MARIETTE LINDSTEIN was born and raised in Halmstad on the west coast of Sweden. At the age of 20, she joined the Church of Scientology and worked for the next 25 years at all levels of the organization, including at its international headquarters outside Los Angeles. Mariette left the Church in 2004 and is now married to Dan Koon, an author and artist. They live in a forest outside Halmstad with their three dogs. Fog Island is her debut novel and was first published in Sweden where it won the Best Crime Debut at the Specsavers CrimeTime Awards. Mariette now dedicates her life to writing and lecturing to warn others about the dangers of cults and cult mentality.

Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019

Copyright © Mariette Lindstein 2019

English translation © Rachel Willson-Broyles

Mariette Lindstein asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Rachel Willson-Broyles asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the Translation.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © January 2019 ISBN: 9780008245368

Version: 2018-10-22

Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Epilogue

About the events and characters in this book

Thanks!

About the Publisher

Prologue

She has been lying awake in the dark for ages, marking the time by counting her breaths. One breath in takes three seconds. One breath out, another three. Seconds become minutes. And soon, an hour.

The darkness is dense. There are no shadows, outlines, no numbers on a clock radio. She feels weightless lying there, as if she’s floating. But the counting keeps her awake, and anyway, she is far too tense to fall asleep now. Doubt gnaws in the back of her mind. The fear of failure makes her nerves whine like the strings on an untuned violin as a blurry veil of anxiety settles over all her thoughts. Best just to breathe, not think, just be until the right moment.

She hears a faint tapping against the window; it grows into a persistent patter. Rain, despite the forecast. She curses the weather service and thinks about how hard it will be to run through the forest.

Then it’s time. She cautiously slides out from under the blanket and kneels on the floor. Her hands fumble under the bed, finding the bundle of her backpack. It contains everything she needs — and yet, almost nothing. Her tennis shoes are there too, the kind you just stick your feet into, no time for tying shoes. She carefully pulls on her jacket, which had been wrapped around the backpack, and puts on the shoes. Tiny, cautious steps across the floor. Her body feels dreamlike and heavy.

There’s a murmur from one of the beds and she stiffens. Someone turns over, making bedsprings creak. She waits until she hears deep breathing again. The last few steps. She fumbles for the door handle and finds it. A gust of cool air rushes in from the corridor as the door swings open. The night-time lighting paints the white walls a pale yellow. It feels like she’s gliding down the hallway. She pushes open the heavy iron door to the basement stairs, where the main breaker is. This is it. Sink or swim. She only has ten minutes, fifteen at the most. After that they’ll notice she’s missing. She knows the routines all too well. Once the first wave of confusion has settled down, they will gather and count the personnel. Then the manhunt will begin.

I am not afraid, I am not afraid.

She repeats the words silently to herself, like a mantra, and takes a couple of deep breaths. She can still change her mind. Turn around. Crawl back into her warm bed. But if she doesn’t escape now, she never will, and that thought is so unbearable that it blows the spark of her courage back into a flame.

As she pulls down the handle of the breaker, there’s a snap and a crackle and suddenly it is so dark that she feels dizzy and sways a bit in the black void. She grabs the wall, feels her way to the emergency exit, and opens the door. Cold, humid air hits her. The rain falls over the courtyard like a thick curtain; it has already drenched the grass, which eagerly sucks at her foot.

She splashes through puddles at a run, completely vulnerable to chance now. If her luck runs out, someone will spot her from the window of the manor house. But nothing happens. All she can hear is the drumming of the rain against the roof, the water pouring out of the drainpipes, and her own thudding steps.

The ladder is leaning against the wall. Thank God.

She has to make it over quickly, because soon the backup generator will be turned on, the courtyard will be bathed in light, and the barbed wire at the top of the wall will be capable of delivering a serious shock.

She climbs up the ladder, fumbles for a foothold between the razor-sharp barbs of the electric wire, and stands up on the slippery wall.

This is the moment she has been dreaming of, with longing and terror both. Down there, on the other side, there is no return. A burst of exhilaration runs through her mind, but then the fear grabs hold of her again.

She tosses her backpack down first, then jumps with all her might. Over the barbed wire, away from the danger behind her, into the darkness. Pain shoots through her foot when she lands. She brushes her hand over it and the pain abates. Her eyes search for the head of the path. And find it. She runs down it like a madwoman. Sometimes she misses a turn and almost darts into a bush, but she always makes it back to the path. She is riding high on adrenaline now. Forward. Forward is all that matters.

I am not afraid, I am not afraid.

She tries to make out the terrain, jumping over winding roots and rocks that criss-cross the narrow path. Her heart is pounding, her chest burning. The alarm begins to sound at the manor, behind her. The sweeping beam of the searchlight glints off the leaves. Things are going to get chaotic for a while. Then it will be all hands on deck, chasing her down.

Her clothing is wet and heavy and the backpack is digging into her shoulders. At last, she can see a light through the trees. She is close to her hiding place now. So very close.

She slows down. Stops.

Her eyes search for the end of the path. A sudden creak in the forest.

Her heart jumps into her throat; her muscles lock in panic.

He emerges from between the trees and stops not far away from her. She doesn’t have a chance; there is nowhere to run. The terrain is rough, either side of the path overgrown.

Her disappointment is overwhelming. Her insides tighten into one big, hard knot.

It is impossible.

And still, it has happened.

And still, he is standing there.

Somewhere, a dog barks.

The alarm sounds.

The last thing she thinks of is a voice. A faded memory returning to her.

You will never, ever get out of here. Just so you know.

The blood pounds at her temples.

Flickering sparks shower onto the curtains of her eyelids.

Then come the violent waves of dizziness and everything begins to go black.

I let the bumblebee fly around in the small aquarium for a while. It tries to get out, buzzing angrily, but all it can do is bounce off the walls.

Then it gives up for a moment and lands on the cork mat at the bottom.

I lift the glass lid off, slowly and cautiously. I hold my breath as I lower my hand, which holds a pin. It only takes a millisecond, and then the bumblebee is stuck to the mat. It hums furiously, spinning on the pin in a crazy, futile dance. Its wings work frantically, but it goes nowhere. Then I lift the cork mat out of the aquarium, place it before me, and pick up the tweezers.

Lily looks at me, her mouth agape. She runs her tongue over her lower lip. I search for something in her eyes, fear or hatred, but all I find is a great emptiness, a dark abyss that sucks me in.

But first, the bumblebee.

I pull off the wings first, then the legs. Taking my time, lining them up on the table in front of her. The stupid bumblebee never stops buzzing, moving around on the pin, just a body now, as if it ever had a chance.

‘Why are you doing that?’ she asks.

‘Because it’s amusing,’ I say.

‘What? To watch it suffer?’

‘No, your face when you watch.’

I almost can’t breathe when I realize she’s trembling a bit.

That’s how it all begins. With a tiny bumblebee.

1

The small ferry bobbed in the swells on the dark water. They were close now, but couldn’t see the island; the morning fog was a heavy blanket on the sea. The horizon was invisible.

Sofia felt relief as the mainland, on the other side, vanished behind the curtain of fog. She was putting distance between herself and Ellis. It was nice to get away from him, if only for a while.

There had always been something hectic and wild about her relationship with Ellis, an intensity that could lead to nothing but disaster. His terrible temper should have set off warning bells, but at first she just thought it made him exciting. They had argued about absolutely everything and it ended with him getting his revenge online. She had been so distracted that she almost bombed her last exam at college. She passed in the end, but just barely.

It was in the midst of this catastrophe that the invitation to the lecture by Franz Oswald popped up in her email. And it was because of that lecture that she was sitting here on a ferry, on her way to a strange island way out in the archipelago.

Wilma, Sofia’s best friend, was there too, staring into the fog. There was a hint of excitement between them. A vague sense of apprehension about what awaited them on the island.

*

On the morning she received the lecture invitation, Sofia had been on the computer, Googling phrases like ‘planning for the future’ and ‘career choices,’ realizing in the end that her search was not at all helpful. When she read the email, her first thought was to wonder why it hadn’t ended up in the spam folder.

A lecture on ViaTerra by Franz Oswald. For those who wish to walk the way of the earth, it read.

How the heck did a person do that? She thought it sounded strange, but she had heard of Franz Oswald before. There was some chatter about him around the university. He’d showed up out of the blue, giving talks about his philosophies of clean living, which he called ViaTerra. Among the young women, the talk about Oswald mostly revolved around the fact that he was attractive and a little mysterious.

She read the email again. Made sure that the event was free of charge. She figured it couldn’t hurt to listen to what this Oswald had to say, so she sent a text to Wilma, who didn’t take much convincing. They did nearly everything together by that time.

They had arrived late to the talk and sat in the front row of a full lecture hall. A big banner was hung above the stage; it said ‘ViaTerra: We Walk the Way of the Earth!’ in huge, green letters. The lecture hall was otherwise bare and sterile and had a strong smell of cleaning agents.

A buzz of surprise ran through the audience when Oswald walked onstage with a wheelbarrow full to the brim with something white. Flour or sugar. She couldn’t tell what it was, because the lights were focused on the podium; the spot where he was standing was much dimmer. The woman sitting next to Sofia groaned. Someone behind her whispered, ‘What on earth?’

He set down the wheelbarrow and stood still for a moment before coming forward and gripping the edges of the podium.

‘Sugar,’ he said. ‘This is what the average family goes through in three months.’

Sofia suddenly regretted coming, and she felt the urge to get up and leave. The feeling was so strong that her legs twitched. She really should have been looking for a job, not listening to a lecture. And Oswald made her nervous.

He was tall and well-built, wearing a grey blazer over a black T-shirt. His dark hair was combed back into a ponytail. The tan couldn’t be real, but it suited him. He gave the impression of being trim and sophisticated while also radiating something primitive, almost animalistic. But above all, it was his strong stage presence that made the air tremble with anticipation.

He stood in silence for a moment. A calmer, more expectant mood spread through the audience. Then he launched into a dizzying tempo that only increased throughout the lecture. His voice went on like a machine gun. He showed the crowd a PowerPoint full of brains, nervous systems, lungs, and flabby bodies that had fallen victim to toxins and stress.

Sofia began to catch on to what he believed in. A sort of back-to-Mother-Earth philosophy where anything artificial was the root of all evil.

‘Now we’ll take a break,’ he suddenly said, ‘and afterwards I’ll tell you about the solution.’

During the second half, his elocution was calm and controlled. He spoke of things like sleeping in total darkness, drinking clean water, and eating organic food. Nothing new or sensational. Yet he made it all sound absolutely ground-breaking.

‘Our program also contains a spiritual element,’ he said. ‘But it’s not like you think, so listen carefully.’

He paused, and it seemed to Sofia that he was staring at her; she squirmed in her seat. He fixed his eyes on her as he continued.

‘Aren’t you tired of hearing that you have to be present and live in the now? We must stop listening to all these religious wackos who preach that the present is what matters. Buying their books and courses so we can learn to sit with your eyes closed and breathe deeply. In ViaTerra, we do not deny the past. We draw power from it.’

Sofia’s hand flew up of its own accord.

‘But how do you do that?’

Oswald put on a measured smile.

‘Your name?’

‘Sofia.’

‘Sofia, I’m glad you asked; the answer is in our theses. The physical program takes care of the body. The theses are for the spiritual side. But the short version is, you learn to draw power from everything that has happened in your life. Even your negative memories.’

‘But how?’

‘You have to read the theses to understand. It has to do with intuition. When a person stops denying the past, a whole lot of inhibitions disappear. One’s abilities are set free and one can rely on intuition again.’

‘Are your theses available to read?’

‘Of course, but only if you undergo the whole program. We have a centre on West Fog Island, off the coast of Bohuslän, a sanctuary where we help our guests find the correct balance in life. One can only make use of the theses in a setting free of all distractions. That’s why our centre is on an island.’

A man behind Sofia raised his hand.

‘Are you a religion?’

‘No, we’re actually the first anti-religion.’

‘Anti-religion? What’s that?’

‘That means that whatever you hate about religion, we’re the exact opposite,’ Oswald replied.

‘I hate that you have to pray to God in most religions,’ said the man.

‘In ViaTerra, we don’t pray to God. We’re realists, with our feet planted firmly on the ground.’

A stout, red-haired woman in the first row stood up.

‘I hate all these damn books and writings you’re supposed to read. And then you’re supposed to believe all that crap too.’

By now, almost everyone was laughing.

‘We don’t have any books in ViaTerra. Just a couple of simple theses we use, but that’s all voluntary.’

It went on like this for a while. Oswald handled each question deftly. He was really on a roll.

Then a man wearing a neat, black suit and round glasses stood up.

‘Do you have scientific evidence for all of this? Is this an accepted science, or just a cult?’

‘Everything we do is based on sound reason. It has nothing to do with science or religion. The important thing is that it works, right?’

‘So how do we know that your gimmick works?’

‘Come and see for yourself. Or don’t.’

‘Nah, I think I’ll pass.’

The man made his way through the rows of seats and left the hall.

‘There you go,’ Oswald said with a shrug. ‘Let’s move on, with those of you who are truly interested.’

*

When the lecture was over, they were ushered out of the hall by young people in grey suits and led to a large coatroom where several tables had been lined up along the walls. Pens and forms were handed out. A thin young man with slicked-back hair and a goatee loomed over Sofia and Wilma until they had filled out their forms; then, when they were finished, he greedily yanked the papers from their hands. They mingled for a bit, chatting with a few young women their own age.

Then, suddenly, there he was. He popped up behind Sofia. Wilma was the first to notice him, and she was startled. When Sofia turned around, he was right next to her. Only now that they were face to face did she notice how young he really was. Twenty-five, thirty at the most. His skin was smooth, except for the hint of a few wrinkles on his forehead. His jaw was wide, and a five o’clock shadow lent a hint of manliness to his soft features. That, and his thick, dark eyebrows. But what she noticed first was his eyes. His gaze was so intense that it made her uncomfortable. And then there was the noticeable scent of his aftershave: pine and citrus. He was something totally out of the ordinary — there was no standing this close to him without noticing it.

At first he said nothing, and the lengthy silence became awkward. She noticed his hands. Long, thin fingers with nails cut short. No ring. The expression in his eyes was unreadable. She swallowed and tried to think of something to say but realized that she was tongue-tied.

‘Sofia, I got the impression that you had more questions?’ he said at last, putting the emphasis on her name.

‘Not really. We’re just curious.’ Her voice sounded rough and hoarse.

He raised and lowered his eyebrows and drew up the corners of his lips, as if there were a secret between them. He was well aware, irritatingly so, of how good-looking he was.

‘Come and visit. I’d be happy to show you our centre. No commitment, just a tour of the property.’

He handed her a business card. Green and white, with embossed letters.

‘This number goes to Madeleine, my secretary. Call her and book a time.’

He held onto the card for a moment so she couldn’t take it from his hand. His eyes flashed and then he let go. Sofia was about to respond, but he had already turned around and was on his way into the crowd. Wilma tugged at Sofia’s sleeve.

‘Stop staring at him. Why don’t we visit that island and take a look? What harm can it do?’

She clears her throat a few times. Doesn’t quite know how to say it.

I just stare at her. I know it makes her uncomfortable, and I enjoy that.

‘We can’t go too far,’ she says. ‘I mean, it could be dangerous . . .’

‘Isn’t that the point?’

‘Yes, but . . . you know what I mean.’

‘Nope, not really. Tell me.’

‘I don’t want it to leave bruises.’

I snort.

‘So wear a turtleneck. Stop being such a wuss. You like it, don’t you?’

She lowers her eyes, all innocent. This is something new. Her fear.

It seeps out of her and turns me on; I get incredibly excited.

Have to take a few deep breaths, hold myself back, to keep from grabbing her and shaking her hard.

I own this person; I have her completely under my power.

She bends to my will like the grass in the wind. I turn my back on her.

Feel her drawn into the vacuum.

I think of how this night will be.

2

‘Are you dreaming, Miss?’

This was the man who captained the ferry, Edwin Björk. He was slightly overweight, with sideburns and a wind-chapped face; he smelled like diesel and seaweed. Sofia and Wilma had made friends with him on the journey over. Sofia tore herself from her memories of the lecture and looked at Björk.

‘Not really, just wondering if it’s usually so foggy here in the summer.’

‘It’s not unusual,’ Björk said. ‘She’s not called Fog Island for nothing. But it’s worst in the fall. The fog sometimes gets so thick that I can’t bring the ferry in. What are you two up to on the island?’

‘We’re going to visit a group at the manor, ViaTerra.’

Björn wrinkled his nose.

‘Then be careful. That place is cursed.’

‘Seriously? You’re joking, right?’ Wilma asked.

‘Nope, I’m certainly not. It’s haunted by the Countess. I’ve seen her with my own two eyes.’

‘Tell us.’

So he told them, with such feeling and conviction that Sofia began to shiver. The fog slipped in under her clothes and settled on her skin like a cold blanket. Images flickered through her mind as he spoke. Creepy images she couldn’t shake off.

‘The manor house was built in the early 1900s. You don’t often see estates like it out in the archipelago because the islands were home mostly to fishermen and boatbuilders. Count von Bärensten was determined to live here, though, so he had that wretched place built. But you see, his wife, the Countess, grew restless out here. She took frequent trips to the mainland, where she fell in love with a sea captain she met in secret. One night when the fog was thick, the captain’s ship ran aground and sank just off the island. It was winter; the water was cold and everyone on board perished. A great tragedy, it was.’

‘Is that true, or just a tall tale?’ Wilma interrupted.

‘Every word is the truth. But listen now, because we’re almost to the island and I’ll have to dock the ferry.’

