Chapter Text
On Mondays Anna leaves work a little early to go to the group home. She leaves her sketches and swatches at her desk, turns off the lamp, closes the door to her little office at Wandering Oaken’s Fine Interior Design, and drives out into the beautiful countryside and up the hill to Sunny Pines.
It’s late afternoon when she gets there. One of the smiling aides lets her in and she goes into the office to talk to the group home manager, Olaf. There’s never much change in Elsa’s condition, and if there is, like the time Elsa ran a high fever and seized for an hour and had to be taken to the hospital, Olaf will call. He gives her a hug and lets her go down the hallway to Elsa’s room.
Elsa has her own room at the end of the hallway, painted light blue. It’s very welcoming, with a snowflake-patterned quilt and blue sheets on the bed, blue and silver curtains in the window, a white desk and a white dresser, and a mobile overhead made of light blue, silver, and white snowflakes. Anna usually takes a few seconds to just stand at the doorway and appreciate the overall effect. She was the one who designed it, after all; she can take some time enjoying her efforts.
Then she goes about her few tasks: tidying up whatever she sees as messy, taking Elsa’s dirty laundry hamper out of the closet to bring home with her, and putting the clean clothes and sheets away. It’s always the same things: jeans, light blue T-shirts, dark blue hooded sweatshirts, light blue socks, white underwear. She cleans out Elsa’s hairbrush and checks to make sure Elsa has enough shampoo, conditioner, bodywash, toothpaste, and hair ties. She plugs in Elsa’s iPad and the accompanying blue wireless headphones. She changes the CD in the CD player Elsa listens to at night.
Once all that is finished, she goes out back to see Elsa.
It’s a Monday in early fall when Anna sees the first drawing. She plugs in the iPad and it pops up as the device begins charging. A woman’s portrait is on Elsa’s screen, dark hair, blue eyes, wistful expression, red sweater. The face is suddenly familiar, intricately detailed down to freckles and a little scar through one eyebrow, and Anna wishes she could remember where she’d seen this woman before. She takes a photo of the iPad’s screen with her phone, and puts her phone back in her pocket.
When she opens the door to the backyard, wind catches her hair and teases it gently. Anna smiles. She loves the fall.
Her sister Elsa stands with her back to the group home, hands tucked into the pockets of her hooded zip-up sweatshirt. Her long blond braid trails down her back. She doesn’t turn to acknowledge Anna, not even when Anna stands right next to her.
“Hi, Elsa,” Anna says. Leaves swirl around the fence in front of them. “Did you have a good week?”
One of Elsa’s hands comes out of her sweatshirt pocket and gently curls around Anna’s arm. Anna waits patiently.
“I’m still hearing them,” Elsa says.
“No, you’re not,” Anna tells her. “Your medicine helps make the voices go away.”
Elsa’s fingers tense on Anna’s arm, and Anna fights the desire to pull away.
“They’re different ones,” Elsa says, her voice lower, plaintive. She still hasn’t turned to look at Anna, but Anna hears desperation in her voice. “These ones are real.”
“Elsa, they’re hallucinations,” Anna says gently. “They’re caused by chemical imbalances in your brain. The medicine helps them go away.”
“No, Anna, this one’s real,” Elsa repeats firmly. “She’s calling to me.”
“Oh, Elsa,” Anna says softly. She tucks a stray strand of hair back into Elsa’s braid.
“You don’t believe me.”
“I believe that you think something is happening.”
“That’s not the same!” Elsa’s fingers tighten on Anna’s arm.
“I want to help you,” Anna says.
“Then let me follow her.”
Anna takes Elsa’s hand from her arm and holds it. Elsa’s fingers are freezing and Anna makes a mental note to buy her sister some gloves. “You have to stay here. You’re safe here.”
Elsa finally turns to look at Anna. Her eyes are dull and empty, and Anna’s heart nearly breaks. She remembers bright-eyed Elsa, story-telling Elsa who played dress-up with their mother’s old dresses, the Elsa who built fairy villages for them out of blocks, the smart, beautiful Elsa who went away to college on a scholarship for vocal performance and music. This isn’t her Elsa. This is the Elsa whose stories are repetitive, on a loop through her brain with nowhere to go. This is the Elsa who notices so little about most of her surroundings that Anna can’t begin to count the number of times they’ve ended up in the emergency room because Elsa picked up a hot pan with her bare hands or walked straight off a porch or fell in the shower - part of the reason Anna knew Elsa could no longer stay at home. This is medication-brain Elsa, who says food tastes like gravel and the letters in books no longer stay still for her.
