by Kirsten Boie
Margareta nodded, and sniffled like a child.
“I want to talk to him, Peter,” said Margareta. Her voice was still trembling. “Liron. I want to hear it from his own lips.”
“So you shall, Greta,” he said. “I can understand your feelings. But first he has to be interrogated by the police. Scandia is a democratic country now, and even a princess can’t just step in when and where she likes.”
She stood up. She looked across the garden, which now lay in a hundred shades of gray beneath the cloudy evening sky. “Tomorrow, perhaps,” she whispered. “If only we knew what had happened to the children.”
After Perry had left, Jenna sat for a moment on the steps in front of the house. The evening sun was descending over the water, turning the sky yellow. The wind that had blown from the sea during the afternoon had died down, and the air was still warm. It would be at least another two hours before it was completely dark, and by then Perry would be back. She’d had enough of being afraid.
She stood up and went back into the house. First she took all the throw rugs outside and hung them over the handrail. Now I really am behaving like a common housewife, she thought. But so what? I can do what I want. And if Perry and me are going to stay here for the night, I may as well make sure we’re nice and comfy.
In a kitchen cabinet she found a bucket, though the accompanying rags looked so dingy that Jenna thought they’d have the opposite effect and actually make things worse. “Can’t be helped,” she murmured. There were no other cleaning supplies.
She began in the living room. She and Perry would sit here together later this evening. She hoped he’d remember to buy candles, if the shops still had any. There was no electricity. They’d sit and talk while they ate their supper. And they’d make plans for the next day: swimming, picking berries if the sun was shining, and maybe mushrooms if it rained. Then they’d climb into their beds, tired and happy after their long day, and sleep soundly until tomorrow.
It’s a bit like a movie, thought Jenna, as she filled a second bucket from the sea. Romantic — sentimental, even — and no Ylva, no nasty tabloids, no one laughing at her. She hadn’t even thought of Jonas for hours! She and Perry could live there like Robinson Crusoe, except they’d need to get hold of some money now and then. They couldn’t survive for long on a diet of berries, and her wages from waitressing wouldn’t last forever.
There was nothing more to do in the living room, so she went outside again. The light was getting dimmer and the colors were beginning to fade. But I’m not afraid, she thought, and gave the first rug a good beating against the handrail. A cloud of sand, dust, and dried leaves shook out. It hadn’t been cleaned in years. A radio would be nice now — some music. It wouldn’t feel quite so lonely then, and creepy.
Back in the living room, she pushed and pulled the carpet across the floor until the space looked cozier. It was really nice now, like a proper home. It just needed a candle on the table. She’d find a saucer for it to drip into. And flowers. Flowers always made everything more welcoming.
Jenna put the bucket down and looked in the kitchen cupboards for a vase. A large, empty pickle jar containing some rusty clothespins, rubber bands, and two mildewed coins would do just as well.
She cut some daisies, a thistle, and some chamomile. She wasn’t sure about the hollyhocks, because she didn’t know how long they would last in a vase and it would be a pity to waste them.
By now she could no longer pretend the darkness was a long way off. It had already turned everything gray, and the sound of the waves had grown louder — almost menacingly loud. This is our home now, she thought, and there’s nothing to be afraid of. When Perry came back, they’d sit for a while on the boulder down on the beach, and they’d listen to the gulls shrieking in the night. Then they’d go back into their nice clean house and have supper. Her stomach grumbled.
OK, Perry, where are you already? I can’t sit here forever, dreaming of what it’s going to be like. It’s way too dark to do any more cleaning, and I’m getting crazy hungry.
At that moment she heard the rattle of the motor. She listened for a second, to make sure it really was the moped, and then ran out onto the veranda, greatly relieved.
Perry got down from the moped and propped it on its stand. Hanging limply from each of the handlebars were a couple of rather empty-looking plastic bags.
“Jenna!” cried Perry. He came hurrying toward her. Something was wrong. “There are soldiers everywhere! And you’ll never guess what I found out! It’s all so … Come on, I’ll show you!”
“You’ve forgotten the bags,” said Jenna.
He turned around and lifted them off the handlebars. “You’re never going to believe it when I tell you!” he said, throwing his purchases down on the veranda. “Come on, quick! It changes everything!”
“What changes everything?” asked Jenna. “I’m starving!”
“Then bring something with you,” said Perry. He was already back on the moped. “Potatoes and carrots were all I could get, anyway. Hurry up! I don’t know what it all means, but come on, Jenna!”
She picked up some carrots. They were gritty, and she didn’t know if she really felt like eating them unwashed and raw, but clearly there was no time to cook them. “What about you?” she asked with her mouth full.
Perry had started the motor. “Get on. OK, all set?” he asked. “Yes, pass me one. I’m starving, too.”
The moped jerked its way along the narrow sandy path that led through the trees to the nearest road. There was still a whiff of sun-baked pinecones in the air. Jenna chewed at her carrot. The headlight threw a wavering finger of white into the gloom.
Perry accelerated. It was pitch-dark now, but the sky was clear and there was enough moonlight to make out the track stretching out ahead of them. “It’s not far!” Perry called over his shoulder. “I can’t wait to hear what you think.”
