The Lost Village(91)

Or maybe it’s just the birthmark. Maybe that’s what makes the pieces of the puzzle start to fall into place.

“Aina?” I say.





NOW



Aina’s eyes rivet me to the spot. I think I see something like surprise on her face, but it vanishes just as quickly as it appeared.

“You’re infected,” she mutters to herself, then she repeats it, drawing out the syllables: “In-fec-ted.”

What we’re supposedly infected with I don’t know, but I assume it’s nothing good.

I gulp. The muscles in my throat feel sore and strained.

“I’m Margareta’s granddaughter,” I say. “Margareta is my grandma.”

She licks her lips again, almost compulsively.

“Margareta?” she repeats.

“Your big sister,” I whisper.

She seems to go still, and for a second I think I’ve reached her.

But then she clenches her jaw and bares her teeth. Her heavy eyebrows pull together, the furrow between them forming a fissure down her face.

“She left me here,” she says, with a whininess that soon turns to fury. “She left me here! She abandoned me. I wrote to her, but she never came.”

The last part is a scratchy whisper that ends as a sigh.

“I’m here,” I say. “I came here. To find you.”

There is something of a sadness about her now, a helplessness that doesn’t fit with her appearance. She looks at me, and in that haggard face with its sickly, yellowed eyes, I see my own light-brown eyes staring back at me.

“I’m here,” I say again.

I hold my breath. Force myself not to shrink back, but to look at her.

Her face hardens to a mask of carved wood.

“Infected,” she hisses again. “You’re all infected. By her.” Her knife presses even harder against Tone’s neck, and I see the skin beneath it give way, see a hypnotically red drop of blood make its way down her neck. A broken whimper leaves her throat.

“It’s not her,” I start to babble, “it’s not Birgitta—Birgitta’s dead. She’s been dead for sixty years. That’s not her, Aina, her name’s Tone, and she’s sick—”

“One more word and I slit her throat and send her back to the one she serves,” Aina says, cutting me off. That eerie calm has returned to her.

I shut my mouth.

“You think I don’t recognize her?” she asks, laughing that crackling parody of a laugh again. “You think I can’t see her filth in that body? I know. I’ve been waiting. Oh, have I been waiting.”

Her head twitches slightly.

“You’re going to give them back to me,” she says into Tone’s ear. “Hear me, witch? I’m going to take you to them, and then you’re going to give them back to me. It’s over now.”

The sunset outside has started to turn into twilight. The last of the pulsating redness starts to ebb out of the room, replaced by a cooler purple. Night is drawing in.

“Give what back?” a whisper rushes out of my throat. “What is she going to give back to you?”





THEN



Frank doesn’t need to pull or drag her anymore; Elsa’s feet are moving on their own. She is walking five steps behind the pastor, between Dagny and Ingrid, and her eyes are glued to their feet. They are at the head of the congregation, and to an outsider they might look like his most devoted followers, the ones honored enough to follow in his wake. As opposed to prisoners, crushed and broken.

Playthings.

Elsa has always believed herself a strong person, one who resists, who stands up for what’s right. And where that has been proven true to some extent, by now she has no fight left in her. Only emptiness.

She has lost any illusions of escape, of persuading any of them. There is no mercy left in Silvertj?rn. The last of her hope died with Birgitta in the square.

However hard Elsa tries, she can’t stop herself from hearing Birgitta’s dying wails. Though she had closed her eyes tightly, the sounds she had not been able to shut out.

How long does he plan to keep them alive? A few days? A week? She and Ingrid and Dagny are all still alive because the pastor takes pleasure in seeing them defeated, that much she understands. But sooner or later he will tire of it. The best they can hope for is to not end up like Birgitta. The best they can hope for is a quick death.

By now night has fallen, and darkness has sunk over the village. Elsa hardly notices when the road is replaced by a beaten track, the shrubbery around them by tall pines. With heavy, lumbering steps she trudges over roots and moss, hearing the rest of the village marching in silence behind them. There is reverence in the air.

The forest envelops them like a mother. In it their true church awaits.

The pastor looks over his shoulder. He catches Elsa’s gaze, and his eyes gleam like silver. There is nothing human behind them.

The realization that comes to her is more of a caress than a blow. After all that has happened, it’s almost a relief.

She will never leave this forest.





NOW



“You,” she says to me, then nods at the doorway. “You first.”

I turn around. Robert catches my eye and I hesitate, but then I hear Aina’s dry voice behind me. She sounds calm and slightly pleased.