Unspun

by Ruth Nickle

  Tatterhood pushed those thoughts aside. She was tired and not herself. The sky was already glaringly bright, but she would take what sleep she could. She added more wood to the fire to keep it burning, and curled up with Storm near the flames. Right before drifting off to sleep, Tatterhood tucked the prince’s hand close to her body. She did not want any bugs or birds to bother it.

  When she woke, Trygve’s hand did not look very well (it was easiest to preserve body parts while attached to a body). The sight and faint smell made her vomit what little was in her stomach.

  She built up the fire and gnawed at a piece of stale bread in her pack, and then she foraged in the forest. Substantial problems could never be solved without substantial food. She almost never used magic to switch items for food, because she had to switch for a specific food item (a particular roll, with its exact lumpiness and taste), not a general one (the rolls Cook normally bakes). She picked wild carrots and mushrooms, a bit of thyme, and some mallow leaves. On the way back to the fire, she surprised a rabbit. She caught it with her bare hands.

  She sorted through the pile of items that had been in her pockets and chose an ugly bracelet. She made it switch places with a small cauldron she kept under her bed. Her maids, her parents, and, of course, Trygve frequently complained about how much stuff she kept in her rooms, but if she wanted to switch something, it helped to see it often and be in charge of its whereabouts. Her habits were useful in times like this. She filled the cauldron with water and placed it over the fire.

  It didn’t take long for the stew to be ready. She ate slowly, hoping her stomach would not lose its contents. Then she held the prince’s hand and stared at the soup. The prince liked soup. True, he preferred venison to rabbit, but if one were trekking in the wilderness one could not complain.

  She put the prince’s hand in her pocket, picked up her wooden spoon, and half-muttered, half-sang a little nonsense tune. Storm was eating bark off a tree, so Tatterhood peeled some bark off and threw it into her cauldron. She thought for a bit, then yanked out a few of her goat’s hairs. Storm cried out in pain, rammed her horns into Tatterhood’s backside, and went back to chewing bark. Tatterhood pulled several dozen hairs from her own head, twisted them together with the goat hairs, and tossed them in the soup. She switched the lantern for a small knife, which she used to shave a bit of wood off her wooden spoon and into the pot.

  She took the cauldron off the fire and used her wooden spoon to stir the soup as it cooled. It took a good hour—maybe longer—but some things could not be rushed.

  Tatterhood didn’t know exactly what she was doing—she had never heard of anything like this—but she must try to save the prince’s hand. It was better to follow her gut and act than to wait and hope for the best.

  She picked up a rock and switched it for a quality goatskin wine flask that Trygve’s father, King Varg, had given him. She almost drank the wine, but stopped with the flask to her lips. She remembered the townswomen talking about how a strong wine could hurt your unborn child. With regret, she poured it on the ground. She cut open the side of the flask with her knife, then switched the knife for a heavy-duty needle and thread. She placed the prince’s hand in the flask, filled the rest of the space with soup, and stitched it up as tightly as she could.

  Tatterhood cleaned the cauldron and switched it for an ugly pebble in her room. She considered sending the prince’s hand back to the castle so she wouldn’t have to lug it around, but she worried that if it was not with her then the magic would not preserve it, so she placed the twine of the flask around her neck, like a large and heavy necklace. She and Storm made their way to the human village. It was not as close as the trolls had made it out to be. She arrived, feeling quite nauseous, as the people finished their work for the day.

  The townspeople were wary of her, but she shoveled some manure for one woman and chopped down a tree for another, and soon enough, her appearance no longer bothered them.

  “Has anyone heard of a lhoosh?” she asked, but no one had. She weighed different options in her mind. She could always write to King Varg, but by the time she received a reply, Trygve could be dead. She could try to find a real witch to locate him, but had no idea if one lived nearby. But there were other creatures, creatures who lived everywhere and knew plenty about deep, dark secrets. It would be a risk, but could help her find him quickly.

  “Has anyone been troubled by a nattmara?” she asked.