Anna misses her sister.
But she knows how close Elsa is to the edge. She knows how it feels to sit by Elsa’s bedside in ICU, waiting for Elsa to wake up from an overdose, the one that had convinced Anna to find a safe place for Elsa to live. She knows how it feels to leave Sunny Pines each week, her sister a prisoner behind the group home’s fences for her own safety. She knows their apartment, the silent, empty room that used to be Elsa’s.
Anna’s trying to love this sister.
Some days it’s hard.
“I want to go home,” Elsa says quietly.
“You are home,” Anna says.
“No, I’m not.”
“This is where you live.”
“But it’s not home.”
“Elsa.”
Elsa puts her head down.
“C’mere,” Anna says, and she wraps Elsa in a hug. Elsa doesn’t pull away, and after a few seconds Anna feels her shoulders start shaking in sobs.
“I need to help her,” Elsa cries. “She’s alone and she’s scared!”
“Elsa, she’s not real,” Anna protests.
Elsa presses her head into Anna’s shoulder and weeps.
“She seems insistent that she’s really hearing a voice,” Anna tells Olaf.
The short, stubby group home manager points his chopsticks at her. “How can you be sure she’s not?”
“Because she’s a diagnosed schizophrenic?” Anna replies archly.
“Lots of things we hear or see aren’t experienced by anyone else,” Olaf says, untroubled by Anna’s answer. He takes another bite of noodles. “What are the odds that this one time, Elsa is actually hearing someone?”
“They’re super-low.”
“And yet…?”
“There is no ‘and yet,’” Anna answers. “Where is she hearing the voice from? Who does it sound like? When does she hear it? What is it saying? What’s it asking for?”
Olaf shrugs. “Why are you asking me?”
Anna sighs. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re impossible?”
“Impossibly handsome,” Olaf answers, and grins at her.
“Just… make sure she doesn’t climb the fence and go looking for whoever it is she thinks is asking for her help.”
“If there’s someone out there who needs help, and Elsa finds them, I’ll open the gate myself and she can take me with her,” Olaf says. “I promise.”
“Olaf,” Anna says. “You’re not supposed to indulge her hallucinations.”
“We’re all on different journeys, Anna.”
“You are supposed to protect her.”
“I’m supposed to support her, and sometimes those are two different things.” Olaf takes another bite of noodles. “Now, is there anything else I can help you with?”
“You didn’t help me with the one thing I needed your help with!”
“Then I’ve still got it.” Olaf grins. “Go home, Anna. I promise Elsa is safe here.”
The sun is on its way down the horizon when Anna gets back into her car. She never feels like her visits with Elsa mean anything, or do anything to help her sister, but this visit was especially uncertain and tilting.
Maybe that’s how Elsa feels all the time.
Elsa lays in bed with her headphones on. She knows Anna leaves her a new CD every Monday, but she can’t risk hearing… her.
It’s dark now, at least in her room. The hallways are always lit in the group home-that-is-not-her-home. At first that was annoying. Now it’s comforting. A little. Sometimes. Not always.
Elsa studies the face of the woman she drew on her iPad. “Where are you?” she whispers.
Even through the up-tempo beat of the music blaring through her headphones, Elsa hears the voice. Four notes.
Ah-ah, ah-ah.
“No,” Elsa says firmly. “Anna says you’re not real.”
Ah-ah, ah-ah.
“What do you want? ‘Cause you’re keeping me awake.”
Ah-ah, ah-ah.
“No. I don’t hear you. I’m sorry. I have to… not listen.”
Ah-ah, ah-ah.
Elsa turns up the music and frowns at the woman’s face. “Anna says I can’t come find you,” she tells the picture. “And I can’t make Anna sad anymore. If I make her sad again and again she might stop loving me, and then I’ll never get to go home.”
Ah-ah, ah-ah.
“Are you someone out there who’s a little bit like me?” Elsa asks the woman.
