Troll Mill (5 page)

He stopped again. “She was wearing this
big fur cloak,” he whispered. “Before Bjorn could get to her, she’d thrown herself into the sea.”

Gudrun’s eyes were bright with tears.

“She’s gone back to the sea,” she said softly. “Do you remember, Ralf, how they all said Bjorn’s bride was a seal-woman?”

Ralf’s head jerked up. “Nonsense!” He punched his fist into his palm. “Utter nonsense. I’ve never believed it, and I never shall.”

“Don’t you see?” Gudrun persisted. “That fur cloak will have been her sealskin.”

“Explain!” demanded Hilde.

Gudrun went on talking quietly, almost singing, crooning over the baby. “It’s the gray seals I’m talking about. They can be seals in the water but human on land, shedding their skins like fur cloaks. If a man meets a seal-woman while she’s in her mortal shape and he hides her sealskin, he has power over her. Then she must marry him and bear his children. But if ever she finds her sealskin again, then woe betide! She’ll return to the sea and break his heart.”

Hilde was horrified. “Did Bjorn do that to Kersten?”

“No, he did not,” said Ralf angrily. “Don’t fill their heads with this nonsense, Gudrun. Kersten and Bjorn were an ordinary loving couple.”

“Then why did she throw herself into the sea?” asked Hilde. She leaned forward, touching Peer’s hand. “What happened, Peer? What happened to Kersten?”

But Peer was no longer certain what he remembered. He rubbed his hands over his eyes, pressing till colored lights danced on the darkness. “I don’t know,” he groaned. “She seemed to roll into the sea. The waves broke over her and she disappeared. It was getting dark, and I was yards away. I thought … I don’t know what I thought. I thought she’d drown.”

“What did Bjorn do?” Sigrid asked in a small voice.

Peer put an arm around her. “He went after her, Siggy. He jumped in the boat and went rowing out.”

“Will he find her?” Sigrid’s eyes were round and scared. “Will he?”

Ralf stood. He paced up and down, shaking his head. “I can’t bear to think of it!” he
exclaimed. “I ought to go down there now, see if there’s anything I can do. Didn’t you raise the alarm, Peer? Bjorn needs help!”

Peer went a painful red. “I—” he stammered. “I never thought of it! I’m sorry! I just—I only—I wanted to bring the baby home!”

Hilde rolled her eyes. “You’d better get down there straightaway, Pa!” she said.

“I will.” Ralf was already pulling on his boots. “Now, don’t worry, Gudrun—but I won’t be back tonight. I’ll get some of the men together—we’ll comb the shore. If Bjorn hasn’t found her, we’ll search again when it’s light.”

“I’ll come!” Peer got up, staggering slightly.

“No, you stay and rest,” said Ralf kindly. “You did the best you could, Peer. You can join the search tomorrow. Right—I’m off!” The door slammed behind him.

Hilde puffed out her cheeks and sat down. “How awful.”

“Why didn’t I tell everyone?” Peer beat his forehead with the heel of his hand. “How could I be so stupid? I even saw Einar, and I dodged him because I was too embarrassed to explain….”

Hilde patted his shoulder. “You’re hopeless, Peer,” she said affectionately. “But listen! You brought the baby safely home.”

Peer caught her hand, but she drew it away. Gudrun looked up, closing her dress and tucking the shawl more tightly around the baby.

“There, she’s had enough now. She’s falling asleep. Peer, don’t upset yourself. Ralf has rushed off like this because he can’t bear sitting still, but really, there’s nothing useful anyone can do till daybreak. Now eat your stew before it goes cold. Hilde, get the twins to bed. We’ll put this little one in the cradle with Eirik.”

“Can I?” Sigrid asked, stretching her arms out.

“Yes, but be careful,” said Gudrun, handing her over. Sigrid grappled the bundle of shawl and baby with exaggerated care. “She’s sweet. I wish I had a little sister.” She lowered her into the wide cradle. “I’ll put her on her side. Isn’t she tiny? Doesn’t Eirik look big beside her?”

Peer came to look over her shoulder. The two babies lay side by side, a complete contrast
to each other. Eirik’s fair skin and rosy cheeks made the new baby look brown and sallow. Her thin little wrists looked delicate and fragile compared with Eirik’s sturdy dimpled arms.

“Is she sickly?” asked Hilde dubiously.

“No, no,” said Gudrun. “She’s much younger, that’s all. Hardly three months old, when I come to think. I wish now I’d visited Kersten. Never put things off, as my mother used to say. But I’ve been so busy, and little Eirik is such a handful.”

“Well, he’s in for a surprise when he wakes up tomorrow,” said Hilde. “Twins, bedtime!” She chased them under the blankets, but Sigrid stuck her head out to call, “I like the new baby, Ma. Can we keep her?”

