Jagannath Part 7

Cloudberry Jam.

I made you in a tin can. It was one of the unlabelled mystery cans the charity in re village handed out. Most of the time it would be sausages or split pea soup.

This is how I did it: I waited until it was my time of the month. I took the tin can from the shelf under the sink. I filled it halfway with fresh water and put half a teaspoon of salt in it. Next I put in a small, gnarled carrot from last year's garden. I had saved it because it had two p.r.o.ngs, like little legs, and arm-like stumps. Then I held the can between my legs and let some blood trickle into it. Finally, some of my spit. I put some plastic wrap over the opening. The rest of the night, I sat with the can in my lap and sang to you. That's how you were made, in October, as the first snows fell.

You grew steadily through the winter months. I sang to you and fed you small drops of milk. By Yule you were big enough that I moved you to a larger container, an old bucket. You started kicking then, I suppose because you finally had room to move around. You didn't need any nourishment other than milk, which was good because the charity in re had closed. I wouldn't go and ask for welfare money. I lived on last year's potatoes and roots, a bird here and there, cotton-gra.s.s from the bog, and whatever I managed to steal from the shops.

The snow was slow melting that year. It wasn't until late May that the last of the snowdrifts at the back of the house finally disappeared. The little mountain birches were unfolding their first leaves. I lifted the cloth and saw that you were ready to come out. You were curled up in the bucket, perfectly formed, the liquid around you cloudy and brown. I lifted you out and dried you off with a towel.

It was perhaps half past three in the morning. On the porch, the air was sharp and clear. I could see all the way to the Norwegian border, to the Sylarna Mountains. Sunlight trickled over the worn mountaintops. I held you up.

"Welcome home," I said.

You opened your tiny eyes and looked out over the bog. We stood like that for a while.

Once out of the bucket, you grew quickly. The cloudberries ripened in August, covering the bog in flecks of gold. We picked them together. By then you were walking, your skin becoming thicker and darker in the sun. Although you couldn't carry anything with your stumpy arms, you were good at snagging the berries with your mouth and dropping them in the basket. I made cloudberry compote and jam. You could never have enough of the cloudberries. I remember you sitting at the kitchen table, golden jam everywhere, smacking loudly.

As autumn slid into winter, you learned to talk. Your voice was low and a little raspy, and you couldn't roll your Rs. We read together: old magazines, children's books I had saved. We played in the snow. I had a kneading-trough that we rode down into the valley and I dragged back up. You burrowed into the drifts, shovelling the snow aside with your arm-stumps and wriggling tunnels through the snow. On the eve of your first Yule, you wondered about your origins.

"Where did I come from?" you asked. "Where's my father?"

"You don't have one," I said. "I made you myself."

"Everyone has a father."

"Not everyone."

"Why did you make me?" you said.

"I made you so that I could love you," I said.

The snows melted, and we celebrated your first birthday. The frost left the ground. The days lengthened. You reached me to my waist and didn't want to sit in my lap or let me hug you. We had our first argument when you started digging in the kitchen garden just outside the house. I found you in the bottom of a crater of upturned earth and seedlings, rubbing the soil into your skin. I yelled at you for ruining my plants, and why would you do this.

"But it's because the soil is good here," you said.

"Dig wherever you want," I said. "But stay the h.e.l.l away from the garden, or we won't have anything to eat."

"The soil isn't as good anywhere else. You don't get it."

Without another word, you waddled off to the birch copse and dug under the trees the rest of the morning while I tried to salvage the kitchen garden. It was as if you dug away your anger, because after a while you came back with your little arms outstretched. We went inside and made lunch together and got soil and mud all over the floors.

You kept digging every day. Over by the bog, down on the slope towards the valley. It looked like we had voles or rabbits. You'd come home with things you'd unearthed: a broken saucer, part of a ski pole, little bits of bone, fool's gold.

When the weather became warm enough, I took you to Kall Lake to go night swimming. I used to go swimming in Kall Lake as a child. That was the best thing about summer.