Wilma fell silent and they listened breathlessly as Björk went on.

‘When the Countess realized what had happened to the captain, she went out to a cliff we call Devil’s Rock and threw herself to her death in the icy water.’

Björk straightened his cap and shook his head in reflection.

‘And when the Count found out . . . something in his mind must have snapped, because he set fire to the manor house and shot himself in the head. If not for the servants, the whole mess probably would have burned down. They managed to save the house and the children, but the Count was dead as a doornail.

‘After the tragedy with the ship, they installed a foghorn at the lighthouse. Whenever it sounded, the superstitious islanders said the Countess was standing on Devil’s Rock, calling for her lover. And then people began to spot the Countess on the cliff. Always in a fog. She continued to appear for many years.’

‘It must have been their imaginations,’ Sofia said.

‘Hardly,’ replied Björk. ‘She was real, believe me. Meanwhile, the Count’s children, who still lived there, fell ill and the barns burned down. The curse went on for years, until the Count’s son was fed up and moved abroad. The estate sat abandoned for several years.’

‘And then?’

‘The misery continued. A doctor bought the manor in the late 1990s. Lived there with his daughter. Big plans for the place — he wanted to turn it into some sort of rest home. But his daughter died in a fire, in one of the barns. An accident, they said, but I wasn’t fooled. The place is cursed.’ Björk held up one finger. ‘I’m not done yet — around the same time, a boy jumped from Devil’s Rock, hit his head, and drowned. The current took him. Since then, diving from the cliff has been forbidden.’

Sofia wondered if the old man was just making this up, but there wasn’t the slightest hint of teasing in his expression. Why would Oswald want to establish his centre in such a place? It seemed incredible.

‘So you can go look at all that, the lighthouse and the cliff?’ Wilma asked.

‘Yes, the lighthouse is still there, but the foghorn is no longer in use. Otherwise it’s all the same. And now the manor is being run by lunatics again, as you’ll soon discover.’ At last a booming laugh welled from his throat.

‘Do you know Oswald?’ Wilma asked.

‘Nah, he’s far too uppity to spend time with us islanders. He always stays in his car when he takes the ferry over.’

Sofia gazed into the fog. She thought she could see a faint outline where the horizon should be.

‘Here she is now!’ Björk cried.

Slowly, majestically, the island took shape. The contours of the firs on the hills, small boats at rest in the harbour, and shadows of houses here and there. The shrieking of the gulls reached the ferry. The fog was lifting. A pale sun, which couldn’t quite pierce the clouds, hung like a yellow blob in the grey sky.

‘See you on the evening ferry, then,’ Björk said as he guided the boat toward the pier. ‘There are two ferry departures each day. The morning ferry at eight and the evening ferry at five.’

When they stepped off, they immediately found themselves in the village, which was like a summer paradise. Small cottages with turrets and gingerbread; cobblestone streets and boutiques. Children were playing along the quay. Summer visitors drank coffee at an outdoor café. It was only early June, but vacation life was in full swing here.

Barely fifty metres from the ferry pier was a cobblestone square with a fountain in the middle. A woman in a grey uniform was waiting for them. She was thin and almost as short as Sofia. Her blonde hair was up in a bun and her face was pale, with delicate features. Her eyes were large and almost colourless; her eyebrows were white.

‘Sofia and Wilma? I’m Madeleine, Franz Oswald’s secretary. I’ll be showing you around today. First we’ll have a quick look around the island and then we’ll go up to the manor.’

She led them to a station wagon that was parked on one side of the square and opened the car door for them.

‘There are roads along the coast on both sides of the island,’ she explained. ‘Farther inland it’s mostly forest and heath, but I thought I would show you the landscape before we head to ViaTerra. There’s a lookout point on the northern tip of the island where you can look out over the Skagerrak Sound.’

‘Where’s the manor?’ Sofia asked.

‘On the north end. Just a short walk from the lookout.’

The western coast was flat, with sandy beaches and grass lawns full of picnic tables and grills. A couple of jetties extended like bridges into the hazy heat of the sea. Small boats were moored on the jetties and the shore was lined with boathouses. The eastern coast was barren and wild. The cliffs plunged to the sea just past the edge of the road.

They drove to the end of the island and parked the car, then walked across an expanse of heath to the lookout point, where the cliffs sloped to the water.

The fog had lifted and the sun was high in the sky. It was glittering blue as far as the eye could see, aside from the white flash of a lighthouse on an islet. Right away Sofia’s eyes were drawn to a rocky cliff that jutted out over the sea. It looked like a trampoline.

‘Is that the cliff you call Devil’s Rock?’

Madeleine gave a snort.

‘We don’t, but I guess the superstitious villagers do. As you can see, though, it’s only a cliff.’

‘We were given a warning on the way here. The ferry man, Björk, told us some creepy stories about the manor.’

Madeleine shook her head.

‘Oh, he’s not all there. He only does that to scare off our guests. The islanders have been so bloody suspicious since we moved here. They’re allergic to change. But we don’t care. Come on, let’s go see ViaTerra!’

They travelled back along the coast road for a bit and turned off at a wide gravel drive that was lined with huge oaks whose foliage loomed over them like a cupola. And suddenly they were at the manor house gate, which was at least three metres high, made of wrought iron, and adorned with winding curlicues, angels and devils, and an enormous keyhole.

‘Do you open it with a huge key?’ Wilma joked.

Madeleine just shook her head.

‘No, no; there’s a guard, of course.’

Only then did Sofia notice him. He was in a sentry box built into the wall. He waved them in, and the gate gave a creak and slowly swung open.

She didn’t know quite what she’d been expecting to find within the gate. Maybe an eerie, tumbledown mansion full of towers and crenellations. Instead, what spread before them was a palace. The property had to be half a kilometre square. The manor house in the centre looked like a castle and had three storeys. The façade must have been recently sandblasted; it was brilliantly white. There was a large pond in the middle of the lawn before the grand house, with ducks and a pair of swans swimming in it. There was a flagpole beside the motor court, but instead of a Swedish flag it was flying a green-and-white one.

Along the west side of the wall was a row of several long annexe buildings tucked into the edge of the woods. The roof of another long building was visible behind the manor house, and in the distance there was a pasture full of grazing sheep. Only a few people were visible: a couple drinking coffee in the yard outside the annexes and two people in uniform moving rapidly across the drive.

Sofia looked up at the manor again and discovered that something was carved into the upper part of the façade in large letters.

We walk the way of the earth, it read.

She stood there as if she had just fallen from the sky and took in all the splendour. She exchanged meaningful glances with Wilma and turned to Madeleine.

‘What a place!’

‘Yes, isn’t it fantastic? We’ve put a lot of work into it. Franz had a vision, and I think you could say we brought it to fruition.’

Sofia felt instinctively that there was something there. Something worth having. It wasn’t just beautiful; there was more to this estate, an unusual tranquillity. It felt as if they had been transported to a parallel universe where every television, cell phone, computer, and tablet had been simultaneously switched off. As if the endless buzz of the world had gone silent within these thick walls. At the same time, an inexplicable and vaguely forbidding atmosphere seemed to have settled there. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it. This is so beautiful it takes my breath away, and yet it gives me the creeps, she thought.

But she pushed that feeling away, deciding it must be Björk’s ghost stories lingering in her mind.

‘First I’ll show you the manor house, where we work,’ said Madeleine. ‘Then I’ll show you the annexes, where our guests work through our program.’

Sofia wondered whether Oswald was there. She stared up at the many windows of the manor and it occurred to her that he might be looking down on them from up there. She found herself wishing she could meet him again.

The fire has almost gone out.

The last glowing coals tremble at the bottom of the charred wood.

We’re enveloped in darkness. I can barely make out her features.

She tosses on a little more wood, pokes it, and gets a nice fire going again.

In the glow of the flames she looks like a witch with her thick red hair and cat eyes.

‘What does he do to you?’ I ask.

‘You know what he does,’ she says, turning away.

‘I don’t want that bastard touching you.’

‘Oh, he’s just a dirty old man. He only gropes me. He gives me whatever I want as long as I let him. That’s the way it is, when you’re adopted. They think they own you. You know?’

‘He doesn’t go all the way?’

‘Jesus, no. He’s not like that.’

‘I thought he and my mom were messing around,’ I say.

‘That’s not a bad idea. They’d be a good pair.’

A sudden image appears in my mind: his head on the body of a mosquito. A stupid mosquito that flies into the fire and burns up.

‘You’ll long to go back to him once I’m finished with you,’ I say.

And she finally laughs.

3

The view from the large windows afforded a glimpse of the sea beyond the forest. The waves rolled in, crashing against the cliffs and tossing up foam.

They were on the third floor of the manor house, where the staff worked. Madeleine had herded them quickly up the stairs, explaining that the first and second floors were still being renovated into living areas for the staff. It smelled like wet concrete and sawdust down there. They could hear a table saw, and they had to climb over a large roll of insulation near the landing.

Nothing was in need of renovation up here. Everything — walls, ceilings, and furniture — was a glistening white or pale grey. There were no interior walls, just an open-plan office with desks and computers scattered here and there. The staff seemed to sit wherever they liked; everyone appeared to be in high spirits, offering smiles and friendly nods. There were two doors on the other side of the large room. Madeleine noticed that Sofia’s gaze was drawn to them.

‘Those are offices for Franz and the staff manager,’ she said. ‘Otherwise everyone works in this area. Aside from those who take care of the guests and the farm, of course.’

Sofia looked back at the doors, wondering if Oswald would emerge and whether he was even in his office, but she didn’t want to ask.

‘So it’s a working farm?’ Wilma asked.

‘Yes, we’re almost completely self-sufficient,’ Madeleine stated with pride. ‘We grow all our own vegetables and fruit here, and we make our own milk and butter. We’ve even got some sheep. And the manor house is heated with solar and geothermal energy. But those of us who work up here are actually Franz’s staff. We take care of personnel matters, mail, purchasing, and that sort of thing, so Franz can focus on his lectures and research.’

‘Could you tell us a little about Franz Oswald?’ Sofia said. ‘Where he’s from, things he’s done?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Madeleine said brusquely, sounding slightly annoyed. ‘Franz wants us to focus on the guests and the program, not on him. He is what he is. Our leader.’

Sofia considered Madeleine’s profile. She looked anxious and a bit distracted.

‘But you don’t pray to Oswald, or worship him?’

‘No, of course not! We’re not a bunch of fanatics, if that’s what you’re thinking.’ Madeleine’s voice had risen into a falsetto. Their conversation was about to go off the rails, but Wilma took over. She guided them back to the right track so skilfully that Madeleine probably wasn’t even aware of how her tense features smoothed out again. They went back to polite questions and mild flattery.

Fifty people on staff? Wow. What kind of work do they do? What a fantastic job you’ve done with this place! Wilma could butter anyone up.

Sofia listened with half an ear as she gazed out at the cubicles again. She wondered if the staff were as happy as they seemed and found herself thinking that if everything Madeleine had told them was true, this place would definitely count as an environmental organization.

A woman in a chef uniform suddenly popped up beside them.

‘Lunch is served in the guest dining room!’ she said.

‘Okay,’ said Madeleine. ‘Time for you two to get a little taste of what we grow around here.’

The dining room was large and bright, with tall, rectangular windows. The hardwood floor was highly polished and almost completely covered with sheepskin rugs. The chairs and tables were white. The room didn’t have the usual food smells; instead a faint whiff of seaweed and fish emanated from the kitchen. Muted classical music streamed from the walls. There were guests seated at most of the tables, yet it was surprisingly quiet. The mood was serene, like that of a temple or of a sleepy bar in the early morning hours. Sofia found herself whispering when they spoke.

Her gaze was repeatedly drawn to the other tables, to see if she recognized anyone. Madeleine had mentioned that many of the guests were celebrities. But the other tables weren’t very close by, and she didn’t want to stare.

Lunch was tomato soup and fish with vegetables and herbs. When she was finished eating, she felt a gentle clap on her shoulder. She turned around and there was Oswald, his hands on the back of her chair. He looked angry — even furious.

‘How long have you been here?’ He turned to Madeleine without waiting for a response. ‘I’m the one who invited them, and I wanted to show them around myself.’

His voice was restrained and calm, yet his displeasure settled over them like a heavy blanket. He had no uniform; instead he wore black jeans and a fitted white T-shirt that showed off his muscles and tan. They shook hands and he offered a smile, but its warmth quickly faded.

Madeleine’s cheeks went a deep red. Her head sank so low that her chin nearly rested on her chest.

‘I just thought you had so much to do, and I wanted to help. I figured you had more important things on your schedule,’ she said, nearly whispering.

‘You can go now. I’ll take over,’ he said, waving his hand at her as if she were a pesky fly.

Madeleine slowly slunk out of her chair and disappeared down the aisle with tiny, mincing steps.

Oswald turned to Sofia and smiled again, but irritation lingered in his eyes.

‘I did want to meet with you, but I didn’t know you were coming today and now, as you heard, my schedule is jam-packed. But we can have a look at the guest houses, at least. Did you find the ferry ride agreeable?’

‘Yes, we learned all about the ghosts at the manor,’ Sofia said before she could stop herself. She never could hold her tongue.

But Oswald only laughed.

‘Yes, that Björk is such good advert for us. People end up totally fascinated by the miserable history of the manor. Come meet the evil Countess! But surely you don’t believe all that stuff.’

‘Of course not,’ Wilma said quickly, pinching Sofia’s pinkie finger.

‘Good,’ Oswald said. ‘Then let’s get on with the tour!’

He held the dining room door for them and led them to the annexes. He walked close to Sofia, holding a gentle hand under her elbow as if to guide her. He was hardly touching her, but it was very purposeful and made her shiver with pleasure.

She wasn’t the sort of person who turned heads in the street, yet Oswald had chosen to be close to her — even though Wilma was right there, with her busty figure and confident gait.

Before they reached the buildings, his hand brushed the area between hip and back where all the nerves meet, and the contact almost took her breath away.

The guest-house annexes looked like barracks with a row of numbered doors on the front side, but the solid timber and massive iron door handles hinted at the good quality of the construction. An expensive renovation, just like the manor house.

‘Let’s see!’ Oswald said, taking a key from his pocket. ‘Number five should be empty right now. This is a typical room. They’re all nearly identical.’

The room was actually a suite, made up of a living room, bedroom, and bathroom. It still smelled new, like lumber and plastic.

They poked around, curious, but all Oswald was interested in was describing the lighting and ventilation, which he said was absolutely revolutionary.

‘The ceiling light emits ultraviolet rays, to counteract reactions to the lack of sunlight in the winter. The ventilation system constantly lets in fresh air, and if the air is cold it is automatically warmed. All the walls are completely soundproofed, so you’re never disturbed in your sleep. As you can see, there’s no TV or computer. The guests don’t use their phones while they’re here either. We have a computer in the common room, for emergencies. But tranquillity is the goal here. You have to dare to leave behind what you think is essential to discover what is truly essential.’

He paused to make sure they were still with him.

‘But the most important part is the bedroom. Come here, I’ll show you.’

He herded them into the room, closed the door, and pressed a button, and black curtains unfurled to cover the windows. It was pitch black.

‘Now there’s not a speck of light,’ he said. ‘You won’t even be able to see the outlines of the furniture. This is how you must sleep for the body to get true rest. Fascinating, isn’t it?’

Sofia shuddered and held tight to Wilma’s shirtsleeve. This reminded her of the first time she had slept out in the country when she was little. She had woken up in the middle of the night, in the dark, and thought she had gone blind. She had screamed her head off until her mother turned the lights on and off probably a hundred times to show her that she hadn’t lost her sight. Yet she had been incurably afraid of the dark ever since.

At last, Oswald put the lights back on and led them back into daylight. Then they headed for the recreational area, which had a sauna, saltwater pool, and gym. In one corner of the gym was a contraption three metres high; it looked like a metal egg.

‘What’s that?’ Sofia asked.

‘You can go in there and train your perception. Sound, light, colours, smells, temperatures — all the impressions that are thrown at you in a holy mess in your daily life. In “the egg”, as we call it, you can experience them all separately. It’s an important part of our program.’

They passed a large classroom full of people studying. Some were reading; others were sitting still on chairs, their eyes closed.

‘This is where we study the theses,’ Oswald said.

Sofia had comments and questions on the tip of her tongue, but Oswald looked at his watch and suddenly seemed to be in a rush.

‘You can see the farm and the greenhouse next time,’ he said. ‘But there is something I’d like to show you before you head home.’

He took them to a freestanding building alongside the guesthouses — a wooden structure with a porch; it might have originally been a servants’ quarters. Sofia was expecting more hypermodern design inside, but this house was completely empty: just floors, walls, and endless bookshelves. It smelled pleasantly of wood and polish, and the afternoon sun had just found its way through the windows to form a golden streak on the floor.

‘This is going to be our library,’ Oswald said, giving her a meaningful look.

‘I see . . .’ she said hesitantly.

‘I’ve heard you’re a whiz at literature, that you love books.’

‘Where’d you hear that?’

‘It said on the form you filled out after the lecture that you just received your bachelor’s degree in literature.’ He was giving her that significant look again. ‘I need someone who can create a real library here. With books that fit in with our philosophy. There are no limits, financially. All that matters is that it’s done right.’

‘So you need a librarian?’

‘No, what I don’t need is a librarian, with old-fashioned ideas about what should be in a library. I need someone who can think independently. So when I saw your form, I thought of you. And then I noticed that Wilma studied literature too, and I thought maybe I had found the right people for the job.’

Sofia was astounded. He had just offered them a job.

‘What’s the catch?’

‘You’d have to become part of the staff, of course. We work on contract. Two years at a time. And I’m not sure whether you two have boyfriends . . .’

