by Amy Cross
“He did those things to her for a reason,” the voice continued. “You're young, you don't understand, but he saw something in you, something the pair of you shared.”
“What?” she whispered.
“You and him, you're similar. You both have that way of talking to yourself in your head, and you both know you can't control the voice. Sometimes, the voice says things that you'd never think. The voice chose you.”
She shook her head again.
“You know it's true. I'm reaching out to you right now, from the barn.”
“Who are you?” she whispered.
“Don't you remember? You met me when you came into the barn.”
“I...” Pausing, she tried to remember what had happened when she'd entered the barn, but the memories seemed to have fallen away.
“You're my new friend,” the voice added. “We're going to have a lot of fun together.”
Before she could react, her mind was suddenly filled with a vivid image of Kari being tortured. She saw a blade being sliced into her sister's eye, and she heard the screams, before she was able to force the image out of her head.
“There's more,” the voice whispered. “Think what he'd have done to Elizabeth, if he'd been able to get his hands on her.”
As soon as she heard those words, she saw the image: Elizabeth, sobbing and fighting for her life, being held down and -
“No,” she whispered, squeezing her eyes tight shut but finding that the darkness only made the image more real. Opening her eyes again, she focused on the window on the other side of the landing, and she was finally able to make the dark thoughts fade away. She knew they were still in her mind, though, and she was certain that they were going to come back again soon.
“Smart girl,” the voice whispered after a moment. “Why don't you come and see me again?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Today
“It's cold in here,” Sebastian said as he pushed open the door to Paula's bedroom.
“It's Norway,” she replied, peering over his shoulder. “It's always cold.”
“This is a different kind of cold,” he continued, taking a step forward. “You don't mind if I take a look, do you?”
“Sure,” she said, following him into the room. Spotting the previous day's bra on the floor, she managed to kick it under the bed before he noticed. “I don't know what you expect to find, though. I feel like all the noises and strange things only happen at night.”
“The 3am effect.”
“The what?”
“It's just a theory that sometimes gets kicked around on forums. There are some people who say that the barrier between the living and the dead is at it's weakest at 3am, so the closer you are to three in the morning, the more likely you are to sense these things. They're still around the rest of the time, but...” He made his way to the window and looked out at the yard. “Like I said, it's just a theory, but it seems to fit with most people's experiences. Plus, you know... Asparagus.”
Grabbing her duvet, Paula threw it across her bed, to make the place seem a little less messy.
“Sara Olesun's body was never found,” he continued, turning to her.
“I know.”
“But the other two sisters, their bodies were found,” he continued. “They were on the other side of the barn when their father went to check on them.”
“So what's your point?” she asked.
“I'm just pointing things out. The one girl whose body wasn't ever discovered, is also the one girl who seems to have been able to physically interact with someone. I don't know about you, but I don't believe in that kind of coincidence.”
“But you believe in the rest of it?” she asked. “I mean, the whole thing about ghosts, the idea that they even exist...” She paused, suddenly realizing that there was a part of her that wanted to disprove the whole thing, to put the genie back in the bottle and go back to how life used to be. “My mother always said she'd come back,” she added finally.
He turned to her.
“This is going to sound extremely lame,” she continued, “but... My mother had cancer, and she died a couple of years ago, and one of the things she told me right before the end was... She said that if there was any way to come back, even just as a spirit, she'd do it, and she'd give me some kind of a sign.”
“And did she?”
She shook her head.
“That doesn't mean -”
“So if these kids can do it,” she continued, interrupting him, “and if one of them can even scratch my goddamn face, then why can't my mother give me a sign? Why can't she knock something off a table? 'Cause believe me, I've tried. I've put cups on the edges of tables and begged her to knock them off, I've tried ouija boards, I've done everything...” Pausing, she realized she was starting to speak a little faster than usual, which always happened when she talked about her mother. “I just don't get it. I mean, she spent a year in hospital, dying slowly and painfully, and she has people left behind that she really cares about, so surely if anyone in the world could come back as a ghost, it'd be her?”
“You'd think so,” he said cautiously. “I'm sure she'd do anything to see you again.”
“Maybe it's because we moved,” she added. “I told Dad we should stay in the old house, but he thought we needed a change of scenery. I begged him not to sell the place, but maybe she's there and she can't reach me now I'm here. Is that possible?”
“I have no idea.”
“Damn it, and now I'm just...” Taking a deep breath, she tried to stay calm, but she could feel tears in her eyes. She'd always thought of herself as a strong person, as someone who could handle anything life threw at her, but now she felt as if she couldn't manage, and she was frustrated by her own weakness. “I just wanted that one sign she promised me,” she added, her voice betraying the effort of not crying. “It's not much to ask, is it?” Reaching up, she used a shirt sleeve to wipe her eyes. “One sign. Just one, just so I know she's there somewhere, so I know that she... that she somehow... persisted after she died. That we're not alone.”
