The sky was crystal clear, and the stars, sparkling and shimmering like thousands of diamonds scattered across the heavens, shone down on me. The greens, pinks and purples of the Northern Lights danced and frolicked across the black expanse, reaching out overhead. Their colours reflected up from the snow-covered landscape, painting the world in a ghostly green hue.
At any other time, the natural beauty that surrounded me would have filled me with awe, but I hardly noticed those things that night.
I pulled my pink ski jacket tightly around myself, although the shiver that rippled over my body had little to do with the frosty night air. The crunch of my boots on the frozen gravel road barely registered in my ears.
As I wandered aimlessly through the crisp spring night, the only thing on my mind was to get as far away from that cabin as possible. I was finally free from Lars’ clutches, yet even now, looking back, I wonder if I’ve ever truly escaped him. At the time, I didn’t know it, but as I walked down that icy road, I was simply leaving one prison behind me to eventually find myself trapped in another. But this time it would be a prison of my own making.
My mind was a maelstrom of emotions and offered me no shelter. My thoughts tumbled over each other like a jumbled, tangled mess that writhed inside my head.
My brother was dead, my parents were dead and Kristina was dead. The vision of my brother’s body, slumped in that bedroom with Grandfather’s rifle lying at his side would be forever lodged firmly in my memory. But I felt no sorrow towards him. There was nothing but cold, hard ice left in my heart for him.
A warm tear trickled down my cheek as my thoughts turned to Kristina. That beautiful innocent soul, who had wanted nothing more than to help me. I tried to picture her face; I tried to see her smile in my mind, but it wouldn’t come. The only image that I could conjure up was one of her broken, battered and blood-soaked face. Her eyes, glazed over as they stared lifelessly into nothingness.
My breath choked in my throat as scenes of my parents suddenly flooded my mind. What had happened to them? Was what Lars had told me really the truth? Were they really dead? But how? I just didn’t understand, I couldn’t understand any of it. Who would want to hurt them? Mum was a nurse and Dad, a mechanic and Olympian. What reason would anyone have to kill them?
There was something about the murder story that niggled at the back of my mind. Had it been something that Lars had said, or perhaps a comment from Magnus? Had it been something else? I wasn’t sure what it was, but the whole thing just didn’t feel right, somehow.
Glancing up at the night sky, I watched as the black shape of an owl glided effortlessly overhead, its shape silhouetted against that dazzling curtain of colour that still rippled and twisted above me. A rustling sound, snapping twigs and the crunching of snow rose up from deep within the trees on my left. Looking over, I could just make out a dark shape deep in the branches, an elk moving with a slow, powerful grace. Its antlered head was low to the ground as it foraged in the snow, its hooves scraping up mosses, lichen and the occasional shoot of new, spring growth. I stopped where I was, watching as it dissolved back into the blackness of the forest’s depths.
Yes, I was free, but what use is freedom when you have nothing? And it was in that moment, watching the owl and elk, that the truth hit me. I had lost everything. Life went on around me as it always had done. But my brother had taken everything that I had from me; he had stripped me bare. He had taken my life, he had taken away the person who I used to be. Only a shell of me remained, little more than a withered husk of my former self. And then he had taken his own life, opting for a coward’s ending. Not even doing me the courtesy of facing up to the things that he had put me through, the wreckage that he had left my life in.
Continuing onwards, the cabin was now a few kilometres behind me. I walked, passing between tall pine trees that rose up like dark sentinels standing at attention, lining the road, watching me as I passed by. I hadn’t panicked, I hadn’t run. I had simply walked out of the door, past the two cars that were parked in front of it, a dark blue Volvo and a red Volkswagen Golf, which I had assumed belonged to Kristina, and then just kept walking on down the road.
I could have headed towards Skyggespor, I could have gone to Magnus for help. The thought did cross my mind very briefly, but I had quickly shoved it aside. He hadn’t helped me the last time I had begged him for it. If he thought that I was crazy then, why would he believe me now? He would blame me for what had happened at the cabin, I just knew that he would. No, there was no way that I could go back there.
