Midsummer Night

by Charlie N. Holmberg

  “No,” Saara cut in. “There must be something you can do.”

  Ever patient, the healer reached out and took her hands and cradled them in her own, as if Saara were her own grandchild. Saara looked at their hands: Ritva’s nearly translucent, wrinkled skin with age spots, her hands always cool to the touch, and Saara’s own—young and plump, pink and warm.

  Saara’s gaze slid to the shape of her little sister, who lay in fitful sleep, moaning and moving restlessly. Oh, what I would give to know that Fia will one day have hands as old as those that hold mine now.

  The old woman shook her head sadly. Saara’s middle tightened. She didn’t pull her hands away; in some measure, having hers inside Ritva’s was a comfort, as if the gods knew that Saara had been without a mother’s touch and nurture for too long, and this was a sign that the gods were mindful of her, showing her in this small way that she hadn’t been forgotten. Perhaps from Tuonela, land of the dead, her mother had sent Ritva to give this small act of kindness.

  Yet if the gods could be so merciful as to send this drop of comfort to Saara, why wouldn’t they heal Fia?

  “What has made her sick?” Saara asked. “Isn’t there anything we can do?”

  Ritva patted one of Saara’s hands and gave a tiny smile. “Come. Sit with me, and I’ll tell you what I think is happening. My aching bones need a rest.” She turned and half shuffled to the other side of the small cabin where Saara and Fia had lived their whole lives—now alone, orphaned since their mother’s death.

  Neither sister remembered much about their father. Two years Fia’s senior, Saara remembered a bit more, but even her memories were little more than blurred images and fleeting wisps of emotion from when she was small—the feel of Father’s rough brown beard against her cheek when he hugged her, the sound of pride in his voice when she caught her first fish, the image of his well-practiced hands showing her how to stack wood when building different kinds of fires. She still knew how to create a hot, fast-burning fire, a low-burning but long-lasting fire, and one that created almost no smoke—helpful if one needed to hide, though Saara never knew whom one would need to hide from. Animals, including the great bear, could find people with or without smoke, so her father had to mean hiding from people.

  Saara didn’t know precisely how their father had died, only that it had happened on a hunting trip in autumn, when he left to seek meat for their winter stores. She’d always wondered if a bear or wolf had caught him before he could fell it. But perhaps a human had hunted him. She’d never considered that option until this moment, as she walked from the bed she shared with Fia to the small rectangular table.

  Out of respect for the elderly healer, Saara waited for Ritva to sit before she did. The elderly woman moved slowly and grunted with effort as she lowered herself to the wooden chair, rough-cut and made by the hands of Saara’s father. Goodness, she hadn’t thought of him in ages, and suddenly she couldn’t get him out of her mind.

  Folding her hands on the table, Ritva began. “As I’m sure you have guessed, Fia’s condition is quite serious.”

  “Yes,” Saara said, eager to hear more and sensing that asking questions would only slow down the flow of information. She held her breath, waiting to learn her sister’s fate.

  “Her fever hasn’t broken in three weeks,” Ritva said. “That alone is worrisome enough.”

  “Do you know what caused the fever?” Saara pressed.

  “Not precisely. A week ago when I visited, I thought it was due to bad air or water, but ... not anymore.”

  Saara sat up straighter, needing to know more at once, as if a sharp needle had pricked her between the shoulder blades. “Now what do you think the cause of the fever is?”

  “I sense that Fia is very sad,” the healer said, then shook her head. “No, what she is experiencing goes beyond sadness. I sense a deep well of sorrow pulling her down. She feels as though she’s living in a dark cave in the middle of winter.”

  “A dark cave,” Saara repeated. Fia felt this despite long summer days that stretched well into the night and despite the summer solstice about to occur—a night without darkness, when the sun circled the horizon but never dipped below it. Instinctively, Saara glanced out the window, as if she could spot the source of her sister’s sadness.

  Ritva took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. “The causes of the fever could be many things. Fia could have angered a haltija, who poisoned her food, or perhaps Ajatar walked a forest path and your sister went the same way later.”

