The Rosenholm Trilogy Volume 2: Forget Me Not E-Book

Gry Kappel Jensen

• Herausgeber: Arctis US
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Serie: The Rosenholm Trilogy
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 450

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Chamomile, Kirstine, Victoria and Malou are back at Rosenholm Academy to start a new school year. But in addition to the lessons in runic magic, clairvoyance and Norse mythology, the girls also have something completely different to worry about. A crime from the past draws threads to the present, and the girls have committed themselves to solving the murder mystery that casts a shadow over Rosenholm. An ominous prediction causes the seriousness to dawn on them, while the questions loom large. And each of them harbors deep secrets that threaten to tear them apart before they can fulfill the promise they made. Time is running out and it could end up being fatal... Forget me not is the exciting sequel to the fantasy novel Roses and Violets and volume 2 in the Rosenholm trilogy.

Leseprobe

Gry Kappel Jensen

Forget me not

The Rosenholm Triology Volume 2

translated from the Danish by Jennifer Alexander

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are

from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

This translation has been published with the financial support of The Danish Arts Foundation.

W1-Media, Inc.

Arctis Books USA

Stamford, CT, USA

Copyright © 2024 by W1-Media Inc. for this edition

FORGLEMMIGEJ © Gry Kappel Jensen og Turbine, 2020

Published by agreement with Babel-Bridge Literary Agency

First hardcover English edition published by W1-Media Inc./

Arctis Books USA 2024

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,

electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior

permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

The Library of Congress Control Number is available.

English translation copyright © Jennifer Alexander, 2024

The quotation on page 243 is from the short story “The Blue Eyes” by Karen Blixen, in Winter’s Tales, 1942, taken here from Dansk I Dybden, Gyldendal.

This work is protected by copyright, any use requires the authorisation of the publisher.

ISBN978-1-64690-613-0

www.arctis-books.com

Prologue

I loved it when you played with me back then, when we were children. The way I remember, it was always summer and there were flowers in the tall grass: you pushing me on the swing, me laughing skyward, and you laughing as you pushed me higher and higher, over and over, until darkness fell.

It was only later I came to hate you. I hated you so deeply that in the end, I wished you were dead. But when you disappeared, everything just got worse. It was always all about you. It didn’t help one damn bit that you died.

Part 1.SUMMER

Red Rose

“I will love you forever.”

Floriography, or the language of flowers, originated in Europe in the Middle Ages but was used widely in middle class circles in the 1700s and 1800s.

July 27th 8:15 a.m.

Malou

Malou cleaned out the sink and dried it off with some toilet paper before placing the items along its edge in the order she would use them. First she let her face cream sink in a little before applying the primer. It was much easier that way to get the foundation and powder set just right. Before starting on her eyes, she took a brush and accentuated the contours of her face, cheekbones, and slender nose with a subtle shading. She thought about eye shadow, but in the end added only a touch of highlighter to her brows before penciling them in. She chose the liquid eyeliner, two layers of mascara, and pink blush. She could pass for at least twenty, surely?

She pulled her straight blond hair into a tight ponytail and put on a white shirt. If she wanted to be taken seriously, she needed to look serious too. Maybe the red lipstick?

As she let herself out of the bathroom with her makeup bag tucked under her arm, she heard a noise from the kitchen. Her mother stood leaning over the table.

“Go get some sleep, Mom,” Malou said wearily. Maybe she’d gotten up and started drinking again. Maybe she hadn’t been to bed at all.

Her mom straightened up and turned toward her, still supporting herself with one hand on the kitchen table. She scrunched up her eyes and looked at her for a moment.

“You look cheap with that lipstick on,” she mumbled.

“Go to hell!” Malou said, and turned away. She slammed her bedroom door and locked it behind her. “Go to hell,” she whispered. “Go to hell.”

She stood still for a moment in the middle of the floor. Then she put down the case, with all its neatly organized contents, on the bedspread and took off her shirt so it wouldn’t get stained. Before, she wouldn’t have been able to resist the urge to open her desk drawer, where the razor blade still lay. She didn’t use that anymore, but she still needed to feel strong. To feel in control. Powerful. Magic meant power in the ancient languages. They’d been told that at school by Birgit Lund, Rosenholm’s former principal. And that had been what convinced Malou, more than anything else, that she wanted to practice magic.

She let her eyes rest on the elbow crease of her arm, where the skin was so thin that the veins were visible, like blue-gray rivers on a map. Blood is your source of power. She needed it today. She focused her gaze and concentrated. She felt a prick on her skin, the pain not unpleasant. Slowly it appeared. First a small blue mark under the skin, then getting clearer, turning red, until finally blood pushed through the skin and lay, like a perfect, tiny pearl in the joint of her elbow. She closed her eyes. You can do it. This is important! The summer holidays would soon be over and she could get back to Rosenholm. Her school, which had been her home and which she missed, despite everything that had happened. Despite not having kept her promise to the young girl who was murdered at the school many years ago and whose death had never been explained. The girl’s ghost had sought them out, and Malou had sworn to her that they would find her killer. Just hold on, Trine. We haven’t forgotten you.

She opened her eyes and studied the small drop of blood. Then she lifted her arm up to her face and licked it clean. She had a quarter of an hour until her train, but their apartment faced the back entrance to the station and she should still be able to make it. She let herself close her eyes for a moment longer, before checking there were no traces of blood anywhere. Then she stuck a skin-colored adhesive bandage over the wound and put her shirt back on. She checked how she looked in the mirror and nodded to herself before unlocking her room and leaving the apartment without saying goodbye.

