White Hunger (Chance Encounter Series) by Aki Ollikainen

strange light. The woman seems one moment to vanish in the dark and the next to reappear in the corner, when the embers direct their red light towards her.
    Bunches of dried hay hang from the ceiling, all over the place. The woman gets up with difficulty, breaks off a stalk from one bunch and crumbles it into wooden bowls, before pouring hot water from a pot on top. She pushes the bowls to Ruuni and Marja. Ruuni hesitates. The woman lets out a hollow laugh.
    ‘I knew this was coming when a white raven sat on the mill two autumns ago,’ she says, looking at the visitors piercingly.
    ‘She’s mad,’ Ruuni whispers to Marja.
    The woman bangs her tiny fist on the table, her black eyes flashing. Suddenly, she bursts out into hollow laughter again.
    ‘What of it, who wouldn’t be at a time like this? And soon the sickness will have raged here for over a year. Ageing men get pus in them and nearly die of it, can’t open their eyes for weeks. And lose the sight in one eye. Him over there, his whole body is one big scab, you’re bound to lose your wits. This is God’s punishment for the wickedness of men, that’s what the minister says.’
    The woman looks at the wheezing miller, then lifts her gaze up through the ceiling beams towards the dark clouds that have gathered over the cabin, and as far as the Heavenly Kingdom. A dark accusation blazes in her glare.
    ‘And what harm has that man done You? I will lance Your eyes, You Satan, since it’s the only way to make You see our trouble!’
    Marja is startled by the woman’s thundering, and is sure that Our Father on His throne feels the same, and is awkwardly adjusting His position to get more comfortable.
    ‘Ahh,’ the miller wails from his bed. He tries to raise his fist, but it flops back feebly on to the cover.
    The woman stares now at the wooden tabletop, scratching it with her black nails. Marja sees the woman observing her own fingers, as if she expected a ploughed field to open in their wake and large, golden-yellow potatoes to rise in the furrow. Instead, the woman gets a splinter under her nail. She calms down, prising it out.
    ‘All autumn, people have come just to have animal bones ground into flour. Not a single grain, just bones, gnawed white. Sometimes I think that soon, when histime’s come, I’ll grind his bones too to make fine flour. And my own; I’ll squeeze my body between the millstones by witchcraft. I’ll leave the door and all the air holes open so that the wind can take us away. So there’ll be no trace of us left in this world. As if we’d never existed. A man who’s worked all his life, and this is the end he endures.’
    Suddenly, the woman gets up and orders the beggars to go to sleep in the guest bed. She turns the miller on to his side and lies down next to him on the narrow couch. The embers in the fireplace go on glowing for an unnaturally long time.
     
    Juho cannot keep awake any longer. Marja and Ruuni again take turns to carry the boy. The wind hits them in the face, cold and slippery; a proper frost would be better. The snake has gained the upper hand and slithers around the wanderers, threatening to ambush them from behind the trees but failing to deliver the decisive blow. After a walk that seems endless, Marja sees a house on top of a hill, and the snake retreats into a field to wait for the journey to resume.
    A skinny dog yaps in the yard, before baring its teeth. Ruuni grimaces in reply.
    ‘Go back to where you came from!’
    A large man with a droopy moustache has flung the door of the house open. He is in his shirtsleeves. From his raised fist, a long finger extends, pointing at the field.The same field in which Marja’s snake has just settled. It has time to wait, Marja does not.
    ‘The child is tired. Have mercy, please,’ Marja begs.
    A thin woman appears from the cowshed. She walks to Marja, who is holding Juho, and takes the boy’s chin to turn his head and look at his eyes.
    ‘Are any of you