So, with no real options, I had simply wandered out into the night, abandoning that cabin and leaving the horrors of the place behind me. It was a cabin that I had once seen as a safe haven, a little sanctuary, a place that was filled with happy memories of Grandfather and our times together. But Lars had twisted and corrupted it into a dungeon of terror and torment. That cabin was now behind me, and I would never return.
Suddenly something caught my attention, a sound. Not an animal this time but the low distant hum of an engine. I froze where I stood, my breath catching in my throat. The noise grew louder; the vibrations seeming to reverberate from the surrounding trees.
It was unmistakable now. It was the sound of an engine and the deep rumble of winter tyres on hard-packed snow.
Turning, I could see a white glow down the road, which, as I watched, solidified into two pinpricks of light.
A shallow breath caught in my throat. Should I run? Should I hide? These thoughts flashed through my mind. Could it be Lars, coming to get me? Could his death just have been just another of his tricks?
No, I had seen his body. The look frozen on his face, the way he was slumped and twisted unnaturally. No, Lars was dead. But who could this be out here so many kilometres from anywhere?
Every instinct that I had screamed at me to hide. It pleaded with me to bolt into the woods, to find safety. But I didn’t run. For some reason that even now I can’t entirely explain, I just stood there at the side of the road, my eyes transfixed on the square headlights that approached me. I was unable to pull my eyes away from the beams, it was as if they mesmerised me. One single thought lingered in my mind, holding me in place. Surely, whatever was coming couldn’t be worse than the things that I had already been through.
The sound of the car grew louder, the headlights larger until they became a dazzling glare. Their bright white light, reflecting up from the snow, seared my eyes.
I heard the car come to a stop and the doors open. Through squinted eyes, I could just about make out two dark shapes stepping out onto the road. I could hear their voices, a man and a woman as they called out to me, but the words that they spoke were a meaningless jumble. They made no sense.
It took a moment before it finally dawned on me. English, the language that they spoke was in English.
“English.” I muttered, thinking aloud.
“Nein, we’re not English, we’re German.” The deep, gruff voice of a man cut through my daze, answering my muddled thoughts.
“Are you hurt? Do you need help?” A second voice, this time a woman asked, speaking in the same thick accent as his.
“I… I don’t know.” Stammering, the words shook as they left my mouth.
Looking down at myself, illuminated by the car’s headlights. My ski jacket was clean, but the blue tracksuit trousers that I wore were smeared with blood. A deep crimson which stained the fabric.
“Are you out here on your own? Are you hurt? Do you need help?” As the woman repeated the questions, my mind swam in confusion. Who were these people? What did they want from me?
“Lars… Kristina…” I mumbled the names.
“Lars and Kristina? Are they your friends? Are they here with you?” It was the man’s voice that asked the questions this time.
“Lars is my brother, Kristina…” My voice broke as I said her name. The image of her face sprang into my mind as tears began to well up in my eyes. My chest constricted as I let out a muffled sob.
“Are they here with you? Do you need us to fetch them?” The woman, her voice soft and kind, took over the questioning once again.
“No, they’re gone.” I replied numbly.
“Where are you going? Are you lost?” The woman continued with her questions.
“I… I’m just walking. I don’t really know where I’m going.” My words were dry and flat. I didn’t really know what else to say.
“Do you need to call someone? Ask someone to come and get you?” The woman’s voice sounded tight and shallow, the concern beginning to cut through her accent.
Maybe I could call someone. Lela’s name sprang into my mind. Perhaps I could call Lela, she’d help me. How long had it been since I had last seen my best friend? Lars had told me she had moved on from me, that she had forgotten about me. He had said she was happy with Asmund now and didn’t care about me anymore. But, just perhaps, she would help me. Afterall, there was no one else that I could turn to.
Slowly, I nodded my head.
“Look, why don’t you come back with us?” The man asked, “We’re staying in a cabin just a few kilometres down the road. It’s warm and you can call someone from there?”
