West of the Moon

by Margi Preus

  “But in the meantime, my mean aunt sold me to an even meaner master,” I say.

  “Oh, that was terrible bad luck!” says the farmwife.

  “Not so terrible, for the mean old man had a troll treasure laid up in his house,” I tell her.

  “Treasure!” the boy exclaims. “Is that so, then?”

  “It’s so, indeed, for I laid hands on it and ran away and fetched my sister, and now we’re setting off for America to find our papa.”

  “That’s fine luck, then!” the boy chimes in.

  “Not such good luck, after all,” I say, “for the old man caught up with us and got the treasure back!”

  At this, the farmwife and her son exhale sighs of deepest disappointment, while I wonder where he’s gotten to, old Mr. Svaalberd.

  The farmwife takes away our plates. “You lasses sleep here,” she says, “as it is getting late. My hens are laying, so there’ll be fresh eggs for breakfast, so don’t be in too much of a hurry to rush off, neither. We won’t send you away with empty stomachs!”

  She then clamps eyes on Spinning Girl, who’s fallen asleep in a chair. “That one looks plumb worn out, poor thing,” she says, then whispers, “Is there something a wee bit wrong with her?”

  I shrug. “She doesn’t say much, so it’s hard to know if anything is wrong with her or not,” I say. “When it comes to spinning, there’s not her like to be found.”

  “Is that so?” the woman says, casting a more respectful eye on the girl. “Well, they’re for bed, these two.” To me she says, “You, stay here.”

  While the farmwife makes beds of sheepskins on the floor, I glance out the window, wondering if Svaalberd is outside circling the farmhouse at this very moment.

  Once the girls are tucked in under their woolly blankets, the woman turns to me. “First of all,” she says, “I’m going to brush your hair, which sorely needs it. I don’t suppose you have a brush, for you seem to have nothing at all.”

  “Why, there you are wrong,” I proclaim, producing the hairbrush the dairymaid gave me.

  “You’re full of surprises, you are,” she says as she puts the brush to my scalp. Right away it gets hung up in the tangles. These she picks apart with her fingers, as if pulling dirt from wool. “So you’ve caught America fever like so many others!” she says, sighing. “Just like the three billy goats, folks are—the grass always looks tastier somewhere else!” She clucks her tongue and tugs and pulls at my hair until my scalp aches. “But what I wonder is, where are all the things you need for such a journey as that?” she says. “It seems you’re going off to America without anything, when most others bring their whole lot with them, plus food for twelve weeks of sailing: bread and whey cheese and dried meat and mutton and butter and sour milk and potatoes and all.”

  She ticks off a list of things we should take, and the list is so long that the brush begins to move smoothly through my tresses. I wonder when the coins will start falling from my hair, but they never do. There’s just an ache that travels from my scalp down to where I guess my heart is. Is this what it’s like to have a mother? I wonder. Did I wriggle and squirm long ago when Mama brushed my hair? I don’t remember. Now I am as still as a church mouse, feeling these brush strokes in my heart.

  “You could stay here with me, you girls,” the farmwife says softly. “It’s a mite lonely now, without my husband, and I’ve always wanted a daughter.” She sighs, and I wonder: What if we stayed here, the three of us, and this kind woman could be our mother? Spinning Girl would spin the wool of their sheep, and Greta would make everyone happy, as she always does, and I … Well, I don’t seem to be good at anything at all, unless it’s making trouble.

  Seven-League Boots

  he first thing I see when I open my eyes is Spinning Girl. She’s been up all night spinning straw into gold, by the looks of it. Beautiful yarn she’s made—as if shot through with golden threads! The farmwife is turning it over in her hands, admiring it.

  “’Tis fine, indeed!” the woman coos.

  “’Twould be hard to find its like,” I tell Spinning Girl, and she gives me a skein of it. Looking closer, I can see what those shining threads really are—not gold at all, but strands of hair. My hair!

  My hand goes to my head, and I feel the smooth softness of brushed hair. Then I remember that the farmwife brushed it the night before when she told me about all the things we needed for a trip to America. These things crowd my mind: food and cooking pots and bedding and money to pay for our passage and such as that. And how are we going to get all that, now that we haven’t got the treasure? Perhaps we should stay here with the farmwife and her son. One glance at Spinning Girl’s glowing face, and I can guess that she’d be happy here.

