Troll Mill

by Katherine Langrish

  Grim Grimsson advanced upon the sheep, thwacking his club into the palm of his hand. Trapped against the slope, the frightened ewes and their lambs bunched together. They milled restlessly, baaing in panic, and then scattered, dashing for freedom. Some sprang up the hillside. One galloped straight past Grim’s legs, her lamb following close. Grim lunged. Sudden as a spider, he sank a massive hairy hand into the tangled wool of her back. He hoisted her up, struggling and kicking. His arm rose and fell.

  Gudrun heard the dull knock of his club, and so did Alf. His rough hackles bristled up. Growling, he launched himself forward in a gallant attempt to save the sheep.

  “Alf! Heel!” Gudrun rapped out, afraid for the dogs. She whistled for Loki, who came pounding toward her. But she couldn’t bear to creep timidly away. It was senseless, she knew, but she ran forward a few paces, shouting, “Grim Grimsson! Leave our sheep alone, you thieving rascal!”

  The big man turned, hitching the dead sheep under his arm, and Gudrun saw the curling tusks winking from his mouth like white knives. She stood still, dry with fear. She’d forgotten. This was no longer merely their bad-tempered neighbor from the mill. This was a troll-creature from under the fell!

  For a second or two, Grim stared at her, and she stared back. She could never outrun him. The twilight thickened. Suddenly Grim threw back his head, exposing a throat as pale as the underbelly of a slug, and howled like a wolf. It seemed the wild sound must reach to the lonely top of Troll Fell. The dogs growled and whimpered.

  Grim waited till the echoes died. Then, with the sheep tucked under his arm, he strode up the side of the valley. The orphaned lamb ran uncertainly after him, crying.

  As if released from a spell, Gudrun started forward. She had some confused idea of rescuing the lamb, but then noticed that both the dogs had wheeled and were looking alertly toward the farmhouse. She heard a distant cry.

  “Ma … Ma!”

  “The twins!” She plunged back down the slope, slithering and sliding. It was almost dark now, and she couldn’t see where her feet were going: She tripped over tufts of grass, skidded on stones. Loki shot ahead; Alf panted at her heels. It was like a nightmare: The valley swung from side to side as she ran; the stars jolted in the sky. The farmhouse loomed below her, silent and still.

  “Twins!” Gudrun shrieked. “Sigrid! Sigurd!”

  No answer. The farmyard was deserted. No one called from the house, no one ran out into the twilight to meet her. The farmhouse door stood half open. Even before she shoved it wide and stumbled into the warm, homely gloom, Gudrun knew that the twins were gone.

  Every muscle melted with terror. She staggered over to the cradle and looked in. It was empty. They had all gone, all been taken! The floor pressed up under her feet and whirled round. She sank down beside the cradle, sick and dizzy.

  Time passed—long or short, she couldn’t tell. She raised a hand to her throat, which was sore from screaming. The dogs were poking cold noses into her face. Then Loki sprang away. His tail slapped against her. He was barking again—excited, welcoming barks. The door scraped. Feet clattered on the floor. There were voices:

  “Ma!”

  “Gudrun!”

  “Ma, are you all right?”

  Hands grasped her, dragged her to her feet. “Lean on me, Gudrun.” A man’s voice—no, it was Peer’s, deep with concern. He supported her to a bench. She sat down with a thump, and their faces swam into focus: Peer and Hilde, staring at her with frightened eyes. She tried to see past them. “Where’s—where’s—” Her breath wouldn’t come right, her teeth chattered. This is ridiculous, she thought, and made an effort. “Where’s Sigurd and Sigrid? Where are the babies?” she asked in a shuddering wail.

  “Ma.” Hilde knelt on the floor and took her mother’s cold hands. “Listen to me now. This is important. The Grimsson brothers are back. Baldur Grimsson is down at the mill. Have you seen Grim? Did he take the children?”

  Gudrun managed to shake her head. “No. S-seen him, yes. But he took—a sheep. H-heard the twins shouting. When I came back, they were gone!”

  “Not the Grimssons.” Hilde was pale. “In that case, Granny Green-teeth?”

  “But could she take all four of them?” Peer asked in a low voice.

  “I don’t know, maybe the twins chased after her. If only we’d been here, if only we knew what happened!” She buried her face in her hands for a second. “Peer, what should we do?”

