West of the Moon

by Katherine Langrish

  Arne turned on his heel and went off.

  “That was convincing,” Astrid murmured.

  “We should have told him,” said Hilde. “He could have kept an eye out for it. He might even have seen it.”

  “Go after him if you want,” said Peer. Arne’s expression had made him feel cross and guilty. “As far as I know, he’s never seen the Nis in his life. And what if he tells Harald?”

  Hilde raised a cold eyebrow. “Why should he? Why do you always think the worst of Arne?”

  “Children, don’t quarrel,” said Astrid wearily. They looked at each other, ashamed. Hilde dug the heels of her hands into her eyes, rubbing hard. “Oh, Nis, Nis, where are you?”

  No one answered her. Water Snake rocked over long swells, nodding into wave after wave with a fresh splatter of spray. The sun was slipping down into yellow haze. “I’m so tired of this ocean,” said Hilde, with a dreary little laugh. She looked at Peer with red-rimmed eyes. “We’ve looked everywhere. Let’s face it. It’s lost, isn’t it? The Nis is lost.”

  Chapter 50

  Landfall

  THEY SEARCHED TILL long after dark, hoping the Nis would come creeping out of some forgotten hidey-hole. Even after they’d given up, and were sitting with the crew over the evening meal, one or another would get up restlessly, and wander off to try again. Everywhere he looked, Peer missed seeing the Nis’s skinny little silhouette hopping in the shrouds or outlined against the sunset.

  At last he crawled into his sleeping sack, all hope gone. He thought of the storm, and the way the ship had leaped like a spurred horse. He imagined the Nis swept over the side like a scrap of cloth, perhaps crying out in a thin voice, then lost in the limitless waves. The poor little Nis. After being brought all this way, and after it tried so hard to be a sailor. A lump rose in his throat. “The Nis is gone, Loki,” he whispered. The ship was a hateful place, a trap, a coop.

  He lay staring up at the great swaying sail, listening to the creak as Halfdan twisted the steering oar, the whistle of wind in the shrouds, and the slap and tickle of water running along the sides. He knew all the sounds of the ship now. That loud snoring was Tjørvi. The irritating little cough followed by a sniff was Floki. But tonight there was a muttering undercurrent. Peer lay half-sleeping, hearing it running on: somebody talking, low and rapid and feverish, and then a great sobbing shout: “Keep him off! Keep him off! Keep him off!”

  Peer sat up fast, dislodging Loki who sprang up, barking. All around him, startled men struggled out of their sleeping sacks. “The skipper’s gone mad!” yelled Halfdan at the helm.

  The sky flashed. From unguessable heights, silent streamers unrolled across the heavens. Like the folds of some enormous garment they trailed overhead, then twisted into ropes and went snaking over the northern horizon. The ship gleamed and flickered: every upturned face reflected a pale green.

  “Help me! Help!” Gunnar crouched against the rail, panting with terror. Astrid threw herself down, trying to clasp him in her arms, but he flung her off, catapulting upwards. He grabbed the backstay with his good right hand and swung from it, pivoting and peering this way and that. “D’you hear him? D’you hear him?” he mumbled.

  “Gunnar, there’s nothing to fear,” cried Astrid.

  “There is. I hear him splashing after us, splashing, splashing…” Gunnar began to choke.

  “Father.” Harald’s long hair shone an elfin green in the weird light. He trod forward warily, hand outstretched as if approaching a wild animal. Astrid got to her feet. “Harald, he’s ill again. He needs medicine.”

  “He doesn’t need your medicine,” said Harald fiercely. “Who knows what you’ve been giving him? Father, wake up. You’re dreaming.” He edged forwards. Peer wondered why he was being so careful, till he saw the knife at Gunnar’s belt. “Wake up, Father. It’s me, Harald. It’s your son.”

  Gunnar quieted. He dropped to his knees and began rocking to and fro, arms clasped across his chest as if in an agony of grief. “Oh, oh,” Peer heard him groan. “Oh, oh.” But when Harald tried to touch him he screamed: “He’s climbing over the side!” and scrabbled away on all fours, cramming himself into the angle of the stern.

  “Help me. Quick!” Harald snapped at the men. But they hung back, and not just because of Gunnar’s knife.

