Then, early on Christmas morning, a stranger arrived. Ms. Persson writes,
We were lighting candles in the chapel. We had decided to keep our own little julotta*5 here, as going to Vargfjärda was unthinkable. As we lit the candles, I heard song, and I saw someone standing at the pulpit. It was a man, all dressed in black. I cannot describe it properly, but he was singing to us, and it was as if my head brightened.
As the villagers filed into the chapel, the strange man proceeded to hold a Mass, of sorts.
Although the chapel is quite small, I could not see his face clearly. It was as if radiance obscured his features. He opened his mouth, and a sound both like and unlike song came out. I could not make out the words, but the song reached right into my chest and unraveled an ache I had not known was there. All around me, people were crying and laughing, screaming and moaning; we reached out to him like drowning children. He stepped down from the pulpit and moved among us, embracing us and laying his hands on us. He laid his arms around me; he smelled of myrrh and roses (Diaries, book 8, p. 73).
The priest earned the name Sjungpastorn, “the sing-pastor.” He held Mass not only on Sunday mornings, but every single morning for the better part of a year. The Masses followed the same pattern as the first on Christmas morning: Sjungpastorn would stand at the pulpit and sing his wordless song, and the villagers sang along. At the end of the Mass, he would walk among the pews and touch or even embrace the people.
Ms. Persson doesn’t describe the man in great detail. What she does say is very interesting, elaborating on her observation that she “could not see his face clearly”: he was “not fully formed, like a clay doll or a new-born child” (Diaries, book 8, p. 95). Furthermore, the man doesn’t speak, but produces other types of noise (the same type of phenomenon is described in Selma Lagerlöf’s “En historia fran Långsjö,”*6 about the appearance of a strange-looking cow who couldn’t moo). Lastly, being close to him creates an intense feeling of bliss, and he regularly touches the villagers. All these are characteristics of Pyret, and in chronicling them Ms. Persson finally gives us a possible clue to Pyret’s procreation cycle.
In the autumn of 1868, Sjungpastorn began looking poorly and grayish. Ms. Persson mentions that he began touching people outside of Mass, specifically men. It didn’t stop there. On the night of September 20, someone knocked on Margareta’s door.
It was Emilia Magnusson, saying that Sjungpastorn had lain down with Olof Nilsson while Olof was sleeping. I said that Olof must have had a nightmare, but then Emilia told me that Olof’s wife had been witness to it. She had been sitting with an ailing cow, and when she came into the bedroom saw Sjungpastorn in the bed, straddling her husband. She had fetched the farmhand, who had seen it too. They were afraid to intervene but made enough noise to wake Olof up, who then started screaming, and Sjungpastorn fled out a window and disappeared into the forest (Diaries, book 9, p. 82).
Sjungpastorn was never seen again. It does seem that he was nearing the end of his life cycle and therefore tried to procreate; that he chose a man indicates that he was looking for sperm to fertilize an egg. There is no mention in Ms. Persson’s diaries of Pyret—perhaps because she didn’t know of the legend, or the villagers never made the connection. After all, Sjungpastorn resembled a man and not a beast.
My Own Investigations into the Situation at “Lillbo”
So far, my findings have mostly fallen within the realm of folklore, but I am about to present modern-day evidence that we are not dealing with a cryptid but a real being. I have previously stated that accounts of Pyret assuming human form have been extremely rare. Recent events at the village of “Lillbo” hint at a new development. While unraveling Margareta Persson’s account of Sjungpastorn, I met an informant at the Umeå Heritage Museum. A stocky woman in her eighties, she worked as a volunteer at the museum. When she heard about my area of research, she immediately asked me to interview her. Please note that the informant’s name and the village’s name have been changed for their protection.