You squealed in delight when you saw the rocky sh.o.r.e and the grey lake mirror. Once in the water you became frightened. It was too big and loose you said, too loose. You sat on the sh.o.r.e while I swam. You didn't like the rocks either-they were too hard. You wanted to go home and dig. We didn't go back to Kall Lake.

The new batch of jam takes up a whole shelf. I think it'll stay there. I can't eat jam anymore. I'll still keep it here though, just in case.

I suppose it was bound to happen. I woke up from an afternoon nap to find the cottage empty. I looked behind and inside the shed, in the copse of mountain birch huddling next to the house. You were nowhere to be found. Finally, I started calling for you. There was no answer. I thought perhaps you had fallen into a hole on the bog. New ones open every spring. I put my rubber boots on and went to look. I walked from the cottage and west towards Sylarna. I walked until the cottage disappeared from view, and then I turned north. I walked back and forth, calling you, until the sun dipped below the horizon. Then I turned back to the house.

You must have been digging all day. I found the hole by accident, kicking the kneading-trough in frustration where it lay on the ground by the front steps. As it moved, I saw the hole. I called your name.

"Please come out," I said.

"I don't want to," you said, m.u.f.fled.

"What are you doing down there?"

"Digging."

"Won't you please come out? I'll make us supper."

"I don't want to."

I went and got the shovel, setting it to the edge of the hole. But as soon as the shovel broke the ground, you screamed. I looked down. The soil was riddled with white root tendrils.

"You're hurting me!" you wailed.

I understood then.

"I'm so sorry, love," I said. "I am so sorry. I won't hurt you anymore, I promise."

I went back into the house and sat down at the kitchen table. I cried a little. Then I got the watering can from the garden and filled it with fresh water. I poured it over the ground by the hole. I could hear a giggle down there. That was the first time I'd heard you make that sound.

August is here. The cloudberries are still red; in a little while they will ripen to gold. I will pick as many as I can, for jam and compote. You haven't spoken since that day you burrowed into the ground. But there's a clutch of green leaves growing by the hole. When I water them, I can still hear faint laughter.

Pyret.

[pyret].

Description, Behavior, and History.

When not applied to small and defenceless creatures, the word "pyre" describes a mysterious life form: Pyret, Swedish for "the little tyke." The word has all the characteristics of a euphemism, but nothing resembling an older name has turned up-possibly because it was taboo and in time forgotten, as is often the case. A name that evokes an image of something benevolent and harmless indicates both a form of wors.h.i.+p and an underlying fear of its powers: an expression of love and an appeal for benevolence.1 During the years I have spent researching Pyret, it seems more and more likely that this mix of adoration and fear stems from its extremely alien nature.

A mimic and an infiltrator, Pyret mingles with and a.s.sumes the form of pack- or herd animals, changing color and shape to match the others. From a distance it will look like an ordinary animal. It does not grow actual fur, eyes, or other extremities-the features are completely superficial, making it likely that its skin is covered by chromatoph.o.r.es, much like octopi and chameleons.

Although its feeding habits remain unknown, one thing is certain: Pyret does not behave like a predator. There are no records of it causing physical harm, although it insists on physical contact, which has traumatized a number of witnesses. Accounts of Pyret invariably describe a creature that tries to get close, cuddle, and sometimes even mate with the animal or person in question. The adult size of Pyret seems to be anything between a human and a cow. As for lifespan, no Pyre has been observed to die of old age; it has either wandered off or been slain by humans.

Pyret seems to have sought out and coexisted with the farmers of the Nordic countries for centuries. Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish folklore is rife with stories about farmers discovering a fledgling Pyre in a litter of domesticated animals (Tilli, Pia: Nordic Cryptids, Basilisk Forlag, Helsinki 1989, p. 68), indicating that the parent places its sp.a.w.n with other litters, cuckoo-style. However, Pyret is just as likely to appear in its adult form: there are numerous mentions of strange cows, goats, or sheep appearing in a flock overnight, rubbing up against the other animals. Their presence is often described as having a calming effect. Cows and goats will start producing prodigious amounts of milk, sheep will grow silky soft wool, and pigs fatten up even if food is scarce.

