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 the 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 in 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 U.S.S.R. “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 further 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?
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.