Elsa leans in to Staffan and whispers:
“Rather hard in tone, don’t you think?”
But before Staffan can answer, Aina shushes her sharply. Elsa recoils at her daughter’s blazing look: Aina’s eyes are brimming with a concentrated rage. Elsa scrabbles to find a response, but Aina has already turned back to the altar, her face transformed from rage to adoration. She looks completely spellbound.
Elsa looks wide-eyed at Staffan, but he simply shrugs and shakes his head. Didn’t he see what just happened? Perhaps not. Staffan never has been the most perceptive of men.
She looks around the church. On closer inspection, she realizes that Aina isn’t the only one gazing at the pastor with a look of spellbound devotion; a number of the people around her look exactly the same—in fact, many seem to be hanging on the pastor’s every word.
The knot Elsa now feels in her stomach is different from the one she feels when thinking about the mine, or about Staffan, or about moving away. It’s sharper. More alarming.
Perhaps she ought to pull the pastor aside for a quick chat. They have had a fair bit of contact now, after all, since he helped her with poor Agneta Lindborg in her final days, and with Pär Nilsson when he was left to raise little Elinor on his own, and no idea what it meant to be a parent.
Pastor Mattias does seem a reasonable man. Aina has taken something of a fancy to him, yes, but she’s young, and he is rather dashing. It isn’t his fault that his handsome face and natural charisma have turned a few heads among the congregation.
Elsa will ask him to tone things down a little—perhaps even let Einar take the next sermon. That will probably be enough. Just a small change of course. She has helped many villagers to make those over the years, for the sake of keeping the peace.
The sermon seems to be finally reaching its conclusion, thank goodness. They sing a quick psalm together, and then the congregation stands as one. Elsa touches Staffan’s arm.
“I’ll just have a quick word with the pastor. Take Aina home with you, I shan’t be long.”
Staffan nods, but when he turns around he raises his eyebrows quizzically.
“Where’s the girl got to?” he asks.
Elsa looks around. She spots Aina’s long dark hair in a group that has formed around Pastor Mattias at the altar. There must be twenty or thirty people crowding into that space.
She’s never seen anything like it.
Or has she? Small observations start to stir in Elsa’s mind; things she has seen and heard but never given a second thought until now.
Aina’s behavior has been slightly strange of late, hasn’t it? Quieter, more abrupt? And there’s been rather a lot of talk of Pastor Mattias, hasn’t there—of how good he is, how much he’s doing for the parish, how he’s driving the evil from Silvertjärn? Evil. As though that were something one might discuss of a normal afternoon.
Elsa pulls back her shoulders and shakes away her worry. It’s all fine. She can handle this. She always does.
She walks toward the altar only to find herself stuck at the back of the group that has gathered before Pastor Mattias. Elsa clears her throat politely, but no one budges; no one even looks at her. She can’t hear what the pastor is saying; he’s having some sort of quiet, whispered conversation with one of the young ladies up at the front. Then he places his hand on her head.
It’s little Lena, Elsa realizes with a jolt. Aina’s friend Lena. And she’s crying silent tears, staring up at the pastor in wide-eyed enchantment.
Something inside Elsa breaks.
“Pastor Mattias!” she says loudly. Her voice sounds shrill, but it cuts through the murmurs and babbles before her.
The pastor looks up and sees her. It’s rather odd: the corners of his mouth are pulled up into his usual mild smile, but his eyes are cold as stone.
“Might I be able to have a word, Pastor?” Elsa asks, not allowing herself to feel intimidated. When all’s said and done, she has nothing to fear from this boy or his little flock. Elsa knows every single person in Silvertjärn, and Pastor Mattias has only been here a few short months. She just needs to show him how things are done in Silvertjärn, that’s all.
At first the pastor doesn’t respond. The silence expands. Elsa becomes uncomfortably aware that every eye between her and the pastor is glued on her.
“Of course, Fru Kullman,” he says eventually. “What is it that you should like to discuss?”
“Shouldn’t we perhaps go into the chapel to talk?” Elsa asks.
The pastor watches her, his gaze calm and unbroken.
“Here is fine,” he says.
Elsa swallows. She refuses to let herself be intimidated, but it’s hard not to be affected by all the eyes that seem to be tracking her every move.
“I just wondered if it might be nice to have Einar do the sermon next week?” says Elsa. “He’s been with us so long, after all, and, as engaging as you are, it would be good to hear from Einar, who has been our spiritual guide all these years.”
Pastor Mattias pulls that strange, cold little smile again.
“Einar has chosen to step down, Fru Kullman,” he says. “He has moved south to live with his sister. For the sake of his health.”
Elsa blinks.
“His—his s-sister?” she repeats, hearing herself stutter but unable to stop doing it.
“Yes,” says Pastor Mattias. “We shall all miss him dearly, of course. But before leaving, Einar assured me he had every confidence in me.”
Elsa can’t think what to say.
“Was there anything else, Fru Kullman?” the pastor asks.
“Yes,” says Elsa, and swallows again. Her throat feels dry as dust. “I—”
The pastor interrupts her.
“In that case I wish you a good day, Fru Kullman,” he says. His eyes are glistening. “See you next Sunday.”
It isn’t a push, just a shift. As though the crowd takes a small step backward, and Elsa suddenly loses her footing.
She gropes around for
