Shadow of Fog Island Read online

  Inga Hermansson was over the moon at Simon’s suggestion. ‘But you can keep all the money if we win, Simon.’

  ‘Half would be plenty. But now that we’re on the topic, I need to plough up more of the fields. I want to start doing permaculture this spring. And I was thinking we could put a few benches in the herb garden so our guests can sit there. It smells so good in the summer, you know? They can bring herbs home with them too, since we never use anywhere near everything that grows there.’

  Inga Hermansson seemed bowled over to hear so many words come out of Simon’s mouth all at once.

  ‘How was I lucky enough to find you?’

  Later that day, Simon’s mother called after reading the article. At first Simon didn’t recognize her voice. He hadn’t spoken to her once since moving out. He’d only sent a few Christmas cards, the kind with tomtar and sleds, never anything religious. His mother’s voice sounded weak and gentle, not shrill as it had often been.

  ‘I just wanted to congratulate you on the article, Simon.’

  ‘Thanks. Was that all?’

  ‘I want you to come home to the farm for a visit.’

  ‘Are you still members of God’s Way?’

  ‘Of course, Simon honey. It’s not as if you can abandon God, is it? He is eternal, and life itself.’

  ‘I’ve heard enough. Thanks for calling. I have to get back to work.’

  ‘I promise not to nag you if you come.’

  ‘Do you still pray at the table?’

  ‘We have to, Simon, you know that. Can’t you accept us as we are?’

  ‘Not after what happened to Daniel.’

  ‘Daniel is in heaven, Simon. Despite what he did, I believe God has embraced him.’

  Simon hung up. His breathing had grown heavy. How could she still have such an effect on him? Images from that terrible night rushed to meet him, the night when the Devil was to be driven out of his little brother Daniel, whose only crime had been loving another boy. The images of the naked screams from the barn, where the pastor and the so-called counsellors flogged him, invoking God and shouting at the Devil to leave his body. The sorrow in Daniel’s eyes when he left the farm the next day.

  Only a few hours later, Daniel had called Simon’s mobile phone, his voice thick with tears. He’d asked Simon not to judge him – Simon had misunderstood, and each time he thought of this horrific misunderstanding, he wanted to pound his own head bloody. Simon had replied that he wished Daniel all the good in the world. A strange thing to say to someone his mother now claimed was in Heaven.

  But somewhere in the very deepest part of his gut, Simon knew how it would end. And when the police car pulled up outside, he screamed until he thought his eardrums would burst. Until an officer came in, grabbed him, and sat him down on the kitchen bench. He held him in a vice-like grip when Simon tried to break loose and attack his parents. He screamed until his voice was hoarse and turned into a bestial howl.

  Everyone said it would get better eventually. But it never did. He knew exactly where Daniel had stood on the tracks. They had snuck down there without permission as kids to sit on the embankment, enjoying the rush of wind when the trains raced past and counting the cars on the freight trains. But Simon had never gone back there. He never would go back. Not to that spot, and not to the farm. Never.

  Simon was still distracted by melancholy thoughts when he got Sofia’s email. He suspected she hadn’t written it but sent a response anyway. Immediately he regretted it and cursed himself now that he couldn’t take it back. When he received an explanation later that evening, and understood what she had been subjected to, he got so mad that it took some effort to keep from hitting the computer monitor.

  He knew at once that it was time for another visit to ViaTerra.

  There was a hint of spring in the air, even though it was only the beginning of March. It had nothing to do with the sun nor the temperature, because it was cloudy and the hoarfrost lay thick and unyielding on forest and field. No, it was something in the air itself, a warmer humidity, a hint that the cold barrenness was would soon break up. Frost covered the heather like a heavy blanket. The frozen twigs crunched under Simon’s boots.

  He walked to the slope where the cliffs plunged into the sea, climbed down to Devil’s Rock and planted himself on the very edge. The sea was calm, a darker shade of grey than the sky, which met the horizon like a curtain of smoke.

