Prologue
October 1933
Island of Munsö, Sweden
Anna lifted the last letter to the flame and watched as the delicate paper curled and disintegrated, the words evaporating into ash. She had spent the past several hours reading each of the letters, remembering every detail, every moment, that had been written. As the ebb and flow of their correspondence pulled her back in time, she felt the weight of her now old body fall away and the aches and pains of age disappear as her heart was once again filled with the memories of her youth with Hilma.
Even with their hair white and their skin feathered with lines, the two maintained the distinct auras they had since they were young. Hilma exuded a palpable physical strength, while Anna appeared more ethereal, like breath or water—a color you couldn’t quite detect but could still feel around you. Years of fragile health and bouts with asthma had made her refrain from any form of physical exertion, but her mind and spirit were as determined as her friend’s; they just worked in a different way.
Only that afternoon, Hilma had instructed Anna to burn their old letters, while she continued to pack up her paintings and place into the wooden boxes all her sketchbooks and notebooks from the meetings from the Friday Night Club decades before.
The place in Munsö was large enough to store everything, just to Hilma’s liking. Anna had built the structure on land granted to her by a family with close ties to her own, thus ensuring her friend had the space and stability to paint without worry. Anna had crafted a studio with high ceilings and tall windows, creating an artistic vault filled with towering canvases saturated with bright constellations of halos and stars. It was almost as though her friend had climbed a ladder to the sky and pulled down all of the mysteries perched above, painting them with a kaleidoscope of colors so others could have a keyhole to gaze into the heavens.
The property near Lake Mälaren had always been a refuge for both Hilma and Anna. Windswept in the autumn as the leaves tumbled from the birch and oak trees, the air fragrant with pine needles and juniper berries. In the summer, the countryside became alight with meadows of red poppies, bluebells, and wild daisies. They both had always drawn sustenance from nature, the vicissitudes of the seasons, and a landscape’s ability to magically transform from verdant green to snowy white.
The month before, Anna had made a personal vow to savor as much beauty outside as she could. Old age had settled firmly in her bones, and she was unsure how many journeys to the island remained for her. The midsummer light afforded little darkness, and Hilma, neglecting to monitor the time on the grandfather clock, typically worked past midnight, as only then did the sky grow dim. So every morning, Anna set out for an early walk as her friend slept in for a few short hours.
The island welcomed Anna as it stirred from its brief nocturnal slumber. The bees hummed in the morning glories, the butterflies took flight, and blackbirds and white gulls filled the breeze with song. As Anna approached the lake, she took off her sandals and left them behind in the grass. She then pulled her long skirt up to her knees and began to slowly wade into the water, rejoicing at the cold sensation on her skin. These daily rituals restored her and helped her to feel like a young girl again, despite her being trapped in a body that was now nearly seventy-four years old.
She had always loved the water, for it felt like a natural extension of her spirit. Perhaps that was why her friendship with Hilma had survived so long. If Anna was like water, her friend was fire. But she had learned to soften her friend’s temper over time, often sacrificing her own feelings because, above all else, she wanted Hilma to always create.
The past few weeks with Hilma had been particularly intense and full of challenges. Hilma’s focus had been all-consuming, and she had no time for lunch breaks or walks to search for strawberries, despite Anna’s invitations.
The year before, as her seventieth birthday approached, Hilma had made the decision that all of her twelve hundred paintings and 125 notebooks would be sealed away for future generations, not to be opened until twenty years after her death. On their pages, those notebooks had detailed so much life, so many visions. They were written not only in Hilma’s hand but also by the other women in the spiritual and artistic group she and Anna had joined nearly forty years earlier, which they affectionately referred to as “De Fem” or “The Five.”
After they graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm, Hilma and Anna spent several years pushing their artistic boundaries beyond simple landscape paintings and portraits. Their desire to reach for more than what their peers at school aspired to defined them. After all, their friendship had been founded on a mutual disdain for convention. Anna was fortunate her widowed mother never pushed her to marry, but rather encouraged her and her sister to pursue their own individual paths. And Hilma had been so strong-willed. No one, not even her high-ranking naval officer father, could sway her from what she believed to be her true calling: her art.
And how lucky the two of them felt when they joined forces with the others—Cornelia, Mathilda, and Sigrid. Like Hilma and Anna, these three women were brimming with curiosity and a desire to transcend the everyday norms of their existence.
For forty years, the women maintained their friendship, and it was still hard for Anna to believe that she and Hilma were the only surviving members of their special club, as Mathilda, Cornelia, and Sigrid were all now dead. Some days when the two of them opened the windows of the studio, the crisp lake air seemed to carry the spirit of one of the three. The pages in Hilma’s journals would rustle, or a painting would occasionally tip over. Only the other day, a white dove had nested itself outside as Hilma labored, and Anna studied it intently. “I think Cornelia has come to visit us today,” she announced before looking back at her friend, who was slowly and methodically packing things away. She never told Hilma when she felt Mathilda’s presence. It was always when the sky turned cloudy and the mice scampered beneath the floorboards, an unwanted rhythm intruding upon their peace and quiet.
