Lela, with her arm wrapped loosely around my waist, led me, still shaking, out of the cabin and into the cold, dark night. The icy air filled my lungs. It was a sharp shock after the cosy warmth of the living room and its crackling fire.
“Thank you both again for helping and taking care of her.” I heard Lela’s words as she spoke to the German couple.
“Look after yourself, Heidi.” Clara’s soothing words followed me as we made our way towards a red Volkswagen Golf.
The breath hitched in my throat as I instantly recognised the car. It was Asmund’s car. My heart skipped and my stomach turned. Was he here too? I had assumed that Lela would have been alone.
Stumbling slightly on the gravel path, I hesitated. Lela looked down at me, her eyes widening slightly with worry. “Are you ok, babe?”
“That’s Asmund’s car!” With a mouselike voice, I mumbled the words.
“Not anymore it isn’t, he sold it to me a few months ago.” Lela spoke with a chuckle and a smile that seemed to light up her face. “He’s bought himself a posh new Corrado. He let me have this one at a good price. It’s nothing special, but it’s good enough for me and it’s warmer than riding the motorbike all the way out here.”
It was then that something hit me, an immense weight that caused my shoulders to sag. How could I have been so selfish? After everything that had happened, everything that I had been through, was it really the thought of Asmund being here, the idea that I would have to face him and Lela together that made me falter?
Hadn’t the past year taught me anything at all?
Was the only thing that I was concerned with was protecting the secret that I had been keeping from my best friend? A best friend, who had selflessly driven all the way out here in the middle of the night because I needed her help. The best friend, who would do just about anything for me.
Even then, after everything that Lars had done, the only person who I was worried about looking after was myself.
My breath shuddered, and tears began once again to stream down my cheeks. Choked sobs escaped my mouth.
“I’m sorry, Lela. I’m so very sorry.” I spoke the words, and I meant it. For the first time, I was truly sorry for what I had done to her.
“Sorry for what, babe? You’ve got absolutely nothing to apologise for. We said that we would always look after each other, didn’t we? Come on now, jump in the car and we’ll get home.” She spoke softly, assuming my apology was for bringing her out here in the middle of the night.
I settled into the passenger seat, pulled the seat belt across myself and clicked it into place. I glanced over at Lela. She met my eyes with a smile before turning the key in the ignition. The engine started with a splutter, and we pulled out onto the ice-covered road.
“You look absolutely exhausted. Why don’t you try to get a little sleep? When we get home, you can have a shower and tell me about what’s happened.”
I suddenly felt my eyelids drooping heavily. All the emotion seemed to drain from me. Lela was right. I was tired, very tired. I glanced down at the clock on the dashboard, it was late. The green, glowing, fluorescent hands pointed to 4am. Resting my head back against the seat, my eyes fluttered closed, and I drifted off into a dreamless slumber.
****
A light touch on my arm woke me with a start, my eyes flicking open. Instinctively, I snatched my arm back, ready to kick out at the shadow beast that loomed over me.
Only it wasn’t the terrifying black abyss set with those seething red eyes that glared down on me, but the sweet, loving face of Lela.
“You’re ok, babe. It’s just me. We’re home now.” She whispered.
With my eyes still blinking, the memories of the previous day came rushing back to me, everything slotting into place.
A warm shiver rippled through my body and my breath hitched in my chest as my eyes caught sight of the sky beyond the car’s windows. Overhead, a deep purple expanse stretched out into eternity, gradually lightening into hues of red and pink above the silhouetted rooftops. It’s amazing to think that I could forget just how vast the sky is and how beautiful the pre-dawn colours are when, for so long, the only glimpse that I’d had of it was through that, tiny, dirty, iron grilled window of the basement.
The car was pulled up on the driveway, and I saw Lela’s house in front of me. The weather-boarded house, cast in deep shadows from the yellow-orange sodium glow of the streetlights, appeared more of a murky grey in colour rather than the subtle peach that I knew it to be.
Another look at the clock showed 5:30.
“Shall we go inside?” Lela said.
I nodded to Lela before I unclipped my seat belt and pulled on the black plastic handle, pushing opening the door. Swinging my legs to the side, I stepped out of the car and onto the stone paved driveway. Sucking in a deep breath, the air was crisp and sharp with the scent of melting snow. There was still a chill to it, but it lacked the cruel bite that I had got so used to in grandfather’s cabin.
A wide lawn fronted the house, the same lawn that I had first seen Lela playing on all those many years ago when we had first met.
