Chapter 49
Anna doesn’t want to go first, so frightened that she starts shaking when I ask her to, but she tells me where to go.
“By the pond. Right under the main building.”
She’s grabbed onto Armin’s arm; hunched over from the rain, she looks smaller, shorter, though I think she’s probably got a couple of inches on him were she to stand up straight.
He looks at me and nods, his mouth set in a grim line.
Part of me wants to run. Part of me wants to hide, hide away and pray this will all just dissipate, protect myself and close my eyes against it until it’s over, one way or another.
The image of Belinda—tall, slender Belinda, Belinda who got me coffee that one time against orders, Belinda who greeted me with a soft smile on that first day—is impossible to square with the figure in the window. The shadow in the woods.
The murderer who took Sandra’s life.
But, then again, I don’t really know her. I don’t know what was hiding behind that placid smile. And did she not frighten me, on occasion? Did I not suspect there had to be something darker behind all that smooth perfection?
If I’d only realized then just how much darker it could get.
I steel myself, and I set off down to the drowned path.
The pond is overflowing, bubbling at the edges, like some demented witch’s cauldron; without the small protection of the cabins by my side, the wind wants to push me into that icy cold water, but I manage to stay upright.
I can’t check that the others are behind me, can only trust that they are following along.
I can’t see more than ten feet ahead; all I can see is rain.
It’s coming so fast and strong it hurts, and so does the cold, my skin stinging under my soaked jacket.
I feel chilled to my very core, my chest so tight it’s hard to breathe, and when I open my mouth to inhale, it fills with the taste of the rain.
The main building is a blurry shape to my left, the pond a dark, gaping mouth to my right. I try, desperately, to look for someone on the ground, hoping with all my heart that she’s there, that Anna managed to get a good enough hit to keep her down for long enough.
And yet, at the same time, the animal in me is hoping she won’t be there.
As long as she’s not here, I’m safe.
I don’t want to find her; I want her to be gone. I want her to have left, to leave me alone, to leave all of us alone.
At some point, I’m sure I’ll wonder why. Why she did all this. But right now, it doesn’t seem to matter.
“I don’t see her,” I shout over my shoulder; I don’t know if Anna can hear me.
But when I turn back, I glimpse it.
On the ground. A shape. At first, I might have mistaken it for water, but it’s still, where the water is moving.
I feel my stomach turning again, and the cold has me in an iron grip, and I want to turn, want to run, but I don’t.
My father would have turned.
He would have taken the car and left.
But I run to her, and I get down by her side, even as I’m shaking with fright, because she’s lying with her face down, her legs half-submerged in the roiling pond, her hair a dark sludge of water.
“Belinda?” I yell, and I grab her by the shoulders and turn her over.
Her face is still beautiful. Her eyes are half-open, and for a moment I think she’s looking at me. I think she’s dazed, and I think, That’s good. Anna hit her hard. She won’t be able to hurt us.
But then I see the gash at the top of her head.
The rain has washed the blood away, leaving the gaping ruin of her skull pristine.
The cut has cleaved the top of her head, stopping an inch away from her hairline. I can see the hair pushed into the split by the force, the white of the bone poking through, and something else under there, something worse, something I can’t—I can’t—
There’s a sound behind me. Like a cry. A name called out.
But I don’t turn around, because I can’t look away. I’m frozen in the moment of what I’m seeing.
Anna said that she hit her, I think absurdly. She only said that she hit her.
And then I feel it. A prick at the base of my neck.
The world starts to swim in front of my eyes, and I feel a strong pair of arms catching me, and it’s almost a relief to feel the world slipping away. To let someone catch and carry me.
“It’s all right, Isobel,” she whispers in my ear. “It’s all going to be okay now.”
And then it all dissolves around me, and I’m falling.
REPORT OF MISSING PERSON
NAME OF MISSING PERSON: Susannah Viola Wallin
DATE OF BIRTH: 02/16/1995
NAME OF PERSON MAKING REPORT: Maximilian Lucas Wallin
RELATIONSHIP TO MISSING PERSON: Sibling
DATE OF REPORT: 11/13/2023
LAST SEEN: 09/02/2023
BACKGROUND: Susannah Viola Wallin is 28 years old, 5'10", and described by her brother as having an athletic build, blond hair, and blue eyes.
She was last seen by her family on the evening of September 2, and is described by her brother as having been in a heightened state of emotion (“excited, almost manic”).
According to her brother, Susannah had recently been broken up with by her fiancée, Linn Walsjo, and had made plans to get treatment at a therapeutic clinic by the name of Himlafall (located approx. five hours from Stockholm). This treatment was supposed to go on for a week.
According to her brother, Susannah never made contact upon returning home, and he states that he is not certain she ever came back from the clinic.
Brother further states that he has made multiple attempts to contact the clinic in question, but that they have refused to answer any questions about his sister.
Maximilian Wallin claims to have made multiple (“dozens”) attempts at contacting his sister, and says that he at first thought she might have been avoiding his calls but is now concerned she has gotten hurt or is being held by the clinic in question.
As proof he offers that multiple of her bills have gone to collection and that, according to him, none of her friends have heard from her.
Addendum 11/14/2023: The Himlafall Clinic has been reached by phone and has confirmed that Susannah Viola Wallin left the clinic voluntarily on September 8.
Addendum 11/17/2023: Contact has been established with Susannah Viola Wallin upon attempt at speaking to her fiancée, Linn Walsjo.
Visual confirmation of identity was made.
Susannah expressed that she is in good health and that her brother is attempting to find her against her will, and further expressed her wish that no one is to be made aware of her location. Case is to be considered closed.