by Ruth Nickle
Tatterhood walked farther from the trunk of the tree, dragging the bowl of her wooden spoon against the ground. The nattmara had said that the lhoosh’s fortress was within reach of the oak’s long branches, so she stood under the edge of each one, looking for some sign of a fortress. How could a fortress be invisible? How could it leave no trace? There was no indication that anyone had climbed in the branches, no evidence of anyone walking on the ground.
She returned to the trunk of the tree, bothered by the lack of magic, the lack of lhoosh and fortress and prince. Yet there was this silence. An unnatural silence.
Tatterhood placed both hands on the tree. She felt its bark, then pressed her nose against it and breathed in its scent. Like a bolt of lightning, the force of the tree vibrated through her. She fell to the ground. In that moment, she knew, without a doubt, that the fortress was here, her husband was here.
The nattmara had been correct about the location of the fortress. Tatterhood pushed herself off the ground, hoping the nightmare was wrong about the rest. Yet while Tatterhood could channel a little bit of magic, she was no enchantress who could lift deep spells of hiding. And she had never been able to find people using magic, never at all, only objects she had a strong connection to. She had tried endless times as a child playing hide and seek, and never found anyone. And once the baker’s daughter went missing, and all Tatterhood’s attempts to help did nothing. The little girl had been found dead in the forest a week later.
But she had nothing else to do but try. She could not give up now, not when Trygve was here. She thought of the prince. She had seen him, touched every inch of him. Surely that knowledge would help her find him.
Trygve’s hand hung in the flask around her neck, on top of her chest. Surely his hand wanted to reunite with his body. Surely it called to the body with all its might. And the body must long for its return.
And Tatterhood carried a part of Trygve inside of her. Their baby. Their baby belonged not just to her, but also to him. Surely that was connection enough.
Tatterhood thought of everything she liked about the prince. His laugh. His smile. The warmth of his body. She liked fighting him in the training yard. She liked the way the soldiers looked up to him, and the way he laughed and joked with them. She liked the way her mother smiled when Trygve entered the room.
She sat on Storm, rubbed her spoon, and concentrated. She felt nothing. No tug, no pull—no difference from the other times she had tried to locate a person.
Tatterhood tried again, remembering every detail of his face, his hair, his body, the way he spoke, the way he walked, the sound of his voice, the smell of his skin.
Yet still she sensed nothing.
The nattmara was right. She could not find her husband. He had been captured by an untraceable creature that even a nattmara could not find directly.
She whacked the ground, beating it with her wooden spoon until her arms ached with pain.
Tatterhood set the spoon aside and stumbled to her knees. Perhaps she could find a powerful enchantress and convince her to weave the spells to find Trygve. But in her heart she knew there would not be enough time. The lhoosh would kill him. She should’ve gone to someone with real skills in the first place, instead of attempting a fool-brained quest to find him on her own. She didn’t even have enough magic to be a witch. Over the course of her childhood and adolescence, seven witches had evaluated her. Even with guidance and days of attempts, she couldn’t do basic things like start a fire or summon a breeze. Each witch declared her impossible to train, her skills so paltry as to be mere tricks.
Tatterhood sniffled. She would not cry—she would not do it, not even though she was pregnant. But she had never failed at a self-appointed task before, and her inability to find the prince made her miserable.
She looked at her hands, at the dirt in her fingernails, and laughed at herself. Because to tell the truth, she was more sad at failing her task than at losing Trygve. What a terrible, wretched person she was, to care more about her own failure than about her husband, as imperfect as he was.
Tatterhood beat her spoon against the ground again and again, and then stopped mid-swing. She realized her error. Yes, she had sought for Trygve, but she had only thought about the things she liked about him. If you wanted to find something, you couldn’t wish only for one aspect of it. In order to find her husband, she had to seek for, and truly want to find, all of him.
She thought of the dozens of little annoyances, the incongruities of character, the parts of Trygve that caused her pain. There were little things, like the way he insisted on brushing his hair, any time they went anywhere, even down the hall. There was the way he shined his boots when he didn’t want to listen to her, and the way he always volunteered to sit by visitors to the kingdom and then made little effort to include her in the conversation. But these were trivial compared to the fact that he valued beauty so highly, and as a result, found her so lacking. She balled her fists. She had changed herself, time and time again, so he would desire her, so he would lie with her with passion. But he had never truly desired her, something the magic revealed when it changed her hair red.
Tatterhood ached, and not only from smashing her spoon against the soil. How could she pretend to want Trygve back, when he had wounded her so? How could she want someone who consistently found her inadequate, who did not understand the essence of her being, and would not value it if he did?
No one would blame Tatterhood if she failed to save Trygve—not her parents, not her sister, not his father, King Varg. They would grieve and blame the lhoosh. And rightfully so.
But Tatterhood would always know she might have saved him.
She touched her belly and imagined the baby growing inside. A little, imperfect human. Yes, the baby could survive with only a mother, but she wanted her child to know its father.