—
Annika M was born in Lillbo in 1931, raising the population from thirty-five to thirty-six. Situated in the region of Dalarna, the village had grown up around a foundry, which was shut down in the early twentieth century. Like most of her generation, Annika left in her teens to find work elsewhere, eventually settling in Umeå. She would not return to Lillbo for thirty years. In a taped interview, Annika told me of the events that took place when she finally did return.
It was in October 1978 when Annika’s father unexpectedly called her. She hadn’t spoken to her parents for several years, having broken off contact with them because she felt they were “bitter” and “stuck in the past.” Now pensioners in their late sixties, they remained in Lillbo. Her father begged Annika to visit, although he wouldn’t explain why: “My father had never talked to me like that before. I thought one of them must be ill or dying, so I got into my car and drove there as quickly as I could.”
The village was no better than she remembered it, with “a single main street, a dirt road really…some houses on each side of the road, and the little grocery store in the middle. The forest is littered with abandoned cottages.” As she came to her parents’ house, she quickly had the feeling that something was wrong.
I had been expecting them to be old and frail—sixty-seven was ancient to me then, you know—but they looked…sort of plump and shiny. Like well-fed toddlers. And something was just off. Especially with Mother. She was sitting on the kitchen sofa with this stiff grin, almost from ear to ear. I thought, that’s it. It’s Alzheimer’s.
Before Annika could greet her mother, her father pulled her with him into the living room and closed the door. In hushed tones, he told her a story.
A group of strangers had settled in the village some time ago. They didn’t speak Swedish, but were light-skinned, so Father had thought maybe they were defectors from the USSR. “They came visiting all the time,” he said. “We thought it was nice at first. They made you feel really good, you know? They made us feel young. But now we’re prisoners.” It made no sense. I asked him what was really going on, and what was wrong with Mother? He whispered, “That’s not your mother. It won’t let me leave. It’s doing something to me at night. You have to get me out of here.”
All of this sounded crazy to Annika, and to find time to think she “told them I had to go for a walk.” She made her way down to the empty main street, where “The paint on the houses was chipped and fading, the stairs rotting; everything was falling apart.” Soon, she noticed something odd.
I peeked into the grocery store and saw someone standing behind the counter, and a customer on the other side. Just what you might expect. But the customer would put some groceries on the counter, and after the cashier rang them up, the customer put the wares back on the shelves again! Then they started all over again. I looked while they did it four times. They were still doing it when I left.
As she went farther down the street, she happened upon a man chopping wood outside his house. Something wasn’t quite right here, either:
I realized he wasn’t really chopping anything. He was just moving his axe up and down, like a robot. I went closer, because his clothes looked strange—like he was wearing a cat suit painted like regular clothes. Then he looked up at me. His eyes were ink, just dots of ink.
I ran back to my parents’ home, and Father was standing next to my car with a little satchel over his shoulder. He looked like a terrified schoolboy. I was going to say something to him, but then Mother came out onto the porch. It was still light out—I could see her face. It wasn’t Mother. And then she opened her mouth. I can’t describe the sound she made.
Annika got her father into the car and drove all the way back to Umeå without stopping. “We never came back to Lillbo. We never told anyone, because who would have believed us? Me and my father were the last, the last people to leave Lillbo.”
Final Conclusions
As you might expect, Annika M’s story
prompted me to travel to Lillbo. Decades had passed since the events she described, but I still hoped to find clues, if not a live specimen. I also needed to see the site for myself. An inexperienced and frightened observer, Annika M had provided an account that was vague and skewed toward the monstrous. I, on the other hand, had studied Pyret for a very long time. I had nothing to fear from a creature I knew to be, in essence, benign.
I arrived at the village late in the afternoon. As it was October, I was treated to a spectacular turning of leaves. Annika had described the village as “falling apart” on her visit decades ago; now, the houses were practically rotting shells. I looked into windows and doorways where I could, but found nothing interesting…until I tried the door to the grocery store. It was half-stuck, but unlocked, and I managed to get it open.
