River of Shadows Read online

  It’s not enough. It’s never enough.

  “Papa,” I cry out, my voice breaking and echoing in my ears. I sound like a child, I feel like a child. Oh god, I would do anything to be a child again, to go back, to be with him. I want to be young again, I want to do this over again and get it right this time, I want to tell my mother that I’m not leaving him, that I’m staying with him.

  “I want to go back,” I whisper hoarsely, my face buried in my hands. “I want to go back to when I was your little girl. I want another chance. I don’t…I can’t move on like this. Not in this world. Not without you.”

  But the room gives nothing. All there is is the casket at the end and my father’s wonderful smiling face beside it and all I feel is so much despair and sorrow and regret, a deeper cut than bone deep.

  A cut that will never ever heal.

  A scar for all my life.

  Right in the heart of me.

  I stay on the floor of the room for what could be minutes, might be hours. It’s hard to tell when I’m jet-lagged. Eventually though, I stagger to my feet, leaning on the chairs to push myself up.

  I know I should turn around, go to my room, maybe cry my eyes out until I fall asleep again. But I can’t. I know my father is gone and yet I feel that if I turn my back on the casket, I’m turning my back on him. That I’m abandoning all I have left of him, his cold dead body.

  But it’s still him. It’s still his.

  And I’m here.

  So I find my strength and I walk down the aisle. The closer I get to the casket, the more I realize how beautiful it is. Made of some tree with a lot of knotted “eyes,” and intricate carvings all over, showing reindeer and trees, eagles and swans. Beneath and to the sides of the casket are the floral arrangements, pine boughs, and various berries all strung together with red and silver ribbons.

  I run my hands over the casket, wishing I could feel his energy come from inside. But dead people don’t give off energy. I’ll never feel that again from him.

  Open it, a voice in my head says. You’ll regret it if you don’t.

  I swallow hard. I’ve been debating this last week whether to look at my father’s body. On one hand, I don’t want the memories of him tarnished. I want to remember him alive and full of life. On the other hand, I need closure, badly. And if he was found frozen, well, how bad can he really look?

  So I place my fingers along the bottom of the lid.

  Lift it up.

  And stare directly into an empty casket.

  Chapter 2

  The Funeral

  What the fuck?

  I stare at the empty coffin, bewildered, then push the lid up further, quickly glancing down the end, then putting my arm inside, frantically feeling around.

  There’s nothing.

  It’s fucking empty.

  What the hell is going on?!

  A flush of hope warms my chest, the idea that perhaps my father isn’t dead after all. But then none of this makes any sense. They would have had a body at some point—where did that body go?

  “You need to leave.”

  I gasp loudly and whirl around, but the room is empty. Where the hell did that voice just come from?

  I turn back in time to see the casket lid slowly lowering and, standing behind it, the tall slim shadow of a man.

  I gasp again, taking a step backward, just as the shadow comes forward into the candlelight. The light of the flames flickers against his face, revealing a young man with floppy red hair and sky-blue eyes, his cheekbones high with alabaster skin and ruddy cheeks, making him look eternally youthful, his age hard to pin down. He’s dressed in all black, except for a string of spotted feathers tied around his wrist.

  “Who are you?” I ask, pressing my fingers harder into my chest as if to keep my heart from jumping out.

  “You need to leave,” he says again, his eyes briefly going over my shoulder to the doorway and back to me, shimmering in intensity. “Now.”

  I shake my head, having no idea what this crazy stranger is saying. “What? No. I’m staying here at the hotel. My dad is supposed to be in this casket. It’s his funeral tomorrow. I’m Hanna—”

  “Heikkinen,” he interjects with my last name. “I know who you are. But please, listen to me, you have to leave this place right now, before it’s too late.”

  I hate how slow my brain is, that nothing is making sense, let alone this stranger who literally just appeared before me out of the shadows and is telling me what to do. “I’m not going anywhere. You know what happened to my father? To Torben Heikkinen? Is he really dead? Please tell me he isn’t dead.”

