She wanted to know more about Ellis, but Oswald was on the mainland and Bosse was in an interview with a colleague and didn’t want to be disturbed. She paced the office, restless, until she found herself biting her nails and her pen and decided to take a walk on the island to calm down.
On the way out, she looked in on the staff quarters because she knew Benjamin was there. He had taken that morning off to move furniture into their new room.
She found him carrying a bureau through the door. He was shirtless, shiny with sweat, and didn’t notice her until she was almost on top of him. When he did see her, he was startled and almost dropped the bureau. She helped him place it in the room, then looked around, pleased. Their room was plain, like all the rooms at the manor, but it was still their own. More space for clothes and belongings. Their own bathroom.
They sat down on the bed and Sofia told him about the article in the paper.
‘But that’s awesome!’ Benjamin said. ‘Why do you look so worried?’
‘It’s been so quiet. No one told me about it, and I’m worried that something’s not right. It seems too good to be true.’
‘But who would tell you? Bosse’s busy. Maybe Franz wanted to tell you himself when he comes home.’
‘And then there’s the drugs. I know Ellis never used drugs. He drank, but I never saw him high.’
‘Sofia, how can you be so sure of that? He must have hidden his drug abuse from you. You said yourself that he seemed so great but later he turned into a monster.’
‘Just like you!’ she said, bopping him on the nose.
They wrestled around on the bed for a while, but he was so sweaty she couldn’t get a grip on him. So she lay still, her lips against his throat, inhaling his scent of sweat and saltwater. Though it was still early in the season, he had already started taking a dip in the sea each morning while everyone else was still asleep.
She left him with detailed instructions for how to arrange everything in the room.
*
The early summer morning was windy but warm. Clouds sailed across the sky, hiding the sun now and again. She told the guard in the sentry box that she had some errands to run in the village. Instead she took the path through the woods to the cottage. She hadn’t been there since the day she met Karin Johansson.
The yard surrounding the cottage had come to life. The grass was tall and the dandelions and cowslips were racing each other along the walls. The key was under the doormat, just as Karin had promised. When she got inside, she took the family tree papers from the bureau drawer and placed them on the kitchen table. She made a cup of coffee and sat with her nose buried in the documents for a long time.
The family tree was clear but also impenetrable. The names of the Count’s and Karin’s own families were neatly lined up alongside each other. Some names had narrow, faint lines drawn between them. Some lines were red and others were green. She didn’t understand what the different colours meant. Karin Johansson’s name had both a red and green line to Henrik von Bärensten, the last Count in the family line.
There was also another name under Karin’s: Fredrik Johansson. A small cross had been added next to it. Her son, the boy who jumped from Devil’s Rock.
Something was missing. A man. A father for the son. She decided to ask Karin about the lines the next time they met.
Sofia began to flip through the newspaper clippings and pictures. At the top of the pile was an old photograph, a photostat copy — it must have come from an archive. In it, a large man in a suit and wide-brimmed hat stood with a shovel in hand. What appeared to be his family sat on a bench beside him. The woman, likely the Countess, had a new-born baby in her arms and a small boy next to her. The picture had faded, almost erasing the woman’s features, but you could still tell how beautiful she was. Her face was open and sweet, with high cheekbones and large eyes. Her hair had been put up in a bun, but little wisps fell around her face. Without meaning to, the photographer had captured her worry — although her mouth was smiling, her eyes were anxious.
Breaking ground on the future manor! read the caption in elegant penmanship.
The next photo was of the Countess on a large white horse. She was wearing a black cape with the hood up. The picture had been taking facing the sea and everything was swept in fog. She looked serious here as well, but in a decisive way rather than a concerned one. It was a lovely picture, like a fairy-tale illustration.
Then came a small, yellowed newspaper clipping with a few lines about the fire at the manor. There was nothing about the Count’s insanity or the Countess’s jump from the cliff, but it said both had ‘departed’ under tragic circumstances. Next was a long article about the shipwreck, written in old-fashioned Swedish that was hard to understand.
So it all really happened, she thought. It’s not just ghost stories Björk made up. How can so much misfortune strike one place? There must be a reason. A thought was niggling at her: maybe it would be their turn next. That it was only a matter of time before the curse hit ViaTerra. But then she decided her imagination was getting the best of her.
She sifted on through the pile and found several items from the church archives. Marriages, baptisms, and burials of various von Bärenstens; a few engagement announcements, a couple of wedding pictures. She toyed with the thought of looking up all the names in the family tree, but she had started to worry that Oswald might be home already, and wondering where she was.
At the bottom of the pile was an obituary:
My beloved
FREDRIK JOHANSSON
my son, my everything
has left me in irreparable sorrow and loneliness.
Rest in peace in the endless depths of the sea.
KARIN
He had just turned fourteen. She wondered what it would feel like to be dragged out to sea by the icy current and shuddered. A book about all of this would have to end with Fredrik Johansson’s sudden death, she realized. And what a horrible ending that would be. She wondered what had happened to the von Bärenstens who moved to France. Maybe there was a better ending to be found in their fates.
Her pager buzzed, interrupting her thoughts. She’d received it when she began working for Oswald; she’d never seen such a gadget before then, but had heard they were popular in the nineties, before mobile phones became widely available. Text scrolled across the screen:
Return to the manor immediately. Party tonight. Bosse.
A party? She couldn’t imagine what they would be celebrating. But at least it meant that Oswald was in a good mood, and that was positive news for everyone. Bosse would ask where she’d been; she decided to take the coast road home so she could pretend to have been in the village looking for office supplies. She arranged the documents into a neat stack and put them back in the drawer, then locked the cottage and jogged home.
