by Margi Preus
“You’re the one singing about them,” he says.
“Just because I sing a song about them doesn’t mean I believe in them,” I tell him.
“Well, if you don’t, you ought to,” he mumbles.
“The parson says we’re not to continue believing in trolls and such,” I say. “And furthermore, we’re not to be relying on spells and charms. It shows a disrespect for God, he says.” That part is hard to believe, for it seems to me that most folks in these parts believe so fervently in God that scarcely a charm can be spoken without saying the Lord’s Prayer or invoking the Holy Trinity. Why, a charm is really useless without it.
“If you want to sing, you should sing a hymn,” the goatman says, starting in: “‘The world is very evil, the times are waxing late. Be sober and keep vigil, the Judge is at the gate …’”
My jaw drops, because his singing voice hardly matches anything else about him. It is low and melodious, quite a pleasure to hear. “You should sing more often,” I say, when he’s finished his verse.
He smiles and comes toward me like he means to kiss me! You can be sure I scramble away as fast as ever I can, so I am out of breath when we stop at the edge of a river, rushing with melting ice. The jingle of the goats’ bells can barely be heard over the noise of it.
“Here we cross,” says Svaalberd.
“Where’s the bridge?” I ask.
“There isn’t one.”
“How are we supposed to get across?”
“Walk or swim.”
“I hope you’re jesting,” I say. The water is as cold as the snow and ice that it so recently was. Its swift current could pull you down as fast as any water sprite. “What about the goats?”
“The goats can swim.”
“Well, I can’t.”
“I’ll carry you across the river,” says he.
The thought of letting old Goatbeard carry me—in any way or for any reason whatsoever—turns my stomach.
“How is it we’re so far down in the valley?” I ask him. “It seems we’ve gone more down than up. Shouldn’t we be climbing up the mountain to get to the seter?”
“I thought we might as well go to the church first and get married. And then you can go on up to the seter.”
Marry! “I don’t remember saying I would marry you,” I protest.
“You have to marry someone,” he says.
If I could think of one of his curses, I’d lay it on him right now. Instead, I say, “Well, look. You cross the river first.”
“It’s shallow,” he says.
“I don’t believe it,” I insist.
“Well, it is.”
“It doesn’t look shallow.”
“Well, it is.”
“Prove it. You go across and let me watch.”
“Hold my jacket,” he says, handing me the jacket he’s been carrying over his arm.
I take it and glance quickly at the goats, who all have their heads down, munching grass. All except Daisy, who is busy biting the ears of the kids.
Svaalberd spits and makes the sign of the cross. “Trolls in the depths,” he says. “See! The sign of the cross. Keep away—I belong to God!”
The devil you do, I think, but I keep my mouth shut, and he wades into the water. The water is glacial blue foamed into almost white. Who knows what sorcery might lie beneath?
Rolf plunges in after him and commences to swim. The goats look up from their munching to eyeball Svaalberd, then turn their heads toward me. They don’t want to cross that river either and will wait for me before they do anything.
Svaalberd has to pick his way along the stones and boulders littering the river bottom, which he can’t see but can feel with his feet. That and the rushing current naturally make for slow going. But I can see the water never gets higher than his waist.
Midway, he stops, turns, and calls back to me. “See?” He stretches his arms to show—well, what? That they are still above water, I suppose.
“Go all the way across,” I call out. “It could still get deeper.”
He slowly plows his way across the river. His shirt gets wet, and I can see the muscles in his back ripple and flex. Except for the hump, which I have long since gotten used to, his back from here looks like a young man’s!
I squint. Does he look better because he is so far away, and there is a barrier between us? Or has some kind of bewitchery happened to him in the river?
I think of a story my uncle told of a man on this mountain slope who’d seen a hulder-maid from across a river. She was beautiful, and the man hadn’t noticed the tail poking out from under her skirt. He was fooled into marrying her, as it happens. Somehow, though, he’d gotten out of the marriage yet still ended up with a treasure of troll gold and some magic of his own.
