Had the man noticed that the plank blocking the door was gone? The thought should’ve terrified her, but instead she remained still and breathed calmly. This man was no unknown force of nature who had been sent to crush them and tear them apart. Maisa would recognize his face. She could talk to him. Maisa almost wanted to talk. She wanted to hear the voice again.
She was just about to open the door when she heard the footsteps again. They were walking away. They returned to the first floor, then clumsily disappeared into the rooms on the second floor.
Maisa tried to hold on to the man’s voice, repeating it like a secret code, but the memory was already disappearing into the surrounding darkness. She realized her breathing was still stable. Her fingertips had regained sensation. The darkness no longer swallowed her. It just was.
She’d forgotten about Sagal until she heard a sob somewhere behind her. The girl had disappeared deeper into the cellar. Maisa was the braver of the two, after all, the one who had seen this before. It was her duty to calm the girl down and comfort her.
“Hey,” Maisa said and crawled toward the voice. “Everything will be fine.”
She felt around in the darkness until her fingers found fabric. The sobbing was jerky, panicked. The girl would hyperventilate if Maisa couldn’t calm her down. She hugged Sagal and reached into a stock of comforting words that she blurted out in a confusing litany while she stroked the girl’s head.
“We’re getting out of here right now,” she promised. “There’s nothing to worry about anymore.”
Sagal’s body heaved in her arms. For the first time in her life, she felt motherly love and wanted to protect this fragile girl at all cost. She pressed her face into Sagal’s hair, although it reeked of the damp cellar. Maisa decided she’d get pregnant as soon as she could. It was a ridiculous thought to have in a dark cellar, but that’s what occurred to her. Fear had completely left her, no longer in her neck or veins or marrow. She was ready to live again.
The Black Tongue Page 22