3

Siiri

I’ve never thought much about dying. Death, certainly. It seems to me an exciting new adventure. It’s a long and perilous journey to the northern gates, the journey all souls must take. Through fen and forest, over meadow and marsh, through the ever-rising woodlands. Past brambles, then hazels, then on through the juniper wood. That’s the song the bards sing. That is the road to Tuonela.

I want to see it all. I want to take that journey and see what only the dead have seen.

I’m ready.

But first I have to get up. I have to begin my last walk.

A cool hand brushes against my brow with the comforting touch of a mother. I lean into it, desperate for the feel of one last embrace before I go.

“Get up,” whispers a soft voice.

No, this is all wrong. One must take the road to Tuonela alone. Death’s journey is my own. I cannot have another here with me.

“Get up,” the voice says again.

I groan, pulling away from her gentle touch. No, I wanted to die. Aina is gone, and it’s my fault. I failed her. I mean to walk that lonely road all the way to the gates of Tuonela.

“Men are coming,” whispers the voice. “Do not let them find you defeated.”

I hear them marching through the trees—crashing, breaking, snapping. Let them come. Let them see how I’ve failed. They shout to each other. They shout for me, voices raised in alarm.

“Siiri!”

“Aina!”

The cool hand brushes my brow again. “You must get up.”

I open my eyes. Darkness has settled all around. A woman kneels over me. This close to the new moon, the sky is dark, and there is little light for me to see. I don’t trust my vision anyway. I blink, trying to make out her features.

“Who are you?” I reach out. She leans away, rising silently to her feet. She’s tall and willowy, but I can make out nothing of her features, for she wears a hood. It casts her face in deep shadow. All I see is a black braid. Her hair is so long, the tip of her braid reaches her ankles.

“Return to us,” she whispers. “We need you.”

My mind feels fuzzy. The forest floor seems to tilt as I try to place her voice. This is a small village, and I know every woman in it. I don’t know this voice. I push up on my elbows, panting through the pain. “Who are you?” I say again, my voice more forceful.

“The time has come,” she replies, her voice ringing with prophecy. From deep within the folds of her hood, her eyes gleam pearly white, like two moons in the darkness. I choke on her magic as it drifts in a white mist from beneath her cloak. “Save us,” she commands, her tone both a warning and a plea. “Before it’s too late.”

I cough. “Wait—”

Bright lights suddenly blind me, forcing me to close my eyes. I raise an arm. When I open my eyes again, the woman is gone.

I’m alone.

“Wait—come back,” I call through my cough, glancing around the dark clearing. I struggle up to my knees, swaying in my dizziness. I put a trembling hand to my head, wincing at the pain. When I pull my hand away, there’s blood coating my fingers. “She’s gone,” I whisper. “My Aina is gone—”

“Siiri!” My brother Aksel breaks through the last of the trees. He drops to his knees at my side. “Are you all right?”

Many voices now. Bobbing lights, blinking torchlight. I think I’m in shock. All I hear is a humming in my ears and my own broken heartbeat. Gone. Gone. Gone.

Aksel gives me an anxious shake. “Siiri—”

“It took her,” I say. “It took Aina.”

People loom all around me. The bearded faces of men, come too late. Above their heads, torches flicker, casting long shadows. I try to peer through their legs, looking for the woman who gave me comfort. She’s a witch, perhaps. Or a goddess. A shamaness. Where did she go? What did she mean? I don’t see it with my eyes, but I feel it in my bones. She’s gone too.

“Siiri?” Onni drops to my other side, settling a supportive arm around my shoulders. He’s massive, built like a bear. His arm curls around me like the trunk of a mighty tree. Our father jokes that on the night he was conceived my mother went walking in the winter moonlight and mated herself to Otso, the god of bears. He scoops me up as if I weigh no more than a leaf.

“Where’s Aina?” a man shouts, his voice frantic. “Oh gods, where’s my Aina?”

I know that voice. It’s Taavi, Aina’s father. I close my eyes tight, fresh tears coming. Gods, I can’t look at him. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, unable to face his grief.

Another shout. “Siiri? Siiri!”

“Father!” Onni bellows back. Wrapped in his arms, I feel the rumble of it through my whole body. “Over here!”

“We have her,” Aksel calls.

The men make room as Father barrels between them, sharpened axe in hand. The edge glints in the torchlight.

“What happened?” asks he asks, pulling me out of Onni’s arms.

I take a deep breath, swaying as I gaze up at his concerned face. He looks so much like Aksel. They’re both tall and narrow, with shaggy blond hair and beards. The only difference is age. Father has creased crow’s feet lining his eyes and more weathering on his strong hands.

“My child, I need you to tell us what happened,” he says, gently cupping my face. He winces, inspecting the blood at my brow. The forest stops spinning. The torchlight doesn’t feel quite so painfully bright.

“The woman...” I swallow, still tasting her stench in the back of my throat. “The creature... she was behind us on the beach. We ran for the trees. I tried to protect Aina. I tried—” My words break on a sob.

Onni’s arm is back around my shoulders. “No one blames you, Siiri.”

