Read Online The Devil's Sanctuary by Marie Hermanson - Free Book Online

and wanted to become a chemical engineer. But first she wanted to get some experience and see a bit of the world. She was hating it and wanted to go home. She had one day off each week, but it was hard to make friends—she didn’t know where to go. And to her despair she had discovered that she was bad at English. She’d earned top grades at school, but the people here didn’t sound anything like they did in British television programs, and she could hardly understand a word.
    Daniel had asked why she didn’t just go home if she was having such a bad time. She had straightened her back, stuck out her chin, and said she wasn’t going to give up. She never gave up. She was her parents’ only child and they were very proud of her.
    “It’s tough being an only child,” she said. “Sometimes I wish I had brothers and sisters. Have you got any?”
    To his surprise Daniel heard himself say no. He didn’t know why, but at that moment he didn’t feel like going into the whole business of being a twin. It was a subject that always drew attention to itself and eclipsed everything else.
    “So you know what it’s like,” she said.
    They spent a long time talking, maybe a couple of hours. The girl said she hadn’t talked so much in months. She was evidently very lonely. No boyfriend, no female friends.
    There was something special about her. Something fragile but also very strong and unyielding. A girl of glass and steel, Daniel had thought. She had the sort of very pale eyelashes that most girls would have made darker with mascara, but she wasn’t wearing any makeup at all. She was quite excitable. Her pale face would turn bright pink and her pupils would expand and reveal a blackness that was both enticing and scary.
    To his astonishment Daniel realized that he was falling in love. In a painful, fateful, and wonderfully absurd way that was entirely new to him. He felt great respect for this girl, almost adoration, and at the same time a desire that threatened to burn him up.
    He had drunk a lot of beer over the course of the evening, and when he had to excuse himself to go to the restroom, he had a chance to think through what seemed to be happening. What was he going to do? Should he ask for her phone number? Would they stay in touch after he went back to Sweden? Maybe he could move here, study at some English university or get a job, washing up or something? His thoughts were racing round his head as he stood in the jostling queue for the toilet. He was worried about having to wait so long. She wouldn’t think he’d just left, would she? What if she got tired and went home?
    When he finally got back he saw that his seat was taken. Max was sitting there talking to the girl. He had left his friends and come back. Presumably he had been standing somewhere in the crowd at the bar watching Daniel and the girl. And had taken the chance to step into his place when he went to the restroom.
    The girl was completely absorbed in the conversation, laughing out loud. Daniel would hardly have recognized her, she suddenly seemed much prettier. He realized he had never seen her laugh. During her long conversation with Daniel she hadn’t laughed once. But Max was evidently saying something extremely funny, because the whole of her thin, pale face was transformed by laughter.
    And then, still laughing, the pair of them had stood up and left the pub together without so much as a glance in Daniel’s direction.
    With his heart pounding with humiliation and anger he ordered another beer, downed it, then went off to another pub, the one he had wanted to go in to begin with, which looked nice and old-fashioned. But a bouncer had stopped him, and with a frosty look had uttered the peculiar words, “You’re never coming back in here, you know that. Not after what you did.”
    Taken aback, Daniel went to another pub, where he was let in without any problem. He drank until he could hardly stand, then, hours later, took a taxi back to