“Who among you would like to help to cleanse our congregation?” comes the pastor’s voice, and now it’s a pounding waterfall, thunder rumbling across the square. “Who among you are prepared to act as Christ’s hands? Step forward. Step forward and act.”
At first nothing happens. But then they start to move, crowding and flocking around the baskets. Hungry, grasping hands reach like claws for the stones, at first hesitantly, then heatedly. They push and shove to get their hands on them.
“We must dare to bleed, and to spill blood,” the pastor sermonizes over their free-for-all. “We must choose the light. We must choose God. We must crush the devil among us, for otherwise we shall never be whole.”
The stones have started to run out. Those standing at the front start to edge back, most with two or three stones in their hands. Young and old, men and women, Elsa knows them all. One of the girls is no more than twelve years old. Greta Almqvist. She has a round, flat stone in each hand, each so big that her fingers can’t close around it.
The silence envelops and swallows them. For one eternal second, nothing happens. They all stand still, waiting. The only sound is the swish of nine hundred breaths, like the soft flutter of a butterfly’s wings.
“Sing with me,” the pastor says calmly.
Around him they begin to sing as one. The melody is familiar.
“A mighty fortress is our God, A bulwark never failing;
Our shelter He, amid the flood Of mortal ills prevailing…”
Birgitta twitches when the first stone hits her thigh. When the second meets her waist over the ropes, she raises her head and howls. Elsa glimpses two swollen black eyes through her hair, a broken lip.
The howl rises to a scream when little Greta Almqvist hits her in the face with one of her stones, splitting her eyebrow so that the blood starts to flow down her face.
Her screams are swallowed by the ever-swelling hymn; they become part of the chorus. Elsa screams along with her, only vaguely aware that she is doing so.
“STOP! PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, STOP!”
She fights to free herself, but Frank has her in an iron grip. His melodyless voice echoes in her ears.
“And tho’ this world, with devils filled, Should threaten to undo us;
We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us…”
The stones are raining down on Birgitta now. A few merciful stones miss, but most of them hit their target.
Her cries have turned into an exhausted moan, a wordless prayer, fleshy and thick.
The tears are running down Elsa’s face. She can’t. She can’t watch.
She closes her eyes.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Forgive me, Birgitta. I’m sorry.”
NOW
Through the silence of the church comes a sound.
It’s that same humming rise and fall of our walkie-talkies.
They are lying in a pile on one of the pews. I pick up one of them, a light, ugly little device in black-and-yellow plastic. It sits in my hand like a huge, distorted wasp, ready to sting.
It’s turned off. The light isn’t on.
I drop it to the ground, hear the plastic crack against the stone floor with a satisfying clap.
I fumble clumsily for the other walkie-talkies, my fingers hysterical. None of their lights are on. None of them are on.
The sound continues to grow in volume, until there’s no more rise and fall. This isn’t interference. It’s the pure tone of a song on the wind, a song that seems to rise from the ground itself in the blazing sunset.
“That word above all earthly pow’rs—No thanks to them—abideth:
The Spirit and the gifts are ours Thro’ Him who with us sideth.
Let goods and kindred go, This mortal life also;
The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still,
His kingdom is forever.”
“We’re going to die here,” Robert mumbles. “We’re going to die here.”
“No,” I say.
My mouth tastes of iron and blood, the hymn is ringing in my ears, and the noose that is Silvertjärn is about to strangle us.
“We’ll have to go through the forest. We can’t wait for the police.”
Robert looks almost sleepy. I realize that this is what shock must look like. I’m sure I’m shocked, too, but I feel wide awake—perhaps more than I’ve ever felt before.
“We can’t,” he says. His body seems to fold in on itself, his broad shoulders slump, and his hands dangle uselessly at his sides.
“Yes we can,” I say. “We’re getting out of here. We’ll head to the highway. Fast—now. I don’t know who’s doing this, but I’m not sticking around and waiting to die. OK?”
His eyes meet mine, and he nods.
“OK.”
As I run between the houses, it feels like the village itself is trying to swallow us up, as though every single house were a trap, every open door a set of gaping jaws. The quiet, distant hymn echoes through the alleys and streets.
There’s something deeply wrong with this place, but I no longer have any desire to stay and try to figure out what that is.
The green door is hanging ajar. I throw it open and stumble inside.
“Tone!” I cry as Robert comes in behind me, still jittery and empty-eyed.
“Try to find something we can fill with water,” I say. “Look in the kitchen. If there’s anything edible left then take it.”
He nods and goes into the kitchen, and I run upstairs, taking the steps two at a time.
“Tone?” I say, and open the door.
The dying sunlight filters in through the window, tinting the room a fiery red. The ripped bedspread, the desk, the floorboards. Tone’s terror-stricken face.
The knife blade flashes red-hot in the light, trying to blind me.
The figure holding the knife to Tone’s neck isn’t much taller than she is. Its face is
