Wolf Winter (46 page)

She became cold and put her jumper back on again. Her stomach hurt. Soon spring would come and they would eat. She would have fish and meat grilled in butter and …

Why hadn’t she slaughtered the reindeer? There was meat for at least two weeks. It was just so beautiful.

She scoffed at herself. As if she could afford to be sentimental. The goats gave milk—what they needed was meat. And so she would take its life. Tomorrow. This evening she would speak with the girls, and they’d do it at dawn. They’d have to sharpen the knives. It was hard to kill a reindeer. It was a large animal, and its pelt was tough.

What had she been thinking, implying Nils would have killed Fearless’s reindeer? The head was severed. He wouldn’t have had the spiritual resilience for it. And he had had no reason to show Eriksson respect.

She’d seen them in the morning—Nils, Daniel, and Henrik transporting logs to the site they had chosen for the village by the lake. She thought of Daniel’s and Anna’s faces that last time in church. Poor Daniel. For so long he had held fort against the evilness of his brother. And he’d been given no favors in return. He had lost Elin, a baby son, and now this had befallen his daughter. He would need
to get it out of him. He’d probably try to use hard work as an outlet for his anger.

If Frederika hadn’t stayed by her sister’s side, it could have been Dorotea. Sara …
God.

She began to wash the dishes in the basin and continued with the basin itself, scrubbed it until the unspoiled wood came up through the damaged, then ended up leaning against the basin, putting her thumb and fingers to her eyelids to keep them shut and her eyes empty. Her stomach pained her again, and she pressed her fist into her side.

Anna had been wrong. There had been no good sides to Eriksson. To think he’d known about Lundgren and let it continue. Unless, of course, Eriksson had just found out and Lundgren killed him when he confronted him. No, that didn’t work. Lundgren wouldn’t have gone around carrying a rapier. And Eriksson would have been prepared for a reaction, wouldn’t he? He would have come ready to defend himself.

Another thing that didn’t feel right was the marjoram. If Lundgren had an amulet with marjoram around his neck, that implied he had tried to quell his lusts. Maija would have assumed that people who repeatedly committed the same wrong surrendered to it completely with time.

Stop this,
she told herself.

And why would Lundgren have put a reindeer’s head on Eriksson’s grave after killing him? Or perhaps the two events were not connected …

She thought about how Lundgren had shouted that he hadn’t killed Eriksson. He would die, regardless, so what did it matter?

She threw the wet brush on the floor and hit her fist against her thigh several times.
Stop this.

Paavo. Think about him. He would soon be home. Easter, perhaps. That was in one week’s time. They would live. There were dues to pay. Poor Dorotea, her feet. Her life would never be what it could have been. But they would live.

It just didn’t make sense, that was all.

A minute later she was dressed and putting on her skis.

Anna’s face fell when she opened the door.

Maija reached out, took her hand, and squeezed it. Anna’s hand was limp. Daniel was sitting by the kitchen table.
They are not talking,
Maija thought.
They can’t talk.

“I am so sorry,” Maija said. “I am so, so sorry.”

Anna pulled her hand away.

Maija inhaled. “Please forgive me for what I am about to do,” she said in the gentlest voice she had. She had thought about it all the way over. They had to go into the details even if it would cause Daniel and Anna more pain. If they weren’t absolutely clear about what had happened, if they weren’t certain they had got to the bottom of it all, then things might still be out there, small evil seeds just waiting to root and grow again.

“Please forgive me,” she said again, and inhaled. “Do you think that Eriksson knew and kept silent?”

“Knew what?” Daniel asked.

“If Lundgren killed your brother …”

“If? You can’t be serious. We know what he did.”

Maija pressed on: “It’s the rapier. If the verger had brought a rapier with him to the forest to kill Eriksson, it couldn’t have been their first conversation.”

Daniel’s face was white. “What right do you have to ask us this? Leave it, Maija. It’s over. Go home. Be happy that it wasn’t yours. Take care of your daughters.”

Anna had bent her head.

“We just need to be certain,” Maija said. “It’s for all of us, for our protection.”

Anna sighed. “Eriksson was bad, but not that bad.”

Daniel moaned.

“His children too were in that school.”

“So if Eriksson didn’t know what Lundgren was doing, then why would Lundgren kill him?” Maija asked.

Daniel roared. “Haven’t you done enough already, Maija? Our family is in pieces, and still you won’t stop. You won’t stop until nobody on this mountain can trust anybody else!”

He stepped out from behind the table.

“We need to know,” Maija said as Daniel pushed her toward the door. “We must make certain.”

Dorotea was asleep when she came home. Maija and Frederika sat by the kitchen table and listened to her breaths. There was a rush of something—haziness or sickness—and Maija put her hands flat on the table before her.

“We’ll slaughter the reindeer tomorrow,” she said.

Frederika bent her head but nodded.

Maija’s head stopped roaring. She felt better.

From over by the bed came Dorotea’s cough. “I feel hot,” Dorotea said.

Maija walked across the room and sat down on the bed beside her.

