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Troll Mill
Katherine Langrish


Sequel to the highly-acclaimed Troll Fell, this is just as exciting, dramatic and atmospheric. Follow Peer’s adventures as he tries to get the mill working again. But watch out! You never know what kind of sneaky creatures are lurking in the shadows, waiting to jump out at you at Troll Mill…Troll Mill follows Peer Ulfsson, his dog Loki, Hilde and their friends and family three years on from where we left them in Troll Fell.Returning from a day’s fishing with his friend Bjorn and with a violent storm brewing, Peer is shocked when Bjorn’s wife Kersten rushes past, thrusts her young baby into Peer’s arms and throws herself into the sea. What kind of creature would do this… and will she ever return?On his way back up the hill, carrying Kersten’s baby to safety through the storm, Peer notices the old mill wheel turning. But it’s been derelict for years… The next day, fed up with Hilde’s constant rejections, he decides to prove himself and goes down to investigate the old mill, determined to get it up and running again and become the miller himself. But who or what creatures will be lurking in the shadows of Troll Mill… And are his greedy scheming uncles really gone for good?









Troll

Mill

KATHERINE LANGRISH


















For David, Alice and Isobelwith love

Warm thanks to:Liz, for everything, and especially uprooting the elder trees

Catherine,Michele, Jackie and Carolfor being the best agents anyone could have

Phil Scott of Regia Anglorumfor first-hand advice on how to sail a faering

And once again to Alan Stoyel and Critchell Brittenfor your help on water mills.

My apologies to you all for any remaining mistakes

Last but not least, thanks toGillie, Sally and Robin,my wonderful and understanding editors;to Becky for the exciting cover designs;and to everyone else at HarperCollins















Table of Contents


Cover Page (#u14d1d65a-ff1f-5c11-beb6-4875b992a371)

Title Page (#udc3131d2-594e-5094-a1ac-9eeca309a045)

Dedication (#u0a2ff1e8-12d5-5526-afad-b07aa5e31524)

Map (#ufa245568-8615-5e17-8069-71c9edfbbfee)

CHAPTER 1 What Happened on the Shore (#u26e6e9b3-1bb6-5b94-b597-a5d73b584243)

CHAPTER 2 A Brush with the Trolls (#u1d906241-d684-59a9-a332-d4ce8955e197)

CHAPTER 3 A Warning from the Nis (#uefd45dea-4f16-5a5e-ab85-d48750e40199)

CHAPTER 4 Bjørn’s Story (#u262fed45-0b66-5dd4-8df5-972889fde605)

CHAPTER 5 The Quarrel (#u7ade0ef7-2531-536c-806c-4e2fc0226ef3)

CHAPTER 6 Exploring the Mill (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 7 A Family Argument (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 8 Voices at the Millpond (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 9 The Nis Behaves Badly (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 10 The Nis in Disgrace (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 11 Success at the Mill (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 12 Rumours (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 13 Sightings (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 14 Gruesome Grindings (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 15 The Lubbers at Large (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 16 Under Troll Fell (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 17 The Nis Confesses (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 18 The Troll Baby at the Farm (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 19 Granny Greenteeth’s Lair (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 20 The Miller of Troll Fell (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 21 Kersten (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 22 New Beginnings (#litres_trial_promo)

Also By Katherine Langrish (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)




CHAPTER 1 What Happened on the Shore (#ulink_08c8c196-588c-570b-9ee7-1c714ba23a1b)


The boat danced ungracefully in from the fishing grounds, dipping and rolling over lively waves at the mouth of the fjord. Her crew, a man and a boy, reached steadily forward and back, tugging their two pairs of oars through the choppy water.

The boy, rowing in the bows, looked up over his companion’s bent back. Out west beyond the islands, the wind tore a long yellow rift in the clouds, and the setting sun blinked through in stormy brilliance, splashing the water with fiery oils.

Dazzled, the boy missed his next stroke, slicing the oars through air instead of water. Braced to pull, he flew backwards off his seat into a tangle of nets and creels and a slither of fat, bright fish. He lay breathless as the boat heaved under his spine, hurling him skywards, then sinking away underneath as though falling through space.

“Resting?” teased his friend Bjørn. “Had enough rowing for one day?”

Peer laughed back from the bottom of the boat, long arms and legs sprawling. “Yes, I’m tired. I think I’ll just stay here. Ouch!” Salt water slapped his face as the prow cut through a wave, and he scrambled up hastily with dripping hair, snatching at the loose oars.

“Ship them,” said Bjørn over his shoulder. “I’ll take us in.” He leaned unhurriedly on his own pair of oars, and Peer knelt, clutching the slender bows, looking forwards at the land. The water under the boat lit up a cloudy green; over on the shore the pebbles glittered, and the sea-grass on the dunes glowed gold. The late sunlight turned the slanting pastures above the village to slopes of emerald. High above all, the rugged peak of Troll Fell shone as if gilded against a sky dark as a bruise.

“Bad weather coming,” said Bjørn, squinting at the sunset. The breeze stiffened, carrying cold points of rain. “But we’ll get home before it catches us.”

“Maybe you will,” Peer said. “I’ll get soaked on my way up the hill.”

“Stay with us,” offered Bjørn. “Kersten would love to see you. You can earn your supper by admiring the baby.” He glanced round, smiling at Peer’s sudden silence. “Come on. Surely you’ve got used to babies with little Eirik to practise on up at the farm? How old is he now?”

Peer calculated. “He was born last seedtime, just after Grandfather Eirik died, so…about a year. He certainly keeps Gudrun and Hilde busy. He’s into everything.”

“He’s a fine little fellow, isn’t he? It’s sad his grandpa never saw him.”

“Yes…although actually,” said Peer,“I think he might have lost patience with the noise. Dear old Eirik, he was always grumbling, ‘A poet needs peace and quiet!’ Little Eirik screams such a lot. Babies! I never knew they were so much trouble.”

“Ours is a good little soul,” Bjørn said proudly. “Never cries.”

“And how is Kersten?” Peer asked, his eye on the shore as they ran in past lines of black rocks. He crouched, tensing. Bjørn pulled a couple of hard strokes on one oar to straighten up.

“She’s fine, thanks,” he grunted, twisting round as the boat shot in on the back of a breaking wave. The keel knocked on the shingle and Peer sprang out into a welter of froth and seaweed. Bjørn followed and together they ran the boat higher up the stony beach.

“That was a good day’s work!” said Bjørn. “Glad Ralf could spare you.”

“I’ve been helping him plough,” Peer explained, “but we’ve got the seed in now and lambing’s nearly over. So he said I deserved a holiday.”

“It’s been nice to have company.” Reaching into the boat, Bjørn hooked his fingers into the gills of a heavy, shining cod and hefted it. “There’s plenty of eating on that one. Take it back with you.” He handed it over. “Or will you stay?”

Cradling the fish awkwardly, Peer glanced around. The brief sunset flare was over. The rising wind whipped strands of sea-stiffened fair hair across his face. Loose swirls of cloud were descending over Troll Fell. The fjord disappeared under a grey sea fret, and restless waves slapped jerkily against the rocks.

“I’ll stay,” he decided. “Ralf and Gudrun won’t be worried, they know I’m with you.”Absurdly, he hugged the fish, smiling. Three years ago he’d been a friendless orphan, and he could still hardly believe that he had a family now, who cared about him.

“Good choice!” said Bjørn cheerfully. “We’ll ask Kersten to fry that fish for us, then, and we’ll have it with lots of warm bread and hot sizzling butter. Are you hungry?”

“Starving.” Peer licked his lips.

Bjørn laughed. “Then hurry! Go on ahead while I finish up here. Off with you! Here comes the wet.”

Cold, stinging rain swept across the beach as he spoke, darkening the stones. It drove into Peer’s face as he dashed across the clattering shingle, dodging boulders and jumping over inlets where the tide swirled and sloshed. It was fun, pitting himself against the weather. Soon he came to the channel where the stream ran down to the sea. Beside it, the path to the village wound up through the sand dunes.

Rain scythed through the long wiry grass, switching his skin and soaking through his clothes in cold patches. Tiring, he slowed to a plod, looking forward to sitting snugly by the fire and chatting to Kersten while she cooked. The fish was a nuisance to carry though, slippery and unwieldy. He nearly dropped it and stopped to hoist it up. It slithered through his arms. He tried shoving it inside his jerkin, but the head and tail stuck out. Wet and shivering, he began to laugh.

This is silly, he thought, I’m nearly juggling. What I need is a piece of string, or maybe a stick to skewer it on. I…what’s that?

Footsteps thudded and splashed on the path above him. In a flurry of flying hair and swirling cloak, a woman ran headlong out of the mist and slammed into him. Peer dropped the fish and grabbed at the woman, staggering. His fingers sank deep into her arms as they struggled for balance. She was gasping, her heart banging madly against him, her breath hot in his face. He tried to push her off and found his hands tangled in her wet hair. Her hood fell back.

“Kersten!” Cold fright shook Peer’s voice. “What’s wrong?”

She clutched him fiercely. “Is Gudrun still giving suck?”

Peer gaped. “What?”

She shook his arm angrily. “Is Gudrun still suckling?” She threw back a fold of her huge cloak. It flapped heavily in the wind, slapping his legs like wet hide. In the crook of her arm, wrapped in a lambskin—

The baby? Peer blinked in horror. But she was thrusting it at him; he had to take it: little light arms and legs waved in the rain. He looked desperately to cover its head and she pushed a blanket into his arms. She was speaking: words he didn’t understand.

“Take her–to Gudrun–Gudrun can feed her—”

“Kersten,” Peer croaked. “What’s happened? Where are you going?”

She looked at him with eyes like dark holes. “Home.”

Then she was past him, the cloak dragging after her. He snatched for it. Sleek wet fur tugged through his fingers. “Kersten! Stop!”

She ran on down the path, and he began to run too, but the baby jolting in his arms slowed him to long desperate strides.

