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For Anna, who believed in this book long before I dared to myself
FOREWORD
When I first set out to write The Lost Village, I wanted to write a book just for me—a book I would enjoy writing. I never expected it to be more than a fun exercise, a way to get back to the thrill of writing after the slog of attempting to write a “serious literary novel” (which, as it turns out, is really not my genre).
Of course, things are never that simple. A book is, at the end of the day, always a reflection of its writer. Things you never intended to write about sneak into the story, worm their way into the text, and at the end of the day you’re sitting with a very different book than you thought you were writing.
Don’t get me wrong—it was still very, very fun to write.
The Lost Village is a book about a lot of things—isolation, fear, the terrifying power of groupthink, and how desperation can drive us to do things we never thought we’d stoop to. It is a thriller about a small, isolated, abandoned town and the horrors that take place there. But it’s also a book written by a former psychologist-to-be (hi!) and, more importantly, someone who for years struggled with depression (hi, again!). And maybe more than anything, it is a book about how society views women suffering from mental illness.
We perceive women suffering from mental illness with a sort of paradoxical double-sidedness; both victims and monsters, simultaneously infantilized and feared. A certain level of dysfunction is accepted—after all, women who are suffering mild depression and starving themselves aren’t going to leave their husbands or start revolutions, which is very practical indeed.
But beyond a certain point, it flips. Women are supposed to be gentle, devoted, loving and—above all else—rule-abiding. Undeniable suffering is bad, and anger is worse. A woman suffering from severe anxiety or untreated mania isn’t going to have dinner on the table by 6 o’clock. No longer is she fulfilling that crucial, limited role she’s expected to fulfill. No longer can she be a dutiful daughter, a picture-perfect wife, a devoted mother.
Throughout history, women suffering from mental illness have been hidden away, burned at the stake, lobotomized, and sterilized. I’m incredibly grateful I’ve been born into a time and context where my depression was viewed as a treatable illness, where I had access to the necessary care and the kind of support system that allowed me to eventually make a full recovery. But I’m also very aware that still, today, that is not the case for many people; that I am very privileged, and that my privilege had a huge part in my recovery.
Everything from degree of severity, to social status, race, level of financial stability, and ability to seek health care has an impact on not only how mental illness is treated, but how it is perceived. We view a depressed upper-class woman from a stable family background dealing with depression as “having the blues,” while the homeless woman on the street corner battling auditory hallucinations is a thing to be feared, a threatening monster. Not a person in need of help. Not someone with thoughts, dreams, fears, and needs of their own. Not a fully formed human being with agency and identity, suffering from an illness and doing their best to function as well as they can.
There are three female characters in the book suffering from mental illness, and they are all perceived and treated differently. One of them has recovered, one is in recovery, and one was never given the chance. They are neither victims nor villains. They are just people, with differing needs and levels of functioning.
Recovered, in recovery, or struggling, we are still people. Sometimes that truth can feel like a fever dream. Writing this book helped me to accept that, my own undeniable humanity even while sick, filtered through the kaleidoscope of my own fictional characters. I hope it can do the same for someone else.
Or that you just enjoy the thrill and horror of the story.
That’s the lovely thing about books, isn’t it?
You can take whatever you want from it.
Camilla Sten
August 19, 1959
It was a stiflingly hot August afternoon, so much so that the breeze coming in through the open windows did almost nothing to lift the swelter inside the car. Albin had taken off his hat and was dangling his arm out of the window, careful not to let his hand brush against the searing-hot body of the car.
“How far now?” he asked Gustaf again.
Gustaf simply grunted. Albin took this to mean that he should check the map himself if he was so desperate to know. He already had. The village they were driving to was a place he had never been to before. Too small for its own police station, even its own hospital. Barely more than a hamlet.
Silvertjärn. Who had even heard of Silvertjärn back then?
Albin was about to ask Gustaf if he had ever been there before, but then thought better of it. Gustaf wasn’t talkative at the best of times, that much Albin had gathered. For almost two years now they had been working together on the force, and in that time Albin hadn’t been able to get more than a few words out of him on any one subject.
Gustaf slowed down slightly and looked at the map between them, then made a sharp left, down a road Albin had hardly noticed for all the trees. He lurched forward in his seat, and his hat almost flew away.
“Think we’ll find anything?” he asked. To his surprise, Gustaf actually opened his mouth to reply this time:
“God knows.”
Encouraged, Albin continued:
“Nah, sounded more like two dopes who’d had a few too many, if you ask me. Hardly worth the gas it takes to get out there.”