The voice disappears, and Elsa’s left alone with the pop songs in her ears.
She turns off the iPad, takes off her headphones, and closes her eyes.
The voice doesn’t return.
The next Monday there’s another drawing of the woman, this one printed out and sitting on Elsa’s desk when Anna comes to the group home. There’s also a page of scribbled half-sentences, words tripping over words in all different directions. Anna stares at it, turning it one way and then the other, reading what Elsa’s scrawled out.
Sorry secret siren
Are you someone out there who’s a little bit like me?
Show yourself!!!
At the top there’s a musical staff, four notes drawn on it. Anna doesn’t read music - she was too squirrelly to sit on a piano bench as a child, and never wanted to stay inside practicing the way Elsa did - but she knows Elsa does. The pencil marks on the page are dark and heavy, but with copious eraser marks around them, suggesting confusion.
Anna makes herself a mental note to buy Elsa musical notation paper. Writing music has to be safer than listening to voices in her head, right?
She takes the drawing of the woman out back to see Elsa. Elsa’s in her normal spot near the fence, but her hood is up and her forehead is physically pressed against the fence. Anna knows what this means: migraine. Elsa’s going to be even more incoherent.
“Hi,” Anna says softly as she takes Elsa’s hand in hers.
“Take me home.”
“You are home.”
“No,” Elsa says, her voice absolutely heartbroken. “No, Anna, you know that’s not true. Take me home.”
“We can plan a visit for you to come home,” Anna offers.
“Take me home now!” Elsa screams. Her head slams against the fence.
Anna, still holding Elsa’s hand in hers, physically gets between her sister and the fence. “I can’t take you home today. I can take you home in a few days. Or I can bring you something from home. Tell me what you need and I can get it. Please, just don’t hurt yourself.”
“I need to go!”
“Okay, you want to go out? Where do you want to go?”
Elsa tries to slam her head into Anna’s chest. Anna steps out of the way, yanking on Elsa’s hand so that Elsa misses both Anna’s body and the fence. “Stop. Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know. Everywhere.”
“Can you be a little more specific?” Anna asks, trying to smile.
“No. We have to listen for her.”
Anna’s heart sinks. “Who, Elsa? Who are you listening to?”
Elsa points to the picture in Anna’s hand, crumpled now by the emotion of the moment.
“Elsa, this is someone you drew. She’s not real,” Anna says.
“You’re not listening,” Elsa protests. “She’s real and she’s alone and she’s scared.”
Her head comes up and Anna sees tears in her sister’s blue eyes. “What would you do if I was missing?” Elsa asks. “Would you go look for me?”
“Of course I would,” Anna replies. “But you’re real.”
“She’s real.”
“What’s her name?” Anna challenges.
“Kirstin Ingman.”
That stops Anna cold. Elsa’s only ever given bizarre names to her voices; Bruni is one Anna remembers the best. But Kirstin Ingman is an actual name, and what’s more, Anna knows who Kirstin Ingman is. The whole town does. She’s a missing preschool teacher whose disappearance has been headline news for the past two weeks.
She holds the drawing up in front of her. Yes, this is definitely Kirsten Ingman. Anna’s not sure how she missed the significance. “You’re hearing Kirsten Ingman?”
Elsa nods.
“And you know where she is?”
Elsa nods again, watching Anna a little distrustfully, as though her sister’s going to mock her.
Anna sighs. “Let’s go talk to Olaf and see if he wants us to pick up some Chinese food while we’re out.”
Missing Preschool Teacher “Acting Strangely” Before Her Disappearance
by Ingrid Bjorgman
Kirstin Ingman has been missing now for ten days. She was last seen leaving Three Fjords Preschool, where she works as a teacher. Her coworkers obviously adore her, as does the school’s principal, Bjorn Hauptsson. “She is clever, creative, kind, and so very smart. We miss her greatly and want nothing more than her safe return.”’
Ingman’s mother, Inga Aaberg, says that in the days before her daughter’s disappearance, she became concerned about Kirstin’s mental state. “She was talking about hearing voices, having dreams about an ocean full of nightmares, and seeing lights in the forest behind her home. I urged her to talk to her doctor about these things but I don’t know if she did. I miss her so dearly and I want her to come home safely.”