  Hilde needs me! I’ve got to be strong. I’ve got to think of something. Peer’s blood ran warmer and quicker. The haze of shock, from leaving the trolls and Uncle Baldur in control of the mill, cleared a little. He said slowly, “Perhaps the Nis saw what happened.”

  “The Nis!”

  “If it really is in the cowshed …”

  “Oh, quick!” Hilde jumped up. “Go on, Peer, it only speaks to you. Go! Find it!”

  She pushed him out of the door. Peer dashed across the yard, vaguely noticing that the moon was rising. The cowshed, with its thick walls and turf roof, was very dark inside. At first he could see nothing.

  “Nis!” he called, quietly but urgently. “Nis, are you here?”

  Silence, but Peer felt it was a listening silence. “We need you,” he went on. “The twins have gone, and both the babies. It’s desperate, Nis. Gudrun’s beside herself. Did you see what happened?”

  After a second, a little voice quavered from a far corner. “Does they think it was me?”

  “No, Nis, no one thinks that. Please help us!”

  There was a rustle of straw and a scuffling noise. A small dark figure could now be dimly seen, crouching on one of the stalls. It drew an unsteady breath. “This is all my fault,” it said brokenly.

  “I’m sure it isn’t.” Peer tried to curb his impatience. “Please, Nis, just tell me if you saw anything or not.”

  But the Nis was off. “Aieeee!” it wailed. “What is a Nis for? To protect the house! Now the children is lost! Gone, and it is all my fault. Here I was, Peer Ulfsson, curled up in my cold, dark corner, because the mistress doesn’t want me anymore. I hears screaming, Peer Ulfsson, and I looks out, and there is the thieves, running, running. And I thinks, Good, the seal-baby has gone! But then I looks again, and I sees little Eirik—they has taken little Eirik as well, and it is all my fault!”

  Peer tried to interrupt, but the Nis babbled on. “And the twins, I sees the twins chasing after, and I tries to follow, Peer Ulfsson! I tries, but I loses them in the woods—the woods is so dark. And then the mistress comes home, and she is screaming too. How can I face her? She will be so angry with the poor Nis! I will—have to—go—awa-a-ay!”

  It buried its head in its arms and howled.

  “Nis,” said Peer loudly. “For goodness’ sake tell me—who ran away with the babies?”

  The Nis looked up, gulping. “You doesn’t know?” it asked in amazement. “Lubbers! It was the lubbers, of course!”

  “The lubbers!” Peer blinked. “Nis, you never told Granny Green-teeth anything about Ran, did you?”

  The Nis shook its head. “Lubbers did that,” it sniffled. “The Nis never talks to Granny Green-teeth, though nobody believes me.”

  “Then what were you doing at the millpond the night Granny Green-teeth came to the farm?”

  “I tries to tell the mistress,” hiccuped the Nis, “not to feed the seal-baby. And she gets angry, and she throws me out. And then, then I sees the lubbers sneaking around the farm, peeking and prowling. And I follows them to see what they are up to—to protect the house, like I should. And nobody believes me. They all think poor Nithing is wicked. And I thinks, why shouldn’t Granny Green-teeth have the seal-baby? They are both wet, both watery. Why not?”

  “So now the lubbers have taken Eirik, too,” said Peer angrily. “Really, Nis, you should have told us all this before!”

  The Nis bowed its head, and its thin shoulders heaved. Peer racked his brains.

  The lubbers stole the babies for Granny Green-teeth. That means—th
at means we’ve got to get down to the mill again, as fast as we can!

  He looked at the drooping Nis. It had learned a terrible lesson. There was no point in scolding it, and no time to lose.

  “Nis,” he said solemnly, “you’re far cleverer than the lubbers, aren’t you?”

  The Nis’s blubbering sobs faltered.

  “We need you more than ever, now,” Peer went on. “We have to find those lubbers and save the babies.”

  The Nis looked up with drenched eyes. “Both babies?”

  “Both of them!” said Peer sternly.

  The Nis sat up and mopped its wet cheeks with the end of its beard. Then it waved a finger importantly in the air. “What does the lubbers want most, Peer Ulfsson?”

  “What? Oh! Blankets?”

  “Yes! We needs blankets to bargain with,” squeaked the Nis.

