The Lost Village by Sten, Camilla (best pdf reader for ebooks .TXT) 📗

pass. The rain starts to pound so heavily against the roof of the van that the noise is overpowering. All I can hear are my own breaths and the clatter of rain on metal.

Is he just going to stand out there?

I sit up and shuffle over to the back door to open it, but then wait.

The hairs on my neck are standing up. Why?

Something isn’t right.

Why hasn’t he knocked? Why is he just standing there in the pouring rain?

Deep at the back of my mind, my instincts start to murmur. My breaths have gone quiet and shallow.

Where was he coming from?

The Volvo is parked diagonally to the right of this van, but he didn’t come from there. He was walking straight across the square. From the school.

It’s as if time has slowed; I’m suddenly aware of how cold it is here in the van, of how much my fingers are trembling with the adrenaline. Pastor Mattias’s draft sermon is still lying on the floor behind me. For some reason, one phrase is drumming at the back of my head:

His servants walk among you

There’s another flash of lightning, instantly followed by a clap of thunder. I jump, accidentally kicking the battery-powered lamp, which flickers and goes out. I have to cover my mouth with my hand to stop myself from screaming.

Yes, I saw that. I really did.

As the lightning flashed, I saw him sitting in his car. Max. Just a silhouette, his head bowed over something—a book or a phone—but it was him. It was Max.

But if Max is still in the Volvo …

It’s Emmy, I tell myself. Emmy’s standing outside. She wants something.

But if that’s the case, then why is she just standing there?

I really wish Tone were in here with me; that I weren’t alone in this small, enclosed space that suddenly feels like a cage.

The doors are unlocked.

The rain is pounding to the beat of my heart.

A sudden, deafeningly loud crackle fills the small space, and for one frantic, seemingly never-ending second I think it’s someone clawing at the doors. Then I realize that the sound is coming from inside the van. It’s coming from me. From my waistband.

The walkie-talkie. Fingers trembling, I fumble it out, press the button and say:

“Alice here.”

It comes out as a shrill, shaky whisper.

That crackle returns, only louder, so loud that it grates. But then, amid the crackling, I hear a moan.

A child’s voice, a woman’s voice, distorted and metallic, emerges from the interference.

The doors open and I scream and drop my walkie-talkie. It clatters to the ground, sending the batteries flying.

The figure in the doorway pulls down its hood. Emmy’s henna-red hair comes tumbling out.

“What is it?” she asks. “Relax! It’s just me!” She climbs into the back of the van, leaving the doors open. Behind her I see the rain pouring down in big, hard drops into the puddles that have formed in the square.

“What is it?” she asks again. “Has something happened?” Her pupils look huge in the darkness.

It takes me a few seconds to find my voice again. My rational thought is still caged by fear and adrenaline, and the words burst out of me:

“What the fuck are you doing? Why were you just standing there? And that walkie-talkie game? That’s fucking sick!”

Emmy recoils slightly at my rage, but then her features harden, and she hisses back:

“Since when is me coming over here something to get so fucking hysterical about? I just wanted to ask if you wanted some lunch!”

“I’m not mad about you coming over here, I’m mad about you hanging around outside like some psycho, zombie-groaning into your walkie-talkie! What are you, a child?”

My palms are sweaty, and I can taste blood in my mouth. My anger is so intense that my voice has transformed into something gruff and hacking.

“What?” asks Emmy, sounding genuinely confused. “What are you talking about? What groaning?”

“Don’t even try it,” I start to say in disgust, but Emmy shakes her head.

“No—Alice, I don’t know what you think I did, but I don’t even have my walkie-talkie on me.” She turns the pockets on her hoodie inside out to show that they’re empty, then points at her bare waistband.

“Look,” she says.

I stare at her.

“And I wasn’t hanging around out there,” she goes on. “I literally just ran over from the other van. I wouldn’t want to get any wetter than I had to.”

Her hair is tousled, the skin around her bright eyes completely unsmudged.

Almost against my will, my eyes are drawn to the windshield, to the school looming over in the distance. Those big, open doors on their rusty hinges, and the silent void behind them.

The sky above us lights up again, but the thunder lags a few seconds behind. The storm is passing. The rain outside has started to slow, if only a little.

I look at Emmy. At her light-gray hoodie.

It’s almost completely dry.

Her eyes are bottomless when she fixes them on mine and says, with a voice quiet and unflinching:

“You saw somebody, didn’t you?”

February 9, 1959

Dearest Margareta,

I hope the journey went well, and that the train didn’t leave you feeling too poorly! You did look a little peaky when we said good-bye at the station, but I didn’t want to say anything in case I put my foot in it! Mother mentioned it today at breakfast. She told us how she had felt so ill when she was pregnant with you that she could hardly get out of bed for the first few months.

But how exciting it is! And, I know you’re very busy right now with your work, the pregnancy, the new apartment and all, but you must try to write every week. I shall do exactly the same, to remind you!

Oh, and I’ve found such a beautiful name for the baby if she’s a girl! Dagny was over for coffee when I came home today, and she said you’re definitely expecting a girl, because apparently you always feel worse with girls. Mother just smiled when she said that, but as