Troll Mill (18 page)

“Fine!” Peer gave in. “Suit yourself.” He turned on his heel, then swung back. “Hadn’t you better tell your mother?”

“She already knows I’m going for a stroll,” said Hilde.

They set off briskly. But soon their quick pace slowed. It was peaceful under the trees. The earth seemed to be breathing a sigh of pleasure after the heat of the day. Bird calls echoed, clear-edged in the evening. Sometimes the strong, oniony smell of wild garlic floated past on currents of deliciously warm air. A big beetle hurtled by with a rattle of wings. And always there was the brook, sometimes a gossiping voice among the trees, sometimes chattering boldly beside the path.

“All right, I’m sorry,” Peer said after a while. “I should have told you about it. Like I said, I didn’t want to worry you.”

“You should have told me anyway and let
me
decide whether to be worried or not,” said Hilde severely. “Don’t try to keep secrets, Peer: It doesn’t suit you.” Peer swung his stick and whistled quietly between his teeth. He had Hilde’s comb in his pocket, but he wasn’t going to give it to her while she was
telling him off. They walked on. A few moments later, Hilde changed the subject.

“I wonder if Pa and Bjorn have got to Hammerhaven yet.” Her voice seemed light and casual, but Peer knew her too well to be fooled.

“Ages ago, I should think,” he said. “The sun’s nearly down. It’s getting late.” He hesitated. “You’re not worrying about that sail we saw, are you?”

“Well, in a way.” Hilde gave an awkward laugh. “It was odd, wasn’t it?”

“It was just some fisherman,” said Peer.

“Maybe. But if Thorkell’s right about the mill, what if he’s right about the draug boat, too? Those are creepy stories, Peer. It’s terrible bad luck to see it. At first it seems like a real boat. But there’s only half, split along the keel from stem to stern. The crew are drowned men, all blue and stiff, and the draug sits at the steerboard. He looks like a man, but—” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “—he hasn’t got a face, only a bunch of seaweed.”

Peer gulped, but before he could answer they were startled by a loud splash from the
stream, now running hidden on their left behind a screen of hazels.

A duck clattered up through the foliage and flew away, quacking stridently.

But what startled it? An otter, perhaps, or a beaver? Or …?
Peer whirled his stick and brought it thrashing down through the leaves. With a cry, something leaped into the stream, scrambled up the opposite bank, and dived away under the trees. Branches shook. A clod tumbled back into the water.

“What was that?” Hilde cried. “A troll?”

“It was one of the lubbers,” Peer said. “It was dragging a ratty old blanket, didn’t you see? So the other one won’t be far away.”

“Lubbers, this close to the farm?” Hilde sounded uneasy. “I must warn Ma. The twins play in the wood, you know, and we never told them the lubbers were hanging around the mill. We didn’t want to worry them. Why are you grinning like that?”

“You shouldn’t keep secrets, Hilde,” Peer teased. “It doesn’t suit you. People have a right to be told!”

“It’s not the same thing at all,” she protested. “Sigrid’s still terrified of trolls, and
then there was Granny Green-teeth—Ma and I thought that was enough for them to cope with.”

“Fair enough,” Peer agreed. “But come on! If the lubbers are slinking about up here, we can get to the mill ahead of them.”

The wood was growing colder. Branches crackled higher up the slopes, and things rustled in the undergrowth that might be only animals…. They were glad to come out into the open, where the path ran steeply down to open fields. The pale sky still cast a reflection of light from thinly spread clouds high in the west. At the foot of the slope, the mill lurked in its dell, like a dark spider in a web of trees.

Everything was hushed. They heard the murmur of the weir. Then, far up the hillside, a fox yapped. The mill looked abandoned.

“There’s nothing going on,” said Hilde with relief. “Let’s go home!”

“No.” Peer studied the buildings, frowning. “Let’s go inside and wait for the lubbers to come back. I’d like to catch them sneaking in—and teach them a lesson!”

“Bad idea,” said Hilde. “No one goes into the mill at night.”

“Listen, Hilde,” said Peer seriously. “That mill is mine. I’ve got to live in it one day. How can I be the miller if I only ever go there in daylight?”

“All right.” Hilde sighed. “But we can’t be long, or Ma will start to worry.”

They crept down the lane as quietly as they could, and tiptoed over the bridge and into the yard. Stinging clouds of midges swirled in the dusk.

Peer put out a cautious hand and pushed the mill door. It creaked open into a close and fusty darkness. He drew back.

“I won’t go in there without a light,” hissed Hilde.

