The Cold Is in Her Bones
Page 11
Darker thoughts crept in, pestering her and giving her no peace. Did she really think that she and Iris weren’t cursed by the demon? Did she think that once away from The Place, Iris would get no worse, or for that matter that Milla herself wouldn’t become a demon like Hulda, snake by snake? Then Milla wondered: If she continued to transform, would she merely look like a monster—which would be horrible enough—or would she actually become one, as well? Would her brother be safe with her? Would anyone?
She was a coward. She looked down at her feet, once again willing them to stop carrying her forward, into something that terrified her. Stop, Milla. Turn around. Leave. Go somewhere safe, to a village where no one knows you. Cut the snakes from your head and pray they never grow back. Keep cutting them off if they do. You can’t help Iris or Asta. You can’t even help yourself.
Her snakes rose up in protest, and Milla felt the sting of tears in the corners of her eyes. All she wanted in the world was for her brother to call her silly Milla and to tell her that everything would be all right.
Silly Milla is dead.
Was that her voice, or Iris’s, or the demon’s? Milla didn’t know anymore. Were they all the same?
The howling grew ever louder. So many voices, each singing her own song of misery but using the same words.
Let me out.
I’m so cold.
Let me out.
The sun was fully down when Milla stepped through the open, arched entrance of The Place. She could see that it had once been a ring fort. Trude had told her stories about them, safe places where farmers took shelter from marauders. The stone wall was thicker than a grown man’s arm span. Milla felt swallowed by it, made even tinier and less significant. Inside was a broad dirt yard with a large bell hanging atop a stone pillar. Beyond it was a wide well, also stone. Around it the dirt was muddy and puddled with spilled water. Clinging to the outer wall of the fort there was a stable with an attached corral where five horses stood dozing, and a chicken coop, and a small barn—all made of ash-gray wood. She might have heard the clucks of chickens or bleats of sheep if it hadn’t been for the howling.
Let me out.
I’m so cold.
Let me out.
The Place was a building at the center of the ring fort—two stories high and made of stone. The second story had windows that overlooked the yard, too small to bring in much light or air. The wooden doors of the entrance also seemed too small for such a large structure. Milla walked to the doors and rapped twice. She waited.
The door opened slowly and a fair-haired boy appeared in the opening. Milla thought of him as a boy, because he was as long-limbed and awkward as a colt, but the beginnings of a beard sprouted from his chin. His eyes opened wide.
“I’m here for my brother,” she said. “Niklas. I . . . I have a message for him. From home.”
The boy peered past her into the night.
“I’m alone,” Milla said. “It’s just me.”
“I’m not supposed to let anyone in,” the boy said. “It’s not allowed. Midwife said so.”
“What’s your name?” Milla said, attempting to smile brightly. What does he want, she reminded herself. Give him some of that.
“Petter,” he said.
“And do you know my brother, Niklas? He would have arrived just three days ago. Sandy hair. And tall?”
“I know him,” Petter said.
“I could wait right here, and you could go get him for me, and then he and I could talk?” It was all Milla could do not to scream. To say, You oaf, I haven’t time for your wide eyes and your surprise—I need to talk to my brother. Instead she kept smiling.
Petter nodded. “All right. But you can’t come in.”
“Oh my goodness,” Milla said. “I wouldn’t. I’d be frightened to.” She arranged her face while imagining this boy was someone she very much wanted to make happy. She stood off to the side of herself and marveled at her cunning. Here she was, a girl who’d grown up with just one boy, her brother, and she was unmoved by talking to another boy, a boy she didn’t know. His good opinion of her felt so . . . unimportant. Which was a surprise to her after all the stories Trude had told about magical first meetings between boys and girls. She’d assumed when it did finally happen to her that the expected response would churn up inside her. She’d feel some measure of what Trude had described as the most potent kind of joy. Milla looked at this tall, gangly boy. His face was nice enough, she supposed. But it certainly wasn’t magic.
