Oskar

Eli opened the door of the cabin as quietly as she could and returned the galoshes to their place on the mud mat. She slipped Jed’s socks back on as she listened for movement, but there was none. He was still asleep.

She emerged from a heavy blackness that had seemed like forever and opened her eyes. Did not know where she was, but—it was not where she had been before. She had been outside; she remembered that much. And now she had been moved to . . .

--a room. In a bed. She was warm in the bed.

A man was sitting beside her. He was lightly touching her hand. He was looking at her hand, not her face.

Fear of the unknown seized her, counterbalanced only by his calm, concerned look. He was not trying to hurt her. He was . . . worried about her.

It was near dusk and he had waited only 45 minutes when the doe stepped into view from behind a screen of heavy scrub and saplings about 175 yards down the snow-covered mountainside. She moved cautiously, approaching him at an angle. She was big as does went, and had no fawns. He would have preferred a buck, but was hunting for food so it did not matter.

The call came late at home after another long, hard day full of surprises. He was on the john reading the paper when he heard the muted ring of the phone downstairs. Halfway through the third ring, there was the faint sound of Flora’s voice. When she stopped talking, he knew it was for him.

As he had anticipated, there was a soft knock on the bathroom door. “Kurt, there’s a call for you.” He debated asking her to tell whoever it was to call back.

“Who is it?”

“A detective in Norrköping.”

“Norrköping?”

“Yes. Do you want me to tell him you’ll call back?”

Eli . . .

Eelii . . .

Footsteps on the cold stone of the darkened hallway

Coming for me, coming in the whistling dark

Run and hide, hide where He won't find me My feet go pitter patter

The flames flutter in their iron flickering shadows they cast

Try one door then the next but they're all locked, pull and pull but they won't open

Growing louder getting closer I'm so afraid

(St. Michael the archangel defend us in battle . . .)

Chapter 15

11 AUGUST 1983 – 9:30 p.m.

Maria woke up in the dark, sticky-mouthed and a little cold. As she turned onto her side and pulled the blanket around herself, she felt the slight tug of the band-aid on her left arm, and recalled the events of the previous night. Oskar and Eli had drunk from her, and later had fallen asleep with her. She opened her eyes--where were they now? She was alone on her mattress, but--

. . . she was not alone. What was that sound?

11 AUGUST 1983 – 8:13 p.m. Danderyd

The minister spoke the words to the steady beep of the cardiorespiratory monitor and poured the water onto the infant’s forehead. It trickled down his temple until it was caught on a folded pad of clean, white cloth. “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

Chapter 12

Eli had showered and was drying the bottom of the tub with a towel when he got back to their apartment on Skäftingebacken. He had beaten the sunrise by fifteen minutes.

“I was starting to worry about you,” she said warmly as he stood in the bathroom doorway and began to strip off his sopping-wet clothes. She offered him a towel as he pulled off his shirt, then leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

He deliberately beat her to the punch for the evening’s report. “So, how did things go tonight?”

Spring 1983
Northern Finland

A thin stream of broken clouds stream quickly across an otherwise clear, cold night sky.
The cloudy swath of the Milky Way glows softly among the stars that shine above a remote tundra, veins of shallow water weaving together into the distance toward the shallow mountains at the horizon.
The spring night is chilly with a strong wind whispering through the fresh greenery and wildflowers that have pushed up through the long dead grass of the hillocks.