She grabbed the harness of Dorotea’s sledge and tugged at it so Dorotea squealed and had to struggle for balance.
“Do you want me to pull it?” Frederika asked.
“No,” Maija said.
They walked down the street in Settler Town, the last ones to leave. The church green too was almost empty. As they passed the priest’s dwelling, she looked for him in each window. He was probably in the vicarage with Sofia.
At the end of the green they followed the trail in the snow created by all those who had already left. When it was time to turn into the forest, Maija stopped.
Her daughters looked at her.
“Just … wait here,” she said.
She didn’t say any more but turned and hurried back along the path. She reached the empty square and began to run. She ran straight across it toward the church, snow whirling around her feet. She had to grab the handle with both hands in order to open the heavy door. She rushed through the vestibule and into the great hall.
When she entered, he was there, the priest, her priest, standing by his Jesus. He turned, and she froze. He waited. And then she ran down the aisle toward him; she couldn’t run fast enough. He opened his arms and she threw herself into them, and they wrapped around her and lifted her and hugged her. The stubble on his chin grated her cheek.
There was a scraping sound from the church vestibule as the door opened again, and they let go of each other as if they had burned themselves.
The priest’s mouth was half open, his breathing hard. His eyes locked on hers, and hers moved from his left eye to his right, trying to hold both in her gaze at the same time, and of course, she couldn’t. She laughed. The priest smiled too, a diagonal smile that was happy and sad, both at the same time.
The footsteps approached.
“Oh good,” the bishop said. “So you’ve told Maija that her punishment has been made void.”
“Yes,” the priest said. His voice was hoarse.
“We forgot to make it clear in the upheaval,” the bishop said. “Go now, my child, and don’t sin again.”
Still, spring did not come.
Three days had passed since Lady Day—one travel day, and then two of the same low morning glow and slow afternoon light that brought on shadows too fast. The clouds looked gray, although she knew they were white.
Frederika waited and watched. She ought to have felt better, freed of all burdens, but the incessant thrum in the air was as strong as ever. She kept looking up to the top of the mountain. We got him. Why are you not letting up?
“I don’t know how to thank you.” She put her hand on Eriksson’s sleeve when he appeared. His arm felt hard and cold. “If you hadn’t kept me with Dorotea when she was getting her tuition …”
He didn’t meet her gaze.
“I am so sorry,” she whispered and removed her hand. “Did he get to one of yours? Was that what Elin found out that destroyed her?”
He didn’t answer, but narrowed his eyes as if in pain.
After a while he said, “Elin should have known earlier. She could have known. She had lived the same thing when little, for God’s sake! Jessika didn’t say anything, but once I was gone, it didn’t take Elin long to figure out what was wrong.”
Then the J had been for Jessika, Frederika thought.
“Neither of you could imagine such evil,” she said.
They stood still and allowed the shadows from the trees to lengthen.
“Will you be leaving now?” she said.
Eriksson pressed his lips together. “It’s not over yet,” he said.
Frederika knew he was right. She didn’t want to look at the protective circle of wind that she’d cast around herself and Dorotea but could tell it was almost worn through. At night she heard the wolves yelping. Their barks were growing more confident. Eager. She could try to throw another circle, but she wasn’t certain it would work a second time.
Frederika was on the porch looking toward the top of the mountain, when, on day four, Fearless arrived, leading a white reindeer on a rope.
“I’ve come to pick up the goats,” he said.
“Does that mean spring is coming?”
“In a while. We are getting ready to leave for the high mountains.”
“Thank you for the reindeer.” She took the rope.
When he had fetched his goats, he didn’t leave, but stood and peered at her.
“I thought spring would have arrived by now,” she said. “That after Lady Day, winter would let go.”
“I’m guessing she didn’t bring the right things,” he said, “Lady Day. Or maybe not all of it.”
Did he know what was missing? Frederika wondered if it was possible to have a vocation and then shut it off or whether bits still leaked through—signs you couldn’t avoid seeing. If you once thought you had the truth, could you ever leave it behind even if you rejected it, or would you carry it with you, that option of a different life?
They faced each other. Around them the air began to pulse louder.
“You wouldn’t have burned it,” she said, and her voice sounded like that of somebody much older. “Your drum. It’s holy.”
“It belonged to the past.”
“You couldn’t have. You wouldn’t.”
He stepped backward and broke the circle that had been drawn around the two of them.
She watched him leave, and then she turned to the creature. It looked more like a white cow than a deer. Its muzzle was round, its antlers slight. She hoped her mother wouldn’t kill it but knew they had to. If only Fearless had brought them an ugly beast. The animal was rooting in the snow beside her, but the lichen lay too deep.
She pulled on the rope and headed for the barn. She hesitated and, instead, tied the rope around one of the pillars by the building. She walked inside and took some of the goats’ food and put it before the reindeer. She watched it eat and stroked its side.
She was right. Fearless would never have burned the drum. Even if he no longer believed, he wouldn’t have destroyed it.
