The Resting Place, page 3
“Not so innocent after all, eh?” he said, and I felt the liquor and the nausea simmer down to a single, viscous mass in my belly.
“Forgive me,” I replied hastily, looking down at the floor as the shame burned in my cheeks. “I didn’t mean…”
I didn’t know what to say. The words didn’t come.
He just laughed again and took a few steps toward me. Sensing danger, I froze—like the mouse I have become, not the ferret I once was.
At first he did nothing, just picked up the bottle and read the label. My heart was pounding in my chest.
Then he said something I didn’t understand, but whether that was because he was slurring his words or speaking too fast I couldn’t say. Something about the bottle.
He put it down again and looked at me. Even though he hadn’t moved, all of a sudden he was way too close.
He said:
“Not so bad either, now I get a better look at you.”
He touched my cheek, and I felt my scalp start to tingle, felt the blisters on my palms throb and sting. His hand disgusted me. It was soft and sweaty, like a rotting mushroom.
Then suddenly his hand fell to my breast, as if landing there by chance. His thumb ran over my nipple, and I hated myself for not moving.
But then I heard a cough, and his hand was gone as quickly as it had appeared. It was Ma’am. She was standing there with her hands on her slender hips, a scornful, raging smile on her scarlet lips.
“Klaes.”
The way she said his name, clipped at both ends. It made him flinch like a slap in the face.
“I–” he started, but Ma’am let him go no further.
“I must say,” she said, the smooth skin around her eyes contorted into an ugly smirk, “I did think you had better taste than that, Klaes.”
The seconds ticked past—one, two. He looked down at his feet.
He didn’t say a word, just slunk past Ma’am and out into the dining room. But she didn’t move. Her expensive dress fell in perfect folds around her knees, and her petite, dainty shoes were the same shade of red as her lipstick.
And then, in a voice a whole world away from the lilting Swedish she usually speaks, a voice with its very own hard melody, she said:
“Careful, Cousin. To him you’re nothing but a cheap piece of furniture.”
Then she turned on her heels and said in Swedish over her shoulder, like an afterthought:
“To me too, for that matter.”
ELEANOR
We turned on the fridge and freezer when we brought the food in this afternoon, grateful to find they worked. Although there’s still no sign of Bengtsson, it seems like he’s made sure we have electricity and water in the main house, which is a relief. If not we would have had to do a food run for meals that don’t need to be cooked. Now I can make lentil soup for dinner as planned.
We’ll be staying out here till Sunday, if needed, but the lawyer said it probably won’t take that long. We have to compile an inventory of the different buildings on the land, with their rough square footage and function in case we do decide to sell, and a separate list of the furniture, paintings, and other movables in the house. There were shelves of binders in the study upstairs, and the lawyer hoped he would be able to find most of what he needed in there. He also said it might be good for Veronika and me to consider what we want to keep. When he said it Veronika rolled her eyes, but I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to feel. I have no memories of this place. Nothing here feels like it belongs to me.
The faint hum of the ancient fridge has rocked me into a dreamlike state. There’s no clock in the kitchen, and I’ve been so lost in thought while stirring the soup that it’s only now I realize Sebastian has been gone awhile.
I look up from the black cast-iron Dutch oven and see the baguettes lying white and half thawed on the counter by the stove, and the kitchen window behind them.
It’s pitch-black outside—so dark that it looks like a soft, black, velvet curtain is draped on the other side of the window.
I shift the pot to one side so the soup won’t burn and walk through the service passage to the hallway. The passage is so narrow that it feels like my shoulders could skim both sides, and its nondescript white wallpaper has started to peel back at the seams.
He can’t have been gone more than twenty minutes, max. He’s probably just gotten carried away in his quest for the perfect sticks for the masonry heater, meticulously handpicking branches that aren’t too thin or too thick or too wet from the snow or starting to rot.… That’s exactly the sort of thing that Sebastian could get excited about.
Everything’s all right. Nothing has happened.
Are you quite positive about that, Victoria?
Surely you know better than to feel safe?
I try to shake Vivianne’s voice from my head.
I’m better now. Not cured, because there is no cure, but better. That’s what my therapist Carina says, the mantra we’ve been working on since I started seeing her eight years ago. Even more so now, since Vivianne, since I came home from the hospital.
A little better every day.
I quickly pull on my boots and jacket and zip it up, then open the door and step out into the snow.
The air out here is biting, the sort of cold that feels like a dry, crackling tongue just lapping at your skin, and I wish I had a scarf to pull up over my nose. The temperature must have dropped by twenty degrees since we arrived. When I checked the weather report for the weekend it said there was a risk of strong winds and a little snow before Saturday, but I don’t remember seeing anything about such low temperatures.
In the darkness the other buildings are nothing more than murky outlines, and the forest looms around me like a wall. It’s hard not to feel very alone out here.
I’m not an outdoorsy person. Vivianne would sometimes joke that our ancestors invented the indoors to save us from the so-called great outdoors, and that it would be disrespectful to go against their wishes. Then she would give that ringing laugh that sounded like glasses clinking, and as soon as I heard it any anger or disappointment I was feeling toward her would seep out of me.
