Thornghost

by Tone Almhjell

  “Why?”

  “I’m not sure.” Grandma Alma put the photo on her nightstand, facedown. “I said you were alike, and you were, to begin with. But your mother changed. She had an accident when she was your age.”

  “At Sorrowdeep.”

  Grandma Alma frowned, and Niklas added, “You’re always telling me to stay away from the pond. I thought that must be why.”

  “You thought right, then. That accident was hard on all of us. Afterward, the nightmares began. Dead birds and evil fogs and I don’t know what. My guess is she had another dream about this castle and tried to work it out of her head. She did that sometimes. The dreams got stronger toward the end when she couldn’t carve. I think her mind . . . slipped a little.”

  Niklas swallowed. “But you put the castle back up when she died?”

  “It seemed such a harmless thing, when we kept to her wishes in all other matters.” Grandma Alma’s eyes filled with tears. “Even when the instructions seemed a little cruel. It is only natural for a young man to ask about his mother, but she wanted you to know as little as possible.”

  Niklas bit his lip. It was her, his mother, all along. The secrecy and half-told stories had been her wish. “She didn’t want me to know her?”

  Grandma Alma sighed. “I don’t know why she wanted it so, my boy. But I don’t believe she would have asked this of us if she didn’t think it very important.”

  She pushed the photo toward him. “Well done for finding this, but now I must tell you to let the story rest. I know you won’t want to, but . . .”

  “What about Sebastifer?”

  “Sebastifer?” Grandma Alma folded her hands. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  A hard knot weighed Niklas’s chest down. He could have said that he already knew, that Uncle Anders had told him, but something in the set of her mouth stopped him. Instead, he placed the figurine of the dog on top of the photo. “I found this in the castle. It says Sebastifer on the bottom.”

  She stared at the dog, lower lids tight. “Strange.”

  Very calmly, Niklas said, “One more thing. The afternoon Mom died, when you said I could come and say good-bye. I remember her saying that I should stay away from her, that she was dangerous. That she was a Thornghost. But you said I had just imagined it. Are you sure about that?”

  After, as he sat on the steps and let the sun warm him up, he realized that he didn’t ask because he wanted the truth, or because Grandma Alma’s gentle patting of his arm would reassure him.

  He asked because he now knew exactly what she looked like when she lied. And his mother’s last words had been no dream.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Secret?” Niklas stood under the ash tree all fidgety with worry. Dusk had eased up from the river, pushing the red-gold sunset all the way to the snowcaps above. Time for nocturnal creatures of the woods to stir, but still no lynx turned up at the border. What if she had left now that she had warned him about the trolls? Or what if the troll had gotten her? He climbed deeper into the thicket. “Secret? Are you here?”

  She dropped out of the ash and landed behind him.

  Niklas whirled around. “Finally!”

  But Secret didn’t seem quite so thrilled to see him. “I told you not to cross the border. But since you don’t listen, you can see for yourself. Under the worm ferns by the screaming stone.”

  Stubby tail whipping, she climbed back up into the ash to wait.

  Not Niklas’s favorite thing, coming so close to the screaming stone, especially after last night’s nightmare. But he couldn’t let Secret see that, so he brushed aside the green fronds. In a crescent around the stone, half-buried in the spongy moss, there were animal skulls. Small ones that might belong to squirrels, big ones that could be deer. They had all been carved with a rectangle sliced in half by a slanted line. Though the mark had a different shape, it didn’t take a master riddle solver to recognize the style from the leather stone last night. Troll magic.

  “They put these here?”

  “They both came while you slept. The nasty one with scars put those into the ground. I think she’s trying to destroy the stone.” Secret looked straight at Niklas. “Are you scared enough now?”

  Niklas didn’t reply. It had occurred to him that maybe he was in over his head. Last night the oak tree had burst into flames at the touch of one of the troll marks. He had no idea if these skulls had the power to break the border. “Did you see her cross the path?”