“A light would give us away. Wait a minute!” He retrieved the rusty old shovel from the barn porch and handed it to Hilde. “Here, take this. The lubbers are scared of it,” he whispered with a grin.

“Thank you so much,” said Hilde dryly. She followed as he slid silently through the door and into the mill.

For a few moments, the darkness seemed absolute, like a smothering blindfold. Peer’s breathing quickened.
Steady, steady.
He let
the surge of panic go.
It’s not so bad. There’s the doorway, see!
It was a dim, grayish slot. Rungs of the same dim gray showed between the slats of the shutters. And now he could make out the black lozenge of the hearth, the bunks, and the high cavernous darkness of the grinding loft.

Hilde moved beside him. He heard the folds of her dress sway, the faint rub of her sleeves, the creak of her shoe. “What now?” Her breath fanned his cheek.

“Wait for a while …”

“I’m going to sit.” The shovel rang faintly as she settled to the ground. After a moment, Peer joined her.

“This is mad,” she whispered. “It could be midnight before the lubbers come back. We can’t wait that long.”

“But Thorkell’s asleep by midnight,” said Peer. “If he’s really heard anything, it must start happening before then.”

She sniffed. The silence thickened around them. Peer listened to the sound of his own breathing, air whispering in and sighing out. The darkness was grainy, as if made up of thousands of speckled seeds. His pulse
drubbed in his ears, like a tramping of feet drawing nearer, nearer.

Years ago, he’d been trapped inside Troll Fell, in a black passage leading far under the hill. He remembered the feeling of being swallowed up, stuck there in eternal night. And now, though the moving airs of evening were only just beyond the door, he had the same feeling. Closed up in the mill: stuck, trapped, swallowed. Never to get out.

Cold tendrils of dread began to grow inside him. Icy sweat trickled down his back. He gripped his stick so tightly, his fingers ached. Beside him, Hilde sat upright. “What’s that noise?” she breathed.

The drubbing in his ears grew louder. It was a sound from outside, from all around, a sweeping, pattering rush like the onset of a rainstorm.

With a piercing squeal—with an anguished wooden groan—with a roar of muffled waters—Troll Mill woke from its sleep.

Peer and Hilde leaped up, leaving the stick and shovel on the ground. “What’s happening?” cried Hilde. Beyond the wall, the great millwheel trampled the water. The walls
shuddered. Pit wheel and lantern gear took up the strain. From the grinding loft came an unearthly screech as the barren millstones bit together, ejecting sparks like bright spittle. The walls pulsed in the chancy, flickering light. The clapper chattered away like a black tongue.

“Somebody’s opened the sluice!” Peer shouted. “But the hopper’s empty! There’s nothing for the millstones to grind. We’ve got to stop it!” He started forward.

“Wait!” Hilde screamed.

From the yard just outside rose a triumphant shriek. Peer sprang to the door and looked out. For a second his eyes couldn’t take it in. The ground outside was seething with dark shapes, surging with restless, desperate energy like a nest of maggots.
“Huuuututututututu!”
The shriek rose into the night again, and now he understood.

“Hilde! Get back! The yard is swarming with trolls!”

He grabbed Hilde and dragged her away from the door, treading on something that clanked, spun around, and bashed his ankles. The shovel! He kicked it aside, and the sharp
edge ripped his shin. Limping and cursing, he pushed Hilde into the darkest corner at the foot of the grinding loft. They crouched there, panting.

The door flew wide-open. A mob of trolls rushed in, flooding across the floor as though they would rise up the walls and fill the building. The dark space filled with bangs and crashes, with jabbering, hooting, chuckling cries. There were slithering sounds, things being dragged across the floor, creaks, and grunts. Through the jiggling, sparking light, a furry face snarled, a white-rimmed eye glittered, a thin beak stabbed. Blinking up at the loft ladder, Peer and Hilde saw it clotted with trolls tumbling upward to the grinding floor, sacks on their backs. Scaly feet scraped on the rungs; a naked, ratlike tail clung and twitched. Some leaped straight up into the grinding loft with huge, kicking jumps. Peppery dust showered down, and Peer and Hilde shrank back, wiping their eyes. Twisty black shadows, dark stumpy shapes went hopping, twirling, leaping, and bounding. And all the time, the millstones screeched, the water wheel pumped and thumped, and the mill shook.

