The Lost Village(64)

Her face has the same distinctive squareness as Grandma’s, with surprisingly full lips in the middle of her face—the same lips that, on closer inspection, you can see an inkling of in Aina’s. A small, almost mischievous smile plays on Elsa’s lips, which stands out because it feels so at odds with the rest of her appearance. Her hair is styled in stiff curls that seem to be there for the sake of the photo alone, and below her fluffy fringe her light, steady eyes look straight down the camera, firm and direct. Her hands sit on Aina’s shoulders. My great-grandmother’s hands, almost identical to my grandma’s, with a simple, silvery wedding ring on one finger.

Those very same fingers marked every bill paid with a neat little “paid.” May 1958. July 1958. November 1958.

Then other notes start appearing.

“Late.”

“Deferred.”

“Deferred.”

“Cancelled.”

On the final two bills there are no notes at all.

I sit and stare at the thin, sepia-brown sheets of paper spread out on my lap. My fatigue is making reality throb.

Below the bills are the three sheets of paper I found in the underwear drawer. They’re in pristine condition.

The handwriting on them is the same as the small notes from the bills, but it looks different. The letters are smaller but more spaced out, the lines are flurried and uneven, and the ink is smudged in a few places.

There’s no date at the top of the page, nor any greeting, so it’s only when I hunch over to squint at the words that I realize it’s a letter.

Margareta, I’m writing this to you for I feel I must. I see no other option.

I know that you are busy and have a lot on your plate, with a baby on the way. I know that you don’t have much space. But please: take your father, your sister, Birgitta, and me in with you in Stockholm. I hope it will only be for a short while, but I am asking you, as your mother, to help us in our time of need.

The situation here is worse than I could ever have imagined. The entire village is all but entranced, your sister included. They are treating the pastor as though he were God the Father himself, although I’m starting to suspect he’s more a demon in human guise. He has stirred up the congregation to the brink of madness. I have heard them speaking in tongues during services, and every evening at sunset the drone of their songs rings through town.

There are only a few of us left who have not fallen in thrall to him. Your sister is his right hand. I’m losing her. She has moved in to the church, where she now sleeps. I fear that the venom he has filled her ears with has turned her against us completely. I must get her out of here before it is too late.

I understand that you must have your concerns about Birgitta. I know that it’s an additional burden, especially given the way she is, but I refuse to leave her here. Pastor Mattias and his congregation hate her. They say that she is a witch and succubus, that she is possessed by demons and serves the devil. I fear what they will do to her if I leave her here. She would never be able to defend herself. God knows if any of the rest of us could.

I’m not even sure if they follow the Christian doctrine anymore. They have started holding mass in



Here the letter comes to an abrupt end. No period, no sign-off. As though she were interrupted mid-sentence, then shoved the letter at the bottom of her underwear drawer and never cared to finish it.

Or never could.





THEN



She hesitates, her pen poised, before lowering it again.

I’m not even sure if they follow the Christian doctrine anymore, she writes. When the words finally come, they do so in a swinging, flurried hand that is quite unlike her own. She doesn’t know how much she should tell Margareta.

Margareta has always been like Elsa: decisive. If Elsa says too much she fears it will bring Margareta storming up to Silvertj?rn herself, but at the same time she has to say something. She must tell someone what has been happening. She can’t take this anymore.

Until a few short days ago, Elsa had thought she could get through this herself, that it would pass.

But then she had come home one day to find Staffan waiting for her at the kitchen table. He wanted to talk to her, he said. His eyes were glassy but he didn’t smell of drink, and initially that had been a relief. For a moment Elsa had hoped it meant he had pulled himself together, grasped the seriousness of their situation.

Elsa feels almost physically sick when she recalls the hope that budded within her as she sat down opposite her husband at the kitchen table, her hands clasped in front of her, the air thick with the heady scent of the late summer heat.

When Staffan told her that it had to stop, Elsa couldn’t agree more. She was about to say that they had to do something about Aina, to get her to see sense, but he went on before she could get a word out:

“You must be reasonable—stop challenging the pastor,” he said. “Folk have started talking, Elsie. Enough, now. Enough.”

In that instant she had felt her heart split in two. He had looked at her with flat, angry eyes, as though looking not at her but at a stranger. Someone who meant nothing to him. Someone he scorned.

The next night he hadn’t come home at all.

When evensong had swept over Silvertj?rn, Elsa had thought, impossible as it was, that she could hear Staffan’s voice among them.

They have started holding mass in