Wolf Winter

by Cecilia Ekbäck

  The priest glanced at her. “He talked to me too. He said you all wanted it for the sake of ensuring calm, but, I think, he probably just sees a chance to be in charge.”

  Most likely, she thought. If only he didn’t do it by encouraging fear. We are newcomers, the priest and I. We don’t understand why the others are so fearful.

  “Is there a record of Elin’s hearing?” she asked.

  “I haven’t come across one, but we can talk to the old priest’s widow. She was here at the time.”

  She nodded.

  “The King is requesting twenty men for the army from our parish this spring,” the priest said.

  Twenty people. And why was he telling her? It was a while before she dared look at him.

  “I know there is no choice.” The priest was still staring into the fire. He shrugged and looked tired and gray.

  “There’s been war for a long time,” she said.

  He shrugged again.

  “The kings did not always decide everything,” she said. “There was a time when they listened to the people.”

  Their eyes caught, and neither of them moved for a long time. The skin underneath his eyes was thin. He had tiny wrinkles at the inner corners.

  “We’re on dangerous grounds,” he said with a quiet voice.

  She found it was difficult to breathe.

  “It’s time for me to go,” she said and rose.

  “I’ll carry her home for you.”

  He lifted Dorotea up with his hands under her arms and arranged her so that her head leaned toward his shoulder and wrapped his arms around her.

  Maija took her scarf, covered her daughter, and tucked the edges in toward the priest’s chest. She saw his coat and lifted it from the back of the chair and hung it over his shoulders. She avoided meeting his eyes.

  Outside, in wisps of unearthly greens and blues, Northern lights twirled around the stars. At places they seemed to hang down to the earth, like fairies’ curtains.

  “What did my daughter give you?” she asked, and added, “You don’t have to answer.”

  “Feathers,” he said. “She said it was wings for the bird for whom the hawk’s plumage was too heavy.”

  Maija loved so much she hurt. What on this earth did I do to deserve this child? she thought.

  As they came close to the house, Maija saw that Daniel had lit large tar torches by the four corners. They would burn the whole night long and, supposedly, keep them safe from evil. She didn’t scoff or get annoyed. She didn’t mind at all.

  The crowd of people was folding away, creating a path for him to pass. The priest thought of Moses in the Red Sea. It could be lonely being a priest. He’d told Maija he’d meet her at the market. It would be better if people thought they had just bumped into each other, was what he’d thought. Why would he even be thinking about that?

  He noticed her before she saw him, pausing by one of the stands, pointing at something, her hair glowing white in the darkness. Before he could catch it, his heart soared in his chest and then he felt a pang of pain. He stopped. He should go back home. But if he didn’t keep his word, she’d probably come and find him.

  “Good morning, priest,” the merchant said, but looked at Maija, eyes gleaming.

  Maija didn’t acknowledge the priest’s arrival.

  “The carpet,” she said and pointed.

  “This one?” The merchant turned and lifted it up with both hands. Sunshine and shiny cream, flickering orange in the light of the torches. The merchant unfolded it but didn’t offer it for her to feel. She might be attractive, but in the merchant’s mind she was only a peasant, the priest thought, and felt a stitch of anger.

  “It is valuable?” Maija asked.

  The tradesman licked his lips. “It comes from the trade routes of the East. Trust me, you cannot afford it.”

  “Then I guess you are charging too much for your trinkets,” Maija said and winked.

  The merchant raised his hand and touched his heart. He was laughing.

  Maija turned to the priest. She sparkled with cold.

  “Are you ready?” he asked.

  He walked ahead of her. He lengthened his steps, forcing her to hurry to keep up. Good, he thought. That should show her. Show her what? He didn’t understand himself. They reached the vicarage at the side of the square opposite the church. He entered without knocking. A maid met them in the hallway. The priest handed her his fur. Maija shook her head.

  “I’ll tell her you are here,” the maid said and showed them into one of the rooms.

  Maija was looking around. The priest tried to see what she saw. The tall, iron-framed windows that stretched to the ceiling. The long brown silk curtains. The walls, stone, chalked crispy white. The two chairs by the fire, the settle, the small wooden table.

  “Sofia is the widow of the former priest,” he said.

  Maija glanced at him.

  The door opened. Sofia smiled when she saw him, and then there was no more than a flutter, but it was there: a hesitation as she noticed Maija. Her dress hissed as she walked to stand by his side. Her blonde hair curled by her ears and fell in a thick torrent down her shoulders. The skin on the hand that touched his arm glowed, its nails pale and short. There was a summery smell of roses.

  “I am Sofia,” she said to Maija.

  “Maija.” Maija nodded. Her mouth was knotted. This time the priest knew what she was not looking at: her own gray jumper, frayed at the sleeves, the rough skin on the back of her hands, her black, thick woolen skirt, her stitched leather shoes.

  Maija untied her scarf with one hand and pulled it off her head.

  Sofia’s hand was still holding onto his sleeve. It took all his willpower not to shake it off.

  “Maija is from Blackåsen,” the priest said. “We came to ask you to tell us more about Elin’s hearing.”

  “Why?”

