Arriving back at the farm, it was only four in the afternoon, but daylight was already gone. I’d been warned about the depressing effects of the winter darkness, particularly staying on my own in a remote area. Consequently I’d bought a great number of candles. There was comfort in their light compared with electric bulbs. Opening the car boot, I paused. To my side I saw a line of footsteps in the snow, deep tracks emerging from the fields. Leaving the groceries, I followed them to the front door. A hand-delivered letter was pinned to the timber frame.
Daniel
I dropped the envelope into my pocket, returning to the car and carrying the groceries inside. With a cup of tea and several candles burning around me I broke the seal. Inside was a cream card, the margins of which were lined with Christmas elves. It was from Håkan, inviting me to take a glass of mulled wine at his farm that evening.
Like my mum, I fussed over my appearance, in the end opting for smart clothes. I decided against bringing my pad and pencil since I wasn’t a reporter interviewing a subject and contemplated whether it was absurd to have brought them to Sweden at all. I set off early, wanting to arrive on time and unsure how long it would take to walk. Reaching the enormous pig barn that marked the turnoff, I considered the bleak industrial building my mum had described. Under a layer of snow everything looked tranquil, but the smell was unpleasant and I didn’t linger. Walking down the long drive meticulously cleared of snow, I realised that I should’ve brought a gift. I thought about returning to the farm, but I had nothing to offer. I couldn’t make a present out of one of my mum’s preserves.
Håkan’s house was a welcoming sight. There were electric Advent candles in every window. Hanging above them were decorative Christmas lace curtains, elves wrapping presents and elves hunched over bowls of porridge. I could feel myself relax and fought against the sensation. I kicked the snow out of my boots, knocking on the door. It was opened by Håkan. He was nearly a head taller than me. His frame was broad. He smiled and shook my hand, allowing me to register the strength in his grip. As I left my boots in the hall, he spoke to me in English. Though my Swedish wasn’t fluent, I politely told him that I’d prefer to speak Swedish. It was my version of a strong handshake, I suppose. Showing no reaction, he took my jacket, holding the corduroy duffel coat up to the light, examining it briefly before placing it on a peg.
We sat in the living room beside an elegantly decorated tree. Stitched fabric gingerbread hung from the branches. On the top, instead of an angel, there was a stiff paper star. The electric lights were wrapped in a cotton-like fluff that transformed the sharpness of the bulb’s filament into a diffuse glow. The tree stand was hand-carved, three carefully chiselled troll faces, their wart-spotted chins stretching down to form the legs on which the tree stood. Beside it were a number of presents wrapped in glossy gold paper with red silk bows. Håkan said:
‘They’re for Mia.’
The individual components of this room were splendid. But for some reason it was like being inside a depiction of a perfect Christmas scene rather than a real home.
Though I’d been talking to Håkan for several minutes, Elise, his wife, only appeared to serve us mulled wine. She emerged from the kitchen, giving me a nod of the head, carrying a tray with two ornamental glasses, a bowl of shredded almonds and diced raisins, and a steaming jug of mulled wine. In silence she deposited some almonds and raisins into the bottom of my glass, filling it with wine and offering it to me. I accepted, thanking her, finding it strange that she avoided eye contact and didn’t join us, retreating to the kitchen once she’d finished.
Håkan clinked my glass and proposed a toast:
‘Let’s wish your mother a quick recovery.’
With a touch of provocation, I replied:
‘And may Mia come home soon.’
Ignoring my remark, Håkan said:
‘The mulled wine is an ancient family recipe. People ask me for it every year but we never give it away. It’s a secret blend of spices and different types of alcohol, not just wine, so be careful, this stuff carries a kick.’
I could feel the liquid warming my stomach. Though prudence told me I should take no more than a sip, I quickly finished the entire glass. The shredded almonds and raisins formed a sweet, delicious mulch. Toying with the idea of using my finger to scoop it out, I noticed tiny wooden spoons on the tray intended for exactly that purpose. Håkan remarked:
‘Coming to Sweden is a touching gesture. Perhaps the gesture on its own will be enough to help poor Tilde. In practical terms, I don’t understand what you think you can achieve.’