“Kersten!” Rain slashed into his eyes. His feet skated on wet grass, sank into pockets of soft sand. She was on the beach now, running straight down the shingle to the water. Peer skidded to a crazy halt. He couldn’t catch her. He saw Bjørn, still bending over the boat doing something with the nets. Peer filled his lungs and bellowed, “Bjørn!” at the top of his voice. He pointed.

Bjørn’s head came up. He turned, staring. Then he flung himself forwards, pounding across the beach to intercept Kersten. And Kersten stopped. She threw herself flat and the wet sealskin cloak billowed over her, hiding her from head to foot. Underneath it, she continued to move in heavy lolloping jumps. She must be crawling on hands and knees, drawing the skin cloak closely around her. She rolled. Waves rushed up and sucked her into the water. Trapped in those encumbering folds, she would drown.

“Kersten!” Peer screamed. The body in the water twisted, lithe and muscular, and plunged forward into the next grey wave.

Bjørn was racing back to his boat. He hurled himself on it, straining to drive it down the shingle into the water, wrenching the bows round to point into the waves.

“Bjørn!” Peer cried into the wind. Spray filled his mouth with salt. He stammered and spat. “Your baby…your baby!”

Bjørn jumped into the boat. The oars rattled out and he dug them into the water with savage strokes, twisting his body to scan the sea. Peer heard him shout, his voice cracking, “Kersten! Kersten, come back…” The boat reared over lines of white breakers and was swallowed by rain and darkness.

Peer stared. Like a speck in his eye, a sleek head bobbed in the water. He ran wildly forward. It was gone. Then he saw another–and another, rising and falling with the swell. Swift dark bodies swept easily between wave and wave.

“Seals!” he whispered.

In his arm the baby stirred, arching its back and thrusting thin fists into the rain. Peer clutched it in dismay. Clumsily he tried to arrange its wrappings with his free hand, dragging the blanket up over its arms. It seemed tiny, much younger than little Eirik up at the farm. He was terrified of dropping it.

Kersten was gone, lost in the vast sea. Why? Bjørn had gone, searching after her over the wild waters. Where? Even the seals had gone now, he saw, leaving the empty waves toppling in one after another to burst on the shore in meaningless foam.

The baby’s eyes were tightly shut, but a frown fluttered across its small face. The mouth pursed and it moved its head as if seeking something to suck. Soon it would be hungry. Soon it would cry.

Peer’s teeth chattered. He shuddered all over from cold and shock. He fumbled jerkily inside the blanket for one of the baby’s small fists. It felt like ice, and he poked it gently. Tiny reddened fingers clenched and twitched. Was it a boy or a girl? He couldn’t remember. Didn’t babies die if they got too cold?

Gudrun, he thought. I’ve got to get it to Gudrun. Kersten said.

Holding the baby stiffly across his chest, he plodded up the shingle, turning his back on the shore and the relentless turmoil of exploding breakers. He trudged up the path through the dunes. The sound of the sea was muffled and he left the spray behind, but the keen rain followed, soaking into his shoulders and arms, trickling down his back. The first house in the village was Bjørn’s. The door stood wide open, and rain was driving in. Peer hesitated, and then stepped quickly inside. He pushed the door shut, shivering.

The fire was out. The dark house smelled of cold, bitter ashes. Angry tears pricked Peer’s eyelids. He remembered Kersten’s warmth and gaiety and good cooking. Whatever had gone wrong?

Still holding the baby, he blundered across the room and cracked his shins on something wooden that moved. It swung back and hit him again, and he put a hand out to still it. A cradle.

Thankfully, Peer lowered the baby into the cradle and stood for a moment, trying to make his brain work. What now? Did anyone else in the village have a young baby? No. Gudrun was the only person who could feed it. But what will Bjørn think if he comes home, and the baby’s gone? Should I wait for him? But he might not be back for ages. He might capsize, he might never come home at all…

Peer crushed down rising panic. When he does come, he’ll be cold, he told himself sternly. He’ll need to get warm.

At least I can light the fire.

It was the obvious, the sensible thing to do, and he groped his way to the ledge where Bjørn kept his strike-a-light, and a box of dry wood shavings. Clumsy in the dark, he knocked the box to the floor and had to feel about for the knob of flint and the crescent-shaped steel striker. He scooped a handful of shavings into the hearth and struck flint and steel together repeatedly, showering sparks. The wood shavings caught. Wriggling red-hot worms appeared in the darkness, and Peer blew, coaxing them into clear flames. The room glimmered into view. With a sigh of relief he grabbed a handful of kindling, and carefully fed the blaze with twigs and branches. The fire nibbled them from his fingers like a live, bright animal. When at last it was burning steadily and giving out heat, he got stiffly to his feet.

The house had only one room and little furniture. The firelight picked out a few details and crowded the rest with shadows. It gleamed here on a polished wooden bowl, there on a thin-bladed sickle hanging on the wall. Peer wandered about. In a corner stood Bjørn and Kersten’s bed, the rough blankets neatly folded. He felt like an intruder. And there was nothing to show why Kersten had suddenly rushed out of the house, carrying her baby.

His foot came down on something hard. It clinked. He picked it up, his fingers exploring the unusual shape before he held it into the light. A small iron key on a ring.

A key? His eyes flew to the darkest corner of the room where a big wooden chest stood, a chest for valuables, with a curved lid that Bjørn always kept padlocked shut.

It was open now, dragged out crookedly from the wall, the padlock unhooked and the lid hurled back. Peer threw himself on his knees and plunged his arms into the solid black shadow that was the interior, feeling about into every corner. But whatever Bjørn normally kept there was gone. The chest was empty.

Bjørn’s been robbed. Peer got to his feet, his head spinning. Is that why Kersten was so upset? But no; it doesn’t make sense. She’d tell Bjørn, not run into the sea. She’d have told me! And who could have done it? He tried to imagine robbers arriving, forcing Kersten to find the key, open the chest…

It still didn’t make sense. Trollsvik was such a small place, the neighbours so close. Kersten need only scream to raise the entire village. And he couldn’t imagine what Bjørn might own that anyone would want to steal. He sat down on a bench, his head aching, longing for Bjørn to come.

At last he gave up. He banked the fire up with logs and peat, and bent to scoop the baby out of the cradle. It was awake, and hungry. It had crammed its tiny fingers into its mouth and was munching them busily. Peer’s heart sank.

“I haven’t got anything for you!” he told it, as if speaking to his dog, Loki. “Come on–let’s get you wrapped up.” He grabbed an old cloak from a peg behind the door, and as he bundled it around them both, the baby looked straight into his eyes.

It didn’t smile–Peer didn’t know if it was even old enough to smile. It gazed into his face with the most serious and penetrating of stares, as if his soul were a well and it was looking right down to the very bottom. Peer looked back. The baby didn’t know about robbers, or the wild night outside, or its missing parents. It didn’t know that it might die, or grow up an orphan. It didn’t even know it needed help. It knew only what was right here and now: the hunger in its belly and Peer’s arms holding it, firmly wrapped and warm, and his face looking down at it. For this baby, Peer was the only person in the world. He drew a shaky breath.

“They left you,” he said through gritted teeth. “But I won’t. You come with me!” Pressing the baby to his shoulder, he elbowed the door open and strode furiously out into the pitch-black night.

A bullying wind leaped into his face, spitting rain and sleet. Peer tried to pull another fold up over the baby’s head as he hurried along. No one was about, but the wind blew smoke at him, and the smell of cooking. He splashed by Einar’s house, and a goat, sheltering against a wall, scrambled to its feet and barged past, nearly knocking him over. As he cursed it, the door latch clicked and Einar poked his head out. “Who’s there?” he quavered.

“It’s me…” began Peer, but he couldn’t go on. Kersten had thrown herself into the sea. Bjørn’s house had been robbed. He was holding their baby. He could never explain. Face burning, he turned and fled, leaving Einar puzzled on the doorstep.

Feeling like a thief, Peer slunk out of the village, and the wind blustered after him up the hill. He cupped the baby’s head against his throat with one rain-chilled hand, and felt a tickle of warmth against his skin as it breathed.

He trudged up the path. The cloak kept unwrapping and tangling round his legs; he had nothing to pin it with and needed both arms for the baby. Every gust of wind blew it open, and rain soaked into him. But he hardly noticed. His mind was back on the shore, reliving the moments when Kersten had rushed down the shingle. If only I’d grabbed her, he thought. Surely I could have stopped her! But I was holding the baby. Why did she do it? Why?

The baby shrank in his arms as if curling up. Afraid it would slip, he stopped and tried to find a dry edge of cloak to wrap around it, but the woollen fabric was all muddy or sodden, and he gave up in despair. The baby’s head tipped back. There were those dark eyes staring at him again. Uneasily he returned their stare. Something was wrong. This baby was too good, too quiet. Little Eirik would be screaming his head off by now, he thought. What did that mean? Was the baby too cold to cry? Too weak?

Frightened, he plunged on up the path. He had to get it to Gudrun. She could give it warmth and milk. But at the moment the rain was beating down out of the black night; he could hardly see where to put his feet, and there were a couple of miles of rough track to go, past the old mill and up through the wood. The trees overhanging the path were not in leaf yet, and gave no shelter.

Ahead of him the black roofline of the mill appeared between the trees, the thatch twisted into crooked horns above narrow gables. Peer tripped over the hem of the cloak, ripping it. His pace slowed. The mill…It was on just such a wild night that he’d first seen it, three years ago. His half-uncle Baldur had brought him jolting all the way over Troll Fell in an ox-cart, through thunder and drenching rain. He’d caught his first glimpse of the mill in a flash of lightning. Peer remembered huddling in the bottom of the cart, staring fearfully up at the mean windows, like leering eyes, the rotting thatch and patched shutters.

He still hated going past there after dark, even now that it was empty. The yard was choked with dead leaves, the sheds crumbling. The very walls reeked.

True, his uncles had long gone. They had tried to sell him to the trolls, but their brutish greed had led them to quarrel over a cupful of the trolls’ dark beer. Gulping down the strange brew, they had changed into trollish creatures themselves, tusks sprouting from their faces. Though Peer and his friends had escaped, Baldur and Grim Grimsson had remained under Troll Fell. No one had ever seen them again.

