by Amy Cross
“Come in,” her voice whispered in her mind, except after a moment she realized that it hadn't really been her voice at all. It had been something else, using her own thoughts to speak to her.
“I...” She paused, before spotting one of the ghostly figures watching her from over by the farmhouse.
“You'll be safe in here,” the voice continued. “Come inside. You know you want to.”
“Who are you?” Margit whispered, taking a step forward, approaching the door to the barn. “What do you want?”
“I want to see you. I want to give you things.”
“I can hear you in my head,” she replied, terrified but still making her way closer to the door. “What the hell is going on in this place?”
“Come inside and I'll tell you everything.”
“But...”
She knew she shouldn't, she knew she should just run, but instead she made her way into the barn, disappearing quickly into the darkness as she made her way toward whatever was waiting for her at the far end.
Five months later, a few of the neighbors admitted to each other in hushed tones that, yes, they might have heard a brief scream one night, during the winter, coming from the direction of the abandoned farm, but that they hadn't done anything about it because, well, everyone knew the place was empty and that no-one ever went there. Most of them had tried to ignore the farm, really, and pretend it didn't exist at all. After all, everyone remembered the terrible thing that had happened to the three sisters, to poor Elizabeth, Kari and Sara.
Now, however, some of the locals were gathered in a gossipy flock by the side of the road, watching as a glazier fixed the broken window. For the first time in more than three decades, and despite muttered objections raised by some of the most senior figures in the area, the farm was going to be occupied again.
Nearby, standing at the top of a ladder, the estate agent was busy hammering more tacks into a large 'Sold' sign.
Chapter One
1979
No-one really knows why, but sometimes death just comes to a place and settles for a while.
Hearing a flapping sound above, Sara looked up and saw that the tops of the pine trees were swaying slightly, although she couldn't see what had hit them. It must have been a bird, she told herself, perhaps even an eagle. She'd definitely heard its wings and heard them good, and she was a little disappointed not to at least get a glimpse of whatever it was. She always loved seeing eagles, the way they soared like kings, and at just eight years old she'd already seen quite a few.
“Sara!” her sister's voice shouted from beyond the next ridge in the forest. “If you're coming, come!”
“Coming!” she yelled, turning and running across the rough, root-criss-crossed forest floor, racing between trees until she reached the top of the ridge and spotted Kari a little further down in a small clearing, where she was picking the first wild garlic bulbs of spring. Taking care not to slip and fall, Sara made her way down the leafy embankment, building up speed as the incline became steeper and finally running down, hoping not to fall. Coming to a halt at the edge of the clearing, she saw Kari's full-to-the-brim basket of bulbs, and she realized she regretted turning down the opportunity to bring a basket herself.
Still, maybe it wasn't too late.
“Can I help?” she asked.
“No,” came Kari's rolling-eyed response, as she conspicuously turned away to search for more garlic. The soil underfoot was still a little damp, since the winter's snow had only finished melting away a few weeks earlier.
“I want to help,” Sara said, squelching forward.
“Well you can't. You didn't bring a basket, dummy. I told you to bring one.”
“I know, but -” Stepping forward again, but not looking where she was going, she gasped as she tripped over the basket. She managed to right herself and keep from falling, but in doing so she accidentally toppled the basket and then stamped some of the spilled garlic bulbs into the mud. Immediately, she bristled as she waited to be told off.
“For God's sake,” Kari sighed, hurrying over and pushing her away. “Can you just not?”
“Not what?” Sara asked. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to.”
Crouching down, Kari righted the basket and then started scooping some of the bulbs back in. The ones that weren't ruined, at least.
“Why don't you go and look at the river?” she muttered finally, sounding tired. “See if the otters are back yet.”
“It's too early for the otters,” Sara told her. “I asked Pappa just yesterday, and he told me it's too early. Mamma and Elizabeth said the same thing too.”
“Maybe they'll surprise you. Just go, get out of my hair for a while.”
Sara shook her head.
“Go,” Kari said firmly, pointing toward the river. “Just for five minutes. Now, or I swear to God, I'll... Just go!” She looked back down at the crushed garlic bulbs. “I hate babysitting.”
Sighing with frustration, Sara turned and stomped her way across the clearing. She was starting to think that she shouldn't go out with her sister anymore, since Kari always treated her like a child even though she was only five years younger. She felt that, aged eight, she was more than able to do anything the other girls did, but at the same time she had an annoying habit of making clumsy mistakes whenever she got excited. As she reached the riverbank and headed down to the very edge of the water, she told herself that something had to change, that spending all day every day with Kari was too frustrating. More than anything, she wished she had friends her own age, or that she could spend more time with her older sister Elizabeth, or that she could just find someone who was more on her own wavelength.
Looking along the length of the river, she saw that there was no sign of the otters. Now her task was over, so she figured she should go back, but she knew Kari would still be angry, and when Kari got angry – which was often – the bad mood always lasted for the rest of the day. Another reason to hate stupid, full-of-herself Kari.
Still, she had nothing else to do, and nowhere else to go.