A Gift from the G.o.ds The earliest mention of Pyret occurs in the Icelandic saga Alfdis saga, in which Alfdis Sigurdardottir divorces her husband Gunnlaug because he accidentally sets fire to their barn while drunk, "killing six cows and also Freyr's pyril2, thereby ruining their family." (Jonsson, Guni: islendinga sogur, Reykjavik, 1946, book 25, p. 15) Alfdis complains bitterly about the loss of the pyril that she had reared from infancy, and which had kept her cattle happy and fat (Jonsson, p. 16). Because of the death of the pyril, Alfdis is exempt from the normal divorce penalty and retains the family's remaining possessions, while Gunnlaug is cast out of the community and left dest.i.tute (Jonsson, p. 18). Gunnlaug's punishment and the attribution of the pyril to Freyr, a G.o.d of fertility, indicate that it was considered a sacred creature.

This is the first and last mention in Icelandic literature. Afterward and up to modern times, stories and accounts of Pyret are confined to the northern and middle Scandinavian Peninsula, as far south as the pyril of Stavanger(Tilli,p. 69)and as far east as Carelia under the name of pienokainen.3 (Tilli, p. 72) The majority of accounts, however, come from the spa.r.s.ely populated countryside of northern Sweden.

"The Devil's Cattle"

The Christianization of Scandinavia dethroned the Norse G.o.ds but did little to wipe out belief in supernatural creatures, due in part to all the attention they were given by the Church. The pyril of Norse faith moved into folklore where it becamethe cattle of the vittra, powerful beings that live underground and in hills, similar to the daoine sidhe of Ireland. The Church, seeing it as a very real threat, called Pyret "the Devil's cattle" and warned the populace not to have dealings with it. Doing so was considered witchcraft. This had the opposite effect, as folklorist Ebbe Schon conjectures: "if the Church made so much noise about them, these creatures must indeed be powerful and therefore worthy of wors.h.i.+p." (Schon, Ebbe: alvor, vattar och andra vasen, Raben Prisma, Stockholm, 1996, p.16) Between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, roughly four hundred people were tried and executed for witchcraft and witchcraft-related crimes.4 Twelve instances mention involvement with Pyret. (Leijd, Carl: Rattsprocessens avarter, Meli Forlag, Goteborg 1964, p. 223) Extensive notes from a court case in 1702 concern one Anders of Kraknger, who was sentenced to death for harboring Pyret. To my knowledge it is also the only trial where Pyret was present. Usually, Pyret would be killed on sight, but Anders of Kraknger had reared his to such a monstrous size that no one dared touch it. Shaped like a bull, it strode into the courtroom together with Anders and refused to leave his side. The trial was very short, as during the proceedings, "the unholy creature constantly rubbed up against its owner, emitting warbling noises and upsetting those attending, causing many to weep with fear." (Leijd, p. 257) The court decreed that Anders's death sentence be carried out immediately but was not quite sure how to deal with Pyret. Anders himself solved this conundrum, offering to go willingly if the court in turn promised to set Pyret free after his death. Considering what he might otherwise command his beast to do, the court accepted this. Whether it intended to keep this promise, we will never know.

Anders of Kraknger was taken to the block; his beast followed him like a dog and we dared not touch it, not even the priest. The moment the prisoner's head was severed from his neck, the creature let out a terrible howl, and all who heard it cowered in horror. The creature then fell over and did not move again. When evening fell, it had started to shrink, as when one pours salt on a snail. The remains were shoveled into a trough and burned along with the prisoner's body. (Leijd, p. 258) As Pyret constantly seeks out the company of other mammals, I suspect that sometimes it forms an attachment so strong that, like Anders of Kraknger's bull, it cannot survive separation. Companions.h.i.+p-belonging to or with someone-seems an intrinsic part of its being.

