The Lost Village

by Sten, Camilla

  NOW

  I bite the inside of my cheek in concentration as I try to negotiate the steep bank. There must have been a road here somewhere, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find it on any maps. Clearly most of the deliveries in and out of the village came by train.

  At one point I hear something shift in the back, which makes me grip the wheel even tighter. Tone looks back over her shoulder—not that you can see much through the middle partition—and when she looks forward again she asks:

  “Are you sure you can work with her?”

  I know she’s asking out of concern, but it feels like criticism. Tact isn’t always her strong point.

  “It’s not like I have a choice,” is all I say.

  We drive over a root, and the van lurches.

  “No,” she agrees. “Not now you don’t.”

  Emmy was a last resort. I tried to pull in every contact I have in the industry, put out advertisements and announcements on social media, but it was no good. There was some interest, of course, but everyone backed out when they found out how tight we are for money and how little experience we have. One degree in filmmaking and the odd bit of production assistant work doesn’t carry much weight when that’s the sum of your entire production team’s CV. It’s not easy to put together a crew for an as-yet unfunded passion project, especially when it’s people with talent and experience you need.

  So, in the end, one desperate, exhausted night, after my last hope—an old schoolfriend’s ex who, despite his terrible attitude and long, greasy hair, had been involved in a few big productions for TV4—called to turn me down because he’d landed another job that could actually pay, I caved and threw Emmy’s name into the mix.

  I had never mentioned Emmy to Tone before that night. But, despite my persistent efforts to pretend Emmy Abrahamsson had never existed, she had always been there at the back of my mind. I had checked her Facebook page every now and then, googled her the odd late night as the shadows crept up on me.

  Things had gone well for Emmy since college, better than most of our former classmates. Half of the people we studied with had left the film industry within a few years of graduating, but not Emmy.

  Not that this came as any surprise. Emmy had always been smart.

  When I mentioned her name to Tone, she raised one eyebrow and asked why I hadn’t suggested her before. Truth is, she sounds like a godsend—if you don’t know who she is, that is. Or how she can be.

  I shift down a gear as the slope starts to flatten out, and let out a long sigh I’d hardly realized I was holding in. Then I turn my attention to the houses that have now started to appear in front of us.

  They are built in the classic Swedish cottage style, with gabled roofs and small windows. The first building we pass is small, barely bigger than a shed, and it’s set back slightly from the other buildings, which start about a hundred yards up the road. Its walls were once Falu red, but the paintwork is now peeling off the clapboard in big clumps. The windows gape, black and empty, shards of glass dangling out of the flaking white window frames. The setting sun hangs behind it in the west, and the matte, sloping roof casts shadows too long for us to be able to see inside.

  I slow down almost subconsciously.

  “Is that…?” asks Tone.

  “Birgitta Lidman’s house,” I say. “It has to be.”

  I would love to stop and take a look, but we should really try to get camp set up before nightfall. According to our schedule, we start exploring the village first thing tomorrow. We won’t start shooting any footage until day two or three, but we’re going to need every minute of the five days we’ve budgeted for.

  There’s a lot to prepare: we have to figure out where we’re going to shoot, and the scenes that will best convey how we want the finished documentary to look.

  The short trailer we’ve uploaded to the Kickstarter site is surprisingly slick, given we had hardly anything to work with. Tone managed to get a freelancer from her advertising days to do it for mate’s rates. But, slick as it is, it’s still only forty-five seconds of generic sweeping shots of nature, spliced with old documents and an ominous voice-over. A real trailer with dramatic images of Silvertjärn itself would do a lot to get our Kickstarter going.