Turning, she -
She stopped suddenly, as her gaze fell upon a crumpled shape just a few meters away, half jutting out of the water and half submerged. She could see immediately that the shape was covered in white fabric, a little like the uniform her mother wore to work but torn and glistening wet, and after a moment she realized that the faint bulge could be a person's hunched back, as if it was someone who was partly on their side, and partly on their front, with most of their face pressed down into the water. She froze for a moment, waiting for the sight to resolve itself and become something more normal, but as the seconds ticked past she began to realize that her heart was racing.
From where she was standing, from that exact angle at least, the shape looked like a human body.
“It's a rock,” she told herself, “or a pile of leaves.” Even the voice in her head sounded scared.
Unable to think of anything else the shape could be, she paused, wondering what to do next, but fighting the urge to call for her sister. After a few seconds, she took a step to one side, but the shape still looked like a human body even from a different angle, with the current of the river running gently around the mass. She took another step to the side, still hoping that she'd suddenly see that it was something else.
No luck.
It still looked like a man's body.
“Hello?” she whispered, although she immediately felt silly. Still, she had no other ideas. “Hello?” she said again. “Are you okay?”
Hearing another rustling sound high above, she looked up and saw the tops of nearby pine trees swaying. Whatever was up there, it seemed to be circling the area, maybe watching.
“You're not a person,” she said quietly as she looked back at the shape in the water, hoping that by saying the words out loud she might make them come true. Stepping closer, she continued to hope against hope that the shape would suddenly turn out to be a suitcase or a pile of clothes, but even from a sli
ghtly different angle it still looked like a body. If anything, it looked more like a body now, and she thought she could see a long section sticking out, which seemed a little bit like an arm.
“Please don't be a body,” she whispered. “Be something else.”
Daring herself to be brave, she took another step forward, and then another.
The thing in the water still looked like a dead body.
Suddenly the entire shape shifted, as if it had become unwedged from the riverbank, and it began to drift out to join the current of the river.
Wide-eyed with shock, Sara took a few more steps forward, watching as the shape began to slowly float along, and finally she spotted a mass of what seemed like hair at one end, and a human ear poking into view, along with a faint tattoo showing what seemed to be a butterfly.
Without thinking twice, she screamed.
Even as the scream ended and echoed through the forest, she heard footsteps rushing in her direction, and a voice shouting for her:
“Sara! Where are you? What's wrong?”
She stared for a moment longer as the shape drifted a little further away, and then she turned to see Kari racing toward her between the trees.
“Sara!” Kari shouted, spilling garlic bulbs from her basket as she got closer. “What happened? What the hell are you doing?”
“There's a person in the river,” Sara replied, trying really really hard not to cry. Turning, she pointed at the shape, which by now was quite a bit further along even though it was only drifting slowly.
“What do you mean? There can't be a -” Kari stopped suddenly, with a sudden, sharp intake of breath as she saw the body. After a moment, her eyes widened, as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing. “No... It can't be.”
“It's a person, isn't it?” Sara said quietly, her voice filled with fear. “Isn't it?”
“I don't know,” Kari replied. “It's hard to tell from here. Did you see its face?”
“I saw its ear,” Sara replied, her gaze fixed on the drifting body. “I think its face is underwater.” She paused for a moment. “That's not a good sign, is it? If its face is underwater, it can't breathe, can it?” She waited for an answer, before tugging gently on Kari's sleeve. “Kari? Is it a dead man?”
They stood in silence for a moment, as if neither of them – aged eight and thirteen – had a clue what they should do next. Above, the treetops rustled again, as if they'd been disturbed by something, but the two girls were focusing solely on the body as it drifted away, and neither of them was aware of anything else in the world.
“I don't like it,” Sara whispered finally, pulling once again on Kari's sleeve. “Can we go home now? Please?”
“Wait here,” Kari replied, making her way along the riverbank, hurrying to catch up to the body.
“I didn't mean to find it, I swear,” Sara shouted, before running after her. “I just sort of saw it by accident. Anyway, it's your fault! You're the one who made me come down here to look for the otters. Please don't tell anyone!”
“What, are you stupid?” Kari replied, stopping at the river's bend so she could watch as the body drifted past, still borne along by the current as it bumped gently against the opposite bank and then continued on its way. “Of course we have to tell someone, dumbass. It's a dead man! We can't just ignore a dead man!”
“Who should we tell?”
“The police, I suppose. Or Mamma and Pappa.” She paused. “We should tell Mamma and Pappa first, and then they'll probably call the police. And Elizabeth. She'll know what to do, she always does.”
“What if no-one believes us?” Sara asked.
“They know we're not liars. At least they know I'm not a liar. I'll go and get someone, you stay and keep track of the body.”
Sara's eyes widened with horror. “Me? Why me?”
“Because someone has to keep up with it, dummy. It's floating, and there are forks in the river up ahead. We have to know which way it goes, or it might get lost and then we'd look really stupid.”