  An uncomfortable silence followed. People shifted back and forth on their feet, looking down at the ground.

  “What do you have to do with the nightmares?” one woman whispered.

  “I’m going to catch one.”

  Chapter 6

  Old Man Bjarne was a large, tough man, not the sort you would expect to be plagued by nightmares, but in his youth he had fought in many battles, and seen—and perhaps done—terrible things. Nattmaras preferred easy prey. Like ants, they would return again and again to where they found nourishment.

  “Sleep somewhere else tonight,” Tatterhood told him. “I will catch a nattmara and, if I can, convince her not to bother you again.”

  Bjarne agreed to sleep in the house of a neighbor, and Tatterhood prepared to sleep in his bed. She paid a villager to keep Storm in a barn, and hung the flask with the prince’s hand around the goat’s neck for safekeeping. If Storm stayed with her, she would scare off the nattmara in order to protect her.

  As night fell, Tatterhood examined the room. Old Man Bjarne had a small window, about the size of a hand, and it was shuttered up at night, but when it closed the poor workmanship of the wood left a small gap. Nattmaras could enter the tiniest crack or crevice by turning into sand. Tatterhood positioned the shutter to make the gap a tad larger—enough to make it easier for a nattmara to enter, but not so much as to raise its suspicions.

  Tatterhood moved to the base of the bed, where Bjarne had placed nails. When a nattmara approached a person to feed on their fears, it always climbed onto the foot of the bed, and sometimes painful objects could stop them. But Bjarne had not used very many nails, they were spaced too far apart, and they were dull and worn. No wonder they did not stop the nightmares.

  She lay on the bed, her wooden spoon in hand. Tatterhood had only been visited by a nattmara two or three times, when she was a young girl. And of course, it had fled when she woke up screaming. She had never experienced a nightmare as an adult. Tatterhood did not often entertain her fears—typically, she attacked things she feared with her wooden spoon—so she was not the most filling sustenance for a nattmara.

  After hours of pretending to doze, Tatterhood realized her mistake: you could not fool nightmares. They fed on the sleeping, and must be able to recognize true sleep. She relaxed her body, cleared her mind, breathed deeply. She hoped she could force herself to wake, without scaring off the nattmara, at the moment she tasted fear.

  Her fingers unbent, and she considered repositioning the wooden spoon, but the thought slipped from her mind.

  She was in the woods. Bones hung from the trees. The wind blew at them, rattling them. A sudden gust hit the bones, smacking some of them against Tatterhood’s face. She stepped away from the bones and rubbed her stinging cheek.

  Birds flew above the trees—large birds, not quite like any she knew. In the distance, through the trees, the birds dove, attacking something. Though she did not want to travel in that direction, something pulled her toward them. She walked into a clearing. The birds pecked at a body, but of what sort of creature she could not tell.

  Fear seized her and she ran to the still form. It was Trygve. His eyes were gone. Pecked out. Traded for two red, bleeding masses.

  She ran at the birds with her wooden spoon, trying to club them out of the way. Her spoon turned into a twig. She focused with all her might, but she could not use magic to get her spoon back. The birds turned on her, pecking at her arms, her hair, her legs. She stumbled backward,
trying to ward them off with her twig. One monstrous bird swooped down and used its talon to rip off her hand.

  Tatterhood screamed. She had never seen birds behave in this way. They never acted like—

  A nightmare had come.

  She swallowed her realization, forcing herself to experience the fear and pain of the birds attacking her, seeing the blood spurt out from where she’d lost her hand. She had to stay in the dream longer or the nattmara would flee.

  The birds attacked her belly. She forced her right eye—her real eye—open just a smidgen. The room was almost entirely dark, but she could make out a figure with the form of a woman wearing a nightgown. The nattmara sat on Tatterhood’s chest, riding her like a man rides a horse. She had pale white skin and long, shiny black hair.

  Tatterhood forced her eye shut, letting her fear surge as the nattmara continued to give her a vision of the birds. She let the fear continue, let her breathing remain frantic, let herself feel the terrible things happening to Trygve and herself as she grasped her fingers tight around the real wooden spoon. Even if the nattmara sensed her waking, if she continued to feed it with her fear, it might not flee.