The road they now found themselves on was narrow and uneven, and Albin had to hold on tight to stop himself from bouncing around on his seat. Outside, the tree trunks stood tall on either side of the car, but what little sky he could see was so dazzlingly blue that it made his eyes tingle. The journey felt like it would never end.
But then the forest started to clear.
The village looked exactly like the industrial backwater in which Albin had grown up. Without a doubt there would be some sort of mine or factory at which every man in town worked. It seemed like a pleasant, unassuming place, with dainty houses in even rows, a river meandering through the center, and a white stucco church spire that soared up over the rooftops, gleaming in the August sunshine.
Gustaf braked suddenly, bringing the car to a halt.
Albin stared at him.
Deep furrows had appeared across Gustaf’s brow, and his cheeks hung slack in sloppily shaven resignation.
“Hear that?” he asked Albin.
Something in his voice made Albin stop and listen.
“Hear what?” he asked. All he could make out was the grumble of the car’s engine.
They had stopped in the middle of a crossroads. Nothing much of note: a yellow house to the right, its front steps lined with wilting flowers, and an almost identical red house with white trim to the left.
“Nothing,” said Gustaf, and it was t
he insistent tone of his voice that finally made Albin twig.
It wasn’t that he had heard something.
It was that he hadn’t heard anything.
The whole place was completely silent.
It was half past four in the afternoon on a Wednesday in late summer, in a village in the middle of the forest. Where were all the kids out playing? Where were the young women out on their doorsteps, taking fans to their shiny foreheads and wilted locks?
Albin looked around at the prim rows of houses that stretched out on either side of the car. Every single one of them was neat and well kept. Every single one had its front door closed.
No matter where he looked, he couldn’t make out a single soul.
“Where is everyone?” he asked Gustaf.
The village couldn’t just be deserted; they had to all be somewhere.
Gustaf shook his head and put his foot back down on the gas.
“Keep your eyes open,” he said.
Albin gulped and felt it catch in his throat, which was now suddenly dry and swollen. He straightened up in his seat and put his hat back on.
The silence as they pulled off again felt just as stifling as the heat, and Albin’s neck was already beading with sweat. When the village square appeared before them, Albin felt a surge of relief flood through him. He pointed at the figure in the middle of the square.
“Look, Gustaf! There’s someone there.”
Perhaps Gustaf’s vision was sharper than his—that or his many long years on the force had given him instincts Albin had yet to develop. Whatever it was, before they had even reached the cobblestones of the square, Gustaf had stopped the car, opened the door, and stepped out.
Albin, still in the car, processed the scene in stages. At first he thought:
It’s a very tall person.
Then:
No, that’s not it, it’s a person hugging a lamppost. Bizarre.
It was only when the stench found its way into the car that the pieces finally fell into place. Albin opened the door and stumbled out, trying to escape it, but out there it was only stronger. Sweet, overripe, nauseating; meat left to rot and ferment in the sun for long idle hours, untouched and unmoved.
No one was hugging any lamppost. It was a body, tied to a rough-hewn pole. Long, straggly hair tumbled down over the face, hiding it—a small mercy—but its swollen arms and legs were crawling with fat flies. The ropes binding the body had cut into its soft, spongy tissue, and its feet were black. Whether that was due to decay or to the coagulated pools of blood at the base of the post, it was impossible to tell.
Albin made it no more than a few steps before he bent double and brought his lunch up all over the cobblestones.
When he looked up again, he saw that Gustaf was almost at the body, peering at it from only a few feet away. He turned back to look at Albin, who wiped his mouth and stood up straight. Naked fear mixed with disgust in the bloodhound-deep wrinkles around his colleague’s mouth.
“What in God’s name has happened here?” Gustaf asked, his tone of voice betraying a hint of what could only be described as wonder.
Albin had no words. He let the silence of the empty village take over.
But then something cut through that silence—faint, distant, yet unmistakable. Albin had four younger siblings, and he had shared a room with all of them. It was a sound he would have recognized anywhere.
“What the…” Gustaf muttered, turning to look at the school on the opposite side of the square. A window was open on the second floor.
“I think it’s a child,” said Albin. “A baby.”
Then the stench swam back over him, and he vomited again.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
The Lost Village is a documentary about Silvertjärn, Sweden’s one and only ghost town. Our aim is to produce a six-episode documentary, accompanied by a blog on the making of the series, featuring any new leads we manage to uncover. Silvertjärn, a former mining village in the heart of Norrland, has stood more or less untouched since 1959, when all nine hundred of its residents disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
[More on the history of Silvertjärn]
The showrunner and producer is Alice Lindstedt, whose grandmother grew up in Silvertjärn.
“I grew up hearing my grandmother’s stories about Silvertjärn and the disappearance. She had already left Silvertjärn when it happened, but her parents and younger sister were among the missing.