He nodded again, closed the door and left Milla alone. She tried to calm her desperation to see Niklas. She’d have to be careful not to make a fuss when he came. She shouldn’t draw attention to herself in a place where any sign of oddness, of excitement, might get her locked up along with Iris.
The air was cooler here than at home. She thought about Trude’s shawl and then realized she’d left it in Hanna’s kitchen. Well, she thought. Just as well that Hanna should have her mother’s shawl. Milla wrapped her arms around herself.
Her back was to the doors when she heard them open, and she stayed where she was, fearing what she’d feel, or do, if Niklas hadn’t come. If he told Petter to send her away.
“Milla?”
A box inside her that she’d kept tightly closed since she’d set out from home opened in that moment. So much climbed out of that box—fear, relief, sadness, joy, regret, love, guilt—that it was all she could do not to sob. Instead she turned around and threw herself into her brother’s arms.
“Oh, Milla,” Niklas said. He wrapped his arms around her and she felt his size and strength and she wanted to stay there. But after a moment he gently held her away from him and said, “What are you doing here? And all alone? Where are Mamma and Pappa?”
“At home. They don’t know I’m here. They wouldn’t have let me come, and I had to. I had to see you. And Iris.”
“Oh, Milla,” he said again. In just three days he had become a different boy. There were angles in his face she hadn’t seen before. Purple half-moons under his eyes where before there’d only been cream dotted with freckles. She waited for him to admonish her, to ask her why she must worry their parents so. Why she couldn’t behave. Instead he brought her to him again, and she pressed her cheek to his chest and felt a tremor there like he might be crying. After a moment he pulled away and looked up at the dark sky, taking in a deep breath. He wiped both eyes with the back of one hand. “All right. We need to figure out what to do with you. You can’t stay here. It’s not safe. I’ll tell Petter that I’m taking you to the midwife. You can stay the night with her, then go home tomorrow.”
The snakes on Milla’s head hissed so loudly that she thought Niklas must have heard them. “No,” she said. “No. Please, Niklas, don’t make me leave until I’ve seen Iris. I’ve come all this way.”
Niklas breathed out heavily. “I suppose you can sleep on my cot tonight. But, Milla, are you sure you want to see her? She’s not as you remember her. And it will only upset you to see her here.”
“How terrible is it here, Niklas?” She looked up to the small windows in the second story, where the howling spilled out in waves of agony and begging. “Why do they complain so of being cold? What does the midwife do to them?”
Niklas looked at her without blinking. She could see in his eyes that he was making a decision, and she knew him well enough that he didn’t need to speak the words once he had. He was going to take her inside.
Niklas led her past Petter, who sat on a stool leaning against the wall of the fort’s open central courtyard. From the way he startled, she thought he must have been dozing.
“My sister is staying here tonight, Petter. It’s too late to send her home.”
Petter looked at Milla with narrowed eyes. “You’re sure she’s all right?”
All right, Milla assumed, meant that she wasn’t possessed by a demon. She almost laughed. Her snakes squirmed.
“She’s my sister,” Niklas said. “I’d know if she weren’t.”
“I’ll have her out before the midwife comes in the morning.” Niklas looked at her as if to say, and no argument from you.
Milla thought to herself that he needn’t worry that she’d want to stay here. It was the dreariest place she’d ever seen. Worse even than the blighted village. Bad things happened here.
“The only time the girls are allowed out of their cells is when they’re brought here to the courtyard,” Niklas said. “That’s because the ground is covered in stone. The midwife says the demon comes from below, from deep in the earth, and so the girls mustn’t touch earth or else the demon will get an even tighter hold on them. Make them stronger and impossible to control.”
“What’s that?” Milla said. She pointed to a stone slab in the center of the courtyard, five empty buckets lined up next to it.
“When the midwife thinks a girl is being troublesome, she has the boys tie the girl up and lay her there. Then we’re to douse the girl with water. The midwife says demons are made of hellfire and hate the cold. Water subdues them.”
