At last she decided that this she could not do, and there was nothing for it but to tell him the truth. So on the night before the wedding she asked the prince if he would walk a way with her.
“Of course, my love,” he said.
Then Nettie led him to the place where he had first seen her. There, in the moonlight, she said, “My prince, I must show you the truth.”
With a single word she dropped the glamour that Hekthema had put upon her.
When Gustav Fredrik saw her true face, and her great size, and realized she was a troll, he turned and fled in horror.
With breaking heart, Nettie watched him go. In that moment of truth she had lost not only her prince but also her world. For after what she had done, she could no more return to the world under the mountain. Her mother’s fury would be fiery, and her father’s rage like that of a volcano. Who ever heard of a troll falling in love with a prince?
So it was that Nettie Thump wandered off the mountain, and out of her own story, and has never been heard of since.
Now Rippitty Rappitty Rover,
It’s time this story’s over!
Wednesday, Oct. 19
I have kept my twin secrets for nearly one hundred and fifty years. Now along comes this boy who in a matter of days pulls both of them out of me.
Part of me is relieved. It feels good not to be hiding anymore!
Well, it would feel good, except another part of me is in a total state of fret. What if Cody tells his father about me?
No, I don’t think he would do that.
Yet I cannot help but worry.
Pah. I’m being foolish! Not only would Cody never tell his father, if he did, his father would never believe him.
Even so, being revealed to the boy this way has shaken me badly.
Cody’s Life Log
10/19
Reading Nettie’s story made me really angry. It’s bad enough when people get bullied by others their own age. Nettie was bullied by her own parents. How rotten is that?!
It’s weird to think of someone as big as Nettie getting bullied, but I guess it happens. We had a guest speaker at school last year to talk about bullies. She quoted a poem that went:
Big fleas have little fleas
Upon their backs to bite ‘em;
And little fleas have smaller fleas,
And so on, ad infinitum
(Ad infinitum is Latin for “forever.”)
Then she said that the same thing was true for bullies:
Big bullies have bigger ones
To push ’em all about,
And bigger ones have bigger still,
Till time and time run out.
Not that Nettie was ever a bully.
But, dang, her mother sure was.
Makes me angry.
Letter from Great-Granny Aino, received Wednesday, 10/19
October 17
Dear Cody,
This is difficult to write. But after hearing from your Grampa Raimo about what is happening, I decided it was important to tell you the truth about your heritage.
Let me say up front that I know you were puzzled and hurt by the way I reacted when you wanted to ask about our family history.
It is a story more unusual than you might expect.
Your Grampa Raimo knows the truth. Its impact on him is the main reason he returned to Finland so many years ago.
Your father does not, largely because the secret story of our family has not affected him the same way. He was only mildly curious about our past, and much more interested in the here and now of his own life.
No blame in that. It is the way of some children. And though your Grampa Raimo and I both grieve the separation between him and your father, we also agree that it is probably just as well.
You, however, are different, which I have suspected from the time you were little. Different not only in your curiosity, but also in the way the traits that are part of your blood heritage were showing up. I saw it in your affinity for animals, and in your tendency to “sky,” as you like to put it.
In those ways, you are much more like your grandfather than your father.
Enclosed with this letter is a translation of some pages from your great-grandfather’s journal, written many decades ago.
I’m sorry you never had a chance to know him. He was an amazing man. He was only in his late teens when he wrote these pages…a farm boy with little sense of the world, and no sense at all of what he was about to fall into.
The girl in the story is me, of course…me long, long ago.
Cody, I am truly sorry for any distress I have caused you. I love you with all my heart, and I hope that when you read these pages you will understand why I was so reluctant to talk about my past.
What you will find here will likely leave you with many questions.
I have given your Grampa Raimo permission to answer anything you might ask.
With all my love,
Great-Granny Aino
From the Journal of Harald Takala
April 12
* * *
While passing through the woods today as I was walking from our farm to the village, I met the most beautiful girl I have ever seen. She was sitting on a fallen tree beside the path, singing a wordless tune while she combed her hair. Though the melody was one I did not know, it seemed to go straight to my heart.
I stopped to listen. In truth, I don’t think I could have walked on even had I wanted to. After a time she looked up at me, and it was all I could do to keep breathing, for she was like a dream come alive, with golden hair and eyes the color of the sky on a clear sunny day.
“Can I help you?” she asked, and I heard a hint of laughter in her voice.
I nearly blurted out, “Yes, just let me stand here and look at you.” Fortunately, I managed to choke those words back, and said instead, “Can you tell me the words that go to your song?”