But the mill had a bad name still. Who could say if it was really empty? Odd creatures were said to loiter in its dark rooms and squint from behind the broken shutters. A sullen splash from the millpond might be Granny Greenteeth, lurking under the weed-clogged surface, waiting to drag down anyone who strayed.

Peer clutched the baby tighter. There was no way of avoiding the place; the road led right up to it, before bending to cross the stream over an old wooden bridge. As he passed he glanced up, feeling like a mouse scuttling along past some gigantic cat. The walls leaned over him, cold and silent.

He hurried on to the bridge. The wind snatched and pushed him, and he grabbed at the handrail. The noise of the river rose around him, snarling over the weir in white froth. As he crossed, he looked upstream towards the water wheel, in the darkness hardly more than a tall, looming bulk. Through three long years it had never stirred. Perhaps it was already rotting away.

There was a gust of dank, cold air, and a surge of water. The bridge trembled. Clinging to the rail, Peer looked again at the wheel, and was instantly giddy. It’s moving! But it can’t be. Surely it was only the water tearing past underneath…or were those black, dripping blades really lifting, one after another, rolling upwards, picking up speed? His skin prickled. The wheel was turning. He could hear the slash of its paddles striking the water.

An unearthly squeal skewered the night. Peer shot off the bridge. The anguished noise went on and on without stopping, far too long for anything with lungs. It came from deep within the mill. Peer fought for his wits. The machinery! It was the sound of swollen wooden axles twisting into tortured life. Then the motion eased, the squealing stopped, but the mill went on rumbling like some monstrous stomach. Muffled by wind and rain, the millstones grumbled round, the clapper rattled.

Eyes fixed on the mill, Peer stumbled backwards, half expecting the lopsided windows to blink alive with yellow light. He slithered and almost fell. The shock cleared his head. It’s just a building. It can’t start working by itself. There’s someone here. Someone’s opened the sluice, started the wheel. But who?

He stared along the overgrown path that led to the dam through a wilderness of whispering bushes. Anything might be crouching there, hiding…or watching. He listened, afraid to move, but heard no footstep, no voice. No light glimmered from the walls of the mill. Bare branches shook in the wind over the damaged roof. The wheel creaked round in the thrashing stream. And from high up on the fell came the distant shriek of some bird, a sound broken into pieces by the gale.

He drew a deep, careful breath.

With all this rain, perhaps the sluicegate’s collapsed and the water’s escaping under the wheel.

That’ll be it.

He turned hastily, striding on between the cart tracks. The steep path slanted uphill into the woods. Often, as he went, he heard stones clatter on the path behind him, dislodged perhaps by rain. And, all the way, he had the feeling that someone or something was following him, climbing out of the dark pocket where the mill sat in its narrow valley. He tried looking over his shoulder, but that made him stumble, and it was too dark to see.




CHAPTER 2 A Brush with the Trolls (#ulink_d6aa9731-f885-585b-8362-eefa7b7d309c)


A few hours earlier, just before sunset, Peer’s best friend Hilde stood high on the seaward shoulder of Troll Fell, looking out over a huge gulf of air. In front of her feet, the ground dropped away in fans of unstable scree. Far, far below, the fjord flashed trembling silver between headlands half-drowned in shadow. On the simmering brightness, a tiny dark boat crept deliberately along like an insect.

She flung out her arms as if she might soar away like an eagle. A strong wind blew back the hair from her face and slapped at her skirts. She closed her eyes, leaning on the wind, feeling its cold buoyant pressure. She heard it hiss in the thorn trees that clung to the slopes, and she heard the sheep bleating–the dark, complaining voices of the ewes and the shrill baby cries of the lambs.

“Hiillde!” A long drawn-out yell floated from the skyline. She turned quickly to see her little brother racing down towards her, a small brown dog running at his heels. Bracing herself for the crash, she caught him and swung him round.

“Oof! Don’t keep doing that, Sigurd. You’re pretty heavy for an eight year old! Where’s Pa and Sigrid?”

“They’re coming. What are you looking at?”

“The view.”

“The view?” Sigurd echoed in scorn. “What’s so special about that?”

Hilde laughed and ruffled his hair. “Nothing, I suppose. But see that boat down there? That’s Peer and Bjørn.”

Sigurd craned his neck. “So it is. Hey, Loki, it’s Peer! Where’s Peer?” Loki pricked his ears, barking eagerly.

“Don’t tease him!” said Hilde. Sigurd threw himself down beside Loki, laughing and tussling.

Fierce sunlight blazed through a gap in the clouds. The wide hillside turned an unearthly green. Long drifts of tired snow, still lying in every dip and hollow, woke into blinding sparkles, and the crooked thorn trees sprang out, every mossy twig a shrill yellow. Hilde’s eyes watered. Two figures came over the skyline and started descending: a tall man in a plaid cloak, holding hands with a little fair-haired girl whose red hood glowed like a jewel. Shadows like stick men streamed up the slope behind them.

Sigurd pushed Loki aside and jumped to his feet, waving to his twin sister. “Sigrid, come and look! We can see Bjørn’s boat.”

The little girl broke free from her father and came running. “Where?”

Sigurd pointed. “Lucky things,” he complained. “They get to go fishing, and we have to count sheep. Why can’t Sigrid and I have some fun?”

“You can when you’re older,” said Hilde. “And I didn’t go fishing, did I?”

“You didn’t want to,” Sigurd muttered.

“I know who she wants to go fishing with,” said Sigrid slyly. “With Bjørn’s brother,Arnë! She likes him–don’t you, Hilde?”

“Don’t be silly,” said Hilde sharply. “You know perfectly well that Arnë doesn’t even live in the village any more. Not since last summer. He works a fishing boat out of Hammerhaven—”

“Yes, and it’s bigger than Bjørn’s,” Sigurd interrupted. “Bjørn’s boat is a faering, with a mast but only two sets of oars. Arnë’s boat is a six-oarer!”

“That’s right, and he has a partner to help him sail it,” Hilde said.

“You do know a lot about him,” Sigrid giggled.

“That’s not funny, Sigrid. Arnë is twenty-two; he’s a grown-up man.”

“So? You’re fifteen, you’re grown-up, too. When he came to say goodbye to you, he held your hand. You went all pink.”

Hilde gave her little sister a withering glance, and then wrapped her arms around herself with a shiver. A swift shadow came gliding down the fell, and the sunlight vanished. Out to sea, the clouds had eaten up the sun.

“It’s going to rain, Pa,” she said as Ralf joined them.

“We can see Peer,” Sigrid squeaked, pointing at the boat. “Look, Pa, look!”

“Aha!” Ralf peered down the slope, scanning every rock and boulder. “Now I wonder if our missing sheep have gone over this edge. I don’t see any. But they wouldn’t show up against all the grey stones. Anything falling down there would break every bone in its body. Sigurd! That means you, too, d’you hear?”

“How many are lost?” Hilde asked.

“Let’s see.” Grimly, Ralf ticked them off on his fingers:“The old ewe with the bell round her neck, two of the black sheep, the lame one, the speckled one, and the one with the broken horn. And their lambs, too. It’s a puzzle, Hilde. It can’t be wolves or foxes. They’d leave traces.”

“Stolen?” asked Hilde. “By the trolls?”

“That thought does worry me,” Ralf admitted.

A chilly wind gusted through Hilde’s clothes. She rubbed goose bumps from her arms as she looked around. The fjord below was a brooding gulf of shadows. She glanced up at the skyline. Troll Fell loomed over them, wearing a scowl of cloud.

Sigrid tugged at Hilde’s sleeve. “The boat’s gone. Where is it?”

“Don’t worry, Siggy. It’ll be coming in to land. We can’t see the shore from here; the hillside gets in the way. Pa, we really should go. Those clouds are coming up fast.”

“Yes.” Ralf was gazing out to sea. “The old sea-wife is brewing up some dirty weather in that cookpot of hers!” He caught their puzzled looks, and laughed. “Did Grandpa never tell you that story? It’s a sailor’s yarn. The old sea-wife, Ran, sits in her kitchen at the bottom of the sea, brewing up storms in her big black pot. Oh, yes! All the drowned sailors go down to sit in rows on the benches in Ran’s kitchen.”

Hilde gave an appreciative shudder. “That’s like a story that Bjørn told us–about the draug, who sails the seas in half a boat and screams on the wind when people are going to drown. Brrr!”

“I remember it. That’s a good one,” said Sigurd. “You think it’s just an ordinary boat, but then it gets closer and you see that the sailors are all dead and rotten. And the boat can sail against the wind and catch you anywhere. And the draug steers it, and he hasn’t got a face. And then you hear this terrible scream—”

“Well, Peer and Bjørn are safe tonight,” said Ralf. “Let him scream! But we won’t see Peer this evening. He’ll stay with Bjørn and Kersten, snug and dry. Now let’s go, before we all get soaked.” But he stood for a moment, still staring west, as if straining to see something far away, though all that Hilde could see was a line of advancing clouds like inky mountains. Drops of rain flew in on the wind and struck like hailstones.

“Hurry up, Pa. It’s nearly dark and I’m hungry.” Sigurd hopped from foot to foot. “What are you looking at?”

“Oh…” Reluctantly, Ralf turned away. “Only trying to catch a glimpse of the islands, but it’s too murky now.” Sigurd and Sigrid dashed ahead with Loki.

“I passed those islands once, you know,” Ralf said to Hilde, following the twins inland around the steep fellside. “In the longship, the summer I went to sea.”

“I know you did, Pa.” Hilde wasn’t really listening. Rain was hissing all around them now. The only path was a sheep track twisting down between outcrops of rock, so she had to watch where she put her feet. The ground slanted at a forbidding angle. Hilde felt exposed, unsafe–as though Troll Fell might suddenly shrug its vast turf-clad shoulders and send them tumbling helplessly down into the fjord…

“I’d never seen them so close before,” Ralf called over his shoulder. “Never been so far from home. Some of them are big, with steep cliffs where seagulls nest. A wild sort of people live there. Fishermen, not farmers. They climb on the cliffs for gulls’ eggs, and gather seaweed and shellfish—”

“Yes, you’ve told me.” She’d heard the story many times, and just now she wished he’d be quiet and hurry up. In the rain and early darkness, it was hard to see what was what. Grey boulders scrambled up as they approached, trotted away bleating, and were sheep. And some were really rocks, but with movement around the edges. There! Hadn’t something just dodged behind that big one?