Everyday objects filled the shelves on the walls: alarm clocks, stationery, china, clothes, silverware, paintings, lamps, scales, Bakelite telephones, canned goods, stuffed toys, sewing machines, picture frames. A powdery smell in the air made me think of plastic gone brittle in the sun. In the middle of the floor, its back to the counter, sat a molding velvet couch facing an old TV set. A little table to one side held a teapot, four cups, and a sheaf of paper. The couch was covered in a layer of something like hardened gelatin. That powdery smell became stronger as I drew closer, a taste of something like talcum settling on the tongue.
The paper on the table was inscribed with curlicued rows that resembled writing, but on closer inspection turned out to be just long loops of ink. A signature-like swirl sat in the bottom right corner. It looked very much like a childish imitation of a letter.
As I wandered along the carefully stacked shelves, the ordered clutter left behind, I found myself doubting the premise of my own research—and this elicited a strangely powerful reaction. I think it was due in part to the fact that I have studied Pyret for so long and was suddenly closer than I had ever been to finding tangible proof of its existence. But this proof, these leavings, was far beyond what I had expected to find.
I have in this essay offered the possibility of Pyret’s sentience, but so far my research points to it really being a non-sentient animal—talented, yes, but an animal nonetheless. This room, which more than anything resembled a shrine to humanity, raised a new question—one that might not be answered until Pyret’s next appearance.
When a creature chooses to die surrounded by keepsakes from a species to which it doesn’t belong, leaving an imitation of language behind—has it acted out of instinct or intelligence?
* * *
*1 Like gods and spirits, predators were often called by euphemisms to avoid bad luck or visits from said creatures. In some cases the euphemisms have replaced the taboo name in common usage. The Swedish word for wolf, varg (killer, strangler), was originally a euphemism for the taboo ulv; similarly, the euphemism for magpie, skata (the elongated one), has replaced the original skjora. The word for bear shared by all Germanic languages (in Swedish björn) simply means “brown,” a euphemism so old that it has acquired euphemisms of its own and the original name has been lost (although linguists through comparative studies have constructed a hypothetical root word in Proto-Indo-European).
*2 Old Norse form of the word “pyre,” still in use in Norwegian.
*3 Finnish: “tyke.”
*4 The most common witchcraft-related crime was “illegal mingling”: young men consorting with female trolls and vittra.
*5 The main Christmas church service in Sweden at the time, held at 4:00 a.m. on Christmas Day.
*6 Lagerlöf, Selma: Troll och människor, Albert Bonniers Boktryckeri, Stockholm, 1915, p. 95.
Augusta Prima
AUGUSTA STOOD in the middle of the lawn with the croquet club in a two-handed grasp. She had been offered the honor of opening the game. Mnemosyne’s prized croquet balls were carved from bone, with inlaid enamel and gold. The ball at Augusta’s feet stared up at her with eyes of bright blue porcelain. An invitation to a croquet game in Mnemosyne’s court was a wonderful thing. It was something to brag about. Those who went to Mnemosyne’s games saw and were seen by the right people. Of course, they also risked utter humiliation and ridicule.
Augusta was sweating profusely. It trickled down between her breasts, eventually forming damp spots on the front of her shirt. She could feel a similar dampness spreading in the seat of her too-tight knee pants. More moisture ran down her temples, making tracks in the thick layers of powder. Her artful corkscrew curls were already wilting.
The other guests spread out across the lawn, waiting for her move. Everyone who meant something was here. Our Lady Mnemosyne sat under a lace umbrella on her usual podium. Her chamberlain Walpurgis lounged in the grass in his white surtout, watching Augusta with heavy-lidded eyes. At his side, the twin lovers Vergilia and Hermine shared a divan, embracing as usual. Today one of them was dressed in a crinoline adorned with leaves; the other wore a dress made of gray feathers. Their page, a changeling boy in garish makeup, stood behind them holding a tray of drinks.