  We should have hired a drone, I think, as I scan the small houses and cottages we’re approaching. What an opener that would have been: Silvertjärn as seen from above—a picture-perfect village bathed in golden spring light—before swooping in toward the houses to shatter the idyll, reveal the decay: the collapsing walls, the sinking houses, the perfect little porches left to rot and crumble.…

  I thought it wasn’t essential at this point, that we could save the drone for the real shoot, but now that we’re here I’m regretting that decision. I mean, there might never be a real shoot. Truth is, everything hangs on this trip; we only have one shot. If we can’t get this to work then I can hardly expect Max to pay for another bite of the cherry.

  “There,” says Tone.

  At first I don’t get what she’s pointing at, but then I suddenly see it: a wider gap between two of the houses ahead of us. A road. It isn’t paved, but I hadn’t expected it to be, either.

  “Must be the main road,” I say.

  “One of them, at least,” Tone replies.

  Driving on the road is much easier going, although it’s overgrown and full of potholes. Neither of us says a word. We’re both too engrossed by the village we’re entering.

  The houses stand like accusatory skeletons, windows glaringly empty. Most of them are simple row houses painted white, yellow, or red, like the mummified ghosts of the Swedish welfare state dream.

  Heather and shrubs have taken over most visibly, but there’s also the odd thin, gnarled pine shooting up through cracked front steps and split fences. I wonder how long it will take before the foliage swallows up the village completely—another sixty years? One hundred?

  For a moment I’m struck by an image so powerful it feels more real than the decay around us: these same houses, only with fresh layers of bright paint and lush little gardens; kids playing on the road we’re driving down, without having to worry about cars or even bikes; women hanging stiff, freshly scrubbed sheets out to dry outside their homes; and sweaty, unshaven men heading back from the mine at day’s end, washing themselves at a tap in the garden, and going inside to their bare but homely kitchens, to take their seat at a rustic wooden table with dinner ready and waiting. They would have eaten dinner early in a village like this—no later than five.

  The van lurches as we drive over a rock, and I shake off my reverie, trying to focus on what is as opposed to what once was.

  We drive across what must once have been a crossroads, and Tone silently points. I curse and stop the van, but leave the engine running. By now the last of the sun has disappeared behind the trees. We don’t have much time before nightfall.

  I quickly wind down the window and wave at the others, who have stopped behind us.

  “What is it?” Robert shouts out of his window. In my wing mirror I can see the blue Volvo behind him. I can’t see Max through his windshield, but his car seems to have made it down the bank without any major issues.

  “The bridge,” I say.

  The mining company’s report had led me to believe that the western bridge was made of stone, but it must have been made of wood. It seems incomprehensible to me that only twenty years ago it could ever have been deemed safe; all that remains of it are rotting blackened stumps on either side of the river. The water has burrowed down deeper than I’d imagined, and it surges down to the lake in a way that belies its dark, languid appearance.

  “Shit,” I mutter.

  “What do you want to do?” Tone asks. She, too, has wound down her window, to get some shots of the remains of the bridge.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  “We could set up camp somewhere else?” she suggests. “Just for tonight. Then we can find a way across tomorrow.”

  I
shake my head.

  “No,” I say, “I don’t think so.”

  I feel a shiver run down my spine. Out of the corner of my eye I can feel the houses watching me through their dark eye sockets.

  “No,” I repeat. “Let’s check if the other bridge is still standing. If not we’ll have to figure something out.”

  Tone raises an eyebrow.

  “Didn’t the report say that one was unstable?”

  “I know what the report said,” I say, cutting her off. “But it was wrong about this one, so it could just as well have been wrong about that one, too. Or confused the two.”

  Tone purses her lips but says nothing.

  “I’ll tell the others,” I say curtly, getting out of the van. The stench of exhaust from the running engine follows me as I stride toward them.

  Robert’s window is still open, and he’s sitting there patiently, looking completely unflustered. His eyes meet mine but he doesn’t say a word.

  “We’ll have to try the other bridge,” I say. “A little further on.”

  He nods to show that he’s heard.

  Emmy’s eyes meet mine. Pale, gray-green eyes, somehow expressionless and angry at the same time, surrounded by short, dark eyelashes.

