Don't Wake Me

by Martin Krüger

  ‘I’m sure you have.’ She extended her hand, and after a slight hesitation, Jasmin shook it. ‘May I draw you both?’

  Jasmin frowned.

  Something had happened when their hands touched. Like a tiny electrical spark jumping between them.

  ‘There’s a burden weighing you down,’ said Yrsen in her soft, smoky voice. ‘I can see it. A burden you’ve brought here with you.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘May I draw you?’ Yrsen asked again. Without waiting for an answer, she opened her sketchbook and produced a pencil from somewhere, which now flew rapidly back and forth over the page, leaving thin lines behind it that gradually coalesced into a picture.

  ‘I don’t think—’

  ‘Don’t be afraid, Ms Hansen. You came to this place to find answers. You will find them.’

  ‘But how?’ Jasmin gulped, her throat suddenly very dry. ‘I don’t even know where to start.’

  ‘Believe me, it will all come back. Everything you’re missing, everything you’ve forgotten. This place’ – Yrsen cast her eyes over the surrounding landscape – ‘has already helped many people. It will help you too.’

  How on earth does she know? Jasmin had never given a moment’s thought to things like second sight – things that crossed the border between reality and the inexplicable – but here, with this woman . . . For an insane moment, she felt genuinely convinced that Yrsen had learned something about her when she touched her hand.

  But that was nonsense, of course. That wasn’t possible.

  ‘Don’t be afraid, young lady. People used to visit me from time to time, up by the cliffs in the north. And do you know why?’

  Jasmin shook her head. She noticed Bonnie was looking attentively at Yrsen too, but without showing the least sign of defensiveness or unease. You trust Bonnie. And if that’s how Bonnie reacts to her, she thought, that means you can trust Yrsen too.

  Right?

  ‘Because it was said that I could see into people’s memories. Into their memories – and into the future.’ Yrsen had turned away to face the sun and her hat now cast a long shadow behind her. ‘People told me I could capture their memories in my paintings. Visitors would come and I would talk with them. I would touch them – not only their hands, but also their minds. Then I would begin. I didn’t always understand the meanings that dwelt within my pictures. Often the person for whom the painting was intended would be the only one who could see its true significance. And it would bring them clarity. Tranquillity of mind. Inner peace.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but that all sounds rather fanciful.’ Jasmin bit her lip. You shouldn’t have said that. But Yrsen laughed and shook her head.

  ‘No, you’re right,’ she replied. ‘It is a bit far-fetched, but you know what? Sometimes it really worked. Maybe it was a kind of empathic resonance between me and the other person. Maybe it was the act of looking and focusing that made them engage with their own demons once more. Maybe I just helped them find the solution themselves.’ She laughed again. ‘I must admit it’s been quite a while since I last told anyone all this. You’re the first person in many months who’s struck me as possibly having a genuine interest.’

  ‘And now? Are things different now?’ What on earth are you trying to find out here? Can’t you see how weird and creepy she is? Can’t you see you should grab Paul and Bonnie and go straight back to the car? Yet something told her to stay where she was; something forced her to sit still and wait spellbound for Yrsen’s reply.

  ‘You can see my face, Ms Hansen. You can see what’s happened to me.’ Yrsen clapped her sketchbook shut. ‘Who would want to associate with me? Of course I don’t get any more visitors. The way I look now, nobody wants anything to do with me anymore.’

  ‘It wouldn’t bother me,’ Jasmin heard herself reply. ‘I’ve seen worse.’

  Yrsen smiled a thin, amused smile. ‘Well, have you now? And you’re probably thinking I’m exactly the right person to help you with your little problem? With that burden you’re carrying around with you?’ Yrsen shook her head, her demeanour abruptly growing cold. ‘Forget it. It’ll never happen if you can’t open your mind to it.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to . . .’ Jasmin watched as Yrsen headed off along the path, gathering pace as if she was suddenly in a hurry. ‘I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it like that! Ms Yrsen, please . . .’