Even in the dim light, I could see young blades of green spring grass pushing up through the dead brown winter vegetation. The snow had retreated, that last few icy piles cowered, clinging on in the cold, shaded corners. A futile resistance, doomed to succumb to the growing warmth of the coming summer.
The grass was resilient, it was strong. It had been suffocated, tormented by the cold cruelty of the winter. But now there was regeneration, fresh growth pushing its way up through the stench of decay. Very soon the lawn would be lush, green and alive once again.
As I looked at those small, fragile shoots, a tiny seed of light began to take root inside my breast. Like any small seed, it would take time to grow, but grow it would. It would grow into something beautiful and, like the sun as it shines its warmth on the snow, it would melt away the darkness that was inside me.
At least, that’s what I believed at the time.
Lela’s arm wrapped around my waist as she gently led me towards the house. Together we climbed the stone steps and up to the white door. The door seemed to shine and shimmer brightly. It wasn’t like the soulless, artificial street lighting that illuminated the rest of my world, but a pure, brilliant, natural glow. I couldn’t stop the smile that I could feel spreading across my face.
Lela opened the door and together we stepped into the living room. The familiarity of the room struck me. Childhood memories of sitting on the green carpet with Lela, playing with her dolls and platting the long pink manes of her toy ponies. Then there were the memories of the music and the parties. This house had been like a second home to me. It was the place that I had most often thought about over the last year. A place that I had believed that I would never see again.
But the room was different from how I remembered it. It still had the same dark green carpet and the same pine-panelled walls. Lela’s hi-fi still stood in the corner, but there were new things now. A large black banner hung across the opposite wall. The lettering of Lela’s band name, Arctic Howl, painted in white, stood out large and bold against the jet-black cloth. On the other wall, Lela’s pink and chrome guitar stood, propped up against a collection of large amplifiers and speakers.
While my life had been frozen to a standstill, Lela’s had moved forward fiercely without me.
She must have picked up on what I was thinking, she always had a knack for that.
“It’s just me here now, babe. Dad’s job at the embassy finished a few months ago, and now he’s gone back to London to work for the British Civil Service. He offered to keep this place on for me, if I wanted to stay. I took him up on that. I love London, but Oslo’s my home now and I couldn’t leave. I’ve never really known anywhere else.”
Noticing my eyes fixed on the banner, she continued. “Yeah, it’s a bit sketchy isn’t it? But it’s the best that me and Asmund could manage. If we’d had our artist here with us, I’m sure it would have been something far more special. Perhaps you could paint us a new one, if you get time?”
“Yes, of course I can.” My voice choked on the emotions that were once again bubbling up inside of me.
Lela turned to face me, her large brown eyes were wide as she stared into mine. I could feel her peering straight into my very soul.
“Heidi, you don’t look well. What’s happened to you? I didn’t even know that you were back. Those people at the cabin said that someone had attacked you on the trails?”
Lela’s worried voice, combined with the pure, genuine concern in her eyes was the final blow. It caused something to shift inside me. A churning, writhing fire that appeared out of nowhere. Fear, anger, hatred, agony… that volatile mixture of emotions that I had been trying so hard to bottle up, ignited and ripped around my head like a raging cyclone. My legs trembled and buckled underneath me. A wail tore from deep down inside of myself as I collapsed into a tremoring heap on the floor. My vision blurred with the tears that filled my eyes.
I felt Lela’s arms lock around me tightly as I lay curled on the floor.
“Why didn’t you find me? Why didn’t you save me?” I sobbed the words.
“I tried, Heidi. I wrote to you, I tried to call you, but you never got back to me. I even gave Lars messages to pass on to you, but there was never any response.”
Did she just say that she had given messages to Lars to pass on? Was I hearing things correctly? She had been talking to… no, meeting with the monster who had destroyed me?
“You’ve seen Lars?” incredulity shook my voice. My eyes locked onto hers with a cold intensity that made Lela blink.
“Yes,” she continued, “he came to a few Arctic Howl gigs. He was in a bad way, drinking heavily. He wasn’t coping at all well with the news about your parents. Oh Heidi, I’m so sorry to hear about what happened to them…”
Lela’s words became a dull, muffled blur in my ears. The cyclone whirling in my head suddenly stopped spinning. It quivered for a moment before erupting into a ravaging inferno.
“You spoke to him?” My voice had become hard and cold. “He told you where I was?”