  “He’s here.” Gunnar peeped between his fingers. “I heard him, I heard him s-s-splashing after the ship, and he climbed on board, black and blue and dripping. He’s hiding somewhere. Arrchch!” With a retching cough he stuck his tongue out as far as it would go, shaking his head from side to side as if he had bitten something unbearably bitter. The sea burned with a million green glints.

  “The ghost!” Floki burst out.

  Harald spun round and struck Floki a ringing crack across the cheek. “A ghost, is it? Where? Have you seen this ghost, Floki?” Floki reeled backwards. Harald followed. “What ghost? Whose? Do you want to give it a name? Do you want to call it up? Because if there’s a ghost on this ship, I want to meet it. Hoo-ooo!” He flung his head back with a howl. “Come on, ghost! My name is Harald Silkenhair, what’s yours?

  “My name is Harald Silkenhair.

  I am not afraid of death or darkness,

  Of white ghost or black ghost,

  Of night-walker, or barrow-dweller.”

  Floki fell over, sobbing. With one eye on Harald, Magnus sidled in, grabbed Floki’s arm and dragged him out of Harald’s way. The other men backed off.

  “Hoo-ooo!” Harald began to slap his thighs and swing his head from side to side, tossing his hair. “Come on, ghost!”

  “He’s running berserk,” muttered Magnus.

  “Do something!” wailed Halfdan, trapped at the tiller.

  Peer felt a quick hand grasp his arm. “This is ridiculous!” Hilde hissed. She had a bucket in her hand, attached to a length of rope. “Help me!” She dropped the bucket over the side, and Peer helped her drag it up again, slopping full. Before he had time to think what she would do, Hilde seized the handle, stepped forward, and threw the whole pailful over Harald.

  For a long second of silence, Harald looked down at himself. He spread out his dripping arms. He lifted his head slowly and looked at Hilde. He started to giggle, uncontrollable high-pitched giggles that raised the hair on Peer’s scalp.

  Hilde dropped the bucket clattering between the thwarts. She stamped her foot. “Will you men stop making fools of yourselves? Floki, get up at once. There isn’t any ghost, Gunnar is just sick. Tjørvi, help Astrid get him into his sleeping sack. As for you, Harald, Gunnar does need medicine, whatever you think!”

  The men obeyed like children. Harald sat on a thwart and put his head in his hands. Peer gave him a wide berth and went to find Astrid’s bag. Astrid delved into it and brought out a small linen pouch. She shook a dark, gritty-looking powder into her hand, threw it into a small cup and mixed in some water.

  “Willow bark,” she explained. “To quench the fever.” She propped Gunnar’s head against her shoulder and brought the cup to his lips. Gunnar drank a little. Dribbles of blackish liquid ran down his beard.

  The men stood round in a nervous cluster. “Never seen the skipper this bad. What if he dies? Who’ll give the orders?”

  “Young Hilde, I guess,” said Tjørvi, attempting a joke. But no one laughed, and Floki said with dogged loyalty, “Harald.” His lip was bleeding.

  The sky was pale. The flickering Northern Dancers had burned out. Peer hadn’t noticed them go, but now he saw the mast and sail distinct again; the waves around the ship were no longer black and green, but grey. He shuddered in a comfortless world.

  Arne came and stood a few feet away, staring out over the sea, shoulders hunched. With his untidy hair and sprouting beard, he looked more than ever like Bjørn. Peer felt a wriggle of remorse. If only things were different. If only they could be friends. He cleared his throat. “It’s not good, is it?” he tried.

  Arne gave him a discouraging glance.

  Peer’s he
art thumped. He said suddenly, “I’m sorry we fell out. I ought to have thanked you – that time Harald got you with the harpoon —”

  Arne interrupted. “Just tell me one thing. What were you looking for, when I asked?”

  Their eyes met. Arne’s eyes were blue as a summer sea, blue as Bjørn’s, but Bjørn had never looked at him with such cool suspicion. This was it, then – the price of Arne’s good opinion. Trust him, and tell the truth.

  “The Nis,” he said after a moment. “Gudrun’s house spirit. It used to live at the old mill. Astrid stole it… stuffed it into that bag she carries. The first night at sea, remember all the noise? I said it was a seagull, but —”

  “It was a Nis?” Arne’s eyes widened. He shook his head. “Why didn’t you say so, instead of scaring everyone stiff?”

  “How was I to know a seagull would scare everyone? Would you have told Harald about the Nis? Besides, it likes – liked – to be secret. No one usually sees it, only me sometimes.”