  Simon thought of the people Oswald had forced to jump off the cliff. It had been their punishment for breaking the rules. They had jumped into big waves, strong winds, and ice-cold water. He’d never had to do it, thank God, but he’d come close a few times.

  He sat down on the edge of the rock, his legs dangling over the sea, and listened to the water breathing – lapping and sighing. A few gulls hung motionless in the sky. Mallards lay on the rocks, resting with their beaks under their wings. A cormorant stood on a boulder, its wings extended like a glider. Everything was quiet, except for a dog barking somewhere inland.

  He thought about climbing down the rocks to the sea, to see if he could find any mussels, but he knew he was only putting off his visit to the manor. And he had to have something to tell Sofia when he responded to her email.

  Simon barely made it through the gate in time for assembly. He took up position behind the oak, sucking in his gut and trying to blend in with the trees.

  The group gathering before the manor house seemed to have grown since the last time he was there. Their uniforms appeared to fit better, and the staff stood in line, backs straight – even their formation seemed neater. He noticed a few individuals he hadn’t seen before: a thin guy with medium-length hair who stood behind Benny and Sten, and a girl who hadn’t received a uniform yet. Her red anorak stood out like a lure, the only spot of colour in the otherwise grey surroundings. Simon wondered how they could recruit new members to an organization as infamous as ViaTerra. But he supposed some people must be curious. And Oswald’s charisma was always a draw. Some girls were so blindly infatuated that they accepted a position there in the hope that he would notice them.

  Simon glanced around at the property and discovered that the big shed where he’d kept his tools had been renovated into living quarters. It had a fresh coat of paint, more windows, and a new roof. A fence surrounded the building, and some sort of climbing structure rose up in front of it.

  That was when he spotted Elvira. She was standing in front of the building in a huge, shapeless, black coat, observing the assembly. Her hair was loose and flowed over her shoulders, down to the sides of the coat – it looked like a black triangle with golden edges glowing against the wall of the building. For a moment, Simon was fully aware of her feelings. It was the closest to telepathy he’d ever come: the weight on her chest, the lump in her throat, the anguish brought on by the walls and barbed wire. Everyone who had worked there had felt it at one time or another. And now he could feel it coming from Elvira. I can’t hear her or see it, but I know she’s crying, he thought.

  He backed out of the gate and carefully locked it behind him. His thoughts were still with Elvira when he turned around; he wasn’t watching where he was going and tripped over the birch log he’d put there himself. He fell to the ground with a thud. He caught himself with his hands but couldn’t stop his head from striking the frozen ground.

  At first, everything was perfectly silent.

  And then the alarm began to howl.

  14

  For two weeks, nothing happened. No emails, packages, or other unpleasant surprises.

  It was as if the whole world was taking a deep breath, and she was enveloped in a remarkable peacefulness. But nothing felt normal – time seemed to fray at the edges and she found herself constantly interrupting her own routine to look around, spy out the window, check to see if she had gotten any sketchy emails. A faint sense of unease snuck up on her when she went out for a walk. Shadows that had once been invisible grew and shrank behind the bushes. And in some ways, the fact that nothing was
happening frightened her even more. It was like they were keeping an eye on her from a distance; she felt watched. Sometimes she went to the dumpster to double-check that no one had gone through her trash. She imagined she must look completely ridiculous, standing there poking through refuse. But the trash bags remained untouched.

  The people who’d received the fake emails took it better than she’d expected. Her boss, Edith Bergman, had merely laughed awkwardly, and said she’d realized right away that the email hadn’t come from Sofia. Her parents hadn’t even read their email. They mostly kept in touch over the phone these days. Wilma called to ask if Sofia missed her so much she’d gone crazy.

  She spent more time at her parents’ house, but whenever she tried to bring up her time in the cult, everything went off the rails. Her mother brushed her off immediately: ‘Don’t think about that anymore. You have your whole life ahead of you!’