Pausing, Sebastian seemed to not quite know what to do, before finally he headed over and put an arm around her. When she didn't pull away, he gave her a full hug.
“And now I'm just a crying baby,” she continued, sniffing back more tears. “I'm sorry, I shouldn't be telling you all of this.”
“It's fine,” he replied, holding her close. “When my father died, I did something similar. I tried to make contact with him, I dared him to come back and give me some kind of clue that he was still around. It wasn't because I wanted him to come back, though. I wanted to make sure he couldn't.”
She waited for him to continue. “And... did you get a sign?”
He shook his head.
Leaning back, she wiped her eyes and then looked at him. “Well, that's a good thing, right?”
“It's not conclusive,” he replied. “One person's experience isn't necessarily the same as another's.”
“Seems like ours are pretty similar,” she pointed out, trying to smile.
Above them, the ceiling creaked slightly.
“Similar until you came to this place,” he said finally, letting go of her and heading to the door. “Your mother didn't come and give you a sign, and thank God my father didn't come to me, but the Olesun sisters... Something's definitely happening with them, wouldn't you say? They want something, and it seems they're going to stay at this farm until they get it. Two of them as ghosts, and one of them as that thing that scratched you. Why the different forms?”
“And what am I supposed to do?” Paula asked. “If they want something, I sure as hell don't have it. I can't work out what they're after, so are they just going to keep on haunting the place forever? Like the ghosts in the forest, the ones from the leper colony? I mean, if that's how it's going to be, I don't...” She paused for a moment, feeling as if she was on the verge of throwing in the towel. “I don't think I want to live here,” she continued finally
, “if there are just going to be bangs and creaking noises every night, and creepy little ghost kids running around in the yard. I never wanted to live here anyway, but if that kind of stuff is going on, then we can't stay.”
“Unless you can work out what they want,” Sebastian replied.
“And how do I do that?”
“I have some boxes of stuff in my garage,” he continued. “Things from back when I was a kid, when the Olesun sisters' murder was still big news. Maybe it's worth going over it all again, now that you've seen a few things.”
“There's no point.”
“So what's the alternative? You want to sit around this place, listening to the sound of ghosts, and not even try to do a damn thing about it? You'll end up losing your mind. Come on, we can go to my place and at least get the boxes out. If we don't find anything useful, we're no worse off. I've already looked over it several times, but a fresh pair of eyes might see something new.”
She stared at him for a moment, but she felt too exhausted to be skeptical. “Fine,” she said eventually, “but on the way, do you mind if we stop off somewhere first?”
***
“We're probably not going to wake him until tomorrow now,” Doctor Bakkerud explained as he and Paula stood by her father's bed. “You shouldn't worry, though. I'm confident he's going to make a full recovery.”
“And he won't be disabled in any way?” she asked.
“He might have some fine motor damage in his hand, but that's the worst. He wasn't planning to be a concert pianist any time soon, was he?”
“I can't believe he let this happen,” she continued, reaching down to hold her father's un-bandaged hand. “I told him to be careful.”
“Accidents happen,” the doctor replied.
“Not with those kind of threshing machines,” Sebastian pointed out from the doorway.
“What do you mean?” Paula asked, turning to him.
“There's a safety lock,” he continued. “I took a look at it earlier, to be sure. The odds of your father managing to turn the lock off, then activating the rack of blades, and then managing to engage just the blades that were next to his shoulder... Well, you know what I think about coincidences.”
“Obviously he was just unlucky,” Doctor Bakkerud replied, a little uneasily. “Farming equipment is dangerous, after all. Ms. Ridley, does your father have any experience working on a farm?”
“None.”
“So there we have it,” he continued, as his pager beeped. Checking the message, he headed to the door. “The most important things are getting him back on his feet, and making sure he doesn't have any more accidents. People who aren't familiar with farming equipment have no place messing around. He's lucky he didn't take his own head clean off.”
Sebastian said something to the doctor in Norwegian, and the doctor replied with a few words that made him sound irritated. Sebastian then added another sentence, and whatever he'd said, it seemed to make Doctor Bakkerud shut up.
As the doctor headed out, Sebastian made his way across the room until he reached John's bedside.
“The worst thing,” Paula said, with tears in her eyes as she looked down at her father's sleeping face, “is that this won't stop him. He'll just see it as a challenge, and he'll be right back out there as soon as he's fit enough. Sooner, even.”
“I don't get how he managed to do this to himself,” Sebastian replied, looking over at the various drip bags attached to John's arm. “The odds are a million to one.”
“So what are you suggesting?” she asked. “Please, don't start telling me ghosts did this.”
“I'm not saying that at all,” he replied, “I just...” Pausing for a moment, he turned to her. “Take as long as you want. I'll be downstairs in the waiting area, I need to make a few calls.” He placed a hand on her shoulder briefly, before turning and heading to the door.
Left alone with her father for a moment, Paula leaned down and kisses his forehead.