The case of Anders of Kraknger was to be the last in the history of Pyret-related trials. The arrival of rationalism changed the face of Scandinavian faith and superst.i.tion in a way Christianity had not. Scientist Carl Linnaeus held a lecture in 1762 during which he reached the conclusion that belief in "Pyret, nixies, vittra and their ilk" is a warning sign of what happens to a people that do not concern themselves with science: These creatures would lurk among cows and goats, haunt every nook, live with us like house cats; and superst.i.tion, witchcraft, and warding swarm around us like gnats. (Levertin, Oscar: Carl von Linne. Lectures, Albert Bonniers Boktryckeri, Stockholm, 1910, p. 50) Pyret was officially wiped out of existence. This did not stop it from appearing.

Sjungpastorn: the Singing Pastor of Hltrasket Accounts of Pyret a.s.suming human shape are nearly nonexistent. There are three possible reasons: a) It is non-sentient. Observations of dead specimens may support this, as they universally mention gelatinous bodies with nothing resembling a brain, nervous system, or inner organs (see, for example, Widerberg, Emilia: Folk Tales of the Macabre, Bragi Press, Oxford 1954); b) It prefers non-sentient mammals (see all the above cases); c) It is sentient and does frequently take human shape, but witnesses identify it as something else entirely, for example, a vittra, changeling or troll.

One remarkable exception is doc.u.mented in an eerie account from the nineteenth century, about the ent.i.ty known as Sjungpastorn.

Margareta Persson (1835-1892) was the schoolmistress of Hltrasket, a village located in the mid-north of Sweden. She kept a diary for most of her life, meticulously cataloguing events and people of the village. After her death the diaries were donated to Ume Heritage Museum.

In late November of 1867, during the last great famine in Scandinavia, Persson doc.u.mented the pa.s.sing of the local priest. No replacement came, and there was no easy way to travel elsewhere for ma.s.s.

The cold deepened and the days shortened as the year drew toward its end. Two villagers killed themselves, one by hanging and one by shooting. Three died of starvation. The desperation is evident in Persson's diary: "School is closed, because the children are too weak or sick to attend. I spend most of the day in bed. I do not quite want to die. I am just not sure that I have it in me to live." (The Diaries of Margareta Persson, Umea Heritage Museum, book 8, p 65) Then, early on Christmas morning, a stranger arrived. Ms. Persson writes.

We were lighting candles in the chapel. We had decided to keep our own little julotta5 here, as going to Vargfjarda was unthinkable. As we lit the candles, I heard song, and I saw someone standing at the pulpit. It was a man, all dressed in black. I cannot describe it properly, but he was singing to us, and it was as if my head brightened.

As the villagers filed into the chapel, the strange man proceeded to hold a Ma.s.s, of sorts.

Although the chapel is quite small, I could not see his face clearly. It was as if radiance obscured his features. He opened his mouth, and a sound both like and unlike song came out. I could not make out the words, but the song reached right into my chest and unravelled an ache I had not known was there. All around me, people were crying and laughing, screaming and moaning; we reached out to him like drowning children. He stepped down from the pulpit and moved among us, embracing us and laying his hands on us. He laid his arms around me; he smelled of myrrh and roses. (Diaries, book 8, p. 73) The priest earned the name Sjungpastorn, "the sing-pastor." He held Ma.s.s not only on Sunday mornings, but every single morning for the better part of a year. The Ma.s.ses followed the same pattern as the first on Christmas morning: Sjungpastorn would stand at the pulpit and sing his wordless song, and the villagers sang along. At the end of the Ma.s.s, he would walk among the pews and touch or even embrace the people.

Ms Persson doesn't describe the man in great detail. What she does say is very interesting, elaborating on her observation that she "could not see his face clearly": he was "not fully formed, like a clay doll or a new-born child." (Diaries, book 8, p. 95) Furthermore, the man doesn't speak, but produces other types of noise (the same type of phenomenon is described in Selma Lagerlof's "En historia fran Lngsjo,"6 about the appearance of a strange-looking cow who couldn't moo). Lastly, being close to him creates an intense feeling of bliss, and he regularly touches the villagers. All these are characteristics of Pyret, and in chronicling them Ms Persson finally gives us a possible clue to Pyret's procreation cycle.