“I saw a girl named Asta at the midwife’s cottage.”
“You met Ragna? You didn’t tell me. So she knows you’re here?”
“Not . . . really.”
Niklas frowned. “That’s not good, Milla. You don’t want to make an enemy of her.”
“If she douses the troublesome girls here, what was she doing with Asta at her cottage? She said Asta told her mother and father terrible things.”
“I don’t know. I tried to find out, but the other boys wouldn’t tell me. They’re all so miserable, Milla. Most of them don’t want to be here, but they’re forced to be. And the few that do want to be here are the ones you want to stay away from. The midwife chooses what boys come here to be guards and there’s no saying no. It’s the deal every villager makes in order to be kept safe from the girls. And the oldest boy isn’t allowed to leave until there’s a younger boy to come in to replace him.”
“That’s horrible.”
“It is. But, Milla, it’s so much worse for the girls.” His eyes traveled to the stone slab.
“Have you seen it happen?”
“Once,” Niklas said. “It’s awful. I haven’t had to help tie up any of the girls yet. But it takes four boys just to tie up one girl and carry her down here. The girls buck and scream so. And it’s no wonder. The water is icy and once the dousing is over they’re wearing nothing but their soaking wet shifts. Then Ragna sends them back to their cells to shiver.”
Milla thought of that happening to Iris. No. She couldn’t let it. And she didn’t believe Niklas would either. “No wonder they howl so.”
“I feel sorry for them,” Niklas said. “It’s not their faults. It’s the demon who deserves to be punished. Not them.” In that moment he looked to Milla like the sweet Niklas she played with in the woods when they were children—the boy who didn’t want to believe in any of the dreadful things that Milla could make up in her head. As dear as he was, and as much as she knew he loved her, he’d surely never want to know that his sister had snakes growing from her head—and that most of the time she rather liked the company. She despaired that she could ever tell him.
“Come,” he said. “I’ll show you the rest. Then I’ll take you to Iris.”
Niklas led her back through the stone tunnel that led from the courtyard to the corridor that circled the entire first story of The Place. The first room they came to was a large, dank chamber lined with ten straw-padded cots and lit by hanging oil lamps. Small windows high in the walls opened out onto the courtyard they’d just left. Four boys sat or lay across the cots, not talking, only staring, as if too spent to do anything else. Niklas said to them, “This is my sister.”
All four looked up at once, like dogs catching a scent. One of them, round-faced and dark-haired, said, “Are you mad, Niklas? You think we’re allowed visitors here?”
Petter walked in then. “I told him he’ll have to explain to Ragna. I’m not getting blamed for this.”
Milla could tell that Niklas didn’t like this Petter. Neither did she. “And what’s Ragna going to do to Niklas if she finds out I’m here? Make him leave? Good!”
Milla saw two of the boys exchange looks between them as if to say, she has a point.
Niklas, for his part, looked at Milla in horror—as if he could see the snakes on her head.
Petter, who for all his gangly dimness clearly did not like being bested by a girl, narrowed his eyes at her. “I think this one’s showing the signs. She’s got a demon light in her eyes.”
Milla sensed the other boys shifting behind her.
Niklas stepped in front of her. “Milla is overtired from her journey. But she’s as meek as a mouse, I promise you.”
Bile rose in Milla’s throat at being dismissed so. She wanted to let the snakes rise from her head and attack Petter with her nails. Let him see the signs of her claw marks then. Let him release his bowels with fright at the sight of her green and crimson snakes, jaws wide and ready.
Then Milla wondered if maybe Petter really had seen the demon light in her eyes.
“Come, Milla,” Niklas said, pushing her out of the room. When they’d walked five paces he turned on her. “You must be more careful or I can’t keep you safe here. These boys would sooner lock you up right now than worry that you’ll turn demon-possessed by morning.”
“I’m not as meek as a mouse, Niklas. And I was defending you. You should be thanking me.”
