Dead of Winter

66

As soon as Laura regains consciousness, she is aware that the house is on fire. She doesn’t even need to register the smell, the heat, the crackling sound of the flames devouring all the flammable crap. Because she knows that this is the only logical conclusion for Steph. The only way she can win.

Steph, who has the same name as one of the two girls in the Goonies gang. It all seems so obvious now. The signs were there, but she didn’t see them, even though it’s her job. Because Steph was in her blind spot. Diagonally behind her, just out of sight.

Or maybe she just didn’t want to look in that direction, because she wanted a friend. Was that it? Whatever the reason, she made the same mistake as everyone else, thinking only white swans existed. Everyone except Hedda.

She is lying on the floor in her old room. The smoke is already thick below the ceiling, gradually pressing down, and within a minute or so she will be forced to inhale it, deep into her lungs. Her body is still aching from the electric shock, the scar feels distorted, as if it has rolled itself into a ball at the top of her spine.

Her hands and feet are bound with ties made of sacking, which will burn up and leave no trace. A tragic accident in a house that was a serious fire hazard, that’s how Steph has planned it all. But she’s forgotten one thing. This is Laura’s house, Laura’s old bedroom. She wriggles over to the walk-in closet, then kneels with her back towards the door. Rips off the crumbling piece of foam rubber Hedda stuck there long ago to protect her shins, then moves the sacking tie up and down over the sharp corner as fast as she can.

The room is very warm now, it’s becoming harder and harder to breathe, but she can’t give up. She feels the fibres breaking, one by one. Her airway is constricted, she can’t stop coughing.

More fibres give way and she tries to free her hands, but without success.

She hears a loud bang from the living room. The smoke is so dense that she can barely see the walls. The paint on the inside of the door is rapidly turning yellow, then brown. The door is about to catch fire.

Her wrists are hurting, she can feel blood on her palms. Her eyes are streaming, she can’t breathe. With a muted sigh the door begins to burn, with thin, slender flames licking at the wood all the way to the top.

Laura bends right down to the floor, fills her lungs with comparatively clean air and jerks her hands apart as hard as she can. For a moment she’s afraid she might have dislocated a shoulder, then the sacking finally gives up the ghost.

She pushes back the plastic matting to reveal the inspection hatch in the floor. She hears a crash behind her as part of the wall above the bed collapses. The last thing she sees before she dives head first through the hatch into the crawl space is the painting of the nymph being consumed by the flames.

Laura lands on her face and one hand. She draws up her legs and rolls away from the hatch, coughing and gasping for oxygen. The air is clearer down here, and after twenty seconds she is able to see and breathe more or less normally.

She can hear the roar of the fire right above her head, the old house screaming in pain as the flames devour it. It is almost completely dark in the crawl space, but she wriggles past the ventilation shaft towards the grille on the side of the house facing the lake. The fire is deafening now. Light flickers over her body, which means the flames are eating through the floorboards, threatening to trap her like a rat.

She turns over onto her back and presses her feet against the shaft. It comes away almost immediately, but the grille to which it was attached is a more challenging prospect. She begins to kick, heavy, rhythmic kicks with both feet, over and over again until she feels the screws gradually begin to loosen. There is a loud crack only a few metres behind her as the floor above comes crashing down, filling the crawl space with smoke. Laura holds her breath. Keeps on kicking rhythmically, just as she does when she’s swimming. Steady, even movements, using as little oxygen as possible.

Her lungs protest but still she goes on kicking. She can feel the grille shifting, one millimetre at a time, until it finally drops out into the darkness.

She throws herself through the gap just as another section of the floor lands exactly where she was lying. She scrambles to her feet, tries to orientate herself.

She is standing at the furthest point of Gärdsnäset as the fire races through Hedda’s house. In front of her there is a sheet of ice. The mist has thickened into a fog, visibility is down to between five and ten metres. The current flowing towards Alkärret where the ice is weaker cuts off the eastern route, which leaves her very little choice. She will have to walk straight out onto the lake so that she can then head west in the direction of the village, under the protection of the fog.

She takes a few tentative steps. The surface of the ice has become porous and grainy in the milder weather; pools of water have formed here and there.

She advances cautiously, her body still in pain from the electric shock, her lungs still not functioning as they should.

After about ten metres she stops and looks back. The house is ablaze, the roar of the fire drowning out any other sound, and yet she thinks she can hear an engine in the distance. A chugging, sputtering engine that could be a motocross bike. She listens harder, but the sound is gone as quickly as it came. The heat of the fire thins the fog and she sees a figure standing by the pontoon to her left, staring at the devastation. Iben.