In the autumn of 1868, Sjungpastorn began looking poorly and greyish. Ms Persson mentions that he began touching people outside of Ma.s.s, specifically men. It didn't stop there. On the night of September 20th, someone knocked on Margareta's door.

It was Emilia Magnusson, saying that Sjungpastorn had lain down with Olof Nilsson while Olof was sleeping. I said that Olof must have had a nightmare, but then Emilia told me that Olof's wife had been witness to it. She had been sitting with an ailing cow, and when she came into the bedroom saw Sjungpastorn in the bed, straddling her husband. She had fetched the farmhand, who had seen it too. They were afraid to intervene but made enough noise to wake Olof up, who then started screaming, and Sjungpastorn fled out a window and disappeared into the forest. (Diaries, book 9, p 82) Sjungpastorn was never seen again. It does seem that he was nearing the end of his life cycle and therefore tried to procreate; that he chose a man indicates that he was looking for sperm to fertilize an egg. There is no mention in Ms Persson's diaries of Pyret-perhaps because she didn't know of the legend, or the villagers never made the connection. After all, Sjungpastorn resembled a man and not a beast.

My Own Investigations into the Situation at "Lillbo"

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 a.s.suming 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 Ume 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 Ume. 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 s.h.i.+ny. 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 cas.h.i.+er 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 Ume 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 pa.s.sed 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 sh.e.l.ls. 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 talc.u.m 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 b.a.l.l.s 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.

Augusta was sweating profusely. It trickled down between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, eventually forming damp spots on the front of her s.h.i.+rt. She could feel a similar dampness spreading in the seat of her too-tight kneepants. More moisture ran down her temples, making tracks in the thick layers of powder. Her artful corkscrew curls were already wilting.

The other guests spread out across the lawn, waiting for her move. Everyone who meant something was here. Our Lady Mnemosyne sat under a lace umbrella on her usual podium. Her chamberlain Walpurgis lounged in the gra.s.s in his white surtout, watching Augusta with heavy-lidded eyes. At his side, the twin lovers Vergilia and Hermine shared a divan, embracing as usual. Today one of them was dressed in a crinoline adorned with leaves; the other wore a dress made of gray feathers. Their page, a changeling boy in garish makeup, stood behind them holding a tray of drinks.

Further away, Augusta's sister Azalea had grown tired of waiting. She had stripped naked next to a shrubbery, methodically plucking leaves off its branches. Everyone except Azalea was watching Augusta. The only sound was that of tearing leaves.

Augusta took a deep breath, raised her club and swung it with a grunt. The ball flew in a high arc, landing with a crunch in the face of the twins' page, who dropped his tray and doubled over. The garden burst into cheers and applause. Mnemosyne smiled and nodded from her podium. Augusta had pa.s.sed the test.

The game thus opened, the other guests threw themselves into play. In a series of magnificent hits, Walpurgis knocked out two pages who were carried off with crushed eyebrows, broken teeth, and bleeding noses. The twins were in unusually bad shape, mostly hitting b.a.l.l.s instead of pages. Augusta played very carefully, focusing on not getting hit. There were a few breaks for cake, games and flogging a servant. Finally Hermine and Vergilia, one hand each on the club, hit Augusta's ball and it rolled well into the woods beyond the gardens. The hit was considered so stylish that Augusta was sent out of the game. She wandered in among the trees to find her ball.

Under one of the dog-rose bushes lay a human corpse: a man in a grey woolen suit. They sometimes wandered into the woods by mistake. This one had come unusually far. It was difficult to tell what had killed him. He had begun to putrefy; the swollen belly had burst his waistcoat open. A gold chain trailed from one of the pockets. Augusta bent forward, gingerly grasped the chain, and pulled it. A s.h.i.+ny locket emerged on the end of the chain, engraved with flowers. Augusta swung the locket up in the air and let it land in her palm. The touch sent a little chill along her arm, and for a moment she felt faint. She wrapped the locket in a handkerchief, put it in a pocket, and returned to the croquet green to announce that there was a new and interesting corpse.