Viking Girl Scribbles

It's on top of the shelf in grandmother's bedroom. It's been there for as long as I can remember and it's always scared the crap out of me. Whenever mom asked me to go get something in there, or later on when grandmother was ill and she made me carry glasses of water, I did my best to not look at the doll. I swear I once heard grandmother speak to it, and I'm sure I heard the doll answer her. When I knocked on the door the whispers stopped and grandmothers looked to be asleep as I quietly placed a glass of water on her nightstand. The night she died I stood outside her door, my crazy obsession with that creepy doll had given me insomnia. The whispering was intent all the way to her last breath, wheezing and troubled she kept on telling the doll secrets. I could not make them out, it drove me crazy not knowing. After the funeral mom asked me if I wanted to move into grandmother's room. I couldn't speak a word. I stared at her. I wished she would leave...

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Helmi, which means Pearl in English.  Everyone in the village had dark hair and eyes, but her skin was ivory and her hair so light it seemed almost iridescent, her eyes were the colour of pine needles and her voice a quiet whisper. She spent her childhood winters in endless night, with her dreams dancing with the northern light. Her summers were never-ending sunshine days and the taste of cloudberries on her lips. Helmi wasn't considered pretty, nor was she charming enough to make people forget her plain looks. But she was clever and she knew things others could only dream of. Like how to get the tree spirits to make the leaves dance on their tree even when there was no wind or how the water spirits love cut glass and will bring you scores of freshwater fish if you give them a few. The other girls in the small village had already decided upon which of the young men they were to marry, and to which house they were to move. They woul...

I grew up in a big house on an island far out in the Finnish archipelago. It had been built long before regulations that dictated how large the islands had to be to hold houses. My great-grandfather had built it some time after WW1 and there my mommo, grandmother, had grown up and later on settled with her husband. Mum and dad had met at university, and him having this romantic view of the archipelago had them sharing the big house with mommo and moffa. Every school day dad would put me in the boat and we’d fly across the sea towards Korpo, where he was the science teacher. Mum was an illustrator and worked from home, with the occasional work trip to Helsinki. The Baltic Sea is in my blood, I know the sound of every creature and I can tell when a storm is coming. I have heard the mermaid sing and I’ve seen the sea troll Iku-Turso cast his nets. Mommo would tell me of how the world was created: of how the sea god’s daughter let a duck nest on her knee, but how the heat from the r...

My mom died giving birth to me. I don’t know the particulars, dad gets all quiet when I ask and my aunt Disa, who married my dad when I was two, always tells me to shush and not talk about the past. There were no pictures of my mother anywhere in the house, but I knew she had long black hair. My aunt had let that slip one time when I asked her a thousand and one questions. I have three younger half-siblings, Disa is apparently of stronger constitution than her sister. I’d like to tell you I was lacking most things growing up, but everything was as good as most people’s childhood. I suppose the fact that Disa has always been very clear with the fact she’s not my biological mother is slightly out of the ordinary, but I’ve always found it comforting. She’s my aunt, my real mother is... somewhere else. The dreams started when I was five or six, always the same dream and always the same scream waking everyone in the house. I’m walking home from somewhere unknown, it’s getting dark an...

“Moma? Moma, where are you?” “Shh. Not a sound little girl. Not a sound.” “Who are you? You don’t scare me! I want my moma!” “For fuck’s sake! Hush!” “You said a bad word!” “And I’ll say plenty more unless you shut up…” *** “Have you seen my little girl? She’s five, blonde and wearing a red dress.” “No ma’am, I haven’t seen her.” “Please. She was on the jungle gym, over there, said she’d go down the slide.” “She’s probably still there, changed her mind.” “No! No, I’ve looked. She’s not there. She never went down the slide, she’s gone!” *** “Where am I?” “Here.” “That’s not an answer.” “It’s good enough.” “I want to know where I am! I want to know where I am! I WANNA KNOW!” “Gee, haven’t I told you to shut it?!” “Where am I?” “In between. You’re in the in between. And if you don’t shut up you’ll get caught and sent onwards.” *** “My little girl is missing and you don’t believe me!” “Ma'am, of course we believe you.” “No you don’t! ...

We've walked for days. Weeks. Months. Has it been years? I remember being a young girl, holding the hand of an older woman. My grandmother? I don't remember her speaking to me, but I can still hear her voice telling me stories. There was a time when we walked in the Sun, in glorious light at day and in the sweet silver light of the Moon at night. We had a goal, a quiet refuge where we could spend our lives without fear of the others. Where our way of life would be the only way. One night it was taken away from us. We walked into what we thought was ordinary fog, but it was evil magic, their magic. Now we walk in eternal fog, bereaved of the golden light of the Sun and the silver light of the Moon. Cold white light, cold wet fog, cold hands to hold. Black shadows, silhouettes without faces. There's nothing left of us. We keep walking, the fog never ending.