  Yrsen didn’t look back – she kept walking, hunched forwards, the wind tugging at her hat so she had to hold it down.

  ‘Don’t be sad, Mummy,’ said Paul softly. He looked out over the tall, windswept grass. ‘You can’t please everyone, you know that. It’s what Grandma always used to say.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have . . . You just don’t say things like that. I made a mistake.’ She paused. A sudden gust of wind blew a sheet of paper towards them. The breeze picked it up, buffeted it back towards the ground and played with it.

  It was a sheet from a sketchbook.

  Jasmin looked up in Yrsen’s direction, but she was long gone. Then she leapt to her feet and snatched the paper out of the air before it blew away. Paul clapped his hands in excitement as Jasmin nervously turned the thick paper over. There was an address, with a message underneath it.

  Come and see me, if you dare.

  Come and see me, once you’ve found your courage again.

  Chapter 7

  The night was a cold one, the sky covered with low-lying cloud. Rain was on the way. Wafts of mist from the nearby beach drifted up over the forest to the house. From her veranda, Jasmin heard the distant sound of a solitary car driving along the road and for a brief moment, lights illuminated the fog-shrouded bushes and shrubs by the roadside. Then everything went dark once more.

  She’d set up the cameras Karl Sandvik had given her, one on the veranda overlooking the back garden and the other by the front door. They were wireless cameras, which she could monitor from her laptop via a dedicated USB stick. The two motion sensors would be triggered whenever anyone opened either the front door or the cellar door, emitting a beep. Jasmin had tested them both out on the front door before installing one of them over the entrance to the cellar.

  ‘You don’t need to thank us,’ Grit Sandvik had said. Jasmin was glad she’d made a connection with the elderly couple, that someone knew she was living out here. Someone who would worry about her if anything happened. Which it obviously won’t, she thought.

  The wind coming in from the Norwegian Sea blew leaves across the ground and fine droplets of water into her face. She heard the call of an owl in the woods, and beyond it, much further away, came the deep, drawn-out rumble of a foghorn.

  Paul was asleep; she’d read to him and gently kissed his forehead once he’d drifted off. For him, the last few days had been an adventure, but for her . . . Bonnie was lying at her feet, and Jasmin stroked her thick fur as she studied the edge of the forest. Just you try it, she thought intently. I’m ready this time.

  Of course, she wasn’t ready; she was only trying to reassure herself. You didn’t even dare to go down to the cellar to fetch the old hunting gun.

  A few minutes ago, she had taken out Sandvik’s note and toyed with it between her fingers, on the verge of calling Jan Berger to arrange – well, what exactly? What did you want to ask him? If he can show you how to use your gun? Because you’re expecting the drifter to turn up again?

  And then there was Yrsen. Jasmin couldn’t get her encounter with the artist out of her mind. You’d be crazy to go and see her. You can’t.

  But what if there’s something to it?

  What if she’s right, and she can help you?

  Jasmin closed her eyes and tried to relax. Breathe, she thought, keep breathing evenly, it can’t be that hard.

  But it was. Especially out here.

  She tried to recall the night of her accident. Think of the sound the heavy rain made on the roof and the windscreen. Think of the wet road, of the Jeep following close behind you.

  So close behind . . .<
br />
  And then it suddenly vanished.

  That was all.

  Are you sure?

  You need to be sure!

  No. That wasn’t all. Not yet. Something happened after that . . . There were lights. More bright headlights, only this time they came from the other way.

  Directly towards you.

  Her phone rang, so loudly and abruptly it made her jump. The noise scattered her fragmented memories like a strong wind extinguishing a newly lit fire. Jasmin swore. She so desperately wanted to hold on to those snippets; she sensed that she’d finally been on her way to remembering.

  ‘Shit, who could this be?’

  It was Jørgen.

  Her phone display listed seven missed calls.

  When she looked back up at the edge of the forest, she realised the darkness had already advanced much further than she’d expected. The night had draped itself over the property like a heavy cloth, as if it were trying to smother every sound. She felt cold; goosebumps crawled up her bare arms and down her back. How long have you been sitting out here? Why didn’t you notice the time passing?

