Tell Me You're Mine(62)

“You don’t need that anymore.”

“I’ll ask you again,” I say. “Where is she?”

Kerstin doesn’t respond. She takes a kerosene lamp, goes out to the hall, and gestures with the knife for me to follow her. We pass a living room with furniture covered in white sheets. I jump at the dull bang of the phone battery exploding in the stove.

The sun has gone down, only a few glowing red stripes linger in the sky. The long windows offer a striking view of the sea.

We stop in front of a door at the far end of the corridor. I dread what I’m about to see. My hand squeezes the stone in my pocket. Kerstin puts a key in the lock and turns it. She opens the door.

Furniture is stacked in one corner. In the other corner there is a bucket and a roll of toilet paper. It stinks strongly of urine. There’s a mattress on the floor, a dirty blanket.

And there she lies.

She doesn’t move. Am I too late?

“What have you done?” I say. “What did you do to her?”

I take a step forward, but Kerstin grabs my arm.

I try to pull free and take out the stone. She digs her nails into me and holds on. Kerstin is strong, her nails are sharp as claws. She raises the knife toward me. The tip is an inch from my neck.

“She belongs to me now. She is mine.”





Isabelle



The room is darker than before. I can hardly see anything anymore. And despite the coat and blanket, I’m shaking from cold. The heat from the woodstove doesn’t reach here. But I’d rather be here than in the same room as her.

She wept at Dad’s funeral. How could she, when she was the one who’d killed him? I don’t know who she is. What she is. And I don’t know what she’s planning to do with me.

If I had strength left, I’d resist. Struggle. Try to escape again. But I have nothing left.

If I say I’m her daughter, will things be okay again? If I pretend I belong to her and no one else?

In the dark, it’s easy to hear things. I thought I heard a choir of voices. Hundreds of people whispering and singing. It took a while before I realized it must be waves.

Then I imagined a car was approaching. And I heard a dog barking. I thought about Stella, about how she never gives up. I thought maybe she was coming to get me. My real mother. I crept over to the wall, pushed my ear against the wallpaper, and listened. All I heard was my own breath and my heart pounding.

I felt angry with myself. Disappointed. So like me to fantasize, to escape into dreams, to make things up so I’ll feel a little better. Stella has no idea where I am. And she won’t show up to save me. No one will. Not Fredrik, either. He won’t find me here.

I’m alone.

When I think about Fredrik, I can see in my mind’s eye how the rest of my life would have been. A life filled with lovely people. I would have become a civil engineer, got an exciting, well-paid job. Married the love of my life and been happy. We’d travel, see the world together. We’d have children someday. A boy and a girl, maybe.

None of it will ever happen.

I’m alone and nobody knows where I am.

My friends are worried; the police are looking for me. But time is running out. And I’ve vanished without a trace. Maybe I’ll be in the news for a while. On TV, in the newspapers, on the Internet. But nobody will ever find me.

Lost forever.









A dim light creeps in under the door. I’ve been sleeping again.

I hear her voice.

Distant and faint, but I hear it. Stella is here. She came for me. She didn’t give up, she kept searching.

But I hear Mom’s voice as well. Cold and scornful. I hear the rage just below the surface.

The door opens. I don’t dare look up. I wait.

Stella asks Mom what she’s done to me. Mom answers triumphantly that I belong to her.

I push my hair away and look up. Kerstin is holding tightly to Stella’s arm. I loathe when she does that. When her nails dig in.

And she’s holding a knife. The same knife she threw at me earlier. She lets go of Stella, walks over to me, and pulls me up on my feet.

“Are you hurt?” Stella says, sounding dismayed.

“It’s not my blood, it’s—”

“Are you awake now, my darling?” Kerstin interrupts. “Come, there’s coffee and buns.”

Stella clenches her hands, as if she’d like to rush forward and throw herself over Mom.

But no—Kerstin is not my mother. She never has been. I will never call her that again.

I want to warn Stella not to do anything hasty, warn her that Kerstin is unpredictable and more dangerous than she could ever imagine.

Don’t you see that glimmer in her eyes?

I try to make Stella understand by staring at her as intensely as I can. And she does, she understands. She gives me a quick nod, which means she knows what I want to say.

