Free Wolf Winter by Cecilia Ekbäck Page A

the waist of the woman. Lisbet coughed and coughed until her thin frame hung as a coating on Henrik’s. When he lowered her, the skin around her mouth looked green.
    “Have you been sick for long?” Maija asked.
    “A long time. Poor Henrik. He takes such good care of me.”
    Henrik took the pike and put it in a bucket of water. He didn’t look at his wife.
    It was hard to see the two of them together. There was nothing unexpected about finding a man like Henrik on Blackåsen, but Maija could imagine Lisbet younger, dancing in a frilly dress, chatting. She must have been beautiful, and at some point Henrik must have doubted his luck. Now his wife was marked. Not by one of the obvious diseases, Maija thought. Crayfish, perhaps. Crayfish was like hatred. It ate away at a person from the inside, and nothing was seen until they crumbled.
    “I am sorry,” Maija said.
    Lisbet shook her head.
    “Where are you from?” Maija asked.
    “We’ve been here so long now,” Henrik said. “This is home.”
    “Twenty years,” Lisbet said. “We were among the first to arrive.”
    She sounded proud. Maija thought about the cluttered yard. To think that people could live somewhere for such a long time without getting better organized. But Lisbet was sick. Not so easy to manage, then.
    “What about the others?” Maija asked.
    Henrik raised his brows to her.
    “It’s just interesting,” Maija said. “All of you from such different backgrounds.”
    Lisbet counted on her fingers. “Daniel and Eriksson were born here,” she said. “Nils and Kristina arrived some years ago from Stockholm.” She smiled and small dimples appeared by her nose, a reminder of the beauty she’d once had. “They had so much luggage, you wouldn’t have believed it.”
    “Why would they come here?”
    Lisbet shrugged. She didn’t seem to find it strange.
    “And Gustav? He was in the army?” Maija asked.
    “Gustav doesn’t get involved with the rest of us,” Henrik said. “He keeps to himself.”
    “Oh, I heard Eriksson saying he was a soldier—he would have known,” Lisbet said.
    “What was he like—Eriksson?” Maija asked.
    Lisbet giggled. “Unafraid. He knew Blackåsen inside out, and he made living here seem so easy. He was gallant, pleasant …” She interrupted herself and looked to her husband. “I don’t want to be left alone,” she said, remembering her earlier grievance. “People disappear here.”
    “Nils told us,” Maija said.
    Lisbet was still looking at her husband. “And now she’s killed Eriksson too.”
    “She?” Maija shook her head.
    Lisbet’s eyes fixed on Maija. “Elin,” she said.
    “His wife … why?”
    “She’s a sorceress.”
    “She was under investigation for sorcery a long time ago, but she was declared innocent,” Henrik said, correcting his wife.
    But the trials had all stopped. Oh what was wrong with people? Maija was glad she hadn’t told anyone about the seeds she had found on Eriksson’s clothes. Everyone used herbs for medical purposes, but some people were quick to point out that sages had faculties beyond the simple restoration of health.
    “Even her husband wanted her trial to go ahead,” Lisbet answered her husband.
    “To get her officially exonerated,” Henrik said.
    This wasn’t a new discussion.
    “The bishop didn’t listen to us,” Lisbet said. Her face was gaunt. “She was let go, and now we will all pay for this decision. She’ll get us one by one …”
    Henrik was looking out the window. “Are you managing for food?” he asked Maija.
    Maija could see what he was doing. She tried to follow him onto ordinary matters such as the graylings they had caught and salted, the partridges and the hares that were hanging from the roof beams of the food store, the turnips growing in the earth, and the field, full of barley.
    “Yes,” she said. “So far, it’s been good.”
    “The month of rot will soon be over,” he said.
    Before coming to the mountain Maija hadn’t