‘We don’t have boyfriends, but I’m not signing any contract,’ Sofia said firmly. ‘No matter how interesting it sounds.’

Wilma cleared her throat. A small warning, to let Sofia know she was about to cross a line into rudeness again. But Oswald didn’t look defeated; if anything, he was amused.

‘I thought as much. But I have a suggestion. Come for two weeks and go through the program, like our guests do. No cost to you, no commitment. If you still don’t want to take over the library when you’re done, you can go right back home again.’

Sofia and Wilma looked at each other, speechless. Wilma was just about to open her mouth, and Sofia knew what would come out. The trip to Rhodes with her mother, the internship she’d arranged at a newspaper, blah blah blah. But Wilma closed her mouth again and smiled at Oswald.

‘Can we talk it over in private and let you know?’

‘Of course! It was nice to have you here. Let me know when you decide. I’ll tell Madde to meet you in the dining room for afternoon coffee before you leave.’

He was already walking off, but then he turned around and looked directly at Sofia.

‘You seem clear-sighted. I’m sure you can tell that this place is something very special.’

Then he winked at her, turned on his heel, and vanished.

*

Everything was silent on the ferry home. She hardly heard the shrieking of the gulls, the lapping of the waves, or the pleasant hum of the engine. Her thoughts were torn, bouncing around inside her head like tiny demons. The peaceful, well-organized atmosphere of the manor clashed with her own chaotic life. And the thought of working with books was a tempting one.

Wilma was also noticeably quiet; she was staring down at the foam where the keel of the ferry broke the surface.

‘Jesus, what a place!’ she said.

Sofia laughed.

‘Like a different universe, right?’

‘I think you should try out the program.’

‘Without you?’

‘I promised to go to Rhodes with my mom, and I can’t blow off this new job. And you were obviously the one he was into. The air practically crackled when he looked at you.’

Sofia’s cheeks grew warm.

‘Oh, quit it. But who knows, maybe I’ll do it. No way I’m signing any contract, though.’

‘Of course not,’ Wilma said.

Sofia was dragged back into the roiling sea of thoughts in her mind. But then the mainland came into sight on the horizon and the sound of the sea and the ferry engine returned. It was as if the sea was a bridge between two worlds — the real world, where they were headed, and the strange, dreamlike world they had just left.

She didn’t know whether this new world, the one she had just discovered, was a new adventure awaiting her, or just a creepy illusion.

I’m practically right next to him before he notices me.

He’s fixing the chicken wire, on his knees in the dirt. He has put his garden gloves on the ground and is holding the barbed wire with his bare hands.

His entire being disgusts me. The start of a bald patch on the top of his head, the sweat gathering in beads on his neck, and the pungent odour of grime, earth, and grass pouring off him.

I lean down, place my mouth near his ear, and say ‘Hello, Doctor!’

Loudly.

He jumps and seems relieved once he realizes it’s me. He looks like a little piglet, lying there in the dirt.

‘Well hello there, Fredrik! Nice to see you.’

‘Not that nice,’ I say.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean it’s not so nice, what you do to Lily.’

Sudden, naked fear appears on his face and he readies his fat, protruding lips. But I cut him off before he can say a word.

‘You don’t need to say anything. I know everything, do you understand me? She told me the whole damn thing, but I’m not going to tattle. Why would I?’

He starts to speak again but I put up my hand, and then I feel the rush, that intoxicating mixture of power and strength.

He squints up at me; the sun is at my back. I want him to see me like this, like a backlit angel of justice.

‘All I want is for you to leave us alone,’ I say. ‘And I want access to the attic. I need to look for something there.’

‘Of course you can go in the attic, Fredrik. But what on earth did Lily tell you?’ He makes an attempt to get up. I just turn my back on him.

‘You know perfectly well what she told me,’ I say as I walk away.

I’m so pleased that I have to repress the urge to do a little victory dance there in the sunlight. Now I’ll have Lily to myself and free run of the estate.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a plan. A grand plan.

He is only a tiny, flimsy part of it. And anyway, it’s all for his own good.

4

It was unusually dark when she woke. She felt rested, but something was wrong. Her eyes searched for her digital alarm clock, but there was only blackness. Her fear of the dark strangled her for a moment, until she realized where she was. Far from home, out on the island. That was the way of things here — no light at all when you were sleeping. Although she had left a tiny crack at the bottom of the roller blind, in spite of the ban.

She fumbled for the button on the bed frame, and as she pressed it the room was slowly bathed in a warm, gentle light. The clock became visible: quarter past ten! She had overslept again. ‘Use your mental clock,’ they had told her. ‘Decide when you will wake up, and it will happen.’ But so far that wasn’t working for her.

Breakfast was only served until ten, but that didn’t matter. She would take a walk around the island before lunch.

She had been there for three days, and completed the first step, which was called ‘unwinding’. It really just meant that you ate, slept, and took walks. And did a few hours of what they called ‘altruistic work’ — in other words, free labour for them, because it involved working in the fields or pottering in the gardens. It didn’t matter, though; it was pleasant to weed flowerbeds. Today she would meet with a personal advisor and receive her program plan, and she was curious how it would go. But most of all she was curious about Oswald’s theses.

Outside it was cloudy and calm, and the property was quiet aside from some bleating sheep. She decided to walk to the lookout point and gaze out at the sea for a while. A path led there from the manor, but this time she walked through the forest. She wanted to test her ability to navigate the terrain.

Most of the trees were pine or birch, lined up in tight, symmetrical patterns. Here and there an oak or spruce competed for sunlight, but they remained short and straggly in the shadow of the majestic pines. It had rained during the night and the forest smelled like wet moss and earth. The trees were heavy with raindrops that clung to the leaves.

She got lost straight away, but then she heard water burbling in a small brook between the trees. The water was rushing so fast that it had to be coming from somewhere higher up.

She followed the brook and found herself in a clearing. She stopped, inhaling the moist air, enjoying the sensation. Suddenly she felt observed. When she looked up, she spotted a bird sitting before her, perched on a pine branch and staring with keen eyes. A buzzard or sea eagle. It wouldn’t look away. She cursed ViaTerra’s ban on phones, which had just cost her an incredible photo op. But then something creaked in the woods and the spell was broken. The bird flapped its wings and soared up to the grey sky with a mewing, plaintive call. She kept walking, and soon she could see the lookout point through the trees.

Beyond the large heath and just before the cliffs plunged to the sea, there was a bench. She sat down and looked out at the water. The sky was clearing. Behind the wall of cloud on the horizon rose more clouds, fat and fluffy, like giants on their way to the island. She focused her gaze on them and began to daydream. She sat just like that, perfectly still, for a long time.

Her rumbling stomach finally brought her back down to earth.

She jogged back to the manor, and by the time she stepped into the dining room it was half past noon. As she waited to be served, she noticed a new guest: Ellen Vingås, the opera star, was sitting alone in front of a large portion of food. Just as Sofia’s plate arrived at the table she was interrupted by an ‘ahem.’ An unnaturally thin guy was standing before her, smiling. She immediately recognized him from Oswald’s lecture in Lund. It was the guy who had insisted that she and Wilma fill out forms.

‘Sofia, my name is Olof Hurtig and I’ll be your personal advisor. Enjoy your lunch, and then I want to see you in my office. We’ll plan your program.’

His small goatee bobbed as he spoke.

‘Sure, is your office in the main building?’

Sofia had hoped to run into Oswald there. She hadn’t seen him yet.

‘No, all guest service takes place here in the annexes. The offices are right next to the gym. There’s a small room there, and that’s where I’ll be waiting for you.’

She ate up her food, ravenous.

Hurtig was waiting at a desk in a little room just behind the gym. The visitor’s chair was so low to the floor that whoever sat behind the desk was transformed into a lofty god.

‘Let’s see now, Sofia. I’ve got your file here.’

He opened the folder before him.

‘A file? I didn’t know I had a file here.’

‘Don’t worry. Everything you say here is confidential. We are bound by professional secrecy.’

‘But I only got here three days ago. How could I have a file?’

‘It’s just your form and a few notes from the interview when you first came to the island.’

The folder contained a whole stack of paper, not just a few sheets, but he went on before she could point this out.

‘I see a pattern here,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Someone who has caused you pain and anxiety. A great betrayal. Maybe a failed relationship, could that be right?’

Her head was spinning. Had he Googled her? How could he know about all of that?

‘Maybe, I guess, but how did you know . . .’

Hurtig shifted in his chair. He seemed incapable of sitting still: he leaned across the desk, clearly delighted at her reaction.

‘Don’t look so surprised. It’s our job to read people. Let’s talk about your program instead, how we’re going to help you take control of your life.’

He scribbled furiously, nodding now and again. He held up the paper when he was finished.

8:00–10:00: workout and breathing exercises

10:00–12:00: altruistic work . . .

The schedule went on, noting mealtimes, time in the egg, thesis study in the evening. She wondered how this could possibly be different from everyone else’s programs, but before she could ask, Hurtig stood up and put out his hand.

‘Sofia, it’s been a pleasure. Good luck with the program!’

The only time he had taken his eyes from her was when he was writing her schedule. He was still staring at her, confident that she would turn around and leave. And so she did. Her legs just stood up, and her body followed. Then she felt the urge to go back and demand to see everything in her file. But did it really matter? The things he’d said could be true of anyone. Were there any women who weren’t carrying the baggage of a failed relationship or two?

A few days later, she made a discovery in the woods. Her schedule was stricter, but there was still time for morning walks. Sure, they were expected to be brisk walks, to stimulate the circulation, but Sofia was only out for a stroll that day.

She had returned to the clearing. Her iPhone was in her pocket, in case the eagle showed up again. Naturally, the tree it had been in was empty, but then she caught a glimpse of something red through the foliage. Just twenty metres from the clearing was a summer cottage, in the middle of the forest. It was small, and the overgrown lot it sat on was only a few hundred metres square.

Out front was a wind-torn hammock and some shabby outdoor furniture. Inside, the blinds were down.

She walked into the yard. Someone must have been there recently, because at one end of the house stood a rusty wheelbarrow half full of last year’s leaves. Behind the cottage she found a watering can, empty pots, and a bag of potting soil. She returned to the front and tried the door handle. The door swung open. I’m really intruding now, she thought, but she stepped inside anyway. The front room was both kitchen and living room, with a gas stove, a table, and a kitchen bench. The curtains were crocheted in white lace that had yellowed with cooking fumes and become dotted with fly droppings. It smelled a little musty, thanks to the raw, damp air, but it didn’t seem mouldy. And there was a fireplace with newspapers in a neat pile next to a stack of wood.

She picked up one paper and looked at the date. It was almost a year old.

There was one more room, a bedroom with a single bed and a dresser. The wallpaper was white and patterned with beach balls and snails. The bedspread was crocheted in the same white lace as the kitchen curtains.

She searched for the bathroom. There was only a toilet and a sink, no shower. She wondered if the water was on and tried the faucet, which sputtered and released a thin stream of water. Incredible, out here in the middle of the forest, she thought. She knew she had to leave now to get back before the program started, but she couldn’t tear herself away.

There was a dusty bureau in the living room. The top drawer was full of newspaper clippings. She picked up a scrap of paper on the rag rug before the bureau; it was a ferry ticket bearing yesterday’s date. She suddenly felt like someone was watching her and whirled around. The front door banged in the breeze, creaking on its hinges, but the cottage was empty. She let the ticket flutter to the floor and went outside. The sun had found a crack between the trees and was shining on the lawn in front of the house.

There was no one there.

*

That evening she ate dinner with a man and woman in their fifties. The man introduced himself as Wilgot Östling, chief of the county police; his wife, Elsa, was an accountant. Ellen Vingås joined them as well. She was a large woman with lively brown eyes and dark skin. Her laugh was burbling and infectious, and she kept the conversation going with stories about life in the opera world. It was impossible not to enjoy her company. The Östlings talked about how wonderful the program was, dropping words like down-to-earth, peacefulness, and vitality.

‘How are things going for you, Sofia?’ Ellen asked.

‘Oh, fine — I just got my program.’

‘Me too. The guy who planned it for me must be a mind-reader. That, or he Googled all my online biographies. Oh well, a little relaxation can’t hurt.’

‘It’s a lot more than that for me,’ said Elsa Östling. ‘It feels like I’ve finally come down from the stress of my job. I feel as cool as a cucumber, in fact.’

Her husband nodded in agreement.

‘I’ve known Franz since he started ViaTerra. If there’s anyone that can put a dent in the level of stress we have in this damn country, it’s Franz. He’s created a real oasis here.’

‘But what happens when you go back to real life?’ Ellen asked. ‘How can you be sure you won’t go right back to eating McDonald’s and sneaking alcohol?’

She laughed so shrilly that the guests at the next table turned around.

Elsa looked at Ellen in alarm. Wilgot looked offended.

‘I think it’s up to each individual to change his own life. To keep making use of everything we learn here,’ he said.

Ellen turned to Sofia.

‘We’ll see how it goes. If it all goes to hell, we can always find some other nutso self-improvement group somewhere. There are plenty of them.’

Sofia laughed. She hoped she would get to talk to Ellen again.

*

After dinner she looked in on what would eventually become the library. The door was open, and the building was even more beautiful now that the sun was setting and casting an orange glow across the spacious room. She imagined what it would look like with books everywhere, large sofas, a modern computer system.

At last she went to the common room next to the dining room to use the shared computer. She wrote an email to her parents and promised to come home for a visit in a few weeks.

Her thoughts wandered to Ellis. He had completely flipped out when she broke up with him, throwing things and screaming like a madman. Then came the blog: posts and comments about her that popped up all over the internet. It had all culminated in a few pornographic images with Sofia’s face pasted in. Anyone could tell that the pictures had been Photoshopped, but it didn’t matter. They made her feel awful.

Her thoughts of Ellis caused her to shudder as she worried about what he might do next.

She peered over her shoulder to make sure no one was looking, then fished out her phone and placed it next to the keyboard. She texted Wilma a summary of the first couple of days and ended by writing, Have you heard from Ellis? Feels like he’s haunting my brain again.

Was it the book, the cape, or the cave that came first?

Right, it was the cave, it must have been. Definitely the cave.

The sun is setting. We’ve climbed all the way down the cliffs to catch the crabs that get stuck in the little cavities between the rocks. I show her how you can crush them with your shoe and throw them out to the crying gulls. She’s wearing a short denim skirt. Her legs are so tan; smooth, long, and delicious. She turns to me and the sun catches in her tangled hair so it glows like a flame. It looks like someone is holding a match to her head.

I think about taking her with me after all, but I don’t know what role she could play in my plan. How I would use her.

She squints up at the cliffs, pointing.

‘Look, Fredrik!’

I look up and see it: an opening in the rock that gapes like a missing tooth.

We climb up. The hole is tall and deep, but the entrance is blocked with driftwood and rocks, probably deposited by the most recent storm. We pull and tug, clearing and overturning, tossing rocks and wood down to the water, until the opening is free.

Then we crawl in and sit down on the cave floor.

‘I bet you can get in from above,’ she said. ‘Just climb down the cliff rocks.’

I nod, pulling her closer. I press her onto the cold floor. We wrestle for a bit and I get my hands under her shirt.

‘Not here,’ she says. ‘It’s too cold on my bum.’ She sits up and looks around the cave. ‘This place is awesome!’ she says with a grin.

We sit there for a while, quiet, watching through the cave opening as the sun sinks into the sea.

5

She continued to think of Ellis now and then, but she still felt unusually at ease. The fresh air, healthy food, and good sleep had put her body into a pleasant torpor. Then came the theses, which shook her right out of it.

Although it didn’t start off on such a good note.

‘This is a blank piece of paper!’ she said, looking at Olof Hurtig, who was standing before her with an expectant gaze.

‘I know, Sofia. Maybe you should read the first thesis again.’ He placed it in front of her, on top of the blank sheet of paper.

Thesis #1: Your inner self knows everything.

There is a voice inside you that isn’t really a voice. If you learn to listen to it, you, the dreamer, will awaken from your dream. This voice has many names: a sixth sense, clairvoyance, vibes, or ESP. But we call it intuition.

This voice is like the sun on a cloudy day. Even when the clouds cover the sky, and even during the darkest night, the sun is shining. The clouds and the darkness are your mental distractions, which keep you from reaching your inner self.

Exercise: Your advisor will give you a portal into your mind. Observe it and search for your inner self.

‘I already read that,’ she said. ‘Why should I sit here staring at a blank piece of paper?’

‘Do as it says in the exercise,’ said Olof.

She felt disappointed and duped, and resentment was buzzing in her head like a bee, so she just stared sulkily at him.

‘Why is the text so short? I thought the theses were real essays.’

‘The truth is always simple, Sofia.’

‘Yes, but isn’t staring at a piece of paper taking it a little far?’

He gave her a sympathetic smile.

‘Let’s say that this paper is your mind. It’s perfectly blank, and you can do whatever you want with it. That’s why we call it a portal. What do you see on this paper, Sofia?’

‘Nothing!’

‘Exactly. Try to find the empty space in your mind, and you’ll find your self.’

I’m glad I didn’t have to pay for this, she thought, fixing her eyes on the white sheet. Her boiling anger gradually cooled and she let her eyes relax until the paper grew blurry. She sat staring for a long time. Time seemed to disappear, until finally she felt something: weightlessness and relief. Some mass around her head seemed to disperse.

She took her eyes from the paper and looked up at Olof.

‘I feel lighter. Weightless.’

His face split into a broad smile. He nodded eagerly and put a hand on her shoulder.

‘Good! What you felt was your inner self. It’s that simple. We’ll move on to thesis number two tomorrow.’