Ralf was still talking. “—But many of the islands are just rocks, skerries, with the sea swilling over them and no room for anyone but seals. They’d lie there, lazily basking in the sun, watching us. It’s tricky sailing. The tides come boiling up through the channels, sweeping the boat along, and there’s rocks everywhere just waiting to take a bite.

“But we got through. And further out, and beyond the horizon–many days’ sailing–well, you know what we found, Hilde. The land at the other end of the world!”

Hilde pulled herself together. “East of the sun and west of the moon,” she joked. “Like a fairy tale.”

“Just west,” said Ralf quietly. “And no fairy tale. To think I’ve been so far away! Why, by the time I passed the islands again on my way home, they seemed like old friends. How I’d love to…but I’ve promised your mother…and there’s the baby. Ah, well!”

He strode on. Hilde squelched after him, looking affectionately at the back of his head. She knew how part of him longed to go off again–to sail away to that wonderful land, adventurous and free. He’ll never be quite contented here, she thought. That worries Ma, but I understand it. I’d like to see new places too. Why, even Peer’s seen more of the world than I have. He used to live miles away, in Hammerhaven. I’ve spent my whole life here.

Hammerhaven…Her mind skipped to the day, last year, when Arnë had made a special visit to the farm. He’d come to say goodbye; he was moving his fine new boat to Hammerhaven, where he could sell his catch for a better price. And just as he was leaving, he’d taken her hand and earnestly asked her not to forget him. Surely that must mean something!

But I never blushed, whatever Sigrid says, the little wretch. I wonder how he is. I wish I could see him. I wish—

She tripped over a rock. It was nearly dark now. Scraping the wet hair from her eyes, she glanced upwards, flinching. The storm leaned inland like a blind giant, black arms outspread over Troll Fell.

“I think we left it a little late,” shouted Ralf, half turning. “Sigrid, Sigurd–keep close!” He caught Sigrid’s hand and they hurried on together, the wind tugging their cloaks. Hilde’s sodden skirt clung to her ankles.

A bird called high up on the hillside, the eerie whooping cry of a curlew. Hilde wiped the rain from her eyes. On her left, the wet grassy slope plunged away. To the right, scattered with stones, the land tilted sharply up to the base of a long, low crag. Shadowy thorn trees craned over the edge like a row of spiteful old women.

Another bird screamed from somewhere on top of the crag, a long liquid call that seemed to end in syllables: “Huuuuututututu!” Immediately an answering cry floated up from the hidden slope to their left, and a third, more distant and quavering, from far below.

With a quick stride Hilde reached Ralf and grabbed his arm, dragging him to a halt. “Did you hear that? Those aren’t birds. Trolls, Pa! On both sides of us.”

With a gasp, Sigrid shrank close to her father, and Hilde cursed herself for speaking without thinking. Sigrid was terrified of trolls.

Ralf cocked his head, listening. The bubbling cries began again, relayed up the hill like a series of signals. “You’re right,” he muttered. “My fault. I should have got us home earlier. Never mind, Sigrid, the trolls won’t hurt us. It’s just the sort of night they like, you see–dark and wet and windy. Let them prance around if they want–they can’t scare us.”

“Are they stealing sheep?” Sigurd asked.

“I don’t know, son,” said Ralf slowly. “It sounds as though there’s a line of them strung out up and down the hillside.”

“Can’t we get home?” Sigrid’s voice was thin.

“Of course we can,” said Hilde.

“We’ll slip past,” said Ralf. “They won’t bother us.”

“They will!” Sigrid clutched him with cold hands. “They stole Sigurd and me; they wanted to keep us for ever!”

“No, no, the Grimsson brothers stole you,” Hilde tried to reassure her,“and the trolls kept them instead, and serve them right. Don’t worry, Siggy. Pa’s here–and me. You’re safe with us.”

There was a blast of wind, strong enough to send them staggering forwards. Rain lashed the hillside.

“Come on!” shouted Ralf. “Nothing can see us in this. Let’s go!” Swept along by wind and weather, they stumbled half-blind down a sudden slope into a narrow gully. At the bottom, a thin stream rattled downhill over pebbles. Something ran across their path out of the dense curtains of drifting rain. The whooping calls faltered. Sigrid shrieked.

Trolls were all around them: tails, snouts, glow-worm eyes. Dim lines of trolls louping and leaping from the raincloud. A pair of thin, thin legs that raked like a cockerel’s, and a round hairless body on top. Ralf and the children skidded to a halt, appalled. Hilde grabbed the twins and tried to bundle them back the way they had come.

I’ve seen this before!

There was something weirdly familiar about the two long wavering columns, steadily trotting in opposite directions; and about the way the trolls seemed to be carrying things, and the way they scrambled over obstacles like rocks and ridges; and about the way those two over there, who were tugging something along between them, had got it stuck on a rock and were sawing to and fro trying to get it free…

She saw and thought this in a flicker of time–then the trolls stampeded, racing up the slope with gobbling yells. Hilde tried to drag Sigrid aside. She slipped. The wet hillside reeled and hit her. Sigrid screamed, Ralf shouted, Loki barked. Hilde clutched dizzily at wet grass and stones, trying to scramble up. A troll bounded over her. Its rat-like tail switched her legs. She collapsed, grunting, as a horny hoof drove hard into in the small of her back. A hot, sharp smell prickled her nose.

Then the trolls were gone. Loki tore after them in hysterical fury.

Hilde sat up, hair in her eyes and mud on her hands. Ralf loomed over her, shouting her name. He dragged her up, holding her against him. The world steadied. Here was Sigrid, curled up on the ground, sobbing. Hilde fell to her knees and tried to soothe her.

“It’s all right, Siggy, they didn’t mean to hurt us. We frightened them just as much as they frightened us.”

“Loki chased them!” Sigurd arrived at his father’s side. “Where is he? Loki!” He lunged forward up the slope. Hilde grabbed his arm. “No, you don’t. Stay here, Sigurd!” And she stepped on something that crunched and splintered.

“Let go! I have to find him!”

“Loki can look after himself.”

“He can’t, he can’t! Peer told me to look after him!” Sigurd sobbed, trying to wrestle free.

From the ridge above they heard a volley of barks, and a high screech rattling off into the familiar troll cry: Huuutututututu! Silence followed, and then Loki came sliding and scrabbling down the stony gully, wagging a jaunty tail. Sigurd flung himself forward and hugged him tightly round the neck. “Good boy, Loki! Brave dog!” he choked into Loki’s fur. Loki shook himself free.

“They’ve gone, Sigrid. The trolls have gone.” Hilde’s heart was still pounding. “What were they doing?”

“Carrying off my sheep and lambs, I’ll swear!” Ralf growled.

“No,” said Hilde. “I think…” She hesitated. It had happened almost too fast to remember. What had she seen? Jerky, ant-like purpose. Ants! That was it! In just the same way she’d seen lines of ants scurrying to and from their ant hill. But who could imagine an ant hill as big as Troll Fell?

“Baskets. They were carrying baskets, Pa. But what was in them?”

Sigrid raised her head from Hilde’s lap. “Bones,” she gulped.

“What?” Ralf squatted down in front of her and held her shoulders. “Bones, Siggy? Are you sure?”

“Some fell out.” Sigrid buried her face again. “They fell on me. A bundle of bones, like firewood.”

Slowly Ralf shook his head. “Well, now! I don’t like the sound of that. Let’s get home. Shoulder-ride, Siggy?”

Something else snapped under Hilde’s foot as she trod forward–something thin and curved that gleamed faintly in the dark. She brushed her dripping hair back to look at it. “She’s right. These are bones,” she whispered.

Nearby, Ralf was kicking at a greyish tangle, barely visible in the grass. He nodded to her through the rain.

“Let’s get the little ones home.” Hilde shivered.

Ralf picked up Sigrid and swung her on to his shoulders.

“But, Pa, what about the trolls?” asked Sigurd. “What if they follow us?”

“They won’t,” said his father easily. “They were running away, weren’t they? Loki here has chased them all into the foxholes amongst those rocks. Forget them. I wonder what your Ma has for supper?”

Talking cheerfully, he set off at a rapid pace. Hilde followed, Sigurd tramping manfully along beside her. At last they came to the proper track that led down to the farm. Far ahead in the dim, wet night they were glad to see a tiny speck of warm light. Gudrun had lit the lantern to guide them home.




CHAPTER 3 A Warning from the Nis (#ulink_46bef5ea-ff57-5b3a-8f33-1f5df84a6b5e)


“Bones?” exclaimed Gudrun, ladling out four bowls of hot mutton stew. “What sort of bones?”

“Just bones–dry ones.” Ralf took a long gulp of ale and wiped his mouth with a sigh. “Old dry bones,” he repeated. “I kicked some with my foot. Looked like bits of a sheep’s ribcage, years old. Sigrid got a fright, but so long as it’s dry bones and not ones with meat on them, the trolls can have them and welcome!” He looked at Gudrun over the rim of his mug, and his eyes said, Let’s talk about this later.

“They’re always up to something,” said Gudrun darkly, plonking the bowls on the table. “Eat up, twins, and then straight to bed.”

“Oh, Ma…” they complained together. But Gudrun shook her head. “Look at you both–pale as mushrooms, dark circles under your eyes! I hope this won’t give you nightmares again, Sigrid.”

Sigrid blushed, but Sigurd spoke up for her. “She’s grown out of that, Ma. She hasn’t had a bad dream in ages.”

For more than a year after being trapped under Troll Fell by the trolls and the Grimsson brothers, Sigrid had woken every night, screaming about trolls. Best not make a fuss, thought Gudrun, sighing. “Well, Ralf, as you say, it’s hard to see what harm dry bones can do. Unless the trolls killed the sheep in the first place, the thieves! Come and sit down, Hilde.”

