Wraithsong (32 page)

“
Okay?” I don’t quite
understand how one can reach a point where one never suffers or is
never at the mercy of someone else some of the time, but it does
sound like a worthy ideal to strive toward.

“
Next, I
would like for you to open your book to page six-hundred and
seventy-six. There you’ll find the reason why Huldras must not
marry
Darkálfars
.”

“
Anthony says—”

Maureen slams her book shut, startling me.
“I will hear no mention of that name here!”

I feel like I have just declared that the
world is coming to an end. “Sorry, I just needed some
clarification.”

"One day, you’ll understand. When you have
children, you’ll see that the loss of their love is the most
painful of all. Today’s lesson is finished. I’ll send Olaf in.”
Maureen packs up her notebook and storms out the door.

I remain in my seat, and notice I have
stopped breathing. All that lingers in the classroom is the fact
that I’ve offended Maureen by mentioning her son’s name. It wasn’t
quite the reaction I expected. Is it possible that I misjudged her
and that maybe she truly loves him and he has broken her heart?
Maybe Anthony will never come for me. The thought horrifies me,
because now, even though I don’t want to, I think there’s a chance
it could actually be true.

Olaf swings the door open so quickly that a
breeze disturbs the papers on my desk. “You really are something.
The least you could do is show Maureen some respect.” His eyes,
dark and wrathful, sear me into a heap of ashes. “We are going
outside again today. Meet me in the stable in five minutes.” Olaf
slams the door behind him.

He’s one to talk. He didn’t exactly respect
me when he invaded my room in the middle of the night. I pick up my
books, drop them off in my room, and make my way over to the
detached stable.

When I arrive, Maureen and Olaf are talking
quietly in the stable. I sneak up close to the open door to see if
I can hear any of their conversation. With my back to the door, I
listen in.

“
I saw in a vision that her
gift is what could win us our victory,” Maureen says.

“
How so?” Olaf
asks.

Maureen pauses for a moment, and then speaks
so quietly that I almost cannot hear her. “It is the gift of
Cherubo. Only one other Huldra has received this gift before
her.”

Cherubo? I’ve never heard of it. My mom
never mentioned it. Anthony never mentioned it, and I didn’t read
anything about it in the Book of Huldras.

I hear Olaf snort a laugh. “Sonia, the
half-breed, is to receive the gift of Cherubo?”

“
I know—it’s difficult to
believe, isn’t it?” Maureen says.

“
That little girl does not
deserve it for she is not even pure.”

I’m offended by Olaf’s remark, but then
again, his behavior towards me has hardly been respectful. I can’t
expect him to think or speak highly of me.

“
Be careful, Olaf, and
don’t be so quick to judge. That little girl has more power and
potential than you give her credit for,” Maureen says.

I’m surprised Maureen stands up for me.
Maybe she’s not as bad as Anthony painted her, and maybe she really
is here to help me.

“
Your job is to gain her
trust, so she’ll support our cause, and then—”

I accidentally move the stable door, causing
it to creak. They must have heard the noise and that’s why Maureen
stops talking. I should enter—pretend that I’m just now arriving
for my lesson. I curse myself for having made a noise because I
really wanted to hear what Maureen was about to say. So far, she
hasn’t said anything confirming she’s after my gift, but rather
seems to think highly of me.

I enter the stable and pretend I didn’t hear
their conversation. I must hide my thoughts from Olaf, or he’ll
know that I was listening in. I focus on my surroundings instead.
Dirt and straw cover the stable floor, and there are five stalls on
either side of the hallway. Leather reins and saddles hang from the
low wood ceiling and a dwarf-sized man is busy shoveling dung in
one of the stalls with a shovel that looks way too big for him.

“
Hi,” I say.

Maureen stares at me for a moment but
remains silent.

“
I’m sorry about earlier,”
I say.

Maureen nods to me and then to Olaf and then
walks off.

