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- Herausgeber: Pushkin Children's Books
- Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
A chilling middlegrade ghost story set in a spooky sanatorium during the 1920s'A thrillingly gothic mystery. I loved the sense of hope that weaves its way through the story despite the dark and menacing atmosphere' Lucy Hope, author of FledglingThe grown-ups all think she's going to die soon-she can see it in their eyes. Still, when poor twelve-year-old Stina is sent to remote Raspberry Hill Sanatorium she can't believe her luck. She gets to ride in a real motor car to the hospital, which looks like a magnificent castle hidden deep in the forest.But as Stina explores the long, echoey corridors of her eerie new home, she begins to suspect that the building is concealing a dark secret. How did the old East Wing burn down? Why doesn't her mother reply to any of her letters? And what are the nurses all so afraid of?Stina is determined to solve the mystery of Raspberry Hill-but as she edges closer to the truth, she finds herself in terrible danger...
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Seitenzahl: 142
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Contents
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1
The Motor Car
My name is Stina and I’m probably going to die soon. No one has told me so, but I’m no fool. I see it in Mama’s eyes. I hear the neighbourhood women murmur and mutter. They tilt their heads and cluck their tongues when they see me. Tut-tut-tut.
Sometimes I hear them whisper too.
“Poor Märta, first her husband and now her little girl.”
Märta is my mother. My father’s name was Paul but he’s dead now. He was killed in the war. The war is over, but that doesn’t make Papa any less dead. And soon I’ll be dead as well. I cough and I cough, sometimes so hard that the bedsheets get all bloody. 8It’s those times especially when Mama’s eyes grow dark and awfully sad.
But when you know that death is coming soon, you take every opportunity to enjoy things to the fullest. Like getting to ride in a motor car! I never dreamt I would get the chance to do such a thing, but now I have! And what an elegant motor car it was! Red and gleaming. The seats were soft and tan, made of leather, I think. The other kids back home on Sjömansgatan could hardly believe their eyes when it stopped right outside our front door and a man wearing a uniform with shiny buttons asked which one of us was Stina.
It was the kind of motor car that rich, important people travel around in. Film stars and politicians. So it seemed rather special that I, Stina from Sjömansgatan, a consumptive little urchin, was allowed to get in. I felt like Greta Garbo.
On the seat next to me I had my little brown travel bag. It contained almost everything I own. Which isn’t much. A few well-worn garments, my doll Rosa, a spinning top made for me by Peter from the market hall, two litho prints (one of an angel with pinkish wings, the other of two hands, a man’s and a woman’s, holding each other inside a flower 9wreath), and a photograph of Papa and Mama. They look very young and serious in the picture. Hard to believe they had the money to go to a photographer back then before they got engaged.
I wonder if I’ll ever be photographed in my life. My time is running out…
The greatest treasure in my bag was wrapped in my nightdress so it wouldn’t get dog-eared during the journey. I can hardly believe that I am now the owner of such a beautiful book! Robinson Crusoe is the title and it actually belongs to my big brother Olle. I was sitting on the doorstep ready to go, with my hair plaited and cardigan buttoned up, waiting to be taken away, when he appeared all of a sudden and handed it to me.
“Here, Stina, this is for you,” he said and walked away.
This book is Olle’s most beloved possession, I’m sure of it. More than once I’d asked if I might leaf through, even just to take a glance at the pictures, but he always said no and acted very protective of it. And then he gave it to me, just like that!
I guess Olle knows that I’m going to die soon. I’ll make sure he gets Robinson Crusoe back when I do. I could write a will. That’s what Grandma Josefa did 10before she died. It was a good thing too, because otherwise Papa wouldn’t have had a wedding ring to give Mama. Grandma was very well prepared and wrote on a piece of paper that Paul should get the ring, so it all worked out. Wills are important—I mustn’t forget to write mine before I die.
The man driving the car asked if I wanted to lie down across the seats and rest. But my cough becomes much worse when I lie down so I asked if I might sit upright. Besides, you simply must look out the window when travelling by motor car, especially if you’re unlikely to ever have the chance again.
We had a long way to go. The sanatorium is deep inside the forest where the air is pure and healthy. Usually only rich people go to such fancy sanatoriums, so it’s pretty incredible that I’ve been given the opportunity as well.
It was a few weeks ago now that Dr Lundin came to our home and asked what Mama would say about sending little Stina away to stay in a sanatorium for a time. He was actually asking on behalf of another doctor who was an old friend.