Local police have no updates on Ingman’s whereabouts, although search teams of friends, family, and community members are leaving from Balstad’s Photography on Liesl Street every morning at 10 a.m.
Anna looks over at Elsa as they sit in the car in the parking lot of Sunny Pines. Elsa’s face is pale, her hands clenched into fists, her forehead sweaty. She sits in the seat as though her bones have turned to liquid.
“Elsa, we can go back inside,” Anna says softly. “You don’t have to ride in the car.”
“No, I have to go,” Elsa says, but her breathing is rapid and her eyes are darting around the car.
“You’re safe,” Anna says. “I promise, you’re safe.”
“It’s too loud.”
“Can I make it quieter?”
Elsa sticks out her hand and Anna stares down at it for a moment, stunned that Elsa seems to be requesting physical contact. She hesitates only a beat before slipping her hand into Elsa’s, meshing their fingers. “We do this together,” Anna tells her sister.
“We do this together,” Elsa repeats.
Anna turns on the car and drives down Sunny Pines’ driveway. At the street she turns to Elsa. “Which way?”
Elsa puts on her blue headphones and taps them with her fingers. “Are you there?” she whispers.
Anna watches as Elsa’s eyes slide out of focus, just a little. She sits, frozen, as Elsa tilts her head. “I can hear you,” Elsa whispers, and her eyes close.
They sit there for another thirty seconds before Elsa sings out four notes - ah-ah, ah-ah.
The tones hang in the air of Anna’s car like surprised soap bubbles. Elsa sings out the notes again - ah-ah, ah-ah - and Anna is suddenly taken back to the Elsa she used to know, the Elsa whose voice was strong and confident and bold. She misses that voice.
“Left,” Elsa says as the second set of notes dies away.
The sun starts to set as they drive in and out of the city. At every intersection Anna turns to look at Elsa, still hunched in the passenger seat, headphones tightly clenched over her ears, singing out the four notes at random intervals, waiting for a one-word direction - left right straight.
Elsa’s directions take them on a winding circuit of the town, lights coming on in Main Street shops as they pass, and out onto the far side, on a road heading up to a campground near the Northuldra enclave.
“Are you sure, Elsa?” Anna asks as they pull into the parking lot of the campground. Gravel pings up against the body of her Honda.
Elsa hesitates, tilts her head, listens, and then nods. “We’re going to have to go on foot from here.”
“Elsa,” Anna says, a little irritated, “it’s dark out. We’ve both missed dinner. I’m not prepared to go hiking. Please, just let this go. We can go home and relax, and eat some bad Chinese food, and then I’ll take you back to the group home.”
“No,” Elsa says stubbornly. “She’s here. I know it.”
She sings out those four notes and Anna’s too caught up in reveling about how confident Elsa sounds for the first time in forever to realize that by the time the notes fade, Elsa’s out of the car.
“Damn it, Elsa,” Anna hisses under her breath. She grabs the emergency flashlight from her glove box and jogs after her sister.
Elsa’s not fast, though; years of meds have left her slow and somewhat uncoordinated. Anna catches up easily, the flashlight beam bobbing on the gravel trail in front of them.
“Elsa, what if she’s not here?”
“She’s here.”
“How do you know?”
“How do you know you’re wearing socks today? I just know.”
Anna has to take a moment to process that, wondering for a split second if she actually is wearing socks. (She is.)
“How did Kirstin Ingman start talking to you?”
“No one else was listening. Now, shhh.” Elsa stops and sings out the same four notes - ah-ah, ah-ah.
Anna pauses, listening to the woods around them.
And then she hears it.
Ah-ah, ah-ah.
Farther away, shakier than Elsa’s.
But definitely real.
“Holy shit,” Anna says.
Elsa laughs, and Anna sees nothing but pure joy on her face. “I told you so,” she says, and she sounds like the Elsa Anna’s been missing.
They continue down the gravel path, the trees pressing in thicker from both sides. It seems to get darker the further they go, and Anna carefully picks out where her feet end up, looking out for large rocks and twisting tree roots. Elsa seems to have no trouble making her way through, as though the four notes she’s singing are a compass and a searchlight all in one.
