“I’m here,” I say again.
I hold my breath. Force myself not to shrink back, but to look at her.
Her face hardens to a mask of carved wood.
“Infected,” she hisses again. “You’re all infected. By her.” Her knife presses even harder against Tone’s neck, and I see the skin beneath it give way, see a hypnotically red drop of blood make its way down her neck. A broken whimper leaves her throat.
“It’s not her,” I start to babble, “it’s not Birgitta—Birgitta’s dead. She’s been dead for sixty years. That’s not her, Aina, her name’s Tone, and she’s sick—”
“One more word and I slit her throat and send her back to the one she serves,” Aina says, cutting me off. That eerie calm has returned to her.
I shut my mouth.
“You think I don’t recognize her?” she asks, laughing that crackling parody of a laugh again. “You think I can’t see her filth in that body? I know. I’ve been waiting. Oh, have I been waiting.”
Her head twitches slightly.
“You’re going to give them back to me,” she says into Tone’s ear. “Hear me, witch? I’m going to take you to them, and then you’re going to give them back to me. It’s over now.”
The sunset outside has started to turn into twilight. The last of the pulsating redness starts to ebb out of the room, replaced by a cooler purple. Night is drawing in.
“Give what back?” a whisper rushes out of my throat. “What is she going to give back to you?”
THEN
Frank doesn’t need to pull or drag her anymore; Elsa’s feet are moving on their own. She is walking five steps behind the pastor, between Dagny and Ingrid, and her eyes are glued to their feet. They are at the head of the congregation, and to an outsider they might look like his most devoted followers, the ones honored enough to follow in his wake. As opposed to prisoners, crushed and broken.
Playthings.
Elsa has always believed herself a strong person, one who resists, who stands up for what’s right. And where that has been proven true to some extent, by now she has no fight left in her. Only emptiness.
She has lost any illusions of escape, of persuading any of them. There is no mercy left in Silvertjärn. The last of her hope died with Birgitta in the square.
However hard Elsa tries, she can’t stop herself from hearing Birgitta’s dying wails. Though she had closed her eyes tightly, the sounds she had not been able to shut out.
How long does he plan to keep them alive? A few days? A week? She and Ingrid and Dagny are all still alive because the pastor takes pleasure in seeing them defeated, that much she understands. But sooner or later he will tire of it. The best they can hope for is to not end up like Birgitta. The best they can hope for is a quick death.
By now night has fallen, and darkness has sunk over the village. Elsa hardly notices when the road is replaced by a beaten track, the shrubbery around them by tall pines. With heavy, lumbering steps she trudges over roots and moss, hearing the rest of the village marching in silence behind them. There is reverence in the air.
The forest envelops them like a mother. In it their true church awaits.
The pastor looks over his shoulder. He catches Elsa’s gaze, and his eyes gleam like silver. There is nothing human behind them.
The realization that comes to her is more of a caress than a blow. After all that has happened, it’s almost a relief.
She will never leave this forest.
NOW
“You,” she says to me, then nods at the doorway. “You first.”
I turn around. Robert catches my eye and I hesitate, but then I hear Aina’s dry voice behind me. She sounds calm and slightly pleased.
“If you run I’ll slit her throat open.” She clears her throat, then coughs. When she speaks again, her voice is quieter, softer. “And then I’ll take you both, one by one. Where do you think you can go? Silvertjärn is my home. You can’t hide from me here.”
She’s old, I think feverishly, and we’re young and strong. We can run faster, can get away from her if we just make a run for it. We have a chance.
But then I hear Tone whimper quietly behind my back. Some of the seriousness of the situation must have forced its way through her haze, because so far she has done as Aina has said. I don’t even want to imagine what would happen if she started kicking and fighting like she did with Robert and Max.
I think of Max’s smashed-in head and outstretched hand. Of Emmy’s empty, staring eyes.
I open the door and slowly step out.
“Toward the square,” Aina says. “To the forest.”
Is this a nightmare? Or is it really happening?
The edge of the forest looks like an impenetrable barrier, a wall to another world. The pines rise up over our heads like ancient, forbidding divinities. Against my better judgment I stop; I get stuck between heartbeats, and suddenly I can’t take another step.
I can’t go in there. I can’t step into that darkness.
The fear explodes in my stomach, and for a while all I can think is:
Then she can kill me.
“Go,” says Aina, and she doesn’t need to use any threats, because Robert whispers my name behind me, and that single word is enough to make me move. I can throw away my own life—that much I’ve been prepared to do before—but not theirs.
The forest around us is coming to life in a way I’ve never seen before. Had Silvertjärn been a graveyard, there would be whispering and whistling all around us. Movement everywhere. Countless eyes tracking our last steps.
My breath stings in my throat. In the darkness
