Chapter 36
As the others begin to walk over to the main building for the morning session of group therapy, their jackets and sweaters pulled up over their heads, I wait a couple of seconds to let them get a head start before turning instead to the staff quarters.
The clouds have only gotten thicker and darker, the raindrops heavy enough for the sound outside to be deafening. The pond looks like a ballet in the abstract, droplets dancing over the iron-gray surface.
I only need a few minutes. Wake Sandra up, borrow her phone, call for help. One call to Armin, one to the police. I’ll tell them someone is being held here against their will, that they need to send a car, or a helicopter, or even a goddamned horse.
That’ll be enough.
“Isobel?”
I stop midstep, cursing my luck, cursing the weather. Cursing Himlafall.
Turning, I see Anna, standing there with a frown on her beautiful face, her light hair covered by the hood of a pretty pink rain jacket
“Where are you going?”
“I was just going to go and get a dry sweater,” I hasten to say. “Don’t worry, I’ll be along in just a minute.”
Anna bites her lip. “I’d really rather you stick with the others right now. With this weather, we don’t want any accidents.”
“I’m not going to have an accident. I’ll be careful, and it’s such a short walk.” Even as I’m speaking, the wind picks up, nearly knocking me over, as if nature itself is contradicting me.
“Please, just get back to the group, Isobel.” Anna smiles, but there is tension in her lips, in the line of her jaw.
I notice now, what I didn’t see in the dining hall: There are circles under her eyes, a small muscle twitching by her jaw.
Keep away from Anna.
Why did they want me to be kept away from her?
Maybe it’s not that she knows anything about the secrets of Himlafall. Maybe it’s the fact that she’s not as dedicated to Martina as the rest.
Maybe she would help me, if I asked.
I decide to chance it.
“Anna, why don’t you want me walking around? It can’t just be the weather.”
She shakes her head empathetically.
“Of course not,” she says, but her smile is sliding, becoming lopsided.
My eyes are drawn, as though without my consent, to the woods. The branches hang heavy with moisture, the trees groaning in the wind.
“Did they tell you to keep an eye on me?” I turn back to her. I want to whisper, but the wind demands I almost scream to be heard.
“Did they tell you not to let me leave?”
She seems to falter, on the verge of speaking.
“You can tell me,” I say. “Am I in danger?”
Wrong word. Wrong choice. Wrong something.
“No, no, of course not,” she says, snapping to attention, polite mask sliding back into place. “You’re perfectly safe. Everything is fine. Everything is going to be fine.”
For a long, quivering moment, we just stand there, looking at each other, the space between us taut as a piano wire, ready to snap from tension.
“Let me go to my cabin.” I’m not asking. “I will go to therapy after that. I promise.”
She’s wavering.
“Where else would I go?” Hysterical laughter threatens to tear from my throat, and I bite down on my tongue to keep it from slipping out.
“Fine,” Anna finally says. “But don’t go anywhere else. And don’t go in the staff quarters, Isobel. It’s for your own good. Please. Just listen to me. Promise me.”
Her eyes look suspiciously shiny, like she’s about to cry, something like fear making her lips and cheeks grow pale, the shadows under her eyes deeper.
I don’t object, don’t pretend not to know what she is talking about. Somehow, it feels like we’re past that.
“Okay. Straight to the cabin.”
Anna appears to hesitate, but then she surprises me by pulling me in for a desperate, sudden hug.
She smells like rainwater and organic shampoo, and I feel her body shaking under the pink rain jacket.
To my own surprise, I hug her back.
Then, just as suddenly, she lets go of me, turns around, and walks up to the staff quarters, disappearing through the door.
I’m left there, alone and shivering in the rain, the sinking feeling in my stomach ever stronger.
Maybe I’m not the only one stuck in this trap.
The difference is that I think there is still time to get out.
Anna seems to have accepted whatever fate may be waiting for us.
I can only hope that she is wrong. Even though my instincts tell me otherwise.