The trail curves sharply to the left suddenly, and Anna sees the moon for the first time in their hike, bobbing over a river several hundred feet below. She realizes they’re in Northuldra territory now. “Elsa, do you know where we are?”
“Mm-hmm. We’re almost there.”
“No, we shouldn’t be here. This is the Northuldra forest preserve.”
“And we’re almost there.” Elsa sings out her song one more time, and the responding call sounds the closest it’s been. “Just around the next bend.”
Anna sighs but keeps going, her flashlight weaving on the trail before them. “We’re going to get shot.”
“She wouldn’t let that happen to us,” Elsa informs her sagely.
And then there it is, a falling-down cabin in the back-end of nowhere, set two hundred feet off the twisting path. Elsa leaves the trail without hesitation, tromping off into the tall grass. Anna freezes, unsure of what to do.
“Elsa!”
“What?”
“We can’t do this!”
“So just stay there.”
I used to be the adventurous one, Anna grumbles to herself. Her feet feel rooted to the trail, even as Elsa disappears into the darkness. She wants to go after her sister, to protect her, to we do this together, but she’s frozen. If she goes after Elsa and Kirstin Ingman is in the cabin, what does it prove? That Elsa’s not crazy? That Elsa’s psychic? That Elsa somehow managed to kidnap a preschool teacher and stow her away in a shack in the Northuldra preserve?
Or if she goes after Elsa and nothing is in the cabin, does that mean Elsa’s getting worse? No, that can’t be right - Anna heard the responding song - wait - is she crazy too?
Whatever the truth is, stepping off the path means Anna’s going to have to face a brand new existence, and she knows only one thing: she’s not ready for whatever it is.
Elsa moves through the grass and rocks as though a path was lit for her. She sings out the four-note tune, softly, and hears a call.
“Hello,” she says. “I think I know who you are.”
“I’m so cold,” a voice says. It’s female. Scared. Scratchy.
“We’re going to make that better,” Elsa says. She takes off her dark blue hooded sweatshirt and bends down. There’s just enough moonlight for her to see a woman huddled against the wall of the cabin. “I’m Elsa.”
“I’m… I’m Kirstin. Are you a police officer?”
Elsa shakes her head.
“How did you find me?”
“You found me,” Elsa says with a shrug.
“What?”
“You knew the song.” Elsa holds out the sweatshirt.
Kirstin looks confused, but she takes the sweatshirt and puts it on.
“Are you ready to go home?”
Kirstin nods. “I can’t… I can’t stand up, though. My leg is broken.”
“Anna!” Elsa calls. “Come here, I need help!”
She turns back to Kirstin. “My sister’s here too. We do things together.”
Anna enters the shack and stares in shock at Kirstin Ingman, the woman’s face now familiar from Elsa’s drawings, the news, and the local papers. “You… how did you…?” she breathes at Elsa.
Elsa, trying to help the woman off the ground, says, “All I needed was for you to believe me.”
Anna hurries forward and helps Kirstin to stand. “I’m sorry,” she says.
“So, are you guys like, rescuers?” Kirstin asks as they help her hobble towards the door. "Professionals?"
“Oh! No, no, nothing like that,” Anna tells her. “I’m an interior designer and Elsa’s schizophrenic.”
She regrets the words as they come out of her mouth and remains firmly glad that it’s too dark for Kirstin Ingman to see her face. She’s also glad she can’t see Kirstin’s face, either, since “confused” is probably the kindest word to describe her feelings on her rescuers.
There are cops and an ambulance waiting in the parking lot of the campground when the sisters, still holding Kirstin between them, stumble out of the woods.
“Shit,” Anna says, freezing.
“What?” Kirstin asks.
Anna can already feel Kirstin leaning more heavily on her, as though Elsa’s no longer on her right side. “Elsa, stay with me,” Anna demands. “It’s okay. They’re not here for you. They’re here to make sure Kirstin is safe.”
She has no fucking clue what the cops are doing at the campground, but she knows that’s not going to matter to her sister.
“Elsa, talk to me,” Anna pleads. “You’re okay!”
A cop is hurrying towards them. “Stop right there!”
Elsa screams and Anna sees her slap her own head.
“Fuck,” Anna hisses. She takes four big steps towards the cop, a tall man with shaggy hair, practically carrying Kirstin on her hip. “Hey, hi, I’m Anna Aren-Dell and this is the woman you’ve been looking for, Kirstin Ingman. Kirstin, say hi.”
