The Darkest Room

little bit.”

“We will,” said Livia. “End of story!”

Livia laughed and nodded, but of course for Joakim it was no joke. But he was still looking forward to all the work that was waiting during the course of the winter. He and Katrine were both going to try to find a teaching post on the island, but they would renovate the manor house together in the evenings and on weekends. She had already started, after all.

He stopped in the grass by the shore and took a long look at the buildings behind them.

Isolated and private location, as it had said in the ad.

Joakim still found it difficult to get used to the size of the main house; with its white gables and red wooden walls, it rose up at the top of the sloping grassy plain. Two beautiful chimneys sat on top of the tiled roof like towers, black as soot. A warm yellow light glowed in the kitchen window and on the veranda; the rest of the house was pitch black.

So many families who had lived there, toiling away at the walls, doorways, and floors over the years-master lighthouse

keepers and lighthouse keepers and lighthouse assistants and whatever they were called. They had all left their mark on the manor house.

Remember, when you take over an old house, the house takes you over at the same time, Joakim had read in a book about renovating wooden houses. For him and Katrine this was not the case-they had had no problem leaving the house in Bromma, after all-but over the years they had met a number of families who looked after their houses like children.

“Shall we go out to the lighthouses?” asked Katrine.

“Yes!” shouted Livia. “End of story!”

“The stones could be slippery,” said Joakim.

He didn’t want Livia and Gabriel to lose their respect for the sea and go down to the water alone. Livia could swim only a few yards, and Gabriel couldn’t swim at all.

But Katrine and Livia had already set off along the stone jetty, hand in hand. Joakim picked Gabriel up, held him in the crook of his right arm, and followed them dubiously out onto the uneven blocks of stone.

They weren’t as slippery as he had thought, just rough and uneven. In some places the blocks had been eroded by the waves and had broken away from the concrete holding them together. There was only a slight wind today, but Joakim could sense the power of nature. Winter after winter of drift ice and waves and harsh storms on Eel Point-and still the lighthouses stood firm.

“How tall are they?” wondered Katrine, looking toward the towers.

“Well, I don’t have a ruler with me-but maybe sixty feet or so?” said Joakim.

Livia tipped her head back to look up at the top of her lighthouse.

“Why is there no light?”

“I expect it’ll come on when it gets dark,” said Katrine.

“Does that one never come on?” asked Joakim, leaning back to look up at the north tower.

“I don’t think so,” said Katrine. “It hasn’t done since we’ve been here.”

When they reached the point where the breakwater divided, Livia chose the left path, toward her mother’s lighthouse.

“Careful, Livia,” said Joakim, looking down into the black water below the stone track.

It might only be five or six feet deep, but he still didn’t like the shadows and the chill down there. He was a decent swimmer, but he had never been the type to leap eagerly into the waves in summer, not even on really hot days.

Katrine had reached the island and walked over to the water’s edge. She looked in both directions along the coastline. To the north, only empty beaches and clumps of trees were visible; to the south, meadows and in the distance a few small boathouses.

“Not a soul in sight,” she said. “I thought we might see a few neighboring houses, at least.”

“There are too many little islands and headlands in the way,” said Joakim. He pointed to the north shore with his free hand. “Look over there. Have you seen that?”

It was the wreck of a ship, lying on the stony strip of shore half a mile or so away-so old that all that was left was a battered hull made of sun-bleached planks of wood. Long ago the ship had drifted toward the shore in a winter storm; it had been hurled high up onto the shore, where it had remained. The wreck lay to starboard among the stones, and Joakim thought the framework sticking up looked like a giant’s rib cage.

“The wreck, yes,” said Katrine.

“Didn’t they see the beams from the lighthouses?” said Joakim.

“I think the lighthouses just don’t help sometimes… not in a storm,” said Katrine. “Livia and I went over to the wreck a few weeks ago. We were looking for some nice pieces of wood, but everything had been taken.”

The entrance to the lighthouse was a stone archway some three feet deep, leading to a sturdy door of thick steel, very rusty and with only a few traces of the original white color. There was no keyhole, just a crossbar with a rusty padlock, and when Joakim got hold of the side of the door and pulled, it didn’t move an inch.

“I saw a bunch of old keys in one of the kitchen cupboards,” he said. “We’ll have to try them out sometime.”

“Otherwise we can contact the Maritime Board,” said Katrine.

Joakim nodded and took a step away from the door. The lighthouses weren’t part of the deal, after all.

“Don’t the lighthouses belong to us, Mommy?” said Livia as they made their way back to the shore.

She sounded disappointed.

“Well, yes,” said Katrine. “Kind of. But we don’t have to look after them, do we, Kim?”

She smiled at Joakim, and he nodded.

“The house will be quite enough.”

Katrine had turned over in the double bed while Joakim was with Livia, and as he crept beneath the covers she reached out for him in her sleep. He breathed in the scent of her, and closed his eyes.

All of this, only this.

It felt as if they had drawn a line under life in the city. Stockholm had shrunk to a gray mark on the horizon, and the memories of searching for Ethel had faded away.

Peace.

Then he heard the faint whimpering from Livia’s room again, and held his breath.

“Mom-mee?”

Her drawn-out cries echoing through the house were louder this time. Joakim breathed out with a tired sigh.

Beside him Katrine raised her head and listened.

“What?” she said groggily.

“Mom-mee?” Livia called again.

Katrine sat up. Unlike Joakim, she could go from deep sleep to wide awake in a couple of seconds.

“I’ve already tried,” said Joakim quietly. “I thought she’d gone back to sleep, but…”

“I’ll go.”

Katrine got out of bed without hesitating, slid her feet into her slippers, and quickly pulled on her dressing gown.

“Mommy?”

“I’m coming, brat,” she muttered.

This wasn’t good, thought Joakim. It wasn’t good that Livia wanted to sleep with her mother beside her every night. But it was a habit that had started the previous year, when Livia had begun to have disturbed nights-perhaps because of Ethel. She found it difficult to fall asleep, and only slept calmly with Katrine lying beside her in her bed. So far they hadn’t managed to get Livia to spend a whole night on her own.

“See you, lover boy,” said Katrine, slipping out of the room.

The duties of a parent. Joakim lay there in bed; there was no longer a sound from Livia’s room. Katrine had taken over the responsibility, and he relaxed and closed his eyes. Slowly he felt sleep stealing over him once more.

All was silent in the manor house.