“You have no idea what you've landed us in,” she whispered. “I told you we shouldn't come out here, but you wouldn't listen. And now you've left me to -” Pausing, she realized she was in danger of feeling sorry for herself. “Just get well,” she added finally, kissing him again. “Please, don't leave me here! I can't do this alone!”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
1979
“Kari,” Sara whispered, nudging her sister's shoulder in the dark bedroom. “Kari, it's me. Wake up.”
She waited, until finally she heard the sheets rustling.
“Kari, you have to come with me. It's important.”
“Leave me alone,” her sister replied, her voice sounding harsh and strained. “I don't want to go anywhere. Not ever again. I might as well just stay in bed forever and rot.”
“You have to come with me,” Sara told her, tugging on her arm. “Please, I know you probably hate me, but this is the most important thing ever, in the history of the world.”
“So? I won't be able to see it. Sara, I'm in a lot of pain, and -”
“This will make everything better,” Sara continued. “I swear, I just... I can't explain how I know, but I know. Trust me.”
“Trust you? No way.”
Pausing, Sara realized she needed to try a different tactic. “Elizabeth said you'd be scared.”
“She said what?”
“She said now you can't see, you'd just want to waste away in bed forever and ever, and never go anywhere.”
“She said that?”
“I told her she was wrong, but now... Now it looks like she might have been right. I mean, you always used to come when I said I had something to show you.”
“That was before.”
“That's what Elizabeth said too.” She waited, and finally she heard the sound of Kari sitting up on the bed. “Are you coming or not?”
“Is it outside?”
“Yes, but it's close.”
“Sara -”
“Let me do this for you,” Sara said firmly, with a hint of gravity in her voice that seemed older than her years. “You don't really want to spend the rest of your life in bed, do you? Anyway, it's dark outside, so it's not like there's much to see. This is about... It's about another sense.”
“You don't sound the same as normal,” Kari told her. “You're using bigger words.”
“Maybe you're just hearing better now, because you can't see. Come on.” Taking Kari's hand, she helped her off the bed and then led her across the dark room, until they reached the dimly-lit hallway. Looking up, she saw that her sister had a thick white bandage over the upper half of her face. She shuddered as she thought back to the moment when Kari had attacked her, but at the same time she felt strangely calm. She knew what she had to do, and how to do it, and all that remained was to get Kari in place. The voice in the barn had told her what to do.
“It's cold,” Kari said, stopping in the doorway.
“It's warm outside.”
“Sara, can't this wait until morning?”
“No. We have to do it now. In the morning, it'll be the seventeenth of May, and everyone's going to be too busy to notice things. It's perfect timing if we go now.”
“Where's everyone else?”
“Mamma's at work, and everyone else is asleep.”
“But -”
“It's perfect, come on.” Half-pulling her sister across the landing, she began to help her down the stairs, taking one creaking step at a time. “I know this secret,” she explained, “and when you realize what it is, you're going to see the world completely differently.”
“Sara -”
“Don't ask too many questions,” Sara continued, as they finally got down to the dark kitchen. “I've set things up perfectly. You're going to love it!”
A couple of minutes later, once they were out the front door and in the yard, Sara led her around the side of the barn, through patches of moonlight filled with the shadows of nearby trees. She kept looking up at Kari, eager to see the expression on her lips,
although she couldn't really tell very much. By the time she got her around to the far side of the barn, however, she felt certain that Kari would love what she had in store, even thought it might hurt a little bit at first. After all, the voice from the shed had promised that this plan would make everything better.
Up ahead, the tarpaulin lay where she'd set it up earlier in the night, forming a very basic tent, like the little fortresses she and the others had built when they were younger. She'd even put a portable lamp in there, so that it wasn't too dark.
“I'm cold,” Kari complained, stopping suddenly, almost as if she sensed that something was wrong. “Sara, I want to go back inside.”
“We're almost there.”
“I don't give a damn!”
“Come on,” Sara continued, leading her along the side of the barn until they reached the makeshift tent. “You're going to have to crawl into the tent,” she explained.
“Tent?” Kari replied. “Jesus, Sara, no -”
“It'll be just like it was when we were younger,” Sara pointed out. “I built a little fortress for us. Please, Kari, so many bad things have happened lately, and I feel like everyone's angry. Can't we try to remember what it was like when we were happy?”
“Getting into a tent won't fix anything,” Kari said firmly.
“It might start! And I have a secret for you, once you're in there.”
“You -” Pausing for a moment, Kari sighed. “You're really something, Sara. You think recreating some juvenile activity is going to somehow turn back time? Sitting in the tent won't change what happened! We're not children anymore!”
“It might make us feel better,” Sara told her. “If you'll just get in and wait, I'll go and fetch Elizabeth. She should be here too.”
“Why? So we can sit around and be cold together?”
“Please,” Sara continued, “just do it for me. Please? I know it'll make you feel better, I just know it.”
Sighing again, Kari cautiously got down onto her hands and knees, before Sara helped her find the entrance to the tent. “There's a light on,” she explained.