“There are no words,” says she, standing. “And you were not meant to hear it anyway. I had best go before I get in trouble.”
And with that she began to back away.
“Wait!” I cried. “I want to talk to you!”
She smiled and said, “Not today. No, not today. But maybe soon. Do you pass this way often?”
“But once a week,” I replied sadly, wishing that I could say, “Every day!” Alas, my duties at the farm do not allow for that.
“Well, I will be here next week, if I can,” she said, still backing away.
“Do you promise?” I asked.
“If I can,” she repeated with a laugh.
Then she ducked behind a tree. I waited to see her walk on, but there was no sign of her. After several moments I walked to the tree, thinking she was hiding there.
She was nowhere to be seen!
April 14
* * *
I cannot stop thinking about the girl in the forest.
April 15
* * *
I hope so much that she will be there when next I go to the village.
April 19
* * *
I saw her again today! And talked to her!
The odd thing is, I can’t really remember anything she said. I only know that I was happy being with her.
I cannot wait until next week, when I hope to see her again.
April 20
* * *
The days drag by. Will Saturday never get here?
April 21
* * *
Not a good day. Mother has noticed how I am moping and mooning about, and she finally got the story out of me.
“Beware of strange maidens you meet in the wood,” she said sternly. “Are you sure she’s even human?”
That put a bit of a scare into me. The girl’s beauty is so great it is almost unearthly, and I certainly feel as if I have been enchanted. But I am well entrapped, and the longing to see her grows greater by the day.
April 22
* * *
Today Mother summoned Grandmother to come
talk to me. Grandmother is the oldest and wisest woman I know, and I am certain she is speaking good sense when she says I should avoid the girl.
Why will my heart not listen?
Seeing that I was deaf to her advice, she took a puff on her pipe, then let out the smoke and said, “Boy, do but this one thing. Ask this girl of yours to spin three times about. If she will not, promise me you will never see her again. If she agrees, then see what you will see.”
It seemed the strangest request, but I can find no harm in it. Out of respect for my grandmother, whom I honor above all others in the world, I will do this thing.
April 26
* * *
My heart is seized with sorrow, and a touch of anger. As I was heading to town today, my girl (in my heart, she is my girl still, though I do not know if I will ever see her again) was waiting in the usual spot, combing her golden hair and singing a song that could melt a heart of stone.
“May I sit beside you?” I asked.
She smiled and nodded, and I took my place beside her on the fallen tree. At once I was nearly drunk on the scent of her, which was as if she had bathed in blossoms of lily of the valley.
As she continued to comb her golden hair I said, “May I know your name?”
“I am called Aino,” she replied.
Somehow it felt like a great gift.
Gathering my courage, I said, “I have another request.”
“And what would that be?” she asked with a smile.
“Would you stand and turn three times about for me?”
Aino leaped to her feet and backed away. “Why do you ask that?” she shrieked. “Why do you ask that?”
Then she turned and fled.
I felt a total brute.
As she turned, I noticed an odd hollow in her back, where her blouse caved in…as if there was nothing there. It made me shudder.
What does this mean?
Will I ever see her again?
Do I even want to see her again?
Yes, of course! Though it would mean breaking my promise to my grandmother, I cannot get the girl out of my mind.
Still, a strange fear troubles my heart.
What does Grandmother suspect that I do not?
Why did she tell me to ask this of the girl?
April 29
* * *
I have not slept for the last three nights. All I do is toss and turn, and reach out for someone who is not there.
Will she be at the fallen tree on Saturday?
Or have I lost her forever?
May 3
* * *
Yesterday was a day of horror and delight.
I set off for the village filled with a mixture of hope and dread.
Even before I could see the fallen tree, I heard her singing! At the first note, my heart leapt with joy.
As I rounded the bend that led to our meeting place, I saw that she was standing, rather than sitting on the tree as was her normal way.
“You are here!” I cried, unable to hide my joy.
“Where else would I be?” she answered. Then, her face serious, she said, “Do you still want me to turn three times about?”
I closed my eyes and thought. I was terrified that if I said yes, she would once again flee. But I also knew that my grandmother would not have told me to ask this if it had not been important.
Finally, I said, “Only if you are willing.”
She looked at me for a moment, then nodded. Her voice solemn as a preacher’s, she said, “That is the best answer. And for you, I am willing.”
In those words I heard so much trust and love that it pierced my heart as much as ever her beauty had.
As I watched, she turned about once, twice, three times.
On the third turn, I cried out in shock when I saw the tip of a tail drop beneath the hem of her dress. She must have had it bound up, but it had come loose in the turning. In that moment I realized what Grandmother had suspected all along.
