I turn the doorknob carefully and open the door.
“Tone?” I say. “We’re stepping out for a little while. But we’ll be back soon, OK? With something to eat.”
She neither moves nor responds.
I swallow.
“Birgitta,” I say.
This gets a response. A flash of eyes through her fringe. A short, vague sound that seems to come from deep in her throat.
My stomach turns. I remember what she said about those weeks when reality was shut off, like a drape pulled over her mind, when she disappeared inside herself, into her own world.
I thought I was in Silvertjärn. I heard voices. Sometimes I heard Birgitta.
Her grandmother, though she didn’t know it at the time.
Is she hearing her voice now, too?
Or does she think she’s Birgitta?
The question vibrates on my lips, but the moment passes.
I close the door again and turn the key.
“OK,” I say to Robert. “Let’s go.”
He hangs back slightly, a small furrow between his light eyebrows.
“What did you just call her?” he asks.
I meet his gaze for a second and then look away.
“Come on,” I say.
The sun is almost skimming the horizon as we take the road down to the church. The air is cold, despite the warm light, and it feels like there’ll be frost overnight. Some of the most pioneering clusters of the newly budded spring flowers seem to be wilting.
When we reach the church the doors are ajar.
“Max?” I call into the darkness, though my voice doesn’t really want to carry.
No reply.
I look at Robert, who slowly pushes the heavy doors. The hinges grate as they swing open.
The pew we shoved in front of the door is still standing diagonally across the entrance a few feet in. One of our water bottles is sitting next to the remnants of our fire, and the thick, mildewy blankets we slept on are strewn over the floor. It looks as though we’ve come in, occupied, and desecrated the church. The only thing missing are a few empty beer cans.
“Max?” Robert calls out. His voice echoes off the high ceiling, seemingly expanding in the emptiness and yet, paradoxically, made smaller by it. Weaker.
“It’s us,” he goes on. “Alice and Robert. We just wanted to check if you needed any help.”
Still no reply.
I walk further into the church, even though my whole body is screaming at me to leave. The Jesus above the altar seems to be grinning mockingly. How could I ever have thought he looked like he was in pain? His eyes are cruel, there’s something all-knowing and menacing in his gaze, and that thin mouth looks twisted into a frozen, self-satisfied parody of a smile.
“Maybe he’s already gone,” I try. “Maybe he couldn’t find anything so went to find food somewhere else. Down to the square or something.”
A walk to clear his head. To get the taste of me out of his mouth.
The thought sends a stab of sorrow through my chest. I’m losing everyone, one by one. But maybe it isn’t Silvertjärn I’ve lost them to; maybe it was me all along.
“Maybe,” Robert echoes. He walks forward at the same cautious, restrained pace as me.
The sun is shining through the open doors from above the distant treetops behind us, making our shadows stretch out in front of us. They turn the entire church into an eerie imitation of life. Spindly limbs extending and moving in slow motion.
“Max?” I call again, my voice curdling slightly. “Are you here?”
Robert squats down next to the extinguished fire, then stands up again.
“He’s been here, at least,” he says. “This is where we left the honey and the last tin of sardines this morning, and now they’re gone.”
I look over toward the chapel. The door is closed. Did we leave it like that, or was it open when we left?
I can’t remember.
I don’t say anything, but Robert’s eyes follow mine. He nods.
The fear starts to dawn within me—a ringing in my ears, a film over my tongue.
We make our way past the rows of pews toward the small wooden door. Our shadows swell over it, merging together as a many-armed monster by the time we reach it. I deliberately avoid looking up at the crucifix; I’m too scared I might see the figure turn and pull a face.
Everything is too still; a sort of stillness that only comes with the subtle vibration that sets into your skin when you sense a presence.
Robert opens the door.
It’s the very image of a quiet, frozen peace. The yellowed lace curtain across the window. The little table, unassuming Windsor chairs. The small, blue-and-white-striped rug by the kitchen counter. The lovely evening light that paints the room in lacy shadow patterns.
The honey jar stands, prim and proper, on the table. The glass is thick and solid, with a faint tint of green, and the odd tiny air bubble along its heavy base. One of its edges is lined with blood and hair, like sticky oil paints smeared on with clumsy fingers.
He is lying facedown, which is some sort of blessing. One of his legs is pulled up under him, his stained jeans dragged up over his pale, thin calf, and his arm is reaching out to the corner. As though he were trying to crawl away.
I don’t need to wonder what has happened this time; there’s no need to study faint bruises on his neck, or the color of the whites of his eyes. The back of Max’s head is one big slop of blood, bone, hair, and something gray, spongy and gleaming. It wasn’t one well-aimed blow, or two. No: someone stood astride his struggling, lurching body and methodically hammered the honey jar onto him until he stopped moving.
I don’t scream. I’m expecting to, but it never comes.
I think of how his face had looked back at the train station, open and curious, as he had gazed down the tracks into the forest. Of his swinging gait when we first met, the awkwardness in his elbows,
