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  For Jon

  Contents:

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Appendix i

  Appendix ii

  Appendix iii

  Appendix iv

  Acknowledgements

  Exclusive Extract: Savage Island

  Exclusive Extract: Charlotte Says

  More RED EYE reads…

  Copyright

  If madness had a shade, it would be white.

  White as far as the eye can see.

  White until it reaches right around the world

  and taps you on the shoulder.

  You’d never think there could be

  so many colours in snow. But there are.

  It just takes time to see them.

  Your eyes have to adjust.

  Once you’ve been out here for a while,

  you can see them.

  You can see them all.

  We have been out here for a long, long while.

  Chapter One

  “…not going,” I said.

  “Don’t be like that,” said Dad. “This will be good for us. You’ll see.”

  I couldn’t see. Out of everything that was absolutely not apparent to me at that moment, how us moving to the middle of nowhere would be good for anything was right at the top of the list. I said this quite loudly and several times over.

  “Well, if you’re going to be like that, there’s nothing more to say,” Dad said. “We’ll talk about this when you’re being more reasonable.”

  “What about school?” I blurted.

  “You’ll be homeschooled.”

  I was so outraged that I actually snorted. “Seriously? There’s not even a school? And what –” I added suddenly, realizing something – “what about the internet? Will we be online?”

  Dad didn’t answer that. He’d already left the room.

  I had no idea why my parents wanted to do this crazy thing. I don’t think I talked to them at all for the whole two months before we left. Talking wasn’t something I was big on anyway and on top of that I was too angry about the whole stupid situation. Mum tried to start up a conversation once or twice but I shut that down pretty quickly. Dad kept leaving books about North Sweden and Norrbotten all over the place, probably hoping I’d get all interested and pick one up.

  I didn’t. I wasn’t. I was pretty sure that as soon as we got up there, they’d find out what a massive mistake they’d made and come right back to Stockholm again, only now we’d be screwed because they’d sold our house. They’d never even been to visit the place they’d bought. That’s how mental all this was. They dumped everything, just like that, to buy a house they’d never seen in a place they’d never been, to take on a business they had not one single clue about.

  I guess, really, if I’d been less pissed off, I might have stopped to ask myself why, but I didn’t. And hey, they didn’t volunteer any information, either. It was as if once I’d told them in no uncertain terms that this plan was really stupid and they were dragging me there against my will, they’d decided to let me get on with being angry – like a silly kid who has a tantrum over what bowl they eat their tomato pasta out of. But this wasn’t a bowl, was it? It was my life.

  “Who the hell moves that far north?” asked Poppy as we walked home from school the next day.

  “Us, apparently.”

  “It’s going to be terrible,” said Lars. “You’re going to turn into a nutter. That much snow and darkness? A grade-A nutcase, that’s what you’ll be.”

  “You’ll come and visit me, right?” I asked them. “In the summer?”

  “You must be joking,” Lars said. “And get eaten by the locals?”

  “Put over their fire like a sausage on a stick?” said Poppy.

  “No, thanks,” they said together.

  Lars and Poppy are my best friends. I have a very small life.

  Anyway, a couple of weeks into September, a truck rolled up to our yellow townhouse and these men in natty blue shirts with neatly embroidered logos and tastefully matching trousers trundled out and started loading bits of our lives into it. This seemed to mean clothes, electrical equipment and knick-knacks, mainly. Most of our furniture was going into storage, which told me that for all their bravado, my parents weren’t as sure about this move as they said they were. When the removal men were done, I got into the back of our 4x4 and stared at my phone, wondering why Lars and Poppy hadn’t bothered to turn up to say goodbye or even text, and finally realizing what dicks my friends actually were. I put my earphones in and cranked Tool up as high as the volume would go, drowning everything out.

  Through the window, I saw Mum and Dad standing on the top step of the old house. They put their arms round each other and Mum leaned her head on Dad’s shoulder. She’d been doing that a lot lately, which was pretty out of character, to be honest. I’m not saying my mum’s a tough nut, but she doesn’t stay at home to bake cake, if you know what I mean. She’s a lawyer who specializes in suing the crap out of big business on a daily basis. ‘Cuddly’ isn’t a word I’d use to describe her. Then they shut the door to the only house I’d ever lived in, walked down the steps and got into the car.

  We followed the truck out of Stockholm and drove north.

  We drove north for a very, very long time.

  It became clear very quickly that my parents had decided we should take the scenic route to the end of the world. I thought they might have been sensible enough to book somewhere for us to stay halfway but apparently that was too much to hope for. We stopped a few times for food and drink, and so they could share the driving. But other than that we kept going. And going. And going. And what I noted during this unbelievably boring journey was that 1) my friends still hadn’t texted and 2) the trees outside the car windows grew exponentially bigger and thicker in direct contrast to how narrow the roads got. Which, I’ll be honest, wasn’t particularly reassuring.

