No going on walks. Sofia snorted. As if someone would get the bright idea to go out in the dark and risk being crushed to death by a falling tree.
By bedtime the gale was even stronger, and it was so dark that nothing could be seen; they could only hear the terrible noise. A few small branches flew by, striking the window. The air was so full of static that it made her skin tingle. She began to feel uneasy. She chatted with Madeleine and Elvira a bit, but everything felt wrong when it was time for lights out.
‘We can’t just lie here in the dark, listening to this miserable weather, can we? Do we really have to pull the blinds? What if something happens?’
Disagreement was on the tip of Madeleine’s tongue, but Elvira agreed with Sofia.
‘I don’t want to listen to the wind in the dark either; that’s just terrifying,’ she said.
So for once, they left the blinds up.
She had trouble falling asleep in the roar of the storm. The wind brought objects smashing and crashing into the yard, but at last she slipped into a sleep-like state. She drifted in and out for a long time, until she was suddenly yanked out of her dozing: the whole room lit up for an instant and the flash was followed by a loud rumble of thunder.
She sat up with a start. There was another round of lightning and thunder, but this time it was so loud that she leapt out of bed and ran to the window. Down in the yard she could see a piece of the flagpole, which had broken in half. A couple of figures were fighting the wind on their way to the barns.
What happened next would be imprinted in her mind in slow motion, even though it was all over in a fraction of a second. A bolt of lightning shot down, accompanied by a deafening clap of thunder. The lightning struck a tall pine behind the barn; the tree seemed to split in two as it crashed onto the annexe behind the manor, taking an electrical wire with it. Great flames leapt from the thatched roof.
Madeleine and Elvira had woken up too and were sitting up ramrod straight in their beds.
‘Shit! It’s on fire!’ Sofia shrieked.
Suddenly she remembered the fire drills they’d practised with Bosse late last summer — exercises she’d found annoying at the time. They were supposed to wake everyone up and shout ‘Fire!’ and give the location. She pulled her boots on without socks and swept her down jacket over her nightgown.
‘Didn’t you hear me? A fire!’ she shouted at Madeleine and Elvira, so loudly that they flew out of bed and started looking for their clothes.
She dashed from the room and started knocking on doors in the hallway.
‘Fire in the barn! Fire in the barn!’ she shouted, running from door to door.
Elvira popped up behind her as she headed for the first floor.
‘Make sure everyone wakes up and comes down!’ Sofia shouted.
It was pitch dark in the yard, aside from the flames shooting out of the barn roof. The broken electrical wire must have taken out all the power. But then she heard the generator kick in and the outdoor lights came back on. She could see Bosse and Sten manoeuvring the fire hose toward the barn. The wind had let up a bit, but the thunder was still constant. She saw lightning and heard thunder at the same time, and realized it must be very dangerous to be outside.
Moos, bleats, and hysterical clucking echoed from the barn.
‘I’ll let the animals out!’ she called to Bosse.
‘No, they’ll trample you!’ he shouted back as he aimed the hose at the fire. A cascade of water jetted toward the roof, but the flames only grew higher, up towards the treetops.
The shrieking from the barn was unbearable.
The thought came over her quickly, but her body was even faster. It was like she was a remotely-guided character in a computer game, always acting before her mind caught up. She had already opened the barn doors by the time it occurred to her that she would rather be trampled than let the animals burn alive inside.
It was absolute chaos inside the barn. The fire was crackling in the ceiling of the far corner, where the chickens were caged. It smelled like smoke and burnt wood. The animals sensed the danger instinctively; they were stamping and shrieking, their eyes rolled back in fear.
She opened the gate to the sheep enclosure first, and they immediately ran for the door and pinned her against the wall, but she managed to shoo them out. The cows had begun to throw themselves at the doors of their stalls, wild with fear.
She climbed up on one of the stall walls to leave the aisle free. One by one she let the cows out and they immediately set off down the aisle and vanished through the door.
The fire had burned through the ceiling by now and flames were licking at the chicken coop. Thick smoke began to pour in and fill the aisle. She fought with the coop door, but when it finally opened the hens just flapped around at random, squawking and cackling.
She grabbed a pitchfork from the aisle and started shoving them toward the door.
‘Get out, for god’s sake, fly out!’
At last they caught on and started flapping down the aisle, but a couple of confused hens turned around and went right into the fire, where they flew around like torches, uttering ghastly noises. At the same time, she heard the dreadful creak of a beam falling on the far side of the barn.
By now the smoke was thick in the aisle and it hurt to breathe. Then suddenly she couldn’t get any air at all and her eyes were swimming, about to go dark. It was crackling behind her, and the heat of the fire licked at her back, just enough to give her one last shot of adrenaline that sent her out of the barn on staggering legs. Once she was out, she collapsed, lying supine on the ground, and sucked in the cold air. She lay there for a moment, staring up at the clouds moving across the black sky.
‘Sofia, are you okay?’
It was Benjamin. He sank down beside her and grasped her hand so hard it hurt.
‘Breathe, Sofia, breathe!’ he urged her.
‘Thanks for the reminder,’ she said, trying to laugh. All that came out was a rattle deep in her lungs.
‘We have to get to a doctor.’
‘No, I’ll be fine.’
Her voice already felt steadier.
Bosse had arrived with a few other staff members in tow.
‘Jesus, Sofia, you should have listened to me!’
‘But I didn’t, and that’s why most of the animals are still alive,’ she said, sitting up.
The yard was full of people. Staff and guests, all mixed up. Some were fighting the fire; others were herding the animals into an empty barn nearby. They seemed so strangely organized: everyone was in motion; everyone had something to do.
At that moment, the rain came, a heavy downpour that joined the cascades of the fire hoses and put out the fire until all that was left was the smoke and the acrid smell. The back of the barn was destroyed, and thick, grey smoke billowed from its charred skeleton. A few animals were still running around in the yard. It was freezing cold, but it didn’t matter. They kept working.
When they were all done and the fire hoses were rolled up, they just stood there looking at each other in the rain. The relief on their faces was beautiful. It was a sight she thought she’d never forget.
She searched for Oswald but realized he wasn’t there. There were guests in soaked clothing, even some in pyjamas and nightgowns, but no Oswald. She looked up at the manor house and saw a figure standing on the balcony: the silhouette of a man gazing down at them with his arms crossed over his chest. It looked as if he was nodding.
An onlooker on the outside, peering in.
*
She couldn’t stop whining about Oswald to Benjamin in the days after the