Farther away, Augusta’s sister Azalea had grown tired of waiting. She had stripped naked next to a shrubbery, methodically plucking leaves off its branches. Everyone except Azalea was watching Augusta. The only sound was that of tearing leaves.
—
Augusta took a deep breath, raised her club, and swung it with a grunt. The ball flew in a high arc, landing with a crunch in the face of the twins’ page, who dropped his tray and doubled over. The garden burst into cheers and applause. Mnemosyne smiled and nodded from her podium. Augusta had passed the test.
The game thus opened, the other guests threw themselves into play. In a series of magnificent hits, Walpurgis knocked out two pages who were carried off with crushed eyebrows, broken teeth, and bleeding noses. The twins were in unusually bad shape, mostly hitting balls instead of pages. Augusta played very carefully, focusing on not getting hit. There were a few breaks for cake, games, and flogging a servant. Finally, Hermine and Vergilia, one hand each on the club, hit Augusta’s ball and it rolled well into the woods beyond the gardens. The hit was considered so stylish that Augusta was sent out of the game. She wandered in among the trees to find her ball.
Under one of the dog-rose bushes lay a human corpse: a man in a gray woolen suit. They sometimes wandered into the woods by mistake. This one had come unusually far. It was difficult to tell what had killed him. He had begun to putrefy; the swollen belly had burst his waistcoat open. A gold chain trailed from one of the pockets. Augusta bent forward, gingerly grasped the chain, and pulled it. A shiny locket emerged on the end of the chain, engraved with flowers. Augusta swung the locket up in the air and let it land in her palm. The touch sent a little chill along her arm, and for a moment she felt faint. She wrapped the locket in a handkerchief, put it in a pocket, and returned to the croquet green to announce that there was a new and interesting corpse.
—
Augusta returned to her rooms, a little medal pinned to her chest as thanks for her find. No one had noticed her taking the metal thing for herself. She shooed out her page and sat down on the bed to examine the thing further.
It seemed to be made of gold, engraved on both sides with flowery strands. It was heavy and cold in her palm. The vertigo gradually subsided, but the chills remained like an icy stream going from her hand to her neck. The chain attached to the locket by a little knob on the side. Another, almost invisible button sat across from it. She pressed it, and the locket sprung open to reveal a white disc painted with small lines. Three thin rods were attached to the center. One of them moved around the disc in twitching movements, making a ticking noise like a mouse’s heart.
It was a machine. Augusta had seen things like it a few times, among the belongings of houses or humans who had been claimed by the gardens. They had always been broken, though. Mechanical things usually fell apart as soon as they came into the gardens’ domain. It was a mystery how this thing could still be in one piece and working.
The ch
ills had become an almost pleasant sensation. Augusta watched the rod chasing around the disc until she fell asleep.
—
She woke up in the same position as she’d fallen asleep in, on her side with the little machine in her hand. It was still now. Augusta frowned and called on her page. There were a handful of pages in the family, most of them nameless changelings raised in servitude. For various reasons, only two of them could carry a conversation, should one be so inclined. Augusta’s page wasn’t one of them.
“Fetch Azalea’s page,” she told him when he arrived.
—
Augusta watched the machine until there was a scratch at her door and Azalea’s page stepped inside. He was a half-grown boy, with dark hair in oiled locks and eyes rimmed with kohl; a beautiful specimen that Azalea had insisted on taking into service despite his being too old to train properly. The boy stood in the middle of the room, having the audacity to stare directly at Augusta. She slapped him with the back of her hand. He shrunk back, turning his gaze to the floor. He walked over to the bed and started to remove his clothes.
“No, not now,” Augusta said.
The boy froze halfway out of his surtout. Augusta tossed him the little locket.
“You will tell me what this is,” she said.
“You don’t know?” he said.
Augusta slapped him again.
“You will tell me what this is,” she repeated.
He sniffled.
“It’s a watch.”
“And what does a watch do?”
Jagannath Page 9
