EPISODE NINE, PART ONE OUT OF TWO
VISITORS.
"December 23rd, 05:13. I've once again just woken up from a pretty decent sleep. It seems that the shock from Vincent being alive still has it's grip on me. I'm so relieved, but I'm nervous because that I don't know how to reveal that info to Matthew. He's still isolating himself in his house, refusing to take the letters out of his mailbox, not answering calls, and go outside while we're still awake. My ankle still hurts, apparently the sprain was worse than I thought; that would explain why I had experienced more pain than I'd let out, ouch. At least I have crutches to walk with so I can get around, but I still wish I could do without them, but come on who wouldn't wish that. Even though it's been five days since the news about Vincent came to us, and that these five days have been peaceful, I can't stop feeling tense. Something makes me feel as if all our luck has run out, like as if anything happens now there is no recovery, no miraculous return, no nothing except death. I'm too scared of more people dying because of me. Already Ludwig, Magnus, Asta, and Berwald's family is dead because of me; I have to continue on though. I hope to make it up to Gilbert, Aino, and Mathias one day. Oh well, so far I'd better focus on the upcoming Christmas." the Vendelbo finished off today's, or yesterday's, log entry as she put it back in the drawer next to her bed. Once again the entry would have to be Danish, her naitve tounge was easier to speak after all. It was finally snowing outside, but at this point Freja would much rather have had a rainy night more than anything, after all it had been days since she'd had a good night's sleep.
The room was dimly lit as she could barely see the wooden texture of the floor-boards, as well as the crimson wallpaper with small black patterns of swirls scattered around it. The window on the wall next to her bed's curtains' looked almost like the walls, but the difference was there was no patterns on the curtains, as well as the fact that it was a slightly darker shade resembling the colour maroon. There wasn't really much to see in her room, even when it was daytime, all there was in there was just a bed, a dark reddish-brown carpet with a couple of flower patterns in the sides, the wooden drawer beside her with the minor lamp by her side, and the window with a view out to the small area her hens' little shed lied.
Gilbert had refused to return home for a while, as he wished to stay with Freja due to fear of the mafia that had been revealed to be after them, but she did understand why he could be worried. The more she began thinking about the idea of being safe for now was calming for her, and she tried to continue thinking just about that. Suddenly she heard faint thumps downstairs that were getting progressively louder and louder as they were heading towards her room. She sighed as she quickly rose from the bed, when she noticed that the thumps sounded like two people. She grabbed the crutches and went over to open her room door only to reveal a familiar face, with a guest with him.
"Freja! I'm sorry to interrupt your sleep, but Feliciano here needs my help!" Gilbert panted as he was carrying an unconcious man on his shoulders.
"What! Who's that, and what's the matter?" confusion was obvious in her voice, and her tone was kept strict as the German looked at her with pleading eyes. He stuttered a bit as he tried to speak properly.
"I couldn't sleep because of some noises I heard outside, so I turned on the light and tried to see what it was, when I saw it was Feliciano there. I went to the front door and opened it, when I then noticed he was running, or rather staggering, away from something. So of course I ran outside, even though I knew it would be risky if I was seen by whoever chased him, and helped him inside, but quickly turned off the lights so they wouldn't wake suspicion. I double checked the windows to make sure that whoever was chasing him didn't see me, and they didn't; because when I saw the car that he seemed to be freaking out over, they didn't stop past the house, not even for a moment. And before the guy here could tell his story, he passed out! And look at him, he's injured!" the panicking man was tapping his feet very rapidly, as well as he was beginning to look around frantically. The woman sighed and pointed towards the bed behind her.
"Put him there. I'll get dressed, and then check to see if he's gotten major injuries." she muttered quietly, and exited the room with her crutches, when she got an approving nod from the man.
A few minutes later when Freja had gotten dressed, she went back into the room where Feliciano and Gilbert were currently in. This time she had taken bandages and a medical kit with her, she kept it for emergencies if anything happened to a person while they visited her. Always a good idea to stay on the safe side. Feliciano was still asleep, but seemed anxious in his sleep. Gilbert turned on the desk lamp on, as Freja noticed the Italian having big bruises in his face, cuts on his hands, and a slight cut on his lips. It was nothing worth a Hospital visit, but it needed some treatement. As the woman was about to clean his wounds, he woke up and began thrashing around. By accident, he hit her in the face.
"...wow rude" she ironically stated whilst trying to calm him down, but he kept freaking out.