Hilde was bending over the cradle near the fire, admiring her baby brother. He lay breathing quietly, his long lashes furled on the peaceful curve of his cheek. The firelight glowed on his golden curls.

“Has Eirik been good today?”

Gudrun laughed. “I can’t turn my back on that child for half a minute. He tried three times to crawl into the fire, and screamed blue murder when I pulled him back. If it weren’t for the Nis, I’d be tearing my hair out.”

“The Nis?” Hilde asked, intrigued. “Why, what does it do?”

“Haven’t you noticed how it teases him and keeps him busy? It croons away and dangles things over the cradle; it’s very good with him. Of course, I never see it properly, only out of the corner of my eye, but I hear the baby gurgle and coo, and I know he’s all right for a while. It was a blessing when Peer brought that creature into our house.”

A gust of wind rattled the shutters and the smoke swirled over the fire. The family bent their heads over their meal. By the hearth Loki lay, watchful, resting his chin over the back of Ralf’s old sheepdog, Alf. Suddenly he raised his head and pricked his ears. Alf too woke from his dreaming and twitching, turning his milky eyes and grey muzzle towards the door.

Which burst open. In from the dark staggered a tall, tattered boy, white-faced, streaming with water, dragging a ripped and flapping cloak like stormy broken wings. He turned black, desperate eyes on Gudrun, and shoved something at her.

“Take it!” he gasped. “Please, Gudrun! Take the baby!”

They all jumped up. Gudrun stared at the bundle he held out. She reached for it slowly at first, as if half afraid–then snatched it from him and peeled the wrappings back. The round dark head of a tiny baby lolled on to her arm, and she clutched it to her chest and stepped back, mouth open.

“Merciful heavens, Peer! Whatever…?”

Peer sank on the bench, his head hanging. “It’s Kersten’s baby.” His voice quivered. “Kersten’s and Bjørn’s. She gave it to me–she said—”

“Kersten’s? Where is she? What’s happened?”

“She fell into the sea,” said Peer. He buried his face in his hands while they all gasped, then looked up again with miserable eyes. “At least…that’s not true. She ran into it. I couldn’t stop her. Bjørn went after her. Gudrun, I think that baby’s terribly cold!”

Gudrun, Hilde and Ralf looked at one another.

“First things first,” said Gudrun, becoming practical. “Peer, take off those wet things. Sigrid will bring you some hot stew. Hilde, warm a blanket. Let me take a look at this child.” She sat down by the fire and laid the baby on her knee, gently unwrapping and chafing the mottled little arms and legs.

“Poor little thing,” she said softly. “Dear me, it must be weeks since Kersten had her. I’ve been meaning to get down and see her. But there’s always something else to do. There–there, now!” She turned the baby over and rubbed the narrow back. “Do you know her name, Peer?”

“I didn’t even know she was a girl.” Peer was struggling into a dry jerkin. His head came out, tousled. “Is she–is she all right?” He came over and stared down at the baby in silence for a while. “She looks like a little frog,” he said at last.

“She is rather cold, but she’ll be all right.” Gudrun swaddled the baby in the warm shawl that Hilde brought. “Now she’s warming up, I’ll try and feed her.”

“Will you, Gudrun?” Tears sprang into Peer’s eyes, and he turned away. “I think she is hungry. She was chewing my collar bone half the way home,” he said over his shoulder.

Hilde laughed at him shakily. “That wouldn’t do her much good!”

They all stood round, staring at Gudrun as she held the baby, rocking gently. Even the twins were silent, one leaning each side of their mother. The baby’s dark hair fluffed up as it dried, and she nuzzled into Gudrun’s breast, sucking strongly and blinking upwards with vague, bright eyes.

Ralf blew his nose. “Now–Peer. Tell us what happened!”

“We were down on the shore. I was going to stay with Bjørn, because of the rain. Bjørn gave me a fish to take up to Kersten–we were going to have it for supper. Then—” Peer broke off, trying to make sense of his memories. “Kersten came running down through the sand dunes. It was pouring with rain. She ran smack into me! She had the baby. She said…I can’t remember exactly what, but she pushed the baby at me and told me to take it to you, Gudrun. She said, “Is Gudrun still giving suck?” And then she ran past me and down the shingle. I shouted for Bjørn, but—”

He stopped again. “She was wearing this big fur cloak,” he whispered. “Before Bjørn could get to her, she’d thrown herself into the sea.”

Gudrun’s eyes were bright with tears.

“She’s gone back to the sea,” she said softly. “Do you remember, Ralf, how they all said Bjørn’s bride was a seal woman?”

Ralf’s head jerked up. “Nonsense!” He punched his fist into his palm. “Utter nonsense. I’ve never believed it, and I never shall.”

“Don’t you see?” Gudrun persisted. “That fur cloak will have been her sealskin.”

“Explain,” demanded Hilde.

Gudrun went on talking quietly, almost singing, crooning over the baby. “It’s the grey seals I’m talking about. They can be seals in the water but people on land, shedding their skins like fur cloaks. If a man meets a seal woman while she’s in her mortal shape and he hides her sealskin, he has power over her. Then she must marry him and bear his children. But if ever she finds her sealskin again, then woe betide! She’ll return to the sea and break his heart.”

Hilde was horrified. “Did Bjørn do that to Kersten?”

“No, he did not,” said Ralf angrily. “Don’t fill their heads with this nonsense, Gudrun. Kersten and Bjørn were an ordinary loving couple.”

“Then why did she throw herself into the sea?” asked Hilde. She leaned forward, touching Peer’s hand. “What happened, Peer? What happened to Kersten?”

But Peer was no longer certain what he remembered. He rubbed his hands over his eyes, pressing till coloured lights danced on the darkness. “I don’t know,” he groaned. “She seemed to roll into the sea. The waves broke over her and she disappeared. It was getting dark, and I was yards away. I thought…I don’t know what I thought. I thought she’d drown.”

“What did Bjørn do?” Sigrid asked in a small voice.

Peer put an arm around her. “He went after her, Siggy. He jumped in the boat and went rowing out…”

“Will he find her?” Sigrid’s eyes were round and scared. “Will he?”

Ralf stood. He paced up and down, shaking his head. “I can’t bear to think of it!” he exclaimed. “I ought to go down there now–see if there’s anything I can do. Didn’t you raise the alarm, Peer? Bjørn needs help!”

Peer went a painful red. “I—” he stammered. “I never thought of it! I’m sorry! I just–I only–I wanted to bring the baby home!”

Hilde rolled her eyes. “You’d better get down there straight away, Pa!” she said.

“I will.” Ralf was already pulling on his boots. “Now, don’t worry, Gudrun–but I won’t be back tonight. I’ll get some of the men together–we’ll comb the shore. If Bjørn hasn’t found her, we’ll search again when it’s light.”

“I’ll come!” Peer got up, staggering slightly.

“No, you stay and rest,” said Ralf kindly. “You did the best you could, Peer. You can join the search tomorrow. Right–I’m off!”The door slammed behind him.

Hilde puffed out her cheeks and sat down. “How awful.”

“Why didn’t I tell everyone?” Peer beat his forehead with the heel of his hand. “How could I be so stupid? I even saw Einar, and I dodged him because I was too embarrassed to explain…”

Hilde patted his shoulder. “You’re hopeless, Peer,” she said affectionately. “But listen! You brought the baby safely home.”

Peer caught her hand, but she drew it away. Gudrun looked up, closing her dress and tucking the shawl more tightly around the baby.

“There, she’s had enough now. She’s falling asleep. Peer, don’t upset yourself. Ralf has rushed off like this because he can’t bear sitting still, but really there’s nothing useful anyone can do till daybreak. Now eat your stew before it goes cold. Hilde, get the twins to bed. We’ll put this little one in the cradle with Eirik.”

“Can I?” Sigrid asked, stretching her arms out.

“Yes, but be careful,” said Gudrun, handing her over. Sigrid grappled the bundle of shawl and baby with exaggerated care. “She’s sweet. I wish I had a little sister.” She lowered her into the wide cradle. “I’ll put her on her side. Isn’t she tiny? Doesn’t Eirik look big beside her?”

Peer came to look over her shoulder. The two babies lay side by side, a complete contrast to one another. Eirik’s fair skin and rosy cheeks made the new baby look brown and sallow. Her thin little wrists looked delicate and fragile compared with Eirik’s sturdy dimpled arms.

“Is she sickly?” asked Hilde dubiously.

“No, no,” said Gudrun. “She’s much younger, that’s all. Hardly three months old, when I come to think. I wish now I’d visited Kersten. ‘Never put things off’, as my mother used to say. But I’ve been so busy, and little Eirik is such a handful.”

“Well, he’s in for a surprise when he wakes up tomorrow,” said Hilde. “Twins! Bedtime!” She chased them under the blankets, but Sigrid stuck her head out to call, “I like the new baby, Ma. Can we keep her?”

Gudrun whirled, eyes snapping. “Not another word from you, miss!” She beckoned Peer and Hilde to the other end of the long hearth. “Talk quietly,” she whispered. “I want them to sleep. Tell me again. What happened when Kersten ran down to the water?”

Peer closed his eyes. Inwardly he saw that flying figure. He saw Bjørn, turning his head and beginning to race across the shingle. He saw Kersten, throwing herself to the ground, pulling the cloak over her.

“She saw Bjørn coming, I think,” he said slowly. “And she just dived to the ground, and rolled herself up in the cloak and crawled into the water. And I looked away then, because Bjørn was pushing the boat out. He rowed out, shouting for her–but it was so wet and misty, I lost sight of him.”

They sat in a huddle with their heads together.

“I couldn’t stop her!” Peer cried. “I was holding the baby…”

“Hush.” Gudrun took his hand. “No one blames you, Peer. And Kersten trusted you with her child. But the seals–didn’t you see any seals?”

“Yes,” Peer admitted slowly. “After Bjørn disappeared, the water was full of them. But–Gudrun!” He swallowed. Can it be true? Is that really what I saw? Does it mean Bjørn once trapped Kersten…and kept her against her will?

