Waiting for Willa/A walk to the hills of the dreamtime/T.R./Heartsblood/The witness [antikvár]

CHAPTER 1The somber Swedish countryside tipped beneath the wings of the plane. There were endless spruce forests lighted at intervals by autumn-tinted birches, outcrops of rocks like bare bones, small, dark red houses that looked as if they had been dropped haphazardly into the forest.It was too late to read Willa's letter again. In any case Grace almost knew it by heart. First came her cousin's account of life in Stockholm, written in her usual compulsive way. The people she had met, the parties she had been to, even the weatherit was all treated with drama.Willa, with her skinny body and sharp, eager face, had always wanted to be larger than life, so she made all the events with which she was associated subjects of exaggerated importance. She is very different from me, Grace thought, with my sober ways.Only Grace knew the tension that often lay beneath Willa's gaiety. That was why, after reading her apparently happy letter, Grace had felt so disturbed by the last brief paragraph:All the same, I must tell you that a situation has developed. Don't say, doesn't it always, because this one is different. I've made a decision, but I'm not sure if it's the right one. Yet there is simply no other way. . . .Wilhelmina9