His reference to my mum as ‘poor Tilde’ irritated me and I was sure that it had been intended to.
‘I hope to bring a fresh pair of eyes to events.’
Håkan picked up the jug and filled my glass:
‘This trip is not for my benefit.’
I took a sip from my second glass of mulled wine. I wanted to see him react to the question, even though I already knew the answer:
‘Is there any news of Mia?’
He shook his head:
‘No news.’
His free arm fell lank by the side of his chair, his fingers brushing the gold paper of the present nearest to him. Though the touch had only been gentle, the present moved, and the thought popped into my head that it was empty, no more than a gift-wrapped box. His silence felt like a challenge. Would I cross the line and press further into a subject he clearly had no desire to discuss? I accepted the challenge and said:
‘You must be worried. She’s very young.’
Håkan finished his glass but didn’t refill it, signalling his desire that I should leave soon:
‘Is she young? I started work on this farm when I was just nine years old.’
It was a curious response.
As we said goodbye, I made a snap decision to visit the underground shelter where he carved his trolls. Hearing the door close behind me, I walked up the drive, but once out of sight I doubled back, crouching through the snow-covered fields, sneaking up to the side of the house, below the kitchen, where I remained for a minute or two, attempting to listen to Håkan and Elise’s conversation. The triple-glazed windows allowed no sound to pass through. Giving up, I hurried onward, reaching the shelter. The outer door was locked. A new padlock had been bought. It was thick, with toughened rubber around the arch, unbreakable for an amateur snoop. I set off, returning home through the fields and snow. Uneasy, I looked back towards Håkan’s farm and saw him at the bedroom window. Electric candles flickered about his waist. I couldn’t say if he saw me or not.
The next morning I woke while it was still dark, intending to fully exploit the brief period of daylight. Surrounded by candles I ate a breakfast of sour milk yogurt with pumpkin seeds, sliced apple, and ground cinnamon. Having taken care to wrap up warm, I stepped from the farm into knee-deep snow. Reaching Elk River, I discovered that the water had completely frozen over. In his rush to leave the farm my dad had forgotten about the boat, supposed to be pulled onshore for the winter. The river now encased it, the propeller locked within ice, the hull under strain, cracks clearly visible. In the spring the ice would melt and this boat would leak and sink to the bottom. It had been bought, my dad told me, not as a vessel to collect clues but because elderly Cecilia had been suffering from dementia. According to Håkan, she’d become irrational – there were days when she believed she was a young woman with many happy years on the farm ahead of her.
I stepped down from the jetty into the boat. As described by my mum, the engine was fitted with an LED panel. But it was dead: there was no charge, not even enough to operate the display. I turned my thoughts to the ice fragment my mum had found in the salmon’s gill. She’d been right, on that night she had felt ice – my dad had bought the fish. However, it was not for the reason she suspected. Elk River contained no salmon. The salmon ladder built to bypass the quaint hydropower station had failed. It was poorly designed. The salmon no longer migrated upstream – there were n
o magnificent fish to be caught, just thrashing eels and vicious pike. In his haste, excited by the farm’s bargain price, my dad had assured my mum that the river was good. The many fishing books that declared the river excellent had been written before the construction of the hydroelectric station. Realising his mistake too late, he’d tried to cover it up, worried about the additional stress that the revelation would cause my mum, coming so soon after the problems with the well. It was a miscalculation motivated by the best intentions. Håkan had paid for the salmon, selecting one from a local fishmonger, an imposter fish from the waters of Norway.
I threw a clod of frozen dirt over the ice, attempting to judge the thickness. Unable to decide, I swung my legs over the side of the boat and used my foot to test it. The ice didn’t strain. I put my other foot down and stood up, ready to fall back into the boat if the ice should crack. The ice was deep and strong. I began the long walk to Teardrop Island.