  The man is breathing hard now, his eyes keep flitting to the door. I look over my shoulder quickly but it’s still just the two of us in the room. Two of us and an empty casket. “I know the truth about your father,” the man says, his eyes taking on a feverish gleam. “And I can take you to him, if you come with me right now.”

  He reaches for my arm and I rip it away from him.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you!” I cry out, stumbling back a few feet. “I just want to know where my father’s body is! Tell me where it is!”

  The man shakes his head, putting his finger to his lips. “Please, don’t wake them.”

  “Don’t wake who? I want to wake up everyone!” I roar, throwing my arms out. “I don’t know who you are! For all I know, you’ve broken in here and stolen his body!”

  “Please, Hanna,” he says.

  “Don’t call me that! You don’t know me.”

  “I know of you. Very well.” He licks his lips quickly, pupils growing as small as pin pricks. “Your father spoke of you all the time. Every day we’d work together, he would tell me everything about you. I know that you were a dancer, that now you do martial arts, and it suits you even better. That you work in fashion. That you live in a house in North Hollywood, but that’s nothing like the actual Hollywood, and you have a housemate who has a hair salon in the garage. That you used to write your father letters and draw little nature scenes with each one, a magic forest.”

  “Stop,” I whisper. Everything inside me is shaking. How does he know all this? “You can’t…how do you know all this?”

  “Because I was close to your father,” he says, his voice rising with a hint of bitterness. “Maybe as close as you were to him. And when I tell you I know where he is, you have to believe me, and you have to leave this place while you can.”

  “Is he…alive?”

  I hold my breath as my hope, my desperate hope, seems to float in the air between us.

  His thin, dark brows come together. “He might not be dead.”

  I stare at him in disbelief, my hope transforming to anger. “What the fuck is that even supposed to mean? You know what, I don’t care. Maybe you knew him, maybe you found out that information because you murdered him yourself, I don’t know, but I’m done. I’m going to get help.”

  The fact that he thinks I’m going to leave this hotel with him, a creepy stranger, just because he knows some facts about me, just because he can’t give me a straight answer about my father…

  I turn around to head for the door when I stop.

  Eero is standing in the doorway. The sight of him gives me a pause, my spine prickling. He’s dressed head-to-toe in what looks like reindeer fur and bearskin, and there’s a string of bones and canine teeth around his neck. Hardly bedtime attire.

  “What’s going on in here?” he asks in a booming voice. He’s staring over my head at the mystery man. “Rasmus. What are you doing here this late?”

  Ah, his name is Rasmus. Suits him.

  “My father’s body is gone,” I say to Eero, trying to summon the strength and anger I had seconds ago with Rasmus, but now my voice is coming out quiet and unsure. I gesture to the casket behind me, but I don’t turn around. For some reason I’m afraid to break eye contact. “I just wanted a look at him and he’s gone. Go and look. He’s not in there. The casket is empty.”

  Eero doesn’
t move. Instead he gives me a close-lipped smile while his eyes shine in the light. “It’s been a long day, Hanna. Perhaps it’s best if you go to your room.”

  “Eero,” Rasmus says in a pleading voice. “Why not tell her the truth? She’s Torben’s daughter after all.”

  “What truth?” I ask. “What fucking truth? Please, one of you just tell me what the hell is going on.” I feel like I’m being led in circles and getting dizzier as I go.

  “You need your rest,” Eero says, taking a step toward me.

  “No.” I swallow and move backward instinctively. “I do not need any more rest. I need answers. My father is supposed to be in that casket, it’s his funeral tomorrow. I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s happening!” I can’t help but yell that last part, my words echoing in the room.

  “Your father is dead, my dear,” he says to me after a moment. “And he’s in that casket. I guarantee it. Just go and look and you’ll see him again.”

  I keep my eyes glued to him. I don’t move. I feel like turning around would be a mistake and I can’t explain why.