  “But if you know the Nis is on board, why look for it?”

  “It’s missing,” said Peer bleakly. “None of us has seen it since the storm. I think it got washed overboard.”

  “Oh.”

  They stood together. Presently Arne said, “Well. Thanks for telling me.”

  “Hilde wanted to tell you,” said Peer.

  “Maybe.” Arne sounded rather bitter. “She didn’t, though, did she? Not without your say-so.”

  There was no need to answer that. Peer rewrapped his cloak, pulling it higher around his neck. Why is it always colder at dawn?

  Tjørvi joined them. “Look at the sunrise,” he said quietly. “It’s like gold leaf across the sky. I saw a picture once, of a sky like that. In a book, it was.”

  “What’s a book?” Peer asked.

  “A book…” Tjørvi held his hands apart, squaring off a bit of the air. “With leaves of calfskin, all painted and covered in runes. One of the lads on my last ship showed it me. We’d been down to the Southlands and he got it in a raid. And there was this picture, bright as a jewel. A woman and a child, and a golden sky…” He gave up. “I can’t describe it.”

  “What happened to it?” asked Arne.

  “Oh, he burned it,” said Tjørvi. “Didn’t know what the runes said. Could have been spells, see? All he wanted was the boards – set with goldwork and stones. But I always remember that picture. And there’s the sky now, just like it.”

  They stared in subdued silence. Behind the high stern-post, the whole eastern sky gleamed pale, chilly gold.

  “My wife and child are back there somewhere,” said Tjørvi. “Wonder if I’ll ever see ’em again?”

  “We’ve come a long way,” said Arne.

  Maybe it’s time to turn round. Nobody said it, but it was what everyone was thinking. No one had slept properly for days. Floki’s right. This is an unlucky ship. Weeks at sea, out of sight of land.

  “I’d give a lot to step on dry ground,” Tjørvi sighed.

  “Light a fire,” agreed Arne.

  Hear birdsong. Smell grass. Walk up the fell and see the lambs being born…

  “Land ho!” A shrill voice sang out from the bows.

  “What?” Peer’s world fell into bits and rearranged itself. He knew that voice…

  “Land! Land ho!”

  Hilde whirled past, smiling from ear to ear. Peer joined the general rush. “Where?”

  “There – dead ahead!”

  They crowded together. Far, far to the west, a long, uneven line lay on the horizon. It wasn’t much. It was everything.

  “Land!” They hugged each other, stamped their feet, pounded one another on the back. But Peer, after one irresistible glance, tore himself away to find Hilde.

  “That was the Nis!”

  “I know! Where’s it been? And why didn’t it answer us? Just wait till I get my hands on it.” Tears came to her eyes. “And where is it now? I’ll put out some food. Oh, I’d better not look too happy – people will wonder why.”

  “They won’t,” said Peer. “We all look happy now.” It was true. Everyone on board looked different, faces washed clean by joy and relief.

  All through the long day Water Snake cut her pathway towards the land, in long loose tacks as the wind shifted into the north west. Magnus swore he smelled forests. Seabirds soared over, the first for days. Seaweed floated in the current. Gunnar woke, weak but clear-headed. By late afternoon he was shakily on his feet.

  The foredeck was no longer a private place. It was where everyone wanted to be, to see the land growing out of the sea until the sinking sun obscured it in a haze and a glory.

  Peer caught the Nis as evening fell. It was bobbing in and ot of the crates near the mast, chirping happily.

  “Where were you?”

  “Me, Peer Ulfsson?” It bounced and sprang like a kitten, immensely pleased with itself.

  “We looked all over for you. Didn’t you hear us calling?”

  “Did you hear me?” the Nis asked. It rubbed its long fingers, full of self-satisfied glee. “Land ho, I called. I saw it first, Peer Ulfsson. I found it!”

  “Right,” said Peer drily. “They’ll probably call it Nisland. Listen to me. We were terribly worried. We thought you’d drowned.”

  “I never did,” said the Nis indignantly. “I worked very hard in that storm, Peer Ulfsson, holding on to the forestay and the backstay, so that the mast wouldn’t fall down. And the wind blew me, and the rain rained on me, but I didn’t let go. And after that, I was very, very tired.”