  “Oh, please, not that,” Saara said. Haltijas were spirits known to take care of certain areas, and they could play tricks on mortals who upset them. That would be bad enough. But the healer was suggesting that the evil goddess Ajatar might have entered their lives—the goddess who left disease and pestilence in her wake. If Fia had unwittingly walked the same path that Ajatar recently had, then yes, she would have fallen gravely ill.

  “Well, it wasn’t Mielikki,” the healer said grimly, referring to the goddess of the forest, who was often prayed to by travelers and hunters before they left on their journeys.

  “No, I suppose not. But it’s not Ajatar, is it?” Saara said.

  The kinds of diseases the evil goddess of the forest could spread were fast, painful, and quickly fatal. Though Fia’s condition worsened by the hour, she’d been sick for weeks.

  “There is another explanation,” Ritva said, but she didn’t seem happy about it. Why did she look so glum? Anything would be better than contracting a disease from Ajatar, wouldn’t it? The healer pressed her lips together for a moment as if mustering the courage to speak her mind. Every second felt like a day as Saara waited. “Can you think of anything that might have greatly upset Fia? Something that might have broken her tender heart?”

  Saara thought back. Fia had cried herself to sleep the night before she fell ill, but Saara hadn’t considered her sister’s tears to be related to her illness. “The day before the fever, Hannu rejected her and began courting Elsa instead. That can’t have to do with her ailment... could it?”

  Ritva’s sad nod said otherwise. “That fits with the sadness inside her, a misery I believe was caused by heartbreak, one that left a hole behind.”

  A hole? Try as she might, Saara couldn’t understand what Ritva meant by a hole or what Hannu’s dancing with Elsa a fortnight ago had to do with Fia’s illness. “I don’t understand.”

  “Your sister is missing part of her soul.”

  “Oh.” That indeed was serious—and something Saara had only heard tales of, never seen firsthand. But then, Pilvikoski was a small village. What did living here her whole life tell her about the world? She slumped against the back of her chair as dread spread over her. Her eyes watered, and she lifted trembling fingers to her lips. “This is because of Hannu?”

  “We cannot lay the blame at his feet; not returning her love is not his fault.”

  “But he certainly could have handled the rejection in a kinder way than embarrassing her in the village square.”

  “He did?” Ritva pursed her lips. “Oh, that boy ...”

  Saara swiveled in her chair to look at Fia, as if doing so would reveal which of the three parts of the soul her sister lacked. “Can Hannu help return the missing part?”

  “He doesn’t have it,” Ritva said, then she held up a hand. “Before you ask, no, I don’t know where it might be. Only a shaman can find it and restore it to its proper place.”

  If Saara hadn’t been looking at her sister, worrying over whether she would yet be breathing a day or a week hence, she mightn’t have believed Ritva. But the evidence lay before her, and she could not deny it. She angled back to face the healer, hoping to learn and understand so she could find something to do that would help. “What part is missing? Surely not her henki.”

  “Of course not,” Ritva said with a sad half smile. The henki could not leave a body without the body dying. Fia yet lived, yet breathed, so her henki was still with her. “But the loss of either lu
onto or itse creates sickness. In either case, that sickness gets worse the longer that part of the soul is missing.”

  “How do you tell which it is?”

  “Often you can’t, but in this case, I’m quite sure it’s her itse. The darkness, the deep melancholy ... they indicate a heavy loss, a great cavern in the soul when even a sliver of itse is lost. An absence of luonto usually creates physical pain and often brings confusion, but not this level of dark despair.”

  Saara stood and began to pace the small cabin, determined to find a solution. “So we need to find her itse and get it back.” She stopped and turned to face the healer. “How do we do that?”

  “We do not. I am not trained in those arts, and this is something herbs cannot heal. As I said, only a shaman can help. They can enter the trance state required to find a missing itse and return it to the soul.”