The girl was huldra!
Horrified, I turned to flee.
“Wait!” she cried.
I could not help myself. I turned back to her. My heart nearly stopped when she held out her arms, welcoming me to her embrace.
“I cannot,” I said. “I cannot go with you to your underground world.”
“Did I ask that?” she replied gently.
“Then what do you want?” I said, confused.
“If you will have me, I will come with you to your Christian church to be married. But we will need a faithful bridesmaid, for when we say our vows my tail will fall off, and it must be quickly hidden. The hollow in my back, which is like that in a dead tree, will disappear. In that moment, I will become fully human. But you must know, my love, that my beauty will not last. It will fade over the years, far more rapidly than for most women, until I am like unto a crone. But in exchange for that loss of beauty, you will have the most faithful and loving wife that ever man could ask for.
“I know, dear man, that I am honey to your eyes, music to your ears, silk to your fingertips. But that will go, it will go. In the end, I will be only an old and ugly woman who loves you with all her heart and cares for you with all her strength. Can you live with that? Can you want that?”
I stood frozen for a very long time, my heart at war with itself.
Then a kind of peace came over me as I realized what my heart most truly desired, which was not the beauty of her face, but the warmth of her love, the love that had given her the courage to reveal her truth to me.
I reached out my arms. She ran to them.
For the first time, I held her.
For the first time, I kissed her.
I felt the hollow in her back as I put my arms around her, but I did not let it bother me.
Next week, we will be wed.
I am alight with joy. But it is a joy tempered with fear, for we know the troll world will not easily let her go.
Fortunately, we have a plan.
A desperate one, it is true, but I have hope it will work.
My bride-to-be is not only beautiful, she is incredibly brave, and if she can manage to escape with her family’s magic cauldron, all might yet be well.
Mother does not approve of the plan and fears it will fail.
Grandmother is encouraging.
As for me, I can hardly stay in my skin.
May 12
* * *
It worked! We are in America!
And so our new life begins, far from the world of the trolls.
I shall miss Finland.
Even so, I consider myself the luckiest man in the world.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: 10/19
Subject: NEED HELP!
Dear Grampa,
I need someone to talk to, and it looks like you’re it.
I did as you suggested and contacted Granny Aino. So unless she is crazy—and I don’t think she is—I now know the truth. If I understand this correctly, you are half huldra, Dad is a quarter huldra, and I am one-eighth huldra.
What the heck is “huldra”?
How come no one told me any of this before?
And what does it mean for me?
Now here’s something you don’t know! As near as I can figure out, the reason I can talk to cats is that last week I shook hands with a troll! I mean it. A genuine troll! I didn’t know she was a troll at the time, but I figured it out a couple of nights ago.
And here’s what might really surprise you. The troll I am talking about is Nettie Thump…the same Nettie Thump who is in that story in one of your books! She’s pretending to be a human, and a guy, and she works for Dad at Grand Central.
But I still don’t understand why shaking hands with Nettie made it possible for me to talk to cats.
Please, Grampa, can you explain any of this?
Love,
Cody
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: 10/19
Subject: Re: NEED HELP!
Dear Cody,
There’s a lot here to respond to, and you certainly do deserve a response. Not to mention a heartfelt apology, which I hereby offer.
Just so you’ll know, the reason your great-grandmother and I didn’t tell you about all this is that we never imagined it would affect you. You are, after all, only one-eighth huldra. And since your dad never displayed signs of the bloodline showing up, we figured it was fading with each generation.
I suppose I should have had a hint that your huldra genes might be dominant when your great-grandmother told me about your “skying,” since a gift for storytelling is one of the benefits of being of huldra descent. But even if I had wondered about that, I would never have guessed it would come to this!
Now on to your most important question. The hulder-folk are a subset of the troll world. If you’ve read the pages from my father’s journal that Granny Aino sent, you already know quite a bit about the hulder-maids. They are exceptionally beautiful, save that they have a cowlike tail and a hollow back. By instinct and training, they seek young humans to bring to their underground world. A youth who follows a hulder-maid this way will lead a prosperous life underground but lose his soul in the process. More rare is the hulder-maid like Granny Aino, who will, for love, come to the human world.
On the other matter, you did indeed surprise me. In fact, I am flabbergasted that you have met Nettie Thump! My best guess is that your handshake with her somehow brought your huldra heritage rushing to the surface. If you had never met Nettie, you might have gone your whole life (which, by the way, will likely be quite a long one) without showing any signs of your huldra background beyond your gift for storytelling and your way with animals.
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