Free Wolf Winter by Cecilia Ekbäck

She stilled. Right here there was a scarcity of branches on the low larch beside her. One step forward and she had a view over the whole glade. Underneath the lowest branches something gleamed blue. She bent down. A piece of blue glass, with color, like the windows in church, its edges round. Now they told her. The larch said, yes, there had been an infringement. The crowns of the pine trees whispered that the view from there was almost as good as their own. Yes, someone had stood here.
    Someone might have stood here just before, during, or after the kill.
    Henrik’s derelict yard lay empty. A damp cough came from inside the house. Leaning against the porch railing, beside a shovel and an old meat grinder, its rusty crank pointing straight up to the sky, there was a broken fishing rod. Maija followed the trail in the grass toward the river.
    A blond head moved among the reeds. As she came closer, she saw Henrik and the knife in his hand. He shot forward, stabbed into the water, scooped the knife up, and swung it.
    The pike slapped to the ground in front of her, flailing, soil sullying its green fins, its large mouth with the underbite snapping. Maija grabbed a rock and struck the fish on its head. It shook and stilled. She rose, threw the rock away.
    He waded toward her, his hand raised: “Sorry.”
    He squatted by the fish, laid it on its back on the grass, and gutted it with one slit of his knife. He threw the guts into the water. Thenhe leaned back on his heels, one hand covering his eyes against the sun. “What brings you here?”
    “Someone called Nils came to see us.”
    Henrik stroked the sides of his knife against the grass. He stood up, walked to the water, and washed the inside of the fish with his fingers. A glimpse of sallow red.
    “He’s a nobleman?” she asked.
    Henrik nodded. He rose, the fish hanging from one hand, his fingers in its gills.
    “They are settlers?”
    Henrik nodded again.
    “I am surprised,” she said. “Nobles are no settlers.”
    Henrik chuckled. “That family can fend for themselves,” he said. “I’ll tell you a story. When Kristina and Nils first arrived here, one of the merchants saw his chance. He sold them rat meat, called it pheasant. Someone told on him, and it’s said that when this same merchant arrived back to the coast after a long journey and unpacked, he found his cases full of the vermin. Under the cover of night someone had replaced all his furs with dead rats.”
    That would have done it, she thought. Nils was certain never to have been bothered again.
    “I went back to see where Eriksson was killed,” she said. “I found this.”
    She took out the piece of glass from her dress pocket. In her hand it looked dull.
    He took the piece from her. “In the glade?”
    “At its edge.”
    “Where?”
    “Underneath some bushes. South, toward the pass.”
    He turned it around in his hand, then handed it back to her and shook his head. He began to walk and she followed him.
    “It wasn’t wolf that killed Eriksson,” she said to his back.
    “No,” he agreed.
    “Then why did Gustav say it was?” she asked, meaning, Why did you?
    “Henrik?” A woman’s voice, calling from the yard. “Henrik?”
    Henrik lengthened his steps.
    There was a thin woman in a long white dress on the porch. “I told you not to go far. The children are out, and I am all alone.” She began to cough and supported herself with her hand against the doorframe. Then she noticed Maija.
    “And who are you?”
    The air in the cottage smelled of wood fire and fever.
    “We don’t get many visitors.” The woman had introduced herself as Lisbet. She had long dark hair and blue eyes framed by bowed eyebrows. Her skin was pale and fine over her bones. Maija removed her own arms from the table where she had crossed them, freckled and rough-skinned.
    “I forget my manners.” Lisbet put her hands on the table to rise.
    “Don’t,” Maija said, as Henrik stepped forward to wrap his arm around