  “What’s happening in here?” I hear Noora’s voice, and it brings me just a smidge of comfort as she appears behind Eero.

  “She thinks her father isn’t in the casket,” Eero says, but he’s not taking his eyes off me either. In fact, the more he stares at me, the harder it is for me to get my thoughts in order.

  “Oh dear,” Noora says. “Hanna, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. I know how it can be. Death. It’s so…final. It’s hard for mortal brains to comprehend.”

  I gesture to the casket again while keeping my eyes on them. “Noora. Go and look for me. Please. He’s not in there. I’m not hallucinating. And then that guy just showed up out of nowhere. He says he knows where my father is.”

  Noora doesn’t even glance at Rasmus. “Oh don’t mind him. He was your father’s apprentice. Seems he can’t let go of him either. So terribly sad. I feel for both of you.”

  I sense Rasmus’ presence still behind me but he’s staying silent. There’s a dark, cold feeling in my stomach like I’ve swallowed a pit of ice. “Apprentice? Apprentice of what? Hotel management?” As far as I know, my father didn’t even run the hotel, he was just behind the concept, one of the owners.

  “Noora, why don’t you go take a look,” Eero says in a patient tone and nods at the casket. “Just to give our dear Hanna peace of mind.”

  Noora gives me a tight smile and walks past me, the air smelling like rot, so much so that I nearly start gagging.

  Don’t look, I tell myself. Keep your eyes on Eero.

  Eero gives me a half-smile in response, something more sly than anything, like he heard my thoughts and he knows I’m going to lose. Lose what? I don’t know. That pit of ice in my stomach grows sharper.

  I hear Noora chuckle softly from behind me. “Oh, Hanna. He is in here, looking so peaceful. He is at peace now, don’t you understand? Come look.”

  Eero holds my gaze as I start to waver.

  “Really?” I ask. “Rasmus?” I add, wanting to hear it from him. “Is he really in there?”

  But there’s only silence. Why isn’t Rasmus saying anything? He was so hell-bent on getting me out of here and now he’s just gone mute.

  “He’s at peace, so you need your own peace,” Noora says. “Come see, Hanna. Come see your dear father.”

  I can barely swallow the lump in my throat. My entire body feels like shaking uncontrollably and I can’t stop it.

  I turn around, breaking eye contact with Eero, a freeing sensation entering my body, and blink. Rasmus is gone. Like, he’s completely disappeared. But before I can even point that out, how that’s even possible, I see Noora peering over the casket.

  And I see my father in that casket.

  My mouth drops open, hit with both bewilderment at how fucked up my mind must be to have not seen him before, to utter gut-kicking sadness.

  It’s him.

  “Papa!” I cry out and run toward the casket, Noora stepping out of the way.

  Tears automatically stream down my face as I stare down at my father’s lifeless body. It’s him, it’s really him. From his white beard, to his hooked nose which he always used to call his beak, to the stubborn crease between his white brows, like he’s frowning his way through death…

  “Papa,” I say again, the word coming out raw and broken and I feel like the grief I thought I knew, the grief I thought I was making friends with, that was setting like cement, has changed once again. It’s deeper now, potent, and ripping my soul apart into tiny little pieces that will never come back together.

  I want to touch him but I’m afraid he’ll be cold, that he won’t feel like him. I lean over his face, trying to memorize the details. It had been so long since I’d seen him and yet he looks the exact same. Like he hasn’t aged at all. Like he’s not even dead, just resting, just sleeping.

  “I love you,” I whisper to him, and the tears fall from my face, splashing onto his skin. “I’m sorry I never said it enough. I should have said it more. I should have called more, I should have been more present, I should have been with you as soon as I was able to and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I kept putting it off. Putting you last. I thought we had more time. I really thought we had more time and we…we don’t. We didn’t. Now you’re gone. You’re gone.”

