Before Fylgia

by
Birgitta Hjalmarson

      When I saw the cover for the second edition of Fylgia, I was struck by a feeling of déjà vu. The image is taken from a painting by Carl Holsøe, a Danish artist. It shows a young woman, possibly his wife, sitting by a window. Something about her sent me back to my notes and the vintage photographs I collected years ago when I researched the background story for Fylgia.

      What I found was a photograph of the actual Anna, sitting in front of her sister. She looks eerily like the woman in the painting. There’s the same wistfulness, and she’s in the same white dress. In both, the hair is pulled back and gathered in a bun. If only for a moment, I thought I was looking at the same woman. Going through my old research notes, much of which I had used as basis for the novel, I marked what I had kept and what I had left out. Here, under “Before Fylgia,” I’ll post installments of another version, one I’ll call nonfiction. Some of it you’ll recognize, some you won’t. Perhaps it’s true that all stories have already been told. That it’s only in the telling that they differ.