She walks through the narrow hall and opens a low door. It slides up with a creak.
I go over to the door, turn on the light, and look down. Blue walls are lined with shelves of jars and seed packets. A sack of potatoes stands next to the stairs.
Otherwise, the room is empty.
I don’t even need to take out the picture from Peter’s phone to compare. That photo was not taken here; that’s obvious.
Andreas walks into the kitchen and over to the window.
“Where do you end up if you walk straight over the meadow and into the woods?” he asks.
Berit shakes her head skeptically. “Do you think she’s gone into the woods? Why in the world would she do that?”
“We saw someone in there when we arrived,” I say. “Next to the fallen tree. And it looks like someone just walked across the field.”
“I walk back and forth across that field all the time,” Berit snorts, then leans toward the window and looks out.
She scratches at one of the sores on her left forearm. They look almost healed now. The angry red has subsided, and the scabs have fallen off to reveal thin pink skin.
Berit sees my gaze and nods.
“Rosebushes. I never learn.”
Then she turns her eyes back to the woods again. Peers into the snow and wrinkles her eyebrows.
“Near the fallen tree, you said?”
“Yes,” I say.
“If you go that way you’ll get to the ironworks,” Berit mutters. “Or to the cairn—depends a bit on which way you walk.”
Hanne
We trudge through the snow at the edge of the woods. As soon as we enter the shadows of the giant spruces, it becomes almost dark.
The forest is strangely quiet, as if the falling snow dampens all sounds.
The woman in front of me is small and bent forward, but she moves fast. Her thin legs stride through the deep snow as if she were strolling through a summer meadow.
I can’t remember ever meeting her before, but of course I can’t be sure.
I don’t trust myself anymore.
She’s wearing a long winter coat and snow pants. Thin brown wisps of hair stick out from under a knitted cap with hearts on it.
She told me her name was Margareta, explained that Peter had been injured, and said I had to come quick. We’ll call Berit later, Margareta told me. She has a cell phone.
“Where is he?” I pant, trying to keep up with her.
Margareta stops and waits.
“Up on Orm Mountain,” she says, then looks at me seriously. “We’re meeting your colleagues there.”
The forest grows thicker. The spruces seem to be crawling closer to each other, as if they don’t want to let us through. As if the forest itself were trying to prevent us from reaching our destination.
“How is he?”
Margareta stamps in place and seems impatient.
“Like I said. Don’t really know. But there’s not much time.”
Then she looks around, peers up at the narrow strip of dark gray sky between the treetops.
“Better hurry.”
She nods at the urgency of her own comment, turns around, and heads on.
It occurs to me that her behavior is a bit strange. Why did she pick me up, and not one of my colleagues? Why walk through the woods instead of going by car? And why couldn’t we wait for Berit? It usually doesn’t take her long to walk Joppe, even if he is old and lame.
“What did you say your name was?” I ask, and quicken my steps to catch up with her, but it’s difficult, because the snow is up to my knees, and it’s heavy. My legs burn from exertion.
“Margareta Brundin,” she says without turning around.
“Are you from here? From Ormberg?”
She stops. Turns back toward me. Smiles a little, for the first time. A deep network of wrinkles spreads around her eyes, and I catch a glimpse of something that resembles affection or maybe even love on her face.
“Lived here my whole life. There’s no better place in the world.”
“And you work with the police?”
Margareta laughs loudly and takes off her mittens. Roots around in her pocket and takes out a pack of cigarettes. Lights one and takes a deep drag.
“Me, a cop?”
She laughs again, but it turns into a wheezing cough.
“Nope,” she says, and clears her throat. “It’s been a long time since I had a job. But when I did, I was a midwife. My niece, Malin, she’s a cop. You know, she worked with you.”
When I don’t answer, she tilts her head and looks at me.
“Don’t you remember her?”
“No,” I say, feeling ashamed, as if I’d chosen this forgetfulness, when really it chose me.
Margareta shrugs her shoulders and glances up at the falling snow. Throws her cigarette down and puts on her mittens.
“We better go,” she says.
We walk a few hundred meters in silence. The trees thin out. Here and there a stump rises up, testifying to the fact that the forest has been cleared. Then the terrain becomes hillier, and harder to navigate, so we’re forced to walk around large stones and climb over fallen trees.
Soon we arrive at a country road.
“Almost there,” Margareta says. “We just have to cross the road and head in by those trees.”
She points to the spruces on the other side of the road.
“How much farther?”
“Not far,” she says, stepping over a snowy ditch and making her way out onto the road.
I follow after her, but my uneasiness won’t let go of me. Are we headed into the woods again?
The cold penetrates my thin hat, and my ears feel like ice cubes. My pants are stiff with snow and wet all the way up to the knees.
For a second, I consider staying here, in the light of a well-plowed road. But then I think of Peter. What if he’s there in those woods, lying injured in some house? Alone, sick, and unable to move.
Margareta disappears between two spruces, and I follow.
