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“Me too. I have too.”

She held me tighter, and soon we both drifted off to sleep.

Chapter Twenty-Two

It was still black as ink outside when a knock woke me. The knock came again, long and hard. It had to be my uncle, and with such an insistent knock, surely something was wrong. Still in a daze from sleep and with my heart pounding in my chest, I jumped out of bed and lit the candle, almost dropping the match when another barrage of knocks assaulted the door. I fumbled with my pajamas. Lilja was watching me with wide eyes, sitting up with the blanket held to her chest.

Finally I got the shirt over my head, hurried on by more knocks. The pants were easier, and soon I was making my way out of the room with the candle in my hand. Alma and Helena’s wide-eyed faces met me. They were both in their nightgowns.

Another knock, even harder this time, made me hurry past them. It was coming from the store, and that’s where I went. My hand was hovering above the door handle when Lilja put her hand on my arm. I hadn’t even noticed her following me out. She was in her nightgown too, the shawl around her shoulders.

“Don’t open,” she said. “It’s… it’s her.”

“Your foster mother?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“I feel it. I… I feel her evil presence.” I had seen Lilja frightened many times, but nothing like this. She was trembling and so pale I feared she might faint again.

I let my hand drop, stepped closer, and put my mouth to the tiny gap between the door and the frame. “Who is it?”

No answer.

Alma joined me. “Is it you, Father?”

Still no answer. If it was my uncle—or any other neighbor—they would have said so by now.

Alma and I both jumped back at the next knock. The sound was like thunder rather than a fist on wood. My heart was pounding in my throat.

“It’s her,” Lilja said.

“How do we make her leave?” Alma whispered. The white of her eyes was even whiter in the low light.

“Weapons,” Helena said. “We threaten her.”

Of course. I strode through to the workshop. The others followed. I grabbed the axe from where it hung on the wall. Helena found two knives and handed one to Alma. Lilja didn’t hesitate before she picked up a hammer. I had never seen her so decisive—except when she had swung my axe at that wolf.

Back in the store, another knock made us all jump. I walked up to the door. “Leave,” I said in a raised voice that I was hoping sounded hard. “We aren’t going to let you in.”

No answer. Just another knock.

“Leave,” I repeated. “Or we’ll get the neighbors.”

We all stood listening. The silence was like the roar of a storm. Had she left? The moments went by with an agonizing slowness.

I was about to step up to the door and put my ear to it, to see if I could hear anything from outside, when it flew open. I stepped back, the door narrowly missing my face. It slammed into the wall with a crash. Ice-cold air streamed in, and goose bumps raced along my arms and up my back. A gush of wind blew out the candle I had placed on the counter.

Helena lit the lamp on the wall, and in its light, a woman strode inside with a nonchalance as if she hadn’t just kicked in my door—or however it was she had managed to defeat the lock.

She looked from me to Alma and Helena and then to Lilja, who stood behind me. Her eyes were the pale blue of a winter sky, and they chilled me more than the night air. A smirk tugged at her rosy lips. I had expected an old crone but this woman… This was the woman I had seen that night when the wolves had howled. The one who had stared through my window. She was in the same blue cloak with white fur and her lily-pale hair hung to her waist.

Her eyes lingered on Lilja and her smile grew. “There you are,” she said. “I felt it, your rebellion.” There was something of the howl of a storm to her voice, of the rush of a river, in the way her words fell with such force.

I stepped in front of Lilja and raised the axe. The woman held up her hand. She wasn’t armed. Her fingers were long and slender, making me think of a bark-less branch. She did a flick of her wrist, then winced. Her nostrils flared, anger distorted her beautiful face, but only for a heartbeat. Then it was back to a sort of serene haughtiness. “Ah. You shielded her, Eivor.” The woman smirked. “You were always much too clever.”

“Who’s Eivor?” Helena asked, and the steadiness in her voice surprised me.