She had to run the last stretch and got up the steps just as the train to Copenhagen came in. There were no seats free, so she went into the bathroom instead. Her reflection looked pale in the scratched mirror, which distorted her face. Her mouth was far too red. Ugly. She found a tissue in her bag and started to wipe the lipstick off but only ended up smudging it beyond the edges of her lips. Shit! The sense of peace from before was now gone, and outside someone was trying to open the door.

Malou took a deep breath, straightened up, and looked her mirror-self in the eyes. “To hell with them all,” she whispered. She looked in her bag for her concealer and dabbed a thin layer around the lips where the skin had gotten reddish from the smudged lipstick and her rubbing so hard. Then she took out the lipstick and slowly and carefully reapplied it, despite someone knocking insistently on the door.

July 27th 9:30 a.m.

Chamomile

Chamomile pulled down the attic ladder. It made a loud creaking noise. Her mom was still sleeping, but Chamomile didn’t care if the noise woke her.

A shower of dust and plaster fell as the door yielded, and she was able to climb the narrow ladder. Up here, it smelled dusty and old and it was dark, but not pitch black. Light broke through the ancient thatched roof revealing the leaky gaps where snow drifted in over the winter. The attic was not very tall, but at the center, under the rafters, she was able to stand upright, and she walked barefoot over the uneven floorboards toward the hatch at the gable end. The window was wooden, nobody having thought to fit an actual glass pane. She tried to open the hatch, but it held fast and only gave in after a little kick. Light spilled in together with a rush of fresh air and the fruity smell of ripening corn and damp grass. She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and savored the feel of the cool morning breeze. It was warm up here already, even though it was still early morning. She looked around her. The place was full of boxes, packed old furniture, suitcases, and plastic bags. Where should she start?

She found some boxes with her name on them. Toys was also written on one. Girl’s clothes, 2 years. Chamomile had no interest in things from when she was little. She wanted to find the boxes from before she was born. Maybe there’d be something that could tell her more about him. Photos, letters, or a gift from him, maybe? Her mom kept everything, after all.

She dug out one box that was tucked right under the eaves. It had water damage and dents and looked as if it had been moved many times. Notes was written on it. She dragged it out onto the floor and opened it. Exercise books, ring binders, multicolored plastic wallets. She rummaged aimlessly in the box, but gave up, resolutely tipping all its contents onto the floor instead.

She recognized her mom’s handwriting on lots of the documents. An essay on the Nordic gods’ use of euphoriant plants, an exercise on devil’s nettle and its many beneficial properties, an endless number of tightly scribbled pages with notes taken in lessons. This was from her mom’s time at Rosenholm. It seemed she had been a conscientious student. Chamomile never managed to take such thorough notes. She rummaged through the papers a little more, reading a sentence here and there. At the very bottom of the pile she found a book. No, it was a school diary from her mom’s final year. She felt her heart thump as she flicked through it. Her mom’s handwriting filled every page. Chapters they had to read, book titles, deadlines, friends’ birthdays. Here and there, her mom had drawn in different plants, noting underneath what they could be used for. Each time Chamomile came across one of these small drawings, she took time to study it. Blue anemone (for problems with the liver or heartburn—NOTE: poisonous in their raw state!), pilewort (for wounds and blisters), starflower (for the relief of respiratory illness and rheumatism).

Chamomile also noticed her mom had marked some pages of the diary with a small star in the top right corner. Sometimes she had written underneath. The old mountain ash, one showed. The attic under another.

She was just about to flip the diary closed and throw it back in the box when she discovered something stuck inside the plastic wallet covering the diary. It was a class photo. Her mom was sitting right in the middle, laughing. They were uncannily alike, Chamomile had to admit it, with the same rosy cheeks. A plain leather purse hung around her mom’s neck, and she wore a small silver leaf on a chain. She still carried both the purse and the silver leaf, and Chamomile wore an identical chain around her neck. Suddenly she was irritated to no end by the fact they were so alike. Her mom must have been pregnant when that photo was taken. Had she been happy, or was she laughing to hide how she really felt? Was she in love? Or had she already decided that Chamomile’s dad should not be a part of her life?

“So this is where you are?” Her mom stuck her head up through the hatch. “What are you up to?”

“Looking for answers,” Chamomile said, and rummaged further in the pile.

“Hey,” said her mom, climbing the steep ladder to the attic, “I know you’re angry with me, but those are my things.” She placed a hand on her hip. Her summer dress was two sizes too tight. “You have no right to rummage around in there.”

“I don’t care,” Chamomile stated. “You can’t tell me anymore what I have the right to do.”

“Miley . . .” Her mom sat down beside her and started to put the papers back in the box. “Was it wrong of me to tell you?”

“You should have told me a long time ago. And what about him? Didn’t you owe it to him to tell him you were pregnant?”

Her mother stopped refilling the box and looked her in the eyes. “No, you know what, I don’t think I did. We were finished and he wasn’t interested anymore. It was me who was pregnant, it was my choice.”

“But it was his child too! You didn’t make me on your own!”

Chamomile’s mother sighed. “Maybe it was a mistake, but I wanted to make a little family of our own. You and me. We didn’t need any man. It was hard, facing it all alone, but we did it. And actually I am quite proud of that. You were a happy child growing up. You really were always so happy.” She reached over to take her hand, but Chamomile pulled hers away and stood up.

