I waited until Mama’s back was turned before slipping down the stairs. She hadn’t heard the wolf; all she had heard was the wind knocking against the windows like a child begging to be let in.
The ram grunted when he heard me, shifting restlessly among the hay as he prepared to bed down.
‘Elina?’ I whispered, peering out. ‘Are you out here?’
‘Kati.’ Oskar was leaning against a birch, standing so still I had to wait for my eyes to adjust to discern his features. The tar scent of his cigarette reached me, sharp and sweet. As he threw it aside, the embers scattered on the ground in one final burst of orange and red.
He took a step towards me. ‘Wasn’t Elina your grandmother’s name? Why are you calling to her in the dark?’
I tucked my hands under my arms and cast about with my eyes. The yard was empty. Moonlight glimmered on the stones.
‘You must have misheard.’ I paused for a moment. ‘I was looking for you.’
‘For me?’
‘Yes.’ I could feel my hands trembling. ‘I wanted to speak to you. To explain.’
‘Does Erich know you’re out here? Your mother?’
I shook my head.
‘You’ve changed your hair,’ he observed. ‘Just one plait now, is it?’
I lifted my hand automatically to feel the braid. The weave I’d made of it this morning was still in place, but the ends were straggly, uneven. ‘Jakob said two braids made me look fifteen.’
Another step.
‘Since when did you take Jakob’s advice?’ He was so close I could smell the forest on him. Sun-warmed earth. Mushroom dankness. And something else; something chemical. The scent of paraffin. Of danger and resistance.
Goosebumps rose on my skin.
‘Kati…’
My name, when he said it, was intoxicating. An island, a stepping stone in a deep river. If I let it, that word would lead to more words, words I would not be able to unsay.
With an effort, I moved away. ‘You shouldn’t have come back.’
Oskar stiffened. He dropped his hands to his sides, shoving them into his pockets.
That’s it, I thought, reminding myself to breathe, to ignore the prickle of tears that threatened at the back of my eyes. Let him go.
‘Do you remember these?’
I forced myself to stare at the objects Oskar was holding out in his open palms. The gloves, one in each hand. Red wool, threaded through with a white pattern of winter berries.
‘Yes.’
They were the last things I had knitted for Oskar before Imbi and Aime were murdered and he disappeared. An early birthday gift. I’d left them on the doorstep of the farmhouse on my way into Tartu, knowing Oskar would find them and divine they were from me.
Oskar closed his hands around them and I watched them disappear back into his pockets.
‘I take them with me everywhere. Even when it’s too warm to wear them. They’re my good luck charm.’ I could not raise my head to look at him. ‘I thought you would be glad to see me, Kati,’ he said softly.
I brought my head up sharply. ‘I am. I never believed those rumours. But we couldn’t say anything. It wasn’t safe. Papa said they would come for us.’
‘Then he’s not as foolish as he appears.’
‘Papa is no fool.’
Oskar grunted. ‘He thinks he doesn’t have to choose sides. That he can go on pretending nothing has changed.’
I watched him plunge his hand into his pocket and bring out another cigarette. He let it rest between his lips as he struck a match and lit it with steady hands. The cigarette flared in the darkness, splashing light across his face.
I was suddenly aware of how old he seemed. How changed. He had never smoked before. Imbi Mägi would have switched his backside as soon as she caught a whiff of tobacco on his clothes. I was alone, in the dark, with a stranger who wore the familiar features of my childhood friend. My heart still yearned for him, as if it could remember the time he had once dived into the freezing river to retrieve Maimu when I dropped her in the river. The time he had shown me how to freeze milk into discs and hang them up so they would last all winter long. The time we had danced together at Raimo Vagula’s barn-dance when we were fifteen and he held me close, one arm cradling my back, until I felt the tingling burn of desire creep up my body and excused myself, afraid of the depth of my feelings, the need to hold back when all I wanted was to give in.
I shook my head when he held out the cigarette, drawing my shawl close around my shoulders. He merely shrugged, flicking the match with his fingers until the flame was extinguished. ‘You know, you could come with me,’ he said.
‘And live in the forest?’ I wanted to laugh, but the sound caught and died in my throat. ‘You know I can’t.’ I turned away. The scent of the cigarette was unsettling. ‘I’ll speak to Papa. About your proposal.’
‘He won’t change his mind.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘And you’re still the same. Still your father’s girl. Too afraid to say no.’
‘I’m not afraid!’
Oskar scoffed. ‘Did you even protest when they decided Jakob should be the one to go to the university?’
‘Of course I did.’ My voice was as dry as skeleton leaves.
Oskar’s hand found mine suddenly in the darkness. It was so startling I drew in a breath. His palm was rough and warm. Familiar and yet different, the bumps and creases a roadmap of our youth. ‘We promised never to lie to each other.’
Carefully, I drew my hand back. I thought I heard him sigh, but it might have been the wind in the trees. The pale light brightened as the clouds shifted above, revealing the thin wedge of the moon, circled by stars.
Oskar moved away from me, his shoulders stiff, a stranger again. ‘Speak to your Papa, then,’ he said coolly. ‘If he waits too long, decisions will be made for him.’
A cold leaf, shaken free from the birch above, plastered itself on the bare spot at the back of my neck. I reached up to pluck it off, but the cold remained, worming down through my skin and into my bones.
I was suddenly afraid. ‘Are you threatening us?’
Oskar dragged on the cigarette and then exhaled, issuing a plume of smoke that curled in the air between us. ‘I would never let them hurt you, Kati. But the Germans are determined. They want to succeed. At any price.’
A pulse beat faster in my neck. ‘I should warn him.’
‘Why do you think I came back?’
Our eyes met. For me.
But I didn’t dare speak my hopes aloud. I watched Oskar take a last puff and grind the cigarette out beneath the heel of his boot. He straightened up and gave me a curt nod. I felt the distance gape between us, stretching like a frayed shawl. Whatever was left of what we had once felt was not enough.
‘Take care, Kati.’
I tried to make my mouth form the word. Goodbye.
Something soft pressed into my hands and I looked down. The gloves were still warm. I balled them up and tucked them in my pocket.
Then Oskar turned and drifted away into the trees. I watched him go, my stomach aching as if I had not eaten all day, that old familiar feeling of hunger, of gaining something but never being satisfied.
I’d lost him again. We’d not even spoken about his mother, or Aime and the violence which had ripped them from both our lives. But there was no more time to linger here with ghosts; I needed to catch what little rest I could.
I turned in time to see her emerge from the shadows at the end of the stone-strewn drive. Elina. My wolf.