by Margi Preus
Advance Praise for West of the Moon
“A masterfully spun tale of perilous joy for any true story lover’s greedy little heart. Savor.” —Rita Williams-Garcia, Newbery Honor–winning author of One Crazy Summer
“I love this book! West of the Moon is compelling, enchanting, and honest, an astounding blend of fiction and folklore that celebrates the important things in life—loyalty, devotion, courage, and the magic of stories. I think you will love it, too.” —Karen Cushman, Newbery Medal–winning author of The Midwife’s Apprentice
“A gorgeous reminder that we all live and die by the stories we tell—and by the stories we choose to be in.” —William Alexander, National Book Award–winning author of Goblin Secrets
“Margi Preus has produced a magical novel about a feisty young girl … Writing with great imagination and wit, she also shows how Astri creatively uses … Norwegian folk and fairy tales to ground herself and give herself hope.” —Jack Zipes, editor of The Golden Age of Folk and Fairy Tales: From the Brothers Grimm to Andrew Lang
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Preus, Margi.
West of the moon / Margi Preus.
pages cm
Summary: In nineteenth-century Norway, fourteen-year-old Astri, whose cruel aunt sold her to a mean goatherder, dreams of joining her father in America.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-4197-0896-1 (alk. paper)
[1. Human trafficking—Fiction. 2. Emigration and immigration—Fiction.
3. Norway—History—19th century—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.P92434We 2014
[Fic]—dc23
2013023250
Text copyright © 2014 Margi Preus
Interior illustrations © 2014 Lilli Carré
Book design by Sara Corbett
Image on this page courtesy of Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum, Decorah, Iowa. Images on this page and this page courtesy of Luther College Archives, Decorah, Iowa.
Published in 2014 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS.
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.
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CONTENTS
The Goat Farm
WHITE BEAR KING VALEMON
WORK
THE DROP OF TALLOW
STRAW INTO GOLD
WINTER
THE ASH LAD
TO THE SETER
TREASURE
THE RING OF KEYS
RED AS BLOOD, WHITE AS SNOW
Flight
THE GOLDEN WREATH
THE BIRCH TREE
THE MAGIC BALL OF YARN
THE BRIDGE
SEVEN-LEAGUE BOOTS
THE SEVEN-HEADED TROLL
THE SPOT OF TALLOW
A FEAST
WE COME TO A CHURCH
TRIFLES
The Columbus
THE WINDS
THE HALLING DANCE
THE PEST
THE POSTMASTER
THE BLACK BOOK
SORIA MORIA
ASTRI’S DREAM
GRACE
EAST OF THE SUN, WEST OF THE MOON
AUTHOR’S NOTE
GLOSSARY AND APPROXIMATE PRONUNCIATIONS
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Acknowledgments
White Bear King Valemon
he fire hisses, then snaps, and the dog looks up from his place on the hearth. His hackles rise; a low growl escapes him. Aunt looks up from her knitting. A hush falls on the room—that curious feeling of something-about-to-happen seizes us. As for my cousins, the eldest holds her needle in midair; the middle one falls quiet, taking her hands away from the loom and setting them in her lap. The twins are silent, for once.
And me? Somewhere deep within me, my heart pounds, distant as an echo, as if it is already far away, in another place and another time.
There’s a story I know about a white bear who came and took the youngest daughter away with him, promising the family everything they wanted and more, if the father would only let him take her. In the story, the family was sitting in their house when something passed by outside the window. Hands to their hearts, they all gasped. Pressed up against the window was the face of a bear—a white bear—his wet nose smearing the glass, his eyes searching the room. As he moved past, it was as if a splotch of sunlight momentarily penetrated the gloom.
That is that story. In my story I am sitting in the house with my aunt and uncle and cousins when something passes by outside the window. In the twilight it is just a dark shape. The room dims as the shadow goes by, and even after it passes, the darkness lingers, as if the sun has gone for good.
Aunt sets her knitting in her lap. She tries not to smile, holding her lips firm, but the smile makes its way to her forehead, and her eyebrows twitch with satisfaction.
My stomach works its way into a knot; my breath catches halfway down my throat.
A sharp knock on the door makes us all jump. Aunt gets up, smooths her skirt, and crosses to open it. My cousins glance at me, then away when I return their look. Greta isn’t here. She must be hiding, which is just as well.
The man has to stoop to come in the low doorway, then, when inside, unfolds himself, but something makes him seem still stooped. It’s a hump on his back. Even standing up straight it’s there, like a rump roast oddly perched on one shoulder. I can’t stop staring at it. He’s chesty like an old goat, and wiry everywhere else. He’s got the billy goat’s scraggly beard and mean little eyes like black buttons. As ill-mannered as a goat, too, for he doesn’t bother to take off his hat.
He squints around the room with his glittery eyes without saying “God dag” or “Takk for sist.” No, his jaw works away at his cud of tobacco, and when he finally opens his mouth to reveal his stained teeth, it’s to bleat out, “Which is the girl, then?”