  “We’ll get them. Come on, back to the house with you. Hurry! The lubbers could be throwing Eirik and Ran into the millpond right now!”

  “They won’t do that, Peer Ulfsson,” the Nis chirped.

  “Why not?”

  “For two things. Lubbers is stupid,” it explained, “but not so stupid as to trust Granny Green-teeth. A fine, green blanket, she promises. They’ll want to see it, first.”

  “Yes, I wondered where she’d get a blanket from,” said Peer grimly. “I expect she meant the pondweed, did she? What’s the other reason?”

  “Lubbers is cowards,” pointed out the Nis. “Afraid of the trolls, afraid of the Grimssons. Is the mill working tonight? Then they’ll keep away, slink about in the woods till the trolls go home.”

  “Good thinking. Come on, we’ll go and tell the others.” Peer strode out into the moonlight and collided with Gudrun and Hilde, who were standing huddled together against the cowshed door, listening. The Nis scampered across the yard and shot happily into the warm house.

  “No need to explain,” said Hilde. “We heard it all.”

  “I’ll get the blankets now,” said Gudrun in a trembling voice. “Oh, if the Nis can find the children for us, I’ll never know how to thank it. What shall I say to Ralf? How can I face Bjorn if we lose his little girl?”

  “We’ll find them,” Peer promised. Hilde gave him a grateful smile, and he felt a tingle of pride—and then of fear. For after all, what were their chances?

  Here was the Nis again, skipping about near the door and beckoning impatiently. “Let’s go!” he said. “We’d better head straight for the millpond, but be careful!”

  “Careful?” Hilde laughed bitterly. “Trolls, lubbers, the Grimsson brothers, Granny Green-teeth—and you want us to be careful? Well, we can try!”

  The lubbers had gone crashing downhill through the wood, but once they were sure that the twins were no longer following, they swung north, crossing the stream a good way above the mill and striking up into the woods opposite Troll Fell. They had a lair up there, an old badger den under a bank, half buried in leaves.

  They careered up through the moonlit wood, Eirik still roaring, and pushed the babies into the drifted leaves. Ran lay quietly, her fingers curling and uncurling. The moon shone in her eyes.

  Bright tear tracks gleamed like snail trails down Eirik’s fat cheeks. His nose ran. But the change from movement to stillness took him by surprise. He stopped crying, though his breathing was still ragged, and kicked experimentally. The leaves rustled. It was a nice noise. He kicked again.

  “Peace at last,” said the second lubber, with immense relief. “Why couldn’t you have stopped him before? Mine was quiet enough.”

  “You try it!” snarled the first lubber.

  “You just ain’t got a way with babies,” said the second pityingly.

  “Yeah? If Granny Green-teeth don’t want him, I’ll soon show you my way with babies!” returned the other. “So listen. Has the mill stopped? I can’t hear it clacking, can you?”

  They cocked their heads, large black silhouettes against the moonrise. The night was silent, except for the sound of the stream running beneath them in the valley bottom.

  “The trolls have gone!” exclaimed the first lubber in satisfaction. “Now we can pop down and deliver madam’s order. A baby? Two babies! Take your pick.”

  “Wait a minute.” The second lubber placed a clammy hand on its companion’s shoulder. “I’ll carry the big one this time! You’d only set him off again.” On all fours it scuffled through the leaves to where Eirik was lying, and hung its big head over him.

  Eirik had calmed down. His shock and anger at being woken and taken out of his warm cradle had worn off, and he was becoming interested in his new surroundings. Ran was nearby, and that felt right. There was a bright, shining light in the sky. The leaves were crinkly and brittle, and they smelled nice. He scrunched handfuls of them, and nobody told him not to.

  Suddenly a face was looking down at him—a new face, a funny one. It had tiny little eyes, a wide, slitty mouth, and a big ear like a cabbage leaf that blew out to one side. Eirik was used to funny faces. Sigurd made them to make him laugh.

  “Man!” he said clearly, trying to snatch the lubber’s bulbous nose.

  The second lubber froze. “Did you hear that?”

  “Man!” gurgled Eirik.

  “He called me a man.” The lubber drew back and stared at its companion. “Me, a man! Fancy! Fancy that!”

  “Well, you’re not a man,” the first lubber remarked sourly. “You’re a lubber, same as me.”

