Wolf Winter (11 page)

“There was a fire?”

“It was the driest summer anyone can remember. One morning there was a white pillar rising to the sky. And it was off. A blazing line dividing healthy from charred. There were yellow explosions, smoke bubbled among the trees like clouds rising from the ground …” She wrinkled her nose. “Westward, the fire drowned in the marsh. The pine trees on the mountain, of course, managed on their own. But the valley … it was vulnerable, open flat, and full of spruce.

“They tried to create a fire-break—they chopped down trees …” The woman swirled around, “in this direction.” She made a path with straight arms. “But the fire caught both bush and crown. There
was a brown fog before the sun, fragments swirling all around it like black moths against a light. And they had to let the fire take the valley.

“The day after, seen from the mountain, the valley was still glowing—a thousand devils looking out from inside the black ground.”

Frederika shivered. “Weren’t you scared?”

The woman’s pose slumped and she smiled. “I hadn’t arrived yet,” she said. “We all talk about this as if we were here when it happened. It’s the one joint memory we pretend we have. That and the disappearances.”

“The disappearances?”

“I have to go now. You’ll find plenty of bark here. The sort you like.”

“Thank you for helping me,” Frederika said.

“Somehow, I think you’ll return the favor.”

“Wait,” Frederika said as the woman turned away, “what is your name?”

“Elin,” the woman said. “I am Elin.”

“They’re already there.” Paavo opened the barn door. Maija blinked against the light. The scrawny body of the goat wriggled under her arm. It had been limping, and she’d put a leather strap around its neck to take a closer look at its foot. It could be a rock or a thorn. As long as it wasn’t rot. The goat kicked, and Maija let go of its body but held on to the strap.

“They being who, exactly? There being where?” she said.

“I saw them from the mountain. The marsh is full of people,” Paavo said. It sounded like an accusation. “They’re harvesting the sedge.”

“I guess we’d better go too, then.” There was hostility in her voice now too.

As he slammed the door behind him, the goat jumped and pulled the strap with it.
Ouch.
Maija lifted her hand and looked at her index finger. There was a red mark where the leather had burned the skin. Not blood. Just … a burn.

Perhaps, not long before he died, Eriksson held something made of leather in his hand,
she thought,
and it was snatched from him.
Maybe that something had contained herbs, some of which caught onto his sleeve.

They weren’t prepared, and she wasn’t certain what they’d need to take with them.

“You have the scythes?” she asked Paavo, although she saw them on his shoulder.

“Yes.”

“And the rakes?”

What was she doing? It wasn’t far to the marsh; they could send the girls home if something was missing. Paavo muttered, and she felt her stomach pinch.

Breathe,
she told herself. She remembered Daniel’s pregnant wife, Anna, and took the pouch of fennel seeds she had dried.

“Do you think the others all talked about it and agreed to harvest?” her husband asked.

“Of course not,” she said, though she couldn’t know. “They’ve just been here longer than us, that’s all. They knew what to look for. We’ll ask them so that next time we know too.”

They walked the whole way in silence.

“Mamma,” Dorotea whispered.

The figures on the marsh seemed to have risen from the mud. Their skin was black. The metal flashed in the sun as they lifted the scythes. There was a humming of blades cutting air. It was loud, like the wings of a hundred dragonflies.

Then one of them lifted his hat to wipe his forehead, and underneath was a blond tuft of hair. Henrik.

“They’ve put something on their skin,” Maija said with a calmness she didn’t feel.

“Tar.” Her husband gave a strange laugh. “I’ve heard of it being done. Against the mosquitoes.”

“Goodness,” Maija said.

Now it was easy: there were Henrik and five children, Daniel and Anna with four children, and, further away, Nils and what must be his family. The man in the middle, where the marsh seemed to be more lake than swamp and the tufts of grass were few and far between, was Gustav. One part of the marsh lay empty.
That’s theirs,
Maija thought.
Eriksson and Elin’s.

Maija watched for a while.

“I guess you and I will scythe,” she said to Paavo. “Frederika and Dorotea can rake and carry the sedge onto dry ground.” She turned to her daughters. “Pile it in heaps. We’ll let it dry a bit and then we’ll all help lift the grass onto the racks—you see them? Those are drying racks.”

It was difficult to get started. The water slowed the scythe down and made it heavy to lift up again. The blade didn’t seem to bite on the sedge. The mosquitoes were bad, but even worse were
sviarn,
the small black midges that tore a piece of flesh each time they bit. Maija bent down to pull at the wet grass with her fingers. It was slimy and thick and didn’t break. As she walked, her dress squelched against her legs and chafed the skin on her ankles. Beside her, Frederika struggled with the rake. Dorotea shrieked and slapped her legs, then her arms.

“You need to put this on.” Nils came wading toward them. He held a vessel in his hand containing what seemed like black grime. “Come here,” he said to Dorotea. He began patting the filth onto her cheeks and nose. “Fold your sleeves down,” he commanded. “You’ll get eaten alive.”

Nils turned to the marsh, vessel in one hand, the tar dripping from his other. “Time for a break,” he called. “Make a fire!”

Far out, two figures lowered their scythes and began to walk. They were followed by others.

Nils focused on Dorotea again. “Tie your kerchief lower. Cover your forehead.”