  More tears fall from my eyes, landing on his face. With shaking hands, I reach to wipe it off his cheek but before I do, his skin seems to move beneath the droplet. I pause, staring wide-eyed. His skin seems to warp and shimmer, becoming translucent, and I swear I can see something underneath.

  Something moving.

  Something like…another face.

  I shake my head, as if trying to right it, because I have to be hallucinating again, I have to be.

  But then something shifts, and my father’s nose appears to disintegrate before my eyes, turning black, like it’s rotting off.

  His eyes open.

  He stares right at me.

  A scream chokes inside my throat.

  Because it’s not my father’s eyes.

  These are Rasmus’ eyes.

  “Run!” Rasmus’s voice comes out through my father’s open mouth, now turning black like rotting sludge, his teeth falling out.

  I scream. Pure panic courses through me and I turn to run, because it feels like the only thing to do. This isn’t my father, I don’t know what this is, but I have to get far, far away from here.

  But Noora is right there behind me, her body pressed against mine, and she’s grabbing me in a chokehold before I can even turn, her arm pressing in hard against my windpipe.

  I can’t breathe. I start to struggle. For an older lady, she has the strength of a beast, and her smell is becoming even more pungent, and for a moment I feel this sensation to give up, almost like there’s another voice inside me, one that doesn’t belong to me, telling me it’s all over.

  But then I manage to push through it and I remember who I am and what I can do, and all my training comes flooding back. It’s basic self-defense and I’m jabbing my elbow back, striking her where I can. It doesn’t loosen her grip as much as I hoped, but she does let out a groan, shifting, and I take the opportunity to quickly widen my stance and flip her over my head.

  She goes summersaulting over on top of the casket, knocking it off the stand, and for a moment I’m horrified as my father’s body starts to slide out, but that horror stops when I realize it’s now Rasmus, scrambling to his feet.

  “Run outside!” he yells at me, trying to push off Noora who is trying to drag him down.

  I whip around and see Eero coming at me. He’s a big man and his eyes are so black that there’s no iris, and I don’t know if it’s my mind or something else that’s making me believe he has claws on his outstretched hands and horns starting to poke through his hair, but I drop low and spin forward off my hands, sliding under him as he tries to make a grab for me.

  Claws just scrape along the back
of my scalp, slicing off a strand of hair, and then I’m up again and running out of the room, through the lounge, past the dining room. I want to scream in horror, scream for help, but I don’t think anyone is going to help me now.

  As I round the bend to the lobby, I can feel Eero’s presence behind me, getting closer and closer, but I don’t dare turn around and look. I’m almost at the front doors when I suddenly feel a flash of intense cold at my back, as if a door opened behind me, and in the reflection of the glass I see a white wall, as if the air in the lobby frosted over.

  My hands strike the door and I push it open and I keep running, the sub-zero temperatures causing my breath to freeze in my lungs, my eyes to burn. Thankfully I’m wearing boots, but I’m just in a sweater, my coat left back in my room, and I’ll freeze to death soon if I don’t find shelter or someone to help me.

  My first thought is of the cars in the parking lot, maybe I’ll get lucky and find the keys in one of them, drive off to safety, wherever that is. Fuck, I don’t even know where I really am.

  I reach into my pocket to grab my phone to see if I have enough reception to call the police—no bars—and hear the hotel door slam shut behind me and suddenly Rasmus is at my side, grabbing my arm and pulling me along into the knee-high snow, away from the parking lot.

  “This way,” he says, his legs moving preternaturally fast.

  I look over my shoulder at the hotel, expecting Eero and Noora to come running out after us, but there’s no one there.

  “What happened in there?” I cry out.

  “I stopped them,” he says gruffly.

  How? I want to ask. Did he kill them? I try to pull back and slow down, pointing at the parking lot. “Where are we going, shouldn’t we try and steal a car?”

  He shakes his head firmly and continues to pull me along. I’m nearly stumbling as I go, the snow getting higher and higher, filling my boots. “We wouldn’t get very far,” he says. “I have to take you to see your father.”