“You can forget that,” she sneered. “I’m done with being your good little girl.”

“Chamomile . . .” Her mother’s voice trembled, but Chamomile didn’t care. She shouldn’t think she’d get away with it so easily.

“What do I say to my friends? And what about him? Do I tell him?”

“I don’t know. Only you can make that decision,” said her mother, lowering her gaze. “I understand that it must be difficult.”

“Difficult?!” Chamomile’s voice was hoarse with rage. “I’ll tell you what’s difficult: understanding how you could let me start at that school without saying anything to me!” She turned and climbed down the ladder, leaving her mother behind in the warm, dusty loft. She would never forgive her. To think that she had allowed Chamomile to go to Rosenholm for a whole year without telling her that every single day, she’d be crossing paths with her own father.

July 27th 10:00 a.m.

Malou

Malou walked purposefully toward the counter. It’s just a case of acting like you belong here. The Royal Library. It wasn’t how she’d imagined it. She had thought of a formal old building, like Christiansborg Palace or the Round Tower or something like that, but instead her GPS led her to this modern block of glass and black. The Black Diamond.

“Are you looking for a study desk?” the woman at Information asked.

“No, I need to look at some microfilm.”

“Microfilm? That’s up in the East Reading Room,” the woman said pointing up to the next floor.

Malou nodded and followed the signs up the escalators until she came to another counter and an elderly man with interesting-looking hair: bald on the top but long at the sides.

“I have an appointment with someone called Anders.”

“Wait here a moment,” the elderly man said, and disappeared. He returned with a younger man, still in his twenties.

“You must be Malou?” He smiled and held out his hand. “Good to meet you. So, as you’ll see, I’ve pulled out the film rolls for you. It’s this way.”

“Thanks for helping me,” she said, and gave him her most winning smile.

“Of course, that’s what we’re here for. Although, truth be told, we don’t normally tend to look up the newspapers for people, but I was really curious when you told me about what you were looking for on the phone. And it’s all part of an assignment?”

Malou nodded confidently. “Yes, I decided to write about the case when I heard this old story about a girl who disappeared.”

“It’s real ‘true crime’, isn’t it?” He smiled. “I got totally hooked on your mystery too. And it was a big help when I got the right name to search for.” He led her over to a row of large screens. “These are the microfilms, which have all the old newspapers saved on them. When you put them in the machine like this, you can read the text on the screen. The vast majority nowadays are digitalized, it’s only these older years that are not. But if you don’t mind, let me first show you what I found myself. You can sit down here.”

She sat in the chair in front of the screen and looked on while Anders showed her how to insert the film. It soon appeared before them: Zealand Times, January 1, 1989.

“I couldn’t find anything in the national papers,” Anders said, leaning across her to work the machine. “At first I thought a case like that would surely have made the tabloids, but there was nothing. Then I looked at local papers instead. And then I got something. We just have to go forward to the spring.” He started turning a dial, and soon the newspaper pages were flying across the screen. “Whoa, I’ve gone too far. Back a little. There!” He stood again. “I don’t mind saying that I’m really proud of finding that.”

She was quick to give him another smile and nod in acknowledgment. “Good job!”

“There might be more, so I thought that you could look through the rest of the years yourself. Let me know if you need any help, okay?”

Malou thanked him once more and turned to the screen. There, from a black-and-white photo in the bottom right-hand corner, Trine laughed out at her.

Teenage girl missing from school

Nineteen-year-old Rose Katrine Severinsen, known as Trine, was reported missing two weeks ago. She was last seen on Friday, April 29, at the boarding school she attended. “We have reason to believe that she ran away from the school following a fight with her parents,” said Mogens Pedersen of West Zealand Police. “The fight was about a boyfriend, and the missing girl had threatened to run away from home with this boyfriend. We do not suspect any crime has been committed, but we are, of course, very eager to talk with the missing girl.”

The girl was brought up in Kalundborg with her parents and younger sister, but in recent years has been living at her residential school. She is described as being 5 feet 4 inches tall, of average build, with longish auburn hair. Please report any sightings of the girl to West Zealand Police Force.

Malou read the text over two times. Then she studied the photograph again. The most recent photo of Rose Katrine Severinsen, who disappeared from her school two weeks ago, the caption read. Trine was smiling, face turned to the camera. She had not been alone when the photo was taken, but had her arm around somebody who had been cut out of the picture. Who was Trine’s boyfriend? And who was with her in that photo originally?

July 28th 4:30 p.m.

Victoria

Victoria watched as ripples of cotton candy clouds drifted slowly across the sky and over her parents’ large white house and well-tended garden. The sun flickered through the branches of the apple tree, and the only sounds she could hear were the distant hum of traffic and a pigeon’s repetitive cooing.

“Is the silent spook at home?” Benjamin buried his face in the crook of her neck and shoulder, giving her goose bumps, even in the summer heat. “Or could we maybe go up to your room?”

“Do you mean Trine?” She propped herself on her elbows and looked down at him, lying on the grass.

“No,” he said, and pulled her down again. “The other one. The tall, pale one.”

“Kirstine? Hey, you’re so mean. You can’t go calling her that.” Victoria sat up. “Kirstine lives here now, of course she’s home. Actually, I should ask her if she wants to come down to the garden too.”

“No, leave her be.” He pulled on her arm to get her to lie down again.

