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"Thanks again for letting me stay here, Berit." After the events of the last twenty-four hours, Josua had no desire to go home, if he could even call it that. Home, as they say, is where the heart is, but in the Bymans' cabin heart was nowhere to be found. There was no apparent love in the way Kurt treated his son; when he looked at him, the only thing he saw was potential, potential that he clearly thought was untapped. I'll make a real man of you someday yet, min pojke, he often said to him. By the time you're of age, you'll be fit to rule Gambämark, I'm sure of it. But if being a man meant being more like Kurt, then Josua wanted no part of it. Whenever someone violated the Gålabåokin, Kurt would make a big show of punishing them, be it sentencing them to a night in the sorting chamber or exiling them from Gambämark entirely, just to make sure everyone knows what happens when you step out of line.
Did the people of Gambämark truly love Kurt? To Josua, it didn't seem like it. When you love someone, the sight of them doesn't usually make you tense up, but that seemed to be the reaction most people had to Kurt's presence, even his trusted hunters, Klas and Kenneth.
He recognized this fear of Kurt in them because he'd felt it himself, many times.
Flinching at incoming footsteps or a raised hand had become second nature for Josua, something he did as instinctively as breathing.
When he took over Gambämark, things would be different. He would see to it.
"Oh, inge problem," Berit said sweetly. Josua remembered precious little of his mother, and whenever he asked Kurt about her he changed the subject, but he'd always imagined she would be something like Berit. Not that he knew her particularly well; he'd seen her plenty of times, sure, but they never addressed each other directly. "You're always welcome here."
"Then how come I've never been inside before?" The juntton cabin was everything the Bymans' cabin wasn't. While the latter had exposed wood and hardly any decor save for the moose head mounted above the fireplace, Berit had opted for a much warmer feel. Josua hadn't even been here for a full day, and he already felt far more comfortable there than he did at home.
Surely Kurt wouldn't mind if he spent the night.
Berit hesitated answering Josua's question before settling on, "That's a story for another day, pojke. Why don't you get some rest? You've had quite the day, it seems."
Josua couldn't argue with that, as he was physically, mentally, emotionally, and in all other ways exhausted. "Mhm" was all he could muster to say as he got into bed, immediately noticing how much softer it was than what he was used to. "God natt, Berit."
"God natt, Josua," Berit replied, planting a kiss on the boy's forehead as she left the room. The gesture, though Josua was sure Kurt had never done it before, felt oddly familiar to him.
For a fleeting moment Josua wondered why, but he didn't have much time to, as before long sleep found him.
---
Josua didn't know how he got here, or what he did to warrant it.
Even as Kurt read from the Gålabåokin and listed off Josua's offenses, not one word the blessed leader spoke sunk in.
His heartbeat pounded in his ears, drowning out most of everything else.
Josua wanted to run away, to lay down and cry, but his feet felt stuck to the ground and his tear ducts glued shut. He wanted to scream, but for who? His only friend was somewhere on the other side of the walls, his mother was a mystery, and his father was the reason he was here to begin with.
He thought of Mäskis-Gunnar, who had found himself in this very same position not long ago. Was he scared, too? Had he cried out for Josua, only for his cries to fall on deaf ears?
If only he'd known that his exile was Josua's fault to begin with.
Maybe by now, he'd figured that out.
Maybe when they saw each other on the outside, Mäskis-Gunnar would reject the traitor's company.
Klas and Kenneth each took one of Josua's arms and lifted him up. Klas and Kenneth, the very same men who were like uncles to Josua. How could they do this without an ounce of regret?
Josua writhed but the men didn't drop him, opened his mouth to scream but no sound came out. He could fight it as much as he wanted, but this was his fate.
A fate that he deserved.
"Papp," he cried out one last time, but Kurt remained as stoic as ever.
"You've no right to call me papp, Josua," the elder Byman practically snarled. "After the way you've disgraced the Byman name and everything the Gålabåokin stands for, you are no son of mine. Klas, Kenneth, you know what to do."