  Panic threatened to grip Saara’s chest. “But the nearest shaman is several days’ travel away, and I have no money to pay one.” The sharp prick between Saara’s shoulder blades had disappeared; she now felt as if she’d been struck with a hammer in the same spot. Refusing to give up hope, she paced some more. Movement often helped her mind to work and puzzle out problems, though she’d never faced one like this. “We can go without eggs, and I can sell them. In a few weeks when the blueberries ripen, I can gather them—strawberries and mushrooms too—and sell them in the market. By autumn I could have saved—”

  “Not enough,” Ritva interjected. “And autumn will be too late.” The healer’s words sounded final, inescapable.

  Their reality stopped Saara mid-step. She pictured what her life might be like soon. Surviving dark winters with snow as tall as the door—alone. She couldn’t bear the prospect.

  Hardly able to get in air, Saara whispered, “How much time do we have?”

  Ritva lifted her lined face. “A week, perhaps.” She raised one finger and added with a flicker of hope in her eyes, “Your sister couldn’t have fallen ill at a better time. It’s almost Midsummer Eve, when the gods roam the land freely and the barriers between them and the mortal realm grow thin. If you are ever to find help—such as gold coins to pay a shaman—this is the time.”

  The decision took Saara only a moment to make. “I’ll go,” she said, though she had no idea where she would go or what she’d find or how to identify the help she needed. She hurried to Fia’s side and dropped to her knees, cradling her sister’s face between her hands.

  “I’ll care for your sister during your absence. Have no fear on that account. Do not concern yourself with paying me for my time. I will consider it an honor to care for her while you are away.”

  Tears of gratitude and sadness—she already missed her sister—streaked down Saara’s cheeks. She took a few moments to look at Fia, memorizing every feature from her pale hair—matted by sweat and weeks in bed—to the perfect bows of her dark eyebrows and the thin line of her pink lips. Saara kissed Fia’s cheek, then whispered in her ear, not knowing if her sister could hear.

  “I’ll be back soon, dear sister. And when I am, you’ll be made well.”

  She stood, crossed to the old woman, and embraced her. “Thank you. For everything.”

  Ritva sniffed and gently pushed Saara away, hiding a quick swipe of tears. “Go on now. You need to pack a bag.”

  For two weeks, Timo had traveled across miles of forest paths, stopping at swamps too numerous to count in hopes of catching sight of the elusive wisp of light that marked hidden fairy treasure. Thanks to the increase in magic across the land on Midsummer Eve, this was the best time to see the lights. But the brightest sign would do no good if one didn’t already know which general area might have such a treasure buried beneath the muddy ground and where to look for the ethereal glow.

  He trudged along a half-overgrown forest trail, glancing at the sky periodically out of habit, something useful in spring and autumn, when one could gauge the time of day by the rising or dropping sun. In the summer, when even nights had light, however, that skill was about as useful as casting a spell to make a lantern glow all night—useless. If you knew which direction was north, you could guess the time based on where the sun was in the circling horizon. For Timo, in an unfamiliar forest, that was impossible.

  During the weeks leading up to and following the solstice, sunlight abounded, with each day growing longer by several minutes until finally the festival day arrived, and with it a night without darkness. After the festival, days were slightly shorter until the winter solstice, which was as dark as the Midsummer Eve was light.

  Leading up to the festival, locals collected pieces of wood to be burned—leaky boats, broken fence slats, and more—which were then stacked until the celebration day. On Midsummer Eve, people across the land gathered for song and dance, food and drink. The old wood, stacked into a spire, was lit and set adrift in the lake, a bonfire that would burn all night long, a backdrop to the festivities.

  Occasionally, a young woman would skip the festivities, going to bed and sleeping upon a pillow beneath which she left seventeen flowers from seventeen different plants. Supposedly, such a maid would dream of her future husband. Timo had no idea if the practice ever proved accurate, and he doubted whether many young women attempted it, seeing as how spending the night in the town square instead meant dancing and flirting with the very young men they likely hoped to make a match with. At least, that’s what his elder sister did, and she had indeed met her husband while dancing at a Midsummer Eve festival.