But this evening, it was only the two of them in the atelier. Hilma and she had nearly completed their final preparations. After she nailed the second-to-last crate shut, Hilma had looked up and stared at Anna, a smile slowly forming at her lips. Her white hair suddenly became gold in front of Anna’s eyes, and the arctic blue eyes filled with life. Restored before her, like the black-and-white lines of a coloring book suddenly ablaze with color, her friend beamed with determination.
“I’m nearly done, Anna. Go back and finish with the letters, the diaries too.”
Anna paused. “It’s our whole lives, Hilma. It’s not as easy as that.” She looked down at her palms. Some of the ash had come off on her fingers, and part of her didn’t want to ever remove those dark smudges.
“I will be judged by my work and nothing else,” Hilma answered firmly.
There was a time that Anna might have been able to change her friend’s mind, or at least start a dialogue and have the possibility of influence. But that period had long since vanished. There was no arguing with Hilma now. The past was behind them, and Anna recognized that she needed to align herself with Hilma’s vision, imagining a future in which the crated paintings and notebooks would one day be able to speak for themselves.
Anna did as she was instructed. Hovering over the kindling, created from dry twigs she had collected from the garden, she took the last letter and read it slowly, but this time aloud. Articulating each word like a benediction she wanted to seal in her heart forever.
She lit the flame, letter upon letter disintegrating into a feather of smoke.
She then opened one of Hilma’s leather-bound diaries, and a single photograph slid out. It was not one of just Anna and Hilma but of all five women together. Anna held it above the fire. The faces of her friends glowed as the paper softened and bent from the heat. She realized that this she would never be able to burn, despite Hilma’s wishes. Instead, Anna slipped it inside her apron pocket, and then laid the remaining diaries on top of the burning embers.
After everything was reduced to ash, she bent down and scooped some of the dark powder into an envelope and took it to give to Hilma.
“Here,” she uttered quietly. “Tuck it someplace safe so it can rest among all the other sacred things.”
Hilma accepted the envelope and set it inside the last of the boxes. Anna turned away just as she heard the sound of the hammer striking the last nail on the crate.
They walked outside, exiting the studio together. Hilma shut the large doors and looped a chain through their handles, locking them shut, then extended an open palm to Anna.
“Come, my old friend.” She beckoned, and Anna felt her long fingers pulled into Hilma’s. The warmth of Hilma’s skin moved through her body like much-needed medicine.
They walked quietly toward the steeple, two small figures shuttering the past behind them. Anna placed her free hand over her apron pocket, carrying the three others with her as she believed they rightfully deserved.
Chapter One
Eben
Present Day
New York City
People say that a curator builds bridges between an artist and the public. As a bridge builder, I have always tried not to place my own limits on a show but rather to let the artist’s oeuvre dictate. If that displays a lack of imagination on my part, I can accept it. I am a man who is all too aware of how dangerous an imagination can be. I am, though, fascinated by its power and have organized my life in such a way that I can study it. So, in retrospect, I shouldn’t have been surprised when the strength of one particular artist’s creativity disorganized my life and changed its trajectory completely.
It began in Stockholm, Sweden, more than two years ago on a snowy Friday night. Lost and very cold, I was cursing myself for venturing out of my hotel without checking the weather and taking a map. But it hadn’t been snowing when I’d started, and I had planned to venture only across the street.
The Grand Hôtel, one of Europe’s grande dame accommodations, was situated on the waterfront. Stockholm was often called the Venice of the North. At first, I’d stood on the esplanade, looking at the large chunks of ice floating downstream like irregular jigsaw-puzzle pieces, and then, suddenly adventurous, walked a bit farther. Having reached the Strömbron, I crossed the causeway and, on the other side, proceeded into Gamla Stan, the Old Town, originally built in the late 1200s.
Feeling like I’d stepped back in time, I wandered, charmed by the pastel-colored buildings and narrow cobblestoned streets. The snow began quickly and then became heavy. I knew I should head back, but I wasn’t sure which way to go. As I came to the conclusion I had just made a big circle, I became aware of a woman heading toward me.
As she passed underneath a streetlamp, what I first noticed was the flash of hair the color of champagne. Next was the triangular-shaped face with its sharp nose and wide, almond-shaped eyes. Eyes that widened to almost impossible proportions upon her noticing me.
Blythe Larkin didn’t try to hug me when she reached me. Or hold out her hand for a shake. When it struck me, in that confusing moment, that she wasn’t even smiling, a wave of sadness crashed over me.
Copyright © 2023 by Sofia Lundberg. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
