The Uncanny Reader

by Marjorie Sandor

  “You need to go now, Johann,” said Mum.

  “Doesn’t matter if you move south,” Johann said. “Can’t get it out of your blood.” He left, rubber boots crunching on the gravel path.

  Mum wrapped her cardigan more tightly around herself and came inside.

  “What was that about?” Cilla said.

  “Johann has all sorts of ideas.”

  “Is he talking about why we have so much craziness in the family?”

  “Johann thinks it’s a curse.” She smiled at Cilla and patted her cheek. “He’s very ill. We’re sensitive, that’s all. We have to take care of ourselves.”

  Cilla leaned her forehead against Mum’s shoulder. Her cardigan smelled of wool and cold air. “What if me or Sara gets sick?”

  “Then we’ll handle it,” said Mum. “You’ll be fine.”

  * * *

  What everyone knew was this: that sometime in the late nineteenth century a woman named Märet came down from the mountain and married Jacob Jonsson. They settled in Jacob’s family home, and she bore him several children, most of whom survived to adulthood, although not unscathed. According to the story, Märet was touched. She saw strange things, and occasionally did and said strange things, too. Märet’s children, and their children in turn, were plagued by frail nerves and hysteria; people applied more modern terms as time passed.

  Alone of all her siblings, Cilla’s mother had no symptoms. That was no guarantee, of course. Ever since Cilla had been old enough to understand what the story really meant, she had been waiting for her or Sara to catch it, that, the disease. Mum said they weren’t really at risk since Dad’s family had no history of mental illness, and anyway they had grown up in a stable environment. Nurture would triumph over nature. Negative thinking was not allowed. It seemed, though, as if Sara might continue the tradition.

  * * *

  Sara was sitting under the bed covers with her back to the wall, eyes closed, Robert Smith wailing in her earphones. She opened her eyes when Cilla shut the door.

  “Johann was here.” Cilla wrinkled her nose. “He smells like goat.”

  “Okay,” said Sara. Her eyes were a little glazed.

  “Are you all right?”

  Sara rubbed her eyes. “It’s the thing.”

  Cilla sat next to her on the bed, taking Sara’s hand. She was cold, her breathing shallow; Cilla could feel the pulse hammering in her wrist. Sara was always a little on edge, but sometimes it got worse. She had said that it felt like something horrible was about to happen, but she couldn’t say exactly what, just a terrible sense of doom. It had started about six months ago, about the same time that she got her first period.

  “Want me to get Mum?” Cilla said as always.

  “No. It’s not that bad,” said Sara, as usual. She leaned back against the wall, closing her eyes.

  Sara had lost it once in front of Mum. Mum didn’t take it well. She had told Sara to snap out of it, that there was nothing wrong with her, that she was just having hysterics. After that, Sara kept it to herself. In this, if in nothing else, Cilla was allowed to be her confidante. In a way, Mum was right: compared to paranoid schizophrenia, a little anxiety wasn’t particularly crazy. Not that it helped Sara any.

  “You can pinch me if it makes you feel better.” Cilla held out her free arm. She always did what she could to distract Sara.

  “Brat.”

  “Ass.”

  Sara smiled a little. She looked down at Cilla’s hand in hers, suddenly wrenching it around so that it landed on her sister’s leg.

  “Why are you hitting yourself? Stop hitting yourself!” she shouted in mock horror.

  There was a knock on the door. Mum opened it without waiting for an answer. She was dressed in rubber boots and a bright yellow raincoat over her cardigan. “I’m going to the house now, if you want to come.”

  “Come on, brat,” said Sara, letting go of Cilla’s hand.

  * * *

  The driveway up to the house was barely visible under the weeds. Two middle-aged men in windbreakers and rubber boots were waiting in the front yard. Mum pointed at them.

  “That’s Otto and Martin!” Mum waved at them through the window.

  “I thought there were six cousins living up here,” said Sara.

  “There are,” said Mum. “But the others aren’t well. It’s just Otto and Martin today.”

  They stepped out into cold, wet air. Cilla was suddenly glad of her thick jeans and knitted sweater. Sara, who had refused to wear any of the (stupid and embarrassing) sweaters Mum offered, was shivering in her black tights and thin long-sleeved shirt.