“You need to be nice to her. Kirstine is the coolest girl I know,” Victoria said, pulling her arm back. She remained sitting cross-legged and picked up a scarlet petal from where the English roses had scattered onto the grass. Their perfume was strong.

“I know Kirstine is cool,” Benjamin said. “Didn’t she save my life, after all? That is pretty badass. But I also think she can be a strange creature. She never says anything. Just sits and stares.”

“Kirstine is not that good at small talk. And she’s got boyfriend trouble.”

“What? Kirstine has a boyfriend? Who?”

“You don’t need to sound so surprised! She’s not with him anymore, and I’m afraid I can’t say who it is. Classified information, you know? But you need to be kind to her. She doesn’t have it easy. Her parents don’t want her living there, and I sometimes worry she feels like a third wheel when you’re here.”

“She is a third wheel!”

“Stop it. We could easily hang out, the three of us.”

He turned to her with a wry smile. “That sounds really exciting, sure.”

“Stop it, you’re such an idiot.” She gave him a playful shove.

He sat up and leaned in to whisper in her ear. “The truth is, I’d prefer to be with you alone. In fact, that’s all I really want at the moment. Lie here in the grass, just you and me . . .”

“Victoria! Come here! Juliet’s made lemonade with real lemons!” Her two younger brothers ran out the door to the garden, down the steps and over the freshly cut lawn, which the gardener, on her mother’s orders, kept manicured like a golf course. “It was super sour, so we’ve put more sugar in. Come and taste it!”

Benjamin closed his eyes and leaned his head on her shoulder, giving a sigh.

“Come on,” she said, and pulled him up. “You heard it yourself. There’s super sour lemonade.”

Their large kitchen was in absolute chaos, with lemon peel scattered on the big whitewashed kitchen table and the floor around it, a spilled bag of sugar in the midst of it all. It looked as if the twins had been helping their beloved au pair, Juliet, in the kitchen. She was in the middle of washing the juicer, which was also freshly messy.

“Taste it!” said Harald, holding his glass out right up in her face, while he and his brother, Niels, studied her carefully with their big brown eyes.

Victoria took a big gulp. “Mmm, really tasty!” she said. Both boys’ faces lit up with a great grin. “But now you need to help Juliet clean up, okay?”

The smiles disappeared in an instant and they both turned to face Juliet, who stood at the sink.

“Away you go,” she said, and waved them off, before grabbing the broom to start sweeping up lemon peel.

The boys sped triumphantly into the living room, shouting to Benjamin as they went to come on and get beaten by them at FIFA.

“Maybe later,” he shouted after them, shaking his head.

“You spoil them,” Victoria said to Juliet.

“It’s easier without their help,” she said, and shrugged.

“What’s going on here?”

Victoria turned. Her mother stood in the doorway. Her light silk blouse complemented her bronzed skin and the glossy, dark hair, which Victoria had always pestered her to be allowed to brush when she was little. Her mom kept her stilettos on as she set her bag down and inspected the chaos of the kitchen.

“I’ll clean it up,” said Juliet evenly, without letting on that she was surely equally as surprised to see Victoria’s mom home so early.

“I’ve invited people for drinks and they’ll be here in two hours,” her mom said. “I want the boys to have eaten before then.”

“No problem.” Juliet smiled.

Victoria often thought that Juliet must have developed a really thick skin since being with them for such a long time. Her mother’s icy stare always washed clean over her. Victoria would have loved to have that ability.

“But I can see we have guests already?”

Victoria knew that her mother’s tolerance was being tested to the limits, in that she had invited her roommate from school to live with them over the summer, and without talking to her parents about it first. Kirstine mostly kept herself to her room, and her mom seem to have accepted it. (Victoria did wonder if her dad had even noticed they had someone staying with them at all.) Benjamin, though, was something her mom had yet to get accustomed to.

“I was just going,” said Benjamin, looking her mother directly in the eyes.

“You don’t need to do that,” Victoria said feebly.

“I do, I’ve got something to take care of. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and squeezed around her and out into the hall. The front door closed behind him.

“I don’t understand what you see in him,” her mom said as she took a bottle of water from the fridge.

“You don’t know him,” Victoria said.

“I’ve heard about him,” her mom said, then took a sip. “And going by what I have heard, it’s quite hard to comprehend how he’s the one you’ve gone and fallen for. They say he’s broken off contact with his family?”

“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear,” Victoria said defiantly, though she still avoided her mother’s gaze.

“You should think about yourself a bit more, Victoria. You’ve only just gotten over your first, unfortunate romance.”

“It’s been over a year now, Mom.”

“I’m just worried about you, that’s all.”

“Are you?”

“Of course I am. You’re my daughter, after all.” Her mom placed her hand lightly on her cheek. “I’m going up to get changed. You and Kirstine can eat with the boys, okay?”

Victoria watched her as she strode elegantly up the stairs in her high heels. If she had dared, she would have asked if it wasn’t more the family’s reputation that her mother was actually worried about.

In less than an hour, the kitchen was spotless and Juliet had even whipped up a meal of fresh pasta with homemade pesto sauce while Victoria had made a salad. She went upstairs and knocked.

“Kirstine, dinner’s ready.”

The tall, serious girl sat on her bed with her legs curled under her and her phone in her hand. She didn’t look up as Victoria came in. “Malou found an old article. And an address that could be Trine’s childhood home. She’s asking if we want to go with her.”