“I had my knife,” I go on. “I cut her, but she didn’t even flinch. I threw the knife, and it struck her in the heart. She just smiled.... Then she took Aina from me. They’re gone.”

“Oh gods,” her father cries, digging his hands through his hair. “Oh, my Aina.”

Another man puts an arm around his shoulders, keeping him on his feet.

I can’t look at him. I can’t see his tears. I look to the other men instead. They’re all watching me with expressions of shock and horror. Some are stepping back. Others exchange worried glances with each other.

Father draws himself up to his full height, glancing around the clearing. “You did the best you could,” he declares. “No man here could have done any better.”

A few nod their heads.

“But what was it?” one of them asks.

“A witch!”

“A monster!”

“I’m telling you, it was Ajatar,” shouts another. “The forest witch of Pohjola. It’s why she wore a serpent’s face.”

Old farmer Aatos shakes his head. “No, no, it was a Lempo, a demon spirit.”

“Was it a kalman v?ki?”

“Or Kalma herself,” another man offers.

A shudder of worried exclamations passes through the assembled men.

“All-Mother, protect us,” Aina’s father cries, touching a hand to his forehead, then his chest. A few other men repeat the gesture. More than one man makes the sign of the Christian cross.

“I’m taking my daughter home,” Father calls to the group. “Go tell your womenfolk what happened here. Until we know more, lock your doors and stay by your fires. We’ll speak again tomorrow.”

The men reluctantly part in twos and threes.

“Come,” Onni says gently. “Let’s get you home.”

I let myself be steered through the darkness back to our homestead. It rests on the edge of the lakeshore—a small, pinewood house situated a stone’s throw from the water, and a looming barn behind. A few outbuildings and njalle are scattered around the yard, along with our family sauna.

Father leads me right up to the house. The high windows are all shut tight. Golden light glows around their frames, and smoke billows from the chimney. He pounds on the door with his large fist. “It’s us,” he calls.

There’s a scraping sound as my mummi lifts the bar and swings the door inward. “Oh, praise the All-Mother,” she weeps, reaching out with greedy hands to pull me inside. I fall against her breast, her hands in my hair as I cling weakly to her apron-covered hips.

Father bolts the door. “Check the shutters,” he directs Aksel.

My brothers skirt the perimeter of our one-room house, reaching up high to check the fastenings on the shuttered windows.

Meanwhile, Mummi steers me to the fire. Our great stone hearth takes up one whole wall of the house. Pegs pounded into the stone hold all manner of cookware. The wooden table is laden with an evening meal—creamy salmon soup with potatoes and carrots, seasoned with dill. A basket of cloudberries waits next to a pile of barley loaves. There’s a pitcher of reindeer milk too, and a blackberry tart.

“Sit yourself down,” Mummi murmurs, her strong hands guiding me onto a stool.

I sink down. Everything is spinning again. My head aches.

“She’s bleeding,” my little sister Liisa whispers from her spot at the end of the table. Her grey cat sits curled in her lap. “Why is she bleeding?”

“Go upstairs.” Father brushes a hand over her wispy, white-blonde braids.

Liisa grips the sides of her stool in defiance. “No. Why is Siiri bleeding?” She lets out a squeal, and the cat scampers away, as Onni grabs her from behind, shaking her loose from her stool. It clatters to the floor, and she kicks her skinny legs and cries as he carries her over to the ladder leading to the sleeping loft.

“Go to bed,” he barks, hoisting her over his head nearly to the top rung.

Liisa climbs up the ladder with a huff.

Mummi presses a wet rag to my face, gently wiping away the blood. She gestures to my soiled outer dress. “If you take this off, I’ll wash it for you.”

I stand on shaky legs, untying the braided belt that holds the simple wool garment together. My fingers tremble as I pull the shell over my head. Mummi dabs at my wound again. When she nears my eye, I flinch away from her touch.

“This eye will probably blacken.” She looks to Father and the boys as they all make their way to the table and sit down. “What happened?”

Father frowns. “Do you have the strength to tell it again? Your mummi has a right to know.”

I nod. Mummi listens, not interrupting as I start my story on the beach and end with, “And then they brought me back home.”

Mummi looks from me to my brothers. “You saw this too?”

“We saw her, Mummi,” Aksel replies. “We saw her even before Siiri did.”

Mummi returns her attention to me, tucking a loose strand of my hair behind my ear. “Siiri, my brave girl, I believe that tonight you met a goddess. From what you describe, it can only be Kalma.”

A chill seeps through me. Kalma, goddess of death. She haunts graveyards with her malevolent guard dog, the evil Surma, guardian of Tuonela.

Gods, if she’s right, what am I to do? How am I to save Aina?

It’s clear Onni isn’t ready to believe, even knowing what he saw. He spends too much time with the Christian priests. Aksel looks uncertain too. He leans forward. “Mummi, you said nothing can leave the realm of the dead. You said that when Mother died. You said she can’t come back.”

“The dead cannot come back,” she replies gently. “But Kalma and her sisters have the ability to cross realms. They are powerful witches, my boy. Their magic is deep and ancient, as old as the hills on which this forest stands. Older.”

I fight a shiver, meeting her gaze for the first time this night. “But what would Kalma want with Aina?”

