The Resting Place by Camilla Sten

Author:Camilla Sten
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

ELEANOR

The snowfall is still sparse, but above us the clouds are rolling in so fast there must be a storm up above them. Even though it’s now after 8:00 am, it’s still so dark that it feels like the sun has hardly crept up over the horizon, and at the edge of the forest there are deep shadows lurking between the trees.

I’m holding the map Veronika drew. She did it propped up in bed, her face scrunched up in a grimace of pain and concentration, her pallor a sharp contrast to the shadows in her face. We all seem to have aged ten years since yesterday.

Still, there was a strange sort of understanding between us when I explained the situation to her.

“You’re complete fucking idiots if you go out to that lodge. You know someone’s waiting for you out there, right?”

“Yes,” I said, “but we have no choice.”

She sighed and shook her head, grimacing when the movement seemed to make the pain in her wound worse.

“You’re a great girl,” she finally said, in spite of herself. “This is stupid. But brave.”

Then she added:

“Just don’t think I have any intention of going with you.”

“Oh, believe me, Aunt Veronika,” I said, my voice as bone-dry as hers, “I wouldn’t even dream of it.”

This had made her laugh, cackling and choppy.

I’m clutching a rusty monkey wrench Sebastian dug out of one of the kitchen drawers. Meanwhile he’s carrying the biggest meat cleaver he could find. It’s enormous, the sort used to cut game.

We should be feeling ridiculous. I’m sure we look like idiots, two grown adults on our way out to a little cottage in the woods, armed like we’re expecting a run-in with a zombie horde. But I don’t feel ridiculous. The weight of the wrench is more reassuring to me than Sebastian’s presence.

All of my senses are on high alert as we cross the silent, frozen landscape in the dim winter light. This place looks different from how it did last night, when it felt like a swirling, dark hell without directions or fixed points. Most of Veronika’s and my tracks have been covered, but here and there I think I can see snowdrifts and hollows that we must have left.

Us. Or somebody else.

We pass the first, tall trunks and the open expanse is consumed by forest. The bark of the trees is covered in hoarfrost, their branches heavy under the fallen snow. In just a few weeks it will start to melt away. The birds will be twittering.

I see Sebastian’s face out of the corner of my eye. His lips are pursed, his eyebrows heavy and furrowed. I should feel safe when he’s with me, but instead I just feel exposed. I can’t protect him. I don’t even know if I can protect myself.

The trees stand silent and expectant around us. The landscape looks completely untouched. Like a painting. As though no one has set foot here in a hundred years.

“Is it far?” Sebastian asks when I stop, look down at the map, and pull my cell phone out of my pocket to use as a compass.

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