The Darkest Room

33

Henrik woke up to find his dead grandfather standing over him like a shadow in the whirling powdery snow. Algot leaned forward and raised his boot-clad foot.

Move yourself! Do you want to die?

He felt hard blows striking his legs and feet, over and over again.

Get up! Thieving bastard!

Henrik slowly lifted his head, wiped the snow out of his eyes, and screwed his eyes up as he peered into the wind. His grandfather’s ghost was gone, but in the distance he could see a searchlight sweeping silently across the night sky. The blood-red glow made the veils of snow above him sparkle.

A little further away he thought he could see another light. A steady white light.

The light from the twin lighthouses at Eel Point.

Henrik had struggled along in a daze, yard by yard through the snow, but in the end he had made it.

His jeans were soaking wet; it was the water that had woken him up. The storm waves were so high by now that they came crashing in over the shore, sluicing his legs with foam even though he was lying a long way up on the grass.

He got up slowly with his back to the sea. His hands had gone to sleep, as had his feet, but he was able to move.

There was a little strength left in Henrik’s trembling legs, and he set off again, his arms dangling at his sides.

A rectangular wooden object shifted inside his jacket, and ice-cold steel was poking up by his throat.

It was his grandfather’s ax-he remembered tucking it inside his jacket, but not why he was carrying it around.

Then it came to him: the Serelius brothers. He took the ax out and kept on going.

Two gray towers took shape through the storm. The sea below them was boiling, hurling glittering lumps of ice onto the islands where the lighthouses stood.

Henrik had arrived at Eel Point. He stopped, swaying in the wind. What should he do now?

He would go up to the house, it must be somewhere on the left. He turned off in that direction, away from the lighthouses.

With the wind at his back everything was suddenly much easier. It helped to nudge him along, up over the hard crust of snow covering the meadow. He had begun to recognize the different gusts of wind by now, how the weaker bursts were followed by sharper squalls.

After a hundred or two hundred steps he began to get an impression of broad shadowy shapes ahead of him.

A wooden fence suddenly blocked his way, but he found an opening. On the other side the buildings of Eel Point rose up like great ships in the night, and Henrik moved into the shelter between the gable ends.

Made it.

The manor house enfolded him in its dark embrace. He was safe.

The wind in the courtyard was like a caress compared with the way it had been down by the sea, but there was a lot more snow between the buildings. It came swirling down from the roofs like powder, melting on his face, and the drifts were almost up to his waist.

Henrik could just glimpse the veranda of the main house through the curtains of snow, and he plowed over to it and eventually reached the steps.

He stopped on the bottom step, caught his breath, and looked up.

The door had been broken open. The lock was smashed and the frame appeared to have been split.

The Serelius brothers had been here.

Henrik was too cold to be cautious now; he staggered up the steps, pulled open the veranda door, and more or less fell headlong over the threshold onto a soft rag rug. The door closed behind him.

Warmth. The storm was shut out, and he could hear his own wheezing breath.

He let go of the ax and began to move his fingers tentatively. At first they were like ice, but when the warmth and the feeling slowly began to return to his hands and toes, the pain came. The wound in his stomach started to throb again.

He was wet and tired, but he couldn’t just lie here.

Slowly he got up and staggered through the next doorway. It was dark around him, but here and there he could see the glow of small yellow lamps and candles. The wallpaper was fresh and white, the ceilings had been repaired and painted-a lot had happened since he was last here.

He turned left and suddenly found himself in the big kitchen. He had replaced and polished the floor in here last summer.

A gray and black cat was sitting looking out of the window, and the faint aroma of fried meatballs lingered in the air.

Henrik spotted the faucet and the sink and staggered over to it.

The water was only lukewarm, but still it burned his frozen hands. He gritted his teeth as the nerves warmed up, but after holding his fingers in the running water for a few minutes, he was able to move them.

The cat turned to look at him, then returned its gaze to the snowstorm.

On the counter stood a block containing stainless steel kitchen knives. Henrik grabbed the handle of the biggest one and pulled it out.

With the carving knife in his hand he went back into the main house.

He tried to remember the layout of the rooms, but had difficulty in picturing it. Suddenly he was standing in a long corridor, in the doorway of a small room.

A child’s room.

A little girl of about five or six, with blonde hair, was sitting up in bed. She was holding a white cuddly toy and a red sweater in her arms. A small television stood on the floor in front of her, but it was switched off.

Henrik opened his mouth, but his head was completely empty.

“Hi,” was all he said.

His voice was hoarse and rough.

The girl looked at him, but said nothing.

“Have you seen anyone else here?” he asked. “Any other… nice men?”

The girl shook her head. “I just heard them,” she said. “They were clomping around and they woke me up…I was scared to go out.”

“Good,” said Henrik, “you need to stay in here… Where are your mom and dad?”

“Daddy went out to Mommy.”

“And where’s your mommy?”

“In the barn.”

Before Henrik had time to think about that response,

the girl pointed at him and asked, “Why have you got a knife?”

He looked down. “Don’t know.”

It felt very strange to see himself clutching a big knife. It looked dangerous.

“Are you going to cut some bread?”

“No.”

Henrik closed his eyes. The feeling was beginning to return to his feet now, and it hurt.

“What are you going to do?” said the girl.

“I don’t know… but you need to stay here.”

“Can I go into Gabriel’s room?”

“Who’s Gabriel?”

“My little brother.”

Henrik nodded with some effort. “Sure.”

The girl quickly jumped out of bed, still holding the cuddly toy and the sweater, and scampered past him.

Henrik gathered his remaining strength and turned around. He heard the door close in the next bedroom along. He went in the other direction, to look for the Serelius brothers. Had he been along here before? He must have been.

Down along a corridor, back to the front of the house.

He listened for noises apart from the wind, and for a few seconds he thought he could hear a rhythmic banging from the upper floor-a loose shutter, perhaps. Then the house was silent again.

A dark, flat object was lying in a corner out in the hallway. Henrik went closer.

He saw that it was the Ouija board, thrown onto the floor, split across the middle with considerable force. The little glass lay beside the board like a cracked egg.

Henrik went back out to the veranda where the air was cooler. The snow was sticking to the windowpanes, but he could just make out movements in the courtyard.

He bent down in silence and picked up his grandfather’s ax.

Two shadows were moving out there. They slowly came closer through the snow, and Henrik could see that one of them was holding a dark object. A gun?

He wasn’t sure if it was the brothers, but raised the ax anyway.

By the time the outer door was opened, he had already swung it.