“And don’t forget the others,” Aksel adds. “The disappearances this summer are all the work of Kalma, yes?”

“Undoubtedly,” Mummi replies.

Aksel glances around at each of us. “Where would she take them?”

Next to him, Onni shrugs. “Maybe a graveyard.”

“But why?” Aksel replies.

“Maybe she eats them... or Surma does—”

“Onni, don’t be crass,” Father warns.

Mummi ignores them all, clearly lost in thought as she watches the fire. My father and brothers continue to argue, but I watch Mummi. I watch and I wait. Of all of us, she knows the most about the old gods and their ways.

“Tuonela,” she whispers at last.

“What?” I say, dread coiling in my chest. Did I not think my own path would lead me there this very night? Did I not wish for it?

My father and brothers go quiet.

Mummi glances from my father to me. “I believe Aina is in Tuonela. All the girls. They’ve surely crossed the river into the land of the dead. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

My heart stops. “Wait—you think Aina’s dead?”

“No,” she corrects, her grey gaze level. “They are in the realm of the dead... but I believe they may yet be alive.”

“Why?” Aksel asks again.

“I don’t know,” she admits. She places her fingertips against her temples, massaging in small circles. “Kalma may have some need of them, I suppose. And the Witch Queen is a devious woman. She loves to torture mortals with her Beer of Oblivion—”

I grip the table with both hands.

“Kaisa,” Father says, casting a pleading glance my way.

Mummi glances at me too. “Oh—oh, my dear girl, I’m sorry.” She wraps her strong arms around me. “I shouldn’t have said that out loud. I was merely thinking—”

“But you think that’s what happened to her.” Holding back my tears, I push away. “You think she’s been taken to Tuonela, to what end? To be tortured?”

Aksel reaches across the table, squeezing my arm. “Perhaps Aina has been chosen ,” he offers. “She and the other girls may have been selected to be handmaidens for the death goddesses. They could even serve Tuoni himself. It would be a great honor.” He glances from Mummi to our father. “It’s possible, right?”

I look to Mummi, anxious to see her face. Mummi raised me on stories of Tuonela. The stories don’t tell of the Witch Queen’s supper parties. They tell of torture and strife, violence and death.

In these last few years alone, their need to cause pain and suffering seems unmatched. So much senseless violence, so much cruel, wasteful death—young women in childbirth, hunting accidents, a boy drowned in the stream, his little lips so pale and blue. Animals inexplicably sicken and waste away. Even our crops suffer.

It’s as if death has forgotten the importance of life. It chokes us, the ever-firm hand at our throat. And in the chaos of all this overwhelming death, the Swedes and their bloodthirsty god swept in with a vengeance, preying on our weaknesses, dividing us like sheep before the slaughter.

I stare blankly into the depths of the hearth, not feeling its warmth. This is all my fault. Kalma was after me. If only I hadn’t chosen to fight. Why do I always fight? Why can I never yield? I should have sacrificed myself to the goddess. Aina would be safe, and I would be in Tuonela right now, fighting with every breath to escape.

Will Aina do the same? Will she fight to return home to me?

I want to believe. Gods, I have to believe she has the strength to fight. Everyone likes to dismiss Aina, but they don’t know her the way I do. Yes, she’s quiet. She’s patient and reserved. She keeps her opinions to herself, especially in company. But she has them. She’s never held back with me, never been afraid to speak her mind. Unlike me, however, she doesn’t trample people to do it.

Can she survive in Tuonela? Or will her kindness be her undoing?

I can’t risk it. I can’t sit idly by and wait to see if she frees herself. “I have to save her,” I whisper, letting the words fortify my very bones.

Father sighs, his weathered hand brushing my hair. “Your passion does you credit, Siiri. But if a death goddess has indeed taken Aina, we should pray they are merciful to her... and then we should grieve with her family as they mourn her loss.”

“I’ll bring them a haunch tomorrow,” Mummi offers. “Some eggs and bread.”

“We can bring it for you,” Aksel says with a nod at Onni.

I glance between them, my eyes narrowing in disgust. Oh gods, gods . They’re planning Aina’s funeral! My hands shake as I push onto my feet. “Stop.”

“Siiri—” Father reaches for me, but I step away. “My child, you must accept—”

“No! She’s not dead until I see her body with my own two eyes.” I turn to my grandmother. “Mummi, you said it yourself, she’s in Tuonela, and she’s alive.” Taking a deep breath, I square my shoulders. “And I’m going to bring her home.”

Behind me, Onni huffs, arms crossed over his barrel chest. He’s been spending too much time with those damned Christian priests who haunt our village every summer. Just two nights ago, he sat at this very table telling us that the old gods are dead. Now he’s seen a goddess with his own eyes and he’s still choosing not to believe?

“I feel sorry for you,” I say to him. “Onni, where is your faith? Where is your hope?”

Next to him, Aksel looks just as incredulous. “What will you do, little sister? No mortal can get into Tuonela, not if they plan to come back alive.”

“I don’t know,” I admit, crossing my arms and turning back to stare at the flames. “Not yet. But I will save her. Ilmatar hear me, I will save Aina.”