The Lost Village(57)

“I had it in my rucksack,” says Max. “A couple of protein bars, too, if you want.”

I put down the bottle.

“What do you want, Max?” I ask.

My question comes out harsher than I’d intended, but I don’t regret it.

“I just wanted to check you were OK,” he says.

“No,” I say. “I’m not OK. None of this is OK. You can go now. Here.”

I try to hand him the bottle, but he refuses to take it. There’s some tension around his mouth, and his big, sorry cow eyes look out at me from under a furrowed brow. His eyebrows are very thin, I notice. I’ve never realized that before. They look expressionless, like the painted lines on a doll’s face.

“Are you mad at me?” he asks.

All I can do is stare.

Mad?” I say, with a scratchy laugh that edges toward a sob.

“Alice, please,” he says, taking a few steps toward me, but I shake my head.

“Mad doesn’t even come close,” I say. “I don’t get how you could do that, Max. Of everybody here…” My lips sting and fail me. I swallow.

“Of everybody here I thought you were the one I could trust, Max. OK? I thought that no matter what, at least I’d have you.”

When Max speaks, his voice is soft and reasoned. It’s a sharp contrast to my unsteady, emotional words.

“I had to say something, Alice,” he says. “I had no choice. You know I’d never want to hurt you, never. But the others deserved to know.” The corners of his mouth turn downward.

“It wasn’t my secret to tell,” I try to say. Again. Every time I say it, the words feel flimsier. Like paper folded over and over, until the fibers start to wear and tear along the fold.

“But they deserved to know,” he says. “That’s why I said it.”

Some of the things he’s saying make sense. Or at least partly: the others needed to know that Tone was sick, that she wasn’t well, wasn’t herself.

“But now they think she’s dangerous. They want to just leave her out there, and she must be so scared.…”

I shake my head.

“It’s too dangerous, Alice,” says Max. “I know you say she isn’t dangerous, but she isn’t herself. And Silvertj?rn is obviously having an effect on her. The best we can do for her is to get out of here and get help.”

He takes a cautious step toward me.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, you have to know that. I only did what had to be done.”

I don’t want to hear this. However reasonable his words sound, I can still feel his betrayal all over my body. But, then again, how can I trust my instincts? So far nothing I’ve thought has proved true.

“Come on, Alice,” he says, drawing my stiff body into a hug. He’s hot and sweaty under his dirty sweater, and the remnants of his deodorant find their way up my nose.

“We’ll be out of here in no time,” he mumbles into my shoulder while squeezing me hard. “Soon all of this will be over. We’ll get through this.”

I let myself be hugged, but can’t quite bring myself to hug him back.

Eventually he lets go, then steps back, looks at me, and smiles.

“Hungry?” he asks. “Let me go get you one of the protein bars.”

I swallow and nod.

“Yeah,” I say. “Thank you.”

He leaves, closing the door behind him.

I go back to my chair and sit down. The distaste I’ve just stifled has coagulated into something stiff and cold that makes my stomach ache. That or it’s just the hunger.

Something pricks me from below. Cursing, I stand up and feel the seat. Nothing there.

Then I realize I can still feel the same pricking feeling. It’s in my back pocket.

I reach around and pull out a bundle of messy, crinkled sheets of paper.

Oh. Of course. The papers from the chapel, the ones I found at this very table, half a lifetime ago. The ones I took from the van. My fingers blunt and unwieldy, I unfold and inspect them. At the top is that strange scribble, those clumsily childish doodles of spirals and stick figures. The papers have been practically destroyed by my rough treatment, and, as absurd as it is at a time like this, it pains me to see how badly they’ve fared.

I hear the faint sounds of Max chatting to Robert out in the church, but in here everything is quiet. The light has shifted, from an afternoon sharpness to a golden early evening glow.

Wait.

I force myself to focus on them, those clumpy stick figures. They look like they were drawn in crayon, with an awkward hand. I stare at them.

One of them has a big, black mouth like a hole. A void.

The windows above the sink face east, toward the slowly setting sun. Over the graveyard.

I look from the papers to the nondescript table by which we found them, vaguely aware of a mumbled conversation out in the church, and of an angel-faced man who sat at this very table some sixty years ago, writing and rewriting his sermon.

How could that drawing have gotten bundled up with his papers?

I know where I’ve seen those drawings before. That clumsy style that looks like a child’s, but isn’t.

I saw these stick figures this morning, on Birgitta’s table. She must have drawn these.

But as far as we know, Birgitta never strayed more than a few yards from her hut.