and cautiously. I hold my breath as I lower my hand, which holds a pin. It only takes a millisecond, and then the bumblebee is stuck to the mat. It hums furiously, spinning on the pin in a crazy, futile dance. Its wings work frantically, but it goes nowhere. Then I lift the cork mat out of the aquarium, place it before me, and pick up the tweezers.
Lily looks at me, her mouth agape. She runs her tongue over her lower lip. I search for something in her eyes, fear or hatred, but all I find is a great emptiness, a dark abyss that sucks me in.
But first, the bumblebee.
I pull off the wings first, then the legs. Taking my time, lining them up on the table in front of her. The stupid bumblebee never stops buzzing, moving around on the pin, just a body now, as if it ever had a chance.
‘Why are you doing that?’ she asks.
‘Because it’s amusing,’ I say.
‘What? To watch it suffer?’
‘No, your face when you watch.’
I almost can’t breathe when I realize she’s trembling a bit.
That’s how it all begins. With a tiny bumblebee.
The small ferry bobbed in the swells on the dark water. They were close now, but couldn’t see the island; the morning fog was a heavy blanket on the sea. The horizon was invisible.
Sofia felt relief as the mainland, on the other side, vanished behind the curtain of fog. She was putting distance between herself and Ellis. It was nice to get away from him, if only for a while.
There had always been something hectic and wild about her relationship with Ellis, an intensity that could lead to nothing but disaster. His terrible temper should have set off warning bells, but at first she just thought it made him exciting. They had argued about absolutely everything and it ended with him getting his revenge online. She had been so distracted that she almost bombed her last exam at college. She passed in the end, but just barely.
It was in the midst of this catastrophe that the invitation to the lecture by Franz Oswald popped up in her email. And it was because of that lecture that she was sitting here on a ferry, on her way to a strange island way out in the archipelago.
Wilma, Sofia’s best friend, was there too, staring into the fog. There was a hint of excitement between them. A vague sense of apprehension about what awaited them on the island.
*
On the morning she received the lecture invitation, Sofia had been on the computer, Googling phrases like ‘planning for the future’ and ‘career choices,’ realizing in the end that her search was not at all helpful. When she read the email, her first thought was to wonder why it hadn’t ended up in the spam folder.
A lecture on ViaTerra by Franz Oswald. For those who wish to walk the way of the earth, it read.
How the heck did a person do that? She thought it sounded strange, but she had heard of Franz Oswald before. There was some chatter about him around the university. He’d showed up out of the blue, giving talks about his philosophies of clean living, which he called ViaTerra. Among the young women, the talk about Oswald mostly revolved around the fact that he was attractive and a little mysterious.
She read the email again. Made sure that the event was free of charge. She figured it couldn’t hurt to listen to what this Oswald had to say, so she sent a text to Wilma, who didn’t take much convincing. They did nearly everything together by that time.
They had arrived late to the talk and sat in the front row of a full lecture hall. A big banner was hung above the stage; it said ‘ViaTerra: We Walk the Way of the Earth!’ in huge, green letters. The lecture hall was otherwise bare and sterile and had a strong smell of cleaning agents.
A buzz of surprise ran through the audience when Oswald walked onstage with a wheelbarrow full to the brim with something white. Flour or sugar. She couldn’t tell what it was, because the lights were focused on the podium; the spot where he was standing was much dimmer. The woman sitting next to Sofia groaned. Someone behind her whispered, ‘What on earth?’
He set down the wheelbarrow and stood still for a moment before coming forward and gripping the edges of the podium.
‘Sugar,’ he said. ‘This is what the average family goes through in three months.’
Sofia suddenly regretted coming, and she felt the urge to get up and leave. The feeling was so strong that her legs twitched. She really should have been looking for a job, not listening to a lecture. And Oswald made her nervous.
He was tall and well-built, wearing a grey blazer over a black T-shirt. His dark hair was combed back into a ponytail. The tan couldn’t be real, but it suited him. He gave the impression of being trim and sophisticated while also radiating something primitive, almost animalistic. But above all, it was his strong stage presence that made the air tremble with anticipation.
He stood in silence for a moment. A calmer, more expectant mood spread through the audience. Then he launched into a dizzying tempo that only increased throughout the lecture. His voice went on like a machine gun. He showed the crowd a PowerPoint full of brains, nervous systems, lungs, and flabby bodies that had fallen victim to toxins and stress.
Sofia began to catch on to what he believed in. A sort of back-to-Mother-Earth philosophy where anything artificial was the root of all evil.
‘Now we’ll take a break,’ he suddenly said, ‘and afterwards I’ll tell you about the solution.’
During the second half, his elocution was calm and controlled. He spoke of things like sleeping in total darkness, drinking clean water, and eating organic food. Nothing new or sensational. Yet he made it all sound absolutely ground-breaking.
‘Our program also contains a spiritual element,’ he said. ‘But it’s not like you think, so listen carefully.’
He paused, and it seemed to Sofia that he was staring at her; she squirmed in her seat. He fixed his eyes on her as he continued.
‘Aren’t you tired of hearing that you have to be present and live in the now? We must stop listening to all these religious wackos who preach that the present is what matters. Buying their books and courses so we can learn to sit with your eyes closed and breathe deeply. In ViaTerra, we do not deny the past. We draw power from it.’
Sofia’s hand flew up of its own accord.
‘But how do you do that?’
Oswald put on a measured smile.
‘Your name?’
‘Sofia.’
‘Sofia, I’m glad you asked; the answer is in our theses. The physical program takes care of the body. The theses are for the spiritual side. But the short version is, you learn to draw power from everything that has happened in your life. Even your negative memories.’
‘But how?’
‘You have to read the theses to understand. It has to do with intuition. When a person stops denying the past, a whole lot of inhibitions disappear. One’s abilities are set free and one can rely on intuition again.’
‘Are your theses available to read?’
‘Of course, but only if you undergo the whole program. We have a centre on West Fog Island, off the coast of Bohuslän, a sanctuary where we help our guests find the correct balance in life. One can only make use of the theses in a setting free of all distractions. That’s why our centre is on an island.’
A man behind Sofia raised his hand.
‘Are you a religion?’
‘No, we’re actually the first anti-religion.’
‘Anti-religion?