  “No,” Secret said. “But she said they would return, after.”

  “After what?”

  “I don’t know. Did you find more acorns?”

  “I didn’t. But I found . . .” Niklas hesitated. Usually, he didn’t discuss his mother with anyone. Secret flicked her good ear toward him to say she was listening. And maybe it was because she didn’t stare at him with pity the way everyone always did, or because she just waited instead of filling the silence to cover the awkwardness. But he found himself telling her everything he had discovered that day.

  As he explained about the song, the photo, the castle, how everyone had kept the truth from him after she had died, Secret sat in the tall worm grass and groomed herself, never looking in his direction. When he was done, she didn’t offer any of the poor-orphan phrases. She said, “My mother also died. Killed by hunters.”

  Her paw came up to clean the split ear. Suddenly Niklas saw how the tear looked way too smooth to have been made by teeth. It was a gun wound. No wonder Secret looked so lost up in the tree the night of Rag’s death. “They almost got you, too?”

  Secret yawned, which Niklas thought was cat-speak for a shrug. She turned to him to say something, but instead she jumped to her feet, crouched low on her hind legs, ear tuft trembling.

  “What is it?” Niklas searched the tree line for green eyes. “Are the trolls coming?”

  But Secret’s ears didn’t point toward the mountain trail. They pointed toward the farm. “Music, I think you call it. In the bone field by the stream.”

  “You mean the graveyard?” Niklas strained to hear it. The hallowfield was just inside the gate and down a short hill, but still the Summerchild almost drowned out the noise. It took him a moment to pick out the sad, lilting tune of his mother’s lullaby over the rushing stream. “It must be Uncle Anders playing again.” Niklas winced. “I’m worried about him. When my mother died, he got so sad, it made him sick. He’s been all better for years, but lately he’s thinking about her.”

  “He speaks the same word over and over: Erika.” Secret whipped around to study him. “What does it mean, this word?”

  “It’s my mother’s name.” Niklas swallowed. “I have to see if Uncle Anders needs help.”

  “You’re scared,” Secret said. It wasn’t a question. “More than when I showed you the skulls. Why?”

  “Hey now,” he said quickly. “I don’t do scared.” Even he could feel the smile he tried wasn’t a very good rascal-face. Secret just stared at him without stirring a whisker. He adjusted the shoulder strap of his satchel. “I get nightmares sometimes. About her, coming from that field. They’re just dreams . . .” He trailed off. Just dreams, yes. But the normal rules didn’t apply in Summerhill. Not anymore.

  Secret looked away for a moment. “Then I’ll come.”

  “Not a good idea,” Niklas said. “What if Uncle Anders sees you? Or the hunters come?”

  But she tossed her head and slipped forward.

  At the fence, she turned and flicked her tail at him.

  “I know,” Niklas muttered, hurrying after. “Not so slow.”

  • • •

  They found the hallowfield pooled with darkness, out of reach from the last rays of the sun. The naked roof beams of the chapel jutted up like folded hands. Secret had called it the bone field, but in fact it was mostly empty. Most of the headstones belonged t
o people who died in the great avalanche, but their bodies lay somewhere under the mountain. The only grave with bones in it was the one marked Erika Summerhill.

  The notes of the Thornghost song floated through the air, but Niklas couldn’t see Uncle Anders.

  “The music comes from the ground,” Secret said. When Niklas stiffened, she added, “Not from under the headstones. There’s a cave below the house.”

  Niklas had never heard of any cave below the chapel.

  They edged around to the east side of the chapel, where the wall had tumbled so they could see inside the ruin like a stage. Secret was right, there was a cave beneath the house. Or a cellar. Light seeped up between the floorboards together with the music and Uncle Anders’s muffled voice. He wasn’t singing. He was holding a conversation.

  “Please don’t come back. Please don’t be angry,” he pleaded.

  Niklas’s skin prickled. “Is someone else down there with him?”

  “No,” Secret said. “Or, if so, they are silent.”