Her disappointment ebbed away later that night. Her spirits really did feel lighter. Colours were brighter, sounds sharper, and her laugh a little warmer. She noticed it all and felt pleasantly surprised.

The next evening, she went to the classroom with low expectations. Olof was already wound up, rubbing his hands and beaming at her with that smile that almost distorted his narrow face. She looked around, wondering if everyone else in the room had also found the first thesis peculiar. They looked so unconcerned, as if staring at a piece of paper was the most natural thing in the world. Ellen Vingås was there too, laughing so loudly that her advisor shushed her. The only decoration on the white walls was a poster with the English phrase Simplicity is power.

Sofia wondered why it wasn’t in Swedish, but maybe the Swedish didn’t sound as nice.

‘Thesis number two!’ Olof said. ‘Are you ready?’

She nodded and sat down in front of him.

Thesis #2. You are your past.

What you are right now is a culmination of everything you’ve ever thought or done, and everything that has been done to you. You are the sum of your subjective and objective experiences. Thus you can change yourself through the thousands of choices you face each day. All the power you will ever find already exists within you, in your past.

Exercise: Your advisor will teach you to draw strength and energy from your memories.

‘We’ll be doing this exercise in my office,’ Olof said. ‘So we can work undisturbed.’

He closed the blinds halfway when they entered his small office, making everything look pale and grey. She sank into the puffy visitor’s chair while he fished a small piece of paper from the desk drawer.

‘Now close your eyes. I’m going to give you a few simple commands, and you should tell me what you’re seeing and thinking.’

The commands were brief, but he dragged out the words in a deep voice that was almost a whisper.

Remember a time when you felt strong.

Remember a time when you felt triumphant.

Remember a time when life was easy.

Recall your first achievement.

There seemed to be endless variations on the question, and he always had the next command on the tip of his tongue. She had a hard time recalling at first, but then incidents began to pop up. Hidden memories. Lovely images.

‘What do I do if a bad memory pops up?’ she asked, because she had been reminded of a bike accident when she had broken her arm.

‘Did you feel strong that time? Superior?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘Then we’ll ignore it. Just find another memory.’

They went on like that for a few hours, until Olof’s voice began to fade out and she felt warm inside, a little fuzzy — almost giggly. She sank into a warm darkness where she was alone with her images, and Olof’s voice was way off in the distance.

Then came an image that was extra clear and colourful. A pair of tiny feet tottering across a lawn, viewed from above. At first she pushed the image aside, because it seemed so unbelievable. But it returned, and she could feel the dew under her feet and her inner joy at the ability to walk. It’s strange that my feet have gotten so big, she thought with a shudder, because all at once she knew the memory was real.

‘I had no idea,’ she heard herself say, but her voice came from far beyond her body.

‘I’m sorry?’ Olof said.

She forced herself to open her eyes, and there he was, looking at her curiously.

‘You said something.’

‘I was thinking out loud, about how I had no idea I could remember so far back. I remembered taking my first steps. It seems incredible, but I know it was real.’

‘And . . .?’ he leaned forward, eager, encouraging her to go on.

‘And I was thinking that the past really is the key to existence.’

Bingo! Olof slapped his hand against the desk.

‘That’s it! That’s it! The exercise is over. We’ll do thesis number three tomorrow.’

*

She was a little nervous as she entered the classroom on the third evening. She wasn’t quite sure why; she only knew that it had to do with losing control, losing herself in the exercises.

‘How many theses are there?’ she asked Olof as soon as they sat down.

‘Five, but you’ll do one through four first and then spend some time practising your new abilities.’

‘Have you read the fifth thesis?’

‘No, no one has yet. Franz is going to release it as soon as five hundred guests have completed the first four. He says the fifth is so powerful that it will take a team, sort of. But right now, for you, let’s focus on number three.’

Thesis #3: One person’s dusk is another’s dawn.

Your true self can only exist free of constant fear of causing offence, wounding, or hurting others. The desire for approval is a scourge on humanity.

Exercise: The process for Thesis 3 is done in the classroom with an advisor who uses this repeated command: ‘Remember a time when you could have helped someone by hurting them.’

She shivered as she finished reading. ‘That sounds brutal.’

‘That’s the point. Your desire for approval is protesting now, not your true self. Now let’s do the exercise.’

But she couldn’t come up with an answer. She squirmed in her chair, distracted by everything that was going on in the classroom as her irritation at the idiotic exercise grew.

‘I can’t think of an answer to your question,’ she stated at last.

‘Then that’s what we’ll say.’

‘What? What do you mean?’

‘Franz says thesis number three isn’t for everyone. There are those who are dominant and those who are submissive. This thesis doesn’t work for the submissive ones.’

‘I’m not submissive, damn it! What are you talking about?’

‘Sofia, it’s not a bad thing. The whole universe is built on dominance and submissiveness. It’s just as natural as how the seagulls in the bay eat herring. Take the rest of the night off and we’ll get started on the fourth thesis tomorrow.’

She was stewing as she left the classroom — that scrawny jerk didn’t know a damn thing about her. Submissive? The very idea was idiotic, ridiculous, and, above all, one hundred percent wrong. And comparing her to a fucking herring! She walked around the yard for a while, then sat by the pond and watched the swans while yanking at the grass.

At last she stood up and walked briskly back to the classroom. Olof Hurtig was still there.

‘Okay, I’ll do the damn exercise.’

His face broke into a smile.

‘I thought so.’

So they started over, and she came up with a few answers to the question, which made her feel a little better. Good enough to Hurtig to let her go for the night.

*

‘This thesis is so simple that it’s best if you don’t use your brain when you answer it, but your heart,’ Hurtig said as he placed the fourth thesis before her.

‘How do I do that?’

‘Just try.’

She read the short text.

Thesis #4: Darkness is the root of light.

A millimetre below the surface of the earth, darkness rules completely. Within your body it is perfectly dark, and yet you are alive and are radiant with energy. The DNA in your cells have no light, yet it is the blueprint for what you are. Darkness is the root of light.

Exercise: Your advisor will show you to a room that is perfectly dark. This is all you have to do: sit in compete darkness until you can see.

‘I can’t do this exercise,’ she said at once.

‘Not this again, Sofia.’

‘You don’t understand. I’m afraid of the dark. I can’t handle being closed up in a pitch black room.’

‘But you sleep in total darkness here.’

‘It’s different when I’m asleep,’ she lied, because she always left a little gap under the blind.

‘I’ll be right outside the room the whole time,’ Hurtig promised. ‘If you panic, all you have to do is knock on the door and I’ll open it. You can at least try, can’t you?’

*

The room was at the far end of the building. The atmosphere there was very different from the classrooms. The air was raw and stale and there was a heavy smell of body odour from someone who must have sat there for a while. There was a chair in the middle of the room, which was otherwise empty.

‘It’s creepy in here.’

‘It’s not meant to be comfortable.’

She walked in slowly and sat down on the chair.

‘The room is soundproofed,’ he said. ‘But I’ll hear you if you knock on the door.’

The door closed with a heavy thud.

At first, she was paralyzed by the silence rather than the darkness. It was so quiet that the whole world seemed to have disappeared. She could hear her pulse and a strange, gurgling buzz in her ears. That’s the blood flowing through my veins, she thought. My hearing has moved into my body.

Then the darkness crept in under her clothes and found every last nook and cranny of her body, settling in her armpits and groin, tightening over her larynx until she could hardly breathe. Then came the familiar waves of sweat, starting with nausea and spreading heat to her chest, hands, and forehead until she was drenched.

I can’t handle this. I need out, out!

And just then, it happened. She found herself outside. Not just outside her body; that didn’t exist anymore, but outside the whole island. She was floating way up in the sky.

Everything was bright colours. There were the lookout point and the cliffs plunging into the sea; the big woods and the harbour, where the boats looked like little toys.

The wall curled around the manor like a white snake. The swans in the pond were two tiny white dots. The air was thin and she herself was ethereal and warm. Everything was moving in slow motion. The crowns of the trees blew gently in the wind and the sun was like a golden rain falling all over the landscape. She didn’t know how long it lasted. When she asked Olof later, he only shrugged. But when she returned to her room, her fear was gone. The darkness was gentle and comforting, like a warm bath.

I saw! I saw without using my eyes!

She knocked on the door.

The light blinded her when Hurtig opened up, but she was only grateful that she didn’t have to look at his smile when she told him what had happened. She only heard him clapping his hands together and rubbing them, and laughing.

‘There you go, Sofia! You’re ready! You’ve achieved the final phenomenon of the fourth thesis.’

*

In the days that followed, everything felt different: a peculiar new calmness in her body. Harmony. Tranquillity. The very sensation she’d come to the island to find. To think that I’m always so worried, she thought. Consciously or unconsciously, it was always something she fretted about. The vague sense of panic that had been her constant companion had gone up in smoke.

She completed the final phase of the program, a second winding-down, where you just sat in the classroom with your eyes closed for a little while each day. You were expected to practise drawing power from your memories, but she mostly sat there enjoying how good it all felt.

On the third day, Hurtig approached and shook her shoulder, waking her from her reverie.

‘Franz wants to see you. Right away!’

It sounded as if God Himself had called her to a summit.

She knew where Oswald’s office was, but no one answered after a few knocks so she stepped inside. Entering his office was like stepping into a spaceship. There were no pictures on the walls, no flowers, not even a single photograph — there were only white walls with enormous windows that looked out over the sea. She could see the lookout point in the distance. The office was otherwise full of electronics: computers, printers, screens, and gadgets she didn’t even know the names of. It occurred to her that this was odd, given that computers were forbidden at ViaTerra, but perhaps computers were indispensable when you were the boss.

Oswald himself was sitting at a large desk, absorbed in reading something on a computer. He didn’t look up when she came in. Madeleine, who was sitting at a much smaller desk in the far corner of the office, put a finger to her lips and gave Sofia a sharp look. Don’t disturb him, the look plainly said. Sofia cautiously took a seat in the visitor’s chair before Oswald.

He was wearing a T-shirt again. She noticed that the muscles of his back were taut and wondered if he was tensing them on purpose. There was a strange gleam in his eyes when he swung around in his chair, as if he expected her to say something. But she didn’t know what. His presence was so strong that she lost her composure and couldn’t speak.

‘Sofia, congratulations! I heard you finished the program. I hope it all went well.’

‘It was fantastic. Better than I expected.’

He drummed his fingers on the desk good-naturedly.

‘So, can I have your answer about the library now?’

‘Well, hmm, I’m interested, I just have to talk to everyone at home first.’

He leaned forward, placing his hand over hers on the desk. It was dry and warm. Hers jumped at his touch, but she didn’t pull it away.

‘No, you don’t get time to think it over, Sofia.’

‘Why not?’

‘The thing is, I think you’ve already made up your mind,’ he said, pressing her hand ever so slightly.

It was as if someone else were speaking through her. The words just fell from her mouth. She could see herself in profile, from outside her body as her mouth opened and the words slipped from her tongue.

‘Then I guess my answer is yes.’

Her voice echoed back at her as if from a void.

Oh my god. What have I gotten myself into?

‘You won’t regret it,’ he said, letting go of her hand and leaning back in his chair. ‘I’m sure you have things to take care of before you return, so just call Madeleine and let her know when you’ll be back.’

Then he spun around in his chair and went back to reading.

Madeleine shooed her from the office.

She stood outside his door for a long time, at a loss, shaken over what had just happened.

*

There would be innumerable times, later in life, when she would search her mind. Why on earth? What got into me? How could I? She always came to the same conclusion: it was a combination of factors. A seductive, irresistible blend. The beautiful island, the breadth of luxury, the food, the sleep, the feelings left behind after the theses; but above all, and she would be ashamed of this and have trouble admitting it to herself, it was Oswald and his power of attraction. This wasn’t a sect or a cult; it was something completely different. Almost like a new world — a microscopic vision of the future, brought to life.

ViaTerra was different.

But hindsight is twenty-twenty.

At the time, despite being disconcerted and sweaty all over, she still knew she had to come back to the island. Otherwise she would continue to be drawn there, like a moth to a flame.

And as she stood there in the corridor, alternately kicking herself and feeling bursts of dizzying euphoria, she found that she had a ridiculous smile on her lips.

We return to the cave several times.

We watch the rain move in over the bay and whip at the sea.

At night, we see the moon make a glittering path across the surface.

The cave is my special place. I can think clearly here. I think about my plan almost constantly. I examine it from every angle, picking at its seams; it’s as if I’m spinning a net that will one day cover the whole island.

Sometimes I’m so deep in thought that she shakes me for answers to her meaningless chatter. Then I wrestled her to the floor and grab her by the throat until her legs kick like crazy. A sign of her submission.

I know now that I can’t take her with me. She’s too flighty, and besides I’ve already explored every corner of her body and she’s starting to feel like a milk carton, once the milk is gone.

Although I will miss the cave.

The power in its hard walls.

You can see the whole universe from here.

You can even see the future, like a mirage on the horizon.

6

Her light-heartedness remained.

The constant worry in the back of her head was gone. She’d heard of people who didn’t even know they had a headache until it went away, and that was exactly what this felt like. This is my real self, she thought. A week on this program and I feel like a new person.

What’s more, she had become aware of an exciting mystique that affected the whole island but especially the manor. When she gazed up at the main building, she felt a jolt of excitement in her belly. She was already looking forward to her return.

On her last day, she rented a bicycle and pedalled around the island. She had gotten a ride to the village and left her luggage in a locker near the ferry. She spent the morning sunning herself on the beach and enjoying the scents brought out by the sun: the smell of tar from the fishing shacks and the pungent odour of the seaweed bobbing at the shore. She ate lunch at an outdoor café on a pier. The restaurant was packed with tourists. It really was high summer now.

There were so many people in the village that the narrow cobblestone streets were crowded. Most of the buildings were clustered around the square, where the ferry docked, but the village had climbed up the cliffs and some cottages rested high above the sea. She wondered what it would be like to live up there in the fall, when the storms drew in over the island.

There was a small souvenir shop on the square, and she went in to look for something for Wilma and her parents. Suddenly, Ellen Vingås appeared, tan and wearing a colourful summer dress that showed off the better part of her large bust.

‘Sofia, it’s so nice to run into you!’

‘Same to you. It’s my last day here.’

‘Mine too. So how did it go?’

‘Oh, it was great. I’m coming back. I’m going to help out with the library.’

She didn’t want to say that she would be joining the staff. That would seem too hasty, and she didn’t want the famous singer to think she was so easily taken in.

‘How did the theses go?’ she asked Vingås.

‘Well, I liked number one and number three. I didn’t get four; nothing much happened when I did it. But overall I think it went well.’

‘Funny. It was the other way around for me. I liked number four best.’

‘Imagine that. But now I’m headed home, back to the daily grind. We’ll see if this good feeling lasts. It sure as hell did make a dent in the old finances!’ she said with a shrill laugh.

A couple of women who were inspecting some porcelain shot her a look of alarm.

She dug through her large handbag and pulled out a small card, which she handed to Sofia. ‘My card — let me know if you happen to be in Stockholm sometime and I’ll get you some opera tickets.’

Sofia watched as Vingås left the shop, her hips swaying. She really wanted to meet her again.

At last she found a set of mugs with island motifs for her parents, and a little brochure of nature photography for Wilma.

She decided to bike to the north end of the island. It was as if the lookout point were calling her to it one last time.

The wind was coming from the east for a change and waves crashed persistently against the cliffs to her right. The wind whipped at her hair and whined in the spokes. Gulls sailed freely on the breeze.

She parked the bike at the end of the road and began to cross the heath toward the lookout point. When she gazed out at the sea, she saw someone standing on Devil’s Rock and looking down at the water. She squinted, trying to make out the figure, but the cliff was too far away. The figure climbed down and vanished from sight, but didn’t show up on the heath. She approached the rock, but there was no one in sight on the cliffs. She toyed with the thought that she had seen the old Count searching for his Countess in the depths. Yet all she could see from the edge of the cliff was the clear, dark water that seemed never to end; at least, the bottom wasn’t visible.

She sat down on the cliff and dangled her legs over the edge. You could almost see the curve of the earth at the horizon. From here you can see the beginning and end of the world, she thought. You can see all the way to eternity.

She wanted to visit the cottage one last time, so she left the bike at the edge of the road and set off through the forest.

As soon as she stepped inside, everything seemed different. The rag rug in the entryway was mussed and there was a key ring on the kitchen table. The bedroom door was open and there was someone in the bed. Her first impulse was to turn around and go. But curiosity got the better of her and she sneaked over to the bedroom.

Stretched out on the bedspread, deep in sleep with his mouth open, lay a young man in a grey suit. At first she wanted to wake him up, but that would be embarrassing for both of them. Just as she was about to sneak back out, he opened his eyes.

‘Busted,’ he mumbled, sitting up in the bed and rubbing his eyes.

He had bright, lively eyes. His chin jutted out a bit and his whole face, aside from the very top of his forehead, was covered in freckles. His hair was red, shaggy, and uncombed. Despite his large mane, his head seemed too small for his torso, which was broad and muscular. When he stood up she realized how tall he was — he had to be six foot three, a giant compared to her five-two.

‘Benjamin Frisk,’ he said, putting out his hand. His shirtsleeve slid up, revealing an arm covered in red fuzz. He tried in vain to smooth his wrinkled blazer with the other hand.

She had a few cutting remarks on the tip of her tongue, but she refrained since she didn’t want to contribute to his embarrassment.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked instead.

He smiled, showing a big gap between his front teeth.

‘Shit! I can’t believe you found me like this. Well, maybe you’ve heard that we’re renovating the staff quarters. I’m in charge of shipping and purchasing and stuff, so I’m really busy. I hardly get any sleep.’