Peter is alive, I think. It has to be true.
Why else would they have sent her to pick me up?
The terrain changes again. We start heading upward. At first there’s only a slight incline, but it gets steeper and steeper. I have to grab branches and small trees in order not to trip. Big chunks of snow fall onto my face and down my collar. But Margareta just darts forward, like an inscrutable and tireless mountain goat.
When I glance over my shoulder, I’m surprised.
A seemingly endless snow-covered forest spreads out below us—we must have gone a lot farther and climbed much higher than I realized. I sense the church spire in the distance, but the snow turns the horizon into white mist.
“Wait!” I cry.
Margareta stops, turns around, and starts pushing back through the snow toward me.
“What?”
“I have to rest. I can’t go farther.”
“We’ll be there soon,” she says. “Come on!”
My feet are numb—they’re rigid and stiff—but I do as she says and follow her up the mountain.
Here and there I see footprints cross the slope; maybe the police have searched the forest for Peter.
Then we arrive at a plateau, a piece of open, snow-covered ground surrounded by low trees and shrubs. To the right I see a grouping of snow-covered stones, placed in a circle.
Margareta stands on the edge of the clearing without saying a word. She looks over the forest with her hands hanging at her sides and her chin low. Then she slowly turns toward me. Her breath turns into small clouds that obscure her eyes.
“Look how beautiful,” she says with unexpected softness, putting a hand on my arm.
Jake
I’m on my way up Orm Mountain.
It’s steep, and I have to hold on to bushes and branches to make my way forward. But every time I grab a branch, snow falls off and hits my face.
It feels like the forest is spitting on me, like it doesn’t want me to be here. The headache comes back every time I look up, and along with it comes the nausea. For a while I was worried my brain might be bleeding, which is what killed Grandma, but I convince myself not to be afraid of that. Grandma was almost eighty and sick all the time.
Margareta and Hanne are maybe fifty meters above me. They look like two blurry stick figures in the heavy snowfall.
I’ve followed them all the way from Berit’s cottage.
Just after I got there and parked my moped in the woods, Berit went out with her dog. And before I could warn Hanne, Margareta showed up and knocked on the door of Berit’s cottage.
She must have been waiting for Berit to leave. Like a wolf lurking around after its prey.
I was hoping to get there before her, but instead I have to follow after them. For a moment, I considered taking the moped and driving straight to the cairn to wait for them, but I didn’t dare.
Margareta might try to kill Hanne before they get there.
If I’m lucky, the police will be there already when Margareta and Hanne arrive. Saga said she’d call them as soon as she got home.
I look up at the stick figures, Margareta and Hanne.
I don’t understand how they’re able to move so fast, since both of them are really old.
Dad says everything goes to hell when you get old. You lose it all—your hearing, sight, memory—but in slow motion. So slow you almost don’t notice it, like when you play an old movie frame by frame.
That’s not what it was like for Mom.
She got sick and died quickly, even though she wasn’t old. Even though Hadiya, the doctor with the nice tits, pumped her full of poison.
It’s hard to understand, but above all it’s unfair: Why are Berit and Margareta, who are so old, alive, and Mom is dead and buried?
Somewhere on the hill above me a branch cracks, and I hear a shout.
I stop, holding my breath. Peer upward, suddenly afraid Hanne might roll down the hill like a giant snowball.
But everything is calm.
No Hanne comes rolling down the slope.
I continue climbing. Put one leg in front of the other, again and again, though I’m so tired and hungry and dizzy that I’d rather just lie down in the snow and sleep.
But you can’t do that. The cold is dangerous; it can make you tired and confused. Whisper to you that all you need is a few minutes of sleep—and then, wham, you’re dead and frozen as a freaking snowman.
Just like P.
I try not to think of the body in the freezer. Climb over a snowy branch and look upward again.
Why did Margareta take Hanne up here? There must be so many better places to kill somebody, so many places that are easier to get to.
Especially when you’re old.
Orm Mountain is difficult to climb, even in the summer. Saga and I climbed up here a few times earlier this fall. Sat in the grass on Ättestupan, ate candy, and looked down from the cliff and out over the landscape.
The village looked pretty from above, almost like a postcard. Nothing looked ugly or run-down, all those things Hanne wrote in her diary, not from a distance. All the decrepit houses, graffiti-covered façades, and old cars faded away, as if Melinda had done a makeover on Ormberg with one of her fluffy brushes.
I look up again.
Hanne has stopped at the ledge in front of the Ättestupan, to the left of the ancient monument, but Margareta can’t be seen; she must have gone farther.
Farther ahead? There’s only a cliff there.
And suddenly I understand.
Suddenly, I know why Margareta brought Hanne up Orm Mountain. And why it was so important to do it today, when it’s snowing.
I remember Magnus’s words.
But it’s gonna snow more later this week. Do we have to do it today?
I shudder and turn around.
Yes. The falling snow will cover Margareta’s tracks. My own have already been covered by fluffy flakes.
