I know what that howl means.
It’s a warning to someone who’s about to die.
A storm followed on the heels of the fog in early November. The weather service had issued a Class 3 warning, so everyone scrambled to prepare the property. They secured anything loose, brought the animals into the barns, piled sandbags where the water might rise, and tested the generator.
Sofia looked online to see what the warning meant. ‘Considerable damage to property, considerable disruption to crucial public services, danger to the public.’ She had never experienced a big storm on an island before. Bosse told her about last fall’s storm, how the water level had risen over a metre, and how no one could go outside — the trees had fallen like bowling pins. They’d been without power for a whole week.
‘They were too busy fixing the electric lines on the mainland, so we had to wait. But now we have our own backup generator,’ he said proudly.
The wind began to whine and howl late in the afternoon. Sofia sat in the library, putting the finishing touches to her list of books. She’d poured her heart and soul into that list. Oswald had said he wanted to see it, but she was well prepared. She knew exactly how many shelves the books would take up, how they should be categorized, and why she had chosen each one.
She also had another, shorter list of books with controversial or erotic contents, which Oswald probably wouldn’t approve of if he’d read them. But he hadn’t read them — she was almost certain of it. She would put the two lists together once she was finished, letting the controversial books mix in with the others. This project had taken up all her attention and she often thought about how good it would look on her CV when she was done.
But now the storm was raging. It was already dark; it was five o’clock and the wind was supposed to peak around midnight. The aspens behind her building bent in the gusts that rattled the windows. The gale had found every crack in the old building, making it raw and cold inside. She turned up the thermostat before she headed over for dinner. As she crossed the yard, the wind tore at her down jacket and she had to stop and catch her balance to keep from being tossed forward. A branch came flying through the air and landed on the ground as a flowerpot rolled across the yard. She hunched over against the whipping wind.
Bosse stood up during dinner to give a speech about the rules for the night. Everyone had to stay indoors and be prepared to lend a hand if anything happened. No going on walks. Sofia snorted. As if someone would get the bright idea to go out in the dark and risk being crushed to death by a falling tree.
By bedtime the gale was even stronger, and it was so dark that nothing could be seen; they could only hear the terrible noise. A few small branches flew by, striking the window. The air was so full of static that it made her skin tingle. She began to feel uneasy. She chatted with Madeleine and Elvira a bit, but everything felt wrong when it was time for lights out.
‘We can’t just lie here in the dark, listening to this miserable weather, can we? Do we really have to pull the blinds? What if something happens?’
Disagreement was on the tip of Madeleine’s tongue, but Elvira agreed with Sofia.
‘I don’t want to listen to the wind in the dark either; that’s just terrifying,’ she said.
So for once, they left the blinds up.
She had trouble falling asleep in the roar of the storm. The wind brought objects smashing and crashing into the yard, but at last she slipped into a sleep-like state. She drifted in and out for a long time, until she was suddenly yanked out of her dozing: the whole room lit up for an instant and the flash was followed by a loud rumble of thunder.
She sat up with a start. There was another round of lightning and thunder, but this time it was so loud that she leapt out of bed and ran to the window. Down in the yard she could see a piece of the flagpole, which had broken in half. A couple of figures were fighting the wind on their way to the barns.
What happened next would be imprinted in her mind in slow motion, even though it was all over in a fraction of a second. A bolt of lightning shot down, accompanied by a deafening clap of thunder. The lightning struck a tall pine behind the barn; the tree seemed to split in two as it crashed onto the annexe behind the manor, taking an electrical wire with it. Great flames leapt from the thatched roof.
Madeleine and Elvira had woken up too and were sitting up ramrod straight in their beds.
‘Shit! It’s on fire!’ Sofia shrieked.
Suddenly she remembered the fire drills they’d practised with Bosse late last summer — exercises she’d found annoying at the time. They were supposed to wake everyone up and shout ‘Fire!’ and give the location. She pulled her boots on without socks and swept her down jacket over her nightgown.
‘Didn’t you hear me? A fire!’ she shouted at Madeleine and Elvira, so loudly that they flew out of bed and started looking for their clothes.
She dashed from the room and started knocking on doors in the hallway.
‘Fire in the barn! Fire in the barn!’ she shouted, running from door to door.
Elvira popped up behind her as she headed for the first floor.
‘Make sure everyone wakes up and comes down!’ Sofia shouted.
It was pitch dark in the yard, aside from the flames shooting out of the barn roof. The broken electrical wire must have taken out all the power. But then she heard the generator kick in and the outdoor lights came back on. She could see Bosse and Sten manoeuvring the fire hose toward the barn. The wind had let up a bit, but the thunder was still constant. She saw lightning and heard thunder at the same time, and realized it must be very dangerous to be outside.
Moos, bleats, and hysterical clucking echoed from the barn.
‘I’ll let the animals out!’ she called to Bosse.
‘No, they’ll trample you!’ he shouted back as he aimed the hose at the fire. A cascade of water jetted toward the roof, but the flames only grew higher, up towards the treetops.
The shrieking from the barn was unbearable.
The thought came over her quickly, but her body was even faster. It was like she was a remotely-guided character in a computer game, always acting before her mind caught up. She had already opened the barn doors by the time it occurred to her that she would rather be trampled than let the animals burn alive inside.
It was absolute chaos inside the barn. The fire was crackling in the ceiling of the far corner, where the chickens were caged. It smelled like smoke and burnt wood. The animals sensed the danger instinctively; they were stamping and shrieking, their eyes rolled back in fear.
She opened the gate to the sheep enclosure first, and they immediately ran for the door and pinned her against the wall, but she managed to shoo them out. The cows had begun to throw themselves at the doors of their stalls, wild with fear.
She climbed up on one of the stall walls to leave the aisle free. One by one she let the cows out and they immediately set off down the aisle and vanished through the door.
The fire had burned through the ceiling by now and flames were licking at the chicken coop. Thick smoke began to pour