He turned to Frederika, hand raised, then cleared his throat. “Your mother can help you,” he said and pushed the bowl into Maija’s hand.

Maija dabbed the tar onto Frederika’s forehead and nose. Its smell was pungent and made her eyes water. Once Frederika was covered, she continued with Paavo, and then herself. She looked to the edge of the forest where the settlers had gathered and shrugged to Paavo.

“We’d better join them,” she said.

The fire was vigorous and its flames were a bright orange with sooty ends. It was unnecessarily large. Wasteful. Nils was
standing beside it. The others had gathered in a loose circle around him. Gustav stood to one side and looked at the marsh rather than the people. His face was twitching. Maija looked from Gustav’s curved back over to Daniel with his protruding ears, on to blond Henrik, and back to nobleman Nils.
If I am right and Eriksson was killed by someone he knew, then it was most likely one of you four,
she thought.

Why “if”? It had certainly not been evil powers.

Nils turned to throw another log onto the fire.

They have to talk about Eriksson’s death,
she thought.
A man has just been killed among them. They will have to have the words out.

“What you need is a blacksmith,” Daniel said. “I know a good one. He comes to town at market time.”

This was all too ordinary. But perhaps they had spoken about Eriksson before she and her family arrived?

Maija tried to picture Eriksson here among them, sitting on one of the stones or standing beside Nils. Tall and muscular. The bald head. The features slackened in death, that must once have been sharp. It was hard. The problem was Nils. She couldn’t imagine Eriksson and Nils in the same place at the same time. She tried to imagine Elin with them, instead, and could almost see the air growing darker.
They wouldn’t have had this break,
she thought,
if Elin had been at the marsh.

Anna sat down on a rock. Her face was gray.

“Still poorly?” Maija asked.

Anna grimaced and spat at the ground.

Maija moved the tar bowl over to the other hand and dug in her pocket. She handed Anna the leather pouch with fennel. “Put a few seeds in hot water and drink it as often as you like. It will calm the vomiting.”

A blonde woman came toward them. Though tall and large, she moved with the agility and precision of someone small. Maija got an image in her head of the clock she’d seen once in Ostrobothnia,
tick-tock, tick-tock,
metering out her time. She had to bite her lip not to giggle.

“I am Kristina,” she said. “Nils’s wife.”

“Maija.” Maija gave her the bowl of tar, nodded a “thank you.”

The bowl looked small in Kristina’s hand. “We make it out of birch bark,” she said.

“It’s a useful tree, birch.”

Kristina was not like Maija imagined noblewomen to be. There was nothing fragile about her. Her face was broad, her lips full. The tip of her nose was turned downward. She too looked at Maija, as if appraising her.

“You’ve never harvested sedge before,” Kristina said.

“No. My husband, Paavo, used to be a fisherman. I’m an earth-woman by training. If ever …”

Kristina’s eyes glinted. “Oh, I am beyond childbearing days now. But I am pleased to hear it. It will be good for the younger women to have you here.”

“How far away is the town?” Paavo’s voice cut through the air.

“One day’s walk.” Nils indicated the direction with his hand.

Paavo and Daniel had walked closer to him.

Alongside Maija, Anna put her head between her knees. Poor woman. Some women were sick all their childbearing time, and meanwhile, inside, the child clawed at them for nourishment.

“You’re lucky still to have a grown daughter with you.” Kristina was looking at Frederika.

“I didn’t get any sons, and so I don’t want her to leave just yet.” Maija looked to the square boys who stood behind their father. “And you have three sons?”

“I have daughters too, but I send them south as soon as they can walk.”

“You send them away?”

“It takes time to insert someone into a certain place in society. They’ll be growing up with my sister in Stockholm.”

Maija imagined a row of blonde girls in white dresses and hats, holding parasols. She looked at her own daughters, with their faces smeared black, kerchiefs low, and in the thick dresses she herself had woven, standing on a land that smelled of the piss of mating elks.
But you get a lot of love,
she reminded her daughters in her mind.

“Why would you stay here?” Maija asked. “I mean … with your options.”

“Fifteen years of tax relief for settling here.”

Maija was surprised. But perhaps in Sweden nobles too were in need of funds. Kristina’s nostrils flared. She didn’t like talking about it.

“And you, why did you come?” she asked.

“My husband traded the house with his uncle.” Maija was pretty certain that by now her nostrils were flaring too.

“And what do you think, Maija? Are you here to stay?”

As if they could move from one place to another on a whim.

“Yes. Though I am not certain we would join you in any village if you decide to build it.”

Kristina raised her brows.

“I’m not against villages as such,” Maija said, “but I am against people allowing fear to make important decisions.”

“A village?” Kristina asked.

Didn’t she know?

“That’s right,” Nils said, interrupting them. “The more I think about it, the more I believe it’s what we need to do. Come winter, we could start felling trees for houses. We’ll set ourselves up somewhere close to the lake. We wouldn’t have to be frightened any longer. We’d be safe.”

Kristina was looking at her husband.

“You don’t agree?” Maija asked.

“Why? I think it’s an excellent idea,” Kristina said.

Kristina had the kind of smile that didn’t grow onto a face but
appeared already formed. But there was something else in her face too when she looked at her husband. Caution?

“Did I hear right?” Nils asked. “You’re an earth-woman? Do you have any suggestions on how to rid yourself of toothache?” He grimaced and pointed.