I quicken my speed, almost running up the slope. But my feet slip, and I fall. Hit my head hard on the ground, and something sharp scratches my face. I tumble down the slope until I manage to grab on to a branch, then stand up and brush off the snow.
I take off my gloves, spit, and run my hands over my cold, numb cheeks. There’s a gash there. Something hot and sticky is running down my face.
Blood.
But it’s only a small cut, I tell myself. It’s nothing next to what will happen to Hanne if Margareta succeeds in luring her all the way out on that cliff.
I continue up through deep snow until I reach the clearing. My heart is hammering in my chest, and I feel exhausted as I squat behind a snowy bush and peek ahead.
Hanne and Margareta gesture toward the bright sky. They’re standing at the edge of Ättestupan, seem to be looking down over the village. It looks almost peaceful. Margareta’s hand is resting lightly on Hanne’s arm, almost as if she’s protecting her, though the opposite is true.
Since she’s an insane murderer.
Blood drips onto the snow in front of me, but I ignore it. All I can think of is Hanne. Nothing can happen to her—not just because it’s my responsibility, but because she’s my friend, even if she doesn’t know it herself. What she wrote in the diary was more honest and more important than anything any other adult ever told me. And even though what she wrote about Dad made me angry, I don’t regret reading the book.
Please, back up, I think. Don’t get so close to the edge.
But Hanne remains standing next to Margareta, remembering nothing, understanding nothing. With no clue that the old hag is planning to push her off the cliff as soon as she gets the opportunity.
And the only thing that can stop her is me.
I stand up and start walking toward them. The snow dampens the sound of my steps, and they don’t seem to notice me approaching from behind.
In the end I’m so close I see Ormberg spread out down below. I can just make out the church spire and the smoke rising from the cottages hidden between the trees.
I can almost touch them now, Hanne’s shoulder or Margareta’s stupid heart-covered hat.
Something inside me turns hard, or maybe it freezes. All the fear and despair I felt fades away. Begins turning into determination and strength.
I’m not going to let her kill Hanne.
“Hanne,” I say.
Hanne
Somebody says my name.
At first, I think it’s my imagination, that my brain somehow conjured up a voice. Why would anyone call out my name here on the mountain?
But the woman who’s with me, whose name I’ve already forgotten, turns instantly toward the voice. I do the same, but more slowly, because my legs and back hurt from exertion after the long climb up the mountain.
And in the snow in front of me, there stands a boy.
There’s something vaguely familiar about him. Something about the gently curved arc of his upper lip and the intense, dark eyes. And then there’s that voice; even though it’s high, it sounds rich, almost like a singer’s.
He’s probably around fifteen, and he’s wearing a dirty winter coat, a hat, and jeans that are icy up to the thighs. A long pink sweater sticks out from under the coat; a thread hangs from it and trails into the snow. There’s a gaping wound across his cheek, and blood flows down his chin.
I look at the woman, at her wiry little body, her reddening cheeks, and her small black button eyes, which are wide with surprise.
“Jake Birgersson, what in God’s name are you doing here?” she says. “Does your father know you’re here?”
“Come with
me, Hanne!” the boy says, his eyes locked on me. “We need to go.”
“She’s not going anywhere,” the woman says. “But you’re leaving right now, Jake Birgersson. March your butt home to your father! The Lord knows he needs all the help he can get from you and your sister.”
The boy—“Jake”—takes a step forward and grabs my arm, while the woman’s grip on my other arm tightens. His big dark eyes seemed determined, and unafraid of meeting my gaze.
“She’s going to push you off this cliff,” he says breathlessly, and nods at the woman.
“I’ve never in my life heard anything so stupid,” she replies, and moves her free hand to her mouth, as if trying to prove how shocked she is.
“Yes. You’re planning to push her off this cliff before she can remember again. You’re afraid she’ll remember that you and Magnus killed that cop, Peter. And that you had the woman with long hair locked in your basement.”
When the boy says that about Peter, my legs start to fold. But his arm is steady, and I manage to keep upright.
“Is Peter dead?”
My words, a whisper that immediately fades away into the trees. As if even the forest doesn’t want them said out loud.
The boy nods.
The woman looks at me sternly.
“You shouldn’t believe…that,” she says slowly, nodding at the boy and then spitting in the snow. “He’s been nothing but trouble since he was little. His mother worried herself to death over him. Come on, Hanne. We have to get to Peter. We don’t have time for this.”
“Don’t listen to her,” the boy says. “She’s lying. She’s a murderer.”
The woman laughs out loud and then coughs.
“Jesus Christ, Jake. I will admit you’ve got quite the vivid imagination. Where’d that come from? Not from your drunk of a father, that’s for sure.”
I don’t know who to believe. The situation is too absurd: I’m standing on a mountain in the middle of the forest, with snow up to my knees, with two people I don’t know. The boy’s story sounds incredible. But I have no idea what’s happened to Peter. Anything at all could have befallen him, even a crime.
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