  “Just to be certain it didn’t have anything to do with her husband’s death.”

  “Aha.” Sofia removed her hand. The priest exhaled. She walked away to open the door and say something to the maid, then returned to her guests. “Please sit down,” she said and pointed to the fire.

  Sofia took a seat on the settle. The priest sat down in one of the armchairs. Sofia gave him a quick glance, then spread her dress wider. Maija sat down at the edge of the other chair.

  “Elin’s enquiry …” Sofia said. She put her hands in her lap. “What would you like to know?”

  The priest shrugged. “How it arose, what happened … all of it.”

  “Hm,” Sofia said and looked to the roof as if gathering her thoughts. “Well, Elin always kept to herself, held herself apart. I don’t think any one of us really knew her. I had heard she used herbs and read over wounds, but …” Sofia shrugged. “She was first accused by a settler from Blackåsen. She helped to deliver his calf. They didn’t see eye to eye about something, and two days later the calf died.”

  A calf was valuable, the priest thought. It would have been hard to accept that it had just died.

  “From there, it escalated. One of the night man’s sons said he’d seen Elin talk to her horse. He said the horse bent down for her to mount it. She was seen walking on water down by the Poor’s Bridge …”

  Oh God. The priest had heard similar stories a hundred times.

  “There was no stopping things. Every day there were new accusations. It was like people had waited for the opportunity of having someone to blame.”

  “Who was the settler?” Maija asked.

  “What?”

  “The settler whose calf died?”

  “His name was Eronen. He is long gone now.”

  Maija exhaled and her face lightened.

  Sofia looked at her and raised her brows.

  “That explains things,” Maija said. “Eronen is our uncle. He didn’t tell us this. Didn’t think we’d go through with trading our homestead for his if we knew there had been any problems, most likely. I am surprised he dared to accuse Eriksson’s w
ife. How did Eriksson take it?”

  “He stormed into my husband’s office and demanded he annul the hearing. Luckily, Karl-Erik … the bishop … had already arrived, otherwise I don’t know what Eriksson would have done.

  “It was the strangest thing,” Sofia continued. “The hearing went on for three days. It was very frightening. The first two days, as soon as anyone spoke against Elin, Eriksson counter-accused them. … It was stated that Lisbet could identify sorceresses by seeing some sort of light, and she was adamant Elin was one of them. People told stories of all the things Elin had done. … Yet on the morning of the third day the bishop said what he’d heard was not enough to order a trial. He was closing the hearing down. And that’s when Eriksson stood up and insisted the trial go ahead. He said he wanted Elin exonerated rather than always having suspicion surrounding her.”

  “Really?” the priest asked. “He was taking a big risk.”

  “How did people react?” Maija asked.

  “We were all stunned. Elin just stared at her husband.”

  “And the bishop?” the priest asked.

  “At first he turned white. He stumbled on his words. But from then on, the hearing was like a battle between the two of them, Eriksson arguing for a trial, the bishop against.”

  “How did it end?” Maija asked.

  “In the afternoon Eriksson stood up and said that he had just ensured they looked into the issue properly. He said he didn’t want to have Elin go through the ordeal again.” Sofia shook her head. “The nerve. I would say he had become bored and wanted to go home.”

  “And the bishop accepted that?”

  “He immediately declared the hearing closed.”

  The bishop had been relieved that it was over, the priest thought.

  “Was Lisbet sick before this hearing?” Maija asked.

  Sofia frowned. “I don’t think she was.”

  Maija nodded to herself.

  “What?” the priest asked her.

  “I was just thinking that that’s why she’s so frightened now. She would have seen her illness as Elin’s retribution.”

  They were silent for a while.

  “So did something happen that made Eriksson argue for a trial and the bishop against?” Maija asked.

  Sofia shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  Frederika was washing the dishes. The mound of plates was immense. She had to wipe each wooden plate as she cleaned it. If water sat in them too long, they swelled and then cracked when they dried. She was tired. There were more dreams. They were so vivid, she woke up feeling as if she had been up all night. She kept dreaming about the man in the trench. Those dreams frightened her. It was clear to her that the shapes that followed him were there with ill intent. But the moment that clasped her heart with terror was when the walls alongside him began to crumble. It was such a widespread collapse. Each time she was left with the feeling that it was the whole world that was falling in on itself.

  There were new dreams too about Eriksson. She would see his back as he walked up the mountain toward the glade. He too was being followed. But she never saw their faces.

  She paused and rested her wrists on the edge of the hand basin. If only Jutta had still been around. She couldn’t talk to Dorotea; she was too little. Antti only wanted his spirits for his people. Her mother could have understood if she had wanted to. That thought made something stir in her chest.

  Beneath her hands the filthy water seemed to shimmer. Green-blue sunshine. Say hello to the sea, Frederika thought. “Hello water,” she whispered and spread her fingers wide, wide. The water shivered, hesitated, but then it folded away from her fingers. Frederika gasped. The water began to coo, as if she had caressed it.

  Then the door behind her opened.

  “Come,” her mother said to Dorotea.