"Yes, blessed Kurt," the hunters said in unison, unceremoniously dumping Josua on the other side of the wall.
Josua brushed the dirt off of his clothes and stood up, trying to get his bearings, when out of nowhere the wolves came. Creatures such as these did not exist within the walls of Gambämark, but Josua knew of them from the stories Kurt would tell of the outside to scare his son into obedience.
Right now the creatures circled him, and just like he had during his exile Josua froze up.
Even if he could scream, it would be futile.
There was nobody around to hear.
Before he even had a moment to make peace with his demise, one of the wolves lunged at him, and--
And just like that, Josua woke up in a cold sweat.
His heartbeat shook his entire body as he breathed a few shaky breaths, taking stock of his surroundings.
He wasn't in the woods, but in the spare bedroom of the juntton cabin, safe within the walls of Gambämark, where there were no wolves to speak of.
It was all a nightmare.
Josua had had this very nightmare many times before, going all the way back to when he was five years old, the night after he'd witnessed his first exile. He'd gone to Kurt's room immediately afterwards, asking to sleep in his bed, which the elder Byman immediately shut down. It's just a dream, pojke, he'd said. There are far worse things in the real world; if you're going to be the leader of Gambämark, you can't let yourself get scared by something that isn't real. People will call you weak. Is that what you want, Josua? For people to call you weak?
No, but-
Then go back to sleep and leave me alone.
Kurt slammed his bedroom door, leaving a downtrodden Josua to trudge back to his room and flop onto his bed. Every time he started to drift back to sleep those wolves loomed behind his eyes, bringing fear with them, so he gave up on sleep, choosing instead to leaf through picture books until the sun rose again and Kurt knocked on his door. Good morning, min pojke, he said, not a trace left of the man who'd chewed him out the previous night; that is, until later that day when he snapped at Josua for drifting off while Kurt read to him from the Gålabåokin.
As if it was his fault that the book was so damn boring.
But if there was one thing to be learned from that whole ordeal, it was that Josua could never tell Kurt about his nightmares.
Here in the juntton cabin, though, things were different. There was no Kurt to shoo him away, but there was Berit in the bedroom across the hall.
Maybe she would be more understanding.
Josua wasn't sure, but it couldn't hurt to try.
---
"Berit," Josua asked from the other side of the door, "can I come in?"
At the sound of the boy's voice, Berit sat bolt upright. "Of course you can," she said. As soon as permission was given the door swung open, and in came Josua in an old nightgown of Berit's. It was all she had available for him in the way of pajamas, but he didn't seem to mind. "Is everything alright?"
Josua looked at the ground. "Nej," he replied, his voice barely above a whisper. "I- I had a nightmare."
"Oh, you poor thing." Berit stood up and embraced the boy, holding on to him as tightly as she could, hoping to make up for lost time. "Do you want to talk about it?"
Berit could feel the way Josua tensed. "I- I'd rather not. I was just wondering, would it be okay if I slept in your bed? Papp never let me do that."
Of course he didn't. Berit and Kurt had always had very different ideas about the way their son should be raised, but at least in the beginning she tried to find a compromise. Eventually she snapped, and what resulted was a days-long fight that ended in Berit being thrown out of Kurt's cabin and barred from speaking to Josua again.
It stung, naturally, that the man Berit had once loved so dearly would do this. Clearly the power had gone to Kurt's head. So, that day, she'd made it her life's mission to overthrow Kurt and get her boy back.
So far, she'd succeeded on one of those items.
"Well, I do things differently than your papp, kära pojke," Berit said, lying back down and beckoning for Josua to join her. The boy did just that, snuggling into Berit's chest. Berit wrapped her arms around him, savoring the moment.
This time she'd never let go.
Kurt had taken everything from Berit-- her twenties, her home, her family-- but she wasn't about to let him take her Josua.