  I didn’t voice these observations to the two so-called adults seated in front of me. They talked to each other a little on the way. They dozed. They listened to the radio. They tried to talk to me. They failed.

  It was dark when I fell asleep. When I opened my eyes again it was light and we were still going. We must have stopped again without me waking, because Mum was driving instead of Dad. My phone battery was completely dead. I could have asked Dad or Mum to plug it in for me but that would have involved speaking to them, so I didn’t. The removal truck was still ahead of us, trundling along. There were still trees lining the road, punctuated by red-walled houses that looked far more cheerful than they had any right to be.

  I looked at my watch. It was 9 a.m.

  And still we kept going.

  Eventually the trees were so thick that the road grew dark, and I got a hint of what the winter would
be like. The nights were already drawing in, even in Stockholm. Up here it would be worse. In the very middle of winter, the sun would barely rise at all. We’d just get a darkness that was slightly less dark. And let’s not forget the snow. Months of snow and darkness – hey, welcome to your new home!

  Then, finally, the removal truck ahead of us turned off. We went from being on a reasonable road to being on an unreasonable road. I mean, I leaned forwards to look out of the windscreen and the sides of the truck were actually brushing the branches of the trees on either side. If it had got much narrower, we could have felled our own firewood on the way and wouldn’t even have had to get out of the car to do it. There were times when it felt as if the trees were squashing themselves against the car as we passed. Fir trees everywhere: fir and more fir, which is, in case you hadn’t noticed, the most boring tree in the world.

  We drove for another hour and then the truck turned off again, driving past a large painted wooden sign that read Storaskogen. Then, suddenly, right ahead of us, I saw our new home for the first time.

  It was massive. It was a mansion. It was the kind of place where you have to make an effort to count how many windows there are on each floor. It was like I was staring at a page on the ‘Visit Sweden’ website or something.

  I swore. Quite loudly.

  “Don’t use that language,” said Mum, on autopilot, like what I’d said wasn’t entirely reasonable under the circumstances.

  “These are apartments, right?” I said. “This isn’t, like – the whole thing isn’t ours, right?”

  Dad laughed. “I have to admit, it looks bigger than the estate agent’s photos. Doesn’t it, darling?”

  He was talking to Mum, not me, by the way. For one thing, they’d never shown me any photos. For another, in case you hadn’t already worked it out, me and the word ‘darling’ aren’t what you’d call a fit.

  The truck had pulled up outside the main doors, which were big and dark red. The men jumped out immediately and rolled up the back. They seemed in a hurry. I suppose they wanted to make sure they could leave again before night fell. I didn’t blame them. I wondered whether I could slip them some cash to let me stow away in the back when they went.

  “Did we win the lottery or something?” I asked as we climbed out of the car. I was so stiff I could barely stand upright.

  “This is just how they used to build the plantation homes, way back when,” said Mum, as if that explained how we could afford a place like this. Or, for that matter, why we would want one even if we could.

  We headed for the main door behind Dad, who didn’t even knock before he went in. For a moment I thought that was weird. Then I remembered that the place belonged to us. Which was even weirder.

  I wondered how long it had been since anyone had lived here. The place was silent. The floor of the big entrance hall was wood, which I guess isn’t surprising, but it was perfectly polished, which was. I mean, who bothers to polish a floor that never gets walked on? There were doors and corridors leading off left and right, and a giant staircase in front of us. Halfway up it spilt in two to become the balconies of an upper level that had more doors and corridors.

  We stood there, three strangers in a house that was ours, but wasn’t.

  “Hello?” Dad called, after a moment. “Anyone about?”

  I swear you could have heard a pin drop. Then something did drop, outside – there was a thump as a removal man didn’t quite manage to keep his grip on one of the crates. I hoped it wasn’t mine, but I didn’t even go to look. Neither did Mum or Dad. It felt like we’d all been absorbed into the silence of the house. My ears felt full of glue.

  “Hello?” Dad called again, taking another step forwards.

  A shriek echoed down from the balcony. I nearly cacked myself. I saw Mum jump, too, and Dad. The shriek was followed by another and then the kind of manic laughter you hear if you have to walk past a first-year classroom after the bell’s rung for lunch. One of the doors on the balcony opened and out came this stream of kids. There were five of them – all girls, all about ten. They charged out of the doorway, all shouting and chattering at once.

  “Hey!” Dad called, over the sounds that were bouncing down the stairs like high-pitched pipe bombs. “Hello!”

  The girls came to a standstill at the top of the stairs. It was like watching something out of a cartoon – the first one stopped and the others all slid into her like ducklings on a frozen pond. They stared down at us, mouths gaping. But on the plus side they had stopped shrieking, so, you know, small mercies.