  But, oh! Have we come only this far to give up already? What about America? What about Papa?

  If we could get that treasure back, we’d be able to buy our passage and our food and all the things we need for the journey to America. But I can’t imagine that we have time to go looking all over the place for the goatman—maybe all the way back to the goat farm—before the ship sails! Especially, I think, glancing at Spinning Girl, considering how slowly we move. The only way to get the treasure back is with a pair of seven-league boots.

  As I puzzle over this, I become aware of the sounds of a farm at full daylight: a rooster crowing, the baaing of sheep, the whinny of horses. And that gives me an idea.

  “Well,” says the farmwife, “I’ve promised you eggs, haven’t I?” And off she trundles across the farmyard with a basket over her arm.

  As soon as she’s gone, here comes the lad. “Off to America, then?” says he.

  “Aye, that we are,” I tell him, glancing around the room for my shoes.

  “What about your cook pots and your food? You have to bring food for the voyage, you know. Bread and cheese and meat and herring—everything! It seems you haven’t got a thing.”

  “Why, as to that, I have it all thought out. All we really need right now is a pair of seven-league boots,” I tell him, snagging one of my shoes from under the table. “You haven’t a pair of those, have you?”

  He laughs and says no, he hasn’t.

  “That’s too bad,” I say, “because if I had a pair of seven-league boots, I could catch up with the old man and get the treasure back, I shouldn’t wonder. Then I’d have so much gold I wouldn’t know what to do with it all.”

  “Is that so?” the boy says. “You wouldn’t know what to do with it?”

  “I wouldn’t be able to carry it, even,” I say, hopping on one foot while sliding my shoe on the other. “But since I don’t have any of those boots, I don’t suppose there’s any way to catch up with him. Maybe if I had a horse. Maybe just. Oh, but I haven’t got a horse, have I? What a foolish thing to think about.”

  “We have horses!” cries the boy.

  “Have you?” I respond, though I can see them well enough out the window, flicking flies off their flanks with their long, glossy tails.

  “I’ll tell you what,” says the boy. He glances out the door as his mother disappears into the henhouse. “You can ride our Dapple to the man’s house, get the treasure, bring it back here, pick up the two girls, and off you go. Whatever portion of the treasure you don’t want to carry, you can leave with me for safekeeping.”

  “Hmm,” I say. “Well, it’s not exactly a pair of seven-league boots, is it? But it’s better than nothing. Still, what would your ma say about you lending out her horse like that?”

  “She won’t even notice,” says the lad. “’Tis I who tends to the horses. Just make sure you bring him back straightaway, you know, once you’ve got the treasure.”

  “That’s a fine offer, indeed,” I say, nabbing my other shoe from behind a chair, “but I don’t know … I’m terribly fearful of horses.”

  “I’m not!” Greta pipes up, as I knew she would.

  “Aye, that’s so,” I agree, “but you’re far too small to carry the treasure by yourself.”

  �
��You shall come with me, then!” she sings and claps her hands. “And that will be jolly!”

  I turn to look at the boy, but he’s already walking to the pasture gate to fetch the horse.

  In the meantime, I turn to Spinning Girl. “We’re off on an errand,” I tell her.

  She reaches for a length of yarn that is looped around her neck. At the end of the loop, I see now, dangles a key, shiny and pretty as a bit of jewelry. She takes it from her neck and hangs it around mine, where I feel its coolness against my skin.

  A key! I’ve never had a key to anything. Never had anything worth locking up, in fact. Except Mama’s brooch, of course.

  Well. Here comes the boy returning with the horse, all saddled and bridled and ready to go.

  Quickly, without letting myself think about it, I unpin Mama’s brooch from my dress and pin it on Spinning Girl’s. By the look on her face, I’ll wager she’s never been given anything like it. Or any gift at all, most like. Still, somehow, I feel that it’s I who have been given the greater gift.