She knew that, of course—it was often why she chose to laugh.
My breath comes out in strained white puffs, and I squint at the ground to try to see where Sebastian’s footprints lead. It’s impossible to tell: we’ve been going in and out of the house all afternoon with bags and food from the car, and the snow outside the front door has frozen over, an icy sludge peppered with gravel.
“Sebastian!” I try calling.
I will him to respond but hear nothing more than resounding silence.
A little gust of air blows straight through my flimsy jacket, and my teeth start to chatter. I press my arms against my body, unable to escape the thought that it can’t be good for Sebastian to have been out in this weather for—how long can it be? Almost half an hour?
Anxiety starts to gnaw at me from the inside out.
Everything’s all right, I tell myself.
Nothing has happened. What could even have happened? We’re in the middle of nowhere. There’s no one out here to hurt him.
There’s no one out here but Sebastian and me. “Sebastian!” I shout again, and start walking around the house. The gravel and ice crunch under my boots, and I hunch my shoulders against the cold.
There’s no one here.
We’re in the middle of nowhere.
No one is watching me from the trees.
My goose bumps are just the cold, nothing else.
“Sebastian!” I shout for the third time, as I round the corner to the back of the house.
I must be outside the dining room now, because the lights are off. It’s so dark I can’t even see where I’m putting my feet. I look up at the horizon and stop for a second.
The stars are twinkling in a band across the sky, so bright in the frozen air that they look burnished. They gleam like freshly polished silver.
Like scissors on a rug.
I turn around but freeze mid-step. My breath catches in my throat.
What was that?
It sounded like ice crunching underfoot.
“Sebastian, is that you?” I call out, but my voice sounds brittle and unfamiliar, as though it’s coming from far away.
The feeling that I’m being watched is now so strong it’s almost physical. I focus on what Carina has told me before, about having to keep my breathing under control: it’s the body that panics first, the brain that follows. If I can just keep my breaths slow and force myself to relax then I can trick my mind into calm.
I look away from the house. Nothing but shadow upon shadow, in shades of gray and the deepest of blues.
But then the cloud bank moves across the sky, and for a moment the moon peeks out from between the gap.
There.
By one of the cottages, the one by the lake with the slanted black roof.
The scream catches in my throat.
There’s someone standing there, a few feet from the cottage door. A tall, slim, black silhouette, seemingly genderless and featureless, just black contours and long, dark limbs.
Then the moon disappears back behind the cloud, and the darkness takes over.
I don’t think. I start running back to the side of the house, my blood pounding in my ears. I’m slipping and sliding on the icy surface, but I don’t stop. With every breath the cold air grates at my throat, but I can’t stop.
It’s when I round the corner that it happens.
I turn slightly too fast and lose my footing. I feel the impact in my wrists first; then my chin hits the ground and I give a short, stifled cry of pain as the skin breaks. The fall leaves me seeing stars, and I lie there on the ground, in a temporary paralysis of shock and pain.
The fear is still pulsing through my veins, but my thoughts have scattered. I no longer remember what I’m scared of: I know I need to get away, but not what from or why.
The footsteps approach, quick and purposeful, shoes crunching on the frozen ground.
Before me I see the blank, expressionless face and black hat, Vivianne’s body sprawled on the rug, the blood-spattered scissor blades like obscenely splayed legs. I start to scuttle backward over the snow and ice but slip again, and when my right wrist hits the ground a jolt of pain runs up my arm. But then I hear a familiar voice.
“Eleanor? Ellie, what are you doing? What is it?”
Sebastian’s voice breaks through my fog of fear. I blink into the light being pointed at my face and see a hand reach out.
I grab his right hand with my left and let him pull me up, my knees still shaking. I wrap my arms around him and squeeze him so tight that he gasps and lets out a little laugh before hugging me back.
“Are you OK?” he asks in my ear. “What is it?”
It’s only when I let out a few cold, dry sobs into his jacket that his tone changes.
“Hey.” He steps back a little. “Hello? Eleanor? What is it?”
In the blueish glare of the light from his phone I can see that his eyebrows are furrowed. He holds the phone up to my face and whistles when he sees my chin.
“Ouch,” he says, touching my jaw with his thumb. “You hit yourself pretty hard there, no wonder you’re upset.”
I shake my head and look over my shoulder, but the light of his phone has blinded me to what little I could make out before.
“I saw someone,” I say, turning back to him, my hand still on his sleeve.
“What?”
“Over by the lake,” I say. “I saw someone standing by that cottage. There was somebody there.”
He shakes his head, but I see his eyes pass over my shoulder to the cottage.
“Are you sure?” he asks. “It’s pretty dark.”
“I’m sure.”
Even as I say so I start to wonder if it’s true.
Carina’s calm, reassuring voice echoes in my ears.
Your fear is valid, but that doesn’t make it real. The fear may be true, but it doesn’t have to be your truth.