“
Ah, there you are,” Olaf
says in his usual pleasant tone. His moods change disturbingly
fast. He enters one of the stalls and leads a black horse into the
hallway. The horse neighs and flicks his tail.

For a split second, I lose my train of
thought, thinking that I hate Olaf.

Olaf shoots me a glowering glance.

I make my mind go blank. I have become
better at keeping my thoughts to myself the last few days,
especially around Olaf, but I’m not good enough yet. One’s thoughts
must be one of the most important things to conquer in life, and
though I’m not where I want to be yet, I feel strengthened.

“
Yes, here I am.” I smile
pleasantly. The scent of hay and manure flood my nostrils as a
breeze blows through the barn.

“
I spoke to Maureen, and
she would like for you to learn how to shoot a bow and arrow while
riding.” Olaf pats the horse on its neck.

“
All right, but is there
any reason why I would need to learn that to save my mom?” I
ask.

“
The student does not
question the teacher. Now do you want your mother back?” He seems
unusually frustrated.

“
Of course I want my mom
back, Olaf.”

“
Good.” He hooks the two
reins, one on each side of the walkway, and continues to saddle up
the horse. “Have you ridden a horse before?”

“
No,” I say
unapologetically.

“
Let us start here.” He
pulls up an aluminum stepstool to the horse’s left side and ascends
the stairs. “I will have you use this the first time, until you get
used to it. To mount the horse, you first grab the reins with your
left hand, turn the stirrup toward you, using your right hand, and
then put your left foot into the stirrup.”

I listen to his directions carefully.

“
Then, hold the waist of
your saddle with your right hand, have your left hand on the
horse’s withers, gently bounce once or twice on your right foot and
then spring off of it.” He grunts as his right leg swings over the
horse. “Next, secure your right leg into the right stirrup while
pulling the reins back. This signals the horse to remain
still.”

“
Okay,” I say.

“
Ready to try?” He looks
down at me from atop the horse.

“
Yes.”

He jumps back off the horse and hands me a
bow and a quiver filled with blue, red and yellow feathers at the
ends of the arrows. After I secure the quiver on my back and the
bow around my torso, I climb onto the horse. Olaf fetches another
brown horse from one of the stalls, saddles it and mounts it.

“
Follow me.” He taps the
sides of his horse with his legs and steers in front of
me.

Not quite knowing how to get my horse to
move, I do the same. The horse starts moving.

He looks back at me. “Now do exactly as I am
doing.” He rises up from the horse’s back and holds his position,
and I do the same. Then he sits back down again, and I follow.
“This is called posting, and the way you want to do it is to rise
when the horse’s front right foot hits the ground, and lower
yourself when the horse’s left foot hits the ground. The key to
this is coordination. Now, continue this way for a few
minutes.”

I try to get the rhythm down, but it’s
really hard to make my body coordinate with the horse. Soon all I
can feel are my thighs, calves and hips burning.

“
One, two, one, two, one
two,” Olaf says. “You are up on one, down on two.”

“
That’s easier said than
done.” My burning muscles are screaming for a break, but I’m
determined to learn this.

We ride into the tall green beech woods,
following an ancient trail. The hillsides are covered with vines
and green plants. After following the trail for a while, we arrive
at a small grove. The leaves glitter with sunlight and in the
middle of the grove stands a stone altar. Olaf jumps off his horse
and unloads the leather backpack.

“
This will be your target.”
He lifts out a burlap and places it on the altar.

I really want to get off the horse, my legs
are spent, but I don’t say anything. Probably picking up on what
I’m thinking, Olaf opens his mouth to speak.

“
No, I don’t want to quit!”
I need to keep my thoughts more hidden. It seems harder to focus on
keeping my thoughts to myself when I am physically
tired.

“
Weak in body makes for
weak in mind,” he says, as if affirming what I’m thinking. “Now,
focus on the target.”

I kick my horse to move and the horse
progresses in a circular pattern around the altar.

“
Now, take your bow and
arrow. Remember that a Huldra never misses when she is fixated on
her target. You cannot miss, unless there is something else you
allow yourself to be distracted by.”