  The music died, then the light. Moments later, Uncle Anders rose out of the floor like a wraith, clutching his violin in one hand and a bucket in the other. His back seemed stooped as he closed a hatch in the floor, pushed an old pew over the opening, and shuffled out of the chapel without noticing he was being watched. “A nice cup of tea,” he muttered, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. “That’s what is needed now.” His face was gray and tired, but the dark mood seemed to have lightened for now.

  So Niklas let him trudge back toward the house and the tea without stopping him. When he had disappeared up the hill, Niklas snuck into the chapel and undid Uncle Anders’s covering up. The hatch groaned when he lifted it. Cellars below chapels were called crypts, he seemed to remember. And crypts were for the dead.

  “I’ll wait here,” Secret said from the shrubs behind him.

  “You’re not coming?” Niklas heard his voice go squeaky and cleared his throat. “I thought you said no one was down there.”

  “No one is,” she said, turning her ear low. “But to me human houses are like cages.”

  “Oh.” Niklas tried hard not to think about the cage his mother had carried in his last nightmare. “I can understand that. I’ll go then.” A ladder led down to the crypt. He tested it for sturdiness once, twice. Secret didn’t comment, but she tilted her head as if there was something she didn’t quite understand.

  Niklas plastered a smile on his face. “I’m going. I’m just waiting for my eyes to get used to the darkness.” He gave her a brief nod and climbed down.

  He had expected the cellar to reek of mildew, but instead it smelled sweet like dry wood. A small lantern sat on the bottom rung of the ladder. He lit it.

  “Secret,” he called out softly as the light crept into the corners of the crypt. “You should see this! There are creatures down here!”

  Positioned along the walls, there were carved statues.

  On one side there were animals. Wolves howling at the sky, horses rearing up to strike. On the other side, there were monsters, skeleton birds fitted with tarp for wings, like the creature inside the nightmare castle. All his mother’s work.

  How had she fit the blocks through the hatch? Maybe she had added the outstretched limbs afterward. Niklas could picture her moving between these creatures, filling the crypt with wood chips, face screwed up with madness.

  At the farthest end of the cellar stood a cloaked figure. This statue was smaller, more straight-backed, and turned toward the wall. Niklas’s pulse whooshed in his head, louder than the Summerchild. But he had to look.

  He walked to the end of the crypt on watery legs. Holding his breath, he turned the statue by its shoulders. It came around smoothly, grazing him with its outstretched arms.

  It was a girl his age. The carver had made no effort to catch her in a pretty moment, but with the gathered mouth under the stubborn curls, she looked exactly like herself.

  “Mom,” Niklas whispered.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Please don’t come back, Uncle Anders had said. Please don’t be angry.

  Secret eased onto the chapel floor above. She moved so silently, but the boards creaked beneath her paws, loud enough to drown out Niklas’s heartbeat. “Cub? What is wrong?”

  He had to force the words out of his mouth. “I found my mother. Or not her, but her statue.”

  The floor creaked again, and Secret’s front paws stepped gingerly down the ladder, letting her dip her head just low enough to look into the crypt. She watched him stand there with the lantern, then said, “I can see how you’re her cub.”

  “You can?” Niklas had studied every photo of his mother’s face, looking for signs of himself, and found none.

  “Not when you’re the boy of the farm, running around with your friend. But when you walk the woods alone. When no one is watching.”

  “You mean no one except Secret, the stalker lynx,” Niklas said, but the joke didn’t sit right. He didn’t want to look like this statue, all worried and lost.

  The statue dripped with water, which Niklas guessed came from Uncle Anders’s bucket. It had washed away the dust, bringing out the colors in her eyes and lips, before gathering in a puddle on the floor. Her eyelashes still carried drops.

  “Uncle Anders keeps all my mother’s things clean,” Niklas said. “But I don’t think he’s been doing it here, at least not until tonight. All the other statues are grimy, and there’s still dirt in some of the folds of her cloak, see?”