At Raspberry Hill Sanatorium they wanted to research what happened when city kids with bad coughs spent time out in the countryside. Would the 11fresh air alone be enough to cure them? That’s what the doctors thought. They wanted to test it out on me, and study me and my lungs to see if I got better from being at the sanatorium.
Personally, I didn’t believe it for a second. How could ordinary air help? There’s air everywhere already.
I had got a lot worse over the summer. Back in spring I could still walk down to the harbour with Olle and Edith to watch the boats go by and fetch firewood for Mama. I could feed the chickens and help with the mangle on Mondays. I fetched drinking water from the water post nearly every day. I could walk to school too. But then I started coughing and never stopped. I’d been lying in the kitchen and coughing for so long, seeing nothing of the outside world except the little courtyard outside our building. So just imagine how exciting it was to suddenly be whisked away through the streets of Helsinki in a film star car, and driven past fields, hills, forests and lakes. I turned my head this way and that until my neck ached.
Mama didn’t want me to go to Raspberry Hill at first, and neither did I. But then she dared to hope—what if I really could be cured at the sanatorium? 12Wouldn’t it be madness to turn down such an opportunity?
I think it was the neighbourhood women who convinced her.
“But dear Märta, think how much easier it would be on you. The girl would be taken care of and you could see to your other five.”
Yes, that’s right. Six children and no father. All the others are healthy and help Mama out as much as they can.
Olle is fourteen already and has been working as an errand boy, but he’s looking for a job at the harbour now. Sailing is what he really wants to do. Edith is thirteen and helps Mama on busy days when she has more shirt collars dropped off than she can iron by herself. My younger siblings, twins Lars and Ellen, and little Erik who was still in Mama’s belly when Papa was killed in action, are all big enough to help out around the house. But I am no use. I am frail, I cough and get in the way. Plus everyone was afraid that I might be contagious, so my siblings all had to sleep together in the bedroom while Mama and I slept in the kitchen.
They will have a lot more space now that I’m gone. I understand what a relief it must be for 13Mama not to have me around, even though she’s sad about it too.
It’s probably just as well that they get used to me not being there, because that’s how it will be when I’m dead.
Mama spent the evenings before I left knitting. She got the yarn from unpicking outgrown jumpers and socks. She sat there by the fire, knitting and knitting, and sometimes she would look up from her needles and let out a deep sigh. Then she would carry on.
She probably didn’t realize I was awake and watching her. I wanted to watch her very closely so I wouldn’t forget what she looked like when I was at the sanatorium. She is beautiful, my mother. She has dark hair and blue eyes, just like me. We are both thin, but Mama has rounder cheeks and pink lips. My lips are so pale they are practically invisible. Mama almost always has her hair tied in a bun, but occasionally at the bathhouse I have seen it all loose and curly. Then I think she looks like a queen from a fairy tale. I wish I had hair like that, but mine is dead straight and quite fine. Several women on our block have their hair cut short. It’s modern and practical, they say. But I hope Mama never cuts her queenly hair. 14
On my last night at home on Sjömansgatan I received a package. Inside was a newly knitted cardigan! An oddball sort of cardigan that changes colour here and there whenever the yarn runs out, but still the most beautiful cardigan I’ve ever seen! It was the first time I had ever been given a new garment of my own, and not a hand-me-down from Edith, or sometimes even from Olle. If I bury my nose into the collar I can smell Mama’s scent. I am going to wear it every day at the sanatorium.
2
The Castle in the Woods
I will never forget the first time I laid eyes on Raspberry Hill Sanatorium. I must have fallen asleep in the motor car because I was woken up when we took a sudden turn onto a narrower road.
We were driving along an avenue lined with large, old trees. Oak, I think. We drove past a gleaming lake, then up a steep hill, and there it was.
I had never seen such a massive building, not even back in the city! Or did it only seem so big because it was surrounded by nothing but forest? Like a castle! Four storeys, turrets and balconies, round windows and ornate doors. There wasn’t time to count all the windows on the facade, but it must have been over a hundred! 16
Back home, seven of us lived in two small rooms, but I imagined Raspberry Hill could probably house thousands without ever getting crowded! There were only two people to be seen, though. They were standing on the wide steps leading up to the front door, both dressed in white.
The motor car stopped and the driver got out and opened the door for me.
“Here you are, miss, we’ve arrived.”
All of a sudden I felt shy and childish, not at all like a film star, as I slipped off the seat and climbed out of the car clutching my travel bag. I remembered to straighten my skirt and pull up my knee socks before curtsying to the two people in white. We may be poor, but manners cost nothing, as Mama always says.
