The Lost Village(22)

Besides the old posters, desk, cabinet, and bed, the room is empty. It seems too big a space for so little furniture, and its emptiness makes it feel even bigger.

“This must be where they found her,” I say. Without thinking, I’ve taken a few steps into the center of the room. I’m vaguely aware that my heart is beating hard, pounding in my chest.

“This must be where they found the baby—your mom,” I say, looking over my shoulder. “Don’t you think?”

Tone has stopped in the doorway. Her pupils have contracted in the bright sunshine, and there are beads of sweat on her forehead.

“Tone?” I ask uncertainly.

She lifts the camera to her eyes, but then lowers it again. Then she says, quietly:

“You take this one, Alice. I can’t…”

She squats down, so quickly and so weightlessly that it catches me off guard, and places her beloved system camera on the dusty floor. Then she stands up and walks back into the hallway.

“Tone!” I call after her. I’m about to follow her, but then hesitate.

She wants some time alone, to compose herself, calm down. She isn’t like me—she doesn’t want hugs or attention in her weaker moments.

“OK,” I mutter to myself. “Fine.”

I pick up the camera and look through the lens. Tone has taught me the basics of how to use it, but if I’m honest, I never expected to need to.

I turn back toward the doors. Should I go after her, just in case?

I should have known this would be hard for her. Should have asked. But sometimes she can be such a closed book.

No, I tell myself. Take some pictures and leave her be. That’s what she wants. In a few minutes she’ll have calmed down and we can head over to the church.

I go further into the room and take a few random shots, knowing all too well that when Tone looks at them later she’ll find fault with all of them.

The light is elegant and dainty, and bounces off the dancing dust particles that my footsteps have stirred up. No one has set foot in here in almost sixty years. The team the mining company sent here in the nineties were under instructions to survey the land and perform tests, but not to go inside any buildings. We have their findings on the state of the bridges, roads, and bedrock back then, but nothing about the village itself.

The April sun has started to climb to its peak. I hold the camera up to my eyes and take a picture of the village outside, breathing in the scent of the approaching spring. And something else, beneath it. Something like rust, but not quite.

When I tilt the lens to take a shot of the bed, I do a double take. My hand hesitates above the yellowing sheets. The top of the sheet has a simple lace edging, stiff and paper thin.

I pull it down sharply.

Beneath the sheets, the mattress is soiled with layer upon layer of rusty stains. Blood.

For a few seconds, I just stare at them, but then the resounding silence is broken by a sudden crash behind my back and the sound of something breaking. And a prolonged, ear-splitting scream.





NOW



“Lean into me more,” I say to Tone. “Don’t put any weight on that foot, I can support you.”

Tone gives a steely nod. Her mask is pulled down so it dangles around her neck, and I see the muscles in her jaw tense up with every short, limping step her injured foot has to make across the cobbles.

Max sees us coming from afar. I wonder if he’s been looking out for us, because he’s with us in just a few seconds.

“What happened?” he asks. His question is directed at me, but Tone is the one who answers.

“Went through a step,” she says sharply. “In the school. The wood was rotten.”

“Is it her foot?” he asks.

I nod.

“Can you find her something to sit on?”

Max sprints off in the direction of the vans before I’ve even finished my sentence. He roots around in the back of our van and pulls out a cooler box that he sets down on the cobbles. I help Tone to sit down. Her forehead is shiny despite the cool air, and a twisting blue vein has emerged on her temple.

I sit down on the cold cobblestones in front of her.

“We need to get your boot off,” I say. She closes her eyes and nods.

“Wait,” says Max behind me, and I turn around. He pulls a small, silvery pack of pills out of his pocket, then presses two out into his palm and hands them to Tone.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Tylenol,” Max says.

Tone shakes her head and hands them back to him, the movement making her grimace in pain.

“We have to get the boot off now,” she says firmly. “It won’t kick in fast enough, anyway.”

“But—”

“Could you fetch the first aid kit?” I ask, cutting him off. “It’s in Emmy and Robert’s van. Check the front seat.”

Max is thrown for a second, but then he nods.

“Sure,” he says. “I’m on it.”

The moisture from the moss between the cobblestones has started to soak through the knees of my jeans. I look at Tone’s chunky boot and then up at her face. Her lips are pale.

“We can check if there’s anything else you can take,” I say.

She shakes her head.

“I don’t know what painkillers will work,” she says. “Just get it off.”