  Secret sneezed in the dusty air and pulled back up through the hatch. But she hovered near the entrance. “Then why start now?”

  “I don’t know.” Niklas bit his lip. “But he plays his violin, which he hasn’t touched since she died. He told me he hears things . . . Maybe the magic taint is affecting him, too.”

  He couldn’t bear to meet the dead eyes of the statue anymore, so he turned and walked around the cellar. In the corner by the ladder, there was a piece of tarp that hadn’t been fastened to a bird statue. He pulled it aside and found a casket.

  “You’ve been right all along, Secret,” he snorted. “I am stupid.”

  He had always assumed the jar of acorns he and Lin had found in the loft must have belonged to Grandma Alma, since it was tucked behind her fishing gear. But the arm that had been carved on the casket lid was definitely Erika’s handiwork, and it was definitely a troll. The troll hunt had been her game.

  It seemed he and his mother were more alike than even Grandma Alma had guessed.

  The troll’s claw stuck out between the knuckles, poking up from the lid, and the arm bore another one of the brutal marks, a four-pointed star. There was a finicky latch of moving parts, but the wood had bent and Niklas had to use force to get the lid off. A gust of bitter almonds stung his nose. This casket had not been opened for a long time. He lifted the contents carefully out onto the floor, describing them to Secret. There were carving tools, small pots of paint that had long since dried out, and a metal flask with a label he had seen before.

  “Troll’s bane.” He unscrewed the flask and tipped it gently. A fine powder poured out. He grimaced. “Or it used to be. It’s turned to dust.”

  Don’t think about turning to dust, he reminded himself. Not here. He screwed the lid back on. “I guess it’s better than nothing.”

  Next he found a leather-bound notebook. The first page said Book of Troll Runes.

  Niklas leafed through it with shivering fingers. No wonder he couldn’t remember inventing magic for the trolls. He hadn’t, and neither had Lin. It was Erika’s doing.

  “My mother didn’t much mind being creepy,” he told Secret. “Listen to this: ‘All troll magic comes from pain. They carve their runes in living things, in skin and bones and teeth.’”

  Each page had an illustration of a troll rune with crude lines and sharp angles, and a title. “I found
the one from the oak tree rock.” He held a page with a jagged three-line mark to the lantern light. “It means burn. And here’s the divided rectangle with one black and one blank section.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Break.” Niklas grimaced. “Or destroy. Let’s hope it doesn’t work.”

  The last page did not describe a rune. It was a brief note, almost like a journal entry. The ink strokes were hard.

  I have to stop.

  Two horses dead at Sorrowdeep, both slashed and rune-marked. If not for the troll hunt, none of this would have happened.

  Every night I hear Sebastifer. Sometimes he barks. Other times he howls. Twice I’ve heard him whimper like he is giving up.

  Anders says it’s not real. But the nightmares erase the lines between truth and story, and I can’t see them anymore. I only see the troll witch and the cage and the black water rising up to drown me.

  Anders says I shouldn’t talk like that. Maybe he’s right. But I also think I’m right that my games are dangerous. I’m dangerous. So I’m going to lock this in the box and I’m going to stop.

  The Knight of Thorns The Ghost of Thorns

  Erika Summerhill

  Niklas closed his eyes. Mr. Molyk had talked about another wave of killings twenty-five years ago. The summer his mother was twelve. Two horses had died at Sorrowdeep that year, and according to this, his mother had been convinced she was to blame. That she was dangerous.

  Maybe Niklas was dangerous, too.

  “Cub.”

  Niklas’s hair stood on end. Secret had silently come halfway down the ladder, and from the flat edge in her voice, he knew something was very wrong.

  He made himself open his eyes, but he couldn’t believe them.

  The statue was lowering her arms. A moment ago they had been stretched out in front of her, fingers flexed and crooked. But now they were sinking slowly toward the floor, making a faint scraping noise as they came to rest against her thighs.

  Please don’t come back.