Could the stories be true? I wonder.
A sudden vivid memory of those two coins on Uncle’s table rushes back to me—how had the goatman come by those? Why had I never wondered about this before? Why does he keep everything locked up tight when nary a soul passes by?
What if … I begin to wonder … What if the old goat has a treasure hidden somewhere on his property? A hoard of gold?
Svaalberd climbs up the far bank and stands to his full height, which from this distance looks reasonable. He doesn’t look so stooped.
Of this man who’d gotten a troll treasure, much was whispered. He’d had a wife long ago when he was young, so it was said. A human wife. She’d been a kloke kone—a wisewoman, a healer—who helped the neighbors with births and burns and knew all manner of cures. Still, for all that, she had been unable to save herself when she became ill, and so she died. The man, it was said, had removed himself from the company of people and had gone up in the mountains to farm some bit of rocky ground.
“Come on!” he shouts. “You can make it easily. My legs are numb with cold. I don’t want to wade back for you now …” He shouts on and on. I stop listening and let the rush of the water and the roar of excitement fill my ears.
I have become aware of something heavy in one of the goatman’s jacket pockets. My hand slips into the pocket and my fingers feel the keys—his big ring of keys. The ring goes into my hand, and I drop the jacket, then turn and bolt, running as fast as I can up and down the steep hillside, my heart pounding. The goats’ bells cling clang, and their hooves clatter as they follow behind me. Stones skitter under my feet and ping down the slope as I race and run, now slipping, now hopping, now skidding, now running, my thumping feet pounding out the words: treasure treasure treasure.
Treasure
ast the bright patches of snow, into the tall pines through the twisted birches, back into the pasture, and finally I run full bore into the farmyard and stop. How odd, how still, how quiet it is. A stream of sunlight makes its crooked way through the trees. It seems so gentle—empty, the whole place sweeter. Pleasant, even. But I have no time to think of that. I have to find the treasure.
Treasure! The word has pounded itself into my brain on the long run back to the farm. First, the storeroom, for which I now have the key.
The key in the lock, the latch unlatched, and I am inside, turning over crates, peeking inside barrels, kicking over old planks. Sausages, cheese, old potatoes, and my own little bundle of things—all these things get stuffed into a gunnysack.
Spinning Girl sits staring at me as I do this, and a part of me knows that I haven’t properly thought of what to do about her.
“Girl,” I say to her, “this is your chance to make your escape. What do you want to do?”
No answer.
Perhaps she has her own plan, I think, which doesn’t involve me.
A dog barks. From afar, but they’re coming, dog and master.
I dash into the yard, and from there into the house. Straightaway, my eyes alight upon Svaalberd’s locked chest.
“There are some fine things in that chest, I shouldn’t wonder,” I say, crossing quickly to it, fumbling with the ring of keys until I find the right one. The lock click
s; the lid opens. There is the Bible, and next to it a leather pouch. Clinkity jingle it goes when I pick it up. It takes but one peek to see what is inside: coins. Many coins.
To take them would be stealing.
But if it’s troll’s treasure? Is it a sin to steal what’s already stolen? Stolen thrice: once from humans by trolls, then from the trolls by the goatman. And finally—I stuff the bag of coins in the gunnysack—stolen from the goatman by me.
I touch the Bible, but I won’t take it. That would be a sin.
Still, I lift it up. There’s a sheaf of papers, and beneath that, more papers. I leaf through them, words on paper, keep looking. And then I see it—what the goatman must have been talking about. His book of charms and cures and spells: the Black Book.
I stare at its smudged black cover, but I don’t pick it up—oh, no! It might burn my fingers! I leave that book where it lies, replace the papers, place the Bible back on top, and slam the lid down. Moving past the table, I take the wide-bladed knife, slide it into the sack, and out I go, blinking, into the daylight.
But, oh! Svaalberd is right there, just coming around the side of the storehouse, turning to notice the door of it hanging open.