  Peer cast a glance at the stout, thick cables running from masthead to prow and stern, and then at the Nis’s fragile, twiggy arms. “You would be,” he agreed. “So where did you go?”

  “To my nice den. My secret place where nobody else can go. Watch how I get there.”

  It reached the base of the dragon neck in one flying leap, and swarmed up the criss-cross carvings to the head. It perched for a second, poised over the ocean – and vanished. Peer sucked in his breath. But the Nis hadn’t fallen. A moment later it swung back up on to the top of the dragonhead.

  “The dragon’s mouth?” said Peer. “You’ve been sitting in the dragon’s mouth?”

  The Nis nodded. “Nithing the Seafarer can go anywhere,” it squeaked. “After the storm, I curls myself up in there, and I goes to sleep. And then I wakes up, and I smells land. And I sees it, too. And so I calls out, Land ho, for everyone to hear. Am I famous now? As famous as Thorolf? Will they really call it Nisland, Peer Ulfsson?”

  Peer hadn’t the heart to tell it the land was already named. “As far as I’m concerned,” he said solemnly, “that bit of the coastline will always be Nisland.”

  The Nis preened.

  Next morning, the land was in plain view, forested hills, and beyond them white mountains like the ghosts of clouds. Everyone stared hungrily as Gunnar altered course to run south, with the mountains on the starboard side. Every hour brought new sights and sounds. The yelling clamour of a seagull colony on one abrupt limestone rock could be heard for miles. A flight of ducks passed over the ship, quacking loudly. Whales were everywhere, heaving grey or black bodies between the waves and snorting like bullocks. The day was full of mild sunshine, with a gentle haze over silver water.

  Hilde looked over the side. Down in the shadow of the ship, pale frilly blossoms floated past – jellyfish, like ghostly baby’s bonnets, flowing through the cold, clear water upright, tilting, side on, anyhow. Millions of them. It made her sleepy to watch.

  At midday came a shout from Magnus at the helm. “The Wonderful Beaches!” Hilde saw an unbroken white line running along the coast. Sand. Wonderful, white sand. She longed to run on it.

  “Now we know where we are,” Magnus told her, satisfaction in every crease of his face. “The Wonderful Beaches. Go on for miles, they do; there’s no mistaking them. And you know what that means? Only a few more days, and we’ll be there.”

  Serpent’s Bay! How long ago it seemed, the night she’
d first heard of it, sitting at home in the snug, warm farmhouse. And soon we’ll be there. Won’t Thorolf be glad to see us! A thrill of happiness ran through her. Oh Ma, Pa – if only you could see me now!

  Chapter 51

  Spring Stories

  THE YOUNG MEN are playing the ball game. Stripped to their loincloths they shout and jostle, throwing and catching, leaping through shafts of dusty evening sunlight. Dots of white and yellow paint flash on their faces.

  The ball flies over, and Kwimu snatches it. He twists and darts, racing for the tall pole at the edge of the glade.

  “Go, Kwimu!” shouts Skusji’j from the sidelines. “Run! Ow!” He winces. Another player has tackled Kwimu. It’s his young uncle, Kiunik, who jerks him off balance by a handful of his glossy black hair. They fall to the ground, wrestling, and a third young man grabs the ball and reaches the post. His friends cheer, and as Kwimu and Kiunik pick themselves up, the game is over.

  “That looks like so much fun,” the Little Weasel says as they come over, panting, to collect their things.

  “Very rough fun,” Kwimu complains, laughing, slinging his soft deerskin jacket over his shoulder, and retying his belt. “Kiunik nearly pulled my head off.”

  “Good practice for war.” Kiunik adjusts his great necklace of curving bear claws and slyly tweaks Kwimu’s long hair. “This stuff is too easy to grab. Wear it like mine.” He passes a hand over his own head – shaven both sides, with a stiff black crest running down the middle.

  “If I wore it like you, I’d always be changing it. When Kiunik sets a fashion, he likes to think everyone will copy him,” Kwimu adds to Skusji’j. “But not me. When I’m as tall as he is, I’ll rub his face in the dust.”

  “You can try,” says Kiunik amiably, disappearing into the wigwam.

  Kwimu sits down outside and offers Skusji’j a lump of pine gum to chew. Fox settles down between them, tail outspread, nose between his paws.

  Spring is here. Children chase around the wigwams, laughing and calling. And the woods echo to a shrill piping. Skusji’j cocks his head.