Wolf Winter Read Free Page A

of the north side of the mountain and beyond, flexed through the green like a black muscle, or a snake. A snake shooting for the blue mountain chain at the horizon.
    She didn’t know what they might find at the top of the mountain. Frederika hadn’t made much sense. But she had cried. Frederika didn’t often cry.
    “I thought the girls could take the goats to that glade close to the summit,” she said, as if to explain.
    “There is the marsh too,” Henrik’s son said. “But she’s treacherous. Better not send girls there.”
    When they reached the summit, she hesitated. Henrik passed her. His son made as if to pass her as well, but she shook her head and walked ahead of him, in.
    The glade was basking in color and light. And then she saw the man for herself.
    He was ripped from throat to genitals, the body split apart, turned inside out, shaken until what was within had collapsed and fallen out on the ground.
    Behind her, Henrik’s son moaned.
    “Eriksson,” Henrik said.
    Gustav walked to the body and knelt down.
    Maija took a step to the side, her hand searching in the air for a tree trunk—something, anything.
    When she looked back, Gustav’s hand was on the body. “Bear,” he said. “Or wolf.”
    “Bear?” Maija asked.
    But what kind of a monster would it take to do this?
    “We’ll take the body to the widow,” Gustav said.
    Maija thought of Dorotea, her bony chest and pouting belly, her shape still that of a baby. She thought of Frederika, the bulging vein at the base of her neck where the skin was so thin it was clear, the blue tick making her feel both joyful and frightened. Half an hour, she thought. Half an hour’s walk at most to their cottage.
    “We need to track it,” she said.
    The men turned to her.
    “We can’t have a killer bear on the loose.”
    Henrik looked to Gustav.
    Gustav rose. “Fine,” he said, his mouth a twisted, black hole.
    But he had shrugged.
    “I’ll come with you,” Maija said.
    “There is no need.”
    “I’ll come.”
    “Fine.”
    “Eriksson,” Henrik’s son said. “The mountain took him.”
    “What do you mean?” Maija asked.
    There was a sheen on his upper lip as his blue eyes jumped from his father to her. “The mountain is bad,” he said.
    Gustav bent to open his leather satchel and took out a piece of canvas and ropes. He spread the sheet on the ground beside the body and sat on his heels. Henrik squatted beside him. After a brief hesitation, she did the same. The boy remained standing.
    The three of them rolled the body onto the cloth. Heavy and spumey, it crawled and came undone in their hands. Behind her the boy dry-heaved. Maija focused onto the rim of Gustav’s hat, let her hands work without looking.
    “We’ll wait for you at Eronen’s old homestead,” Henrik said. A quick glance at Maija. “At your homestead,” he corrected himself.
    He pushed his son to get him moving, and the two of them wired the ropes around their wrists and lifted. They became a flicker between tree trunks before they vanished.
    Gustav hunched down. He poked with a twig in the squashed grass. Then he rose and walked over to some mountain carnationsat the side of the glade. He moved the tiny purple flowers with their black stems and emerald blades aside to look at the silvery moss beneath. At once their strong perfume was in the air, tangled with the smell of rot.
    The tracks led them west down Blackåsen Mountain. At the foot of the mountain was marshland, black water, green spongy tufts.
    Maija stepped on it, and water welled up around her shoe, and—she waited—yes, there it was through the leather, cool between her toes, filtering up and down, becoming warm. She tried to put her feet in Gustav’s footsteps. The ground smacked each time she lifted a foot. This was the kind of land that didn’t know how to let go.
    “Walk close to the trees,” Gustav said without turning around.
    She did as he said. Kept so close her side scraped the bark. Felt their