Quick! His back is turned, and I dash across the yard and duck into the goat shed. But how can I get out without him seeing me? I think of Snowflake, and how she escapes. And how Svaalberd never did discover how she does it. But I know. And the forest edge is right there, right outside that busted board.
The dog’s hoarse cry grows closer.
Keeping my eyes on the shed door, I back into the nanny’s stall. A soft sound makes me turn, and it’s all I can do to stifle a scream. There’s Spinning Girl, hunkered in the shadows.
Rolf’s toenails click against the hard-packed dirt in the shed.
I look at the girl, her gray eyes suddenly lit with fear, and push her toward the board that leads to freedom. Behind me, the dog woofs a cheery greeting at me.
“Go away, Rolf!” I growl.
But he snuffles around outside the stall door, panting and whining, and now yelping, and that’ll raise the master! My shushing is to no avail. A punch in the snout would just set him to howling.
I could take out the knife and silence the dog with a lunging stab, make the barking stop. Once the dog was still, I could cover it with straw. It would take Mr. Goat some time, looking all over. Time enough for me to slip out under the broken board. I should do it if I’m going to. I should do it now.
But I can’t. Instead, I pull the sausages out of the gunnysack and shove them under the door. The dog drags them away, disappearing into a corner.
But it’s too late, isn’t it? The goatman is already in the shed. His footsteps grow closer.
The Ring of Keys
scoot to the wall, pulling the girl with me. Gingerly, I raise the busted board and push her through. Not so easy, as she is round and the opening is square. But there, now she’s out, and it’s my turn. My head is out; I smell the spring air!
But, ah! A hand clamps around my leg. Out of the corner of my eye I see the girl waddling away into the forest while Svaalberd drags me, kicking and wiggling, out of the shed and into the house. I get plunked in a chair, and the sack is overturned and all the contents roll and clatter onto the kitchen table. The cheese and bits of broken flatbread and old potatoes, and of course the coins come out, clinkity clink, and the knife clunks out, and my own little bundle falls out and comes undone, and finally, even Mama’s brooch lands with a polite little clatter on the tabletop.
Mr. Goat looks up at me. The corner of one eye twitches, and the vein in his neck pulses. “I see what kind of plotting you’ve been up to when you were pretending to work.” He grunts and spits as he drags the unlocked chest over to the table. “Your people led me to believe that in spite of all, you were a good girl, a trustworthy girl, and here I find you stealing from the master and about to run away.” He tsk-tsks and runs his tongue along his snaggleteeth.
All the while, he’s pinching up the coins and popping them into the box. I follow his eyes as they dart to the brooch. They gleam, as if to say, “Now there’s a pretty bit of finery!”
When I see his hand inching toward it, his fingers reaching for it, my heart leaps into my mouth, and the knife leaps into my hand. My hand rises up over my head, and in one unflinching moment, the heavy blade comes down—down upon the goatman’s hands—and when the blade is raised, two of his fingers are gone.
Let me tell you, old Goatbeard is none too happy about it. He hops up and screams, staring wild-eyed at his hand, at the blood pumping out.
I hop up, too; the wooden box is opened, and everything he’s tossed into it seems to leap up and fling itself back into the gunnysack: every coin, every bit of food, every crumb on the table. Out of the expanding pool of blood, I pluck my mother’s brooch. The fingers I leave behind.
“Stand still, blood!” the man chants, speaking to his bloody stumps. “I bid you stop as surely as one is forbidden heaven’s door …”
I know where he gets all his spells and magic. If I had the book he’s got—though most likely it was his wife’s book to start, and it was she who taught him all these charms—if I had that book, I might well have all that magic myself. Although, by the look of it, his blood-stopping charm isn’t working. Still, he chants on, “… stand still, blood, not one drop more. In the name of three…”
Back to the chest I go and reach down under the Bible and the papers, saying to myself, “Now that I’ve done what I’ve done, it hardly matters what else I may do.” I pluck that Black Book with its stained cover and thumbed and dirty pages, pluck it out of the box and take it.