Gudrun wiped her eyes. “It’s sad, either way,” she said quietly. “And worst of all for that poor little mite over there. Well, we’d better all go to bed. There’ll be plenty to do in the morning.”

Glumly, they wished one another good night. Peer had been given old Eirik’s sleeping place, a bunk built into the wall with a sliding wooden panel for privacy. He clambered in, but as usual left the panel half-open so he could see out into the room. Loki got up from his place by the fire, stretched, and pottered over to jump up on Peer’s blankets. He turned round three times and settled down behind Peer’s knees, yawning. The familiar weight was comforting. Peer slid a hand down to scratch his dog’s ears.

He lay, bone weary but unable to sleep, staring out into the darkened room. Gudrun had covered the fire with chunks of turf to keep it burning till morning. Small red eyes winked hotly from chinks and crannies, and he sniffed the homely smell of scorching earth and wood smoke. On the other side of the room, he heard Hilde tossing and turning. After a while she sighed and lay still. Gudrun snored.

Rain tapped on the shutters. Every time Peer closed his eyes he saw Kersten, rushing past him, hurling herself into the sea. I should have stopped her. I should have raised the alarm. I did everything wrong. Was Bjørn still out there, rowing hopelessly over dark wastes of heaving water?

Peer dropped into an uneasy doze. A cobwebby shadow scampered from a dark corner to sit hunched on the hearthstones. Peer woke. He heard a faint sound, a steady lapping like a cat’s. A satisfied sigh. The click of a wooden bowl set stealthily down.

Peer watched between his lashes as the Nis set the room to rights, a little rushing shadow, swift as a bat. He hadn’t seen the Nis in a long time. Sometimes he glimpsed a wispy grey beard or a little red cap glowing in the firelight, but when he looked closer it was always just a bit of sheep’s wool escaped from Gudrun’s spindle, or a bright rag wrapped around Sigrid’s doll. He’d been hurt that the Nis wanted so little to do with him, when they’d shared so much. The Nis had rescued him from the lubbers, the disgusting creatures who lived in his uncles’ freezing privy. It had helped to save Loki from his uncles’ savage dog, Grendel. But now, living in a happy household with plenty to eat, it kept out of his way.

“Perhaps you don’t need one another any more,” Hilde had suggested when he talked to her about it. “Down at the mill you were both outcasts. Your uncles treated you both so badly, you had something in common.” Peer saw what she meant, but still he missed the Nis.

Now here it was again, as if to comfort him for this terrible day. It frisked round the hearth, sweeping up stray ashes, dampening the cloth over the dough that Gudrun had left by the fire, and turning the bowl so that it should rise evenly. Finished, it skipped lightly up on to the edge of the creaking cradle and perched there. With a furtive glance over one shoulder, it extended a knobbly forefinger into the cradle to prod one of the sleeping babies, then snatched it back, as if it had touched red-hot iron. It chirruped disapprovingly and hopped down.

Peer raised himself on one elbow. “Nis!” he called softly, half expecting the Nis to vanish like a mouse whisking into its hole.

The Nis stiffened. Two beady, glinting eyes fixed on his. Behind him, Loki broke into a grumbling growl; Loki had never liked the Nis.

“Quiet, Loki,”whispered Peer. “Nis, I’m so glad to see you. It’s been ages! Why don’t you talk to me any more?”

The Nis glared at him.

“What has you done, Peer Ulfsson?” it demanded, bristling.

“Me?” asked Peer, surprised. “What do you mean? I brought Kersten’s baby home, that’s all.”

“Yes, it is all your fault!” the Nis squeaked. Its hair and beard frilled out into a mad ruff of feathery tendrils. “Foolish, foolish boy! What was you thinking of to bring such a baby here?”

“Wait a minute!” Peer sat bolt upright. “That little baby has lost her mother. What did you want me to do–leave her?”

“Yes!” hissed the Nis. “She doesn’t belong here, Peer Ulfsson. Who is her mother? One of the savage sea people, all wild and wet and webbed. Brrr!” It shook its head in disgust, rapid as a cat, a whirr and a blurr of bright eyes and whiskers. “The likes of them doesn’t belong in housen, Peer Ulfsson.”

“You’re a fine one to talk!” said Peer angrily.

The Nis’s eyes nearly popped out of its head with agitation. “Think! If the sea people come to claim her, what then? What then, Peer Ulfsson? Besides, how can the mistress feed two childs, eh? Poor little Eirik. He will starve!”

“No he won’t,” said Peer. “Eirik’s nearly weaned. He eats all sorts of things.”

The Nis ignored him, covering its face with two spidery hands. “Poor, poor Eirik!” it mourned, peeping through its fingers. “No milk for him! No food! The little stranger eats it all, steals his mother away. Like a cuckoo chick!”

“Oh, come on!” Peer rallied. “I thought you liked babies. What’s wrong with her?”

“Everything!” fizzed the Nis. “This is not a proper baby, but a seal baby. Not one thing, not the other.”With its head on one side, it added more cheerfully, “Maybe she will pine, maybe she will die!”

Peer almost choked. “‘A seal baby.’ You’ve been listening to Gudrun, but she doesn’t know. Bjørn wouldn’t…Kersten wasn’t! Ralf doesn’t believe it, and neither do I. And even if it was true, what are you saying? Just because her mother might be a seal woman, you want the baby to go–yet it’s quite all right for you to live here?”

“For me?” The Nis nodded vigorously. “The Nis is very useful in a house,” it said virtuously. “Often, often, the mistress says she can’t manage without me!”

“How nice for you,” said Peer.

The Nis simpered, plaiting its long fingers. “So the baby will go!” it chirped.

“No–actually, the baby will stay.”

The Nis’s lower lip stuck out and its eyes glittered. “Peer Ulfsson is so clever,” it hissed. “Of course he is right. He knows so much more than the poor Nis!” It turned its back on Peer.

Peer tried to calm his own feelings. The Nis had always been prickly, but he was shocked by this unexpected selfishness. Still, he owed the Nis a lot.

“Don’t be angry,” he said.

“Huh!” snapped the Nis without turning.

“Oh, really, Nis–let’s not quarrel.”

“If the baby stays–I goes.” The Nis delivered this ultimatum over its shoulder, its face still half-averted.

“I think you’re—” Peer halted. He’d been going to say, “I think you’re being silly,” but he thought better of it. “—I think you’re overreacting.”

“I means it, Peer Ulfsson,” the Nis insisted.

“I’m sure you won’t go,” said Peer soothingly. “Now, come on. Tell me what else is happening.”

“What does the Nis know? The Nis knows nothing,” the little creature sulked.

“No news?” Peer asked. “When it’s so long since we talked? And I thought you heard everything. Are you losing your touch?” He faked a yawn. “Very well, then; I’m tired. I’ll go back to sleep.”

This worked almost too well. The Nis turned round, stiff with fury. “What sort of news does Peer Ulfsson want?”

“I was only joking!” But Peer saw he had gone too far. While the Nis loved to tease others, it hated to be teased itself.

“News of the trolls–the merrows–the nixies?” it demanded with an unforgiving glare.

Peer sighed. “Tell me about the trolls.”

“Great tidings from Troll Fell,” announced the Nis in a cold, huffy voice. “Remember the Gaffer? And his daughter the troll princess, who married and went to live with the trolls of the Dovrefell? She has borne a son.”

“Really?” The Gaffer was the cunning old king of Troll Fell. Years ago, when Peer and Hilde had ventured deep into the mountain to rescue the twins, they’d met the Gaffer–and his sly daughter.

“So the Gaffer has a grandson,” Peer said without enthusiasm. “Let’s hope it doesn’t take after him, then, with an extra eye and a tail like a cow’s. Will there be a feast?” he added, knowing the Nis was always interested in food. A reluctant sparkle appeared in the Nis’s eyes.

“Oh, yes, Peer Ulfsson,” it began. “You see, the princess is visiting her old father under Troll Fell. How grand she is now; nothing good enough for her; quite the fine lady! And such fuss over the new prince. Such a commotion! They’ll be having the naming feast on Midsummer Eve.”

“Are you invited?” said Peer.

But just then, at the dark end of the room, Sigrid stirred in her sleep. “Trolls!” she mumbled. “Help! Mamma, help!” On the other side of the hearth, Gudrun stumbled sleepily from the blankets to comfort her. A piece of turf slid on the fire and a bright flame shot up.

The Nis was gone.

“Drat the creature,” Peer muttered to Loki. “Why does it have to be so touchy? Troll princes, indeed! Oh, dear!”

He lay down again, sighing, dragging the blankets round his neck, full of unhappy thoughts. But strangely, it wasn’t the Nis who haunted his sleep, or even Kersten running down the shingle to throw herself into the water. All through the long night, as he slept and woke and slept again, the great black water wheel at Troll Mill rolled through his dreams, turning, turning relentlessly in the darkness.




CHAPTER 4 Bjørn’s Story (#ulink_aa820064-c89e-504c-9405-c55e404fc340)


Piercing yells from Eirik woke Peer next morning. Sticking a bleary head round the edge of his sliding panel, he saw that the rest of the family was already up. Sigurd and Sigrid sat on their stools, stirring lumps of butter into bowls of hot groute, while Gudrun tried to feed Eirik, who was struggling to be put down.

He couldn’t see Hilde. She must be outside doing the milking, which was his own morning task! Bundling Loki off the bed, he closed the panel and dressed quickly, thumping and bumping his elbows in his haste. As he scrambled out, Hilde came in with the milk pail, taking short fast steps to prevent it from slopping.

“You should have woken me!” Peer took it from her, thinking how pretty she looked in her old blue dress and unbleached milking apron. Her fair hair was twisted into two hasty braids, wispy with escaping tendrils.

“No, you were tired.” She gave him a sunny smile and his heart leaped. “Besides, it’s a beautiful morning. My goodness, Eirik! What a noise!” Her baby brother was bawling on Gudrun’s knee. His mouth was square, his face red with temper.

