The gravel was loud beneath my shoes. Crickets jumped before me as I walked the path toward the farmhouse. It was windless here, the sun beating down, though on the cornfields you could see the shadows of clouds rolling in from the fjord.

How perfectly Scandinavian it all looked. The split beechwood, stacked neatly in rows; the wild strawberry plants in the meadow, studded with tiny red fruits; the dizzy drone of insects on the wing. Swallows dipped and dived through the orchards. Past the house, near the horizon, a single fighter jet, then another, skirting the shoreline far beyond. A phalanx of white doves took flight, circled the yard, began to settle again in the pear trees.

The front door stood open. If there was anyone in the house, they could hear me. But all was still. No faces in the upstairs window.

I stopped five meters from the house. “Bror,” I said, and again, louder, “Bror!”

Nothing. I approached. That sign:

You are entering a place of contemplation

No, I thought. Whatever this place was, it was not that.

My footsteps echoed off the polished stone floors. Every door was open. Here, just beyond the staircase, was a living room, decked out as a classroom. The paneled walls were painted white. Four benches, placed in a row, and a lectern at the front. Above the lectern an image: an eagle carrying off a lamb. No desks on which to write, and in the bookcases no books. No evidence of what anyone here believed. Not a place of learning. A place of indoctrination.

The kitchen had been emptied. The refrigerator stood open, light off. Above the sink a tap dripped. I crossed the floor, turned off the tap.

I made my way toward the staircase.

“Hello?”

The house breathed. Wood shifted against wood, beam against beam.

I began to climb the stairs, quietly, aware of my own breath. Six steps, then a landing, then seven steps up to the next floor. Hung by the landing window was a needlepoint square. A nun dressed all in white holding a small tapestry on which were the words:

Be simple

Be pure

Be true to the faith

Be mindful

Be kind

Be true to the race

A child’s rhyme, designed to bypass rational thought. Licia had cut the last three words from the print on her wall, hiding from us their murderous intent.

On the floor above were three bedrooms of roughly equal size, and a large windowless bathroom. There were toothpaste spatters by the sink and on the gray-painted floor, but the room was clean and free of dust.