“Um, hi?”
“I need you guys to back off,” Anna says, the words tumbling out in a rush.
“Huh?” the cop says, and Anna can’t blame him.
“My sister’s terrified of cops, and she’s a runner sometimes, and I can’t lose her out here, it’s dark and I have no idea where I am,” Anna goes on hurriedly. Elsa’s still screaming.
“What’s going on, ma’am?” the cop asks.
“I wish I could tell you,” Anna says. “For now, please just take Ms. Ingman and back off.”
The cop looks at her. “Okay, but this isn’t over. I'll have questions for you at some point.”
He leans forward and scoops Kirstin off the ground. “Sorry for meeting you like this, Ms. Ingman. We’ll have some paramedics take a look at you.”
“Thank you,” Kirstin says gratefully. “It’s been a very strange evening.”
“I bet,” the cop says, giving Anna a sideways glance.
Anna turns and runs back down the gravel path. Abruptly she halts - the screaming has stopped.
“Elsa?” Anna asks hesitantly.
“Who are you?” a voice calls out of the darkness.
“I’m Anna. I’m looking for my sister.” Anna raises the flashlight up just a bit, enough to see two women standing near Elsa. Elsa’s sobbing into the shoulder of one of them, the older one. The younger one has a staff pointed towards Anna.
“This is your sister?” the older woman asks. “She is sick. Why is she out here alone?”
“She’s not alone, we were out here looking for someone who was missing and - wait, how do you know she’s sick?”
“I see it just by looking at her,” the older woman replies. She brings one hand up and gently rubs Elsa’s back.
Anna looks back and forth between the women. “You’re Northuldra,” she guesses.
“Yes,” the younger woman says. “And you’re not.”
“No, and I’m sorry that we’re out here, but we found who we were looking for and I can take her home now,” Anna says.
“Do you want to go home?” the older woman asks Elsa softly.
“Not the home she’ll take me to,” Elsa sobs.
“What is she talking about?” The older woman raises her head and looks at Anna.
“She… she lives at Sunny Pines. It’s a group home,” Anna says, a bit lamely.
The two women exchange glances.
“My brother works there,” the younger woman says after a few beats.
“It’s a good, safe, place,” the older woman says to Elsa. “It might not be the home you’re used to, but I bet there’s some things you like about it.”
“I don’t want them to take me away,” Elsa whimpers.
“No one’s going to take you anywhere,” the older woman says gently. “Now, tell me what you like about it. There has to be something.”
“Olaf is nice,” Elsa snuffles. “And my room. My sister did a good job on it.”
“What else?”
Anna notices that the older woman is carefully walking Elsa forward, back towards the parking lot.
“We have pancakes on Saturday mornings,” Elsa says. “And there’s a piano, and I play music and sing sometimes.”
Anna realizes she had no idea about that, and she feels terrible.
“Sounds like you’re very talented,” the older woman says. They’re nearly back at the parking lot; Anna breathes a sigh of relief when she sees that the cop cars and the ambulance are gone. “Maybe Maren and I will come and visit you when Ryder’s working, and you could play a song for us.”
“I’d like that,” the younger woman - Maren - answers.
“I’m not… I’m not supposed to be here, not like this,” Elsa says. She stops and turns to look at the older woman.
“I know,” the older woman says softly. “I see it in your eyes. I think you have a lot of stories to tell, bright one, hmm?”
To Anna, the older woman says, “Do you need anything else?”
Anna shakes her head, stunned at what’s just occurred.
“Then we’ll take our leave.” The older woman reaches into her jacket pocket and pulls out a business card, which she hands to Anna. She kisses Elsa gently on the forehead.
And then, just as quietly and quickly as they’d appeared, the two Northuldra disappear back into the forest.
Anna looks down at the business card. Yelana Tollefsrud, it reads. Northuldra Preserve Security.
With her sister clinging to her in the parking lot of a campground, the night wide and mysterious around them, Anna knows the bottom’s dropped out of her peaceful, calm - if somewhat occasionally eccentric - existence. A whole unknown has just opened up, and it’s like walking into mist: she has no idea where she’s going.