The wardrobe was as dark as ever, but something had happened. The glass in each of the mirrors was not the still, polished surface it had been before. Now shadows were billowing there, like blood swirling through water or thunderclouds being chased across the sky by a storm.
Erland was in the house of mirrors, I was sure of it. I could hear him screaming.
The transformation took longer this time, and the shift in the light did not offer any relief, as it had done before. On the contrary.
When I stepped out of the wardrobe I almost crashed into Hetty. She was standing just outside the door, dripping wet and shivering.
“He came through,” she said weakly. “I don’t know where he is.”
The same wordless cry sounded from somewhere in the house again. Now I could hear both fear and pain in it. Erland sounded like an animal.
“We’ll find him,” I said, trying to steady my voice. “Do you have any dry clothes that you can change into?”
She nodded. “In my room.”
For the first time I got to see Hetty’s room, which was a mirror image of the same room on the second floor that I had chosen for myself. The bed was the same, and even a couple of the paintings above the chest of drawers. Apart from the reversal, the main difference was that Hetty’s room felt a lot more like a home than mine.
I helped Hetty out of her soaking-wet clothes while she stood on the carpet, shaking from the cold. The water poured from her, as if she had been fished out of the sea moments before.
“What happened?” I said. “Where did all the water come from?”
She looked at me quickly, her eyes frightened.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I think it’s him who does it.”
Hetty was taller than me now, and looked almost Wilma’s age. When she wriggled out of the singlet with stiff, jerky movements I saw that she had grown tiny breasts.
I rubbed her dry with a cotton throw that I found on the bed and helped her into underwear and bodice, wool stockings with garters, blouse and skirt. I had never seen such clothes before, but Hetty pulled them on with practised movements.
When she had pulled on a knitted cardigan and buttoned it up to her chin she stopped shivering.
“How did he find the way here?” she asked. “Did you show him?”
I shook my head. “Erland eavesdrops,” I said. “He sneaks around people and snoops out their secrets.”
Hetty stood up, straightened the cardigan, and inhaled deeply. Then she closed her eyes for a moment, as if she was composing herself.
“Erland is a good boy,” she said, reaching her hand out to me. “It’s not his fault that it’s inside him that darkness gathers.”
I had never thought about Erland in that way, but it was true. He was an empty space where a darkness of varying depth mingled with blackness.
Hand in hand we walked along the darkened corridor, in the direction of the screams. They were coming more often now. I tried to switch on the light in the hallway, but nothing happened.
“He doesn’t like the light,” Hetty said. “He has made sure it’s dark.”
The moonlight shining through the stained-glass window was enough for us to see where to place our feet. And for me to see the traces left behind by Erland. A large pot lay smashed on the first landing, the flowers trampled into the carpet as if somebody had been jumping on them. On the walls were darker streaks from dirty hands and a picture frame hung askew and gaping above a sofa.
All of that was stuff that Erland could have done in the real world as well, even if he always tried to blame somebody else. But when Hetty opened the door to the basement, I grew scared. Scratch marks around the handle looked as if some predator had made them: deep grooves that shone white against the brown wood.
“I think he tried to get out,” Hetty said quietly. “I didn’t dare to open.”
The light on the cellar stairs didn’t work either, of course, but Hetty held my hand and led me downstairs. With each step Erland’s screams grew stronger and more frequent. He knew that somebody was coming.
I had been in Henrietta’s basement many times, but there were many things in the basement of the house of mirrors that I didn’t recognize. The great mangle was still in the laundry room, but instead of a washing machine and tumble dryer there was a walled-in washbasin and a sort of press with a long handle. The larder was lined with shelves, and everywhere there were jars of jam and preserved fruits, sacks of flour, peas and dried beans. A wooden box in the corner smelled tartly of last autumn’s apples.
Half the boiler room was full of coal to feed the fire; large chunks glistening in black behind a plank on the floor. The boiler itself was different too, old and sooty with a flap, flames swaying orange behind its grill. The firelight spread over the walls until they seemed to surge in the light.
“He’s in there,” Hetty whispered in my ear. “There, in the corner.”
She pointed into the darkness next to the boiler, and I saw, but couldn’t believe my eyes. How could the black, spider-like shape that had crawled into the corner be Erland?
Not until he cried did I realize it was true.
Perhaps it was his scream that made the flames of the boiler flare up. I don’t know, but in any case it grew brighter. When the yellow light fell on Erland’s face, I realized why he sounded the way he did.
Erland no longer had a mouth.
The lower part of his face was just smooth skin, which stretched and strained when yet another scream pressed up through his throat. His eyes were like they were before, but large with fear.
I couldn’t help it. I started crying.
“What are we to do?” I whispered.
Hetty shook her head while she started pulling me slowly back towards the door.
“We can’t do anything,” she said. “Someone who loves him must come.”
I stopped, but Hetty’s hand held its grip on my arm.
“Uncle Daniel won’t listen to me,” I said. “He’ll never come here with me.”
Hetty pulled and I started moving again.
“I’ll tell you what you should say to him,” she said. “This time he will listen.”