The Lost Village by Camilla Sten (ereader android .txt) 📕

and its gaping back doors. Slowly—slowly—they pan back to us and stop on me.

“Where’s Tone?” she asks.

 NOW

It takes me a few seconds to find my voice. Max gets there before I do.

“Isn’t she with you?”

Emmy stares at us blankly, as if expecting us to say it’s all a joke, or Tone to jump out from between us and tell her she’s been pranked.

“No,” she says, shaking her head. She looks at the other van. “No, she was … she was here, she…”

I blink and look from Emmy to the van, then the rest of the square.

“What do you mean?” I ask. “Didn’t you go to the hospital?”

Emmy licks her chapped lips and looks at us.

“No, I…” She looks around. “She was here when I left, it was less than two hours ago.”

I know it’s just a vain hope, but I stride over to the tent and fling open the door.

It’s empty. Of course it is.

I stand up, the seriousness of the situation hitting me like a hammer to the head. I almost buckle under its force.

“So where the fuck have you been?” I ask Emmy.

Emmy doesn’t reply. She steps back from the van and, raising her voice as though she doesn’t quite trust it, says:

“Tone? Hello?”

The silence rings in my ears.

“Emmy,” I say. Just uttering her name makes my teeth ache. “If you didn’t take Tone to the hospital then where have you been?”

Before she can respond—if she had even intended to—Robert asks her:

“How long did it take? How long were you gone?”

Something about his voice doesn’t sit. The way he’s standing. The way his chin is pulled in toward his chest. The absence of surprise in his voice.

“What have you guys done?” I whisper.

“What had to be done!” Emmy cries. Her eyes have gone from glassy to wild, and her red ponytail is gleaming like a traffic light in the sun.

“And what was that?” Max asks.

Emmy doesn’t look at him when she replies. She’s looking at me.

“Someone had to do something, Alice,” she says. “You wouldn’t listen.”

I just shake my head. A short, gnarled laugh slips out of me.

“Of course,” I say. “Clearly this is all my fault. Right?”

“There’s somebody here, Alice!” Emmy hurls out of her mouth.

Her words make me stop short.

“What?” I ask, staring at her.

“There’s something wrong with all of this,” says Emmy. “Fucking wrong. I know you saw somebody yesterday when you were in your van. And I saw somebody staring at me that first night. And other stuff, too—both Robert and I have heard things.”

She shakes her head.

“And now with Tone only getting worse … I didn’t want to force her to get help, but I couldn’t sit by and do nothing. We’re completely cut off here—I had to do something.”

Emmy purses her pale, determined lips.

“I wasn’t even gone two hours. OK? Tone was asleep when I left. We had more than enough gas—I didn’t waste anything. I just wanted to get out of the dead zone to make a phone call.”

“To?”

The short word bulks in my mouth.

I see Emmy swallow.

“My mom,” she says. “You know she’s a nurse. I wanted to ask about Tone’s foot. And to have some contact with the outside world. Just in case anything happens. We’re so fucking helpless here—no phones, no way of calling for help.…”

“So what you’re saying,” I say, articulating slowly and carefully, “is that you were so worried about something happening here that you just took off and left Tone sick, alone, and asleep? For a few hours?”

This may be the first time I’ve ever left Emmy speechless. Her hands are dangling at her sides, her palms facing out, pale and exposed.

It gives me no satisfaction.

“And now she’s gone,” I finish, both a judgment and statement of fact.

“Maybe we’re overreacting,” Max offers. “You know, she might have just needed the bathroom.”

“Then she would’ve heard us,” I say. “We’ve been here almost half an hour.”

“But her foot’s hurt,” says Max. “What if she just went to pee somewhere, lost her balance, and can’t get up again? That wouldn’t be so strange.”

He puts his hand on my arm.

“Come on,” he says. “Let’s go look for her. I’m sure we’ll find her in no time. I’ll go with you.” He cups his hand gently around my elbow, as if to hold me up.

I shake my head.

“No,” I say, nodding at Emmy. “Go with her. Keep an eye on her. Someone has to stop her from taking off with one of the vans again.”

I’m expecting anger, but Emmy just stands still. Then she looks at Robert.

“It’s OK. You go with Alice,” she says. “The important thing is that we find Tone before she does herself any harm.”

 NOW

“Tone!” I shout, turning off down an alley. Robert takes my arm. His grip is cautious, but I still feel myself recoil.

“It’ll be easier if we do it systematically,” he says. “Check street by street. Otherwise we might miss her.”

His voice is mild. It feels like a provocation.

I stop and look at him.

“Did you know Emmy was going to take off?”

He hesitates, shifty-eyed. His pupils look tiny in his hazelnut irises.

The feeling that comes over me is something close to disgust.

“Of course you did,” I say.

If only Emmy hadn’t offered to stay. Max or I could have stayed with Tone. If only Emmy had just told me she wanted to go call somebody, told me she was worried. I would have said yes.

Wouldn’t I?

The sunlight stings my eyes. The walls of the buildings feel like they start to close in, tightening and contracting. Soon we’ll be completely swallowed up. We’ll sink down into the soil, grow into the walls, coalesce with the decay and the silence. Like Tone. Like Aina, and Elsa, and Staffan.

There won’t be any trace of us.

I try to shake off these thoughts. They’re morbid; they won’t help.

“Tone!” Robert shouts. His voice is clearer and less desperate than mine, but maybe that’s a bad thing; maybe that means it doesn’t travel as far.

My nerves feel brittle as singed hairs, shriveled and tender