Troll Mill

by Katherine Langrish

  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 woodsmoke. 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 Bjorn 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 gray 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 each other anymore,” 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 around 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 onto 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, and then snatched it back, as if it had touched redhot 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 Peer. 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 anymore?”

  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 up. “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. Bjorn 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 around, stiff with fury. “What sort of news does Peer Ulfsson want?”

  “I was only joking!” But Peer saw he had gone too far. Although 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 slipped 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!”

  He lay down again, sighing, dragging the blankets around 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

  BJORN’S STORY

  PIERCING YELLS FROM Eirik woke Peer next morning. Sticking a bleary head around 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 onto 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 anymore!”

  This time, it failed. Eirik craned past him, yearning toward 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 plunked the wriggling Eirik down 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 her lap. 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 on her knee, holding her tenderly. The baby hiccuped. 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 sealbaby 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, Bjorn will soon come for the baby.”

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

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

  “Yes,” said Gudrun, “if they don’t find Kersten, poor Bjorn 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 Bjorn caught her and kept her prisoner?”

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

  “No?” Hilde flashed. “Then what do you suggest? Did Kersten desert her baby—and Bjorn—for nothing? Bjorn’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 doorlatch lifted. Ralf came in, dark against the daylight, bowing his head under the lintel. “Come along, come in,” he called over his shoulder.

  Bjorn 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 Bjorn? 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 Bjorn was gone and this new Bjorn 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 Bjorn. “We’re all so sorry,” she said quietly.

  “Thanks.” Bj
orn’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?

  Bjorn 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, Bjorn, you’ll need your strength,” she said anxiously, lulling the baby against her shoulder.

  They tried not to stare as Bjorn 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.”

  Bjorn 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. Bjorn 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.’”

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

  “She wasn’t from around 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.