Chapter 30
The wind begins to pick up around nine. At first, I hear it as a staccato of short, sharp bursts; then, it gets stronger, forcing its way through the wooden planks in the walls, a high-pitched whine like tortured, distant wailing.
I haven’t dared take any notes, in case someone might find them; so instead, I’ve been sitting on the bed, going over everything in my head. What I saw, what I’ve heard, what I need to ask Sandra about.
The note under my door. The Post-it in my file. The warning about keeping me away from Anna. The zolpidem, and the possibility that the staff might be giving the patients more than just herbal tea.
My thoughts are spinning. My eyes feel dry, the skin over my forehead stretched too tight. I try to massage my own scalp but find that it’s much less satisfying doing it yourself than having someone do it to you. Like so many other things.
The hands on the clock on the bedside table are showing twenty minutes to ten. The smell of cheap vanilla shampoo from the shower I took to pass the time is still lingering in the air, my hair hanging damp around my ears.
God, I wish I still had my phone. I wish I could talk to Armin.
Though I know what he would say.
Opening my mouth, I try to imitate his voice, lowering my own.
“Don’t go, Isobel. This has all gotten too fucking weird. This isn’t a game. Just go to bed, and then, tomorrow morning, get in your car and drive home.”
The attempt at imitating my best friend’s voice dies out, and toward the end, I’m just speaking to myself, as myself.
I swallow hard.
It’s dark outside. Darker than it was last night. Clouds must have rolled in after sunset. Sitting here, it’s almost like I can smell it in the air: distant rain, coming closer by the second.
I read somewhere once that humans are better at smelling rain than sharks are at smelling blood. I wonder if it’s true.
The whining in the walls increases. If I was superstitious, I’d think the cabin was haunted. That the voice of Susannah Wallin was ringing out from the beyond, trying to warn me.
Get out.
Jesus. I’ve got goose bumps. I have to stop thinking about this. I’m just getting myself worked up for no reason.
I bury my head in my hands, draw a deep breath, forcing the air down as low as I can. I tell myself I’m not actually scared. That it’s nothing but leftover adrenaline from almost getting caught, and the tension of the last few days.
All I want is to crawl under the blankets and sleep for sixteen hours. And hopefully, miraculously, wake up in my own bed, with the coffee stains on the mattress and the mild smell of mildew wafting in from the bathroom.
But I can’t. I have to go and meet Sandra. Wind or no wind. Ghost or no ghost.
I throw a glance over at the clock again. A quarter to ten.
It’s almost time.
I scoot over to the edge of the bed, reach down and grab for the sweater on the floor. While bent over, I glimpse the recorder, hidden once more under the bed, and I pull it out.
Looking at the black rectangle in my hand, I feel slightly silly for a second. But the tension in my shoulders, the weight over my chest, is enough to make me hold in the button.
I bring it close to my mouth and say:
“My name is Isobel Lindschold. I’m a journalist. I am here at Himlafall undercover as a patient.”
I pause, swallow, and continue.
“I am about to go meet my … contact in the woods, in order to talk and come up with a plan for the next few days. But … if you’re listening to this … then you’ve heard the other things I’ve listed. The things that have been happening.”
I close my eyes, breathing out hard through my nose.
“I’m worried I’m not going to come back,” I say, words rattling out rapidly. No time to hesitate. “If you find this, please let people know. It’s ten minutes to ten, April sixteenth. The year is 2024.”
I release the button.
What is this going to do? Who would find it?
The cleaning crew, most likely. And they would just hand it over to Martina.
But it’s something.
It’s all I can do, for now.
I push the recorder under my pillow, and I pull the sweater over my long-sleeved T-shirt. The sleeves bunch uncomfortably under the thick woolen knit of the sweater.
It’s time.
The wind almost throws the door back as I open it. The temperature has dropped significantly in only a couple of hours; the outside is pitch-black, the cold cutting the inside of my throat as I close the door behind me and take a deep, shocking breath.
For a second, I consider going back in and grabbing my jacket. But it’s a stark white; it would be visible from the windows, were anyone to look out at the pond.
I’ll have to chance it. I won’t freeze to death as long as it’s above freezing. At least I don’t think I will.
“We couldn’t just have met in your car again, Sandra?” I mutter to myself, threading my arms around my torso as I start down toward the pond.