Because that is her real name. Iben Jensen, who was once her best friend. Twice, in fact. Once as Iben and once as Steph.

Suddenly, Iben catches sight of Laura. She seems to be taken aback for a second, then she begins to run down the pontoon. Her movements are powerful, those of a trained athlete. About halfway along she jumps onto the ice, losing virtually none of her speed, and continues straight out across the lake.

Laura turns and runs as fast as she can, constantly glancing over her shoulder to see if the fog is giving her enough cover to change direction. But the warm air from the burning building drifts towards her, dispersing the fog. Iben is getting closer and closer, the taser in her hand.

Laura keeps heading north, towards the black eye that lies somewhere up ahead. Iben’s footsteps continue to pound behind her. Then she hears another sound, like a woman singing. It takes Laura a few seconds to realise that it is coming from the ice, growing louder the further out she goes. She stops dead.

The veils of mist swirl up around her, revealing that she is no more than two metres from the edge of the ice and the black, ice-cold water.

The eye of the nymph, she thinks as she slowly turns around.

‘Why couldn’t you stay in the house?’

Iben is five metres away, the prongs of the taser pointing straight at Laura’s chest.

‘You don’t have to do this, Iben.’

Laura raises her hands, but Iben moves forward, forcing her to step back.

The ice sings again, this time a more metallic tone that echoes across the lake. The fog forms dirty white walls, concealing both the holiday village and the fire.

Iben keeps coming. Laura glances over her shoulder. She is only a metre from the water now. She looks to the right and the left, but she knows that Iben is too fast; she can’t escape.

She takes another step back. The ice gives a warning crack, ending in a strange dissonance.

‘Wait!’ Laura says, holding up her hands again. ‘If you’re not careful we’ll both end up in the water.’

Iben stops, trying to work out if she’s bluffing. The ice falls silent, and Iben begins to move again. Laura is only half a metre from the black water that has featured in all her nightmares.

Iben reduces the distance between them – three metres, two. She holds up the taser, ready to press the button.

‘I’m sorry it has to end this way, Laura – but I have no choice. I can’t let Ulf win.’

She takes aim at Laura’s chest. Laura tenses her body, preparing herself for the shock, but instead of a whiplash she hears a deafening crack as the ice beneath them gives way, plunging them both into icy darkness.

The cold is so intense that Laura almost loses consciousness. It slices right through her, overloading her neural pathways. She can feel herself sinking as her sodden clothes drag her down, yet she can’t move. She is paralysed by both the cold and fear. A part of her brain replays thirty years of nightmares, while another part remains strangely calm. It is somehow logical that it should end here, where it all began.

A sandwich for father, a sandwich for mother. And one for the nymph who lives down below.

She continues to sink. Opens her eyes, even though she knows she is in total darkness. Her lungs feel as if they are about to burst, her heartbeat is thumping against her eardrums and soon it will be over.

Soon there will be no more pain, no more sorrow. No box containing tiny hand- and footprints and traces of a life that could have been. No more winter fire. Maybe this is for the best. Her heart slows, on the point of giving up. Colours sparkle in the water around her, glowing lights that are only a hallucination. The lights come together to form faces, first Elsa’s, then Peter’s.

Something touches her foot. She gives a start, peers down into the gloom. Glimpses something white, a hand grasping her ankle. But it is not the nymph’s claw-like grip, but an elderly woman’s hand, two of the fingers no more than stumps.

The lake will hold you up, my princess, Hedda’s voice whispers. And we are right behind you. Me and your little girl. All the way home.

She feels a slight pricking sensation exactly where the hand is holding her, an electrical impulse that travels up through her body and makes the scar on her back burst into flames. The warmth brings her muscles back to life. She doesn’t want to die here. She doesn’t want to be a victim. Not anymore. Laura kicks hard, and maybe there is a hand helping her upwards, or maybe it exists only in her oxygen-starved brain. It doesn’t matter, because she is swimming towards life, swimming so fast that the water is singing in her ears, rejoicing as she breaks the surface. There is nothing to see, only bobbing ice floes and the fog swirling beneath the night sky.

She ought to crawl out onto the ice before the cold paralyses her again. Run towards the blue lights and voices on the shore.

Instead, she takes two deep breaths and dives back down.

Because she is not afraid – not of the darkness, nor the cold.

Inside her chest and across her back, the winter fire burns for the last time. A strong, clear flame that keeps her warm for long enough to find the person she is looking for and bring them back to the surface.