The Silvertjärn story has always fascinated me. So much about it just doesn’t make sense. How can an entire village just drop off the face of the earth? What really happened? These are the questions that we want to try and answer.”
We plan to spend an initial six days in Silvertjärn in early April to explore the village and film some test shots. As a backer, you will get access to our footage from these shoots—photos AND videos. We will also delve into some of the theories about the disappearance—everything from a gas leak that supposedly caused mass hysteria and delirium, to an ancient Sami curse.
[More on the theories surrounding the disappearance]
All being well, the team will then return to Silvertjärn in August, in order to shoot the documentary at around the same time of year that the disappearance took place.
WHAT YOU GET AS A BACKER:
Immediate access to any footage shot in Silvertjärn in April
Unlimited access to the production team’s social media posts
Regular progress updates via email
The chance to see the first, director’s cut of the finished documentary before it is cut for general release
The chance to visit Silvertjärn with our team for the series premiere and blog launch
GOAL:
150,000 Swedish kronor
PLEDGED SO FAR:
33,450 Swedish kronor
CLICK HERE TO DONATE AND BE PART OF THIS PROJECT!
Like and follow us on social media!
Instagram: @thelostvillagedocumentary
Facebook: The Lost Village Documentary
(www.facebook.com/thelostvillagedocumentary)
Twitter: @thelostvillagedocumentary
#thelostvillagedocumentary #silvertjärn
TUESDAY
NOW
I’m woken by a shrill crackling noise that takes me from dozing to a dazed wakefulness in the blink of an eye.
As I sit up and bat the sleep out of my eyes, I see Tone reach out and turn off the radio. The crackling immediately disappears, replaced by the dull hum of the engine and the pent-up silence of the van.
“What was that?” I ask, running my fingers through my hair.
“The radio’s been acting up for a few miles,” Tone says. “It jumped from dad rock to dance band, and then it just started crackling.”
“Must be the start of the dead zone,” I say, feeling a fizz of excitement in my belly.
I take my phone out of my pocket, realizing as I do that it’s much later than I’d thought.
“I still have signal, but only just,” I say. “I’ll post one last update before we lose it completely.”
I log in to Instagram and take a quick shot of the sun-drenched evening road ahead.
“How does this sound?” I ask. “‘Getting closer! Almost inside the dead zone. See you in five days, if the ghosts don’t get us.…’”
Tone grimaces.
“Might be a bit much,” she says.
“They’re gonna love it,” I say, clicking POST. Then, after checking that it has shared to both Twitter and Facebook, I put the phone back in my pocket.
“Our fans eat that stuff up,” I go on. “Ghosts and horror films and shit. It’s our best unique selling proposition.”
“Our fans,” Tone quips. “All eleven of them.”
I roll my eyes, but can’t deny that it hurts. The joke cuts a little too close to the bone.
Tone doesn’t notice. Her eyes are still fixed on the road. It’s empty and anonymous, a flat highway with neither bends nor tur
noffs. Tall, impenetrable conifers enclose us on either side, and to our left the blazing sun drifts deeper into a bleeding sky that bathes us and the forest in its hue.
“The exit should be pretty soon,” she says. “We’re starting to get close.”
“Would you like me to take over?” I ask. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I don’t know what happened.”
Tone gives a tight, closed-mouth smile.
“If you were up till four a.m. going through everything then it isn’t such a surprise,” she says, without answering my question about taking over at the wheel.
I can’t tell if she means it as a dig or not.
“No,” I agree, “I guess not.”
Still, I am surprised. I’d thought that same tingling, feverish excitement that has kept me up the past few nights would prevent me from falling asleep here, too.
I cast a glance in the wing mirror and see the other white van that Emmy and the technician are driving immediately behind us. Max’s blue Volvo is just visible at the back of the caravan.
Is that excitement or anxiety I feel squirming inside me?
The intense light stains my white, cable-knit sweater a fiery red, and throws Tone’s face into a sharp silhouette. She’s one of those people who’s more beautiful in profile than front-on, with her enviably chiseled jawline and straight patrician nose. I’ve never seen her wearing any makeup, which makes me feel both ridiculous and exceptionally vain, especially as I’ve just had highlights put in to turn my naturally matte, wastewater hair into a cold, lustrous blond. This, despite it costing almost nine hundred kronor that I don’t have—not to mention the fact that I’m not even going to be in any of the footage we’re shooting over the next five days.
I did it for me. To settle my nerves. And we do need photos, I guess, for Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and the blog. To give our few—but enthusiastic—fans and backers something to whet their appetites, keep that fire burning.
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