Victoria sat on the bed beside her. Benjamin was right that she was very pale.

“Look.” Kirstine held up her phone.

“We do not suspect any crime has been committed . . .” Victoria read aloud. “So Trine was reported missing, but nothing more.”

“They thought she had just run away with a boyfriend,” Kirstine said. “That’s also why we couldn’t find anything in the papers about her murder.”

Victoria let her finger swipe down on the phone’s screen so that the article disappeared and was replaced by Malou’s messages.

“What if her parents still live here,” she said, pointing to the address that showed up. Solvangen 11, Kalundborg.

Kirstine turned to face her. “Exactly. Maybe they don’t even know that she’s dead. Maybe we’re the only ones who know that she didn’t run away but was killed.”

Victoria wet her hands and ran them through her dark hair as she studied her reflection in the bathroom mirror. The window was open and she could hear blackbirds singing from the old pear tree in the clear evening light. The sound of birdsong mingled with the murmur of civilized chat and clinking of glasses drifting up from the library, as her parents insisted on calling that room with the ugly old oil paintings and chesterfield sofas. So fake. It was not civilized in the slightest when it came down to it. It was all about wealth and power and the family honor, and they spared nothing in their pursuit of more power and more money. Even so, she found it so difficult to go against their ways.

Victoria glanced at the clock and thought about writing to Benjamin. Juliet was in the middle of tucking in the twins, and Kirstine had gone to bed early. Victoria was not tired herself, but on the other hand she certainly didn’t feel like having to exchange niceties with her parents’ guests, so she stayed upstairs.

She blew some loose strands of hair from her face. She needed a haircut, but she hadn’t gotten around to it and now the summer holidays were nearly over. That was not the only thing she should have done either. Her face glared back at her guiltily from the mirror. She should have told him about it—she had promised herself she would tell him. So why hadn’t she just done it? She’d had enough time. Long, lazy summer days at the beach. Long summer nights, when she had snuck out to the garden to where he waited for her under the fragrant jasmine. But she hadn’t said a thing. Because she knew how angry he would get. Also Trine had abandoned her and they’d gotten no further in their search for her killer.

Victoria turned the tap on again; steam rose from the warm water in the sink, and her breath was suddenly visible in the mirror. The temperature had dropped to freezing. The hairs stood up on her arm and she closed her eyes. Was it possible Trine noticed that Victoria had thought about her? Was that why this was happening? It still scared her, but it wasn’t the same gripping fear as before. It was better to meet her with open eyes. Face your fears.

“Trine?” She opened her eyes. The white shadow was visible in the glass behind her. It gave her a start, even although she’d expected it. She turned around. “Hi, Trine.”

It was not a girl, but the impression of one. A white shadow.

“We didn’t forget you,” whispered Victoria. “We’re going to go visit your home where you lived as a kid—argh!” She gasped as the shadow moved toward her like a blast of chilly wind. Her legs buckled under her and she fell heavily to the ground. She gasped desperately for breath, struggling to draw any down into her lungs. Don’t panic, don’t panic. The fear almost overwhelmed her, but Victoria forced herself to breathe. Slowly, her heartbeat stilled. She’s gone away again. Everything is fine.

She got up, the warm water still gushing into the sink. She turned off the tap and rested her hands on the edge. The mirror was all steamed up, and there in the condensation she read:

SAY SORRY

Will I just meet you at the station?

Yeah. I get in around 20 after

Great, see you!

August 2ND 2:11 p.m.

Kirstine

The train station was opposite Kalundborg’s old, abandoned ferry terminal, and as they stepped off the train they were met by a blast of wind. The air was warm and damp and smelled of seaweed. Still, Kirstine was glad to have slipped away from Victoria’s big white house with its many rooms and elegant furniture. She was ashamed to admit that she hated being there. It had been really sweet of Victoria to invite her to live there, now that her own parents wouldn’t have anything to do with her. She grimaced just thinking of that trip back to Thy, where she ended up having to turn on her heel again after only a brief exchange of words with her mother at the front door. Her mother hadn’t even asked her in or offered a drink of water. Kirstine should be grateful to have somewhere to live, but the truth was, she didn’t feel comfortable at Victoria’s. There were so many unspoken rules she didn’t know, and those were so different from the rules back at her home. At home, you were expected to duck your head, hold your tongue, and do what you were told, but in Victoria’s family you got asked about a whole lot of things: your career plans, family relationships, your interests and views on politics and culture, and all manner of other things. And Kirstine never managed to answer in an acceptable way. Victoria did all she could to smooth things over. She was fun and intelligent and always upbeat, but her mother was never happy. On that front she reminded Kirstine a little of her own mother.

“Look.” Victoria pointed. “There’s Chamomile!”

A red-haired girl with round cheeks and a big smile stood waving enthusiastically to them. She was wearing a white summer dress with a broad skirt and a tie around her middle that accentuated her waistline.

“Hi, guys!” She gave them both a kiss. “It’s so great to see you. Wow, Kirstine, you’ve really lost weight.”

Kirstine could feel herself blushing under Chamomile’s stare. “I don’t think so,” she mumbled.

Chamomile threw a knowing look at Victoria. “Well, maybe it’s just those shorts that are very slimming. How are you?”

“Good,” she said. “I’ve been living at Victoria’s.”

“That sounds really cool. I miss you guys so much. My mom is starting to drive me nuts.”

“Is Malou coming?” asked Victoria.