The goatman notices me as if for the first time. Now he points at me with his good hand. With burning eyes and trembling finger, he says, “At the cost of your soul! Take it at the cost of your soul!”
Then out the door I dash and make straight for the birches. Maybe my nose can follow the clean, soapy scent of the yellow-haired boy who’d traveled this way.
Svaalberd howls. “I conjure you, devils in heaven and on earth, to stop the person who has stolen from me.” His curses follow me as I run and run, headed west. “Do not allow this person tranquility or rest, neither sleeping nor waking …”
If I don’t hear the curse, maybe it can’t hurt me?
“… sitting nor lying, walking nor standing, riding nor driving…”
Down and down and down I run. Svaalberd’s voice follows me: “Thus I throw this curse on her, that she will never have rest on this earth …”
Eventually I will come to a road. Or if not a road, a trail. Or if not a trail, a cow path. Anything that will lead me somewhere—away.
“What are you doing?” the globeflowers seem to ask, nodding their yellow heads at me. “Where are you going?” the darting catchflies say. And the aspen leaves just tsk tsk tsk, turning in the wind.
Oh! Greta! I have to go get her, and I have to get there before the goatman does. For, once his fingers are bound and the pain subsides, old Svaalberd will head for Aunt and Uncle’s. Once there, he’ll demand restitution for all that he’s lost—his money, his fingers—and punishment for the crime committed.
“What’s gone is gone,” Aunt will say, meaning she already spent the money he gave her and has no more. “And besides, Astri is not here, and there’s no use crying over the loss of her.”
What will he say to that? He’ll say, “I want another girl, then.”
But Aunt won’t give up one of her own girls. She’ll suggest that he take the youngest—Greta.
The thought of it cuts into me. I might as well have swung that knife back on myself and started sawing a hole in my chest through which to pull out my own heart.
I will have to get there first, ahead of the goatman, and get Greta away.
But how? I don’t know where Aunt and Uncle live!
Why, oh, why didn’t I pay attention when Mr. Goat led me away that first night? I could have at least noticed if I was going up
mountains or down dales. Were there streams to cross? Forests to walk through? Now I don’t know where to go, and yet somehow I have to get there before the goatman does.
But what if … what if the goatman and I get there at the same time?
I turn and climb back up the mountainside. My legs burn. My lungs burn. My head spins. But I don’t stop until I reach the fringe of woods below the goat farm. There I stop, hands on knees, breathing hard.
The farm is quiet. Flies buzz in that peculiar way they do when they think they’re alone, with no one to pester. Rolf, stuffed with his recent meal, lies sprawled in the sun, fast asleep. This tranquil scene reminds me with a pang that I could have spent the summer at the seter. How lovely it would have been to spend every gloriously long day up high on the mountain, alone. I would have lolled about in the warm heather, weaving myself crowns of wildflowers. I would have been the princess of my domain, in my kingdom of goats. And none of this horror would have happened.
I am deep in reminiscence of what never was when old Goatbeard comes out of the house and limps toward the shed. Why a couple of missing fingers would make him limp, I do not know, but limp he does, gathering up the goats and urging them into the shed with a switch.
Then out of the shed he comes, muttering. He swings his head from side to side as if looking for something. Into the house and out again, tells the dog to stay, and finally sets off with his walking staff and flask.
I am just sneaking after him when I see her—Spinning Girl, standing among the trees on the far side of the farmyard, as if she has been waiting for me there all this time. In her hand, glinting in the sun, is Svaalberd’s ring of keys.
Red as Blood, White as Snow
t’s slow going with Spinning Girl. She doesn’t so much walk as waddle, tipping from one side to the other, and every step is a huff and a puff. So it isn’t long before we lose sight of the goatman. Finally, there’s nothing to be done but to stop.
We sit down on a sun-warmed stone and pluck at tufts of bog cotton.