  Frederika kicked the leg of the chair on which the wash basin was standing. Some water spilled over the edge and onto her legs. The water screeched. She threw the rag on the floor.

  And so it came about that she ended up going to the church.

  The church was empty. Or so she thought. Then, too late, she realized he was sitting on one of the benches just by her side: Fearless, his arms crossed on the pew in front of him, leaning forward as if in prayer. She thought of leaving, but she too had the right to be there. They flashed before her, a myriad of days and nights, Fearless, alone on his knees on the hard floor under the cross, begging and crying to a silent God.

  Fearless sat up, and she knew that somehow she had just walked through his head and he had felt it.

  “Still at it then,” he said.

  “Help me,” she said.

  He didn’t respond.

  “I have no choice,” she said.

  She felt a sudden pressure on her chest. As if someone had placed a hand against her heart. Warmth spread throughout her torso and opened her up. It made her think of the glimmering water. Then the pressure was gone. She felt cold.

  “You like it too much,” Fearless said. She couldn’t quite read the tone of his voice. It wasn’t anger as much as sadness.

  “There is still choice, Frederika,” he said, “and I think you know this. But once you begin this journey, you leave choice behind. Then only something of immense importance can hurl you far enough from the path for you to leave it without being killed.”

  “Are you free now?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  She wasn’t certain he was telling the truth.

  “Was it your family going missing that hurled you away?”

  He turned to look at her, and his eyes were black with anger. She shouldn’t have mentioned them, but now she too was angry.

  “You’re being selfish,” she said. “People who hear them have a …” she was searching for words, “a responsibility toward those who come after and a duty toward all the others.”

  “You are talking of things you don’t understand,” Fearless said and rose. “This is not some make-believe. It’s not some childish game. This is for warriors.”

  “Eriksson is visiting me,” she said. “We need to find out who killed him.”

  Fearless scoffed. “Eriksson? Of all things.” He shook his head. “If you let the spirits take the lead, you’re making your first mistake.”

  The spirits? No, she was talking about Eriksson.

  She grabbed at his arm as he passed her. “I dream,” she said. “Something awful is about to happen. I don’t understand my dreams.”

  He shrugged her off. He didn’t even look at her as he left.

  Frederika could have screamed. Stupid Fearless. He had to help. And then she became angry with Jutta too. Stupid Jutta. Jutta shouldn’t have died. She had promised.

  “Don’t die until I have grown up,” Frederika would say.

  “I won’t,” Jutta would promise.

  “I mean it.”

  “Me too. Because your mother doesn’t teach you the old ways, it’s my task to guide you.”

  And still she had gone and died.

  And then, of course, Frederika became angry with her mother.

  The cold air hurt as Frederika walked from the church to the streets in Settler Town. She pushed her chin further into her scarf. The wetness of her breath on the wool came to rest against the bottom of her nose. There were candles in the windows. But here in the streets the black sky had fallen and was lying face down and flat-handed on the earth itself.

  She came to their house, just as her mother opened the door. She had the two rabbit skins they had brought to trade thrown over one shoulder.

  “I am going to the market,” she said. “Come with me.”

  “I don’t want to,” Frederika said.

  “These tempers of yours,” her mother said, “they don’t suit you. I asked you to come—you come.” She stopped. “Have you been crying?”

  Her voice was efficient. The way she was asking, as if Frederika were just another chore.

  “No,” Frederika said.

  She turned and
began to walk. Her mother paused, but then joined her.

  “Salt and alcohol,” she said.

  “Alcohol?”

  “To clean Dorotea’s feet.” Her mother glanced at her. “She’s brave, but this is not going well.”

  “What do you mean? She is much better.”

  Her mother sighed. “The rot just continues. I have been thinking about how often in medical matters there is like a rush in the body after injury. The hurt person feels better and you think all is healing. Then it is as if the damage catches up with them and that’s when often it goes wrong.” Her mother pressed her lips together. “I am worried.”

  “Then why don’t you do something?”

  “I am.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  Her mother grabbed her arm. “You’d better explain yourself,” she said, eyes narrow.

  “You could heal her.”

  “I know some things, but I don’t know everything.”

  “That’s not what I mean. Jutta said you healed your own legs.”

  “God.” Her mother let go of Frederika’s arm and began walking. “Your great-grandmother brought misery on so many people with her superstitions, and yet she didn’t know to stop. I did exercises, I stretched the muscles in my legs and worked to build them up. It had nothing to do with magic. This is why I decided to become an earth-woman. I wanted to know more about the body, its disorders, and what can be done about them. As for Dorotea, we have to keep infection at bay.”

  They had reached the market. The square was rolling, a dark mass of people, moving in between the stands lit by tar torches.

  Maija headed down one row. Frederika followed her. The dry snow was squeaking underneath their shoes. Frederika was distracted for a moment by a booth displaying amber: rounded drops in ochre and brown.

  “Take.” The tradesman’s cheeks were fat, his eyes slits from squinting at his stones against the light. He leaned forward, took off his mitten, and picked up one of the larger beads. His hand was broad with short fingers, and the back of it was hairy. Maija took off her mitten and received it, felt how light and warm it was despite its size, despite winter.