My vision is beginning to adjust, and I throw a glance upward. I can see the silhouettes of dark, heavy clouds crowding above. The gusts of wind are harsh and sudden; when I reach the pond, one of them catches me unaware, cutting through my sweater and chilling me to my core.
The surface of the water is rippling, with small waves biting at the shoreline. The pond is black and looks viscous, more like oil than water.
I glance across it.
Right across the pond. Go halfway around, then walk in through the trees at the split pine.
It’s too dark to see any split pine on the other side. I will have to trust that it’s there.
As I walk, crouched down against the force of the wind, my heart is pounding in my chest. My mouth tastes like metal.
What is it I’m scared of? Is it the weather? The darkness?
The potential, though unlikely, bears in the woods?
No.
It’s the thought of someone waiting in the night.
The same dark shadow that was standing outside my window last night, looking in.
That waited for me outside, chased me to the main building, and then, once I was in there, went back to my cabin and took my phone, cutting me off from the outside world entirely.
When I picture them, the face is shifting.
One second, it’s Belinda, or Anna. The next, Martina, or Ellen, who maybe never left at all, who could still be here, watching and waiting.
And then someone else, someone I’ve never met, some stranger, who might have been stalking these grounds for days or weeks, lurking and luring until one of us would be alone.
Are they waiting for me, out here, tonight?
When I pass by the last cabin, I see, to my surprise, that the windows are lit.
The curtains are drawn, but I see someone moving in there.
I force myself to keep walking straight, though all I want is to crouch and sneak.
My body feels unwieldy, my limbs moving neither as swiftly nor as discreetly as I want.
The crunching of the gravel under my shoes sounds like thunder, as though it might alert whoever is in there immediately.
I stumble over one of the rocks, the ones with the pithy little sayings on them, and curse softly to myself. It’s too dark for me to see what’s written on them, but it’s easy to imagine. Something like “All you need is already yours” or “To be known is to be loved, and to be loved is to be known.”
God, I hope no one heard me.
It’s just a walk. I’m perfectly allowed to go for a late-night walk, no matter the weather.
Now, with only trees to one side of me and water to the other, I try to laugh, to trick myself into relaxing.
It doesn’t work.
Only a little bit farther to go. It’s funny how far it feels. Just a small, most likely man-made pond, put there to inspire feelings of peace and tranquility.
It’s the same walking trail that looks so idyllic in the daylight.
So how come it looks twisted and frightening now? In the washed-out colors of the night, it seems haunted. Old stories from my childhood begin to appear, my father’s voice echoing in my brain.
“Ghouls, and goblins, and creatures that hide in the dark, waiting to snatch children away. They can look like anything they want, you know. Even me or you.
“Everyone in Sweden used to believe in them. Some people in rural areas still think they are out there.”
“Not very appropriate stories to tell kids, you fucking asshole,” I whisper to myself.
As I creep along the walking trail, the branches on the trees shaking from the wind, I find myself once more thinking about my dad.
Some of the stories he told were true. Never all of them; the most interesting parts were all found to be lies. Lies that, on occasion, got people convicted of crimes they never committed.
But he really did spend time with some dangerous people. Especially in the beginning of his career.
Did he ever feel like this? Like he was on the verge of passing over some invisible line, crossing into an existence he had never imagined for himself?
Did he ever find himself looking over his shoulder, sure someone was staring at him? Did he ever feel invisible eyes on his skin, crawling like sluggish insects, warm blood rushing under cold skin?
I suddenly, absurdly wish I could ask him about it.
Even knowing that I never will.
He never wrote us after he got out of prison, after all. Eighteen months served, and then he was on the next plane out of Sweden. My mother had to divorce him in absentia.
I don’t even know if he’s still alive.
Maybe that’s the ghost haunting me. Maybe there was never anyone there, outside my window, in the first place.
Maybe it was the shadow of my father, staring at me, screaming silently from the void.
For what?
Forgiveness?
Remembrance?
Or could he have been screaming at me to turn back, before it’s too late? To not make the mistakes he made?
When I look over my shoulder, the cabins have turned into vague shapes on the other side of the water. I can see a light turned on in the staff quarters, but as I look at it, it blinks out, plunging the building into darkness.