His beady eyes gleam as they drift over pretty Helga’s curves, glint as they take in Katinka’s blonde braids, almost sparkle when they behold Flicka’s ruddy cheeks. But when Aunt points to me, he turns his squint on me and his eyes turn flat and dark. “Well, I hope she can work,” he grunts.
“Aye,” says Aunt. “She’s as hearty as a horse.”
“Her name?”
“Astri.”
“How old?”
“Thirteen. Fourteen by summer.”
“Not a handful, I hope,” he says. “I don’t care for trouble in a girl. Don’t care for it!” This he proclaims with a shake of his shaggy head and a stamp of his walking stick.
“She’ll be no trouble to you, Mr. Svaalberd,” Aunt lies. “Get your things, Astri.”
My limbs are so numb I can barely climb the ladder into the loft. There is Greta, sitting on the lump of my straw mattress, her face wet with tears.
“Little sister,” I say softly, and we embrace. I’d been able to keep from crying till now,
when I hear her trembling intake of breath. “Greta,” I whisper, “stop crying. Don’t make me cry. I can’t show Mr. Goat any weakness. You show a billy goat you’re afraid of him, and he’ll be lording it over you day and night.”
Greta stops sniffling and takes my hands. “Big sister,” she says, “you must be stronger—and meaner—than he is!”
“Aye, that’s so,” I say. “I shall be.” I dry her tears with my apron and swipe at my own, too.
Her tiny hands press something into mine, something heavy, wrapped with a child’s clumsiness in a piece of cloth. “You take this, Astri,” she says.
I unwrap it to see our mother’s silver brooch. “Keep it,” Greta whispers. “Aunt will take it away if she finds out about it, you know.”
I nod. Greta is already so wise for such a tiny thing. Too wise, maybe.
“Little sister,” I tell her, holding my voice steady, “Papa will send for us, and then we’ll go to America to join him.”
Greta drops her head and nods. She doesn’t want me to see she’s crying, but her shoulders are shaking.
“Astri!” Aunt yells up the stairs. “Don’t dawdle!”
I kiss the top of Greta’s head and place my hand on her face for just a moment—all I dare, or risk a broken heart.
Down the ladder I go to stand by the door, my bundle under my arm. I can’t help but notice there are now two shiny coins glinting on the table, along with a large, lumpy package. My cousins are eyeing the coins with the same intensity that the dog is sniffing the package. Now I know how much I’m worth: not as much as Jesus, who I’m told was sold for thirty pieces of silver. I am worth two silver coins and a haunch of goat.
Uncle comes and tucks a wisp of hair behind my ear, almost tenderly. “I’m sorry, Astri,” he says. “It can’t be helped.”
That’s all there is for a good-bye, and then out the door I go.
In the story, the young maid climbed upon the white bear’s back, and he said, “Are you afraid?”
No, she wasn’t.
“Have you ever sat softer or seen clearer?” the white bear asked.
“No, never!” said she.
Well. That is a story and this is my real life, and instead of White Bear King Valemon, I’ve got Old Mr. Goat Svaalberd. And instead of “Sit on my back,” he says “Carry my bag,” and on we troop through the darkening woods, the goatman in front and me behind, under the weight of his rucksack and my own small bundle of belongings. The only thing white is the snow—falling from the sky in flakes as big as mittens. Strange for it to be snowing already, while leaves are still on the trees. It heaps up on them, making the branches droop, and piles up on the goatman’s hump until it looks like a small snowy mountain growing out of his back.
“Aren’t you afraid of the trolls who come out at night?” he says.
“I’m not afraid,” I tell him, though it’s a lie. It’s twilight; the sun has slipped behind the mountains, and the shadows begin to dissolve into darkness. The time of day when honest, churchgoing people go home to bed.
He breaks off a rowan twig and gives it to me. “Tuck that into your dress,” says he, “for protection.”
I stumble along behind the goatman, trying to memorize every boulder and tree, every bend in the trail so I can find my way back. But evening is ending and the full night is coming on. We leave a dotted line of footprints behind us, which are rapidly filled in with snow. By morning there won’t be a trace of us left behind.
When the youngest daughter arrived at the bear’s house, it was a castle she found, with many rooms all lit up, rooms gleaming with gold and silver, a table already laid, everything as grand as grand could be. Anything she wanted, she just rang a little silver bell, and there it was.
Not so for me, for when I come to the lair of Mr. Goat, it is a hovel, and filthy inside. The walls are soot-covered, and the fireplace so full of cinders that every time the door opens or shuts, ashes and smoke puff out into the room, enough to make you choke. A hard lump—ash, I suppose—settles in my throat.
The goatman’s dog—Rolf, his name is—plunks himself down on the hearth and trains his yellow eyes on me.
Old Goatbeard lights a smoky fire in the fireplace and dumps a cold, greasy hunk of mutton on the table. Then he saws off the heel of a loaf of bread with a big, wide-bladed knife—the only thing shiny in the whole place, polished clean by the bread it slices.