I lean against Kerstin as we walk down the hall. I glance at the knife in her hand, but Kerstin is holding me in a viselike grip. A warning.

We go back to the kitchen. There are kerosene lamps here and there, but the light they offer is dim. Outside, a full moon hangs like an unpolished silver coin above the ocean. Stella sits opposite me at the table. Kerstin puts a coffee cup in front of each of us. She sits down and watches every move Stella makes.

I don’t drink the coffee. It took far too long for me to realize she was drugging me. Every time I ate, every time I drank. Stella mustn’t drink it, either. If she does, neither of us will get out of here.

I hold the cup in my hands. When Kerstin stands up to fetch the sugar bowl, I tap it a few times and make a face. Stella looks at her own cup and pushes it away. She shapes her mouth to a noiseless question: Are you okay?

I nod, but can’t stop the tears. I wipe my cheeks with a clumsy movement. Stella stretches out her hand toward mine.

“Stop it!” Kerstin screams. The marble mortar crashes onto the table, close to Stella’s hand.

“Drink,” Kerstin says. “Drink your coffee.” She puts some candles on the table and sits down. She holds the knife in front of her. “I want to give you a chance to make everything right, Stella.”

“What should I do?” she says.

“Ask her for forgiveness.” Kerstin nods toward me.

“Forgiveness?”

“Ask her to forgive you for being such a worthless mother. Take this opportunity. While you can.”

Stella says nothing. Instead she rises slowly, takes a candle, and walks over to the wall. Kerstin keeps her eyes on her the whole time. Stella holds the light in front of a framed newspaper clip. A picture occupies the upper half of the spread, a smiling man standing in front of a building. Flowers fill the porch behind him.

“Your father, right?” Stella turns around. She puts down the candle again. “Roger Lundin. He knew what you did, and he was about to tell the police. But he died. Before he could.”

“He was a traitor,” Kerstin says. “A drunk, just like my mother. He never should have taken my girl from me. She didn’t need burying. And thank God she came back to me again.”

What is she talking about? Who is the girl, and why was she buried? And what do I have to do with it?

Stella roots around in her jeans pocket. She takes something out and puts it on the table in front of Kerstin.

“Is this your girl? Is this Isabelle?”

I see the photograph I found in the cabinet under the desk at home. I don’t understand how Stella got hold of it.

Kerstin looks at the photo.

“The real Isabelle.” Stella speaks softly. “Your daughter.”

“My baby,” Kerstin says. “My beloved little girl.”

“Your girl, Kerstin. Not mine. Not Alice. This is the real Isabelle, right?”

Kerstin looks up at Stella with a questioning look.

“The real Isabelle,” she says, pointing the knife toward me. “She’s sitting right there.”

“My name is not Isabelle,” I say. “And I should have grown up with Stella. You stole me from my mother. You stole my life.”

Kerstin turns to me. “That’s not true. You’re speaking lies now,” she whispers.

“You’re the one who’s lying. You always do. None of what you say is true. None of it. My whole life is one big lie. I’ve grown up with a psychopath. A murderer.”

Kerstin pleads, “I love you, Isabelle. But you’ve never loved me. Oh, how I’ve tried, how I’ve struggled to do my best for you.”

Stella pulls a stone out of her pocket. She rushes toward Kerstin and aims a blow to her head. Kerstin bends away and drives the knife into her arm. Stella screams and drops the stone. She holds her arm and stares at Kerstin with a furious look.

Kerstin stands behind me. She’s holding the knife to my neck.

Its sharp edge slides across my skin.





Stella



Alice is paralyzed. She’s deathly pale and stares at me with terror in her eyes. Her face is bruised and she has a Band-Aid on her forehead. A childish, colorful Band-Aid, too small for the cut. Kerstin stands behind her with a knife pressed against her neck. I have to find a way to divert her.

“I just want to know one thing,” I say, holding up my arm and pressing my left hand against the wound.

“What’s that?”

“Is Isabelle buried up by the stone deer?”

Kerstin pulls Alice by her arm, holds her close to her as they walk toward the door.

“Grab a lamp. I’ll show you.” She keeps the knife at Alice’s throat as she exits. I grab a lamp and follow them.