  The birds pierced her belly with their beaks and Tatterhood reached upward with her left arm—her real arm, not her dream arm—and seized the creature by the throat. Tatterhood opened her eyes. The nattmara reached out with her long black fingernails and scratched Tatterhood’s face.

  Tatterhood yowled in pain. She used her right arm to ram the head of the wooden spoon against the creature’s neck. At the same time she used her left hand to seize the nattmara’s upper right arm. Tatterhood pulled the creature down toward her left side as she rolled onto her left shoulder. She pushed her right foot against the bed to give herself momentum and swung herself on top of the creature.

  She sat on the nattmara’s chest, pinning it down with the weight of her body, pressing against it with her spoon and her hand. Her nose filled with the smell of birds and trees and blood and bodies—all the elements of the dream.

  The nightmare possessed substance without true substance, weight without true weight. Tatterhood feared she could fall through the nattmara and lose her entirely. She willed it not to change into sand, hoping her grasp prevented the possibility of escape.

  “Now I ride you,” said Tatterhood.

  “If you’re riding me,” the nattmara shrieked, “then why are you the one who is afraid?”

  “I’m not afraid,” insisted Tatterhood. As the words left her mouth, she knew they were a lie. She leaned her face close to the nattmara’s. “You are afraid too.”

  “You’re learning,” said the nattmara. “Now let me go!” She dug her fingernails into Tatterhood’s legs.

  Tatterhood moved her hand back to the nattmara’s throat. “Answer my questions, and you go free.”

  The nattmara stopped scratching, which Tatterhood took as agreement. She slid her hand back to the nattmara’s shoulder, brushing the creature’s night black hair in the process. The hair felt moist, like the skin of a toad. A chill ran down Tatterhood’s back.

  Tatterhood swallowed. “What do you know about the lhoosh?”

  “The lhoosh? She has been gone for a long time. My older sisters knew her before, but I did not.”

  “Why has the lhoosh returned?” asked Tatterhood.

  “I know not,” said the nightmare. “I care not. She has come back, and brought plenty of work for me and my sisters.”

  “How can I find the lhoosh?”

  The creature laughed—if it could be called laughter. It was the rattle of wind in the trees on a lonely night, the sigh of a woman about to die, the glee of a child eating something it knew it should not. The laugh made Tatterhood feel a deep, wintry cold, especially where her skin touched the nattmara.

  “The lhoosh has something of mine.” Tatterhood adjusted her knees, making sure her legs were firmly around the creature’s chest.

  The nattmara squirmed against Tatterhood’s body, trying to get free, then went limp again. “If you go after the lhoosh, your nightmare will come true.”

  Tatterhood’s heart thudded painfully. “The birds?”

  “You humans are too literal. The lhoosh will destroy not just Trygve, but you too, and the one growing inside of you.”

  Tatterhood tensed. How did the nattmara know about her baby? Her first impulse was to flee, and her second to bludgeon the creature with the spoon, but she resisted, staying firm on the creature’s chest.

  “How do I know about your child?” asked the nattmara. “I can taste your fear for your baby. It’s a very savory taste, even more delicious than when you watched your husband ripped to pieces.”

  Tatterhood choked on her own saliva. There was a reason people did not seek out the nattmara. “You can read thoughts.”

  “Only those tainted by fear. But so many are.” The nattmara bent her legs, pushing her body up, away from the bed.

  Tatterhood was almost thrown off. She wrapped her left arm around the back of the nattmara and rammed her right forearm into the side of her jaw. She would not let the nattmara go—she could not—or she would lose any chance of finding Trygve.

  Tatterhood was stronger than the creature, but not by much. The nattmara shrieked and scratched, then twisted her face and bit down. The nattmara’s teeth broke the skin on Tatterhood’s arm. Cold, clammy fear washed over her, a wave strong enough to carry her away. Tatterhood clenched her jaw and stared into the creature’s eyes. Finally, the nattmara stilled. Tatterhood did not relax her grip.