  The cousins greeted each other with awkward hugs. Otto and Martin were in their fifties, both with the drawn-out Jonsson look: tall and sinewy with watery blue eyes, a long jaw, and wide cheekbones. Martin was a little shorter and younger, with fine black hair that stood out from his head like a dark dandelion. Otto, balding and with a faraway look, only nodded and wouldn’t shake hands.

  This close, the old house looked ready to fall apart. The red paint was flaking in thick layers, the steps up to the front door warped. Some of the windowpanes were covered with bits of white plastic and duct tape.

  Mum waved toward the house. “Johann’s not with you?”

  Martin shrugged, taking a set of keys from his pocket. “He didn’t want to be here for this. All right. We’ll start with going through the rooms one by one, seeing what we can salvage. Otto has pen and paper to make a list.”

  “You haven’t been in here until now?” said Mum.

  “We’ve been cleaning a little. Johann only used a couple of the rooms, but it was bad. The smell should be bearable now.”

  Otto opened the door. Johann’s unwashed stench wafted out in a sour wave. “You get used to it.” He ducked his head under the lintel and went inside.

  Johann had used two rooms and the kitchen on the ground floor. Neither Cilla nor Sara could bring themselves to enter them, the stench of filth and rot so strong it made them gag. By the light coming in through the door, Cilla could see piles of what looked like rags, stacks of newspapers, and random furniture.

  “There was a layer of milk cartons and cereal boxes this high on the floors in there,” said Martin, pointing to his knee. “The ones at the bottom were from the seventies.”

  “I don’t think he ate much else,” Otto filled in. “He refuses to eat anything but corn flakes and milk at my house. He says all other food is poisoned.”

  Otto, Martin, and Mum looked at each other. Mum shrugged. “That’s how it is.”

  Otto sucked air in between pursed lips, the quiet .jo that acknowledged and ended the subject.

  The smell wasn’t as bad in the rest of the house; Johann seemed to have barricaded himself in his two rooms. The sitting room was untouched. Daylight filtered in through filthy windowpanes, illuminating furniture that looked hand-made and ancient: cabinets painted with flower designs, a wooden sofa with a worn seat, a rocking-chair with the initials O.J. and the date 1898.

  “It looks just like when we were kids,” said Mum.

  “Doesn’t it?” said Otto.

  Cilla returned to the entryway, peering up the stairs to the next floor. “What about upstairs? Can we go upstairs?”

  “Certainly,” said Martin. “Let me go first and turn on the lights.” He took a torch from his pocket, lighting his way as he walked up the stairs. Sara and Cilla followed him.

  The top of the stairs ended in a narrow corridor, where doors opened to the master bedroom and two smaller rooms with two beds in each.

  “How many people lived here?” Cilla peered into the master bedroom.

  “Depends on when you mean,” Martin replied. “Your grandmother had four siblings altogether. And I think there was at least a cousin or two of theirs living here during harvest, too.”

  “But there are only four single beds,” said Sara from the doorway of another room.

  Martin shrugged. “People shared beds.”

  �
��But you didn’t live here all the time, right?”

  “No, no. My mother moved out when she got married. I grew up in town. Everyone except Johann moved out.”

  “There are more stairs over here,” said Sara from further away.

  “That’s the attic,” said Martin. “You can start making lists of things up there.” He handed Cilla his torch, a pen, and a sheaf of paper. “Mind your step.”

  * * *

  The attic ran the length of the house, divided into compartments. Each compartment was stacked with stuff: boxes, furniture, old skis, kick-sleds, a bicycle. The little windows and the weak light bulb provided enough light that they didn’t need the torch. Cilla started in one end of the attic, Sara in the other, less sorting and more rooting around. After a while, Mum came upstairs.

  “There’s a huge chest here,” said Sara after a while, pushing a stack of boxes to the side.

  Cilla left her list and came over to look. It was a massive blue chest with a rounded lid, faded and painted with flowers.

  “Let me see,” said Mum from behind them.

