Wolf Winter (19 page)

She hadn’t been inside for long and her cheeks were burning. It had been her turn to shake the rag mats. They did it every day during winter. Put them on the snow and beat the dust out of them. Her mother had gone to the woodshed. Dorotea was feeding the goats.

Frederika leaned on the glass and stared at the snowflakes until her right side became so cold, it didn’t belong to her any longer. Then she sat down on a chair and pulled her scarf over her head and face.
This is what it is like to be dead,
she thought. She imagined her face withering and falling off, big sheets of snow released off a tin roof, a
snap
and then
whoooosh.
Like Eriksson down in the ground. And now Elin.

Her mother had told her and Dorotea about Elin and her children. “I prefer you hear it from me and not from anybody else,” she’d said. As if there were a lot of people around to tell them things. Then her mother had hugged them until Frederika couldn’t breathe and had struggled to get free.

Frederika didn’t feel well. She felt her forehead with her hand but couldn’t tell if it was hotter than usual. She’d had the strangest dream the previous night; although the images had paled, the emotions they had unearthed remained intact. In her dream she’d seen a man dressed in a blue jacket with large skirts, boots that reached his thighs, and a triangular hat on his head. He was striding forward in what seemed like a grave. There were shots—it was a trench. The man
seemed unfazed by the sound. He passed another man who stood up to attention, patted him on his shoulder, said, “Tomorrow, in the daylight, we’ll have them,” then continued walking. At that moment Frederika noticed the shadows following him. The faceless shapes were gaining on him. They were so fast, and they were many. The walls of the trench began to crumble, but the man didn’t notice. He just walked on and on, and soon he was moving in mud up to his ankles. Still he didn’t notice. And then the mounds of earth on each side of him began to grow; she knew that soon they would collapse and bury him. Frederika had woken up screaming, scaring both her mother and her sister awake.

All this was the fault of the sound, she was certain. It had followed her since before the snow.
Dum. Tataradum.
From inside the mountain itself. As if there were a giant heart beating in its chest.

Sometimes, when Frederika spoke with her mother or with Dorotea, the sound was less present, a quiet tick. Other times it was so loud that, as she walked, she felt the pulsations around her in the air.

And then the snow fell, and things got worse. They woke up. It was hard to explain. But she knew—not just felt—knew, with the same certainty that she knew she was Frederika and she was fourteen years old, that the trees, the stones, and the snowflakes had come alive. They watched her. Not in a threatening way, but not in a caring way either. Just watching, as if waiting to see what would happen next.

“Settle down,” her mother would have said, voice sharp, eyes unwavering. “Remember what you know.”

And Frederika knew that trees and stone and snow were not alive, not in that way.

“Say hello to the sea,” Jutta used to say whenever they went fishing. “Say hello to the field, to the hill, to the plants.”

Settle down—they are not alive. But the way they shimmered. And she heard them. They whispered. They wanted.

Most of all, they hurt.

Somebody was on the porch. Frederika removed her scarf and sat up straight. The door opened. It was a man she didn’t know. His brown hair was covered by a hat of snow. His brows were wide, and underneath them, his eyes, a bluish gray. The flat kind that was difficult to see through.

“You must be Frederika?” he said.

She waited.

“I am the verger from the church in town. Where is your mother?”

“She’s getting wood.”

“Well, I really came to meet your sister. I’ll be teaching her and the other children this winter—reading and writing.”

Frederika had used to love school. Like all children, she’d had to leave when she was eleven.

He was watching her. His eyes had softened. “If you ever have time, you can join us. One more or less …”

He was being kind. Frederika remembered her manners. “Dorotea will be back any time. Please sit down. I’ll make something to drink.”

“That would be nice.”

The verger walked to sit by the table. Frederika filled a pot with water and carried it with both hands to the fire.

“How old is your sister?”

“She’s six.”

“Can she read and write?”

“Yes.” Frederika nodded. Their mother had taught them.

“We’ll have our school in the abandoned homestead … Do you know it? It lies westward.”

“I don’t think I know it,” she said.

When she turned around, he was looking out the window like she had earlier. He turned as if he’d felt her gaze, and smiled.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he said. “Snow. It turns the world flawless.”

“I guess.” She shrugged. Mostly hard work, if he asked her.

“Shame we can’t hold onto it. But things advance, a new season arrives and with it the thaw of the snow, and there they are again—the imperfections.” He almost sounded bitter.

Dorotea was on the porch. Rather than kicking her shoes to remove the snow, she hopped about. The door handle rattled. She stopped when she saw the stranger, mouth open.

“This is your teacher,” Frederika said. “This is …”

“Johan Lundgren,” he said. “In class you will call me Mr. Lundgren, but outside class Johan will do fine. You must be Dorotea.”

There were more sounds from outside. Kicking this time. Their mother came in. She unwound her scarf from her face.

“This is my teacher,” Dorotea said, in a haughty voice. “In class he is Mr. Lundgren, but outside Johan will do fine.”

Their mother gave Dorotea a stern look, but Johan laughed. The kitchen was full of sounds, as if he had brought them with him. Water underneath the pot fizzed on the iron plate in the fireplace. The fire crackled, and even her mother laughed.