Niklas searched the ceiling, as if for strength. “Milla, if you have any love for me at all, then you will stop defending me.”
She smiled at him. “You didn’t say that when the forest witches were after you. Then you made sure I didn’t leave your side until we were all the way home.”
“You are a strange girl, Milla.”
She wrapped her arms around him and put her head on his chest. “But you love me.”
He sighed. “I do. Though you’ll be the death of me.” He let her rest against his chest for a moment longer, then he pushed her gently away. “Are you hungry?”
Milla thought back to when she’d eaten last. Had it really been a full day since she’d had Trude’s apple, bread, and cheese? “Starving,” she said. “And so thirsty.”
Niklas took her to the kitchen, a large room with a massive, cold hearth at the opposite end, and a long wooden table and benches in the center of the room. Against one wall there were shelves with baskets of apples, cabbages, and potatoes, also a bowl of eggs and some cloth-wrapped cheese. He poured water into a cup and she drank it so greedily that it ran down her chin.
“A village woman cooks dinner for us once a week. The rest of the time we fend for ourselves.” Niklas handed her an apple, then tore off two large hunks of brown bread. He handed her one and tucked the other and a second apple into the pocket of her dress. “Give those to Iris.”
Milla devoured the food without tasting it.
“I’ll take you to Iris now. But, Milla, you must prepare yourself. I can see the hope in your eyes, and I’m sad for you.”
“There you go again talking to me like you’re so much older and wiser.” Her snakes twitched. “You don’t know what I’ve seen. Or what I know.” She saw Niklas withdraw from her, and she calmed herself. This wasn’t the way to get what she wanted. She breathed, settled herself. “Niklas, if there’s something I don’t understand, then help me understand it. Right now I can’t think of a single reason that you and I shouldn’t take Iris out of here tonight.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking, Milla.”
Her impatience flared again. She wanted to shake him. Why should she have to pretend to be settled in her heart and mind when he was the one in the wrong? “You’re just like Tomas and Hanna. They said the same thing to me. But I do know what I’m asking. You can’t let them do this to Iris. She’s our friend. We lo
ve her.” Milla gripped Niklas’s rough linen shirt in her hand.
He closed his own hand over hers. “You don’t know what you’re asking because you haven’t seen the girls, Milla. Come. I’ll show you.”
15
NIKLAS LED MILLA TO A wooden ladder that went up to an opening in the stone ceiling. He climbed up first, and she followed. As she climbed she was struck by how quiet it had become. No howling or crying. She wondered if the girls were sleeping. When she’d climbed all the way to the second story, the moment her face was just above floor level she was hit with the overpowering scent of sour milk. It was so strong she could taste it in her mouth. She let out an involuntary grunt of disgust.
Niklas reached out a hand to help her all the way up. “Another of Ragna’s ideas. The girls get cups of milk every four daylight hours. It’s supposed to calm them. From what I can tell it just makes them angrier. None of them drink it and half of them throw it back at us. I’ve only been here three days, and I don’t think I’ll ever want to drink milk again.”
Milla didn’t think she’d ever wish to, either. They paused before continuing on. Milla realized that as badly as she’d wanted to see Iris, there was now a tremor of hesitation in her. A fear of how Iris might have changed. “Is it always so quiet at night? Do they sleep?”
“I’ve never heard it quiet like this since I’ve been here. It’s . . . strange.” Niklas looked worried. She supposed that if howling seemed normal to you, then the absence of howling might be a cause for concern. “Come. Iris’s cell is toward the middle.” He held her eyes. “I think it would be better if you didn’t look in the cells, Milla. Keep your eyes forward, on me.”
Milla nodded while knowing it was a promise she couldn’t possibly keep.
The stone hall circled the courtyard, just as the one beneath it did, and was lit by oil lamps that hung from iron hooks sunk into the walls. Milla felt the damp chill of the place in her flesh, and she thought of those poor girls, soaked to the skin and then left to huddle alone in their cells.