Tatterhood held up the flask with her husband’s hand inside, considering its weight. In order to find Trygve, she needed to want all of him.
“Storm,” she called.
The goat pointedly walked away.
“I’m calling you, Storm. This is important.”
The goat paused, but did not turn.
Tatterhood dashed to Storm, ran her fingers through the long, shaggy brown hair until Storm licked her face.
“I need your help, Storm. One last time.”
The goat let her lead her back to the tree. Tatterhood sat on her back and stroked the wooden spoon, nudging Storm to walk in a circle around the thousand-year oak tree. Despite all his failings, Trygve had tried to be a good husband. He had never wanted to hurt her. And it must have been hard for him, leaving behind his kingdom, his family, his friends—everything he knew—so he could marry her. Could she not at least give him a few moments of forgiveness?
She considered the prince, giving the attributes she liked and despised an equal measure of attention. This time, instead of treating his characteristics as points causing either pleasure or pain, she considered them without judgment. Like a painter creating a portrait, she filled her thoughts of Trygve with both light and shadow, because together light and shadow make a person human.
Storm walked around the thousand-year oak, again, and again, and again, not bothered by the repetitive nature of the task. Tatterhood hummed a little tune and for the first time she found herself wanting Trygve—wanting all of him. She felt the slight tug of her husband, so she kept riding around the tree, again and again, thinking of every little detail about him. Her mind was a canvas, and she would capture an exact likeness. The pull to her husband grew, but it did not call her elsewhere, so she continued her journey around the tree.
A shimmering appeared in front of them. Storm stopped, and Tatterhood tasted a bit of fear. Sometimes it was good to be afraid, she decided. It would keep her alert.
“Come, Storm,” Tatterhood said, and prodded her forward.
Chapter 8
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br /> Tatterhood found herself in a cool, dank, stone room. Had she located the lhoosh’s fortress? Only a small bit of daylight entered, through a small hole above her, and she waited as her eyes adjusted to the relative darkness.
There was something in the corner, on the floor. On top of it rode three nattmaras.
Tatterhood slid off Storm and bounded across the room, wooden spoon in hand. She almost screamed a battle cry, but if the lhoosh was not already aware of her presence, she did not want to alert it. She smacked the first nattmara on the arm with her wooden spoon. In a human, the strike might’ve broken a bone, but nightmares weren’t true creatures of flesh. The nattmara melted into sand, scurrying away, across the floor, up the wall, and out the small hole of light.
Storm charged the second nattmara, chasing it across the room. It transformed into sand immediately before climbing up the wall.
The final nattmara still rode her husband’s chest. It stopped, turned, and cackled at Tatterhood. Its long black fingernails caressed Trygve’s cheek. Tatterhood swung her spoon, but the nightmare dissolved into sand and fled.
Breathing heavily, Tatterhood crouched next to her husband. He was naked. Attached to his left arm was the troll’s greenish-brown hand. The lhoosh had bound him in chains. Cuts and bruises covered almost every inch of his body. Even his lips were scabbed, caked in blood which had dried a blackish red. But Trygve must be alive or the nattmaras would not have come. There were other sorts of creatures that fed on the dead—all varieties of death feeders, small and large—but nightmares restricted themselves to the living.
“Trygve. Trygve.” She found the pulse on his neck and let out a deep breath of relief.
There was a vile-smelling chamber pot next to them. She used her foot to push it farther away.
Keeping her hand on Trygve, she looked around. There was no sign of the lhoosh. The room was a strange sort of prison, made not of stones connected by mortar, but of a solid piece of rock, probably carved by magic. There was no door, no way in, and no way out. Storm ran around, her hooves clattering against the stone floor, butting her horns at the walls, looking for a weakness, but there didn’t appear to be any. The lhoosh must use magic every time she entered or exited.
Tatterhood turned her head upward. She had been wrong before—there was not one hole for light, but three. Each was only the width of a man’s hand and would not help them escape.
Tatterhood had entered through the magic of the tree, her ability to find objects, and her intuition to travel in a circle. But inside the fortress, she sensed heavy spells keeping them in. There might be only one or two enchantresses on the entire continent who could break this sort of spellwork.
She turned to the four chains and shackles binding Trygve, one on each arm, one on each leg. She grabbed hold of one of the chains and focused on one of the new curtains in her bedroom, willing them to switch places. They did, and she easily pulled the fabric off Trygve’s leg. Which meant she now had chains hanging in her bedroom. When she returned to the castle, maybe she could discreetly remove them before her mother noticed.
She repeated the procedure on the chain on his other leg, and then on his right arm, saving the troll-handed arm for last. You could never completely control a body part that was not your own, something she had learned when dragging a troll-headed Ingridr around the countryside.
With care, she approached Trygve’s troll hand and switched the final chain. The hand spasmed, but did nothing more.
She looked over the prince’s body and wondered if he was in a state to fight. What if he could not even walk? She could probably get him on Storm, but then she’d have to deal with the lhoosh alone.
