clapped a hand to her cheek. “I’ve not lifted a paintbrush in over a decade. My technique must be horrendous by now.” She glanced at one of the paintings above her bed of a naked woman sitting on a stool, one knee drawn up to her chin and her arms wrapped around her calf.
“Is that one of yours?” I asked.
She gave a small nod. “It’s a self-portrait. That should give you an inkling of how old the painting is.”
The painting was very accomplished. It looked expensive, like something in a museum.
“Can I ask you something?” I said, and she nodded. “Did you really not see any violence between Tom and Aurelia?”
“Violence?”
“I came across something that indicated he had beaten her.”
Maren looked puzzled. “That doesn’t sound like Tom.”
“You’re sure?” I said. “So . . . you didn’t put the book in my room?”
“What book?” Maren said. She’d risen from her chair and drifted to the self-portrait above her bed, lifting a cloth to wipe off an invisible layer of dust.
“It doesn’t matter. Can you unlock the door now?” I asked.
“Oh,” she said, turning. “Of course.”
32
the crossing
THEN
In six days’ time, Aurelia will be dead, but now she sits in her bedroom writing in her diary.
I keep losing things and dreaming about where they are. My emerald earrings have vanished and I’m upset about it—Mum bought them for my twenty-first—and last night I dreamed that I knew they were buried in the ground just outside the house. I dug and dug until I hit what I thought was earrings, but when I pulled my hand out of the ground I had two eyeballs rolling around in my palm.
“Evening, Aurelia,” a voice says.
She looks up and sees Maren there, a bundle of dirty clothes held in her arms instead of in a laundry basket—one of Maren’s many quirks. Tom’s forever complaining about her. He has a point—she doesn’t vacuum properly and often the windows look worse once she’s cleaned them than before she started. But she’s dedicated, polite, and fiercely loyal. Few housekeepers would have been prepared to come out to Norway like this.
“I didn’t mean to disturb your writing,” Maren says, turning to leave the room.
“No, no,” Aurelia says, closing the red notebook. “It’s just a diary. Of sorts. Just where I record some stuff.” She smiles, looks down. Maren can see she’s upset. “It helps me keep track of what’s real and what’s just in my head.”
Maren turns. “Nothing is just in your head. It’s all important.”
Aurelia gives an “I know, I know” shrug, but Maren can see she’s extremely bothered. She has dark marks beneath her eyes, and she’s pale, but it’s not the outward appearance of her that troubles Maren. After all, she’s a new mother. Many women don’t exactly look their best in these months. No, it’s what Maren can see beneath the surface. She has worked for Aurelia for many years now, and during all that time she has been watching her carefully. Studying, admiring, wishing . . .
Maren sits down on the bed beside her. “Tell me,” she says. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
Aurelia stares at a spot on the floor. Her eyes fill with tears, but she doesn’t make to dab them, or to speak. She cannot explain what is happening. It feels as though her heart is breaking, and yet there is no reason for it. She shouldn’t feel this way.
“I can hear things, sometimes,” she finds herself saying. “In the house.”
“What sort of things?” Maren asks gently.
“Voices.”
“And what do they say?”
“Nothing that makes sense, really,” she says. A tear slides down her cheek and hits the fabric of her skirt. “Sometimes I’ll hear someone say my name.” She smiles and shakes her head as though that is a ridiculous idea. “I feel different out here.”
“Different?” Maren says, studying her. “You mean in Norway, or . . . ?”
“No, no. Just . . . in the woods. Here. In this house. It feels . . .” She shrugs, aware that she sounds daft. Then, in a small voice: “It feels like a different realm. Where boundaries between things are a little less . . . solid.”
There’s a long pause. Maren chooses her words carefully. “Maybe you need to go back to London for a while. It’s not for everyone, Norway.”
Aurelia feels herself bristle. Norway is the home of her ancestors, the place she associates with happiness and wild childhood abandon. It has already crossed her mind that she’s not cut out for this environment, and