*
When she reached the gate, sweaty and out of breath, she heard excited voices from within the wall. The lawn was full of staff setting up tables, chairs, and parasols, and music streamed from a pair of giant speakers that had been dragged out of the quarters. Bosse was waiting for her at the sentry box. He didn’t even ask where she’d been.
‘You have to go change clothes. Magnus Strid has completed the program and Franz wants to have a big barbecue for him. All the staff and guests are coming. Franz wants you to oversee set-up, food, and all of that.’
She went to her room and changed into a short-sleeved black dress and sandals. Then she ran back to the yard and made sure everything was done properly: that tables were set up and decorated tastefully; that the food was prepared in the kitchen.
In the midst of it all, she noticed that the wind had died down and the clouds had broken up — it was going to be excellent weather for a barbecue.
When Oswald appeared, he was unusually chipper. He was wearing jeans and a pale jacket over a white shirt, and had a day’s stubble just like Strid. His energetic force-field quickly enveloped the partygoers. He shook hands, laughed, and chatted with staff and guests.
‘Perfect!’ he praised Sofia in passing. ‘And now that idiot who was after you is under lock and key. Contacts, Sofia, contacts are everything. It’s good to have friends in high places.’
‘But if there’s a trial, will I have to testify?’ she asked.
Oswald waved off her concern.
‘No, I’ll take care of it.’
She was just about to thank him, but he vanished before she could form words.
Almost a hundred people sat around the tables, eating and drinking, laughing and chatting. Benjamin was a little late coming from the staff quarters; he sat down next to her and whispered that everything was ready. They had their own room. She shivered with pleasure.
‘Sofia!’ Oswald’s voice came from behind her, and when she turned around he was standing there with Magnus Strid. She rose and walked over to them.
‘Sofia is my right-hand woman,’ Oswald said, putting his arm around her shoulders.
She was probably the only one who noticed that he was stroking his fingers up and down her arm, but she still found all eyes on her. Anna, who was in charge of the annexes, glared from a nearby table, and Madeleine, who was sitting at the fringes of the group with Katarina, shot a hateful look her way. Go ahead and glare, she thought. I’ve earned this. She glanced at Benjamin, but he was absorbed in his meal and didn’t even seem to have noticed that she’d left the table.
‘Sofia and I have met,’ said Strid. ‘It’s too bad she can’t clone herself, because she was fantastic as a librarian.’
Oswald just laughed and moved on to another table with Strid. By the time Sofia was finished eating, Benjamin had helped himself to seconds, so she went down to sit by the pond for a while. The pair of swans that had lived there last summer hadn’t returned, but a couple of mallards had nested there and were swimming around with a host of downy ducklings.
‘Well, it’s time for me to say goodbye, Sofia.’
It was Magnus Strid. He crouched beside her on the lawn.
‘Oh, it was nice to meet you and chat about books a little.’
‘I enjoyed it more than you might think,’ he said. As it met her own, his gaze seemed inscrutable, even a bit concerned. ‘May I ask what brought you here, to ViaTerra?’
She thought for a moment.
‘I guess it was mostly the library. And the theses, of course. I felt amazing after the program.’
He nodded but his eyes didn’t waver.
‘Are you sure you’re happy here? Is this right for you? With your education, you could have a completely different career.’
‘Of course I want to be here,’ she responded, but she wasn’t without doubt. She hadn’t thought about it that way. Everything had happened so fast, from one incident to the next — and now she considered what he had said. That she could do something different. That she didn’t actually have to work at the manor.
‘I only have a little over a year left,’ she said. ‘Then my contract runs out.’
‘Sometimes it can be hard to get out.’ His comment made her uneasy, and Strid noticed. At last he looked away.
‘No worries. I just wanted to make sure. Of course you’re happy here. It’s a fantastic place.’
He took a card from his jacket pocket and handed it to her.
‘If you ever want to get your foot in the door at a newspaper, you’re welcome to contact me.’ Quickly, gently, he patted her on the shoulder and stood up. ‘Good luck with everything!’
‘Same to you.’
She watched him head back to the tables like a lumbering bear.
The early summer evening was filled with laughter and elated voices. A blackbird sang ardently from the weeping willow by the pond. The pennant hung limp against the flagpole. It appeared to be the perfect night. Yet it felt like life was about to change in some vague, undefinable way. As if they had reached some limit and would soon hurtle downward with frightening speed. She wasn’t sure why she felt that way, but the sensation was all too real.
I crawl under the bed and pull my backpack in with me. It’s so cramped that I can feel the broken springs of the mattress against my back.
She’s here.
I hear steps in the kitchen, a clatter.
I have no idea what that bitch is doing home. She’s supposed to be out by Devil’s Rock looking for me. Have they given up already? What’s going on?
The door to the bedroom opens slowly, with a creak, and I see her feet on the doorsill.
She stands perfectly still for a moment and I don’t dare breathe.
Then she sighs and turns around.
For a long time everything is perfectly silent.
Then there’s a sound. At first I don’t know what it is. Some kind of whining, sighing, sobbing.
She’s sitting there. Fucking crying.
I’ve never seen her cry before. I thought she was tougher than that. I am disgusted.
I don’t want to be there. I never want to see her again.
I just want to get far away from this horrible cottage.
Then the phone rings.
‘Yes, I’m on my way.’
Joy rises within me when I hear the door open and close.
Never again, I think.
Never again will I have to see you.