  Another door opened but this time there was no horrific shrieking. Instead, a guy in his twenties with mussed-up curly brown hair and glasses appeared. He was frowning.

  “Girls,” he said, in that tone that you know means he’s said it a million times before and expects to have to say it a million more. “What have I told you about the noise?” Then he looked over the balcony and noticed us. “Ah ha!” he cried, as if we were long-lost family. “You must be the Strombergs! Welcome!”

  “Hi,” said Mum and Dad in unison. I didn’t say anything. My head was insisting that this was all some kind of weird dream.

  “These are the Strombergs, the family that has bought the forest,” the guy said to the kids. “I’m Tomas,” he added, which I guessed was aimed at us. “I’ve just got to save the report I’m working on, then I’ll come down. Give me a moment?”

  “Sure.” Dad nodded.

  Tomas stepped back into the room and then reappeared a second later. “Hey,” he called. “They did tell you about the children, right?”

  Mum and Dad both laughed, once again as if everything in this situation was entirely normal and not epically screwed up in any way.

  “Oh, yes,” said Mum, with a smile that made me realize I hadn’t seen her smile, not really, in a while. “They told us about the children.”

  No one had told me about the children.

  Chapter Two

  An hour later we were all sitting around a properly stoked fire in what I assume was once a ballroom or something. Now it was mostly empty apart from a long wooden table that ran down the middle and three large leather sofas arranged around a massive stone fireplace at one end of the room.

  The kids – and it turned out that the group we’d seen were only a sample of the girls and boys who were in residence – were sat around the table, eating dinner from a buffet that had been laid out on another table by the wall. Well, I say they were eating dinner, but they could have been initiating World War III. How can twenty kids make so much noise? My parents and Tomas didn’t seem to notice. The four of us helped ourselves to food and then we moved over to the sofas, where Mum and Dad went about getting all cosy despite the fact that our new home already seemed to be occupied.

  “When the estate agent explained to us about the programme, we thought it was a wonderful idea,” said my mum. She’d got her feet tucked up under one of the sofa cushions, like she used to do back at home. “How long have you been running it?”

  What programme? I asked silently. Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on? I wasn’t going to ask out loud, though. I still wasn’t talking to my parents.

  “This’ll be my fifth year,” Tomas said. “It’s been pretty successful, I’m pleased to say. I’m from the region, and it’s important to me to get kids from further afield interested in what I’ve been doing here.” He leaned forwards, his elbows on his knees, hands clasped together, his face eager. “It might be too soon to bring this up, but do you have any thoughts about whether you’d be willing to continue letting us use the plantation? It’d be great if the programme could continue.”

  I shifted in my seat. Seriously, what were they on about? What programme?

  “We’ve already talked about it and we’d love you to continue,” said my dad as Mum nodded. “To be honest, we’ll probably need the income, at least to begin with.”

  “Fantastic!” said Tomas, with a disturbingly wide grin. “There are so few
places open to running conservation courses these days. The larger plantations don’t want to know – too many legal issues involved in letting non-employees loose on their land.”

  Conservation. So that was it. Tomas was a tree-hugger and his purpose in life was to instil the noble art of tree-hugging into the next generation. Because, obviously, given that Sweden is only seventy per cent forest, we’re really struggling to get anything going in that department. That other thirty per cent could really use a helping hand before it’s too late.

  “I love that you’ll be continuing the family-run tradition here. Storaskogen has such a fascinating history,” Tomas went on. “I’ve always thought someone should write a book about it. Back in the 1940s it almost went under – timber yields were too low to make it viable and it nearly ended up absorbed into one of the larger plantations. But somehow it turned a corner and it’s flourished ever since, which is remarkable for such a relatively small operation. I’m sure you’ll enjoy getting to know the place. I’m just sorry you’ve got to share your new home with these hoodlums for the next few days,” he added, glancing over at the chaos vortex that was in the process of swallowing the table.

  Mum smiled but it was a bit lopsided, as if someone had stapled one side of her lips to her teeth. “It’s nice,” she said. “Nice to have the children here, I mean.”

  Dad reached over and squeezed her hand as the door at the end of the room opened and an old lady tottered in carrying an empty tray. She gave us a look that suggested we smelled of boiled cabbage and then made straight for the kids’ table to start clearing the plates. She looked about ninety, but she moved too fast for that, with strange little jumping tiptoe steps as if she were about to break into a run but kept thinking better of it.

  “Ah – that must be Dorothea, is it?” Dad asked brightly.

  “The housekeeper – yes.” Tomas nodded.

  “Dorothea,” Dad called, standing up and making to go to her, “we haven’t had a chance to meet you yet. Why don’t you leave that for a bit? Come and have a drink instead, then we’ll help you clear the table.”