Chapter 55
I lie on my bed, staring at the ceiling, gripping my small wooden doll. A whole year has passed. I am still here. Still alive. Mikael seems different to me, now that I know his secret, but I’m no less scared of him.
I was thrown into the hole three more times.
Every time I came out, I left a piece of my old self behind.
The second time I tried to escape I was left down there for a week.
At least it was summer and the earth wasn’t quite so icy to the touch, but the smell rising from the ground was unbearable; something was rotting down there.
I was stupid to try to escape when I was so unprepared.
I’d barely made it through the cabin door when Mikael dragged me back.
Johanna roared like a wild animal and came at me with a knife.
Mikael grabbed it from her as she gasped for breath, his fingers wrapped around the blade.
I’ll never forget the look that passed between them when he overpowered her.
She stepped back, suddenly afraid. Blood dripped from his hands as he took control that day.
But it was Mikael who jabbed me with the home-made stun gun and pushed me down into the hole.
If Johanna had been in full health, I wouldn’t be here today.
Sometimes, during those long hours when spiders crawled over my skin, I wished that she had ended my life in this rotten, unfeeling world.
The hole broke my spirit. Sitting there in the dirt and the blackness made me feel like nothing at all.
Then my late-night chats in the living room with Mikael changed the way I thought.
I was allowed to sit next to the fire, while Johanna dozed on the sofa.
She was losing weight, and her gaunt face had taken on a yellowish tinge.
As she grew weaker, Mikael told me about my home in Porvoo and explained why I needed to leave it behind.
Night after night, over the year, I had no choice but to listen.
I was so hungry for company, so grateful for any scrap of kindness, and I wanted to hear about Porvoo, even if it wasn’t good.
“Your mama has moved on,” he told me. “Forget about her, because she’s forgotten all about you.
” I didn’t believe him at first. I didn’t need to say it; he could see it in my eyes.
Then he showed me the newspaper, and the announcement that made my spirits fall.
Mother had married an English man. His name was Richard Swann.
“They’re moving to England,” Mikael told me, although he seemed to take no pleasure from it.
“Your house has been put up for sale.” Then he showed me the listing, which he’d printed off on his computer.
I believed every word. He comforted me as I cried.
“This is why we chose you,” he whispered, one cold stormy night.
The wind whistled through the windowpanes and Johanna had fallen asleep again in the living room. “We knew that you would not be missed.”
“Mama loves me,” I cried, staring miserably into the fire that danced and swayed.
“Only because she had to,” he replied with a shrug. “Now she’s free.” Then he looked at Johanna. “Mothers are meant to protect their children. But they don’t.” The scar on his face said as much.
Mikael didn’t speak many words, but on nights like that, each one was a knife to my heart. He has so many layers. I don’t know him at all. I don’t think he knows himself. But now, as the year has passed, Johanna has got sicker, and Mikael has become more in control.
On the days when she is well, Johanna sits at her sewing machine, making dresses for me.
I’m not allowed to wear regular clothes because, according to her, in this “modern day and age,” women “dress like sluts.” But I’m not a woman.
Not yet. When she is sick, Johanna lies on the sofa with her knitting, her needles clacking as she watches us both.
Her breath is so rancid these days that it fills the room.
Mikael says it’s a side-effect of her medication.
Nice-smelling things are a distant memory now.
I miss the scent of sweetgrass in the meadow near our home.
The warm cinnamon buns that Grandmother would bake in our small kitchen, and the smell of the sweet cloudberry jam that she would have bubbling on the stove.
On those days Mother would come home from work, inhaling all of its goodness, and smile.
Johanna speaks to Mikael about me often. She is waiting for me to be ready. For our so-called wedding day. When she can, she walks to my bedroom, her movements stiff and slow. She rips the blankets from my bed and closely checks the sheets. I have never been scared of nature until now.
If I’m good, Mikael shares his newspaper.
I read it from cover to cover. Sometimes pages are missing.
There is nothing about me. Some days he brings me chocolate, other times he calls me a brat and tells me to shut up.
I’ve seen him watch Johanna as she sleeps.
The emptiness in his eyes makes me feel scared.
He tells me about the bad things that happen to children in foster care.
“You’d better hope the police don’t find you,” he says as night draws in.
“Terrible things happen to children in those places.” And I wonder: how could foster care be worse than here?
Then he reaches out and squeezes my hand, and I try very hard not to pull away.
He’s told me about the girl who came before me.
She was exactly my age, with long blonde hair and blue eyes.
“She wouldn’t stop screaming,” Mikael told me once, after drinking too much beer.
“Johanna lost her temper and then we had to get rid of her.” I think about her often. I wish she didn’t have to die.
I still can’t believe that Mama has left the country.
That someone else is living in my home. On my birthday I sat, miserably, in my chair.
Mikael brought a cake out. He’d bought it in town because he’s useless at baking, and Johanna wasn’t up to it anymore.
He lost his temper when I wouldn’t blow my candles out.
Then he dragged me to the front door by the scruff of my neck and told me to run.
It was a test. I stared into the snow, my feet glued to the ground.
Johanna was asleep in her room. I looked up at Mikael, imagining all the different ways in which things could turn out.
Soft flakes of snow touched my skin as a blizzard rolled in.
He offered his hand. I took it and allowed him to lead me back inside.
“I am yours and you are mine,” he said. “We don’t need Johanna anymore.
” It felt like a test. One that I had passed.
That night I heard muffled sounds coming from Johanna’s room. I heard the creak of her door as Mikael left. The next morning, when I got up, Mikael told me that she was dead.