She thought about seeing inside someone and of tracking the wolves’ whereabouts from afar. Both times she had used what Jutta had taught her. The only other thing she could remember Jutta teaching her was her litanies: “The shrewdness of the fox, the wisdom of the owl, the strength of the bear …” Perhaps that too was something you could learn? To dip into the strengths of other beings?
But there was more than the old wisdoms. When she had called for her mother the night the wolves attacked, that summoning had come all by itself. And what the mirror had showed her—that too had happened on its own.
So it could be done without someone teaching you. And you didn’t need a drum, because there were other ways. You just needed to open up to it. How much? Open everything. Not keep any reserve for yourself. Give it your all, saying, “I am willing. Take me.” Even be prepared to die. And then … then what?
She didn’t know. She couldn’t know until she had tried it.
It was easier than she had thought. But also much more difficult. She would no longer be her own person. The spirits would make their demands, and she would have to respond. In return, what she asked for would be given to her. But the sacrifice could be great. The spirits could ask for something that meant the world to her.
Footsteps in the snow.
“So he’s been for his goats?” her mother asked.
“Yes.”
They watched the white animal.
“You know what,” her mother said. “I think he brought us a cow.”
“I know,” Frederika said.
“No, really. I think this animal has milk.”
Her mother’s eyes were scrunched up, as if she were laughing.
Olaus felt stripped without his pretenses. He also felt fresh and, ah, it was true: he had never felt more peaceful. His future was a muddle, all things unclear, all things ripped up, destroyed. And still he was happy. The power of confession was immense, he thought. What a shame it wasn’t a
part of the Lutheran faith. Confessing all to another human being and still be—
He didn’t dare to think the word.
He cleared the path outside his dwelling from snow. Then, gripped by an impulse, he walked across the green to shovel Sofia’s too. She was standing in the window, and he waved to her. They’d have to talk. Soon, he thought.
He went to check on his animals. Their trays were full of food. He patted the flank of a cow.
As he took his evening meal, he thought of his father. He remembered the balding head, the slack chin, and the full lips with what, for once, wasn’t hatred. He didn’t know what his father had done to be punished with the hangman’s role. He’d never asked, and now he was gripped by the desire to understand. They’d parted in anger. He, impetuous and proud, unable to wait to leave his home, refusing to accept his lot. His father shouting to him as he walked out, “You’ve rejected everything I stand for.”
“Stand for,” he had scoffed to himself as he walked away. But it had been true. His father had been principled, and despite his profession, he’d been a good man.
He wished his father could see him now. Forgive me, Father.
“We are what we are,” he whispered to himself, “and I am grateful.”
He couldn’t sleep, and that wasn’t because of his father, but because of Maija. He kept seeing her before him. That wiry figure. Those large eyes, her white-blonde hair.
“Strange that the bishop didn’t know.” In his head he mimicked her slow, sing-song accent.
He recalled Maija’s hand against his cheek. Strong and dry. Warm. How close she’d been standing. So close, he ought to have felt her heart.
Oh, what was he doing?
He turned on his side. The sheet was swirled around his legs and he kicked at it, once, then several times. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up.
“You’re my priest,” she had said.
He sighed. A grunt that went all the way to his core. He placed his own hand on his cheek as if hers were still there for him to touch. He allowed his body to respond to the thought.
“Strange that the bishop didn’t know,” she’d said.
Beata, Ulla, Sara … what other letters had Frederika mentioned? A K, an A, and a J. Olaus suddenly remembered the entry in the Church Books: K against the church. Perhaps one of the girls had spoken to the old priest about what was happening on Blackåsen and …
Hold on … the family who had disappeared from Blackåsen overnight. What were their names? The Janssons?
The cold tore at Olaus as he crossed the yard. He unlocked the church, ran up the stairs to his room, found the Church Books first, and lit the candle second. He turned the large pages. Births, deaths … the Janssons. His finger trembled as it followed the entries. Arva Jansson. Born 1711. A as in Arva.
A young girl.
Olaus had to sit down. He felt sick.
If the K against the church had been the same K whose initial had been carved in the windowsill, that would mean one of the girls had told the old priest and he had dismissed the claim.
The old priest had been many things, but he had been conscientious. A claim like that—a man of the Church behaving inappropriately—even if the old priest had dismissed it, he would have told the bishop. He would have had to. It was too grave. And then there was what Mårten had said about a bishop who, the year before Olaus arrived, in secret, had sent away a young girl who was with child. That had been Arva and her family, the Janssons.
There was more … something the housekeeper had said. South, he realized. Much later, just before he died, after returning from Blackåsen’s Catechetical hearing, the old priest had asked his carriage to be prepared for him to travel south. Not east. Whatever it was the old priest had found out then, he had felt he couldn’t tell the bishop, and he’d prepared to take his tale south.
There was no question about it—the bishop had known.
Olaus hit the table with his hand. The swine, he thought, and didn’t know whether he meant the verger who’d enacted the deeds, the old priest who, at first, hadn’t listened to a girl in distress, or the bishop, who had known and not punished the culprit—or all three of them.