  The Seven-Headed Troll

  horse is a far better thing to have than a pair of seven-league boots, any day,” I tell Greta. I am pleased with Dapple, who is healthy and not old either, and with the well-tooled saddle and the nice bridle with silver buckles. And with just me and Greta on his back, it’s a comfortable ride.

  Clip clop, go Dapple’s hooves over the bridge, along the rushing river, back into the gloomy gorge.

  “Oh, it’s lovely to ride a horse instead of walking, and now we can get the treasure, and then we shall be rich as kings!” Greta says. “But, sister, I have been thinking. Wouldn’t it be stealing, to take that treasure from Mr. Svaalberd?”

  “No, it wouldn’t, because old Svaalberd stole it from the trolls. That’s nearly the only way you can get troll gold these days, and it isn’t stealing to take something that’s stolen already, is it?”

  It has started to rain, and perhaps the ticking of the leaves or the tap tap tap of rain on the branches makes Dapple nervous, for he seems skittish, throwing his head back at the trembling of a leaf. He snorts, his breath a white cloud in the cool, damp air.

  “I think something is moving in the trees,” Greta whispers.

  “That’s just the bending of the boughs in the wind,” I tell her. “Or the fluttering of birds.”

  The key that hangs from my neck taps against my chest, and I lift it up and look at it. What is it for, this key? Not to any of the outbuildings. Not to Svaalberd’s precious chest. So small, it is. What, then?

  “Sister,” Greta says, after a while, “do you ever think that maybe Papa just hasn’t been able to earn enough money to send for us yet? Maybe we should go back and wait a bit longer.”

  “We can’t go back,” I tell her, “either to the goat farm or to Aunt and Uncle’s. So, then, where would we go?” I don’t tell her of the farmwife’s invitation.

  “Astri,” she says, “do you ever think Papa might be dead?”

  “No!” I tell her. “I would know if he were dead.”

  “How?” Greta asks. “How would you know?”

  I pull back on the reins, and Dapple stops. We’ve moved away from the rushing river and now follow a placid stream. Behind the murmur of the brook and the pattering of rain, I can hear the general hum of the world. I can feel it. And there is not an essential part of it missing, so Papa must be alive. But I don’t know how to explain this to Greta, so I urge Dapple on while I tell Greta a story.

  “One time, when I was little, younger even than you are now, Papa took me with him into the forest where he went to cut wood for charcoal. He set me in a little spot where the sun came down through the pine boughs and made a flickering patch of light.

  “Suddenly, a dark shadow passed over me. I tipped my head back, like this, and what was standing over me but the most horrifying, most terrible, ugliest old troll you ever did see!”

  “A troll!” Greta cries. “Nie!”

  “Aye, a troll. The likes of which you wouldn’t ever want to meet. And he picked me up, tucked me under his arm, and carried me off.”

  “Did you scream?”

  “I screamed so loud there are valleys where you can hear me screaming still.”

  “What happened then?”

  “He carried me off to his castle, where he made me sit all the day long and scratch his many heads.” As I say this, it seems to me that I can even remember the smell of him, sour as a dozen old billy goats.

  “How many heads did he have?”

  “Oh, six or seven, I’d say.”

  “What happened?”

  “Papa came to rescue me, of course.”

  “No!” Greta cries. “But how could he fight a troll?”

  “That’s just what I said! ‘You’d better go home,’ I said, ‘for there’s a troll here, and he will gobble you alive!’ But Papa, he said he would stay and fight.

  “‘If that’s to be the case,’ I said, ‘you had better use the troll’s sword that’s hanging over there on the wall.’ Papa went to lift it, but he couldn’t—it was far too heavy for any mortal to heft. So I told him that he’d better take a long pull from the troll’s flask, for that was what the troll did every time he went to use the sword.”

  Dapple’s ears twitch and turn. Are those footsteps I hear? It could just be the steady tick tick tick of rain on the leaves or the hammering of a woodpecker, some ways distant. Or maybe it’s the beating of my heart against the key Spinning Girl gave me.

  “What happened next, Astri?” Greta asks.

  “Oh, well,” I go on, “Papa took a long drink from the troll’s flask, and in the twinkling of an eye, he could brandish the sword like nothing. And what should happen then but up came the troll, puffing and blowing.