"Who are you?! Where am I, is-" he paused for a while and looked around in panic, before looking at Freja with a shaky voice.
"Is this the mafia's evil hangout, am I safe?" the woman looked over at her German partner, signaling he had to take over there. She switched places with him, and went over to check if she got any bruise or something like that in a mirror over her desk. Luckily the spot where she had been hit was just red, and there didn't seem to be anything to see there. She looked back at the German, who was hushing the Italian, while also trying to calm him down and explain the situation and where he was.
"Okay... I get that, Gilbert. But, who's that woman?" the Italian asked more cheerily, to the relief of both the detectives. Gilbert cleared his throat before answering the Italian in a very exhausted voice, seeing he was probably very tired from lack of sleep.
"Erhm... She's... Erh, my girlfriend." He seemed to stutter a bit, possibly nervous since he didn't speak so much about those kinds of topics. Freja always for some reason got a bubbly feeling when he'd call her his girlfriend, but that was probably just because she herself never really knew much about friendship, and not even close to love.
"You got a girlfriend? That's amazing!" his voice had become very enthusiastic and loud. The German chuckled a bit, with a slight tint of pink.
'Poor Gil' Freja thought to herself, with a slight smirk plastered on her face. 'He's really shy about these sorts of things, isn't he?'
"I'd love to get to know you better, Ms...?" he drifted off with a curious tone, as he seemed to not even care about his bruises and cuts. Freja found that kind of cool.
"Just call me Freja, I don't call myself by fancy titles." she muttered tiredly. The Italian smiled back and continued speaking.
"Okay, Freja! I hope I'm not being a bother right now, I mean keeping you awake and all..." he looked at the bed he was lying in.
"And stealing your bed..." he lightly tapped his fingers against his lap. Freja smiled warmly and chuckled a bit.
"S'Okay. I'll just find another solution, what about you Gilbert?" She turned to the German who was still a tiny bit red from before. That guy was really shy when it came to talking about love and intimacy, apparently. She actually snorted a bit, it was unusual to see him when he wasn't in his "cool smooth guy" facade. He broke out of his silence in a shocked jump before he proceeded to clear his throat.
"Erhm, I think I'm going to stay with Feliciano... Just for safety reasons" Freja noticed that on the last line, he made an upwards movement with his eyebrows whilst he looked over to her, to show that he was hinting at something, but she immedietly understood what it meant. Gilbert may be good friends with this guy, but him just being in their house all of a sudden could be suspicious, so he never let his guard down. She knew he wasn't a naive idiot, 'nor a selfish idiot for that matter.
"Fine, suit yourself. I'm going to go downstairs." She couldn't get a good view at the alarm clock on the desk, but from what she could assume, it was 6 AM. It was time for her to get up and get ready anyways. She grabbed a hold of the crutches once again, walked outside the room and down the hallway which had about two paintings, both of fields and flowers. There were one room as well, that was the guest room; that was where Gilbert slept. He had an entire two-mans bed for himself, but everytime she looked inside of the room, it was always tidy. She couldn't exactly say that he didn't have any manners. She continued down the short hallway, as she reached the stairs. Getting down them was a struggle, and she swore that those damn crutches made is harder for her to get down. From what she could gather, she used about 10 minutes trying to get downstairs. Smooth.
Hours had passed since the Italian had entered her farmhouse, and she was still a bit drowsy from the sudden interruption of the "visit" of the Italian friend. It was now 10:23 AM, and she had just woken her twin brother up. His name was Niels, and he was a bartender, which made him always only work late. At day, he took care of the farm whilst Freja herself was on her job, but at night they always switched around. She'd always come home around 17 or 18 PM, where he would be home for about an hour or less, before then going to his job. He had a brightly caucasian skin, just like her. His hair was shorter and messier, but just like Freja, he had part of his hair covering a bit of his right eye, as well as his hair being a darker shade of brown. He wore glasses, not with square shaped glass, but more resembling a bit of a bowl, these were partially the reason people thought he was a hipster. He had a stubble as well. His clothing consisted of a grey t-shirt, with a darker grey unbuttoned cardigan, a very light grey scarf, and black pants. To be honest, he sounded quite feminine when describing him, but he had a masculine and muscular build, so he could always end up like a mix of those two.