My progress along the frozen river was slow. My footsteps were careful. It took over three hours to reach the edge of the forest and I regretted not bringing food or a hot drink. On the cusp of the forest I paused briefly, standing before the landscape featured in my mum’s book of trolls – timeless and mythic. The sky was a dull white and an icy mist hung about the trees. In places, the river split around boulders and the ice took on strange shapes, swirls and splashes frozen midflow. The snow was crisscrossed with animal tracks, some of which were wide strides, creatures as large as elks. Maybe my mum had encountered one in the water – maybe it had passed so close she could’ve reached out and touched its mane. Certainly Teardrop Island was a real place. I gripped the same branch that had caught my mum’s attention. There were lines on the tree trunk where visiting boats had moored.
Exploring the island, I brushed away the snow to find the blackened timber stubs where the fire had blazed. My dad claimed it was a well-known spot where teenagers screwed around and smoked pot. The fire hadn’t been accidental. My mum had started it. They’d discovered a fuel canister in the boat. Her discarded clothes on the riverbank stank of petrol. As for the milk tooth, the charred tooth – her final shocking evidence – it had come from her own mouth. It was my mum’s milk tooth, kept, along with various other knick-knacks from her childhood, in an ornamental wooden music box. My dad believed it likely that the whole box had been thrown into the fire. Mum had watched it burn, standing so close her skin blistered, every item disappearing except for the tooth, turning from white to black.
At the farm that night I worked through the backlog of post. Among the junk mail, and a small number of overdue bills, I found a pair of tickets to the Santa Lucia festival in town, a festival of light on the darkest night of the year, the counterpoint to the midsommar celebrations. It was typical of my mum to have bought the tickets so far in advance. She was organised and methodical, and more importantly she would’ve been petrified of missing out. The entire town would be there, including many of my mum’s suspects.
In advance of this gathering, I spent the next few days chasing information on Mia. I spoke to teachers at her school, shopkeepers on the promenade, and even passing strangers on the street. People were baffled by my interest. Many knew about my mum. Her story had been whispered across town. But they failed to grasp why I was inquiring about someone else’s daughter. On every level my efforts were amateurish. At one point, I even offered my spare Lucia ticket in exchange for information. Without any authority, I cut a pitiful figure, laughable were I not so desperate. My most promising appointment had been with Stellan the detective in the sleepy police station. Unlike my mum, he’d kept me waiting, and agreed to speak to me only while walking from his office to his car, bluntly repeating Håkan’s assertion that there was no news. Hopeful that I might have more success with the kindly hermit, I’d paid Ulf a visit. He’d opened the door but refused to allow me inside, giving me nothing other than a glimpse of the space on the wall where his wife’s final stitched fabric quote should have hung.
That night, when I spoke to my dad, he informed me that my mum had passed out from dehydration. The doctors were asserting that under the Mental Capacity Act she didn’t have the right to refuse liquids or food. If they took the decision to use a saline drip and she pulled it free from her arm, she would be restrained. Later, speaking to Mark, he was largely silent. He was hoping I’d make the decision to come home without being told.
On the brink of giving up, I jotted down possible flight times to return to London. That evening there was a knock on the door. It was Dr Norling. The charm and eloquence were gone, although the delicate sandalwood fragrance remained. He was abrupt to the point of rudeness, saying he couldn’t stay long:
‘You shouldn’t have come. You’ll achieve nothing. Tilde needs to return to reality. She doesn’t need more fantasy.’
He gestured at my empty notebook on the table:
‘This is fantasy.’
He added:
‘You know that, don’t you?’
There was a mild threat in his question, as though he were eyeing the issue of my sanity, like mother like son. That was the moment I decided to stay.
Had my mum remained in Sweden, Santa Lucia would surely have been a key event in her chronology, containing, in her eyes, some incident of great importance. I intended to arrive early in the hope of selecting a seat at the back, observing local society as they entered, trying to imagine which relationships my mum might have reacted to.