There was a long, rattling roar from the grinding loft as the trolls emptied something into the hopper. The note of the millstones changed. Now they had something to gnaw. The terrible shriek of stone-on-stone ceased, and the sparks vanished. Ears ringing, Peer and Hilde knelt, listening to the millstones’ rasping grumble and to the twittering, restless activity of the trolls dashing about in the darkness.

A red bloom of light appeared in the doorway. Now it was easy to see again. They could see the trolls busily working away. They could see baskets being carried in from outside, passed forward from hand to claw. A short, fat troll with long, naked arms and splayed fingers flipped open the lid of the nearest grain bin. Two others lifted a basket and poured into it a rattling stream of—

“Bones!” Hilde whispered in horror. “I see! They’ve been grinding bones, Peer. Bonemeal for troll bread!”

But Peer’s attention was fixed on the doorway. The light blushed brighter. Grotesque shadows streamed back into the mill and raced one another around the walls. “Someone’s
coming,” he said, hoarse with dread. “Somebody’s—coming!”

An enormous shape blocked the doorway. The shadows fled in terror to quiver in corners. A fiery torch was suddenly thrust in, a pine branch flaring with orange-and-blue flames. It lit up an arm, thick, bare, hairy, and bulging with muscles. The arm was followed by a shoulder, clad in a ragged tunic. The creature—troll, whatever it was—was so huge, it had to come through the doorway bit by bit. Next, hunched and crouching, it ducked under the lintel and straightened up, and up, and further up, until its head nearly vanished among the rafters.

Peer’s fingers bit into Hilde’s arm as he saw a mane of shaggy black hair, like a cloud of angry smoke. Wicked little eyes, blinking in the torchlight. A small red mouth, halfburied in masses of bushy black beard. And on either side of that mouth, two glistening white tusks curving upward, as sharp as meat hooks.

Uncle Baldur!
Peer gave a groan that was almost a sob.

The man spread his great arms, fists
clenched, lifting the torch high so that the light played over the walls. Again the shadows dashed for cover, as if the mill were full of dark, sliding, desperate ghosts. Shaking his fists over his head, the man let out a wild howl.

“Huuuuuuutututututu!”
The troll cry broke from his throbbing, naked throat.
“Huuuuuuutututututu!”
Yellow froth gathered at the corners of his mouth and dripped from his tusks.

Peer felt Hilde pinch him. “We’ve got to get out, Peer. We’ve got to run for it.”

“It’s Uncle Baldur,” said Peer stonily. “Baldur Grimsson.”

“I know, I
know.
And we’ve got to run before he sees us!”

Too late. A little, frisking troll was dragging a basket of broken bones to the foot of the ladder. Its tail switched with effort as it heaved the basket along. It looked over its shoulder, its head swiveling like an owl’s to see how far it had come—and spotted Hilde and Peer. With a shriek it sprang away, bushing out its fur and chattering.

Every head in the room turned. With a slow gesture, Uncle Baldur bent down,
sweeping the torch low toward the corner where Hilde and Peer crouched. The streaming flames lit his face from below, so that nostrils and brows were bright, while his eye sockets turned into black holes. The tusks threw sharp stripes of shadow up his face and into his hair. Hilde and Peer stiffened, hoping against hope that somehow he would miss them.

“Well, well, well!” The high whistling voice of Peer’s nightmares was accompanied by a gust of hot, bad breath. “It’s my little nephew again! How are you, sonny? But I needn’t ask. Scared, as usual. Crouching in a corner like a rabbit, as usual. And your girlfriend, too. Two rats in a trap!”

Peer got up. He’d have liked to step forward, but Uncle Baldur was standing so close, there was no room to move. He reached down and pulled Hilde to her feet.

Sometimes, in daydreams, he’d imagined facing Uncle Baldur again. In those daydreams, Peer had grown, while Uncle Baldur had shrunk. Tall and strong and capable, he’d been able to stare his uncle straight in the eye. He’d not been afraid.

But this was a nightmare. His knees shook.

Uncle Baldur towered over him, reeking of animal power and savagery. With those cruel tusks curving up over his face, he looked less than human. Legs straddled apart, he waved the torch in front of their faces gloatingly. Peer felt his hair sizzle and jerked back, trying to push Hilde behind him.

“I ought to break your necks,” said Uncle Baldur softly. “That’s what you do with rats and rabbits. One quick twist and a jerk. Snap! It’s all over.” Peer felt Hilde shudder. “Or I could hand you over to this lot!” He waved the torch behind him at the shifting, sniggering, rustling crowd of trolls. There was a pause while the millstones overhead continued sullenly chewing up bones, and the mill thrummed and shivered.