“She should be arriving on the bus from Slagelse anytime now.”

They sat on a bench and waited until the bus turned into the station and Malou was one of the first to step out, dressed in short cycling shorts. At the ends of her long brown legs, a pair of new sneakers gleamed white in the sun.

“Hey!” Chamomile jumped up and gave her a big hug.

Malou smoothed her hair and gave both girls a hug.

“So,” Chamomile said. “What do we do next then, Ms. Detective?”

“Well, let’s see if we find anything at all,” Malou said, and checked the maps app on her phone. “We need to go this way, in any case. The house is supposedly in a block of older houses.”

“Where did you get the address?” Victoria asked as they started to walk.

“I got the local history archive to check it for me. Trine’s surname was linked to this address, but they couldn’t say if the family still lives there. It’s something to do with some data protection rules, and they said if we wanted to know, we’d have to go there ourselves. It may be the house was sold to some other family years ago, but I think it’s worth checking it out.”

They left the station and headed up toward the town.

“How crazy, though, is that thing with the Say Sorry message?” Chamomile said to Victoria. “Did you find out what it means? Is it us who should say sorry?”

“I don’t know,” Victoria said. “That was all she wrote.”

“Maybe Trine is angry at us for not finding her murderer yet. Maybe that’s why she thinks we owe her an apology?” Chamomile said.

They continued upward, crossing a more or less empty pedestrian street with a sweets shop bedecked in huge ads for ice cream cones, and other treats, then entered an area of large old houses. They were somewhat similar to the houses where Victoria’s family lived, except that these were a little smaller and looked much more run down. As they progressed up the hill, the houses got even smaller in size.

“Solvangen. This is it,” Malou said, and pointed into a street on their left. “Number 11.”

They stepped forward. The front gardens were laid with small gray pebbles, broken up only by occasional evergreen shrubs, stone planters or pots with flowers peeking out, and outside there were balance bikes and baby strollers. Somebody had drawn a cycle path on the pavement in different colors of chalk.

“Is this it?” Chamomile looked in toward a whitewashed house with windows that had been recently replaced.

“No, that’s number 9,” Malou said. “It must be that one there.”

There was a high hedge and, behind it, a house in the same style as the rest of the street. But while those clearly had young families with kids living at them, this one seemed abandoned. The house was painted in an indeterminate, muddy shade of flaking paint. The window frames were dark brown, and behind the glass thick blinds hung, hiding everything from view. On top of that, the windows were so blurred with condensation that it was, in any case, impossible to see in.

“There’s nobody living here,” Victoria said. “That house has been empty for a long while.”

“Maybe Trine’s parents were the last people to live there?” Malou said. “I vote we go into the garden and try to have a look inside the house from there. Maybe we can even break in and we might find something that will help us.”

“Like what?” Chamomile said.

“I don’t know, something or other that could lead us to Trine’s boyfriend, maybe,” Malou said. “When women are murdered, it’s often their partner who’s behind it. The most dangerous thing you can do as a woman is actually to be in a relationship with a man. It was in the paper that Trine had planned to run away with her boyfriend. But instead she was murdered. If we find the boyfriend, we might also find her killer.”

“But don’t you think someone would already have discovered if there was a lot of prints and clues in there?”

“Maybe they didn’t search properly,” Malou said, and shrugged. “Come on, we came all this way, after all.”

Malou went first and the others followed hesitantly after.

The entrance was screened by a tall fence with a gate in it that led into a small paved yard between the house and a dilapidated shed. Tall weeds had grown up between the slabs, and they could see over to a garden that was a mishmash tangle of long grass, flowering thistles, and huge trees, some of which had died off. Kirstine closed the gate behind them. It was very quiet, as people were presumably on vacation or had gone to the beach because of the good weather. Not a sound came from the street or from the other gardens.

Malou knocked on the door. It was dark brown, with a large, thick pane of yellowish glass, impossible to see through. They waited. Kirstine shivered despite the summer warmth, and she had a weird feeling in her stomach, as if she was getting sick. Was this really a good idea?

“Hello there!” Malou shouted, and knocked once more. Then she tried the handle. It was unlocked. “Come on,” she whispered, and pushed the door open.

The hall was dark, with brown cork walls and a colored stained-glass window that let in very little light. It smelled old and damp, like a neglected summer house. Cobwebs hung like garlands from the ceiling. They passed from the hall into the living room. The yellow rays cutting through the gap in the dark curtains fell onto old, lonely looking pieces of furniture. A dark-green-and-orange-striped sofa, a worn armchair in the same fabric, a brown dining table with four chairs, the faded spines of books on a bookcase. The floor was covered by a thick light-brown fitted carpet. The pile was thinner where the house’s residents had walked fixed paths: kitchen door to dining table, dining table to sofa. An old-fashioned push-button telephone sat on a small table by the window. It was still plugged in at the wall.

“Wow, it’s like going back in time,” Chamomile whispered.

“Not one single thing has been changed since this house was abandoned. Can you feel Trine?” Malou looked at Victoria.

The dark-haired girl closed her eyes and crinkled her brow in a concentrated frown, all the while clutching the silver skull she wore around her neck—a symbol that she was a spiritual mage of the Death branch of magic.

“No, she’s not here,” she said after a moment, and opened her eyes again. “Maybe this isn’t the right house?”

“Yes, it is. Look at these photos.”