The church was located in a historic square, the oldest and highest point in town, perched on a small hill. With white stone walls and a high white tower, the building seemed to rise up out of the snow more like a natural phenomenon than a man-made structure. Doubting that I, a stranger, could possess a valued ticket, the woman at the front primly told me the event was sold out. When I produced a ticket she checked it carefully before begrudging me admission.
Inside there was no electric light, just the flicker of a thousand candles, lighting up walls decorated with biblical scenes painted on timber planks stripped from the hulls of old fishing boats. The leaflet I’d taken from the entrance informed me that this church was once a place where wives and sons and daughters would pray for the safe return of their husbands and fathers from the stormy sea, a perfect location to pray for the return of a missing daughter or, in my case, a mother present and missing at the same time.
On my lap, hidden inside the song sheet, was a re-creation of my mum’s list of suspects. The mayor was the first suspect to arrive, with the admirably political intention to meet and greet the attendees. He saw me and studiously ignored me – the only chink in his otherwise incessant jocularity. The front row of seats had been reserved and the mayor took his place, with the remaining seats filled by, among others, the detective and the doctor. The church was full when Håkan entered, accompanied by his wife. I could tell that he enjoyed having the eyes of the whole town follow him to his reserved space at the front.
Once these important society figures had been seated the service began. A procession of young men and women dressed in bridal white flowed through the aisle, the men holding gold stars on sticks, the women holding candles, singing as they slowly walked, assembling into rows at the front of the church. The lead girl wore candles mounted in a steel ring, a crown of flames in her blonde hair, the Saint of Light, a role that Mia had played in last year’s ceremony. The service lasted an hour. The congregation celebrated light and warmth not as an abstract idea but as a powerful need, a missed loved one. Despite the obvious opportunity, no mention was made of Mia. The omission was striking. There was surely calculation behind it, rather than mere oversight; a request had been made, and the priest had agreed not to raise the matter. It hardly qualified as evidence but it jarred, particularly with Håkan seated at the very front, and particularly since Mia had been the last to play the role of Santa Lucia.
After the service I waited outside by the line of flickering lanterns laid in the snow, keen to catch a word with Håkan. Through the church doo
rs I could see him talking with members of the community, shaking hands, more like a statesman than an ordinary citizen. Upon seeing me he paused, too self-controlled to show a reaction beyond the pause itself. He eventually emerged with his wife. As I stepped up to Håkan he turned to Elise, ordering her ahead to a private reception. She glanced at me, and perhaps it was my imagination, but there was something in that look, not pity, or hostility, but something else – remorse, or guilt. It was the briefest of moments, I could have been mistaken, and she hurried up the candlelit track.
Håkan’s civility was unconvincing:
‘I hope you enjoyed the service.’
‘Very much. It’s a beautiful church. But I was surprised we didn’t pray for your daughter’s safe return.’
‘I did pray, Daniel. I pray for her every day.’
Håkan had joined my parents in refusing to shorten my name to Dan. Fighting my instinct to avoid conflict, I recalled something my mum had said:
‘I’m struggling with how Mia left your farm. She couldn’t drive. She didn’t take her bike. She can’t have walked. There was no public transport. Now that I’m here, I understand how remote it is.’
Håkan stepped sideways, into the snow, isolating our conversation. He lowered his voice:
‘Your father and I became close over the summer. He was worried about you. Do you mind me telling you this?’
It wasn’t enough for Håkan to attack me. He wanted my permission to do so.
‘Go ahead.’
‘According to him, your career was going nowhere. After the opportunities provided to you, none of which your parents enjoyed, you hadn’t thought for yourself, following in their footsteps, taking the easiest possible course. He wondered if your failure was why you’d cut yourself off from your family. You rarely phoned. You never visited. When I heard Chris repeat your excuses I thought to myself – that man is lying. He doesn’t want to come. Chris was hurt by your absence. Tilde was too. They couldn’t understand what they’d done wrong. They feared there was a chance you wouldn’t come at all this year. But the part I find the hardest to believe is that you actually believed they were rich! Could this really be true?’