“You found her?” Johan said with a low voice.

“Yes,” her mother said.

They were talking about Elin. Dorotea sat beside Frederika. She stared into the fire and her forehead was creased. Dorotea took off her socks, spread her toes wide, and winked with her feet.

Johan shook his head. “I can’t get over it. What a tragedy. To think …” He fell silent.

Her mother glanced at her daughters. There were things she wanted to ask him, but not now, with them listening.

“The school,” she said instead, “I assume there is a fee to pay?”

“The families take turns feeding the teacher. Will that be difficult for you?”

“We’ll manage.”

“Don’t be shy to tell me otherwise. It’s a mean year.”

“We’ll manage,” her mother repeated and rose.

Johan met Frederika’s gaze behind her mother’s back. He smiled at her and shook his head. It would be a long time before it was their turn to feed the teacher. He too stood up.

“Perhaps Dorotea can walk with me?” he said. “So she knows where we’ll be when we start class? I’ll bring her back too. So she won’t have to walk the mountain on her own.”

Her mother was about to say something, but nodded.

“I almost forgot the most important thing,” he said. “One of the traveling merchants brought word from your husband. They met as the tradesman was leaving for our province, and as Paavo heard where he was going, he asked to tell you he has found a job by the coast.”

“There was no … letter?” her mother asked.

“No, but he said all was well.”

The goats bleated as Frederika entered. There was a lantern on a hook by the door, but she did not take it. She stepped into the mild darkness and inhaled the scent of straw and pelt. The animals were lying down in their pen. She couldn’t make out their individual shapes; just a large, breathing bump.

“Only me,” she said in a low voice. Her mother had given a silly excuse for wanting to be alone. Of course Dorotea knew how to feed the goats.

Her mother had been sad, she thought. She wanted a letter from their father. He would write soon, though, Frederika was certain. You could depend on her father.

There was a movement in the dimmest corner of the barn and then a man took a step forward. Tall, bald, broad-shouldered, with bearing like an army man on watch. His mouth was slightly open. Last time she saw him there had been flies flying in and out of that black hole.

Jesus!

She turned and her feet became snared by the hay. She fell and scrambled rearward until she sat with her back against the wood of the pen.
You’re dead,
she thought.
Dead.

His eyes were fixed on her. They were small and set widely apart.

“A child,” he said with a scowl.

Frederika couldn’t move. Her heart was beating in her ears.

He sighed and shook his head.

“How many times did you see Elin?” he asked.

She couldn’t breathe.

“How many times did you see Elin?” he asked again, slowly this time. “Answer!” he yelled.

Frederika gasped. “Twice,” she whispered. “Once in the forest, once in church.”

Eriksson smiled. It wasn’t a real smile, but a showing of teeth. “So you do speak,” he said. “That’s better. So what did you see?”

“I don’t understand.”

“You must have thought something when you met her. People did.”

Frederika had to clear her throat. “She was wise,” she whispered.

With his finger he motioned for her to continue.

“She knew the mountain well.”

Eriksson rolled his eyes.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” she said.

“Compare the two sightings.”

Frederika remembered Elin in church. She had tried to catch her eye, but Elin hadn’t seen her.

“She was different,” she said. “The second time she was different.”

His eyes gleamed. “Different how?”

“She seemed … sad. No, more. It was as if she wasn’t really there. She seemed far away.”

“So what changed her?”

“She missed you?” Frederika said. Her voice sounded doubtful.

He laughed. It was sudden and hearty, a very loud sound. When he laughed he wasn’t beautiful, but … striking. The kind of person you’d want to please, and not only out of fear.
You’d never have forgotten meeting Eriksson,
she thought,
even when he was alive.

“I don’t have any illusions there,” he said. He fell serious. “The second time you saw her, Elin wasn’t just changed. She was destroyed. What destroys a person?”

Frederika shook her head.

He moaned and tapped his head with the heel of his hand. “Think.”

She frowned. Lots of things could destroy someone.

“She’d found something out,” Eriksson said, and then he was gone.

Hopeless,
the priest thought, late that afternoon. He tried to get his strides to hook into one another like he’d seen others do, but his skis refused. The strides came separately and in spurts. He focused.
One-Two. One-Two.

No. No matter how he tried, this wasn’t one smooth act but several at once. Flakes poured through the air; small, but peppery. The priest bent his head and shuffled forward. The verger had told him that the Lapp winter camp was close by, somewhere beyond the marshlands west of Blackåsen. The priest had never before visited the Lapps during winter. He’d have to stay in one of those cots they lived in—thick branches standing in the snow, forked together at the top and clad with reindeer skins.

He must have taken a wrong turn, for before him lay the river, the frozen waterway a white ribbon tied around blue land. The verger had told him not to venture out on any stretches of ice. “They are not yet solid,” he’d said. Further down steam rose from open black water. The priest’s legs felt weak. It had been a long time since he’d had any strenuous physical exercise. He admired the view until the cold of his frozen clothes clutched at his body and he became aware of the sound of his breath inside his hat. He had to get going again.