  Tatterhood panted. “Tell me how I can find the lhoosh, and I will let you go.”

  She yanked a moist hair from the nattmara’s head. The creature shrieked and tried to bite her again.

  “If you lie to me, I will find you, and I will rip every hair out of your head and never let you go.”

  The nightmare licked her lips. “You want to find the lhoosh? She always moves her dwelling, never keeps it anywhere for long. But she stays long enough for her current victim to die. Go to the river—it’s not far from here. Travel down it until you find a thousand-year oak. The lhoosh’s fortress is within reach of the oak’s long branches.” She smiled, a cruel, heartbreaking smile. “You will go, and you will know with a certainty that you have found the right spot. But you will not be able to see the fortress or ever find a way inside.”

  “What do you mean?” Tatterhood demanded.

  “The lhoosh is untraceable. I found your husband by tasting his fear. But you will never find a way in.” The nattmara laughed again, sending a shock of cold through Tatterhood’s body, like jumping into an icy river.

  The nattmara performed the same move Tatterhood had earlier, grabbing her on one side and pushing her on the other, causing them to roll off the bed. As they crashed to the floor, Tatterhood lost her grip.

  The nattmara hissed as she leapt toward the shuttered window. “You will never see Trygve again.” She melted into sand and slipped through the crack.

  Tatterhood shivered. She felt hollow inside, and not just from the cold the nattmara had left behind.

  After a few minutes, she got to her feet. Her back ached from the fall and she rubbed it. It would bruise, she knew. But there was no pain in her front, in the place where her baby grew. How very fortunate. She needed to be more careful in the coming months, maybe get in fewer fights.

  She pressed her hands to her face. They were freezing cold.

  She went to the door and pushed it open. Several townspeople, including Old Man Bjarne himself, startled and stepped backward. They must have heard her fighting with the nattmara, come to the door, but been too afraid to enter.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “I don’t think the nattmara will come back to this house again.” She could make no promises for the rest of the town.

  She went to the barn. Storm greeted her by licking her face and nibbling he
r hair. Tatterhood put the flask with the prince’s hand back around her neck. She sat in the hay and held Storm close until her body stopped shaking from the cold. Then she set off in the partial darkness toward the river.

  Chapter 7

  Tatterhood and Storm moved slowly through the forest. Branches scraped her legs, mosquitoes bit her skin, and a cold wind cut through her clothing, but she would not stop for shelter. She could not. She kept her wooden spoon in hand, wary of attack. But nothing disturbed them. Nothing but the bugs and the branches, the cold and the darkness, the fear and the panic of arriving too late to save Trygve.

  The light rose and she continued downriver, searching, all the time, for a thousand-year oak. She trusted the directions of the nattmara. Some creatures wove falsehoods, but that did not seem part of a nightmare’s character. A nightmare took a truth—a frightening truth—and grew it bigger and more terrifying until it took over a person’s soul. And perhaps in the growth there was a falsehood, for often fears aren’t quite as terrifying as they seem. But at the heart of a nattmara’s work was a truth—she worked with something real.

  After several more hours of walking, Tatterhood spotted a clearing. Everything but the river was silent—no hum of bugs or chitter of birds. Storm plodded toward the clearing, understanding, without direction, where she needed to go. Exactly in the center stood an oak tree, wider and taller than any tree Tatterhood had ever seen.

  A tree who has seen so many years, who has watched so many rulers rise and fall, gains a certain sort of power, perhaps even a magic. The lhoosh must be drawing on this natural magic for her own spells.

  Tatterhood stood and led her goat around the oak. It would take four, maybe five adults to wrap their arms all the way around the tree. She put her hand on the tree, felt its bark. While the tree had a strength, a natural force to it, there was no trace of any other magic. Her mind recalled the soldiers seeing Trygve in the gardens. There had been no trace of magic there either, and yet the lhoosh must have used magic to spirit him away.