Gudrun whirled, eyes snapping. “Not another word from you, miss!” She beckoned Peer and Hilde to the other end of the long hearth. “Talk quietly,” she whispered. “I want them to sleep. Tell me again. What happened when Kersten ran down to the water?”

Peer closed his eyes. Inwardly he saw that flying figure. He saw Bjorn, turning his head and beginning to race across the shingle. He
saw Kersten, throwing herself to the ground, pulling the cloak over her.

“She saw Bjorn coming, I think,” he said slowly. “And she just dived to the ground, and rolled herself up in the cloak, and crawled into the water. And I looked away then, because Bjorn was pushing the boat out. He rowed out, shouting for her—but it was so wet and misty, I lost sight of him.”

They sat in a huddle with their heads together.

“I couldn’t stop her!” Peer cried. “I was holding the baby.”

“Hush.” Gudrun took his hand. “No one blames you, Peer. And Kersten trusted you with her child. But the seals—didn’t you see any seals?”

“Yes,” Peer admitted slowly. “After Bjorn disappeared, the water was full of them. But, Gudrun!” He swallowed.
Can it be true? Is that really what I saw? Does it mean Bjorn once trapped Kersten … and kept her against her will?

Gudrun wiped her eyes. “It’s sad, either way,” she said quietly. “And worst of all for that poor little mite over there. Well, we’d
better all go to bed. There’ll be plenty to do in the morning.”

Glumly, they wished one another good night. Peer had been given old Eirik’s sleeping place, a bunk built into the wall with a sliding wooden panel for privacy. He clambered in, but as usual left the panel half open so he could see out into the room. Loki got up from his place by the fire, stretched, and puttered over to jump up on Peer’s blankets. He turned around three times and settled down behind Peer’s knees, yawning. The familiar weight was comforting. Peer slid a hand down to scratch his dog’s ears.

He lay, bone weary but unable to sleep, staring out into the darkened room. Gudrun had covered the fire with chunks of turf to keep it burning till morning. Small red eyes winked hotly from chinks and crannies, and he sniffed the homely smell of scorching earth and woodsmoke. On the other side of the room, he heard Hilde tossing and turning. After a while she sighed and lay still. Gudrun snored.

Rain tapped on the shutters. Every time Peer closed his eyes he saw Kersten, rushing
past him, hurling herself into the sea.
I should have stopped her. I should have raised the alarm. I did everything wrong.
Was Bjorn still out there, rowing hopelessly over dark wastes of heaving water?

Peer dropped into an uneasy doze. A cobwebby shadow scampered from a dark corner to sit hunched on the hearthstones. Peer woke. He heard a faint sound, a steady lapping like a cat’s. A satisfied sigh. The click of a wooden bowl set stealthily down.

Peer watched between his lashes as the Nis set the room to rights, a little rushing shadow, swift as a bat. He hadn’t seen the Nis in a long time. Sometimes he glimpsed a wispy gray beard or a little red cap glowing in the firelight, but when he looked closer it was always just a bit of sheep’s wool escaped from Gudrun’s spindle, or a bright rag wrapped around Sigrid’s doll. He’d been hurt that the Nis wanted so little to do with him, when they’d shared so much. The Nis had rescued him from the lubbers, the disgusting creatures who lived in his uncles’ freezing privy. It had helped to save Loki from his uncles’ savage dog, Grendel. But now, living in a
happy household with plenty to eat, it kept out of his way.

“Perhaps you don’t need each other anymore,” Hilde had suggested when he talked to her about it. “Down at the mill you were both outcasts. Your uncles treated you both so badly, you had something in common.” Peer saw what she meant, but still he missed the Nis.

Now here it was again, as if to comfort him for this terrible day. It frisked around the hearth, sweeping up stray ashes, dampening the cloth over the dough that Gudrun had left by the fire, and turning the bowl so that it should rise evenly. Finished, it skipped lightly up onto the edge of the creaking cradle and perched there. With a furtive glance over one shoulder, it extended a knobbly forefinger into the cradle to prod one of the sleeping babies, and then snatched it back, as if it had touched redhot iron. It chirruped disapprovingly and hopped down.

Peer raised himself on one elbow. “Nis!” he called softly, half expecting the Nis to vanish like a mouse whisking into its hole.

The Nis stiffened. Two beady, glinting eyes
fixed on Peer. Behind him, Loki broke into a grumbling growl: Loki had never liked the Nis.

“Quiet, Loki,” whispered Peer. “Nis, I’m so glad to see you. It’s been ages! Why don’t you talk to me anymore?”

The Nis glared at him.

“What has you
done
, Peer Ulfsson?” it demanded, bristling.