"Freja..." She could her Niels' complaining tone from a distance as he entered the kitchen. Both the Vendelbos were obviously tired, but the male one had to get up, since he told her to remind him to wake up due to him having to leave early for his visit to his best friend, Linnea. Linnea lived in the colder district of the country, which for some reason was called a city. It was as confusing as it sounded, but nobody really questioned the government, they just got concerned for it's naming logic.
"There you are, Niels! Do you realize what time it is? You have to leave in an hour!" She pointed at the clock on her kitchen wall. Upon looking at it, Niels shot awake and stormed into his room to get dressed. Freja let out a chuckle, before she went back to make the breakfast. She was making porrigde, a common dish with oatmeals in Denmark. She thought that in case that Italian man hadn't eaten in a while, this would be a good idea to start his day with.
Actually, Freja herself was best friends with Linnea's twin, Lukas. Both the Norwegians were good friends with the Vendelbos. They had been friends ever since they were kids, and had remained close ever since. She didn't quite remember how she met the two, but what she could remember was that they met in elementary school, in what Danes call "Grade Zero", which is basically just kindergarden class. It was fond memories of those she could remember, but she was pretty sure that she must've had her diary from back then lying around somewhere.
The twin entered the room once more, before being asked if he could go get the German and Italian.
"You've got guests?" He asked with a bit of distrust in his voice, as she just shrugged it off and replied with a blunt yes.
"Okay, I'll get them." After rolling his eyes, he sighed and ran upstairs to get the two down for breakfast. Freja hoped they hadn't been up all night, and at least got some sleep. She didn't really want to deal with them falling asleep on the table. A couple of minutes passed, as the three men finally came downstairs. The male Vendelbo quickly bidded his farewell after having walked down the stairs, and grabbed his packed items to leave for the train. As he opened the door and walked outside, he quickly shouted something that caught the female's attention.
"Freja, I think you dropped a notebook out here or something." and before she could ask what kind of notebook it was, the man had already taken his leave and run towards the nearest bus stop. She told the Italian and German to take a seat and wait for her to return, and then went outside to look at the so-called notebook. She walked outside to the wild rose bush right beside the door. It seemed like there did in fact lie a notebook there. It was bound in a reddish leather, with a messy and old texture to it. It lied plastered against the red-brick wall. She took a look at the bush, and noticed that there wasn't a hole. There were no visible indications as to how the book got there,. There weren't any big marks of a sort of person having hidden in the bush, seeing no branches visible were broken off, so it must've been something only a tiny bit bigger than the notebook, or even something smaller. A curious animal must've dragged that thing there, and then left it there. She cautiously stuck her hand in the bush and took the notebook out. Upon further inspection, there were a few pages ripped out of it, about the first few pages had been ripped out. She began reading the content, and reckognized almost immedietly the Swedish, the words the person had chosen to write making, and the handwriting. This sparked her curiosity as she continued to read the notebook, seemingly belonging to Berwald. The more she read, the more she realized that this was a notebook containing descriptions of victims that had died due to the mafia, and it became more unsettling when she came to the part describing people that had only recently died, such as Vincent (who wasn't dead anyways, but the mafia couldn't know that this fast, could they?). As she turned the page, she realized it was describing a victim who hasn't even died yet. It was horribly confusing at first, but upon reaching the date of death, as listed at the bottom-right corner of the page, she realized that this wasn't crazy talk or someone they assumed to be dead. These were people they were planning on killing. She had just gotten the key to keeping the future victims of the mafia safe. She quickly ran inside to the two, running into one or two kitchen chairs on the way.
"Freja, what's wrong?" The German stood up as he looked at the Vendelbo, who was filled with new energy from her discovery.
"Take a look at this thing! I can't be a hundred percent sure just yet if it's actually legitimately the mafia's belonging, but it seems to be." She suddenly realised it may have been intentionally put there by one of the mafia members at night, when Gilbert had entered the house with Feliciano, but she remembered that Gilbert described that they didn't see him, and drove right past the house. She went back to the curious animal explanation for now.
"Oh, a notebook?" Gilbert sounded a bit dissappointed at the discovery, but Freja shrugged it off and told them they had to phone Aino, who might want to know about this. So she reached into her pocket and grabbed her phone. It was nothing new, but it certainly still worked. She dialed the number and waited for the Finnish woman to accept the call.
"Hey Freja, what's up?" Freja always seemed to forget that Aino had newer technology, and therefore could see it was her calling immedietly.
"We just found something, and it may just spark a bit of your interest."