Backed by yellowing wallpaper, there was a framed collage of school photos. They showed two girls who gradually got older. The elder one was a redhead with a big grin, while the younger sister had a darker complexion. She looked, bewildered, into the camera with her large brown eyes. In the last picture in particular, it was obvious that the redhead was Trine.

Kirstine noticed a tingling feeling in her body. It wasn’t pleasant, and she felt dizzy. Maybe it was the heat? Had she forgotten to drink enough water today?

“Look, that’s the one from the article.” Malou pointed at another photograph. Unlike the one in the paper, it was in color, but it was the same photo of the smiling Trine. Someone had cut it in the middle and put the separated half up on the wall.

Kirstine felt a wave of nausea and her vision flickered.

Tick, tick, tick . . .

Two girls ran from the kitchen into the living room. The redhead came first and the other hurried behind, but couldn’t catch up with her.

She shook her head, but the flickering images came back into her vision.

Tick, tick, tick . . .

“Kirstine, are you okay?”

“How many times have I said not to run in the kitchen!”

“Trine, wait!”

“Kirstine, you look like you are about to faint.” Chamomile laid a hand on her arm.

Kirstine felt as if the ground was rolling under her feet. “I don’t feel so good . . .”

Tick, tick, tick . . .

“What’s going on? Kirstine?”

She tried to focus and not give in to the dizzy feeling that threatened to pull her from reality and back to a time long gone by. She should stay here. There was something here she needed to pay attention to. Something important.

“The clock . . .” Kirstine pointed up to the wall. Beside the photos there was an old wall clock. The pendulum swung from side to side along with the tick of its hands. “It works.”

“Yes, I can see that,” Chamomile said, worried. “Oh, Kirstine, you really don’t look so good . . .”

“No, I mean there’s someone keeping it going,” she insisted. “A clock like that needs to be wound. Someone is still living here . . .”

Bang!

A loud bang made them all start.

“What was that?” whispered Victoria.

“The door! Let’s get out of here!” said Chamomile.

They ran out into the hall. The inner door was shut and Malou grabbed the handle.

“It’s locked!” she said, trying the door in vain.

“It can’t be,” Chamomile said, pushing Malou away and grabbing the handle. “I can’t get it open!”

Tick, tick, tick . . . The clock’s ticking now felt like a pulse, pounding at her temples. They needed to get out now.

“Stand back, all of you,” Kirstine said. The others hesitated for a mere fraction of a second before stepping away.

“Hagalaz!”

The rune caused the door to burst open, and they ran out into the sun.

Part 2.FALL

Red clover

“Your love pains me.”

September 4th 10:00 a.m.

Chamomile

Chamomile pulled the wheeled pink suitcase (an ill-judged apology gift from her mother) along the narrow street that led up to Rosenholm. Even on an overcast day like today, the castle was a beautiful sight, nestled as it was with its white towers and proud spires amid the sloping, recently harvested fields. Late-summer flowers on the grass verges gave off wafts of milfoil, tansies, and blossoming clover. Chamomile had worried that her return to Rosenholm would be tainted by the dreadful things Vitus had put her through at the end of last term, but the sight of the white building caused only a pleasant, expectant buzz to run through her. It was something else that was making her anxious, and it had a whole lot to do with the secret her mom had finally decided to let her in on.

Chamomile upped her pace, wanting to get there before it started to rain. The wind was messing up her hair when she’d made an effort to do it nicely, and now she could hear thunder rumbling ominously in the distance. Soon heavy drops were raining down on the scene.

When she finally reached the little courtyard at the castle, she was soaked. She remembered how she had sat pressed up to the windows last year, studying the older students as they arrived at school and greeted one another in the courtyard. There was no such chance for the new first years now as the courtyard was empty, everyone rushing straight into the impressive great hall to shelter from the rain.

“Chamomile!”

Despite her dripping-wet clothes, she was immediately pulled into a group hug with a gang of girls from her own year. The sisters Sara and Sofie gave her a big welcome, and she was happily surprised to see Anne with them all too.

“Welcome back!” Anne smiled and gave her a kiss.

“You’re here? That’s great!” Chamomile said.

“Yeah. Strictly speaking, I don’t belong here, but I thought it’d be okay if I scooched over and said hi. I’ll go in a minute.”

“How are you?” Chamomile asked.

“I’m good. It’s a bit weird, obviously, that I can’t hang out with all of you, but luckily I’ve got some really cool roommates.”

Anne had been assaulted by Vitus the year before and had missed so much teaching that she had to repeat a year. But Chamomile was relieved to see that she seemed happy.

“Good that you’re here,” Victoria said in a low voice, once Chamomile had gotten past the first round of hugs and found the other girls from her dorm. “Malou is already planning some more excursions.”

“Come on! We have to visit that house again,” said Malou, who had clearly arrived before the weather turned, her blond hair still dry and glossy and perfectly styled in a tight bun. She glanced down to the other end of the hall where the boys stood. Chamomile followed her look. Students generally complied with the rule about not mixing—at least, they did when they were being observed, as they were now. “In that living room it was like nobody had touched a thing in the last forty years. We could find something there that could tell us something.”

“But the door . . . We got locked in,” Kirstine said.

“It was the wind that blew the door shut, and we just panicked,” Malou said. “There was nobody there. The parents may well be dead.”

Kirstine fiddled nervously with her sleeves. Chamomile noticed that one of the seams was split and her top was frayed.