“Me?” asked Peer, surprised. “What do you mean? I brought Kersten’s baby home, that’s all.”

“Yes, it is all your fault!” the Nis squeaked. Its hair and beard frilled out into a mad ruff of feathery tendrils. “Foolish, foolish boy! What was you thinking of to bring such a baby here?”

“Wait a minute!” Peer sat up. “That little baby has lost her mother. What did you want me to do—leave her?”

“Yes!” hissed the Nis. “She doesn’t belong here, Peer Ulfsson. Who is her mother? One of the savage sea people, all wild and wet and webbed.
Brrr!”
It shook its head in disgust, rapid as a cat, a whirr and a blurr of bright eyes and whiskers. “The likes of them doesn’t belong in housen, Peer Ulfsson.”

“You’re a fine one to talk!” said Peer angrily.

The Nis’s eyes nearly popped out of its head with agitation. “Think! If the sea people come to claim her, what then? What then, Peer Ulfsson? Besides, how can the mistress feed two childs, eh? Poor little Eirik. He will starve!”

“No, he won’t,” said Peer. “Eirik’s nearly weaned. He eats all sorts of things.”

The Nis ignored him, covering its face with two spidery hands. “Poor, poor Eirik!” it mourned, peeping through its fingers. “No milk for him! No food! The little stranger eats it all, steals his mother away. Like a cuckoo chick!”

“Oh, come on!” Peer rallied. “I thought you liked babies. What’s wrong with her?”

“Everything!” fizzed the Nis. “This is not a proper baby, but a seal-baby. Not one thing, not the other.” With its head on one side, it added more cheerfully, “Maybe she will pine, maybe she will die!”

Peer almost choked. “‘A seal-baby.’ You’ve been listening to Gudrun, but she doesn’t
know.
Bjorn wouldn’t … Kersten wasn’t! Ralf
doesn’t believe it, and neither do I. And even if it was true, what are you saying? Just because her mother might be a seal-woman, you want the baby to go—yet it’s quite all right for you to live here?”

“For me?” The Nis nodded vigorously. “The Nis is very useful in a house,” it said virtuously. “Often, often, the mistress says she can’t manage without me!”

“How nice for you,” said Peer.

The Nis simpered, plaiting its long fingers. “So the baby will go!” it chirped.

“No, actually, the baby will stay.”

The Nis’s lower lip stuck out, and its eyes glittered. “Peer Ulfsson is so clever,” it hissed. “Of course he is right. He knows so much more than the poor Nis!” It turned its back on Peer.

Peer tried to calm his own feelings. The Nis had always been prickly, but he was shocked by this unexpected selfishness. Still, he owed the Nis a lot.

“Don’t be angry,” he said.

“Huh!” snapped the Nis without turning.

“Oh, really, Nis. Let’s not quarrel.”

“If the baby stays, I goes.” The Nis delivered
this ultimatum over its shoulder, its face still half averted.

“I think you’re—” Peer halted. He’d been going to say, “I think you’re being silly,” but he thought better of it. “—I think you’re overreacting.”

“I means it, Peer Ulfsson,” the Nis insisted.

“I’m sure you won’t go,” said Peer soothingly. “Now, come on. Tell me what else is happening.”

“What does the Nis know? The Nis knows nothing,” the little creature sulked.

“No news?” Peer asked. “When it’s so long since we talked? And I thought you heard everything. Are you losing your touch?” He faked a yawn. “Very well, then. I’m tired. I’ll go back to sleep.”

This worked almost too well. The Nis turned around, stiff with fury. “What sort of news does Peer Ulfsson want?”

“I was only joking!” But Peer saw he had gone too far. Although the Nis loved to tease others, it hated to be teased itself.

“News of the trolls, the merrows, the nixies?” it demanded with an unforgiving glare.

Peer sighed. “Tell me about the trolls.”

“Great tidings from Troll Fell,” announced the Nis in a cold, huffy voice. “Remember the Gaffer? And his daughter, the troll princess, who married and went to live with the trolls of the Dovrefell? She has borne a son.”

“Really?” The Gaffer was the cunning old king of Troll Fell. Years ago, when Peer and Hilde had ventured deep into the mountain to rescue the twins, they’d met the Gaffer—and his sly daughter.

“So the Gaffer has a grandson,” Peer said without enthusiasm. “Let’s hope it doesn’t take after him, then, with an extra eye and a tail like a cow’s. Will there be a feast?” he added, knowing the Nis was always interested in food. A reluctant sparkle appeared in the Nis’s eyes.

“Oh, yes, Peer Ulfsson,” it began. “You see, the princess is visiting her old father under Troll Fell. How grand she is now; nothing good enough for her; quite the fine lady! And such fuss over the new prince. Such a commotion! They’ll be having the naming feast on Midsummer Eve.”