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She slipped her gloved hands into the pockets of her mantle. “I envy you. It must be a nice way to live, having so many friends.”

“It is,” I said.

She looked up at me with a frown, no doubt sensing the hesitation in my words. “But not entirely?”

“No, it’s… it’s just…”

“You feel lonely sometimes?”

I nodded. My scarf felt suddenly too tight.

“I felt lonely too,” she said. “I know what it’s like.”

We walked the rest of the way in silence. How often she seemed to guess my thoughts, but perhaps it wasn’t a great surprise. I was a spinster after all. Many people assumed me to be lonely—and quite rightly so, even if it wasn’t a husband I longed for.

Like every other store in town, Mr. Jonsson’s was closed today. I found him in the yard behind his house. He was on his knees, repairing the fence around his vegetable garden of rows of kale and winter carrots. His two little daughters were playing with the hobby-horse I had made them last year. He waved us to the back when I explained our errand. “Poppy’s just been fed. She’s good to go.”

“Thank you.”

I brought Poppy out of the stable, and Lilja watched me bridle and hitch her to the wagon. Pulling the apple out of my pocket that I had stuffed in there, I held it out to her. “Do you want to give this to her?”

Lilja took the apple from my hand, giggling when it disappeared into Poppy’s mouth.

“Are you sure you’re all right to leave town?” I asked her when I was done.

There was such ardor to her nod that it seemed to me she was trying to convince herself as well. “Yes,” she said. “I feel safe with you.”

My scarf was doing double duty now—keeping away the cold while covering the flush that climbed up my neck. I held my hand out to help her ascend the cart, and she took it. I handed her the blanket from where I had hung it over the lower half of the stable door. “To cover your legs so you won’t get cold.”

“Thank you.”

I sat down on the seat next to her, grabbed the reins, and then we were off.

Surrounded by forest on all sides except along the railroad from Stockholm, Norstad was the kind of town where, within minutes of leaving its perimeter, you felt far into the forest. The road west turned to a narrow track, firs and pines closing in on both sides. The birches among them had lost their leaves, their white trunks standing like narrow ghosts among boulders dressed in moss and lichen.

“Is Helena from far away?” Lilja asked.

“A few hours’ ride north.”

“How did she come to know Alma?”

Like the true nature of what they were to each other, how they had met was something only known to Alma, Helena, and me, but Lilja already knew they were sweethearts. I didn’t think they would mind me telling Lilja the rest because she had been true to her word—she had kept their secret.

“Alma had ridden up to Gävle,” I said. “To buy silverware from a Russian sailor when she was caught in an early snowstorm.”

It was subtle, but I noticed how Lilja moved a little closer to me on the bench. “How frightening.”

“She made it to a village, and Helena’s father offered his hospitality. The storm continued for days, and Alma and Helena grew close. They were found in the larder being…well, very close.”

“Kissing, you mean?”

“Yes. Helena’s father threw Alma out while the storm still raged. She only just made it to the next farm without losing her fingers and toes.”

“How horrible.”

“Very. When Alma returned to Norstad, she was heartbroken. She had heard Helena scream inside the house, but her father barred the door. She was terrified for her. I borrowed a sled and told my uncle I was taking Alma up north to buy a special type of alder wood. When we got to Helena’s house, they had locked her in the attic.”

Lilja blinked up at me. Even sitting down, she was quite a bit shorter than me. “What did you do?”