“Somebody had wound the clock,” Kirstine said. “Or else it wouldn’t have been working . . .”

“Maybe it’s an especially long-life clock?” Malou said.

Their conversation was interrupted as the students all started finding their seats. The school’s new principal would be giving a little welcome speech, apparently.

Soon three men stepped into the hall, and Chamomile felt a nervous fluttering in her stomach. Jens was flanked on one side by Zlavko’s thin form and on the other by the hulking Thorbjørn with his huge beard. The principal himself was, as always, dressed in black, which complemented his suntanned complexion and silver-gray hair.

“Welcome back,” they heard, in Jens’s slow, deep voice. Despite the fact he only reached shoulder height on Zlavko and Thorbjørn, he had an authoritative air that quickly made everyone fall silent. “As the new principal of this school, it is a pleasure to see you all again for a new session here at Rosenholm Academy. For our third-year students, this year will be a real chance to get deeper into your main subject, but it’s also important that you second years, from the very beginning of the school year, start to think about what you might specialize in. When spring comes, you will do your second-year assignment, which must be defended before a teacher and an examiner. Of course, I shouldn’t need to remind third years that their year closes with decisive examinations. I expect a high standard of you all.”

When Jens was done talking about exams and assignments and demands and expectations, the students were finally allowed up to their dorms. Chamomile threw herself onto her bed in relief, leaving her unpacking to some other time. It felt good to be back. Different, but good. She let her gaze wander over the wall where she had stuck up various pictures and notes. A photo of her with her mom, who was laughing aloud. They had taken the picture themselves, and it looked a bit like a photo of the same person, caught mid-laugh, but taken twenty years apart. Momentarily, Chamomile thought of tearing it down, but then she let it stay. Beside that was a photo of Malou, Victoria, and Kirstine, taken at the park. She also had a poster of Danish herbs, which her mom had given her, and a postcard Malou had given her with the slogan Inspirational quotes suck!

“Oh, so there you are! I stood waiting for you at the bottom of the stairs!” Malou came in dragging her big, scruffy suitcase, which she heaved onto the bed with a grunt. “What are you doing? Seriously, you’re not gonna unpack? You can’t just slump there.”

Chamomile smiled. “I’ve missed you, Malou.”

September 7th 11:05 p.m.

Kirstine

They walked through the darkness of the forest. A soft rain drizzled down from the trees onto the students’ black robes. Kirstine’s flapped at her legs. It was too short—or her legs were too long. She had always been the tallest in her class, and that included the boys.

It was only a few months since she had last been here, but everything seemed different somehow. She had been looking forward to getting back to school, but now that she was here it filled her with unease. She gave her head a shake to free herself from her thoughts while she tried to focus on the upcoming ceremony.

She remembered when it was her time: being brought to stand before the old tree and find out which branch of magic she belonged to. Earth, Growth, Blood, or Death. She reached briefly for the little silver plow, the symbol for Earth, which she wore on a chain around her neck.

The forest was thick and impenetrable, but Lisa, their Nature Magic teacher, led them confidently and steadily onward until suddenly the forest opened up and the students entered the clearing where the great tree regally stood. Kirstine kept her eyes on the forest floor. The last time she had been here, she had killed a young man. It was a lot to deal with.

The students spread out silently along the edges of the clearing. The foliage offered shelter from the worst of the rain, but the wet moss was cold on her bare toes. She could feel the earth below her while they waited; she could feel the tree. Its roots twisted deep beneath her. It knows I’m here.

Then a white shape emerged from between the trees, and behind that, another. The new students in their white robes. A young man was showing them the way. She hadn’t noticed him at first in his black robes. Kirstine felt a tight pain in her chest and quickly looked away as Jakob led them on the last stretch. She had been strict with herself about not thinking too much about him over the summer, but now it became clear how the sight of him set her heart absolutely racing. She turned her face away from the new students, away from him. Instead her gaze fell on the great oak, and the rustling of its leaves grew louder, the tree glowing even brighter than she remembered from the year before. A shiver went through her at that sight and she could feel roots moving beneath her. They’re coming closer.

The white-clad students positioned themselves around the tree, and everyone around her began to recite the words now so familiar to her.

Earth is magic’s first branch.

The forefathers’ crumbling bones.

Millennia’s relics buried.

History is your source of power.

Growth is magic’s second branch.

Growth in flora and fauna.

Everywhere in nature around us.

Life is your source of power.

Blood is magic’s third branch.

Warm and red. Given or taken.

It flows through man and beast.

Sacrifice is your source of power.

Death is magic’s fourth branch.

Those who live no more.

Remembered or forgotten.

Departed souls are your source of power.

The words had a hypnotic effect. Kirstine was invisible in the dark. All those students dressed in black were invisible too and there was nothing but the words. She felt a tingling in her bare toes, as if rising from the earth below and slowly up her body. She wanted to give in to it, to disappear inside it. She scrunched her eyes closed and open again and the sound of the students’ chanting disappeared. She could hear Lisa speaking about the different branches of magic, and before her, the tree shone with a silver-like tinge so that the raindrops showering over it looked like crystals falling in the dark. It made everything shimmer before her eyes. Kirstine tried to concentrate on what Lisa was saying. The words were a little different from last time, but her ears were filled with the strange clicking noises coming from below her, from the tree roots. They were close. Too close. Something was wrong. It wasn’t supposed to feel like this. Kirstine wanted to take a step backward, but her feet were fixed to the spot. She looked down.