“Yes…”
She knew where I was?! She knew what was happening to me?!
My vision blurred, colours flashed in front of my eyes, scarlet, violet, a searing pink. With my muscles suddenly tensing, I sprang forward. I grabbed my best friend by the shoulders roughly. I forced her backwards, pinning her against the floor.
“Why didn’t you find me? Why didn’t you save me?” Spittle flecked in the air as I launched the words at her like barbed darts.
Lela just stared at me, her eyes wide and mouth hanging open. Without even thinking, my arm raised, my nails dug into my palms as my hand formed into a fist. I struck her, my fist connecting with her cheek with a sickening crack.
“Why didn’t you save me?” I hurled the words at her with rage, raising my hand for the second time.
“What are you doing?! I don’t understand! You were in Copenhagen with your boyfriend. What could I…” Lela’s voice was shrill, shaking as she spoke.
Copenhagen? What was she talking about? I didn’t have a boyfriend, she knew that!
I struck Lela for a second time, my knuckles connecting with her cheekbone, knocking her head sideways.
“I don’t understand, Heidi! Lars told me you were in Copenhagen!” Lela’s voice pleaded desperately with me.
My hand raised once again as I screamed at Lela. “Lars did this to me! He locked me up, he beat me, he starved me! Why didn’t you look for me? Why didn’t you help me?”
“He told me that you’d run off with a boyfriend.”
I was about to hit her again when I saw her, my best friend. Eyes in which I had only ever seen love and kindness, now were wide with pure terror. Her left eye was red and puffy, already beginning to swell up, tears streamed down her cheeks.
What was I doing? Lela was my best friend. I stumbled backwards as if something had hit me, gasping as the air ripped from my lungs.
“I’m sorry, Lela. I don’t know what… I’m so sorry.” My words faltered as I looked at Lela, now slumped on the floor. Her knees pulled up to her chest and back against the wall. I watched as she raised a hand to her injured eye, the other wiping away a trickle of blood from her nose before glancing over to me.
Once again, Lars’ voice echoed in my ears. The words he’d said to me on that first night when he had stopped me going to Lela’s party rang in my head.
‘I told her that you’ve gone out to a club with your boyfriend’.
What had just come over me? This wasn’t Lela’s fault. Lars had deceived her just as he had deceived Magnus.
“What’s happened to you, Heidi? I haven’t heard anything from you in almost a year. I’ve tried to get in touch but nothing. Then tonight I got this phone call out of the blue…” Lela’s voice was quiet, soft, her eyes down, fixed on her own feet.
“It was Lars.” I said in a cracked voice, “He blackmailed me. He said that I had to do what he wanted. Do you remember the last time we saw each other? The day you bought me that pink dress? When you came to pick me up for the party?”
“Yes. You weren’t in. You had gone out to a club.” Lela nodded slowly, her hand pressed firmly against her injured eye.
“That was when it started. I was in, I was at the house. I saw you ride up, and I watched you from the kitchen window as you rode away.”
“I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me, Heidi. Lars blackmailed you? How? Why?” Lela couldn’t look at me, her good eye remained firmly fixed on the floor.
“It doesn’t matter.” A part of me wanted to tell her the truth about the blackmail, tell her about the photos and my night with Asmund. But the words caught in my throat, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I had already struck her. I couldn’t bring myself to inflict the pain of that betrayal on her too. “When I said that I would not go along with it anymore, he drugged me. He locked me in a basement, beat me, starved me, did… other things to me.”
That was when she looked up at me with eyes wide like dinner plates. The ice of fear that had been in them visibly melted away, thawed by the warmth from within, her hand slowly dropping to her lap.
“Oh, babe, I’m so sorry. I had no idea. Lars seemed so genuine…” With a sniff, Lela shuffled over to me, throwing her arms around me and pulling me into a tight embrace. “Look at the pair of us, huh? We’ll get you cleaned up, and then we’ll go to the police.”
“No police, please, Lela. I don’t want people to know about this.”
“But he needs to be punished for what he’s done to you.” Her voice took on a hard edge. “Where is he now?”
For a brief moment, I considered telling Lela the truth. I thought about telling her about Kristina’s murder and Lars’ suicide. I don’t know why I didn’t, perhaps partly for the fear that I would get blamed, perhaps partly because I just couldn’t bring myself to face it. All I wanted was to bury the events of the past year and pretend that they had never happened.
“Lars has gone now. He’s taken himself far away from here and won’t be coming back.”