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I turn quickly, smiling, and welcome the old lady who throws herself into my arms.
“Alfrida!”
Our outburst of joy seems misplaced in such circumstances, but I have carried this woman in my heart for years. Despite the distance, we never lost touch. Every month, I write her a letter; she’s my confidante, and a substitute mother.
“I was hoping to see you, sweetie.”
Alfrida is the housekeeper of Iron House. She makes sure the meals are good and that the house is always perfect even when the staff comes to clean and take care of the maintenance of the house. Sixty-five years old, this woman has worked in this place for decades.
“How you’ve grown,” says Alfrida, looking me up and down.
“I couldn’t stay forever the kid you know.”
“To me, you will always be that little thirteen-year-old girl.”
She generously kisses my cheeks before hugging me again into her warm and comforting arms. Alfrida is a little shorter than me, while I’m not very tall, five feet four, at most. The heels grow me a little less than three inches.
“I missed you,” I tell her, running my hand over her paper-thin cheek.
She has aged, her face is more wrinkled than before, and her brown hair has more gray streaks. Only her green gaze has kept this playfulness of yesteryear.
“It’s sad to see each other in this condition.”
Her words are only a form of politeness, because she hates Hendrik as much as I do. Alfrida stayed only forhim. I look over her shoulder, she easily guesses my intentions.
“He’s standing next to the casket.”
I thank her and walk around her feeling anxious. I pass through two large glass doors framed in black-stained wood and find myself in the library transformed into a funeral room. The armchairs are replaced by a few high tables decorated with white floral arrangements. To my left, the wall bookcase is still there, filled with books, each one older than the next. Most of them must never have been read.
Unpleasant tingling itches in the back of my neck.
He looks at me.
Even after nine years, he still has the same effect on me. One day, during a violin solo on stage, while we were performing in Stockholm, I felt those same shivers, that only his eyes cause on me. I could have sworn he was in the room that day.
Apprehensively, I turn around and look up at him. His cold blue gaze pierces me, making me feel completely naked. The glances he sends in my direction don’t help at all.
He is even more handsome and taller than in his photos. Having him in front of me changes the image I had of him. Morehandsome and… terrifying? A shiver runs through me as I walk towards him. His cold, distant expression is foreign to me. He hasn’t looked at me that way in a very long time.
I stop less than a foot from him. His body tenses at this proximity, his square jaw contracts.
This is what you’ve been waiting for all these years.
I gather my courage and lift my chin a little to face him.
“Hello… Niklas.”
3
Lovisa, 13-years-old
Niklas is horrible! He was rude to my mother and didn’t speak to me. We are both in the same boat. The welcome was cold and distant. I was so uncomfortable when I entered this huge house that I couldn’t wait until they show me my room so that I could lock myself in it for life. This palace gives me the creeps. It feels like no one lives there. Everything is impeccable and there is no indication that a family lives there. Who are these people? I intend to talk to my mom about moving back home. Perhaps she will allow me to go back to Gothenburg to live with one of my friends.
***
His answer is slow in coming, I almost feel that he will insult me by snubbing me, but finally he decides to speak.
“Lovisa.”