My muscles locked as my chest tightened. I tried to take a step, but my feet refused to obey. Who were these strangers who had just seemed to come out of nowhere? Why were they here? I knew nothing about them, but they were offering me help. Deep down inside myself, I knew that I didn’t really have any choice. I couldn’t just keep wandering aimlessly through the wilderness, and there was nowhere else I could go.
Slowly I nodded again and, forcing my feet to move, I took a first, tentative step towards the shining square lights and dark shape of the car.
I couldn’t make out the colour in the dim light. It was a dark colour, perhaps black, blue or possibly a dark red. I caught a glint of silver at the very front of the bonnet, a three-pointed star inside a circle.
Walking around the passenger side of the Mercedes, I could finally see the couple clearly. Closest to me was a woman in her mid-twenties. She was pretty, with dark hair that fell to her shoulders. She was wearing a dark-coloured coat over a long, pale cream dress. Her large eyes were fixed on me, and her mouth was turned up in a kind smile. The man was taller than she was and slightly older. His dark hair was cut short, with a neatly trimmed moustache beneath his nose. He shifted and fidgeted his feet restlessly in the cold, his black tuxedo offering little protection against the night air.
As I approached, the woman took a step backwards. She opened the rear passenger door for me with one hand and with the other, gestured for me to climb in.
“Thank you.” My words were little more than a hushed whisper as I stepped into the back of the car and settled myself on the pale leather seat. The faint, warm scent of cinnamon hung in the air.
As soon as I was in, the door was closed with a heavy thud and the couple climbed back into the front seats.
“What’s your name, love, and what are you doing wandering around out here in the middle of nowhere? I’m Clara, and this is my husband, Matthias.” Clara spoke, looking over her shoulder at me. “We’re just heading back to the little cabin that we’re staying in for a couple of weeks. We’ve had a boring night out at one of his company dinners in Oslo.”
I pressed myself back into the seat as she looked at me. “I’m Heidi.” I replied in a mouselike voice.
Clara’s smile broadened as Matthias, twisting slightly in his seat, glanced back at me. Speaking slowly, his eyes drifted from my face, down to my bloodstained trousers. “Are you hurt, Heidi? Do you need to go to the hospital?” He asked, his voice controlled and steady. “Or we can take you back to our cabin first and phone an ambulance or perhaps the police from there?”
“No police!” Clara and Matthias raised their eyebrows slightly as I snapped those words.
I cursed myself silently. I needed to be careful. I didn’t know these people, and I couldn’t risk raising any suspicions. But I couldn’t allow the police to get involved. They’d blame it all on me, Lars and Kristina. I was sure of it.
Taking a deep, steadying breath, I continued, “I don’t need the police or ambulance, I’d just like to phone my friend.”
Matthias nodded slowly before turning to face the front again and pulling away.
“Are you staying somewhere nearby, Heidi? Are you out here skiing?” Clara asked, still looking over her shoulder at me.
I nodded. “Yes, I’m staying near Svartvann.” I lied, naming a lake that was over twenty kilometres across the valley from Grandfather’s cabin.
“You were there with your brother and Kristina? But you say they’ve already left?” I nodded, and Clara continued with the small talk. “We live in Berlin but we’re over here on a business trip. Matthias works for an oil company that owns a number of rigs in the North Sea. Every year they put on this boring gala dinner in Oslo. You know the type? Ridiculously small portions of food and tedious conversation. We usually grab ourselves a cheeky McDonald’s afterwards. This year we thought it would be fun to double it up with a skiing trip as we’ve just about caught the end of the season.”
Clara continued to chat as the car drove on. She spoke about her family, their house, their pet dog.
“I’ve got a dog too.” I added, forcing the words out. “A German shepherd, her name’s Bella.” I had often thought about Bella in the past year. I wondered what had happened to her, what Lars had done to her? I doubted that she was even still alive, she was just another thing that my brother had torn away from me.