‘So you steal a nap here and there?’

‘Yes, that’s about it.’

‘My name is Sofia.’

‘I know who you are. I’ve been spying on you; I’ve seen you come to the cottage and I noticed you in the guest dining room. I was hoping we would run into each other. But not like this.’

‘So how come I’ve never seen you?’

‘I guess I’ve kept my distance. Until now. But have a seat, by all means.’

He pointed at the kitchen table as if he owned the place.

‘I want to know more about this cottage,’ she said once they had sat down. ‘Do you know who owns it, and why it’s always empty?’

‘An old lady owns it. She comes in the summer. That’s all I know.’

‘There’s something special about it. Like, I was drawn here.’

‘It’s in a funny spot. In the middle of the woods.’

They didn’t speak for a moment as they looked at each other. A lone ray of sunlight cut through the gap in the curtains and set fire to the dust, which whirled up to the ceiling like a tiny tornado. There was so much life in his eyes. When she gazed into them she felt a pleasant sort of rush, a stream of warmth trickling through her body.

‘Don’t they miss you when you disappear?’

‘Nah, an hour here and there doesn’t matter. It’s so chaotic down on the first floor.’

‘I have to run to catch the ferry.’

‘When are you coming back?’

‘I have no idea, but it will be soon — I’m going to work in the library.’

‘I know that too. Rumours spread fast in our little group. Can’t you take the morning ferry instead? I know every nook and cranny of this island; I can show you around and —’

‘Not today. But maybe when I come back.’

She glanced at her watch. It was almost four-thirty.

‘Shit! I have to hurry!’ she said, dashing through the front door.

She ran into the woods and toward the heath, but she turned around one last time before she disappeared into the trees.

He was standing on the lawn and gazing after her.

Benjamin Frisk, she thought. Another reason to come back.

She pedalled frantically all the way to the village.

The sun glittered off everything: the asphalt, the bike, the sea, and the cliffs.

We search for the book and find the cape instead.

We sit in the hot, stuffy attic, poring through books that smell like sun-warmed dust and mothballs. Sometimes they fall apart when we pick them up.

‘What are we looking for?’ she asks.

‘A book of family history. It’s supposed to be bound in leather and I’m sure it’s handwritten.’

‘How do you know it’s here?’

‘Mom saw it once. When she was cleaning. She put it up here with the other books.’

She is impatient. She gets up and starts snooping through the attic, getting farther and farther away from me.

Then I hear her voice, far off in the darkness.

‘Fredrik, look at this!’

At first I can’t see her, so I have to stop looking through the books to get up. The interruption infuriates me, but then I see what she’s holding up. A hanger with a big, black velvet cape, hood and all. I recognize it immediately.

‘That belonged to the Countess! The one who killed herself,’ I say.

‘How do you know that?’

‘I saw it in a picture. She’s on a horse, wearing it.’

‘Oh my god, it’s beautiful!’ she says.

‘Put it on!’ I order her.

‘What?’

‘I said, put it on. But take off your clothes first. You have to be naked underneath.’

‘No way. Why?’

‘Just do as I say!’

She obeys, pulling off her skirt and sweater. I shoot a meaningful look at her panties, so she takes those off too. She stands there naked on the attic floor, grinning. Then she sweeps the cape around herself with a dramatic flourish.

Her hair falls across the black velvet like gold.

‘Open the cape and show yourself,’ I say.

She does as I order. The effect is magnificent.

‘Awesome! You have to wear it tonight in the barn,’ I say.

Her only response is a nod, but I can tell that she likes the thought.

I take in the vision of her again. And that’s when the idea comes to me.

Like a lightning bolt out of the blue.

7

‘And your cell phone, laptop, tablet, and anything else like that.’

‘Are you joking?’

‘Do I look like I’m joking?’

No, Bosse — in charge of personnel, as he had introduced himself — didn’t look like he was joking in the least. Like most of the staff, he was young, and he had a blond crew cut and eyes that were so intensely blue that they looked unreal. His presence suggested that he was used to being in charge.

When she stepped into his office, he had looked at her with mild distaste, like she was vermin or an animal that had to be tamed. She immediately found him irritating and put up a mental wall between them, so he would see that he didn’t have any power over her. No sir.

‘Sofia, you’ll have your own locker here. Your belongings will be safe, and of course you can use them on your time off. It’s just that it doesn’t look good when our staff run around with cell phones and tablets. A crucial part of our program is helping our guests free themselves from the need for gadgets. There’s a computer in the staff dining room where you can email your family and friends, or surf the web on your time off.’

Sofia reluctantly placed her iPhone on the desk in front of him. She thought of her laptop, which was in one of her suitcases, but she quickly decided it was none of his business.

‘Computer?’

‘No, I left it at home.’

‘Good choice. You can keep your watch, of course. It’s important to be on time around here.’

He seemed to be examining her, especially her unruly hair, which was probably one big rat’s nest after the ferry ride through the humid air.

‘Maybe you should think about putting your hair up in a bun,’ he suggested.

‘Oh, maybe.’

‘What size skirt and blazer do you wear? For your uniform.’

‘Thirty-four.’

‘And your shoes?’

She had known it was coming.

‘Eight and a half.’

‘Pardon?’

‘I said eight and a half. We have small bodies and big feet in my family. We are firmly planted on the ground.’

The joke was lost on him. He only nodded and made a note. Suddenly she felt uneasy, being there. It was not at all as she had imagined. Her doubt had begun to surface even on the ferry ride over. But by now it was too late to get out of this.

‘Then it’s time to sign your contract,’ Bosse said.

He was well prepared. The contract was in the centre of the desk, under a large, black pen. He handed it to her and she read carefully as her discomfort rose.

‘“I agree to work under temporarily difficult conditions,” what does that mean?’

‘Just that you’re prepared to work hard. It’s necessary sometimes.’

‘And what does “I waive the right to bring action against the organization and its personnel” mean?’

‘Yikes! Surely you’re not planning to sue us? Sofia, you have to sign a contract to be hired at just about any job. It’s nothing new. Confidentiality and all that.’

‘What happens if I change my mind?’

‘You don’t think we’d try to keep you here, do you? We don’t need to force anyone. There are plenty of people who want to work at ViaTerra.’

‘So then why do I need to sign a contract?’

‘Like I said, most jobs require a contract. I don’t understand why you’re being so difficult. Didn’t you know there would be a contract?’

‘Yes, but I hadn’t read it.’

Bosse sighed.

‘Shall we sign now, so I can show you your room?’

*

Together they walked down the stairs to the second floor. Bosse carried one of her big suitcases, and Sofia pulled the other; it bounced loudly down the stairs. A terrible aftertaste still lingered in her mouth after their conversation. She was kicking herself for handing over her iPhone; she couldn’t help but picture inmates subjected to cavity searches in a prison. Maybe he’s right, she thought later. It probably would be wrong for the staff to tweet and text in front of the guests.

‘The first floor is still undergoing renovation,’ Bosse told her. ‘But up here, everything is finished.’

He held open the door to the second floor. The corridor was quiet and still, with new flooring. There were ten neatly numbered doors on either side. Bosse opened number seven. The first thing she noticed was the three beds. So she would be sleeping in a dormitory. Next to each bed was a wardrobe, bureau, and chair. The room was otherwise bare of furniture. The windows didn’t face the sea; instead the view was of the long building behind the manor and the animals grazing in the pasture.

‘As you can see, you have your own wardrobe and bureau,’ Bosse said, with a look at her large suitcases. ‘You won’t need much in the way of clothes here; your uniform will arrive in a few days and in your free time you’ll mostly just need jeans and so forth. You might want to keep some of your things in our storage area in the basement. Just let me know and I’ll show you where it is.’

She peeked into the bathroom. White and bare, with a large medicine cabinet over a sink. Small name labels over each of the three white bath towels. A shower, but no bathtub. An air freshener gave off the uninspiring scent of lavender.

‘Who else lives here?’

‘You’ll be sharing a room with Elvira, who’s here with her parents, and Madeleine, who I believe you’ve already met.’

Sofia’s heart sank. It didn’t seem like she would have anyone to talk to. She suddenly missed Wilma so much it hurt. Wilma, who wouldn’t be there to stop her if she spiralled out of control. If that was even possible in a place like this — everything seemed so minutely planned and disciplined.

‘Well, I’ll leave you alone so you can unpack,’ Bosse said. ‘Dinner is served at seven. The staff dining room is on the first floor; it’s easy to find. Once you’ve eaten, Madeleine will give you instructions for the library. You can always come to me if you have questions. As I said, I’m in charge of all personnel.’

He left the room and his quick steps vanished down the corridor. She went to the window and looked down at the farm. It looked so peaceful, cows and sheep grazing in the pasture. Why did she feel so uneasy? It must happen to everyone who came to the manor, a reaction to leaving everything back home.

She began to unpack her suitcases and arranged her clothes in the wardrobe and bureau. She sang to herself, but it just sounded dull in the soundproofed room.

Under her clothes was the black leather journal Wilma had given her as a farewell present. She placed it in the top drawer. Then there was the laptop. She had brought a set of sheets, but she saw that the bed was already neatly made, so she stuffed the laptop into the pillowcase and wound a sheet around it, then stashed the bundle in the bottom drawer. She shoved her suitcases and everything that didn’t fit in the bureau under the bed. She wasn’t about to let her belongings out of her sight.

Dinner was already in full swing in the staff dining room. All the tables seemed to be full, and she lingered hesitantly in the doorway until Madeleine spotted her and came over.

‘You can sit at our table.’

Madeleine tried to make small talk during the meal, but her chatter turned to a buzz in Sofia’s mind. Thoughts of regret wandered in and out of her head. It was impossible to control them, so she let them carry on.

‘Is that okay?’ Madeleine suddenly asked.

‘Sorry?’

‘I asked if it’s okay if we head to the library now. Franz has written a project description for the library. He wants you to read it.’

‘Sure, that’s fine.’

It was cold and quiet in the library, not at all like when the sun had warmed the small building. Madeleine turned on the overhead lights.

‘Okay, so it’s up to you to start creating something here.’ She eagerly handed a thick document to Sofia. ‘Read this and tell me what you think.’

Sofia sat down on the only chair and left Madeleine to stand.

‘I need a desk here. The kind a librarian would have, and a chair for visitors. And I need a computer if I’m going to do research.’

‘They’re already on order,’ said Madeleine. ‘Arriving tomorrow.’

Sofia began to read the project description, which was ten pages long and contained over one hundred bullet points. She couldn’t focus; Madeleine was standing over her like a hawk. Words and letters melted into one another. Her eyes jumped back and forth, searching for the freaking end of all the things she was expected to do. I can’t handle this today, she thought. I’ll read it more closely tomorrow.

‘It looks good,’ she said.

‘Great! Then I’ll tell Franz you like it.’

‘Sure, go right ahead.’

‘Okay, we go to bed at ten o’clock and lights out is at eleven. So you have a few hours until then. You’re welcome to take a walk, if you like.’

*

The island was as beautiful as she remembered. It was the middle of August now, and the evening air smelled faintly of autumn. But everything was still green, and the paths were overgrown by leafy grasses.

She went up to the lookout point and sat down to gaze out at the sea. The sun was setting; the sky was slowly draining of colour and the muted blue of the sea paled to turquoise, with a shimmer of pink from the sun. Darkness fell quickly, and black, empty space hung over her. But she stayed put, releasing her worries and her scattered thoughts and letting them float up to the sky. A faint breeze raised gooseflesh on her arms and legs. She pulled on her cardigan and began to wander slowly back to the manor.

When she returned to the dorm, it was almost time for bed. Madeleine was already there, in the process of undressing. A girl who couldn’t be more than twelve was sitting on the other bed. She had pale blonde hair that was so long it was resting in her lap. Her skin was snow white and she had enormous eyes, like those of a manga character. She giggled and twirled a lock of hair, smiling hesitantly at Sofia.

‘This is Elvira,’ said Madeleine. ‘She lives with us too.’

Sofia said hello, thinking that Elvira looked like she belonged in a John Bauer painting, or at least in school on the mainland — anywhere but here.

Sofia had expected to spend some time chatting, but as soon as she’d put on her nightgown Madeleine turned out the lights and the room descended into total darkness.

‘Oh, I forgot. How do we wake up in the morning?’ Sofia called.

‘I’ll wake you,’ said Madeleine.

So they would still be using mental clocks.

It was impossible to fall asleep. The sensation of being in a military camp or a prison returned, and it wouldn’t go away. The others’ breathing slowed as they dozed off. She thought about her parents, who had said goodbye as if they would never see her again. Her mother’s nervous tendencies had been dialled up to new levels; she had spouted words like ‘sect,’ ‘cult,’ and ‘bloody trickery,’ only to regret her words and say she was only worried about Sofia. Worried, as usual. Worried about everything. But now Sofia missed her until her chest ached.

Then came the silent tears. She let them flow until they ran out.

And then, finally, came blessed sleep.

‘Someone’s coming! Go!’ I say, giving her a shove.

It’s a perfect day. The fog is so thick that you can hardly see the cliff from where we’re hiding in a small grove of trees.

We’ve been waiting for a long time. She spent the time whining, nagging me to let her go home.

‘No one’s going to come, Fredrik. I’m freezing.’

But I won’t give in. The fog is perfect and I’m not about to squander this opportunity. And someone really is coming. A man, slowly making his way across the heath.

‘Go,’ I hiss. ‘And stick out your arms, like a ghost.’

She glides out into the fog, otherworldly in the black cloak and hood; she seems to be floating.

The man stops when he catches sight of her.

She walks to the farthest point of the cliff and reaches for the sea.

And then she howls like a lonely wolf.

The man is petrified; he doesn’t believe his eyes.

She does as I’ve told her and drops down from the cliff. Into the cave, of course, but it happens so fast that she seems to dissolve into the fog.

The man walks all the way out to the edge of the cliff point. I hold my breath as he looks down. He can’t see her, of course, so he is terrified. He turns around and dashes across the heath like a madman.

I can hear the twigs of heather being crushed under his feet and his heavy panting — the only sounds that reach me through the thick fog.

I wait until he’s out of sight and crawl down to her. She’s sitting on the cave floor, giggling. We laugh until we’re gasping for breath.

‘We’ll show them who’s in charge on this island, dammit!’ I say at last.

8

The routines she had hated so much at first turned out to be what made her enjoy life on the island. They had the same schedule every day; all was so minutely planned that there was no time to think about anything but work, food, and sleep. It was easy to fit in. Each person was there on equal terms. Everyone took part in the same routines.

They woke at seven — at least, those who had mastered their internal clocks did. Sofia was dependent on Madeleine. There were no worries about how to dress; all you had to do was shower, put on your uniform, and head for the dining room, where breakfast was served. Always the same breakfast: poached eggs, whole-grain bread, and organic marmalade.

Then it was time to go to the courtyard in front of the manor and fall in line for morning assembly.

Bosse always led the assembly. He took roll call and talked about situations and priorities. Madeleine and Sofia formed one line together, as they were Oswald’s personal staff and worked directly under him. The other lines were for the household staff, the guest services crew, those who worked on the farm, and the administrative staff.

Each day, she kept an eye out for Benjamin Frisk but to no avail. She stared at each line, hoping to catch a glimpse of him, but was disappointed time and again.

A few weeks after Sofia’s arrival, a faint but growing unrest began to spread through the ranks. Bosse became stiff and distant. The staff seemed restless. Madeleine had stopped attending assembly.

One night, Sofia asked Elvira what was going on.

‘It’s the renovation of the staff quarters,’ Elvira said. ‘No one has wanted to ask you to help out, because Franz created your project himself, but the rest of us have been working a couple hours a day on the first floor. Haven’t you seen us?’

She supposed she had. You had to walk through a cloud of sawdust and piles of boards and tools to get to the dining room. But she hadn’t made the connection between the work and the morale of the group until now.

‘But what’s so difficult about doing renovations?’ Sofia asked.

Elvira laughed. Sofia wondered if she’d misjudged her — she suddenly seemed so pleasant.

‘Well, on the second floor, where we live now, Franz had to hire a contractor to get it all done. But now he says we have to finish the first floor on our own. It’s a type of test, you know?’

Sofia was sincerely grateful that Oswald had drawn up that library project. She was in charge of her own day and could work at her own pace.

*

One day Oswald showed up at morning assembly. He appeared without warning behind Bosse, who was once again droning on about how important the renovation project was. It was a comical sight, because everyone but Bosse could see Oswald. Once Bosse realized why each staff member’s gaze had frozen on a point behind him, Oswald just smiled and said, ‘Go on. Don’t mind me. I’m only listening.’

It continued for a few days. Oswald would come to the assembly and just stand there with an amused smile on his lips. This made Bosse anxious. He began to stutter, trip over his words, and lose his train of thought as he spoke. He started bringing notes with him. An awkward silence descended upon the staff, who were swept along in Bosse’s despair and suffered with him.

Then one day, Oswald took over. He waved dismissively at Bosse, who immediately ducked into line like a dog afraid of being beaten.

‘You are all an incredible resource,’ said Oswald. ‘You just haven’t realized it yet.’

Murmurs of agreement cropped up here and there.

‘I only want you to finish renovating your new living quarters. Can you manage that?’

Their positive response came in unison, as if with military precision.

‘Well there you go!’ Oswald said. ‘Bosse can stop nagging you now, and you can stop pretending that you don’t know what to do!’

They looked at him with great anticipation; they wanted him to keep talking because a sudden sense of solidarity had arisen. But he was done with them.

Sofia stayed behind as the staff scattered, hoping he would notice her. He did, and waved her over.

