Camilla Lackberg - The Girl in the Woods

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2018

Copyright © Camilla Lackberg 2017

Published by agreement with Nordin Agency, Sweden

Translation copyright © Tiina Nunnally 2017

Originally published in 2017 by Bokförlaget Forum, Sweden, as Häxan

Cover design by Micaela Alcaino © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2018

Cover photographs © Kristina Dominianni/ Arcangel Images(girl), © Shutterstock.com(woods)

Camilla Lackberg asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007518401

Ebook Edition © February 2018 ISBN: 9780007518395

Version: 2019-03-01

For Polly

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

The Stella Case

Chapter Three

Bohuslän 1671

Chapter Four

The Stella Case

Chapter Five

Bohuslän 1671

Chapter Six

The Stella Case

Chapter Seven

Bohuslän 1671

Chapter Eight

Bohuslän 1671

Chapter Nine

The Stella Case

Chapter Ten

Bohuslän 1671

Chapter Eleven

The Stella Case

Chapter Twelve

The Stella Case

Chapter Thirteen

The Stella Case

Chapter Fourteen

Bohuslän 1671–72

Chapter Fifteen

Bohuslän 1672

Chapter Sixteen

Bohuslän 1672

Chapter Seventeen

Bohuslän 1672

Chapter Eighteen

Bohuslän 1672

Chapter Nineteen

Bohuslän 1672

Chapter Twenty

The Stella Case

Chapter Twenty-One

Bohuslän 1672

Chapter Twenty-Two

Bohuslän 1672

Chapter Twenty-Three

Bohuslän 1672

Chapter Twenty-Four

The Stella Case

Chapter Twenty-Five

Bohuslän 1672

Chapter Twenty-Six

Bohuslän 1672

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The Stella Case

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Bohuslän 1672

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Bohuslän 1672

Chapter Thirty

The Stella Case

Chapter Thirty-One

Bohuslän 1672

Chapter Thirty-Two

Bohuslän 1672

Chapter Thirty-Three

Bohuslän 1672

Chapter Thirty-Four

The Stella Case

Chapter Thirty-Five

Bohuslän 1672

Chapter Thirty-Six

Bohuslän 1672

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Bohuslän 1672

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Bohuslän 1672

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Bohusläningen

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

More in Camilla Lackberg’s Fjällbacka series

About the Author

Also by Camilla Lackberg

About the Publisher

It was impossible to know what sort of life the girl would have had. Who she would have become. What kind of work she might have done, who she would have loved, mourned, lost and won. Or whether she would have had children and if so who they might have become. It was not even possible to imagine how she might have looked as a grown woman. At the age of four nothing about her was finished. Her eyes had changed from blue to green, her dark hair she’d had at birth was now light, though with a touch of red in the blond, and no doubt the colour would have changed again. That was especially difficult to determine at the moment. She was lying face down at the bottom of the lake. The back of her head was covered with thick, congealed blood. Only the strands floating outward from her skull revealed the subtle hues in her fair hair.

There was nothing particularly gruesome about this scene with the girl. It was no more gruesome than if she had not been lying there in the water. The sounds from the woods were the same as always. The light filtered through the tree branches the same way it always did at this time of day. The water rippled gently around her, the surface disturbed only when a dragonfly occasionally landed, spreading tiny rings in its wake. The transformation had begun, and gradually she would become one with the woods and the water. If no one found her, nature would run its usual course until she became part of it.

So far no one knew she was gone.

‘Do you think your mother will wear white?’ Erica asked as she turned to look at Patrik lying next to her in bed.

‘Ha, ha. Very funny,’ he said.

Erica laughed and poked him in the side.

‘Why is it so hard for you to accept that your mother’s getting married? Your father remarried a long time ago, and there was nothing strange about that, right?’

‘I know I’m being silly,’ said Patrik, shaking his head as he swung his legs off the bed and started putting on his socks. ‘I like Gunnar, and I think it’s great my mother won’t have to live alone any more, but …’

He stood up and pulled on his jeans.

‘It feels a little odd, to be honest. Mamma has lived alone for as long as I can remember. I suppose you could say there’s some sort of mother-and-son thing going on, for some reason it feels … strange, Mamma getting married again.’

‘You mean it feels strange that she and Gunnar are having sex?’

Patrik raised his hands to cover his ears.

‘Stop!’

Laughing, Erica tossed a pillow at him. He instantly threw it back, and all-out war ensued. Patrik flung himself on top of her, but the wrestling quickly turned to caresses and heavy breathing. She moved her hands to his fly and undid the top button.

‘What are you guys doing?’

Maja’s bright voice made them both stop and turn towards the open doorway. Maja was not the only one standing there. She was flanked by her little twin brothers, who were happily staring at their parents on the bed.

‘We’re just tickling each other,’ said Patrik, out of breath, as he sat up.

‘You need to fix the lock on the door!’ Erica hissed, pulling up the covers to hide her bare breasts.

She sat up and managed to smile at her children.

‘Why don’t you go downstairs and start breakfast. We’ll be there in a minute.’