“Take him, Hilde.” Gudrun handed him over with relief. “I’ve fed him. He just wants to get down and create mischief. Keep him out of the fire, do! I’ll have to feed the other one now.”

Hilde seized Eirik under his plump arms and swung him on to her hip. “Come to Hilde,” she crooned. “You bad boy. What a bad boy you are!” Eirik stopped screaming and tried to grab her nose. She pushed his hand away and joggled him up and down. His face crumpled and went scarlet, but as he filled his lungs to yell again, he caught sight of Gudrun lifting the other baby from the cradle.

Eirik’s angry face smoothed into blank astonishment. His eyes widened into amazed circles. He stretched out his arm, leaning out from Hilde’s side, trying to touch the baby girl.

Hilde and Gudrun laughed at him. “Oh, what a surprise,” Hilde teased. “Twins, look at him! Peer, just look at that expression!”

“Ha ha!” said Sigurd. He danced around Hilde, hooking his fingers into the corners of his mouth and pulling a horrible face–something that usually made Eirik gurgle with laughter. “You’re not the littlest one any more!”

This time, it failed. Eirik craned past him, yearning towards the little baby.

“He was half asleep when I got him up,” explained Gudrun, sitting down to feed the new baby. “It’s the first time he’s noticed her.”

Frustrated, Eirik began to writhe and kick, determined to find out for himself what this new creature was. Hilde carried him away.

“Fetch me some groute and honey,” she called to her brother. “Cool it with milk. I’ll see if he’ll have some more.” She plonked the wriggling Eirik on her knee and when Sigurd brought the bowl and a horn spoon, she tried to ladle some into his mouth. Eirik spat it down his chin in angry dribbles. She tried again. Purple with fury, Eirik smacked the spoon out of her hand.

“Ouch!” Hilde wiped the glutinous barleymeal from her eye. “Right, you little horror! Don’t think I’m taking you anywhere near that baby. You’d probably tear her limb from limb!”

“Just let him see her,” said Gudrun wearily. “He’s curious, that’s all.”

“Curious? You mean furious,” said Hilde, bringing him across. His eyes were screwed shut, and fat tears poured down his face. “All right, Eirik, you’ve got your own way. Look, here she is. Stop screaming!”

“There. She’s had enough,” said Gudrun, as Eirik’s screams subsided to choking sobs and at last to fascinated silence. “I’ll sit her up.”

She righted the baby and sat her upright on her knee, holding her tenderly. The baby hiccupped. Her eyes focused. She gazed solemnly around. Peer looked at her closely. What had the Nis been complaining about? She seemed like any other baby to him.

“Gudrun, there’s nothing wrong with the baby, is there?” he asked.

“She’s fine,” said Gudrun. “She hasn’t even caught a cold. You looked after her very well, Peer, and there’s nothing wrong at all. Don’t worry.”

“I didn’t mean that. I talked to the Nis last night.”

“The Nis?” Gudrun looked up. “Go on, what did it say?”

“It was cross,” Peer said with a short laugh. “It told me off for bringing the baby here.”

“Why?” asked Hilde, amazed.

“It’s jealous, I think. It said she’s a wild seal baby, and doesn’t belong here, and you won’t be able to manage, Gudrun. Something like that.”

“Wild?” Hilde started to laugh. “She’s as good as gold. If anyone’s wild it’s young Eirik here.” She tickled Eirik’s tear-stained cheek.

Gudrun was watching Peer’s face. “Is there something else?” she asked.

He hesitated. “It threatened to leave if the baby stays. But you know what it’s like. It probably wasn’t serious.”

Gudrun tightened her lips. “I managed when the twins were little, so I suppose I can manage now. And the Nis must learn to cope as well.”

“But it won’t be for long, Gudrun,” Peer tried to comfort her. “I mean, even if they don’t find Kersten, Bjørn will soon come for the baby.”

“But, Peer,” said Hilde impatiently. “Bjørn can’t feed her!”

“Oh, of course!” Peer felt himself flush.

“Yes,” said Gudrun, “if they don’t find Kersten, poor Bjørn will lose his child as well as his wife. Even when she’s weaned, he’s still got to go out fishing. He can’t leave her behind, and he can’t take her along.”

“Then we can keep her!” sang out Sigrid. “Hurrah!”

“Sigrid,” said Hilde menacingly. “This is not something to be happy about.”

“How could Kersten leave her own little baby?” Peer wondered aloud.

“What if Ma is right?” said Hilde. “What if she was really a seal woman all the time, and Bjørn caught her and kept her prisoner?”

“I just don’t believe it!” Peer cried. “Bjørn wouldn’t do that!”

“No?” Hilde flashed. “Then what do you suggest? Did Kersten desert her baby–and Bjørn–for nothing? Bjørn’s a man, so it can’t be his fault, but Kersten can be a bad mother because she’s a woman? Is that what you’re saying?”

Peer stared at her, but before they could speak again, there were voices in the yard and the door latch lifted. Ralf came in, dark against the daylight, bowing his head under the lintel. “Come along, come in,” he called over his shoulder.

Bjørn stepped uncertainly after him, narrowing his eyes a little to see through the indoor shadows. Hilde and Peer exchanged shocked glances and forgot their argument. Could this really be steady, practical, cheerful Bjørn? He looked like a stranger–as if what had happened to him had changed him, or put him on the other side of some barrier of knowledge, so that the old Bjørn was gone, and this new Bjørn was someone they must get to know all over again. There were blue shadows under his eyes, and he did not smile.

Without a word, Gudrun got up and went to him. She put the baby into his arms, kissed him, and drew him forward to sit down at the fire. “Has he eaten?” she whispered to Ralf. Ralf shook his head. Gudrun hurried to fetch a bowl.

Hilde grimaced at Peer. Still carrying the wriggling Eirik, she went to kneel beside Bjørn. “We’re all so sorry,” she said quietly.

“Thanks.” Bjørn’s voice cracked. He cleared his throat. “And here’s young Eirik Ralfsson!” he added, with an almost natural laugh. “That fine chip off the old block!”

“Yes.” Hilde paused. How could they say what needed to be said?

Bjørn looked down at his own baby. His face clenched. He stood up again and handed her back to Gudrun as she brought his food.

“It’s only groute, but it’s sweet and hot. Eat up, Bjørn, you’ll need your strength,” she said anxiously, lulling the baby against her shoulder.

They tried not to stare as Bjørn ate, at first wearily, but then more hungrily as his appetite returned. Ralf said in a low voice to Gudrun,“He needed that. He was out searching all night. When we saw him coming in this morning, he could barely hold the oars.”

Bjørn put the bowl down and looked at Peer. “So what happened?” he asked quietly.

Peer’s stomach knotted. There was simply no way of softening the bleak tale. In a low voice he described yet again how Kersten had come running over the dunes, how she’d pushed the baby into his arms and rushed past him to the sea. Bjørn listened in silence. Under the force of his attention, Peer scoured his mind for extra details. He recalled the cold touch of Kersten’s hands and the dark tangles of wet hair caught across her face.

“She looked so wild. I thought something dreadful must have happened. I asked her,‘What’s wrong, Kersten? Where are you going?’ And all she said was,‘Home’.”

Bjørn caught a long, tense breath. Gudrun gave a nervous cough. “Well now, Bjørn,” she said. “What might she mean by that? Where was home for Kersten?” Though she tried to sound tactful, the whole family knew she was bursting with curiosity.

“She wasn’t from round here, was she?” Ralf joined in. “A pretty lass, but foreign? Those looks of hers…”

They all thought of tall beautiful Kersten with her dark hair and green eyes.

“She came from the islands,” said Bjørn reluctantly.

The family nodded. “The islands!”,“Ah…”, “So that explains it!”

But it doesn’t, thought Peer, it doesn’t explain anything, and we all know it. Why aren’t we talking about what really happened?

“I must go.” Bjørn got up, stiff as an old man. “Must try and find her…”

Ralf shook his head in rough pity. “She’s gone, Bjørn. Accept it, lad. Oh, we can search along the shore, but whatever we find, it won’t be your Kersten any more.”

Bjørn’s face set, so hard and unhappy that Peer jumped to his feet. “But we’ll help him. Won’t we, Ralf?”

“Of course we will—” began Ralf. But Bjørn laid a hand on his arm.

“Kersten’s not dead, Ralf. I know she hasn’t drowned.”

With a worried frown, Ralf blew out his cheeks and ran his hands through his hair. “Well–if that’s how you feel, Bjørn, we won’t give up yet. What’s your plan?”

Before Bjørn could reply, Peer clapped a hand to his mouth. “I forgot!” He looked at Bjørn, stricken. “I completely forgot. When I went to your house last night, Bjørn, you’d been robbed! Your big chest was open, and it was empty. The key was on the floor.”

Everyone gaped at him. Peer rattled on, afraid to stop. “And so…maybe that upset Kersten?” He faltered. “I should have told you before, but it–it went clean out of my mind. Have you lost something special?”

“Don’t worry, Peer, I’d already guessed,” said Bjørn quietly. “Special? You could say so. Kersten took the key. Kersten robbed the chest.”

“What?” cried Ralf. But Gudrun interrupted.

“She took her sealskin, didn’t she?” she asked. “You kept her sealskin in that chest.”

“Oh, now, come on,” began Ralf. This time Bjørn cut across him.

“Was it wrong, Gudrun? Do you blame me?” he begged in a low voice.

“Oh, Bjørn,” said Gudrun. She looked around, as if asking the others for help. Bjørn leaned forwards, his eyes fixed on her face. Gudrun swallowed. “It’s not for me to judge,” she told him very gently. “Did Kersten?”

Bjørn shook his head. “She never said so. But perhaps…perhaps she’s angry with me. I’ve got to find her. I’ve got to know. It’s out to the skerries I’m bound, and looking for a bull seal with a scarred shoulder…”

“Why?” Peer rose to his feet. He felt dizzy. He imagined Kersten in the dark room, on her knees before the chest, flinging the lid back, dragging out the heavy sealskin, stroking it, wrapping herself in it. Is Hilde right? He glared at Bjørn. “What’s going on? Tell us the truth, Bjørn. Was Kersten really a seal woman? Did you trap her?”

