It isn’t long before they learn that each child has a particular character, young as they are. Maja is calm. She rarely complains and shows you what she wants, even if her needs are simple enough. Milk, sleep, warmth, a change of swaddling. Anna Stina imagines that she can already read a wisdom in her gaze, which is steady and inquisitive. Often it turns in the same direction to wherever Anna Stina’s own attention goes, as if with some dawning comprehension of the connectedness of things. Already Anna Stina thinks she can see traces of the one who has given Maja her name, her own mother, Maja Knapp, and although she soon grows accustomed to the similarity, she never stops being amazed that it is possible, that someone thought lost can return to the world in such a way. Even the hair matches. The compact, soft down on her little head is the same as her grandmother’s, darker than Anna Stina’s own.
The boy, Karl, is slighter, more anxious. He is easily agitated and quick to vent his feelings. He doesn’t particularly resemble his sister, nor can Anna Stina see much of herself in him. She wonders if what she finds unfamiliar in his face is in reality the first glimpse she has had of her unknown father, whose name she never learned, or if it is the boy’s own sire who has marked him thus. He is less endowed with hair than his sister, and his strands are lighter. He is as close to tears as to laughter, and mother and sister both tend to catch his mood. When he laughs it is an irresistible, bubbling sound, a joyous gurgling that paints the entire forest in cheerier colors. She quickly notices how ticklish he is, how the tips of her fingers barely have to touch the soft flesh under his chin or at his navel for him to start writhing in merriment.
As different as they are, they always want to be together, as close as they can get. They can’t even stand the separation of the blanket she uses to swaddle them, but struggle with combined forces against her until they lie skin against skin, secure and satisfied only in the heat from each other. She watches over their sleep, her gaze lingering over their peaceful faces and reflecting on the bond of blood that ties them together. Mother Maja always emphasized its importance with a superstitious conviction.
Nothing binds like blood, Anna. Remember that.
Sometimes, when her temper was short and she was of an age, Anna Stina would talk back. Where’s my father, then? What happened to the bonds of blood that should have kept him here with us?
Maja Knapp was never in the habit of letting someone wait for an answer. Nor this time.
Your father set off the moment I started to show. If he had but seen you with his own eyes he would never have been able to disavow his responsibility.
In her and Mother Maja’s crowded neighborhood, she must have babysat hundreds of times. Children in the city are born pale and sickly, anaemic and pitiable. Early on, she learned to see children’s lives as feeble flames in a capricious breeze, so vulnerable that you hardly dared count them among the living until they had seen their third year. The countless funerals spoke for themselves. Every other grave that is dug, and more, spares the gravedigger’s back with its small size.
Even though forest-born, Maja and Karl are of a different sort. They are rosy and strong, and from week to week they gain an increasingly healthy weight. In them she sees something else, something she hasn’t seen in children before: a pure life force with a strength that exceeds their tender bodies, fierce and impatient. Nor are they troubled by disease. She remembers the children in Maria and Katarina who were constantly embattled by all kinds of diseases, all runny noses and hacking coughs. Her twins keep healthy. Their strength increases with each passing day. Maja is the first to lift her head, the first to stretch her legs upwards until she rolls to her side. Her brother is quick to copy, masters the same abilities with tiny squeals of undisguised joy.
The forest favors them, as does the summer. The heat lingers. Even when the rainstorms whip the branches and leaves, the canopy doesn’t let much water through. When the sky is cloudless and the sunshine sears the roofs of the city, the trees give her children a cool shade and strew the moss with billowing pools of light. Lisa baits her trap each morning while the children are still asleep. Each morning the creel is bursting with life, more than enough to feed them all. Soon the raspberry bushes hunch under their burden, not long after the undergrowth comes aglow with blueberries. On the other side of the hill there are ferns whose roots she gathers and rubs clean. She is attentive to the arrival of dusk, watchful as the days grow shorter. But summer endures.
Lisa teaches Anna Stina to find her bearings. To the north there is Owl’s Bay, joined to the salt water by a narrow strait, bridged to allow a road to cross. From time to time, travelers or carriages come this way, fine folk on their way out to Fisherman’s Rest to enjoy the day. Further north they are building, and in the early mornings, carts come laden with timber and stone, pulled by oxen. If the wind is just right, she can hear the blows of the hammers. When she dares to venture further in the same direction, she has seen workers swarm like ants over a newly raised frame that promises to be a grand building to tickle some gentleman’s vanity. They remain far enough away never to bother her and she does not return.
She wills them never to end, these summer days. She doesn’t ask for more company. But mushrooms start to sprout on the forest floor, and the nights grow cooler. She and Lisa have moved their beds closer to each other, with the children between them. One night when the blanket has slid off her, she wakes in the early hours of the night and gets up to gather stones from the fire for warmth. That is when she sees them for the first time, tiny lights through the trees. The glow flickers for about an hour until it dies away. She sits completely still, keeping watch. In the morning she asks about it.
“What is it that shines among the trees at night?”
“It’s the will-o’-the-wisp, nothing more. Don’t go there.”