  She was alone. Bonnie was gone, and Jasmin couldn’t say whether the dog had wandered down into the garden or headed back into the living room through the French windows, which were slightly ajar.

  ‘Bonnie?’ she called quietly, and her words drifted into the air like white fog blown onwards by the wind.

  Her phone was still ringing. The ringtone was a Mozart piano concerto, which echoed through the blue-tinged night.

  Jasmin answered the call.

  ‘Hey, Minnie.’

  Minnie. He’d only recently started calling her that and she still hadn’t got used to the name. ‘You let him treat you too much like a weak little woman,’ her mother had told her from time to time. Jasmin hadn’t argued with her.

  In fact she’d never really argued with her.

  ‘Hi,’ she replied. As she spoke, Bonnie nudged her hand – she’d just emerged from the garden and was standing on the veranda wagging her tail, leaving earthy footprints on the spruce decking. ‘Stay outside,’ she cautioned her dog.

  ‘Are you talking to me?’

  Jasmin brushed a lock of hair from her forehead. ‘No, that was for Bonnie.’

  ‘Have you settled in OK?’

  ‘Yep, everything’s great,’ she replied, realising how feeble it sounded. You asked him to let you and Paul come out here on your own, she thought. And now you’re trying to act like everything is all right – as if Jørgen’s only nipped out to buy a few sandwiches.

  ‘Is it really?’

  ‘No. No, I’m not sure it is.’

  ‘What’s up? Should I come over?’

  Jasmin shook her head. ‘There’s no need. I’ve got everything under control. Honestly. It’s better this way.’

  ‘What’s happened? Tell me.’ There was a radio playing in the background on Jørgen’s end of the line. Jasmin wondered if he was in a bar – and if so, who he was there with.

  At the same time, she wondered if she could bring herself to care.

  ‘There’s somebody here. On the island. The locals are talking about him, some kind of drifter. By the way, did you leave any ammunition in the house?’

  ‘Ammunition?’ Jørgen suddenly sounded very distant, but his voice abruptly grew louder again when he next spoke, as if he’d held the phone away from his face for a moment. Seriously, where was he?

  ‘For your hunting gun. It’s still down in the cellar.’

  ‘Oh, that old thing. There should still be a few bullets down there.’

  ‘There aren’t, though.’

  ‘What do you want with the gun anyway?’

  ‘Aren’t you listening to me?’ Now she felt sure she could hear another person in the background – a female voice that she definitely didn’t recognise. ‘There’s somebody here.’

  ‘Should I come over?’

  ‘No. I can handle it.’ She tried to sound as confident as she could.

  ‘I really should come over.’

  ‘Honey, I’ll tell you if—’ Jasmin paused. Was that a movement on the edge of the forest? Was that a silhouette looming over the shrubs beneath the poplar trees? A tattered coat, like one belonging to a vagrant?

  She blinked. No. Nothing.

  ‘Just give me a little time. Like I told you, all I need is a bit of peace and quiet to finally make sense of that night. To remember.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, it was a fucking deer!’ Jørgen yelled. ‘That’s all. You’ve got some other story into your head. A ridiculous bit of nonsense.’

  ‘You don’t know that.’ Jasmin closed her eyes, but only for a moment. ‘We’ve had this discussion so many times already. And you know what? That’s the precise reason why I’m out here. So stop saying that. You know it wasn’t a deer. And now . . .’ She sighed. ‘Now I’m going to hang up.’

  ‘Jasmin—’

  ‘Good night. Don’t call me again until you’ve calmed down.’ She put the phone to one side. It felt good to have cut him off like that. It felt right.

  I’m not going to have people tell me what to do and what not to do anymore.

  Once again, Bonnie nudged her hand with her cold nose. Jasmin realised her dog had brought something with her: a rat with a long, thin tail that she’d laid nearby on the veranda.

  ‘Oh Bonnie, there’s no need for that. You shouldn’t go hunting, don’t you know that by now?’

