The Lost Village(85)

Fear snatches hold of her, and Elsa feels herself give way to it. She looks at Aina, begs her:

“Aina, don’t do this, don’t let them do this to Birgitta. She’s innocent, she hasn’t done anything wrong. Let us go, please.”

Aina just looks at her. There is no life in her eyes.

And then she smiles. The carbon copy of his little grin.

Elsa flies around and tears open the door, but the Sundin boys are waiting outside. Frank and G?sta, standing silently side by side. They both have the same straggly brown hair and small eyes. Broad shoulders, big hands.

Behind them the congregation is waiting. A sea of staring eyes. Panic floods into Elsa’s pumping blood, merging them all into a single, malevolent mass before her eyes. An impenetrable wall of hate.

She backs into the room, looking around wildly. There’s no other exit in there, only the shell of the girl who had once been her daughter, and the pastor.

One of his hands is resting on the table, where a few stray sheets of paper lie. Elsa’s eyes catch on the top one. It’s a drawing, in crayons. Clumpy figures in different colors. And then spirals, jagged and uneven, running into each other.

The room starts to spin.

Elsa looks up.

“It was you,” she says, but hardly any sound comes out. It’s no more than an exhalation.

“Frank,” the pastor says softly, “G?sta. Would you please take Fru Kullman to the cellar under the parsonage? So that she can calm down.”

All that Elsa can see is little Kristina. Little Kristina and her newborn, cloudy dark-blue eyes.

Will they darken to Birgitta’s bottomless brown? Or will they slowly but surely fade to her father’s light storm-cloud gray?

“It was you,” Elsa says again, and this time it’s audible. But it makes no difference. Rough hands have already locked on her arms, restraining her.

Elsa’s eyes flit across the horde of faces, angels no more. They look like evil spirits, quiet and glaring.

For a second she finds Staffan in the crowd.

Her lips form a mute: “Please.”

He looks down.

She hears Birgitta’s cries grow to a scream outside the church.

Then it cuts off abruptly, and silence is all that’s left.





NOW



I’m still bent forward on the seat when I hear a knock at the door.

I sit up quickly and throw a glance at Tone in the corner. She doesn’t seem to have paid it any notice.

“Come in,” I say.

It’s Robert. He looks around the room and then at me.

“Alice,” he says. He stops in the doorway, a touch too big for it, and I get up and walk over to him.

He herds me out of the room and carefully closes the door behind him.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Max has been gone a really long time,” he says.

“OK,” I say.

“The church is only five minutes away.” The corners of his mouth draw stiff lines that will one day be etched permanently into his cheeks.

“He’s probably just…” I shake my head. Think of the look on Max’s face. The disappointment verging on disgust.

You’re so fucking selfish.

“I think he just wanted to be alone,” I manage to squeeze out. “To process everything. Calm down.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Robert says, but that stressed, anxious look doesn’t shift from his face. “I just thought…”

He shoves his hands deep into his pockets.

“We can go look for him anyway,” I say. “If it’ll make you feel better.”

“Yeah,” he says and nods. A hint of relief. “I just think … it’d be better if we were all here. Together.”

I put my hand on his arm and nod.

“Let’s go get him, then,” I say.

“What do we do with her?” Robert asks, nodding at the door.

“We can … lock the door,” I say, even though the thought of locking Tone up makes my stomach turn. “It’s not like we’ll be long. Like you said, the church is just around the corner.”

I turn the doorknob carefully and open the door.

“Tone?” I say. “We’re stepping out for a little while. But we’ll be back soon, OK? With something to eat.”

She neither moves nor responds.

I swallow.

“Birgitta,” I say.

This gets a response. A flash of eyes through her fringe. A short, vague sound that seems to come from deep in her throat.

My stomach turns. I remember what she said about those weeks when reality was shut off, like a drape pulled over her mind, when she disappeared inside herself, into her own world.

I thought I was in Silvertj?rn. I heard voices. Sometimes I heard Birgitta.

Her grandmother, though she didn’t know it at the time.

Is she hearing her voice now, too?

Or does she think she’s Birgitta?

The question vibrates on my lips, but the moment passes.

I close the door again and turn the key.

“OK,” I say to Robert. “Let’s go.”

He hangs back slightly, a small furrow between his light eyebrows.

“What did you just call her?” he asks.

I meet his gaze for a second and then look away.