‘What do you say, Sofia? Do you believe, too, that people have more potential than they realize?’

‘Definitely, I’m sure they do.’

‘Good, because that’s my life’s motto. I hate mediocrity.’

She didn’t quite know what he expected her to say, and she felt that anxiety that came from standing before Oswald in silence. Later on she would learn that she didn’t need to say anything at all. Oswald didn’t speak with his staff. He spoke to his staff.

When he spoke to you, you were only supposed to make eye contact, and, when fitting, nod or express agreement. But she hadn’t come to this realization yet, so she nervously scraped one foot through the gravel.

‘Are you working on my library program?’ he asked.

‘That’s all I do.’

‘And what do you think of it?’

‘It’s fantastic,’ she lied. Or, rather, exaggerated.

His face brightened a bit.

‘Good, good. Keep at it. I want to see everything — the layouts, the computer systems, your list of books to purchase, the whole lot.’

Then he took a quick step forward, so he was standing very close to her.

‘Your hair,’ he said. ‘It’s nice when you put it up like that.’

He looked at the bun she had, with great effort, gathered on the very top of her head.

‘Thanks.’

‘Although I like it better down.’

‘Oh, but Bosse said —’

This was as far as she got before he ran a finger down the back of her neck.

‘Wear it loose tomorrow. Bosse’s an idiot.’

‘Okay, I will.’

He smiled at her, but the warmth in his eyes was gone.

‘You’re new here, but you should know that I don’t have a boss. Least of all Bosse. You can get back to work now.’

His touch was still burning her skin as she hurried across the courtyard.

*

One night in September, she became fully aware of the coming autumn for the first time.

She was on her way back to the library after the evening assembly. A cold wind swept across the courtyard, tugging at her blazer and finding its way under her clothes, to her body. As she looked up, she realized that the aspens and birches were almost completely yellow. There was a fresh tension in the nature around her. Those migratory birds that were left seemed restless, as if they knew what awaited in their long journey south. The trees bent in the wind, full of nervous creaks and rustles. She was struck by the fact that she would be spending the entire winter on this island. The trees would lose their leaves. The whole island would become bare and bleak. The autumn fog everyone talked about would move in from the sea.

Shivering, she slipped through the library door, hoping to find a bit of warmth, but the cold wind had found the cracks in the draughty old building. She turned on the radiator, then decided to check her email, even though it was against the rules. She was one of the few staff with computer access; it was strictly for research purposes. But she had written a long email to her parents and had been waiting for a response for several days.

An answer was waiting, but it wasn’t from her parents. Instead, a message in large type had appeared at the top of her own email. A rejection of sorts.

INFORMATION ABOUT THE INTERNAL PLANS OF THE ORGANIZATION IS CONFIDENTIAL AND MAY NOT BE SHARED WITH OUTSIDERS.

Someone had censored her email. She had no idea that anyone had been reading what she wrote to her family. She hadn’t even known it was possible to censor email. An uncontrollable wave of fury welled up inside her. She immediately knew who was behind this.

In a rage, she put on her jacket and shoes and headed back into the wind. She found Bosse bent over a folder in the staff office.

The door was open, so she stepped in and stood before him, her hands on her hips.

‘Have you been reading my email?’

‘Sure! I read everything the staff sends out.’

‘What’s wrong with you? Those are private; you have no right to read them.’ Her voice had risen into a shrill falsetto.

‘Sofia, it’s okay. I don’t care what you say in them. I only care about the security of the group.’

‘The security of the group? I was writing to my family.’

‘You were writing about your plans for the library, down to the tiniest detail. That doesn’t concern them.’

She was just about to start shouting, but it was obvious that he wouldn’t give in. He’d done this before — gone along with some idiotic rule he probably hadn’t even come up with himself. Besides, Sofia’s emphatic tone had brought all the work in the big room outside to a grinding halt, and many watchful eyes were on them now. A few colleagues had stood up and were aiming looks of disapproval at her.

She stormed out of the room, determined to declare war as soon as she had gathered her thoughts.

It was impossible to concentrate on her job once she returned to the library. The wind was even stronger now; it whistled in the eaves. The windows were even rattling.

She turned on her computer and decided to surf the net, mostly just to defy Bosse. She Googled her name. It had been a long time, but her rage made her feel brave and she wanted to make sure that Ellis had stopped blogging about her.

Up popped a new page called ‘Sofia Bauman’s Blog,’ and she clicked on it right away.

At first she thought it must be a mistake, that the face staring back at her belonged to someone else. Or that it was an old entry. But then she began to read the text and realized at once that Ellis hadn’t vanished from her life after all.

Save Sofia Bauman from the cult! the headline read, and the text underneath continued along the same lines. There was even a picture of Franz Oswald in the corner, horns drawn onto his forehead.

She sat perfectly still for a long time, trying to calm herself as a burning chill spread along her nerves.

She didn’t even want to know how many people had read the blog; she only wanted it to go away. She wanted something to happen to Ellis, a terrible accident, anything, as long as it would put a stop to him from here on out. It was inconceivable that he could still make her feel so awful even when she was on an island out in the archipelago.

How can he even get at me out here? she thought, then decided that in fact, he couldn’t.

But then she thought about the blog again and wondered what would happen if Oswald got wind of it.

We’ve spent a whole day looking for the diary, the family history — whatever the hell it is.

Lily is tired and whiny, and I feel like I might smack her at any moment.

‘I don’t want to be here, Fredrik. It’s too warm and icky and it smells nasty. Can’t we do something fun instead? Please?’

‘We have to find the book,’ I say, gritting my teeth.

‘But why is it so important to find some old book?’

‘There’s stuff in it I’m going to use.’

‘For what?’

‘To prove who I am.’

‘Oh, come on. Hey, can’t we go now? Take a swim or something?’

I stand up, take her by the arms, and give her a firm shake.

‘Who is in charge here, huh? Stop nagging me, or else . . .’

She is frightened and recoils. And at that moment I figure out what happened and I let go of her.

‘She hid it, of course,’ I say. ‘That bitch hid it away.’

‘What bitch?’

‘Mom. She doesn’t want me to find it.’ I decide to switch tactics on Lily. ‘Listen, if you find the book I’ll take you down to the village and buy you some ice cream, and then we can go for a swim at the cliff.’

Her whole face lights up.

‘Promise?’

‘I said it, didn’t I?’

She’s suddenly full of energy. She darts around until the dust swirls up, pulling out drawers, yanking things off the shelves. And then the unthinkable happens. Suddenly she’s standing there with a book in her hands, wrinkling her nose as she tries to make out what it says inside.

‘Give it here!’ I shout. Because I know, I just know, that she’s found it.

I yank it from her hands and sink to the floor, flipping pages and looking for the part that just has to be there. And when I find it, it’s like the doors of heaven open, revealing angels, strings, harps, the whole nine yards. Adrenaline surges through my body like a rising flood.

That’s when I see a little corner poking out from the back cover of the diary — something is hidden there.

I pull the envelope out and open it. Photographs fall into the book.

I moan when I see what they are.

The girl in the picture can’t be more than twelve or thirteen. She’s standing against a wall, naked, her hands bound high over her head. She’s in profile, but I recognize the man pressed up against her body, a whip in his hand. He’s younger in the picture, but it’s definitely him.

This is so huge, so timely, that I almost forget to breathe.

I just stand there, listening to Lily’s gasping breaths behind me.

Whoever left the pictures there was careless, idiotic.

But they’re a windfall for me.

9

There was a hard rap on the door. The room was pitch black, as usual, but she could tell instinctively that it was still night-time. The lights came on gradually and Madeleine, who was sitting up in bed, became visible. The clock on the wall read twenty past four. There was another rap, impatient and frantic.

‘Assembly in the dining room in ten minutes! Wear jeans!’

It was Bosse’s voice. Angry and harsh. Sofia thought something must have happened — an accident or emergency of some sort. She didn’t know how long she’d been asleep, but it couldn’t have been more than a couple of hours — she had lain awake for a long time brooding about Ellis and the blog.

Elvira was also awake by that point, and she looked terrified, the blanket drawn up to her chin.

‘What’s going on?’

‘I don’t know,’ Madeleine said. ‘But we have to get dressed and run down to the dining room.’

They staggered around the room, pulling on jeans and whatever they could find in the dresser drawers.

‘Do you have any idea what it might be?’ Sofia tried again.

‘No, but Franz was up late. I probably shouldn’t have gone to bed.’

Just about everyone else was already there when they arrived in the dining room. They were lined up in their usual way, with tired, pale faces, messy hair, and anxious eyes. The dining room was cold and damp. They could hear rain pattering against the windowpanes.

Oswald was standing before them. He was wearing his usual outfit: black jeans and a T-shirt, and he had almost certainly not been to bed. But he didn’t look tired, only terribly angry.

He read the blog!

The thought hit her like the flick of a whip. It had to be. He had been surfing online; he had come across the disgusting blog and read the whole thing. She couldn’t think of any other reason he might gather them at four in the morning.

A few stragglers came through the door and Oswald stared at them in annoyance.

‘Is everyone here?’ Bosse asked.

Bosse walked around, inspecting the lines, counting and mumbling until he could declare that everyone was present except Katarina, the gardener.

‘She’s sick; she has a fever,’ he said. ‘So I didn’t wake her up.’

‘I said I wanted to speak to the entire staff,’ Oswald said. ‘So I’ll wait for her.’

He crossed his arms over his chest.

Bosse hurried off and an awkward silence followed. No one wanted to talk. Everyone stared straight ahead, avoiding each other’s eyes and, above all, trying not to stare at Oswald. The silence was cold as ice.

At last a panting Bosse returned with Katarina in tow. She looked terrible: she was sweaty, her eyes were feverish, and she was so pale that her skin took on a green tinge in the cold light. She was still wearing her nightgown and slippers.

‘I was working late tonight while the rest of you were snoozing,’ Oswald began. ‘And on my way home I peeked in here to see how the renovations are coming along. Come on, I’ll show you how it looks.’

He marched out of the dining room with the staff trailing him, and they headed down the corridor to the part of the building being renovated. The shorter staff members tried to crane their necks to see over the crowd, and there were bottlenecks at the doorways. Oswald didn’t say anything; he only walked around pointing at various boards, tools strewn about, piles of sawdust, safety glasses on the floor, and cans of paint that hadn’t even been sealed up for the night. Then he walked around, showing them the rooms. All twenty of them. There wasn’t a single finished room in sight. Sofia was flooded with relief even in the midst of her misery. It wasn’t the blog after all. Plus, she wasn’t responsible for this mess.

‘You have been working on this bloody project for three months,’ said Oswald. ‘Now I’m going to show you what happens when you make such a mess of things.’

He strode out into the courtyard and everyone followed. They were almost immediately drenched by the cold, incessant rain. Sofia snuck an anxious glance at Katarina, who was coughing behind her. Oswald led them past the small barn to a wooded area.

Anchored to the moss under a few pines was a large white tent. Oswald pulled the zipper down and showed them inside. There were sleeping bags, pillows, and blankets all in a pile, as well as several suitcases. Sofia, who had stuck close to Oswald, managed to poke her head through the opening. A heavy odour of mould and sweaty feet struck her.

‘This is where your household unit lives,’ Oswald said. ‘There is no room for them in the main building. Pleasant, isn’t it? This is how they are living, like pigs, on my property.’

He didn’t say anything for a long time. The situation was absurd, bordering on comical. The rain fell harder, trickling into Oswald’s eyes and mouth and forcing him to blink and swallow again and again. The only sound that could be heard through the roaring downpour was Katarina’s rattling cough.

Maybe he felt ridiculous, drenched as he was and with his voice drowned out by the rain, because he just shook his head and said, ‘I don’t want anything more to do with you. Not a single one of you bastards. Go back to the mainland, run home to mommy and daddy. Get a job you can handle. You don’t belong here.’

Then he marched back into the main building.

The whole staff stood there, at a loss, terrified and soaking wet.

Bosse broke the silence: ‘Assembly in the dining room!’

*

Back inside, a small group congregated in one corner, whispering to each other: Bosse, Madeleine, and Benny and Sten, who were two peas in a pod. The pair could often be spotted riding around the property on their motorcycles or sitting in the booth at the front gate. They were large and obstinate but quite dull; they matched her idea of a typical guard perfectly. At first she thought they were cut out for the job, but now she wondered if it was such a good idea for them to be involved in decision-making.

She considered joining the little group to prove that she cared, but decided to hold off. She wanted to avoid taking responsibility for the renovation project at all costs.

Bosse hopped up onto a chair.

‘Now we’re going to shift into high gear,’ he said. ‘We’ll show Franz we’re a team. Everyone must pitch in and work on the renovation until it’s complete. No exceptions. Those of you who take care of the guests will just have to make sure that they have food and stuff. But otherwise we’ll work until it’s done.’

Her hope of sneaking back to her warm bed was immediately extinguished. This didn’t look good. At all.

Bosse divided them into groups that were to work on different parts of the renovation. She ended up in the painting group along with Elvira.

And so began the craziest, most chaotic and sleepless period in her life thus far. Days and nights flowed together into the sort of mishmash that can only arise from a large group of people who have no plan or idea what to do. They sawed, swept, polished, sandpapered, and painted. Bosse and his new henchmen ran around trying to make everyone move faster by shouting things like ‘Faster!’ and ‘You have fifteen minutes to finish that!’ and since all these commands were perfectly meaningless, no one listened.

They slept for a few hours each night; sometimes not even that much. After several sleepless nights, staff were dozing off here and there and had to be shaken into consciousness to get going again.

Sofia tried to stay awake as best she could. She painted and painted. Her hands, arms, legs, feet, and hair were covered in white paint.

What have I gotten myself into? What am I doing here?

The thought returned to her daily, but she kept painting with Elvira. They became friends there among the cans, brushes, and turpentine. They shared water bottles and gum. They kept watch for each other when one slipped into the storage room to take a nap on the hard floor behind the shelves, when they simply couldn’t manage any longer. If someone in the leader group, as they called Bosse’s gang, headed for the storage room, all the person keeping watch could do was rush over and distract them. She would cough three times to wake the sleeper, to give her time to rub the sleep from her eyes. That was all it took — it was impossible to sleep deeply on the ice-cold floor. The three coughs broke through slumber like it was the first thin layer of ice on a pond; the alert brought the sleeper to her feet and she would dart out of the storeroom and go right back to painting.

Each time it seemed they were done, something else popped up. The wrong colour paint somewhere; baseboards that weren’t high enough; mismatched furniture. And every time something went wrong, the group experienced new, greater levels of hysteria and frenzy.

She was swallowed by exhaustion; it got worse each day. Her eyelids were leaden and the brush felt huge in her hand.

But she gritted her teeth and kept painting.

Then one day, all of a sudden, they were finished.

They looked at each other in wonder, dumbfounded, almost positive that it couldn’t be true. There had to be something else that needed fixing. But after several checks, the leader group determined that the job was done.

They hadn’t seen Oswald a single time since that horrible night in the rain, but now he had to be called to inspect their work.

He made them wait for two days. They spent the time cleaning and polishing, moving furniture back and forth, burnishing door handles. They didn’t dare leave the floor out of fear that he might suddenly show up.

When he arrived, he walked around the rooms three times.

He didn’t utter a word. At last he nodded.

The nightmare was over.

*

Oswald allowed them to celebrate with a party in the dining room. Food, wine, music, and dancing — it was like stepping into a new world. He attended the party too. He spoke with the staff, joking, laughing, and back-slapping.

When he caught sight of Sofia, he made a sort of apology.

‘I know you’re new here,’ he said. ‘But sometimes it’s necessary to take off the kid gloves. I’m sure you understand.’

‘Of course!’ she said cheerfully, hoping he wouldn’t notice the white paint she hadn’t been able to get out of her hair.

But his fingers took hold of a matted clump near her cheek, then slid down her face to the tip of her chin.

‘Look how hard you’ve been working! Sofia, I’m so glad to have you here.’

A jolt zinged from her cheek to her groin. She tried to keep a poker face and shrugged. But he noticed. He gave her a meaningful smile and raised his eyebrows before moving on.

She was still feeling drained from the lack of sleep and couldn’t quite let herself sink into the joyful mood. She kept thinking about how her dorm room was empty and she could sneak off, pull out her laptop, and send an email home. Make contact after two weeks of silence.

The party music was loud, throbbing. The sounds of renovation, blows of the hammer and the whine of the circular saw were still echoing through her head. She decided to make herself invisible and sneak out the front door.

That’s where she ran into him.

He must have been coming from outside, because he brought with him a gust of cold autumn wind and the scent of leather from his jacket. His eyes were just as she recalled, happy and lively. The wind had blown his hair back, making it look like a funny toupee. His mouth was half open, revealing the gap between his front teeth.

‘God, I’m so glad you’re here!’ he said, taking her hands. Suddenly she wasn’t tired in the least.

A few weeks have passed since I found the book.

A thought has been with me ever since.

It’s insane and dizzying, but genius.

I’ve been snooping for more evidence hidden away by my idiotic mother — she thinks she’s so clever.

At the moment she’s sitting at the kitchen table, gazing out the window. Grumpy and grim. Her jaw is clenched as if she has taken a vow of eternal silence. I sit down on the chair across from her.

‘I hate you more than anyone else ever could,’ I say.

She doesn’t say ‘Oh, no!’ or ‘You can’t say that!’ or anything a normal mother would have said.

She just sits there staring, stiff and silent as a dead fish. And it’s all her fault — especially the fact that we’re sitting here in a fucking summer cottage, poor and insignificant. All because she had to have a quickie with the count. And yet, to my great chagrin, I see myself in her as she sits there.

