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My father was a true constant in my life, even when he was far away. He was always there. That’s all that I’ve known. That’s all I can accept. I’ve never had someone just vanish off the face of the planet—everyone always comes back in some way.
But maybe not this time, I think to myself. I shut my eyes to the tears.
I don’t know if it was the food, all the stress, or the fresh air and rocking motion of the sleigh, but I seem to doze off for a bit. When I come to, the sleigh has stopped and I expect to find myself in a strip mall parking lot or something like that.
Instead, we’re still in the forest.
I look around to see Rasmus getting off the sleigh and patting the reindeer who is snorting, stamping its hooves, and looking restless.
“What’s happening?” I ask.
“We have to walk the rest,” Rasmus says to me. He reaches into the sleigh and grabs his backpack, shrugging it on over his coat, then reaches for my hand.
“What? Why? Where are we?”
“A place where Sula won’t go any further.”
“How far from the police station are we?” I ask.
“We only have to walk a bit,” he says, gesturing impatiently with his hand again.
I sigh and let him help me out of the sleigh.
Once on my feet, I gasp at the sight ahead of us.
I’m standing in my father’s painting. While I don’t see a sign, I see an ice-blue river that’s frosted over, coming from a frozen waterfall in the distance. It’s at least fifty feet high, caught in mid-cascade over a cliff dotted with dead trees.
“My father painted this,” I whisper in awe.
“Yes, I know.”
“He called this…Tytär, älä tule luokseni.”
A tight look comes across his face and he nods, then turns his attention back to the reindeer. He says something in a quick, hushed tone while stroking its nose and the reindeer snorts again, before backing up with the sleigh. Like on a dime, it turns and runs away, snow flying in the sleigh’s wake.
“What the hell!” I yell. “Where is he going?!”
“She,” he corrects me again, adjusting the backpack on his shoulder. “And she is going home.”
“She’s not going to wait for us?”
He stares at me for a moment as light snowflakes begin to fall. “You’re not coming back this way, you said so yourself.”
“Okay, so how are you going to get back home?”
He shrugs. “It doesn’t really matter now. Come on.”
He starts to walk off, skirting along the edge of the frozen river. The snow is falling faster and sticking to his shoulders.
I look behind me, but the reindeer is long gone and the tracks it left in the snow have already disappeared. I truly am in the middle of fucking nowhere and I have no choice but to follow Rasmus.
I grumble and then start after him. “I’m starting to believe this isn’t the way to town,” I tell him. “I mean, we’re heading toward a frozen waterfall and a cliff. I’m starting to think this isn’t the way to anywhere.”
Rasmus doesn’t say anything.
“So, what did the painting say?” I ask, trudging through the snow behind him. “What did my father write at the bottom? When was he here?”
“All the questions again.”
I run a few feet and grab his arm, pulling him to a stop. It’s harder than it looks. He may be tall and skinny, but he’s built solidly, like a tree with roots.
“What did it say?” I repeat.
He rubs his lips together and then looks off to the waterfall. “It says…Daughter, don’t come for me.”
Then he pulls out of my grasp and keeps walking.
Daughter, don’t come for me?
“What does that mean?” I ask, jogging after him again. “That was directed to me. How did he know I’d be reading his journal, his diaries? How did he know?”
“I’m sure he wrote it in a lot of places, knowing someday you’d find out he was gone, knowing someday you would be right here, in this very place, about to go after him.”
“In this very place?” I repeat.
Rasmus stops and nods at the frozen waterfall. We’re right next to it now and I can see the darkness behind it, feel all that empty space. There’s a cave or a passage back there behind the solid ice curtain, and the wind that’s blowing out of it smells like mint and I swear I hear a low murmur, like a crowd of people.
And then I hear it.
I hear him.
I hear my father’s voice, airy and breathless, like a forgotten whisper. “Hanna, don’t come for me. Please. Just let me go.”
My heart sinks, my eyes going wide. I try to swallow but can’t.
“Papa!” I cry out softly at the cave, tears freezing on my lashes.
But there’s nothing in return. Just this mint-scented wind, that’s sometimes ice cold and sometimes furnace hot and sounds like another world, another life is hidden in the depths.