“But...” Sara paused, staring at the body and suddenly imagining what it would be like to be alone with a dead man in the middle of the forest. She couldn't really imagine it, but she knew it didn't sound like fun. “I don't want to stay with it. Why can't you stay, and I'll go and tell Mamma and Pappa?”
“No-one'll believe you,” Kari replied, turning and starting to traipse away through the forest. “You're just a little baby.”
“I'm not a baby!”
“Then prove it. Do as you're told.”
“No, I -”
“You lied about that fox last week,” Kari continued. “You told everyone there was a fox at the farm, and there wasn't. Dad went out looking for half an hour before you admitted you'd made it all up.”
“I just thought it was funny,” Sara replied, her eyes filled with tears.
“Yeah, well too bad. When I get back with Mamma or Pappa or Elizabeth, we'll call out to you and you can let us know where you are, okay? That way, we won't have to search for the body for hours.”
“But I don't want to stay with the the dead man,” Sara whined, looking back down into the river and seeing that the corpse had already floated quite a bit further along. She turned and watched as her sister made her way between the trees, heading to the hill that led back to the family farm. “Kari!” she yelled at the top of her voice. “Come back! I don't want to be the one who has to stay here! Kari! Stop!”
She heard Kari shout something in return, but she couldn't make out what it was.
“This isn't fair,” Sara muttered, making her way along the riverbank until she'd caught up to the slowly drifting corpse. “Why am I the one who has to do it? Why do -”
Suddenly she heard a fluttering sound above, but she still couldn't see anything. Still, as she looked around at the forest all around her, with the sun having disappeared behind a cloud, she felt certain that she was being watched.
Chapter Two
Today
“Welcome to hell,” Paula muttered as she stopped, just past customs, and stared at the bustling arrivals hall ahead. “The deadest, most boring place in the whole world. And everyone's carrying... skis.” She said that last word with particular disdain, as if it shook her to the core of her soul.
“Come on,” her father said, stopping behind her and putting a hand on her shoulder, “I think you should try to be a little more positive about the whole thing. It's a fresh start for both of us!”
“I know,” she replied, slipping away and stepping forward, weighed down by her two backpacks but refusing to let him see that they were too heavy. “Still... I'm all for fresh starts and that kind of thing, but did you really have to move us a thousand miles north? I mean, what is there in Norway, really? There's nothing here except snow and moose poo.”
“There's only snow in winter,” he pointed out.
“And what is it now?”
“It's winter, but when summer comes, the climate should really pick up.”
“I saw the snow from the plane as we came in to land,” she told him. “Have I told you my feelings about snow before? About how much I hate it? It's even worse than sand!”
“Well, as long as you're facing things in the right spirit -”
“What spirit?” she asked, turning to him. “There's no spirit that can possibly make this any better! I don't know anyone in Norway and neither do you! You've just uprooted us from our actual lives in London and moved us to a place where the temperature won't rise above freezing for another four months, and where we'll only get a few hours' worth of light each day, and where we don't know the language, and where everything costs twice what it costs back home! And based on what? A whim!”
“It's not a whim -”
“That's right,” she continued, really warming to her theme now. “It's a farm. You've actually gone and bought a farm.”
“Yes.”
“In Norway.”
“As I've explained -”
“And how much
experience do you have with farming?”
“None, but -”
“And how much Norwegian do you speak?”
“Barely a word. Yet.”
“But hey,” she continued, as the sarcasm built in her voice, “why let that stop you? I mean, it's only our lives you're playing with here, right? It's not like anything important is on the line. If it all goes to hell and you lose everything, we can just rot in a ditch somewhere and get eaten by a moose. No biggie.”
“Don't you think you're being a little over-dramatic?”
“I've earned that right,” she scowled. “Big time.”
“You just have to see this move the way I see it,” he continued, stepping toward her and trying to put a hand on her shoulder again, before she pulled away. “It's a challenge.”
“You're a challenge,” she muttered.
“Don't judge the move too soon,” he told her. “You've never even set foot on a farm before, have you?”
“Neither have you, father. That's my point, you're not farmer material! You've spent your entire life to date running a printing company! Paper, ink, cardboard, that's the kind of thing you know how to deal with. And then what happened? You read an article in some stupid magazine about organic farming, and you decided to have a goddamn midlife crisis and buy a farm in Norway! No offense, but what the hell do you know about taking over and running a farm?”
“Absolutely nothing,” he said with a smile, “and that's why this is going to be such an adventure. Life is about testing yourself from time to time, and as you so eloquently put it, this is one hell of a test. We're going to learn things about ourselves, about how we stack up under adversity, that we could never have learned in our old, safe lives back home. Now let's get moving. I told the estate agent we'd pick up the keys before three.”
As her father pulled his two suitcases past her, heading for the exit and the Gardermoen taxi rank, Paula couldn't help but sigh. She knew she was giving him way too hard a ride, and that her bitchiest side was showing through, but at the same time she was worried. Despite his long history of hare-brained schemes, her father had never before done something so utterly insane as moving the pair of them to another country, and she was certain he'd bitten off more than he could chew. And this time, she wasn't sure she could help him when he inevitably hit trouble.