My eyes fixate on the target. Pulling my
bowstring tight, I relax into the movement and let go. The arrow
hits the target but bounces on impact.

“
Do I need to remind you
that you must…?”

I interrupt him. “No!” I snatch another
arrow out of the quiver and refocus, pulling the string back as
hard as I can before releasing it. It makes a swooshing sound, and
with a thud, pierces and embeds itself into the bag. I give Olaf a
triumphant look.

He inspects it. “Good, now—bring your horse
to a trot and do three in a row.”

I know I can do this. “Yah!” I tap the horse
with my legs and the horse jolts into a nice trot. Focus, Sonia, I
tell myself. With my arrow pointed at the bag, I release it, grab
another arrow, release it, grab another arrow, but before I release
the third arrow something catches my attention. I release the arrow
and look up, but don’t see anything other than bushes and
shrubbery.

“
Good on the first two, but
you missed on the last one,” Olaf points out.

“
I know, but I saw
something moving in the woods,” I say, peering in the direction in
which I thought I saw movement.

“
A bird maybe?” he
suggests.

“
Maybe.” But the object or
animal I saw from the corner of my eye seemed to be larger than a
bird. Much larger.

“
Now, off the horse,” he
commands.

“
Can I try again?” I
ask.

“
No, you can try again
later. I have to show you something else.”

I steer the horse over to the altar.

“
Need help getting down?”
Olaf offers.

I don’t really want his help, and still feel
awkward in his presence from his night visitation, but accept
anyway. “Sure.” I return my bow to my back and swing my legs over
to the left side of the horse.

Olaf grabs my waist and lifts me off the
horse, and when my feet almost reach the ground, he clasps me
around the waist and flings me onto the altar.

“
What are you doing?” I
yell. I hadn’t expected this.

“
Do not resist, Sonia.
There is no use in doing so. I knew from the moment I saw you
that
I
was meant
to have your gift,” he whispers in my ear as he holds me
down.

“
Stop it! Stop, Olaf!
Someone help!” Adrenaline rushes through my body and I try to think
of ways to escape.

“
No use in thinking, Sonia,
have you not yet realized that? I will always be one step ahead of
you because you are so weak-minded that I can read all your
thoughts. Do not worry, little dancer, I am not after what some men
might be after. I am only after your gift.”

I wiggle my left arm free and try to punch
him in the face, but he grabs my arm and pins it behind my back in
a flash. My arm feels like it’s going to tear off, he’s twisting it
so forcefully. “Let me go, you creep!”

“
No, no, no, dear, there is
no use in wasting your breath because there is no one else here. No
one will come to your rescue.” He pulls out a silky, white rope and
ties my wrists in front of my body and my feet together.

Oh, dear God, is he going to sacrifice
me?

“
No, I am not going to
sacrifice you. How would you give me your gift if you were dead?
You will give it to me because I have your mother,” he
says.

“
I knew you kidnapped
her!”

“
Let us stop the chit chat,
shall we?” He gags me with a black handkerchief. Breathing heavily,
he paces around the altar, as if he’s trying to evaluate his next
move. My horse neighs, moving around nervously. Olaf goes over to
calm him, but instead, the horse stands up on its hind legs and
brays loudly.

Just then I notice the beast I saw last
night slowly emerging from the deepest part of the woods. My horse
takes off galloping back toward the stables.

In the light, the beast looks even more
terrifying than I remember. It’s a muscular beast with sharp claws
on the front two paws and hooves on the rear. The black zigzag
spine of the snake tail continues to the beast’s back and contrasts
with his golden reptile skin. The goat horns are set above golden
eyes that burn with hunger. I feel a surge of terror that overcomes
my ability to think rationally. Warn Olaf, I’m finally able to
think. I scream as loudly as I can with the handkerchief securely
gagging my mouth, but Olaf isn’t paying attention. He’s busy trying
to calm his horse and probably thinks I’m screaming for help from
him.