  I stand up straight again and wave at Max, then gesticulate toward the river. I hope he knows to follow us.

  When I climb back into the driver’s seat, Tone’s biting at her thumbnail. She’s staring at the house to our left, a small villa that at one point must have had a certain picture-postcard charm. It’s one of the larger houses; perhaps it belonged to one of the foremen at the mine.

  “What is it?” I ask, hoping she isn’t mad about the way I spoke to her before.

  She gives a start, then slowly puts her hand in her lap.

  “Huh?” she asks. “What?”

  “You…” I look at the house. It’s in better shape than the others around it. The front door is slightly ajar, hanging from one lonely, rusty hinge, but the walls are still standing, the roof is undamaged, and most of the façade is intact.

  “Just looked like you were looking at something,” I say.

  Tone watches me for a few seconds, her eyes empty and slightly confused, before pulling one side of her mouth into a smile that doesn’t quite convince.

  “I was somewhere else,” she says.

  I pause, then put it out of my mind. I know there’s nothing to worry about, not really. Tone can be hard to read, and this whole trip must be difficult for her. She doesn’t have the same unadulterated enthusiasm for Silvertjärn that I do.

  The van edges along the road, and the river disappears again behind row upon row of empty houses with gaping windows. By now the shadows have really started to fall, long streaks of black silk.

  A break in the houses on my left gives me a sudden glimpse of a very welcome silhouette, and the relief runs coursing through me.

  “Hah!” I exclaim, pointing at a diminutive stone bridge.

  Tone whistles quietly.

  “Nice,” she says.

  It’s an arched bridge made of speckled granite, like something out of a fairy tale. There’s moss growing on and between the stones, but it looks stable. Older than the rest of the village.

  “Must be the original bridge, huh?” she says. “From before the state nationalized the mine and started expanding.”

  “Exactly,” I agree, continuing toward the bridge. “They must have gotten it wrong in the report. This is the bridge that’s supposed to be safe.”

  Tone raises her eyebrows.

  “Are you sure?” she asks. “If it’s that old, it might not be stable. I don’t know how solid their constructions were back then—it was built for horses and farmers, not vans.”

  For a moment I hesitate. But then I shake my head and tentatively put my foot on the gas.

  “It’ll hold,” I say, driving onto the bridge.

  For a few seconds I expect it to disappear from beneath us, that lurching, falling sensation. But it never comes. The bridge holds, and in a matter of seconds we’re on the other side.

  Tone shakes her head, but I smile jubilantly. I knew it would hold. It wouldn’t dare try anything else.

  I’ve fought to get here. Tooth and nail, for every little break. Nothing is going to stop me now.

  The road runs straight up from the bridge to the main square, and we slowly make our ascent over heather and cobblestones.

  On one side of the square there’s a building with a grizzled stone façade that claims to be the village hall, and on the other, an old, Villa Villekulla–type building that can only be the village school. Its doorframes gape, the doors hanging open.

  The square is smaller than expected, cobbled and overgrown. Dry yellow blades of last summer’s grass poke up from between the cracks in the stones, and a few of the stone slabs have been completely overturned by particularly ambitious pine shoots that appear to have then succumbed to winter.

  We drive into the middle of the square and stop. I put on the hand brake, and the engine goes quiet.

  “Well,” Tone says as we both look up at the church. The last rays of light give in to the blue dusk, throwing even the church spire into shadow. I hear Emmy’s van pull up beside us and stop, and Max’s Volvo right behind.

  “We’ve made it.”

  I try to make a mental note of everything around me: that last buzz of sunshine, the artificial smell of spruce in the car, the feel of the cold air against my cheeks as I open the car door.

  This is Silvertjärn.

  This is where it all begins.

  NOW

  It’s colder than I thought it would be. What little warmth the pale April sun gave off doesn’t stick around long after darkness, and the chill of winter is still set deep underground, beaming up through the cobblestones to fill the night with the scent of frozen soil.

