But the relief soon fades, replaced by something that could almost be called horror.
Birgitta’s eyes are downcast as usual, but they are flitting around in frenzied terror, and she is humming quietly while rocking to and fro. It almost sounds like she’s crying. Elsa has never heard Birgitta cry before.
“Oh, Birgitta,” she says. She puts down the basket and reaches out to hold her, but Birgitta’s hums grow to a moaning roar, and she lashes out at Elsa. One of her arms meets the side of Elsa’s head, forcefully, and Elsa stumbles backward, seeing stars. It hurts terribly, but she manages to catch her balance just in time. She touches her cheek: it’s burning but not bleeding, and nothing appears to be loose or broken.
Birgitta has backed a few steps into the hut. She is still making her plaintive, sorrowful moans, but they now sound almost resigned. She didn’t want to hurt Elsa. Elsa knows that.
“Forgive me, Birgitta,” she says. Her head is still spinning. “That was wrong of me. I shouldn’t have done that.”
Elsa doesn’t know if Birgitta can hear her. She approaches her cautiously, her hands at her sides. She wants to show her she won’t try to touch her again. Then she picks up the basket of food from the ground.
“Can I come in? I’ve brought some food. You must be very hungry.”
Elsa makes sure to stand very still while Birgitta makes up her mind.
Eventually Birgitta takes another step back, just enough for Elsa to be able to squeeze in through the doorway.
“Thank you, Birgitta, that’s very kind,” she says politely, as though Birgitta has just invited her in for a coffee. Elsa makes sure to wipe the mud off her shoes on the threshold before stepping inside. After the long, wet summer they’ve had, Silvertjärn is virtually one big swamp.
She steps inside and looks around. To her surprise, the musty stench is no worse than normal—quite the opposite, in fact. The summer sun filters in through the slender branches of the young oak and down onto the kitchen table.
There’s something there.
Elsa takes a close look at Birgitta before going further in, but Birgitta shows no signs of agitation. She appears to have calmed down. Elsa puts the basket on the chair, as usual, and looks down at the tabletop.
Crayons.
Four small, cheap crayons, the sort a child would have, and clearly well-used. There are four colors: red, blue, yellow, and black.
Elsa leans over the tabletop to see what Birgitta has drawn, but finds nothing. Her eyes scan the room. Nothing.
Then her eyes land on the floor next to Birgitta’s feet.
Faint traces of mud.
Footprints, in the same mud that surrounds the hut.
Elsa looks at Birgitta’s feet, but she already knows the footprints can’t be hers; they’re too big to come from Birgitta’s surprisingly dainty feet, and they’re shaped like a pair of shoes. As far as Elsa knows, Birgitta doesn’t own any shoes, and she shakes her head and flails around if anyone so much at tries to get her to wear anything other than the big, shapeless dress she’s lived in since her mother passed away. Anything else seems to cause her pain.
“Birgitta,” she says slowly, turning her eyes back to the crayons. “Who has been here?”
Elsa wants Birgitta to look at her and answer the question. But she can’t. She just mutters to herself, sounds without context or meaning.
It can’t have been Aina. Elsa knows it can’t have been her, for Aina’s defiant, contrary voice is still ringing in her ears, along with those strange, wicked words that she could never have imagined coming from her daughter’s mouth.
“You have no power over me! I’m one of God’s chosen ones. You can’t tell me what to do, and I have better things to do than look after that monster!”
Elsa has never hit one of her children before, has never raised her hand against anyone in anger. Her hands have always been ones that comforted and soothed, that sought to help others.
But her palm is still burning from where it met Aina’s cheek.
And what haunts Elsa now is not the lie, nor Aina’s defiance, nor even the slap that rang through the room.
No—it’s the spark that had flashed in Aina’s beautiful dark eyes as she slowly raised her hand to her cheek, her gaze locked on Elsa’s. A look that resembled triumph.
Elsa feels sick.
Birgitta has started to rock back and forth on the spot again. She moves one foot, places it over the dried-on footprint, and rubs until hardly any of the shape remains, just a brownish patch of dust on the floorboards.
As she does so, through Birgitta’s swaying, straggly curtains of hair, Elsa catches sight of some dark patches at the base of her neck. Patches shaped like fingers.
Far away, like a rumble from the underground, Elsa hears the faint sound of hundreds of people singing in chorus.
Evensong has begun.
NOW
I open the pantry doors and look at the contents. Nothing to eat here, either, just shriveled paper bags of mummified flour and oats, small tins of spices, and glass bottles with coagulated, calcified contents.
“Nothing here, either,” I say to Robert as I close the doors. The hinges creak, but they still do their job. He nods, a furrow appearing between his transparent eyebrows.
This is the fourth house we’ve checked, and I’ve started to give up all hope of finding anything.
Max was the only other one of us, apart from Robert, who took his rucksack with him from the square, and the three protein bars he had in there didn’t go far. By the time darkness started to draw in, we were forced to make a new plan.
I didn’t say much while the others discussed what to do. All of our provisions were in the van that blew, so Emmy said