  “‘Hutetu,’ said the troll. ‘What a stink there is of Christian blood!’

  “‘Don’t you worry,’ Papa said, ‘you won’t be bothered by that smell for long!’ And with that, he hewed off all seven of the troll’s heads, and the troll fell dead.”

  As I say this, it’s as if I remember the dim halls of that castle, the torches glimmering and the smudgelike shadows on the walls, the look of that great, gleaming sword and the leather drinking flask, and the rancid, old-man smell of the troll and his many greasy heads.

  Dapple turns his head; his nostrils tremble. Perhaps he smells it, too, or maybe we are smelling last year’s moldy leaves, the scent of them rising with each stamp of his hooves.

  Greta clings to me, and all three of us fall silent as we ride through the tall trees, their trunks slick from the rain. It comes to me, steady and sure as the rain, that Svaalberd is here somewhere, in this forest, watching us.

  And then, there, lying in the middle of the path in front of us is a dirty-looking lump of something.

  I pull back on the reins, and Dapple comes to a stop.

  “It’s a sack!” Greta cries. “Your gunnysack, isn’t it? I’ll go see!” She begins to slide off the horse’s back, but I throw an arm behind me to stop her.

  “Wait,” I tell her.

  Dapple throws back his head, nickers, stamps at the ground.

  Where is Svaalberd? I wonder as I peer into the forest. All I see among the trees is an old stump weathered into a pale gray, a lump of dirty snow, a boulder. And no sign of the goatman.

  Dapple is quiet now, and the only sound is the rain on the leaves.

  I reach up and break two twigs off a rowan tree, one for me and one for Greta. “Put that sprig in your dress,” I tell her, and slip a twig into the bodice of my own. “For protection.”

  We dismount and, with me holding the reins in one hand and Greta’s hand in the other, creep slowly toward the sack.

  The Spot of Tallow

  t seems like an eternity, these steps to the gunnysack. My ears are pricked for any sound, any movement. But the sack is there—just lying there—and no sign of the goatman. I let go of Greta’s hand to reach for it and she whispers, “That stump!” My skin prickles.
/>   “That stump,” she says, pointing to the side of the path, “has eyes!”

  There, weathered as an old stump, craggy as stone, and sad as a lump of muddy snow, is the goatman. He stares up at us with a strange, twisted grin on his face, sitting propped up against a tree as if dead. But not dead, for his eyes move in their sockets, following us.

  “Something is wrong with him,” Greta whispers.

  Sound comes from his throat, but no words from his crooked, frozen mouth.

  Greta has let go of my arm and moves toward him.

  “Get back!” I cry. “Don’t touch him!”

  But already her hand rests on his forehead, which sets him quaking all over like a wet dog shaking himself dry.

  “Let’s get away from here!” I say.

  “We can’t leave him like this!” Greta kneels down next to him.

  “Little sister, move away,” I plead. “It might be that the devil got hold of him.”

  “He’s ill, is what,” she says. “And look at his hand!”

  The flesh around the wounded fingers is bluish gray, and the rest of his hand an angry red, puffed up to half again its normal size.

  “That’s a hideous sight,” I tell her, “and how you can keep looking at it, I don’t know.” I turn my head away. Still, out of the corner of my eye, I see him watching me.

  His eyes are the only part of his face that seem able to move, and he swivels them in my direction. They drift over my hair and face, then clasp on the key around my neck as if it might cure him.

  I tuck the key into the bodice of my dress and button my sweater over it.

  “Do you think we should take him to the village?” Greta says. “Maybe there would be someone who could help him.”

  “We’d have to get him on the horse, I suppose,” I say. Dapple’s nostrils widen; his eyes roll back, and he pulls against his reins as if he understands. “I doubt either one of them could withstand it.”

  “Maybe his fits will pass, and then we can decide what to do,” Greta says. “Or someone will come by.”

  So here we sit. Greta dips a torn corner of the tablecloth into the stream and dabs it at Svaalberd’s fevered face when he can tolerate it. I think about how the girl in the story sat by her bear-turned-prince’s bed, unable to wake him. Night after night she sat there, weeping, while he slept the sleep of the enchanted.