He had to knock for a long time before there was movement inside the vicarage. Then there were footsteps, and Sofia opened the door, her head still in a night bonnet.
“You.” She smiled, voice thick with sleep.
“You too knew,” he said.
She stepped aside to let him in and closed the door behind him. “Knew what?” she said, blinking.
“About Lundgren.”
When she realized what he was saying, she looked shocked.
“Heaven forbid,” she said.
He had to hand it to her—she was playing her part well.
“Your tax man helped the bishop arrange a trip south for a girl in trouble. On their own, the Janssons would never have got access to the bishop. It was you who convinced him to help.”
“I don’t know of any trip. This is ridiculous,” she said.
He grabbed her arm. “Don’t lie to me.”
Her mouth opened and then closed again.
His grip around her arm tightened. “What I cannot grasp is why—why would you protect someone like Lundgren? Tell me, or I shall persecute you myself. Do not think that the bishop or your mighty friends will be able to help you.”
She shook him off.
“After all I have done for you. For the mercy of God, I did not know. What monster could have known and kept silent? They are children!”
Well, that was that, Maija thought for the hundredth time. She brushed the floor of the cottage with the broom. Once all the dirt was cornered, she dampened a cloth, gathered it up, and shook the rag over the fire. She felt hot and took off her jumper. It fascinated her how eating this little for so long had changed her body. Her arms sticking out from inside the short-sleeved shirt were thin and straight, their veins large. She’d seen similar changes in the other settlers. Everyone was hungry. Even the priest had thinned. His body had been angular and …
She became cold and put her jumper back on again. Her stomach hurt. Soon spring would come and they would eat. She would have fish and meat grilled in butter and …
Why hadn’t she slaughtered the reindeer? There was meat for at least two weeks. It was just so beautiful.
She scoffed at herself. As if she could afford to be sentimental. The goats gave milk—what they needed was meat. And so she would take its life. Tomorrow. This evening she would speak with the girls, and they’d do it at dawn. They’d have to sharpen the knives. It was hard to kill a reindeer. It was a large animal, and its pelt was tough.
What had she been thinking, implying Nils would have killed Fearless’s reindeer? The head was severed. He wouldn’t have had the spiritual resilience for it. And he had had no reason to show Eriksson respect.
She’d seen them in the morning—Nils, Daniel, and Henrik transporting logs to the site they had chosen for the village by the lake. She thought of Daniel’s and Anna’s faces that last time in church. Poor Daniel. For so long he had held fort against the evilness of his brother. And he’d been given no favors in return. He had lost Elin, a baby son, and now this had befallen his daughter. He would need to get it out of him. He’d probably try to use hard work as an outlet for his anger.
If Frederika hadn’t stayed by her sister’s side, it could have been Dorotea. Sara … God.
She began to wash the dishes in the basin and continued with the basin itself, scrubbed it until the unspoiled wood came up through the damaged, then ended up leaning against the basin, putting her thumb and fingers to her eyelids to keep them shut and her eyes empty. Her stomach pained her again, and she pressed her fist into her side.
Anna had been wrong. There had been no good sides to Eriksson. To think he’d known about Lundgren and let it continue. Unless, of course, Eriksson had just found out and Lundgren killed him when he confronted him. No, that didn’t work. Lundgren wou
ldn’t have gone around carrying a rapier. And Eriksson would have been prepared for a reaction, wouldn’t he? He would have come ready to defend himself.
Another thing that didn’t feel right was the marjoram. If Lundgren had an amulet with marjoram around his neck, that implied he had tried to quell his lusts. Maija would have assumed that people who repeatedly committed the same wrong surrendered to it completely with time.
Stop this, she told herself.
And why would Lundgren have put a reindeer’s head on Eriksson’s grave after killing him? Or perhaps the two events were not connected …
She thought about how Lundgren had shouted that he hadn’t killed Eriksson. He would die, regardless, so what did it matter?
She threw the wet brush on the floor and hit her fist against her thigh several times. Stop this.
Paavo. Think about him. He would soon be home. Easter, perhaps. That was in one week’s time. They would live. There were dues to pay. Poor Dorotea, her feet. Her life would never be what it could have been. But they would live.
It just didn’t make sense, that was all.
A minute later she was dressed and putting on her skis.
Anna’s face fell when she opened the door.
Maija reached out, took her hand, and squeezed it. Anna’s hand was limp. Daniel was sitting by the kitchen table. They are not talking, Maija thought. They can’t talk.
“I am so sorry,” Maija said. “I am so, so sorry.”
Anna pulled her hand away.
Maija inhaled. “Please forgive me for what I am about to do,” she said in the gentlest voice she had. She had thought about it all the way over. They had to go into the details even if it would cause Daniel and Anna more pain. If they weren’t absolutely clear about what had happened, if they weren’t certain they had got to the bottom of it all, then things might still be out there, small evil seeds just waiting to root and grow again.
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