  Mum came forward, knelt in front of the chest, and opened it, the lid lifting with a groan. It was filled almost to the brim with neatly folded white linen, sprinkled with mothballs. In a corner sat some bundles wrapped in tissue paper.

  Mum shone her torch into the chest. “This looks like a hope chest.” She carefully lifted the tissue paper and uncovered red wool. She handed the torch to Cilla, using both hands to lift the fabric up. It was a full-length skirt, the cloth untouched by vermin.

  “Pretty,” said Sara. She took the skirt, holding it up to her waist.

  “There’s more in here,” said Mum, moving tissue paper aside. “A shirt, an apron, and a shawl. A whole set. It could be Märet’s.”

  “Like what she got married in?” said Cilla.

  “Maybe so,” said Mum.

  “It’s my size,” said Sara. “Can I try it on?”

  “Not now. Keep doing lists.” Mum took the skirt back, carefully folding it and putting it back into the chest.

  Sara kept casting glances at the chest the rest of the morning. When Cilla caught her looking, Sara gave her the finger.

  Later in the afternoon, Mum emptied a cardboard box and put the contents from the hope chest in it. “I’m taking this over to Hedvig’s. I’m sure she can tell us who it belonged to.”

  * * *

  After dinner, Mum unpacked the contents of the hope chest in Hedvig’s kitchen. There were six bundles in all: the red skirt with a marching bodice, a red shawl, a white linen shift, a long apron striped in red and black, and a black purse embroidered with red flowers. Hedvig picked up the purse and ran a finger along the petals.

  “This belonged to Märet.” Hedvig smiled. “She showed me these once, before she passed away. That’s what she wore when she came down from the mountain,” she said. “I thought they were gone. I’m very glad you found them.”

  “How old were you when she died?” said Sara.

  “It was in twenty-one, so I was fourteen. It was terrible.” Hedvig shook her head. “She died giving birth to Nils, your youngest great-uncle. It was still common back then.”

  Cilla fingered the skirt. Out in daylight, the red wool was bright and luxurious, like arterial blood. “What was she like?”

  Hedvig patted the purse. “Märet was … a peculiar woman,” she said eventually.

  “Was she really crazy?” Cilla said.

  “Crazy? I suppose she was. She certainly passed something on. The curse, like Johann says. But that’s silly. She came here to help with harvest, you know, and she fell in love with your great-grandfather. He didn’t know much about her. No one did, except that she was from somewhere northeast of here.”

  “I thought she came down from the mountain,” Cilla said.

  Hedvig smiled. “Yes, she would say that when she was in the mood.”

  “What about those things, anyway?” Sara said. “Are they fairies?”

  “What?” Hedvig gave her a blank look.

  “The vittra,” Cilla filled in helpfully. “The ones that live on the mountain.”

  “Eh,” said Hedvig. “Fairies are cute little things that prance about in meadows. The vittra look like humans, but taller and more handsome. And it’s inside the mountain, not on it.” She had brightened visibly, becoming more animated as she spoke. “There were always stories about vittra living up there. Sometimes they came down to trade with the townspeople. You had to be careful with them, though. They could curse you or kill you if you crossed them. But they had the fattest cows, and the finest wool, and beautiful silver jewellery. Oh, and they liked to dress in red.” Hedvig indicated the skirt Cilla had in her lap. “And sometimes they came to dance with the local young men and women, even taking one away for marriage. And when a child turned out to have nerve problems, they said it was because someone in the family had passed on vittra blood…”

  “But did you meet any?” Sara blurted.

  Hedvig laughed. “Of course not. There would be some odd folk showing up to sell their things in town, but they were mostly Norwegians or from those really small villages up north where everyone’s their own uncle.”

  Sara burst out giggling.

  “Auntie!” Mum looked scandalized.

  Hedvig waved a hand at her. “I’m eighty-seven years old. I can say whatever I like.”

  “But what about Märet?” Cilla leaned forward.

  “Mother, yes.” Hedvig poured a new cup of coffee, arm trembling under the weight of the thermos. “She was a bit strange, I suppose. She really was tall for a woman, and she would say strange things at the wrong time, talk to animals, things like that. People would joke about vittra blood.”