  Bonnie looked up at her happily, her tail thumping against the decking.

  Jasmin sighed. ‘All right. Let’s get rid of it and then we’ll go to sleep. That includes you, my little hunter.’

  Bonnie followed Jasmin as she pulled on her thick work gloves, picked up the rat and carried it into the garden. ‘You just found it, didn’t you? Surely you wouldn’t have caught anything like this yourself?’

  Bonnie’s eyes glittered in the light of the thin moon, which shone mistily through the veil of cloud.

  ‘Hmm, I don’t know. You might look innocent, but I expect there’s a hunter hiding in there somewhere.’

  Jasmin opened the low garden gate that led onto the narrow path through the woods and down to the beach. ‘Stay here,’ she said, before following the path a little way into the forest and tossing the rat into the undergrowth.

  ‘And don’t you dare bring it back again,’ she admonished Bonnie as she led her into the house. Bonnie woofed quietly.

  The rain-slicked road. The steering wheel vibrating under her fingers. She hadn’t had anything to drink, she remembered. She never drank if she knew she’d have to drive afterwards. All the same, the party to celebrate her boss’s fiftieth birthday had been long, loud and very lively.

  The Jeep’s headlights, burned onto her retinas.

  Then it overtook her.

  The sense of relief that briefly washed over her when she thought it was gone.

  But the lights soon reappeared in the distance, like the eyes of a predator. They drew nearer. First on the opposite side of the road, then in her lane.

  Nearer, inexorably nearer – like a light at the end of a narrow tunnel that turned out to be a freight train hurtling towards her.

  Jasmin heard her tyres screech as she wrenched the wheel to one side.

  In the glow of her own headlights, she saw a man on the side of the road. She looked into his panicked face and saw a pair of ice-blue eyes, like cold, lost, distant stars. On his coat, which hung from his tall, scrawny body like a shroud, there was a symbol: an upside-down triangle. He screamed as her car struck him with full force, and she felt the steering wheel jolt back and forth beneath her hands.

  Jasmin woke up. She was breathing rapidly, erratically, with drops of sweat on her forehead and on the skin under her thin T-shirt.

  The same old nightmare once again.

  And once again she’d managed to remember a little more.

  You weren’t mistaken, she thought, throwing the covers back and planting her feet on the cold floorboards. There
was somebody there that night and you hit him with your car.

  You killed a human being.

  It wasn’t an animal, and it definitely wasn’t a deer, like everyone keeps telling you.

  It was a person.

  Jasmin went over to the window, pressed her forehead against the cool, smooth glass and looked out. The clouds were still there, hanging low in the sky and concealing the crescent moon. The outlines of the poplars and birches looked like they’d been cut out of a sheet of paper by a child.

  You know what happened.

  And yet everyone says it was an animal.

  Why? What were they trying to achieve? Sven? Jørgen? The police officers who examined the scene of the accident and her car? What on earth was everyone hiding from her? Why did they want her to forget what happened that night?

  Jasmin couldn’t see any answers.

  She ran her fingers through her limp hair and shook her head. Whoever was in the Jeep, he knows what happened. And he deliberately ran you off the road.

  He was there. You saw him.

  If only you could remember!

  Concentrating hard, she tried to play the dream back in her mind, like a film she could pause and resume whenever she liked. The Jeep had come back. The driver had switched to her side of the road like a suicidal madman who wanted to end both their lives, and she’d swerved to avoid him. Panicking, she’d swerved to the side, lost control and hit a vagrant who was unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, in the middle of the night.

  And then . . .

  Nothing.

  She simply couldn’t remember.

  Jasmin swore quietly.

  Just then, one of her new motion sensors gave a beep.

  There was something downstairs.

  Chapter 8

  Jasmin tiptoed down the corridor, her hands clenched into fists, her fingernails digging into her palms. The floor squeaked like a rusty old door hinge and try as she might, she couldn’t reach the staircase without making any noise. Her whole body felt like a tightly coiled spring, her movements awkward and panicky.