  Mom’s voice went brisk and shrill. Like an actress in the theatre.

  ‘I think you should have a party here at our place,’ she went on cheerfully. ‘Invite all your childhood friends. Reconnect with people.’

  This suggestion seemed so idiotic that at first Sofia couldn’t make a sound.

  ‘Thanks, but right now I just want peace and quiet,’ she said at last.

  She never brought up ViaTerra with her mother again.

  Sometimes she chastised herself for having started the blog. Why had she been so pig-headed? Why couldn’t she just do as everyone told her and forget Oswald and ViaTerra? But that line of reasoning didn’t work; she couldn’t keep her inner voice from talking back, bringing up every possible argument.

  Benjamin had been by to secure her apartment. An extra lock with a chain on the door, and black blinds – which Sofia truly hated, but Benjamin pointed out that they would stop anyone from spying in. When he wanted to call a security company and order an alarm system, though, she put her foot down. After all, the harassment seemed to have stopped.

  Yet she was still having trouble sleeping. She was afraid of having more nightmares, which had only gotten worse. Oftentimes she woke up thrashing, startled, drenched in sweat. Sometimes, before she even opened her eyes, she lay there petrified, scared she might find herself back in the dorms at ViaTerra.

  One morning, when the dream seemed particularly clear in her mind, she tried to hold onto it and sink back into her body, where it had been pressed to the wall under Oswald’s weight. She purposely relived the fear tingling up and down her spine and tried to make herself turn around and kick him in the crotch. But his body had dissolved as she rose to consciousness, and the way back into her dream was blocked.

  She got out of bed and went to the window. The streetlights had gone out and the room was full of a pale dawn light. A strange, surreal feeling washed over her. The morning outside was so quiet, aside from a faint breeze that was shaking the leaves of the aspens. Someone walked across the lawn in front of her building, then turned around and looked at her. For an instant she went stiff, but the man looked away and resumed his walk towards the city centre. She noticed his backpack and decided it must just be someone on his way to work. Even so, a warning buzzed in her bones, like the background music of a horror film.

  Late one night, she received an unexpected call from Ellis. ‘What do you want to do about the blog?’

  ‘Shit, I almost forgot about it.’

  Sofia hadn’t told Ellis about her hacked email account, but as they spoke she realized that had been a mistake. If anyone could help her, it was Ellis. So she did something she’d promised herself she would never do: she invited Ellis to come over to her apartment. It turned out to be a good idea in the end, because he installed extra security on her computer. Firewalls, encryption, and other safeguards she didn’t even understand.

  Then there was the blog. Interest in it had cooled; after all, Elvira was gone and probably wouldn’t turn up again. There were still several people leaving comments, mostly with questions about Elvira: Where did she go? Did she have the babies?

  Ellis and Sofia sat down to chat over a glass of red wine. She still couldn’t look him in the eyes without a certain amount of hesitation. He had been such a jerk in the past, and it was hard to trust him. She even wondered if his almost overwhelming helpfulness was him trying to wiggle his way back into her life. It seemed he had read her mind, because he laughed suddenly.

  ‘Are you stewing about the good old days? Listen, I really have changed. You don’t owe me a damn thing for helping you. And look, I can have a glass of wine with you without getting drunk. But you do have to decide what you want to do about the blog.’

  It was tempting to tell him to delete it. Everything had calmed down. Benjamin and Ellis had transformed her apartment into some sort of armoured submarine. No one could enter her home, and her accounts would be difficult to hack. It seemed like a good time to get out of the fight.

  But the injustice of it all was still pounding stubbornly at her temples.

  I’m not going to let any of those bastards keep me from speaking out.

  ‘What do you say, Sofia, should we take down the blog?’

  ‘Nope, I don’t want to.’

  ‘Are you kidding me?’

  ‘No, we’ll turn it into my own blog instead. I’m sure I won’t get as many followers as Elvira, but that doesn’t matter. I’ll just describe what it was like for me. If I can scare a single person out of joining a cult, it will be worth it.’

