The Lost Village(84)

He has been her entire adult life. He is the father of her daughters. And now he’s lying there among them, a frozen angel, and she realizes that she has lost him.

Elsa has never hated anyone—has never understood how one human could hurt another—but in that instant she wishes she could kill Pastor Mattias with her own bare hands. She would like to press the life out of him, see the fear in his eyes.

One of them stirs slightly in their sleep, and Elsa tries to pull herself together. She can grieve later. She has to find Aina, that’s all that matters now.

But, try as she might, she can’t see her.

If Aina isn’t here then where could she be? Could she have come to her senses?

Elsa doesn’t let herself hope. She knows that can’t be.

Then her eyes land on the door on the other side of the church. The door to the chapel.

It’s closed.

Elsa creeps along the wall so as not to wake any of them. A few of them stir or sigh in their sleep, but they must have grown used to the sounds of people creeping around, after days or weeks of sleeping next to each other, breathing each other’s breaths.

Elsa reaches the chapel door and puts her hand on the handle. The metal feels cold against her palm.

She prays a silent prayer not to find what she fears most of all.

But Elsa is no longer convinced anyone is listening.

She opens the door. It swings in without a sound.

The first thing she sees is Aina.

Her thick, dark hair hangs like a veil across her face. She is lying curled up on the floor, in front of the little sofa. Elsa doesn’t recognize the dress she is wearing: white and shift-like, like an old-fashioned nightdress, with neither embellishment nor embroidery. It makes Elsa contract.

Pastor Mattias is sitting on the sofa.

His beautiful gray eyes are fixed on Elsa, and he looks completely relaxed. As though he’s been expecting her.

“Good morning,” he says.

Elsa stands completely still. For a long time she doesn’t know what to say.

“Good morning,” she eventually replies.

The pastor’s eyes move to her bag and then back to her face. Elsa sees there’s no point in trying to lie.

“So the day has come,” he says calmly.

Aina stirs slightly. The sight of her there, asleep at his feet, fills Elsa with a fury she hadn’t known herself capable of.

“Aina’s coming with me,” she says, her voice like ice and steel in her throat. “Aina’s coming with me, and you can’t stop me.”

“Aina is a grown woman,” says the pastor, while Aina rubs her eyes and props herself up on her elbows. “She can do as she chooses.”

Aina sits up and stares at Elsa, as though she has seen a ghost.

“Mother?” she says, confused.

“Aina,” says Elsa, her eyes still glued to the pastor. “We’re going to Stockholm. To Margareta.”

Aina’s eyes flit from Elsa to the pastor in confusion. He places his hand on her head. It isn’t the sight of his big, bony hand against her silky-smooth crown that cuts at Elsa’s chest; it’s the look she gives him. As though he were the sun itself.

“Don’t touch her!” Elsa exclaims. She can hear how shrill and hysterical she sounds, as though she’s lost all reason. A mad old woman.

When Aina looks back at Elsa, her gaze is blank and dead.

“This is my family now,” she says, and it isn’t Elsa’s Aina speaking, not the Aina who begged, cried, and pleaded for one of the neighbor’s kittens when she was four, not the Aina who huddles up to Elsa so that she can brush her hair, not the Aina who keeps binders of bookmarks under her bed.

She’s a stranger.

The pastor’s hand is still on her head. He looks completely relaxed.

“I take it she has had the child?” the pastor asks Elsa, and she can’t understand his words. Can’t register them.

“Had … h-h-had the…” Elsa stutters, just as G?ran once used to do. Her mouth is completely dry.

“Has the witch given birth to her devil-spawn?” he asks again, calmly and quietly. As though enquiring when lunch would be served.

His eyes. Those damned tempest eyes.

They are laughing at her.

“Did you think we didn’t know?” he asks.

She doesn’t understand—doesn’t understand how they could possibly know. They had done everything right. Has somebody told them—Dagny? Ingrid?

Elsa can’t believe that of either of them. She refuses to.

A sound outside the church makes her jump, and she looks around. The sound is familiar, as familiar as her daughters’ voices.

“Ah,” says Pastor Mattias. “They have returned.”

It’s Birgitta, and she’s howling in panic. Elsa can hear it through the church and the closed door.

She whips around. The pastor has stood up, and their faces are level. Something terrible is lurking in the corners of his eyes.

“I’m afraid we can’t let you leave for Stockholm just yet,” he says to Elsa. “Not while you’re so upset. It would be better if you calmed down a little first.”

“You can’t stop me,” she says, trying to find strength once again in her rage. But all she can find is the start of a bottomless fear.

The pastor doesn’t reply. He just smiles. A small, cruel smile.