It would be better to send him back to the castle, but she didn’t know if she could. She rested her hand on his shoulder. In the past she’d discovered that she could only switch like items. A stone could be switched for a candle or a bracelet for gold: they were all inanimate objects. But it was impossible to switch an object for something living. An animal had to be switched for an animal, so most of the time she switched her goat and her horse. She’d never managed to switch a person for anything before, but she might as well try.
She focused on her horse, Snowdrift, standing in her stall, and willed it to switch places with Trygve. Nothing happened. She thought of Snowdrift in all her normal locations, but still nothing happened. She tried again with the prince’s horse but failed, and she didn’t know if it was because she couldn’t switch a person and animal, or because the animal was not where she expected it to be.
Back at the castle, there was an old sow that never left the pig pen. Tatterhood had switched her for Storm before, when her goat became too unruly and needed to spend some time with the pigs. She focused on the sow, willing it to switch with Trygve, but nothing happened.
Tatterhood smacked her hand against the stone floor. Once again, humans were too complicated for her.
Or maybe she could only switch a human for a human. But who did she know well enough to switch him for and how would she know their location? And was there anyone she could trade without guilt? There were several who had sworn their lives to defend the royal family, but she probably didn’t know them well enough to switch, and even if she did she would not force them into this situation, where they had a high likelihood of being tortured and killed. She could not live with that on her conscience.
She prodded Trygve on the shoulder and said his name, “Trygve, Trygve, Trygve.”
He blinked his eyes and stared at her.
“Tatterhood?” he said, like a man clinging to a raft in the sea, unsure if he has spotted land.
“It’s me.”
“Thank the stars.” He tried to sit but did not have the strength, so she put her hands under his arms and helped him.
Trygve reached out, as if to embrace her, but stopped. He put his knees to his chest, perhaps to cover his nakedness, and hid his troll hand behind his body.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” he said, but his voice shook. He turned his face away.
He must feel ashamed. Ashamed that he had been captured. Ashamed at the terrible things the lhoosh had done to him. Tatterhood did not know the full extent of the lhoosh’s actions, but with his wounds, she could guess. But it could’ve happened to anyone—it was not his fault.
“Tell me about the lhoosh.”
Trygve shuddered, as if experiencing physical pain at hearing the creature’s name.
She waited for a response, but none came. “Is there a way out? A door I can’t see?”
“There is nothing. It’s impossible.” He hid his face in his knees.
Tatterhood thought she heard a sob come from him. She wanted to reach out and comfort him, but did not know how. How do you offer hope to someone who is a shadow of his normal self?
“There’s always a way out. We just haven’t found it yet.” She removed a water pouch and the rest of the crusty bread from her bag on Storm’s back. “Here.” She held it out to him. “It’s all I have with me.”
He grabbed the bread and shoved it in his mouth, eating without any of his normal, polite manners. The troll hand tried to pull the bread away, but Storm growled at it and it lowered. Tatterhood wanted to remove the hand and give him back his own, but it was a lengthy, painful process, not something to do when the lhoosh could return any time.
Trygve needed to tell her more about the lhoosh, but he seemed so beaten down. She remembered how long it had taken for her to feel back to herself after her experience with the nattmara—and three had fed on Trygve at the same time, and before that he had been tortured by the lhoosh. She gathered the curtains she had pulled off his limbs, wadding them into a ball. Perhaps with clothes he would be more himself.
She thought of the clothes in their rooms, but it was difficult, as Tatterhood never paid much attention to his apparel. She had memori
zed her own tattered hoods and dresses, and other outfits in case she needed them, but Trygve was taller and wider than her.
Of all his many clothes, she only knew the outfit he had worn on their wedding day: polished black boots, finely tailored black pants, a shirt made of green brocade and gold and silver embroidery, with a long black coat with silver clasps. She focused on the clothes, forced herself to remember them in detail until the curtains in her arms disappeared, replaced by the rich garb.
She held out his clothes, but he didn’t take them. He kept his knees folded up in front of his chest.
He swallowed his last bite of bread and drank the rest of the water. “I didn’t think you would come for me.”
“Of course I came for you. You’re my husband.” It was better not to tell him that she almost hadn’t, better not to tell him that she almost gave up.
“Well now you’re stuck here with me. The lhoosh will be happy.”
Tatterhood continued to hold out the clothes, but Trygve made no move to take them.
If there were any hope of escaping, it would be by working together. And even if, by some small chance, she could save them on her own, Trygve would only find peace if he faced his nightmares and overcame them.
How could she stir him to action if he wouldn’t even take his clothes? How could she give him a glimmer of light? She would not give him false assurances—he would see through that. Her head throbbed with fatigue as she tried to think, and her limbs ached with exhaustion. Too many nights with little or no sleep, too many impossibilities to face. But she had found Trygve, and that should’ve been impossible.
She sat down beside him without touching him, careful to give him his space. She fingered the flask around her neck.
“Trygve,” she said.