Her daughter’s cheeks were swollen red. Maija stroked her forehead. It was warm, too warm. Fever.

Frederika brought her a cup of water. “Here, drink,” she said to her sister.

Dorotea opened her eyes, took a sip.

“More,” Maija said.

Dorotea shook her head and lay back down on the pillow.

Maija removed the wraps around her daughter’s feet. What was left of Dorotea’s toes were black and blistered. The rot continued. But this time there was more: the angry red that had been close to the damaged toes had spread further up toward her ankles. Infection.

Not this. She touched the red ankles. They were burning. Maija felt Frederika’s eyes, but couldn’t meet them.

“We’re going to have to cut into her feet,” Maija said in a low voice.

“No.”

“She’ll die if we don’t. It’s spreading.”

“You can’t decide this.”

“Your father isn’t here, Frederika. We need …”

“There is still hope. We need to trust.”

“But trust what, Frederika? In God? Trust what?”

They stared at each other.

“There is more on this mountain than you know,” Frederika said.

Maija rose. Her heart was banging in her chest. Her stomach seemed to be falling far away from her head. “I don’t want to hear another word from you. Listen to yourself. Think, Frederika. Use your brain.”

“It’s you who don’t listen. You don’t see. There is something the matter with you. Your decisions aren’t good anymore.”

Frederika’s voice broke, and she ran out of the house.

“Frederika.”

Frederika sat up. Something had woken her.

“Frederika.”

Fearless’s voice might as well have been in the same room.

Her fingers trawled the floorboards: trousers, blouse. In her mind she hushed him.
Be quiet, or you’ll wake the others.
They can’t hear him, she thought then, but she still worried and buttoned the blouse wrong and had to start over. Then she realized that it didn’t matter.

It was an overcast sky, with neither moon nor stars to give light. She walked across the yard holding her hands out in front of her in case she fell. The shape of the barn became clear, and when she drew closer, there was a glow from in between the timber slats.

Fearless waited for her in the barn, lantern lit. Without a word he lifted a shape off the bale beside him. He unwrapped the reindeer skin and held the object toward her. She stepped closer. It was the drum. He nodded, and she took it.

“You will own or be owned,” he said.

There were brown paintings on the taut leather: reindeers, dogs, the sun, signs Frederika didn’t recognize. With her finger she caressed the surface. The skin was so soft, it felt downy against her fingertips.

“Listen to me,” he said. When he was certain he had her eyes, he repeated, “You will own or be owned. It depends on how strong you are. What animal are you seeing?”

“Wolf.”

“Wolf?” He stroked his chin. “Almost impossible to tame. The drum will give you access to other worlds, to their world. That’s where you’ll have to conquer them.” He stepped closer to her and grabbed her arm. “Use the gifts with great care, Frederika. Don’t
give in to evil. Don’t give in to arrogance.” He sighed. “The way you’ve chosen … you’ve set yourself up to be the carrier of justice.”

“Yes,” she said.

“No,” he said, shaking his head as if she didn’t understand. “It is not that easy to execute justice.”

He left, and she sat watching the drum.

She sat in the barn until morning. The drum seemed to pulsate in rhythm with the sound in the air.
Dum. Tataradum.
It beckoned her to touch it.

Their cottage smelled hot and sour. Her mother was by the fire. She turned. Sideways, she was so thin the flames seemed visible through her. The knife blade glowed red from the heat of fire.

“No,” Frederika said.

“She is dying,” her mother said.

“I won’t let you.”

“Look for yourself,” her mother said. “Blood poisoning.”

Then her mother folded over. Her fingers clawed on to the side of the fireplace and she stood there, bent over, before standing up straight again with what looked like a huge effort.

When she spoke again, her voice was soft. “Frederika, you can stay here and help me. I so need your help. Or you can leave and come back when it is done. But I am doing this now.”

“You need to wait. I am getting gifts. I shall heal Dorotea.”

“You’ve lost your reason. Frederika, listen to yourself.”

“You healed yourself when you were a child.”

“I have told you, that’s not how it was.”

“You have to believe.”

Her mother started for the bed, for her sister. Frederika followed, and her mother swirled around. There was a sting, like nettles burning her throat. When Frederika reached up, there was blood on her fingers.

She cut me,
she thought, shocked.
She cut me.

The knife was still between them, and her mother took a step toward her. The glassy eyes, the twisted mouth: Frederika didn’t recognize her.

“I told you,” her mother said and raised the point of the knife under Frederika’s chin so she had to bend her head back so as not to be hurt.

Frederika felt a low churning in her stomach. Rage.

“I told you,” her mother said again.

Inside Frederika this … black thing swelled and grew. Her head felt light. She couldn’t breathe. Her mother walked forward, knife still to her skin, and Frederika reversed.

You cut me,
Frederika thought. She opened her mouth to scream the words.

With what seemed an impossible effort, she turned, found the door handle, opened it, and fell out.

She ran toward the forest. The snow was deep. The wind strong. There was a muted scream behind her.

And then, between the tree trunks, black shapes: men. She recognized Nils, Daniel, and Henrik. Somehow she knew they were coming for her mother.