Then he turned onto the blacktop road.
During dinner they left on the TV. The news about Scandia had been the same on every channel, with nothing more about Jenna.
“This is driving me crazy!” Bea exclaimed. “First she moans the entire time she’s here, so you wonder what’s the matter with her, but she won’t actually tell you anything —”
“Shush!” said her father, holding out the remote control to turn up the volume. “Keep quiet!”
“… after the local news there’ll be a special report on the confusing situation in Scandia,” said the anchor. “And now, from the stock market …”
Bea’s dad turned down the volume again. No one was particularly interested in the financial news just then.
“There really must be something going on in that country,” he said, scanning the dish of cold cuts until his eyes alighted on some thinly sliced ham. “If they’re doing a special feature.”
“Feature, shmeature, I just want to know what happened to Jenna!” said Bea.
During the sports report and the weather forecast, they carried the dishes into the kitchen, then put the plates and glasses in the dishwasher and the leftovers in the fridge. “Almost time! Back we go!” said Bea’s father. He grabbed a radish as he went. “We’ll clean up the rest later.”
On the screen was a man with glasses, whose face Bea had often seen before, though she didn’t know his name. He was pointing to a map of Scandia’s two islands.
“… newly democratic island state on the northern edge of our continent,” the man was saying, “Last autumn’s elections were won by the reformist Justice Party, which contains many prominent northerners. Among them is Minister of the Interior Liron …”
“That’s him!” cried Bea. “Look, Dad! That’s the father of Jonas — the boy who had spaghetti here with us!”
“Shush!” said her dad. “Do you want to watch or don’t you?”
“… arrested after being caught in a clandestine meeting with the rebels,” said the journalist. “Even for correspondents in the country itself, the situation is evidently too
complex to unravel. We’re now going to show you a report from Scandian television about this latest incident.”
It was obvious that the report had been filmed with a hand-held camera. The pictures were blurred and the cameraman’s breathing and footsteps could be heard on the recording. He jerked along from one shot to another, then zoomed in on a single detail: a man and a woman beside a car. Suddenly there was gunfire, and figures in black hurled themselves at the man while the woman disappeared into the trees, followed by a hail of bullets.
“Lucky the camera was there for the arrest, hmm?” said Bea’s dad, tapping a cigarette out of a pack and sticking it between his lips. “Unusually lucky.”
“No smoking!” ordered his wife from the kitchen.
“The Minister of the Interior denies that the meeting with the woman, positively identified as Nahira, the rebel leader, was in any way connected with a plot to organize further destabilization,” said the journalist. He held a sheet of paper out toward the camera. “However, little credence can be given to this statement, since plans for a coup were found in his car. A court will have to decide whether, in fact, as Scandia Channel 1 is reporting, Liron is guilty of high treason, which in Scandia still carries the death penalty.”
“Ohmigod!” cried Bea.
“Shh!” said her mother, who had come in from the kitchen to listen, too.
“It’s possible that the meeting had something to do with the disappearance of Princess Jenna, the king’s niece, who returned to Scandia approximately one year ago, but as of yet we have no firm information about this,” said the journalist. Once again, the screen showed pictures from Scandian TV.
“Of course, no one can say for certain that the princess has actually been abducted,” said a man identified by a caption as a spokesperson for the Scandian police. “At the moment all we know is that she has disappeared and we haven’t received any ransom demands. But when considered in the context of Minister Liron’s arrest and the various incidents of the last few days, kidnapping is a distinct possibility.”
Next came another man, identified as the headmaster of Morgard School. “She has had some difficulty adapting to our little school community,” he said. “During the last year our girls have gone to great lengths to welcome Princess Jenna and help her adjust to boarding school life. But let’s just say she hasn’t made much of an effort herself to fit in.”
He shook his head with deep regret.
The offscreen interviewer said, “We’ve also heard that the princess had seemed confused recently, as if she were heading for some kind of breakdown. Did you see any evidence of this?”
The headmaster frowned. “Well, I’m no doctor,” he said, “but from the very beginning, when she first came to the school, it seemed to me that in Princess Jenna we were dealing with a rather immature and … you might even say … disturbed personality.” He gave a thoughtful nod. “Although, of course, we’ve done everything we possibly can …”
“Liar!” Bea yelled at the TV.
“Shh!” hissed her father and mother at the same time.
“So she might have run away, then?” asked the interviewer.
“Judging by her character and her mental state, I can only answer in the affirmative,” said the headmaster. “One can’t rule out the possibility that, despite all our efforts, something simply snapped.”
Now the interviewer himself appeared on-screen. “There you have it: Both explanations — abduction or the possibility of a mentally unbalanced girl running away or even attempting to take her own life — appear equally plausible,” he said. “Which is why we ask the people of Scandia to be on the lookout and to join in the search for Princess Jenna, who may well be in urgent need of medical attention.”
“You’re the one who’ll be in urgent need of medical attention if I ever get my hands on you!” cried Bea. “What are these people talking about? They’re the ones who are crazy!”
