‘I don’t want it to leave bruises.’
I snort.
‘So wear a turtleneck. Stop being such a wuss. You like it, don’t you?’
She lowers her eyes, all innocent. This is something new. Her fear.
It seeps out of her and turns me on; I get incredibly excited.
Have to take a few deep breaths, hold myself back, to keep from grabbing her and shaking her hard.
I own this person; I have her completely under my power.
She bends to my will like the grass in the wind. I turn my back on her.
Feel her drawn into the vacuum.
I think of how this night will be.
‘Are you dreaming, Miss?’
This was the man who captained the ferry, Edwin Björk. He was slightly overweight, with sideburns and a wind-chapped face; he smelled like diesel and seaweed. Sofia and Wilma had made friends with him on the journey over. Sofia tore herself from her memories of the lecture and looked at Björk.
‘Not really, just wondering if it’s usually so foggy here in the summer.’
‘It’s not unusual,’ Björk said. ‘She’s not called Fog Island for nothing. But it’s worst in the fall. The fog sometimes gets so thick that I can’t bring the ferry in. What are you two up to on the island?’
‘We’re going to visit a group at the manor, ViaTerra.’
Björn wrinkled his nose.
‘Then be careful. That place is cursed.’
‘Seriously? You’re joking, right?’ Wilma asked.
‘Nope, I’m certainly not. It’s haunted by the Countess. I’ve seen her with my own two eyes.’
‘Tell us.’
So he told them, with such feeling and conviction that Sofia began to shiver. The fog slipped in under her clothes and settled on her skin like a cold blanket. Images flickered through her mind as he spoke. Creepy images she couldn’t shake off.
‘The manor house was built in the early 1900s. You don’t often see estates like it out in the archipelago because the islands were home mostly to fishermen and boatbuilders. Count von Bärensten was determined to live here, though, so he had that wretched place built. But you see, his wife, the Countess, grew restless out here. She took frequent trips to the mainland, where she fell in love with a sea captain she met in secret. One night when the fog was thick, the captain’s ship ran aground and sank just off the island. It was winter; the water was cold and everyone on board perished. A great tragedy, it was.’
‘Is that true, or just a tall tale?’ Wilma interrupted.
‘Every word is the truth. But listen now, because we’re almost to the island and I’ll have to dock the ferry.’
Wilma fell silent and they listened breathlessly as Björk went on.
‘When the Countess realized what had happened to the captain, she went out to a cliff we call Devil’s Rock and threw herself to her death in the icy water.’
Björk straightened his cap and shook his head in reflection.
‘And when the Count found out . . . something in his mind must have snapped, because he set fire to the manor house and shot himself in the head. If not for the servants, the whole mess probably would have burned down. They managed to save the house and the children, but the Count was dead as a doornail.
‘After the tragedy with the ship, they installed a foghorn at the lighthouse. Whenever it sounded, the superstitious islanders said the Countess was standing on Devil’s Rock, calling for her lover. And then people began to spot the Countess on the cliff. Always in a fog. She continued to appear for many years.’
‘It must have been their imaginations,’ Sofia said.
‘Hardly,’ replied Björk. ‘She was real, believe me. Meanwhile, the Count’s children, who still lived there, fell ill and the barns burned down. The curse went on for years, until the Count’s son was fed up and moved abroad. The estate sat abandoned for several years.’
‘And then?’
‘The misery continued. A doctor bought the manor in the late 1990s. Lived there with his daughter. Big plans for the place — he wanted to turn it into some sort of rest home. But his daughter died in a fire, in one of the barns. An accident, they said, but I wasn’t fooled. The place is cursed.’ Björk held up one finger. ‘I’m not done yet — around the same time, a boy jumped from Devil’s Rock, hit his head, and drowned. The current took him. Since then, diving from the cliff has been forbidden.’
Sofia wondered if the old man was just making this up, but there wasn’t the slightest hint of teasing in his expression. Why would Oswald want to establish his centre in such a place? It seemed incredible.
‘So you can go look at all that, the lighthouse and the cliff?’ Wilma asked.
‘Yes, the lighthouse is still there, but the foghorn is no longer in use. Otherwise it’s all the same. And now the manor is being run by lunatics again, as you’ll soon discover.’ At last a booming laugh welled from his throat.
‘Do you know Oswald?’ Wilma asked.
‘Nah, he’s far too uppity to spend time with us islanders. He always stays in his car when he takes the ferry over.’
Sofia gazed into the fog. She thought she could see a faint outline where the horizon should be.
‘Here she is now!’ Björk cried.
Slowly, majestically, the island took shape. The contours of the firs on the hills, small boats at rest in the harbour, and shadows of houses here and there. The shrieking of the gulls reached the ferry. The fog was lifting. A pale sun, which couldn’t quite pierce the clouds, hung like a yellow blob in the grey sky.
‘See you on the evening ferry, then,’ Björk said as he guided the boat toward the pier. ‘There are two ferry departures each day. The morning ferry at eight and the evening ferry at five.’
When they stepped off, they immediately found themselves in the village, which was like a summer paradise. Small cottages with turrets and gingerbread; cobblestone streets and boutiques. Children were playing along the quay. Summer visitors drank coffee at an outdoor café. It was only early June, but vacation life was in full swing here.
Barely fifty metres from the ferry pier was a cobblestone square with a fountain in the middle. A woman in a grey uniform was waiting for them. She was thin and almost as short as Sofia. Her blonde hair was up in a bun and her face was pale, with delicate features. Her eyes were large and almost colourless; her eyebrows were white.
‘Sofia