We are strong, bull-headed, stubborn. There is not a pitiful bone in our bodies.

Not like that cowardly bastard who fled the island for some stupid place in France.

No, I know that I take after her, and that makes me hate her even more.

‘I wrote to him,’ I say, holding the letter up for her to see. Close enough for her to read the name on the envelope. At last her eyes go cloudy with worry and she opens her mouth to say something.

But I’m already on my way out of the cottage.

When I turn around on the lawn, I see that she has stood up and come to the window.

Go ahead and stare, I think. Stare all you want — but it’s too late.

10

The fog took hold of the island in early October, and by mid-month it had an iron grip on the place. It crept in at night and each morning it was so thick that Sofia couldn’t see the outbuildings from the window in her dormitory. The brightly coloured leaves had faded and the landscape had turned shades of golden-brown. It was steadily growing colder. Normally she would have felt a little gloomy thanks to all the fog. But not now — she spent almost all her time thinking about Benjamin. It was as if the fog transformed the island into a fairy-tale world with infinite curtains a person could pass through and discover fresh views.

Benjamin showed up in the library every day. She never knew when he would appear, so she remained in a state of constant expectation and excitement. He always had a good excuse to visit. Oswald had instructed him to help with all the purchasing. But most of the time he came by with trivial questions and errands. He had that eager way about him as if he were always on the go. He could fill an entire room with his energy just by stepping across the threshold. He would forget to remove his boots, tramping around and leaving marks on the rugs without noticing. His body was always in motion — he walked around looking out of windows, picking up objects, putting them down again — even as he spoke with her. But when he sat down in front of her he became perfectly still. He could move in and out of these states, from wound up to absolutely relaxed, in an instant.

She had a constant internal dialogue about whether it was right to start a new relationship so soon after the disaster with Ellis; her brain went back and forth, over and over. This nervous droning was like background music as she worked. But when Benjamin entered the room, the voices stopped. And then it started up again until Sunday, when he showed her the cave.

It was their day off and the whole island was blanketed in a thick fog. Everything was wet: the trees, the bushes, and the earth, which smelled like mushrooms and decaying leaves. He showed her a new path through the woods; they had to climb over huge, moss-covered stones to move forward.

From the top of the highest boulder, they got a glimpse of the grey, foamy sea between the trees. It was windy out there, but not in the woods.

Sofia stayed on the boulder for a while as Benjamin climbed down.

‘Here it is!’ she heard Benjamin’s voice from below.

She slid down from the rock and saw that he had found a patch of chanterelles in the moss.

‘This is my secret chanterelle spot. Come on, let’s pick them.’

He had brought a backpack, and they gently placed the small mushrooms inside.

‘I’ll show you something you’ve never seen by the outlook point,’ he said.

‘How do you know the island so well?’

‘We had a summer cottage here when I was little.’

‘Is it still here?’

His eyes darted away a little too quickly.

‘No, we had to sell it. Mom left us when I was twelve. Dad died in a car accident soon after that. Now it’s just me and my sister.’

‘I’m sorry, I mean, I didn’t know . . .’

‘It’s okay. It was a long time ago.’

‘Why did your mom leave?’

‘It’s hard to say. One day she was just gone. I couldn’t help but blame myself a little bit, though. It was like, I wondered what I had done wrong.’

He seemed to have sunk into himself; he looked smaller.

‘But you always seem so happy!’

She could tell right away how wrong it sounded, as if he had renounced his right to happiness.

He stood up and slung the backpack over his shoulders.

‘Well, what can you do? The future is what’s important. And I have my ViaTerra family, of course.’

The outlook point was windy. The fog had lifted from the sea, but the sky was still grey. Waves crashed in hard enough to make foam fly from the rocks.

‘That’s Devil’s Rock,’ Benjamin said, pointing. ‘Have you heard about it?’

‘Yes, Björk — the guy who runs the ferry — told me the whole story. Do you really believe all that?’

‘Sure, some of it. Once when I was younger, it was foggy and I thought I saw the Countess on the Rock. It was scary as hell. Someone was standing out there, dressed all in black. And then she vanished into the fog. It was like she dissolved.’

‘I saw someone there when I first came to the island. But it looked like a regular person. At least I think it did.’

‘We used to jump off Devil’s Rock when I was little,’ he said. ‘But then there was an accident. One guy who jumped died. The current dragged him out to sea.’

‘Did you know him?’

‘A little, he was a few years older than me. But I remember how scared we were when we found out. His mom worked at the manor. A doctor lived there back then. I don’t remember him, but I do remember his daughter, Lily. She was older than us too. Pretty girl — she had long red hair and she was thin as a rail. We used to spy on her when she was sunbathing. But she died in a fire in the barn. It all happened around the same time. It was awful.’

‘Maybe it’s true, then, about the curse on the manor?’

‘No, I don’t believe in ghosts like that. But I do believe some souls have trouble finding peace. That they can stick around, sort of.’

She looked out at the cliff and could almost see a figure there.

‘Ooh, now you’re scaring me.’

He laughed and put his arm around her shoulders.

‘Let’s climb down the rocks,’ he said, looking at her rubber boots with concern. ‘Be careful so you don’t slip.’

They cautiously made their way down the steep rock face. Sofia did lose her footing a few times, but managed to steady herself and tried to keep up with Benjamin.

They came to a small grassy slope between the boulders, and he stopped there. They were directly underneath Devil’s Rock, and the cliff hung over them like a huge ceiling. The waves crashed, roaring and splashing. Benjamin pointed up at the ledge. At first she couldn’t tell what he was pointing at, but then she saw a big dark spot among all the rocks. It could have been a black rock, but she realized it was a hole.

He came over to her and took her lightly by the shoulders.

‘You have to swear not to tell anyone about the cave. Promise?’

‘Of course.’

‘Good, let’s go in.’

The cave was about four metres deep and one and a half metres in height. It was cool and damp inside, but the floor was dry. She had the strange sensation as she gazed out at the waves, as if she were in a house floating above the sea.

Benjamin emptied his backpack. Some kindling, a frying pan, and matches, as well as some cheese, bread, and fruit he’d begged from the kitchen. They got a fire going and grilled chanterelle sandwiches over the fire. They had to eat with their fingers — he’d forgotten cutlery. They chatted nonstop, then sat quietly for a while and gazed out at the sea and the sky, which still hadn’t cleared. Then the fire died out and the cave grew chilly.

‘Now we’re going to eat dinner in the village,’ he said. ‘We’re going to Fritjof’s. It’s crab season, and theirs is the best.’

It was starting to get dark, so they went to the village by the road.

For a while, they didn’t say anything as they walked. She could hardly make out his face in the dim twilight, but she got the sense that he was brooding about something. His arm had been around her, but he let it slide off her shoulders. She was just about to ask what was on his mind when they arrived at the pub.

Inside, in the warm light, he seemed normal again. He laughed at her cold, blue fingers and warmed them for her. He joked with the waitress and ordered so much crab and so many sides that there was hardly room on the table. His hair glowed in the light from the candle; it almost looked like it had caught fire.

She asked about the renovations and their lack of sleep, what he thought of it all.

‘We wouldn’t have completed the renovations if Franz hadn’t put his foot down,’ he said firmly.

‘So you’re a fanatical follower?’

‘Maybe. I mean, ViaTerra is my family. The only family I have.’

‘But that doesn’t mean everything about it is perfect, does it?’

‘You’re so new, Sofia. You’ll get used to it. The purpose is what matters.’

That same shadow fell across his face again.

‘What are you thinking about?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Come on, out with it. I can tell something’s up.’

He cleared his throat, looking embarrassed.

‘Well, it’s just, you know . . . if you’re a couple, at ViaTerra, the expectation is that you’ll, um, move in together.’

‘Move in together?’

‘I just want to make sure you know the rules before we start anything. It seems like no one explained them to you.’

‘What rules?’

‘You can only have sex if you live together or you’re married.’

‘Who said anything about sex?’

‘Don’t make this even harder for me.’

‘What kind of moron thought up that rule?’

Benjamin laughed.

‘Franz, probably. But don’t you see what it would be like in such a small group, if everyone was sleeping with everyone else all the time?’

She considered it for a moment. This was all so exciting. It was new and unusual and a little titillating, and for some strange reason she liked it.

‘But just because there are rules doesn’t mean you can’t bend them a little sometimes, right?’

He nodded in agreement as if they had just made a pact.

*

It was totally dark when they left the pub. A half-moon shined down on them from the clear sky. They could see their breath, and the chilly air nipped at their cheeks. She flipped up her collar and buried her hands in her jacket pockets. Benjamin put his arm around her shoulders again.

The walk to ViaTerra was long, but it passed quickly. She leaned against him, snuggling into his chest now and then.

Sten was on guard at the gate, and he waved them in distractedly. The wind was still beyond the thick walls.

The windows of the manor house were bright in the darkness. When Sofia looked up, she thought she could see a light on in the attic — then she remembered that the attic was unfit for use. A moment later the light had vanished and she decided she must have been seeing things.

*

They bent the rules just a few weeks later. They never discussed it, but the tension between them had risen until his visits to the library became unbearable.

It was their day off, and he met her by the gate. They didn’t even talk about where to go — their feet just carried them to the cottage and their hands were linked as if frozen by a constant electric current. She moved right up next to him for the last little bit of the journey and noticed that his breathing was already faintly erratic and heavy.

She’d had good and bad sex before, but never forbidden sex, so this was something new. She walked ahead of him into the cottage and right away he grabbed her from behind, lifting her loose hair and kissing her tenderly on the back of the neck. He nibbled at her earlobe and tried to get his hands in under her clothes, but one hand got stuck between the buttons. She pulled him to the kitchen bench and they collapsed onto it, eager but awkward in all their outerwear. They rolled onto the rag rug on the floor. On the way down she accidentally grabbed hold of the lace tablecloth and a candlestick came flying by, narrowly missing Benjamin’s head. They burst into laughter but managed to pull off each other’s clothing: jackets, boots, gloves, pants, and sweaters ended up in one big pile that grew as they gasped and howled in amusement.

This is how it should be the first time, she thought. Wild and joyful. Then she thought about what would happen if someone came into the cottage and discovered them on the floor — but it wouldn’t have mattered, not even if it was Oswald himself. It was like they were a runaway train, and no one could stop them.

Afterwards, as they lay twined together on the rag rug, she decided that forbidden sex blew everything else out of the water.

She rested her head against his shoulder and they lay like that for a long time. Completely devoid of energy, drained.

‘What’s the punishment?’ she asked.

‘The punishment?’

‘Yes, for what we did.’

‘What do you mean, what we did?’

‘Stop messing with me!’

‘Well, it’s pretty bad. I mean, you get shunned from the group. Dismissed. Sent back to the mainland.’

‘No way! Just for having sex without living together?’

‘That’s right. But we don’t have to tell anyone, do we? It’s between us.’

She thought of the library, her dream for the future. How would it feel to tell her family and friends that she couldn’t hack it? That she had been fired?

‘Exactly. It has nothing to do with anyone else.’

I’m sitting on the cliff and staring into the fog.

It seems strange that the fog lingers even though spring is here. Maybe it’s a sign, calling me to leave.

You can hardly see the water, only hear the waves crashing against the rocks. A few ducks fly down and land on the surface, where they turn into little brown balls of feathers. Too bad I left my rifle at home. I toss a rock at them and they flap their wings and fly off.

The wind is picking up and the fog is scattering farther out at sea; I can see the lighthouse out there, a dot floating in the mist. It’s a peculiar sight. Not beautiful — because beauty is a concept I never make use of, an expression used by the weak to show how sensitive they are.

But it’s calm here by the sea, maybe even peaceful.

I haven’t received a response to my letter, but it doesn’t matter. Now he knows.

Everything is ready. I’ve pawned my mother’s jewellery, things she won’t miss until I’m long gone from the island.

The ticket is safely tucked in my trouser pocket. My backpack is under my bed, the diary and other important documents inside. I think about my exodus. How I will disappear. How it will feel when I come back once it’s all done.

One last night with Lily is all I need now, a ceremony and an acknowledgement.

Then I hear a sound. It floats in from the sea and echoes off the rocks. A dull, monotonous bellow from the old lighthouse.

The foghorn.

My first thought is that it can’t be true. That the message is for someone else, an old person in the village or some suicidal idiot roving through the forest.

Because I know what that howl means.

It’s a warning to someone who’s about to die.

11

A storm followed on the heels of the fog in early November. The weather service had issued a Class 3 warning, so everyone scrambled to prepare the property. They secured anything loose, brought the animals into the barns, piled sandbags where the water might rise, and tested the generator.

Sofia looked online to see what the warning meant. ‘Considerable damage to property, considerable disruption to crucial public services, danger to the public.’ She had never experienced a big storm on an island before. Bosse told her about last fall’s storm, how the water level had risen over a metre, and how no one could go outside — the trees had fallen like bowling pins. They’d been without power for a whole week.

‘They were too busy fixing the electric lines on the mainland, so we had to wait. But now we have our own backup generator,’ he said proudly.

The wind began to whine and howl late in the afternoon. Sofia sat in the library, putting the finishing touches to her list of books. She’d poured her heart and soul into that list. Oswald had said he wanted to see it, but she was well prepared. She knew exactly how many shelves the books would take up, how they should be categorized, and why she had chosen each one.

She also had another, shorter list of books with controversial or erotic contents, which Oswald probably wouldn’t approve of if he’d read them. But he hadn’t read them — she was almost certain of it. She would put the two lists together once she was finished, letting the controversial books mix in with the others. This project had taken up all her attention and she often thought about how good it would look on her CV when she was done.

But now the storm was raging. It was already dark; it was five o’clock and the wind was supposed to peak around midnight. The aspens behind her building bent in the gusts that rattled the windows. The gale had found every crack in the old building, making it raw and cold inside. She turned up the thermostat before she headed over for dinner. As she crossed the yard, the wind tore at her down jacket and she had to stop and catch her balance to keep from being tossed forward. A branch came flying through the air and landed on the ground as a flowerpot rolled across the yard. She hunched over against the whipping wind.

Bosse stood up during dinner to give a speech about the rules for the night. Everyone had to stay indoors and be prepared to lend a hand if anything happened. No going on walks. Sofia snorted. As if someone would get the bright idea to go out in the dark and risk being crushed to death by a falling tree.

By bedtime the gale was even stronger, and it was so dark that nothing could be seen; they could only hear the terrible noise. A few small branches flew by, striking the window. The air was so full of static that it made her skin tingle. She began to feel uneasy. She chatted with Madeleine and Elvira a bit, but everything felt wrong when it was time for lights out.

‘We can’t just lie here in the dark, listening to this miserable weather, can we? Do we really have to pull the blinds? What if something happens?’

Disagreement was on the tip of Madeleine’s tongue, but Elvira agreed with Sofia.

‘I don’t want to listen to the wind in the dark either; that’s just terrifying,’ she said.

So for once, they left the blinds up.

She had trouble falling asleep in the roar of the storm. The wind brought objects smashing and crashing into the yard, but at last she slipped into a sleep-like state. She drifted in and out for a long time, until she was suddenly yanked out of her dozing: the whole room lit up for an instant and the flash was followed by a loud rumble of thunder.

She sat up with a start. There was another round of lightning and thunder, but this time it was so loud that she leapt out of bed and ran to the window. Down in the yard she could see a piece of the flagpole, which had broken in half. A couple of figures were fighting the wind on their way to the barns.

What happened next would be imprinted in her mind in slow motion, even though it was all over in a fraction of a second. A bolt of lightning shot down, accompanied by a deafening clap of thunder. The lightning struck a tall pine behind the barn; the tree seemed to split in two as it crashed onto the annexe behind the manor, taking an electrical wire with it. Great flames leapt from the thatched roof.

Madeleine and Elvira had woken up too and were sitting up ramrod straight in their beds.

‘Shit! It’s on fire!’ Sofia shrieked.

Suddenly she remembered the fire drills they’d practised with Bosse late last summer — exercises she’d found annoying at the time. They were supposed to wake everyone up and shout ‘Fire!’ and give the location. She pulled her boots on without socks and swept her down jacket over her nightgown.

‘Didn’t you hear me? A fire!’ she shouted at Madeleine and Elvira, so loudly that they flew out of bed and started looking for their clothes.

She dashed from the room and started knocking on doors in the hallway.

‘Fire in the barn! Fire in the barn!’ she shouted, running from door to door.

Elvira popped up behind her as she headed for the first floor.

‘Make sure everyone wakes up and comes down!’ Sofia shouted.

It was pitch dark in the yard, aside from the flames shooting out of the barn roof. The broken electrical wire must have taken out all the power. But then she heard the generator kick in and the outdoor lights came back on. She could see Bosse and Sten manoeuvring the fire hose toward the barn. The wind had let up a bit, but the thunder was still constant. She saw lightning and heard thunder at the same time, and realized it must be very dangerous to be outside.

Moos, bleats, and hysterical clucking echoed from the barn.

‘I’ll let the animals out!’ she called to Bosse.

‘No, they’ll trample you!’ he shouted back as he aimed the hose at the fire. A cascade of water jetted toward the roof, but the flames only grew higher, up towards the treetops.

The shrieking from the barn was unbearable.

The thought came over her quickly, but her body was even faster. It was like she was a remotely-guided character in a computer game, always acting before her mind caught up. She had already opened the barn doors by the time it occurred to her that she would rather be trampled than let the animals burn alive inside.

It was absolute chaos inside the barn. The fire was crackling in the ceiling of the far corner, where the chickens were caged. It smelled like smoke and burnt wood. The animals sensed the danger instinctively; they were stamping and shrieking, their eyes rolled back in fear.