  “What do you think?” said Sara.

  “I think she must have had a hard life, to run away from her family and never speak of them again.” Hedvig gently took the skirt from Cilla and folded it.

  “But the red…”

  Hedvig shook her head and smiled. “It was an expensive colour back then. Saying someone wore red meant they were rich. This probably cost Märet a lot.” She put the clothes back in the cardboard box and closed it.

  Cilla stayed up until she was sure everyone else had gone to bed. It took ages. Sara wrote in her journal until one o’ clock and then took some time to fall asleep, Robert Smith still whining in her ears.

  The cardboard box was sitting on the kitchen sofa, the silk paper in a pile next to it. Cilla lifted the lid, uncovering red wool that glowed in the half-dawn. The shift and the skirt were too long and very tight around the stomach. She kept the skirt unbuttoned and rolled the waistline down, hoisting it so the hem wouldn’t trip her up. She tied the apron tight around her waist to hold everything up, and clipped the purse onto the apron string. The bodice was too loose on her flat chest and wouldn’t close at the waist, so she let it hang open and tied the shawl over her shoulders.

  It was quiet outside, the horizon glowing an unearthly gold, the rest of the sky shifting in blue and green. The birds were quiet. The moon was up, a tiny crescent in the middle of the sky. The air was cold and wet; the grass swished against the skirt, leaving moisture pearling on the wool. Cilla could see all the way down to the lake and up to the mountain. She took her glasses off and put them in the purse. Now she was one of the vittra, coming down from the mountain, heading for the river. She was tall and graceful, her step quiet. She danced as she went, barefoot in the grass.

  A sliver of sun peeking over the horizon broke the spell. Cilla’s feet were suddenly numb with cold. She went back into the house and took everything off again, fished her glasses out, and folded the clothes into the cardboard box. It was good wool; the dew brushed off without soaking into the skirt. When Cilla slipped into bed again, it was only a little past two. The linen was warm and smooth against the cold soles of her feet.

  * * *

  They returned to the family house the following day. Sara decided that wading through debris in the atti
c was stupid and sulked on a chair outside. Cilla spent the day writing more lists. She found more skis, some snowshoes, a cream separator, dolls, a half-finished sofa bed, and a sewing table that was in almost perfect condition.

  Johann showed up in the afternoon. Martin and Otto seemed to think he was going to make a scene, because they walked out and met him far down the driveway. Eventually they returned, looking almost surprised, with Johann walking beside them, his hands clasped behind his back. When Cilla next saw him, he had sat down in a chair next to Sara. Sara had a shirtsleeve over her nose and mouth, but she was listening to him talk with rapt attention. Johann left again soon after. Sara wouldn’t tell Cilla what they’d spoken about, but her eyes were a little wider than usual, and she kept knocking things over.

  * * *

  When they returned to Hedvig’s house, Sara decided to try on Märet’s dress. On her, the skirt wasn’t too long or too tight; it cinched her waist just so, ending nearly at her ankle. The bodice fit like it was tailor-made for her as well, tracing the elegant tapering curve of her back from shoulder to hip. She looked like she’d just stepped out of a story. It made Cilla’s chest feel hollow.

  Sara caught her gaze in the mirror and made a face. “It looks stupid.” She plucked at the skirt. “The red is way too bright. I wonder if you could dye it black? Because that would look awesome.”

  Cilla looked at her own reflection, just visible beyond Sara’s red splendour. She was short and barrel-shaped, eyes tiny behind her glasses. There were food stains on her sweater. “You look stupid,” she managed.

  Mum was scrubbing potatoes in the kitchen when Cilla came downstairs.

  “Who’s getting the dress, Mum? Because Sara wants to dye it black.”

  “Oh ho?” said Mum. “Probably not, because it’s not hers.”

  “Can I have it?” Cilla shifted her weight from foot to foot. “I wouldn’t do anything to it.”

  “No, love. It belongs to Hedvig.”

  “But she’s old. She won’t use it.”

  Mum turned and gave Cilla a long look, eyebrows low. “It belonged to her mother, Cilla. How would you feel if you found my wedding dress, and someone gave it away to some relative instead?”