“Trap her?” Bjørn went white. “We were happy!”

“Then why keep the sealskin locked up?” Peer threw back at him.

The air prickled, as before thunder. For a second Bjørn looked as if he might hit Peer.

“Because I—”

He gulped and started again. “At first I was afraid she would leave. Then, later, I didn’t think it mattered any more. She was my wife! She wasn’t a prisoner!” The last word was almost a shout.

“But she ran away!” Peer was breathless. “She ran away from you.”

“Gods, Peer, what do you take me for?” Bjørn cried. “You don’t know what you’re saying. All right, listen! This is how I found Kersten–and I’ve never told the story to another living soul.”

Gudrun made a murmur of protest, but Bjørn ignored it.

“Seven–yes, seven years ago, when Arnë was a young lad about your age–we were out in the boat together, hunting seal among the skerries beyond the fjord mouth. I told Arnë to land me on one of the rocks. I’d lie hidden with a harpoon, waiting for the seals to come, and he could take the boat out to the fishing grounds and come back for me later.

“So he brought the boat alongside one of the big skerries where the seals lie, and I scrambled ashore and watched him row away. It was fine–and fresh–and lonely when the boat had gone. Just me, and the islands on the horizon, and the tide swirling between the skerries. No seals yet, only a few black cormorants diving off the rocks, so I found a sheltered place and lay down in the sunshine on a litter of seaweed and sticks and old gulls’ feathers, with my harpoon near at hand.”

His voice began to relax into a quiet, storytelling rhythm.

“No sound but the sea slopping up against the rocks, and the cries of the cormorants. The rocks felt warm in the sun, winking with bits of crystal. I lay still, so as not to frighten the seals when they came. You know how they float, with their heads just out of the water, watching for danger?

“And so, after a time, I suppose I dropped off to sleep. When I woke it was low tide. The skerry was bigger, going down in great rocky steps to a wide broken platform on the westward side. And there they were! I could see the seals basking, scratching themselves in the sunshine. I took my harpoon and climbed over the rocks as quietly as I could.”

“Go on,” prompted Ralf, as Bjørn fell silent.

“I was sun-struck, perhaps,” he said slowly. “At least, as I crept over the rocks, I found it hard to see clearly. I felt dizzy and my head ached, and I remember seeing things that could not be. White bees buzzed around my head. I saw faces in the rocks. The sea chuckled and gurgled in secret holes under my feet. I heard a chattering and humming. I thought I heard voices. And then, on the flat rocks where the seals lay, I saw three fair women sitting. Their dark hair blew in tangled strands and they combed it out with long fingers. At their feet, three sealskins lay in wet gleaming folds.”

The family sat spellbound, their eyes fixed on Bjørn, who stared at the wall as if seeing right through it to the far-distant skerry and the washing waves.

“I leaped down the rocks,” he went on in the same far-off voice. “The air was singing and ringing. The sun winked off the water, sharp as needles. In the blink of an eye the women were gone. All but the nearest! As her sisters threw on their skins and plunged into the water with the seals, I snatched up her sealskin. Heavy, it was–glossy and greasy and reeking of the sea.

“She screamed like a seagull, and her hair fell down over her face and her white shoulders. She stretched out pleading fingers. How she wept! I almost gave it back to her–for sheer pity–but it seemed wrong to wrap such beauty in a stinking sealskin…

“Then I heard a shout. It was Arnë calling, and the boat came knocking along the side of the skerry. And I knew I had to choose.”

Bjørn’s square brown hands knotted. “I’m just a fisherman!” He looked up defiantly. “There I stood with the catch of my life. Suppose I let her go? I already knew that I was caught too. I’d never forget her. I’d grow old still dreaming of her, wishing I’d had the courage to do…what I did then.

“I threw the sealskin down to Arnë. And I put my two arms around her, and wrapped her in my cloak and lifted her into the boat.”

Gudrun breathed out a long, wistful sigh. Ralf shuffled his feet uneasily. Hilde sat frowning, her eyes intent on Bjørn. Even the babies were quiet. Peer’s head ached fiercely. So Bjørn admitted it–he had stolen Kersten! In the silence, Sigrid piped up in a puzzled voice. “Is this a true story, Bjørn?”

Bjørn gave a brief, unhappy smile. “A true story?” he echoed. “There are so many stories, aren’t there, sweetheart? Who knows which are true? I told Arnë a different story, and it may have been a better one. He was only fifteen then, no older than Peer is now, and I could see he was scared. ‘Who’s this, brother?’ said he, and his teeth chattered. So I told him I’d found the girl stranded on the skerry. ‘Likely her boat went down,’ I said. ‘No wonder if she’s a bit dazed. Who knows how many nights and days she’s spent on that rock, with only the seals and the sea birds for company?’

“Arnë accepted it. Even to me, it sounded reasonable. But the weather suddenly changed, with a black squall driving over the sea and the waves clapping against the skerries in spouts of foam.

“As the boat tossed and Arnë rowed, a face rose out of the water–a face that looked half-human, with furious eyes and snarling teeth. A great bull seal it was, that charged at the boat, roaring. He’d have tipped us over. I still had the harpoon. I threw it without even thinking. It sank deep into his shoulder. He screamed, and the line burned though my hands as he dived, and the water around us was streaked with dark blood and red bubbles. Arnë gave a shout, and the girl flung herself at me, screeching like a wildcat. I had to hold her off, and we fell down together in the bottom of the boat as it pitched and swung. I was nearly as crazy as she. The seal in the water, what was it? Her father, her brother? I knew I’d done her wrong.

“At last she lay quiet. Her long hair trailed in the water, over the side of the boat. I looked at her and it came to me that–” Bjørn hesitated. “–that I was in love with a wild thing out of the sea. With no name. What words could there be between us? What understanding? And so I gave her the only gift I could. I named her, ‘Kersten’.

“Kersten,” he repeated gently. “Well, the sea calmed as though we’d thrown oil on the water. And she leaned towards me, shivering and smiling. Yes, she smiled at me and took my hand, and she spoke for the first time. ‘Do you really wish me to be Kersten? Can you pay the price?’

“I said I would, I would pay anything. She put her fingers on my lips.

“‘Hush! It will be a hard price,’ she said, ‘hard as tearing the heart from your body–and we will both pay it. For as long as you keep the sealskin safe, I will be your Kersten. And while I am with you, the seal folk will befriend you and drive the mackerel to your nets. But beware of the day we part’.”

There was quite a silence.

“So that’s the story.” Bjørn looked up, his face bleak. “I kept the sealskin locked away, but the years went by and I got careless. I stopped carrying the key about with me–I left it on the shelf. Surely Kersten knew, although I never told her. I thought she loved me. She did love me! But she took the key and unlocked the sealskin. They’ve called her back, the seal people. Why did she go? Why, without a word to me? After seven years, how could she leave me?

“I’m going to search for her among the skerries, and I’ll search for that bull seal too, for I’m sure he lives and hates me. If I find him, I’ll see what a second blow can do. I’ve nothing to lose now.”

“Nothing? What about the baby?” asked Peer.

“What?” Bjørn sounded as though he hardly understood the question.

“Your baby!” Peer repeated coldly. A throb of rage shook his voice as he remembered the stumbling nightmare of the journey home. “I brought her back for you last night. You’ve hardly looked at her. We don’t even know her name!”

Bjørn lowered his eyes. “She’s called Ran,” he said flatly. “Her name is Ran.”

“What sort of an outlandish name—?” Gudrun’s hand flew to her mouth.

“Kersten wanted a name that came from the sea,” said Bjørn wearily. “Change it, if you don’t like it. Call her Elli. That was the name I would have picked.”

Gudrun was horrified. “Oh, I couldn’t, Bjørn. It wouldn’t be right.”

“Listen to Peer, Bjørn,” Ralf urged. “You’re a father now. You mustn’t take risks.”

“A fine father who can’t even give his child a home.” Bjørn stood. “I must go. You don’t mind me coming to see her–from time to time?”

“Really, Bjørn,” exclaimed Gudrun. “What a question!”

Bjørn nodded. His blue gaze travelled slowly over all of them, seeming to burn each of them up. At Peer, he hesitated, silent appeal in his face. Peer stared back stonily. Bjørn turned away. The door closed behind him.




CHAPTER 5 The Quarrel (#ulink_0e95026f-c541-5d5c-9d5a-c49a6bcda3be)


Ralf rose to his feet. “I’ll go after him. We mustn’t leave him alone. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. Besides, I left Einar and Harald and old Thorkell searching the tide-line, and they may have found poor Kersten by now.”

“But Pa!” Hilde cried. “What about Bjørn’s story? Don’t you believe it?”

“No, Hilde, I don’t.” Ralf paused and looked down at her. “Even Bjørn’s not really sure, is he? Oh, I believe he found Kersten on the skerry. But he talks about sunstroke. That can do strange things to a man–make him see things that aren’t there. Most likely, what he told his brother was true, and she’d been stranded there after a wreck. Those waters are dangerous.”

Halfway out of the door he stopped, and added sternly, “And don’t go repeating that story of Bjørn’s, either. No good encouraging him to hope. We’d all like to think that Kersten’s still alive, I know, but it’s best to face up to things. Drowned men and women don’t come back.”

“Leave the door open!” Gudrun called after him, as the sunshine streamed in. “Let’s have some daylight in here!”

Hilde looked at Peer, sitting at the table with his head in his hands. She reached out to touch his shoulder, but changed her mind and carried Eirik outside into the yard. She put him down to crawl about.

The sky was pale blue, with a high layer of fine-combed clouds, and a lower level of clean white puffballs blowing briskly over the top of Troll Fell. Hilde filled her lungs with fresh air and gazed around at the well-loved fields and skyline. Only one thing had changed since last year: the new mound on the rising ground above the farm, where old Grandfather Eirik had been laid to rest. “Where he can keep an eye on us all,” Ralf had said gruffly. “Where he can get a good view of everything that’s going on!”




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