She opened the gate to the sheep enclosure first, and they immediately ran for the door and pinned her against the wall, but she managed to shoo them out. The cows had begun to throw themselves at the doors of their stalls, wild with fear.

She climbed up on one of the stall walls to leave the aisle free. One by one she let the cows out and they immediately set off down the aisle and vanished through the door.

The fire had burned through the ceiling by now and flames were licking at the chicken coop. Thick smoke began to pour in and fill the aisle. She fought with the coop door, but when it finally opened the hens just flapped around at random, squawking and cackling.

She grabbed a pitchfork from the aisle and started shoving them toward the door.

‘Get out, for god’s sake, fly out!’

At last they caught on and started flapping down the aisle, but a couple of confused hens turned around and went right into the fire, where they flew around like torches, uttering ghastly noises. At the same time, she heard the dreadful creak of a beam falling on the far side of the barn.

By now the smoke was thick in the aisle and it hurt to breathe. Then suddenly she couldn’t get any air at all and her eyes were swimming, about to go dark. It was crackling behind her, and the heat of the fire licked at her back, just enough to give her one last shot of adrenaline that sent her out of the barn on staggering legs. Once she was out, she collapsed, lying supine on the ground, and sucked in the cold air. She lay there for a moment, staring up at the clouds moving across the black sky.

‘Sofia, are you okay?’

It was Benjamin. He sank down beside her and grasped her hand so hard it hurt.

‘Breathe, Sofia, breathe!’ he urged her.

‘Thanks for the reminder,’ she said, trying to laugh. All that came out was a rattle deep in her lungs.

‘We have to get to a doctor.’

‘No, I’ll be fine.’

Her voice already felt steadier.

Bosse had arrived with a few other staff members in tow.

‘Jesus, Sofia, you should have listened to me!’

‘But I didn’t, and that’s why most of the animals are still alive,’ she said, sitting up.

The yard was full of people. Staff and guests, all mixed up. Some were fighting the fire; others were herding the animals into an empty barn nearby. They seemed so strangely organized: everyone was in motion; everyone had something to do.

At that moment, the rain came, a heavy downpour that joined the cascades of the fire hoses and put out the fire until all that was left was the smoke and the acrid smell. The back of the barn was destroyed, and thick, grey smoke billowed from its charred skeleton. A few animals were still running around in the yard. It was freezing cold, but it didn’t matter. They kept working.

When they were all done and the fire hoses were rolled up, they just stood there looking at each other in the rain. The relief on their faces was beautiful. It was a sight she thought she’d never forget.

She searched for Oswald but realized he wasn’t there. There were guests in soaked clothing, even some in pyjamas and nightgowns, but no Oswald. She looked up at the manor house and saw a figure standing on the balcony: the silhouette of a man gazing down at them with his arms crossed over his chest. It looked as if he was nodding.

An onlooker on the outside, peering in.

*

She couldn’t stop whining about Oswald to Benjamin in the days after the fire.

‘What the hell was he doing on the balcony?’

‘I don’t know, Sofia. He probably wanted to see how we would manage.’

‘The whole barn was burning down, animals and all.’

‘Quit complaining. Franz likes to keep a little distance.’

‘Even the guests were out there, in their pyjamas.’

‘Listen, if I didn’t know better I’d say you were a little fixated on Franz.’

‘Fixated? Everyone is, around here.’

‘No, not me. He’s really just a regular guy — it’s best to take everything he says with a pinch of salt. Instead of expecting him to be some sort of god.’

They went on like that for a few days until Oswald came to an assembly and rewarded Sofia with a bonus and two days off for her actions during the fire. He said that the county police chief, Wilgot Östling, had been on the island that day and had seen her rescue the animals.

*

She swallowed her annoyance and accepted her time off and bonus, using it to travel home to Lund for a few days to see her parents and spend some time with Wilma.

Her mother was more anxious than ever. It took almost a whole day of repeated assurances that Sofia was happy on the island, and felt just fine, to calm her down. Sofia didn’t mention the fire.

It felt strange to be back home again. She found herself going back and forth between several different moods: at times she felt so melancholy that she wanted to remain in Lund, but other times she felt restless and wanted to get her visit over with so she could go back to the island.

There was something strained about Wilma’s mannerisms, as if she were trying to keep from mentioning something.

‘What’s wrong, Wilma?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Oh for god’s sake, I can tell something’s up.’

‘I don’t want to worry you.’

‘Out with it.’

‘Ellis emailed me. I don’t even know how that creep got my address, I’ve changed it so many times. He asked where you were.’

‘What did you say? You didn’t tell him, did you?’

‘Are you nuts? I told him you got a job in France.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He wrote back: “you’re such a lying bitch”.’

‘Was that all?’

‘That was all.’

‘What a fucking jerk.’ Tears welled up in Sofia’s eyes, and then came that familiar feeling of discomfort and panic that Ellis always brought on. ‘What am I supposed to do? He’s going to haunt me forever.’

‘Oh, you’ve got guards and a wall and all of that on the island. What can he do? He’ll just keep writing about you online, and he’ll get sick of it eventually, once he doesn’t hear anything back from you.’

*

The same day she returned to the island, the first snow fell. Thick flakes drifted down, forming a speckled curtain of fog in front of the ferry. The pines on the highest point of the island were already white; the harbour looked like it was made of spun cotton.

It felt like she was coming home.

Something goes wrong.

Something totally unexpected, inexplicable, and so goddamn wrong.

But she’s the one who messes up.

The rules of our game are clear and plain. She doesn’t follow them.

So what happens happens.

We have planned the evening down to the tiniest detail.

She lies in the straw, on the cloak. Her hands are up over her head, her hair spread out like burning fire. And the candles are in front of her, their flames flickering.

I stand there looking at her until I’m totally hard, and then I take out the belt.

She’s used to it by now and doesn’t look frightened, which is too bad because I enjoyed that look in her eyes.

There’s a trick, something I’ve learned — thrusting into her as I pull on the belt. It’s best that way. Maximum pleasure.

I am careful to get it right this time. The last time.

I place the belt around her neck and lean over her. I thrust and pull at the same time, and she gasps and whimpers. It feels so good that I almost lose myself for a moment, but then she resists and starts kicking wildly.

She cries out — a shrill, piercing scream that has nothing to do with our game.

Someone might hear her. She has to stop.

I pull a little harder, just to make her be quiet.

Her eyes roll back in their sockets in such an odd way; all I can see are the whites and she goes strangely limp in the straw.

I loosen the belt and try to jostle her back to life. But it’s as if she’s made of jelly, soft and lifeless.

A hellish pain flares up in my foot and when I turn around I realize she must have kicked a candle over, because the straw behind me is on fire and big flames are licking at my feet.

I give a shout, then stand up and grab my trousers.

I toss them over the fire, trying to smother it, but it only gets worse.

My trousers are on fire now and the flames are crackling and spreading through the straw. I realize I’m naked and pull on my briefs, the first thing I find.

My mind is working incredibly fast. I’ve got to fix this. I’ve got to make it out.

I place her hands over her chest and cover her body with the cloak. It’s all I can do.

Got to hurry, the fire’s spreading. It’s at her feet now.

I run out of the barn.

I run like a madman.

12

She felt guilty, and the guilt only got worse the more she worried that they would be discovered. They had grown careless. A quickie in the library bathroom, his hand on her bum in the food line — lust was making them take risks. And now she couldn’t concentrate on anything at all. She felt like the staff were staring at her with suspicion. She couldn’t bring herself to look Oswald in the eye when he came to assembly. At last she found herself wishing Benjamin would go to the mainland for a while, just so she could work in peace.

‘We have to stop.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘That we have to stop. I can’t handle it anymore.’

‘Sofia, come on. Let’s just move in together.’

‘Never. Or at least, not right now. I have to finish the library.’

‘But it’s no big deal to live together. And that way we don’t have to sleep in the dorms.’

‘Later, maybe, but for now we need to take a break.’

‘What do you mean, a break?’

‘No more sex until the library is done.’

‘That’s going to be hard.’

‘Then we’ll just have to deal with it.’

She gazed out the window as he reluctantly left the library, in a sour mood. He dragged his feet as he crossed the yard. Pointedly — he knew she could see him. She sighed; she knew it really would be hard.

It was the second Sunday of Advent. It seemed they would have a white Christmas; there were several inches of snow on the ground, which meant an endless amount of shovelling every day. The sky would clear now and then, but clouds would gather again almost right away, ready for the next snowfall.

She had decided to go home to her parents for Christmas. Benjamin had tried to convince her to remain on the island, telling her about last Christmas, when the staff had four days off and celebrated together.

But she refused to give in. She was going home.

Dusk was just falling and the big spruce in the middle of the courtyard was all lit up. Someone went around lighting lanterns and torches. It was so beautiful that a shiver ran through her.

The speaker on the wall crackled. Madeleine’s voice echoed through the empty building: ‘Come up to Franz’s office. Immediately!’

The message sounded rushed and urgent as usual, but Sofia had learned to take Madeleine with a grain of salt. Nothing was ever as serious as Madeleine made it out to be.

She pulled on her boots and winter coat. As she walked up the shovelled path to the manor house she dragged her feet, mostly just to annoy Madeleine in case she could see her from the window. The snow crunched under her boots. The sky was clear and starry; there was a full moon. The cold, crisp air carried the scent of smoke from the fireplaces in the living quarters. Other glorious smells came from the dining room: freshly baked bread, glögg, and roasting ham.

When she knocked at Oswald’s office door, Madeleine came out with a fretful expression and put a finger to her lips. Sofia could see Oswald on the phone inside.

‘What took you so long?’ Madeleine hissed.

Sofia didn’t have time to respond. Oswald had just hung up the phone and was waving her in.

No Christmas decorations in his office. Not even a single Advent light or paper star lantern. Everything was bare and white, and, in Sofia’s opinion, just plain boring.

‘Come in, Sofia, have a seat.’

She sat down in front of him. He looked at her and nodded as if she had said something. She had come to understand that this implied some sort of approval. Sofia had been one of Oswald’s favourites since the fire. She could tell because he would come and talk to her now and again after assembly. There were some staff members he didn’t pay any attention to at all. He would even turn his back on certain staff if they tried to approach him.

‘So here’s the deal — I have to go away for a few days and I would have loved to take a look at your plans for the library before I go, but I don’t have much time,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back on December twenty-second. I was thinking we could devote the twenty-third to your presentation, and perhaps even the morning of Christmas Eve day, if we need it. That would work out very well for me. I heard you’ve got plans to go home and wonder if you can shift things around a little.’

The gears in her mind began to turn at crazy speeds. Images of her parents alone at Christmas dinner. The days she’d promised to spend with Wilma. Working on Christmas Eve! She had the uneasy sense that he was controlling her life. That this wasn’t a suggestion but an order.

Before she could open her mouth, he went on.

‘We’re going to have a very special guest here this spring, a journalist named Magnus Strid. With any luck he’ll write good things about us, so I’d very much like to have the library ready so he can make use of it.’

‘But — this spring! Isn’t that pretty far off?’ It just slipped out of her.

‘I’m a perfectionist, Sofia. I want to give myself plenty of time.’

A small wrinkle had appeared on his forehead. He was annoyed.

There went her Christmas plans. She hurried to respond, to make him understand that she could withstand a little pressure.

‘Okay then. The twenty-third.’

‘Great, Sofia. I look forward to your presentation.’

*

She worked just about around the clock until the morning before Christmas Eve day. He’d said he was a perfectionist, so she would live up to his demands. Everything would be better than he could possibly imagine. She was ready with a PowerPoint presentation full of images and summaries, finances laid out in clear numbers, a list with the price of each book, a demonstration of the computer system, and even samples of the fabric for the furniture. She spent the entire night before working, testing everything, practising her speech over and over.

After three cups of coffee in the morning, and with adrenaline pumping through her veins, she opened the door for him.

He had dragged along half the staff. Madeleine, of course, but also Bosse, Sten and Benny, some random people from the various units, and even Benjamin, who looked a little self-conscious as he stepped in. She wondered why everyone was there, and nervousness began to radiate from her stomach throughout her body until sweat broke out on her palms and forehead. She hoped no one would notice as she wiped her forehead with her sleeve.

There weren’t enough chairs for everyone, but Oswald sat down in the visitor’s chair and everyone else gathered behind him. They just stood there staring at her. It was so quiet she could hear the wind blowing outside.

She tested the screen again, cleared her throat, and wondered if she was about to start stuttering or become tongue-tied. But when she began to speak, her voice carried after all.

Oswald didn’t say a word during her presentation, didn’t ask a single question or make even a tiny sound. Now and then he gazed out the window, away from the screen, at nothing. The more she explained, the more disinterested he seemed. The room was still perfectly quiet.

When she was finished, everyone held their breath. They were waiting for the final judgment. It seemed to her that it couldn’t possibly be good news, because when she tried to make eye contact he looked away. She had no idea what she was expected to do. She added that there was also a list of all the books, but Oswald put up his hand to stop her.

‘I’ll deal with the list later, Sofia.’

She looked at him in surprise.

‘I knew right away that I would approve your plan. That was a professional presentation. Well thought-out. Good job, Sofia. I’d love to take the list with me so I can read it tomorrow.’ He turned to Madeleine. ‘See to it that she gets everything she needs — money, transportation, the whole lot.’

Sofia looked around. Benjamin looked relieved, but the others . . . perhaps it was her imagination, but she thought they looked a little disappointed.

After a while, Benjamin returned and stuck his head through the door.

‘Great job!’ he said. ‘You sure know how to butter up Franz.’

‘No way. I just put a lot of work in, that’s all.’

He stepped in, his boots still on. She barely had time to stop him from messing up her freshly-polished floor.

‘There’s an organic Christmas smorgasbord in the dining room,’ he said. ‘I came to get you.’

‘I’m coming.’

As he helped her put on her coat, he brushed her hair aside and blew on the back of her neck.

‘You’ll be the great heroine here for a while,’ he said. ‘But there will definitely be some folks who are jealous, remember that.’

‘Who do you mean?’

‘Oh, it doesn’t matter.’

‘Tell me!’

‘Just the girls. No one in particular.’

As they came out to the yard she looked up at the attic again. It was midday, and yet a light was on up in the window.

‘Look!’ she said to Benjamin. ‘There’s someone up in the attic!’

He squinted at the building and shook his head.

‘It’s just the sun reflecting off the pane.’

‘Then why isn’t it reflecting off the other windows?’

‘Oh, come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go celebrate Christmas.’

*

By the time Oswald approved her book selection, Christmas and New Year’s had gone by. January began with a raging snowstorm that hit the island and effectively buried the manor. Sofia sat in the library, shivering. Her radiator couldn’t warm the whole building when the temperature was under twenty below day after day. She sat there in her layers of clothing, wrapped in a big blanket. Long icicles hung from the gutters, glinting like amber in the late afternoon sun.

There was a knock at the door, and she recognized Madeleine’s faint but impatient raps right away. Sofia opened up and her heart jumped as she realized that Madeleine had the list of books in her hand.

‘April seventh!’ she said firmly.

‘April seventh?’

‘That’s when the library must be finished. So Franz has enough time to go through everything before Magnus Strid arrives.’ She turned on her heel and trudged back through the snow.

Sofia sat down and paged eagerly through the long list. On the first page, Oswald had written ‘OK, but with some changes.’ He had crossed out two books but hadn’t commented on anything else.

Then she saw his note on the last page.

Any book with religious or philosophical contents must contain a note that clearly states they are only here as reference materials, since we follow our own, clearly set path at ViaTerra.

That made ViaTerra sound like a cult. This was the first time it had seemed so clear from Oswald’s words. She’d always thought of a cult as a group of fools walking around in sandals, rambling on about God and reciting random passages from the Bible. Pale failures of individuals. But ViaTerra wasn’t like that at all.

She put down the list. Sure, he could have his idiotic notes. It didn’t matter — she was too happy. Five months of hard work and now all she had to do was start putting her library together.

Today, though, she wouldn’t do a thing but relax. I’ve earned it, she thought. She put on the coffeepot, kicked off her uniform shoes, curled up in a chair and went online. She decided to Google her own name. It was a good day, so surely she could handle any new blog entries and whatever other awful things she found.

But although she varied her wording, the spelling, and even her name she couldn’t find any blog entries about herself. There was nothing there. There wasn’t even a trace of Ellis.

She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. It seemed as if that hell was finally over.

I almost run right into him.

He’s on his way to the barn. Why, I don’t know. To sneak up on us, maybe.

Home. I know I have to run home before someone sees me.

But now he’s there, and my brain short-circuits.

My first thought is to knock him out and stash him in the barn with Lily. But I get distracted by the horrified look he’s giving me, and I realize I’m standing there in nothing but my underwear.

‘Fredrik, what are you doing?’

I take off, running across the property as fast as my legs will carry me.

He follows. I hear his thudding steps behind me; I hear his panting breaths and cracking twigs and his stupid voice repeating my name.

But I’m faster and I fly across the yard and into the woods, across the paths. I know where I’m heading now, but I don’t know why. The cliff is calling my name; I feel an incredible power pulling and sucking at me.

His panting fades away with distance.

By the time I reach the heath, I can’t hear him any longer.

The full moon, the black sea, and the cliff are ahead of me, and he is somewhere behind me.

I run out onto the rock and hesitate for a moment. I turn around and watch him appear on the heath.

‘Fredrik!’ he shouts. He’s so loud that he startles an owl, which flaps up against the dark sky.

Then I see the flickering of the fire I’ve left behind. The barn is burning.

I get ready, then dive. My body cuts through the water like a knife.

And then I’m gone.

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