  We have a little campfire going, and there’s something perversely cozy about the whole setup. At Emmy’s request, Robert has managed to hot-wire a small speaker to the generator we brought with us, which is now playing tinny dad rock. I don’t know if it was Emmy or Robert who chose the music, but it brings back old memories of cold student dorms and warm beer. Emmy’s head heavy against my shoulder. Tipsy, lighthearted pre-party chatter.

  The camping mat I’m sitting on isn’t really thick enough, so I can feel the heather beneath my thighs, the bumps in every cobblestone. Tone is sitting to my left, poking quietly at her hastily heated-up lentil stew. To be safe, we’ve brought enough food to last us a week, but this is no culinary master class; both Emmy and Tone are vegetarians, so we’re mainly sticking to lentils and beans.

  Max is sitting to my right, slightly closer than Tone, his shoulder brushing against mine. He’s thrown a thick, gray knitted sweater on over his shirt, which is slightly too long in the sleeves. He’s taken charge of the cooking, and every so often he gives the stew we’ve shoved on the fire a self-important little stir. Typical Max. He wants everything to be done just right, and he never seems to trust anyone else to know what that could possibly mean. That’s why he insisted on driving up in his own car instead of riding in one of the vans, and I suspect it’s also why he insisted on coming with us on the shoot, despite having no filmmaking experience at all.

  We first got to know each other after I graduated, when we fell in with the same loose circle of friends in those confused, midtwenties years. He was a computer geek with a taste for indie pop and a never-ending supply of puns. And extremely pedantic, even then.

  On the other hand, it’s served him well. That meticulous side of him has meant that, by twenty-nine, he’s been able to amass a small fortune from Blockchain transactions. It’s also meant that he could put enough money into The Lost Village for us to actually be able to float it.

  I look at Max and smile, and he smiles right back at me, his boyish, slightly asymmetrical face lighting up in the flicker of the fire.

  “What?” he asks, and I shake my head.

  “I just can’t
believe we’re finally here,” I say. “I can’t believe I’m in Silvertjärn.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I see Emmy trail off midwhisper to Robert and look our way, so I’m only half listening when Max replies:

  “Yeah, it’s pretty unreal.”

  Emmy’s holding a hip flask, which she sips from while looking around her at the square. The stars above us are like a trail of shattered glass through the vaulted skies, the slim crescent moon is a sliver of an eye. The wind is no more than a whisper through the village, but it still manages to find its way in under my clothes. I shiver. Max makes to take off his warm sweater to offer it to me, but I shake my head before he gets the chance.

  “I’m fine, it was just a shiver.”

  Emmy takes another sip from her flask and hands it to Robert, who sees me looking and raises his eyebrows to ask if I want some. I almost accept, but then feel Emmy’s eyes on me and lose my nerve.

  “No, I’m all right,” I say, a spark of irritation in my belly. “I’m running this thing, so I guess I’d better not drink while we’re here.”

  “Smart,” says Emmy, and I’m sure I can make out a hint of mockery in her husky voice.

  “I think so,” I say, as neutrally as I can.

  Emmy doesn’t answer back. Instead she says:

  “So there’s only one square in the village, then?”

  Before I can get a word in edgeways, she goes on:

  “This must be where they—”

  “Yes,” I interrupt. “This is the main square. Where they found her. Birgitta.”

  It was already dark when we finally got here, so there was no time to really explore the square. Still, I couldn’t resist doing a quick sweep of the cobblestones once Tone and I had put up our tent. To take in the scents; the silence; the soil. To picture it all.

  I didn’t find the pole, but I hadn’t really expected to, either. They would have had to cut it down to remove the body, and in the unlikely event that they didn’t, a rough-hewn wooden pole would never have stayed standing for sixty years.

  But I did find a hole.

  “Where’s she buried?” Max asks, dragging me out of my thoughts with a jerk.