The two women standing on the steps wore identical nurse uniforms. Other than that they couldn’t have been more different. One was young and rotund with rosy cheeks. A few wisps of curly fair hair stuck out from under her cap. When she smiled dimples appeared in her cheeks, like I’ve always wished I had. But you can’t have dimples in a face as skinny as mine, it would just look strange. The other woman was tall and thin and had dark hair in a low, tight bun. She 17was the elder of the two and looked at me sternly, as if I had just done something very naughty.
The fair one spoke first.
“Little Stina, I presume? How was your journey?”
“Fine thanks,” I mumbled and curtsied again.
“I’m Sister Petronella and this is the chief nurse of Raspberry Hill, Sister Emerentia.”
I curtsied a third time to be on the safe side. Sister Emerentia eyed me grimly but then lowered her neck in a minuscule nod that I supposed to be a greeting of sorts.
“Come with me and I’ll take you up to the ward,” said Sister Petronella. “I can carry your bag.”
Sister Petronella took my hand as we walked up the steps and into the building. We entered through large heavy wooden doors with green windows and came into a vast foyer. There were patterned stone tiles on the floor and the walls were painted light green with little flourishes all over. I had never seen anything like it—it seemed like a train station and a church combined. Only much bigger.
Wide corridors extended to the right and left of us and looked as though they went on for ever. Straight ahead, a large grey staircase with twirly iron railings snaked up several storeys. I tried to tilt my head back 18enough to see the ceiling all the way at the top of the stairs but almost tripped over my own feet.
“This way,” said Sister Petronella.
We managed to walk up a few steps before I had to stop and cough. Sister Petronella waited patiently before we carried on.
The building almost seemed bigger from the inside. Yet there wasn’t a soul to be seen, except one other nurse who passed by on the first floor pushing a small trolley.
“Are there a lot of patients living here?” I asked.
“Not many,” answered Sister Petronella. “But more are coming all the time, now that things are back to normal again after the fire.”
“There was a fire here?”
“Oh yes, didn’t Miss Stina know? The whole East Wing burned down a few years ago. The sanatorium had to be closed. But we’re back now.”
She smiled proudly, but the thought of it gave me a shiver. Fire is my worst fear. There was a fire on Munkholmen Island once when I was little. Olle and Edith and I stood on the rocks watching on. Some people couldn’t escape in time and… no, it was too awful.
“Sister Petronella…” 19
“Yes?”
“Did anyone die in the fire?”
Sister Petronella’s dimples disappeared.
“Don’t trouble yourself about it, Miss Stina. No reason to give yourself nightmares. Everything is fine now and Raspberry Hill is the best, most advanced sanatorium in all of Europe, don’t you know? You should count yourself very lucky to be here!”
I started coughing again and we had to wait until I had finished. How long did we have to go on walking? It felt like we had already been walking down this same corridor for several minutes.
“Here we are, Ward Fourteen!” Sister Petronella said, cheery again, and came to a halt.
She opened the door to a room, or should I say a large hall. Almost everything inside was snow white. The walls were white, the ceiling was white, even the sky outside was white instead of blue. There were eight tightly-made beds in two rows and white curtains hanging from the ceiling.
All the beds were empty.
“Now you can choose whichever bed you like, Miss Stina!”
“But… am I the only one who’s going to sleep here?” 20
“That’s right. Like I said, we’re getting new patients all the time, so you’ll have company soon enough.”
I swallowed. This great big dormitory all to myself. It was something I had dreamt about sometimes at home on Sjömansgatan when it was difficult to find space to sit among my rabble of siblings. I thought how happy I would be to have them here now. There would be plenty of space for all of us. Mama too.
I walked slowly over to the window at the far end of the dormitory. We were high up. Tree tops stretched as far as the eye could see, and I caught a glimpse of the lake we had driven past.
“I’ll take this one, thank you,” I said, laying my hand on the cold, white-painted headboard of the bed closest to the window on the right.
“That would have been my choice too,” Sister Petronella said with a smile. “Shall we start unpacking?”
She put my travel bag on the bed, opened it and started haphazardly pulling out my things. I only just managed to dive forward and grab Robinson Crusoe before it hit the floor.
Next to the bed was a small chest of drawers. I put my book, spinning top, litho prints and photograph 21in the top drawer while Sister Petronella hung my clothes in a narrow cupboard. My doll Rosa got to sit on top of the chest of drawers. I thought she looked more surprised than usual.
I’m too big for dolls really, but it was nice having Rosa with me. Besides, her red-chequered dress added a splash of colour to all the whiteness.