  Timo peered through a slight thinning in the trees, squinting to see if he could spot a swamp or other body of water off the path. For days, he’d peered and squinted, constantly searching, to the point that he’d given himself headaches. The pain would be more than worth the suffering if it meant finding the treasure required for securing his magical education. Learning the skills of a wizard took intense study, often as the sole apprentice to an experienced master. Masters were both rare and picky.

  As for himself, Timo had a knack for magic. He’d worked on the skills he’d need, developing his singing voice and musical ear, both crucial to powerful magic. He could mimic tunes perfectly after hearing them once, and he’d invented a few small spells with songs of his own.

  He also had a memory as quick and strong as a bear trap, which he’d developed through memorizing poems and lists of words—another key skill required for the best of magicians. The strongest magic combined words with song, and therefore the most powerful wizards were also the best singers, often possessing coveted words and songs known only to them.

  More than anything, Timo wanted to be such a singer. He wanted to help others, raise his station in life, and yes, be respected as one of the greatest to ever live, like the famed Ilmarinen and Väinö. He knew he could be one of the great masters, if only he could find a master who would teach him.

  But he had a big disadvantage: his age. At four and twenty, he was several years past the age that most singers completed their training. Many believed that becoming powerful was impossible if one didn’t receive proper training by the age of twenty. Timo had worked to save money and, in the last few years, had sought buried treasure so he could pay a master to train him.

  He’d come close to laying claim to different fairy treasures hidden centuries ago, now buried in swamps and bogs. Such treasure buried by fairies could be identified only by an occasional landmark, except on Midsummer Eve, when a brief flash would appear from a piru, one of the mischievous spirits who guarded the treasures. The first time he couldn’t find the treasure at all. Another time, someone else treasure hunting had followed the path of clues Timo had deciphered, then swooped in and taken the treasure before he could.

  Last summer, he felt certain that treasure was buried in the valley by Karhunen, so he’d climbed a tree to find the piru flash—and he had seen its mesmerizing purple glow. But when he’d climbed down to the ground, he’d been unable to locate the spot.

  This year was his final chance, and his odds were good:
he’d found specific details about where to look. He’d also found one master willing to take on an apprentice at his age, but no older. If he didn’t get the money he’d need on this Midsummer Eve, he’d have another birthday, become five and twenty, and never get an education.

  He’d sometimes wondered if the kingdom of pirus had decided to frustrate his efforts purely for their own enjoyment, like dangling a honey candy before a child and then pulling it away before the child could take it.

  This Midsummer Eve was his turn. It had to be. He felt the urgency, the desperation, in his bones. As he walked, he couldn’t help but picture returning home to Taivola and becoming a farmer like everyone else in town. He’d marry someone who’d care for a cow or two plus a coop of chickens. She’d make cheese from the milk and gather the eggs to cook with or to sell at the market. He’d grow rye and vegetables and try not to hate his life.

  No, he would not fail. Mustering his determination, he continued to study the woods. The trees grew so thickly that a swamp or pond—even a massive lake—could be a hundred paces away but invisible from the trail. After spending a week in nearby Karhunen, he knew to look for three large boulders that made a triangle about the borders of a swamp. Somewhere in that triangle, or so said the tales in Karhunen—was a particularly valuable treasure. The people in the village didn’t believe the tales, of course, or they would have sought the treasure themselves.

  Timo, however, had studied all the lore he uncovered and had listened to any storyteller he found, knowing that such stories held far more truth than fiction. He’d read of the triad of boulders in an old rune found in a book he’d collected three years past. That poem said that a knife called Voimakas, made entirely of the rare stone spectrolite, lay hidden beneath the swamp. Spectrolite was dark blue until light fell on it, then it released a rainbow of color.

  This valley just outside of the Karhunen village had three boulders: one that narrowed at the top like a spire, one with the profile of a man, and one with ancient carvings of a bear—where the village got its name. Yes, this valley and a nearby swamp must be the home of the knife Voimakas. He could feel it.