  The second lubber flexed its arms and puffed out a ribby chest. “Rather a fine figure, I do believe.” It preened itself, then leaned back over Eirik and prodded him. “Say that again!”

  “Man,” Eirik obliged.

  The lubber gazed at him, and a dark, mottled flush spread slowly over its face. It whirled, crouching in the leaves, and faced its friend.

  “I wants this one!” it panted hoarsely. “We’ll keep him. Old Granny’ll never know. She asked for a baby, and a baby she’ll get.”

  The other lubber licked its lips. “Good enough.” It grinned. “We’ll keep the one with the most eating on it, eh?”

  “No, you fool!” the second lubber spat. “We’ll just … keep him! He’ll—he’ll be ours, see? He’ll grow up, and he can teach us things.”

  “What things?” the other asked blankly.

  “—teach us to be … human,” mumbled the second lubber. “I’ve always wanted to be human. See, then we’d have nice beds and houses—and all that.”

  There was a silence.

  “I never heard such drivel!” said the first lubber with conviction. “Come on, pick him up. Let’s go.”

  “I won’t!” The second lubber began to snivel. “Nobody ever—ever—called me a man before….”

  The first lubber grabbed at Eirik. The second one lunged. Next they were rolling downhill in a tangled ball, spitting and struggling and trying to strangle each other. They ended up in a bramble bush, the first lubber sitting astride the second lubber’s chest and banging its head rhythmically back into the soil.

  “Listen to me, stupid!” it snarled. “Either we take both the babies to Granny Green-teeth, or we take one and eat the other. I don’t care. But we are not—keeping—either of them. Get it? DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG THEY TAKE TO GROW UP?”

  “No,” gasped the second lubber.

  “YEARS! THAT’S HOW LONG! YEARS!”

  There was another pause.

  “I didn’t know that,” the second lubber said sulkily at last. It dabbed an oozing nose. “All right, lemme go. We’ll do it your way.”

  “Hark!” the first lubber raised its hand. From far off down the valley came the spindly cry of a cock. Both lubbers raised their heads. The moon was pale. A flush of dawn was in the sky.

  “Cock crow!” spat the first lubber. “See what you’ve done? We’ve left it too late. Now we’ll have to wait till it’s dark again.”

  Down by the millpond, the three desperate watchers saw the sky lightening. The birds began to sing; the midges came out to
dance over the sullen green water. The empty mill crouched on the bank behind them, its dark windows shuttered in sleep. Gradually the sun toiled up over the edge of Troll Fell, and golden shafts struck down between the trees.

  It was going to be a long, hot day.

  And up in the old badger den, cuddled together among the leaves, Eirik and Ran had fallen fast asleep.

  CHAPTER 18

  THE TROLL BABY AT THE FARM

  THE SHADOWS WERE lengthening again by the time that Sigurd struggled up out of the cleft in the rocks on the side of Troll Fell, pale and disheveled, scratched and bleeding. A low crimson sun shone straight into his eyes, as if to welcome him home. Gratefully he sniffed the warm air, scented with turf and sheep and wildflowers. Then he turned and called down into the darkness.

  “All right, Sigrid. Pass up the baby!”

  There were scuffles and scrapes and grunts from the bottom of the narrow chasm. “Mind my head,” complained a shrill voice. “Ouch! Just look out. You nearly took my nose off on that rock.”

  Sigurd shuddered. He heard his sister answering, tired and tearful, “I’m sorry. I’m doing my best. Can you reach it, Sigurd? Here it comes!”

  With a boost from below, the extraordinary face of the troll baby popped up into the sunlight. It screwed its eyes shut, mewing. Sigurd caught and hoisted it out, while Sigrid scrambled after. She had a purple bruise on her forehead and her face was filthy. She rolled over onto her back and lay exhausted on the rocks.

  Sigurd prodded her. “We can’t stop, sis. The trolls will be after us as soon as it’s dark, and look, the sun’s sinking. We’ve been underground for ages—all night and most of the day.”

  “It feels even longer,” Sigrid groaned. “I’m so hungry!”

  On shaking legs they descended the scar and hurried along the track, delighting in the warm sun on their backs. Sigurd carried the troll baby over his shoulder. It kept up a constant chitter-chatter, horrid to hear.

  “I spy with my little eye, something nasty coming after us. A monster … It’s red and glaring and all on fire. Run, run!”