She jumped to her feet. The special on Scandia was coming to an end. As soon as she had her cell phone back, she would try to reach Jenna. She had to know the truth.
In the moonlight, the wheels of the moped whirred across the blacktop, cutting through the shadows from the trees that lay like beams across the road.
They heard a vehicle approaching. In the silence of the night, it sounded at first like the buzz of a bumblebee. Perry switched off the headlight. By the time the car finally passed them, they had already hidden both themselves and the moped in a dip behind a blackberry bush.
“Phew!” said Perry, heaving the moped over the soft earth of the forest floor to get it back on the road. “Near miss.”
“They’re going in our direction,” said Jenna, coughing.
“What do you mean?” asked Perry, and waited for her to sit on the passenger seat. “They’re going in the opposite direction!”
“I mean where we’ve come from,” said Jenna. “The navigator’s house.”
Perry shook his head. The moped jerked forward. “Only if they turn off,” he said. “Otherwise they could be going anywhere. This road leads to all kinds of places, depending on where you turn off. They might be heading for the north – south beltway.”
Jenna didn’t answer. The moon was now so high that they could almost have managed without the headlight. When they came to a junction, where the road met a broad and rutted gravel track, Perry did indeed turn off the light and the motor. “It’s still quite far off,” he whispered, “but you’ve heard for yourself how sound carries in the night. We’ll go the rest of the way on foot.”
Jenna nodded. She didn’t want to ask any more questions. They could hear the noise of engines, squealing brakes, someone shouting. It seemed pretty close, but who could tell just how far voices might carry? She’d see for herself soon enough.
The carpet of pine needles beneath their feet was soft, and muffled every sound. Ahead of them was a cold white light quite high in the sky, suggesting floodlights illuminating a large square. Jenna waited in suspense.
When they reached the edge of the trees, she held her breath. There in front of her were several hangars, as tall as five-story houses, around a huge yard lit by streetlamps. The doors were wide open, and outside them long lines of trucks stood waiting, with the drivers standing and talking beside them.
“What is it?” whispered Jenna.
Perry shrugged his shoulders. He put a finger to his lips and gestured to Jenna that she should follow him to where they could get a view of the whole scene.
“I don’t know, either,” he whispered, “but I’ve got a pretty good idea. Why have they come secretly in the night? Why not during the day?”
“Stolen goods?” whispered Jenna. The shudder that ran down her spine was almost pleasant. This was exciting! Like one of the mysteries she used to enjoy reading.
“No!” whispered Perry. “Think! It’s obvious, isn’t it?”
Now they could see several figures, bathed in the ghostly glow of the streetlights, hurrying silently back and forth, carrying boxes into the hangars. A smaller van reversed out through one of the gates.
“Isn’t it?” hissed Perry.
Jenna pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. She’d have to be quick, so that she couldn’t be located by its signal. She switched on the video. Now they had proof. Who knew whether or when it might be useful?
“Turn it off!” Perry insisted in a whisper.
Jenna did so. At that moment, she felt a tickling in her nose. Last night’s storm and her thin dress! Why did she have to go and catch a cold? She pinched her nostrils, but it didn’t help. Oh no, not now! Not when it was so important to keep quiet!
Ridiculously loud, her sneeze echoed all around the stockyard, and the men stopped dead in their tracks.
They had taken a single car. Three men would be enough. The driver had only needed brief directions. He knew the way to Saarstad, and from there it was only a few miles to the navigator’s house.
In the darkness they’d almost missed the sandy track t
hat led from the main road to the sea. The driver swung the car around just in time.
“Headlights off?” he asked.
“Not yet,” said the high-ranking security officer next to him. “If he’s right and she’s there, she’ll be asleep now, anyway. We’ll approach on foot.”
The navigator’s house lay ahead of them in the darkness. It was just a black silhouette against the dark gray backdrop of the sea, where the ever-moving waves reflected the moonlight in crests and streaks. There was no light in the windows, and no sound that they could hear.
“Shh!” said the leader, and gestured to his men to stand still. “Now, you go right, and you left. And be careful! There might be someone else in the house — not just the girl.”
But all was still. “The door’s locked,” whispered the youngest man. He was eager to prove himself. “But let’s see …” He ran his fingers over the top of the doorframe. “Here’s the key!”
The second they cautiously stepped into the little hall, they knew they wouldn’t find anybody. The silence was total. They went quickly into all the rooms, shining their flashlights into every corner.
“Nothing!” said the driver. “He was wrong. Just because he’s her father …”
“But she was here!” said the young man. “Definitely!” He pointed to the bunch of flowers. “Or at least some girl was. See? Freshly picked.”
“Well, she’s gone again now,” said the driver.
The young man shook his head and picked up a plastic bag from the veranda.
“Potatoes and a couple of carrots. She’s coming back,” he said. “She wouldn’t leave her food here otherwise. And she wouldn’t have picked a bunch of flowers if she wasn’t planning to stay.”
The officer nodded. “Good thinking,” he said. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. “Unfortunately, sir, the subject is out at the moment,” he said. “But we presume that she’ll be back soon. There are enough indications … Precisely. Then we’ll bring her in.”