  ‘That’s a big risk you’re taking…’

  ‘That’s the point, isn’t it?’

  They were up all night. They changed the name to After the Cult and took down the photo of Elvira, replacing it with a gloomy picture of the manor house swept in fog, barbed wire in the foreground. It was the same image that the journalist Magnus Strid had used in an article about ViaTerra. They kept Elvira’s story and added Sofia’s. Ellis took care of the design and layout. Sofia took out the secret diary she’d kept on the island. The last entries had been written on the train from Lund to Haparanda when she was escaping ViaTerra, and what she had written was useful – she had been upset and angry when she’d written it. There were detailed descriptions of the way Oswald had treated the staff – the punishments, the violence, everything that had happened before her escape. She wrote a lengthy entry based on the diary and Ellis published it on the blog.

  ‘We have to include what happened to Elvira,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, we’ll say that Oswald bought her back, offered her so much money she couldn’t refuse. People will be furious. Maybe it will even lead to a demonstration out on the island. A mob with signs protesting outside the gates. That would be amazing.’

  ‘Sure. Just like the time I stood there shouting at them to free you, Sofia.’

  By the early hours, the blog was live.

  ‘Damn, it looks good,’ she said. ‘Seriously creepy. You’re awesome.’

  ‘What do you suppose Benjamin will think of this?’

  ‘That’s my problem. Either I keep living in denial, or I do something about it. I’ll just have to deal with the consequences.’

  By the time Ellis left, it was too late to go to bed; she had to work in a few hours. She sat down on the balcony and watched the moon shining through broken bits of thin clouds. It was nearly dawn, and there was a faint light on the horizon. She walked to the bathroom and let her clothes drop to the floor.

  The tile was cold beneath her feet. She turned on the shower, hot water – so hot the whole bathroom filled with steam and her face vanished from the mirror. She stood there for a long time, letting the water lash at her body and rinse away the exhaustion that was starting to creep up on her. Then she dried off, got dressed, and made a cup of strong coffee.

  She went back to the balcony to watch the sun rise over Lund, enjoying the fighting spirit that had been reborn inside her.

  15

  Simon lay breathless and still, just where he’d fallen. He cursed himself inwardly for his clumsiness. The alarm was
blaring and he was just about to get up and run away, but then he realized that the guard might spot him from the booth at the main gate. Suddenly he heard a motorcycle roar to life and come his way. His heart was pounding so hard that it had to be audible on this quiet, still morning. The chill of the ground penetrated his clothing and spread through his body. The motorcycle had stopped. Now he could hear the kickstand flipping down, followed by boots on the ground. A beep, a crackling sound, and a voice on the walkie-talkie.

  ‘Can you see anyone there? The alarm was tripped right next to the gate.’

  ‘Nope, no one here.’ It was Benny’s drawling voice. ‘Must have been a squirrel or a bird.’

  ‘Can’t you go check?’

  ‘Nope, don’t have the key.’

  ‘It’s here in the booth. Come get it. And bring the dog, too.’

  The dog? Simon remembered the barking he’d heard from up at Devil’s Rock. He’d assumed it had come from one of the farms inland. But now that he was lying there, sprawled on the ice-cold ground, his mind forced him to imagine an enormous Rottweiler with mean eyes, huge jaws, bared teeth, and drool dripping from its mouth.

  ‘Okay, I’ll come get it.’

  The motorcycle started, skidded on the gravel, and zoomed off. Simon realized he had forgotten to breathe and that his body had, for the moment, frozen to the frosty ground. But his legs got him up of their own accord, and he hurtled off.

  He ran helter-skelter straight into the forest, ignoring his heavy winter boots, no idea where he was going. His lungs burned and his heart pounded. He had no idea how long he ran, because there was no time, only an image of the dog etched into his brain, pushing him to run faster.