The Lost Village by Camilla Sten (best fiction novels TXT) 📗

Inside the room there are eight tall, narrow desks in rows, with a lectern and a slate chalkboard at the front. There are no chairs. The walls are lined with shelves, most of which are packed with neatly organized test tubes, glass bottles, and other equipment for basic chemistry experiments. The top shelf, however …

I step slowly into the room, my eyes glued to the jars lining the top shelf. They are filled with some sort of brownish preservative, giving the objects within them a sepia tone. Some contain plants and roots, others formless clumps that could be either fungi or organs. But at the far end of the shelf stand three jars of what can only be some sort of fetuses.

I hear something click behind me and glance over my shoulder. Tone takes a few photos of the shelves, then steps closer and zooms in, ensuring that the three far jars are in focus.

Then she lowers the camera and stares at them.

“Those are really gross,” I say, trying to lighten the mood.

A frown line appears between Tone’s eyebrows.

“Why would they even have these?” she asks.

“To teach kids about … anatomy and stuff, I guess.”

One of the jars has cracked—or even split in the cold—and its dull, syrupy brown contents have dripped onto the shelves below. It must have happened a long time ago, because the stains have long since dried. I can’t see what it might have contained.

She goes on staring at them so long that I say:

“I think we’re done in here.” My voice is louder than it needs to be. It seems to fill the whole space.

“We should come back at dusk,” she says. “To film here. The light will be perfect then. Powerful images.”

I can feel the timeless, hunched, unformed beings in the jars still pulling my eyes toward them, and a chill runs down my spine. But that has to be a good thing, really. Tone’s right: it is powerful.

Once out of that room, we walk toward an identical set of doors to the left of the staircase. These ones are slightly aslant. One of the hinges on one side has come away from the wall, leaving that door slanting sharply toward the other. A golden streak of light shines through the gap between them.

I carefully pull at the door hanging from one hinge. I’m met by a cool puff of wind that, along with the sudden sunshine, makes my eyes water. I blink.

The room is big and almost empty, but the walls are covered in posters: everything from big printed letters like the ones they use in eye tests, to cross sections of the human body, and more detailed anatomical images of the eye and heart. The nurse’s office.

By the wall next to the door stands an oak desk with a matching Windsor chair beside it. There’s a dainty little corner cabinet to one side and, on the other side of the door, a heavy white porcelain sink with cobweb cracks in the enamel and a rusty tap.

Near the far wall stands a bier-like bed with a rumpled sheet that has yellowed with age. The window above it is the only open window in the room, and it hangs open in a way that looks intentional. As if it were opened to give whoever wrinkled up those sheets some air and sunshine.

Besides the old posters, desk, cabinet, and bed, the room is empty. It seems too big a space for so little furniture, and its emptiness makes it feel even bigger.

“This must be where they found her,” I say. Without thinking, I’ve taken a few steps into the center of the room. I’m vaguely aware that my heart is beating hard, pounding in my chest.

“This must be where they found the baby—your mom,” I say, looking over my shoulder. “Don’t you think?”

Tone has stopped in the doorway. Her pupils have contracted in the bright sunshine, and there are beads of sweat on her forehead.

“Tone?” I ask uncertainly.

She lifts the camera to her eyes, but then lowers it again. Then she says, quietly:

“You take this one, Alice. I can’t…”

She squats down, so quickly and so weightlessly that it catches me off guard, and places her beloved system camera on the dusty floor. Then she stands up and walks back into the hallway.

“Tone!” I call after her. I’m about to follow her, but then hesitate.

She wants some time alone, to compose herself, calm down. She isn’t like me—she doesn’t want hugs or attention in her weaker moments.

“OK,” I mutter to myself. “Fine.”

I pick up the camera and look through the lens. Tone has taught me the basics of how to use it, but if I’m honest, I never expected to need to.

I turn back toward the doors. Should I go after her, just in case?

I should have known this would be hard for her. Should have asked. But sometimes she can be such a closed book.

No, I tell myself. Take some pictures and leave her be. That’s what she wants. In a few minutes she’ll have calmed down and we can head over to the church.

I go further into the room and take a few random shots, knowing all too well that when Tone looks at them later she’ll find fault with all of them.

The light is elegant and dainty, and bounces off the dancing dust particles that my footsteps have stirred up. No one has set foot in here in almost sixty years. The team the mining company sent here in the nineties were under instructions to survey the land and perform tests, but not to go inside any buildings. We have their findings on the state of the bridges, roads, and bedrock back then, but nothing about the village itself.

The April sun has started to climb to its peak. I hold the camera up to my eyes and take a picture of the village outside, breathing in the scent of the approaching spring. And something else, beneath