Requiem [COMPLETED]

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We actually had one person left—that the state could locate, at least—the one who'd given us away three years earlier. Thinking about it now, it didn't make sense for grandpa to take us back when earlier two small kids were too much to handle. Maybe they arranged some financial support; or maybe grandpa had just regretted his decision. Grandpa looked happy to see us but was still taciturn with the social worker when we arrived. There was no big welcome, no fuss made over our return. He didn't even offer the social worker coffee, though it was breakfast time. He left our suitcases in our old bedrooms to unpack. He muttered something about "damn people changing their minds," before tromping out to feed cattle.

I was getting worried that something was wrong with me; I felt guilty that I hadn't been overjoyed at being home. The social worker had told me I'd feel happy. The last few days I'd just felt foggy, like I had a head cold that made everything tingle numbly. I banged my knuckles against the rails supporting the banister as we climbed up the stairs to our old bedrooms. By the time I reach the top my hand was throbbing; it was a strange satisfaction to be reassured I wasn't loosing all sensation even though I felt hollow. I thought if Sven would have spoken at all it would have just echoed in one ear and back at him out the other, startling him to discover I'd turned into an empty shell. Banging my knuckles against the railing became a daily ritual, a way of reassuring myself I still inhabited this body, that it wasn't all a dream.

Whenever he noticed me repeating the action or heard the noise of my knuckles rapping against the wood he'd call out, "Sigrid stop it, you're hurting yourself. You're so weird." Which became it's own ritual, in a way.

Grandpa had turned on the electric heaters after we arrived so the chill was still there in our rooms with the strong draft coming from the windows. I went to see Sven. He hadn't unpacked and was lying next to his suitcase on the bed hugging himself. I crawled up and put my arms around him and he didn't shake me off. I stared out Sven's window at the huge cottonwood tree with deeply grooved bark that looked like a stylized drawing of itself. Shafts of sunlight advanced across the carpet making grotesque hands out of the branches' shadows but we didn't speak as they reached out for us slowly. We lay there until the light got weak and Grandpa started making noise in the kitchen, just holding each other together.

"It'll be okay," Sven said. Despite the thinness of his voice, the words reassured me, perhaps because I so badly needed them to.

That night was the first night in three years that I couldn't get up and go see Sven if I awoke scared from a dream. I understood without asking that we were not allowed to leave our rooms after bedtime until grandpa knocked on our door in the morning, alerting us that he was up and off to do chores. I couldn't sleep. I lay staring at the starlight, so much stronger here than in the cities, and listening to the wind. It was as if I was waiting for a sign, something to reassure me that all would be well.

A strange noise, between a howl and growl, cut through the wind. I immediately was drawn to look out the window: a pair of orb-like eyes gathered and reflected starlight, traveling low to the ground and fast: Nisse's eyes which glow in the dark. The nisse usually went about at night seeing that everything was in it's place and ranging the farm, protecting it. When he paused and looked at me, they didn't look warm and protective. They looked cold and angry, watching without emotion as if he had no need to blink or sleep. I crawled back to my bed terrified, cocooning up tightly into my blanket and quilt, hearing the howl. I thought he might crawl up to my room and try to get in, that he might hurt me, thinking I was an intruder.

I tried to breathe without making a sound. I was waiting for a sign, something to reassure me. I started feeling the the wall absently, tapping gently, thinking about Sven being in the next room. Then he tapped back. And I tapped. Then he did.