When I scowl at the bread, he says, “Oh, a princess, are we? I suppose you’re accustomed to pork roast and applesauce every night.”
I say no, for of course we never had any such thing and most of the time no mutton, either, but at least our table was clean and what bread we had wasn’t gray with ash and covered with sooty fingerprints.
With the last bit of bread, I swallow the lump that’s been stuck in my throat. It slides down and lodges in my chest, where it stays, a smooth, cold stone pressed next to my heart.
Now it is time to sleep, and the goatman shows me my little bed in the corner.
Never trust a billy goat, Astri!
I know it, and so when Svaalberd goes outside to the privy, I sneak quietly to the table and take the heavy knife with the gleaming blade. Lacking the silken pillows with gold fringe that the girl got at King Valemon’s castle, I tuck my own little bundle under my head. And under the bundle I slide the knife.
Work
n the morning, I am awakened by a sharp kick to my backside.
“What a worthless lass you are!” the goatman growls. “Look! The day is half dead, and you lie abed like a princess. I’m not feeding you for nothing. Up now and to your tasks.”
And so my day begins: milking, hauling, washing, scrubbing, chasing goats, feeding goats, catching goats, avoiding ornery goats. These are the saddest bunch of neglected animals you’ve ever seen. It nearly makes me weep—their coats matted and tangled, their ribs jutting out, since all they’ve been eating is sticks. Seems that nobody bothered to cut them hay. So, along with all the other chores, I can see I’ll be gathering fodder all winter, too.
So the weeks pass. I’ve mucked out the goats’ shed and trimmed their hooves and pulled the burrs out of their coats. The leaves have dropped from the trees, and the early snow has melted, turning the farmyard into a muddy mess, most of which gets tracked into the house and has to be swept out again by me.
From time to time I get—I don’t know how to describe it—a strange feeling that makes me prickle all over. “I feel as if someone is watching me,” I tell the goatman.
“Someone is,” he says. “It’s me. I’ve got my eye on you, make no mistake!”
So the days go by.
“Daydreaming again, Astri?” Goatbeard interrupts my thoughts, scowling at me.
What am I thinking? Papa can’t come all the way back from America. For all I know, once you’re there, you can’t ever return.
“Where do Aunt and Uncle live?” I ask, without looking up from my milking.
“You know yourself. You were there,” says Svaalberd. He’s examining the gate of the does’ pen to try to figure how Snowflake keeps getting out. That nanny goat is always standing somewhere you don’t expect. She’ll have her face in the window, or you’ll see her wandering around off on a hill somewhere. So far, the goatman hasn’t puzzled it out, and I’m not about to tell him how she does it. Right now, he is putting so much concentration into his search that he is talking to me instead of telling me to hold my tongue or shut my trap or just applying the back of his hand to some portion of my head like he usually would.
“Yes, but where do they live from here?” I continue.
“A far piece. You know yourself, you walked it.”
“Yes, but what direction is it from here?”
He stops and looks at me, his eyes little slits. “Why do you want to know?”
“Maybe I would like to go home for a visit,” I say.
“Maybe you would doesn’t mean that maybe you will,” he says. “The work here doesn’t stop because you w
ant to go sip tea with the Queen.”
“I never said a single thing about sipping tea with the Queen. I just want to go home and see my sister. And I don’t see anything wrong with it.”
“I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it,” he says, launching himself toward me and taking my braid in his filthy fist. “What’s wrong with it is that I hired you to work for me and not trot home as if it were Christmas any day of the week.” He yanks on my braid so that my head tips back and I have to look at his face upside down, which, it turns out, is just as ugly as it is right-side up.
“If you hired me, then when do I get my pay?” I reply to his forehead.
“You’re lucky to get your bed and board, and I’ve heard just about enough out of you.” He drops the braid and ends the conversation with a slap to the back of my head. If I keep prodding him, I’ll end up with a black eye, so I bite my lip—hard. Sometimes I have to bite my lip so hard it bleeds.
Every day is like this: Work work work, bite my tongue or get slapped, and finally it is night again. Maybe, I think, if I were to run away, night would be the time to do it. But nighttime is different than the daytime; it’s almost like a different place, or maybe a different world altogether, a world said to be inhabited by huldrefolk—the hidden people.
Nonetheless, every night I go outside and wonder: Can these nighttime beings be any worse than the devil I live with now? And will this night be the night I am brave enough?
Like tonight. On my way out the door, I lift the latch slowly. I don’t glance at the goatman for fear he is watching me. The dog cocks an ear but doesn’t open his eyes.
When I pry open the door, of course it lets out a squawk.
“Where you going, girl?” the goatman growls.
“To use the privy,” I answer. “Where do you think?”
“That’s enough mouth from you,” he says.
I let the door bang shut behind me, and I crunch across the frosty ground—not all the way to the outhouse—and stop. The moon overhead has a big white ring around it, like a puddle of cream within a puddle of milk.