This wouldn’t be the first time I have seen something that wasn’t what I thought it was, the first time I have let the fear take over. And I was alone, and out in the dark.…
Sebastian rubs my arm.
“Look,” he says, his voice calm and soft. “I get that you were scared. I know this isn’t easy for you. Just say the word and we’ll leave here, OK? We can let the lawyer take care of everything.”
I take a deep breath and shake my head.
“No, you’re right. I was just scared. I didn’t know where you were, and it was dark and I started to … see things.”
Sebastian puts his arms around my shoulders, and I lean my head against his chest.
“Shall we go inside and take a look at that?” he asks. “It’s bleeding quite a lot.”
Now that Sebastian’s here with me, with his cell-phone flashlight and reassuring voice and Sebastian smell, my breathing finally starts to settle.
“What were you doing out here, by the way?” he asks as we round the corner to the cars and the front door.
“You were gone so long, I wondered where you were.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, honey,” he says. “I was just trying to see if there was a woodshed or something out here. All the sticks on the ground were frozen.”
Before I can reply Sebastian stops short. He points the flashlight up ahead of him.
The little cone of light sweeps over his car, bouncing off the red paintwork. The gap in the open door on the passenger side is only a few inches wide, but it looks like a gaping mouth.
Sebastian says nothing.
“Did you get something out of the car?” I ask.
I’m willing him to say yes, but I already know that he won’t.
“Maybe it opened when we were getting the food out of the trunk,” he says. He lets go of my hand, walks over to the car, opens the door a little farther, and slams it shut with a clap that makes me flinch.
He turns back to me and smiles. At least I think it’s a smile. In the winter darkness it’s hard to be sure.
“Come on, let’s go patch you up and get some food in you. Sound good?”
He takes my hand again, squeezes my cold fingers with his warm ones. I follow him up the front steps.
Just as I’m stepping through the door I think I hear it again. A footstep, just a few yards away. Snow crunching underfoot.
There’s nothing there.
But I don’t turn around to make sure.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20
ELEANOR
I’ve been trying to get to sleep for hours.
Sebastian is snoring gently beside me, but that isn’t what’s keeping me awake. From a young age I learned to fall asleep to the sounds of clinking glasses and ringing laughter in the next room, so noise doesn’t bother me. When I did get to sleep it would always be deep and dreamless.
Would be.
I’ve been prescribed sleeping pills, but I try to only take them if I have to. They leave me tired and sluggish the next day, make my limbs feel heavy and unwieldy and uncoordinated.
And they don’t stop the nightmares.
I rarely ever remember them the next morning; it’s more of a feeling, an impression. A flash of silver, sticky blood on my fingers, dying, rattling breaths. Blank faces all around me, staring.
I know I’ll have nightmares if I fall asleep now: the fear still hasn’t left me. I always knew that terror lay in the body; I grew up with fears that crept under my skin, flowed through my veins, and bubbled away in my stomach, just biding their time for the chance to break loose. But that evening in September the fear took root deep within me, became my constant companion.
Carina says it will always be that way, that it’s natural. She says that wounds can leave scars on our souls just like on our bodies, and that we have to learn to live with them rather than try to rid ourselves of them completely.
After that night in September I tried to ignore it at first, pretended it was nothing. Sure, I would wake up kicking and screaming every night and Sebastian had to take time off work because I couldn’t handle being alone, but still, I ploughed on. I ate regularly and exercised every morning, running until the adrenaline made my mouth taste of thunder and my eyes would sting with sweat. I could even relax, briefly, when Sebastian was there and the door was locked.
But when I got that call from the police station it all fell apart:
It’s fairly common with this type of crime … a robbery that escalated … the victim’s almost always chosen at random … of course we’ll keep our eyes open, sometimes new lines of inquiry can open up after years.…
When I found out that they were closing the investigation, it was like that little thread that was holding everything together snapped. The hope that they would find whoever did it.
I stopped going to work. Stopped running. Eventually I stopped going out at all.
It was all the people. I couldn’t handle them—all those faces I couldn’t tell apart.
Any one of them could have been the person in the doorway.
Sebastian was right; I know he was. I was seeing things. He has told me that in the days before I was admitted to the hospital I was seeing and hearing things all the time. Footsteps in the hallway outside. Faces in the windows.
Stress-induced hallucinations, they called them. When I was discharged the doctors said the risk of them coming back was very small. It was a trauma-induced reaction.
Tonight was no hallucination. It was just a shadow in the night. I was seeing things. An optical illusion, nothing more.
Right?
The faint light casts subtle shadows across the old wallpaper—the moon must have broken through the clouds again. My ears are pricked, though I know I should let it go. I’m listening out for twigs cracking down on the ground. Heavy shoes on frozen snow.
Stop, Victoria.
Enough with all of this.
Why must you always be so hysterical? I don’t know where you get it from. Not from your mother, in any case.
The comforter suddenly feels heavy and oppressive. I carefully peel it back, feel the cool air against my bare legs.
