by Matt Haig
Rudolph Soup
“What is it?” Samuel asked, looking at the bowl of murky brown liquid.
“Reindeer soup,” Aunt Eda replied, as if it was the most normal thing in the world to eat a reindeer.
Samuel looked at the hairs on her chin and upper lip.
She’s as disgusting as the soup, he thought to himself, finding it hard to believe she and his mum had been twin sisters.
His mum was pretty, and always wore nice clothes and makeup. She used to put stinky cream on her upper lip that got rid of her mustache, and she used to do workouts twice a week to keep her figure. She wore jeans and bright-colored T-shirts, and went to the hairdressers every Saturday morning to get it styled or to put highlights in.
Samuel looked at the gray-and-black hair his aunt scraped back in a bun. He looked at her red cheeks. He looked at her blouse and her cardigan that looked two hundred years old. It was hard to believe she and his mum belonged to the same species, let alone were twins.
“Reindeer? That’s disgusting.”
Ugh, he thought. Rudolph soup.
“It is really werry nice,” said Aunt Eda. “I think you’ll find it tastes like beef.” Samuel watched his sister take a sip from her spoon, with no visible pleasure or disgust. He did the same, and nearly retched.
“That is disgusting,” he confirmed.
“It was Henrik’s favorite,” said Aunt Eda.
“Well, Henrik must have had very bad taste,” said Samuel.
Aunt Eda leaned across the table. “Don’t talk that way about Uncle Henrik. Do you hear me?”
Her voice wasn’t much louder than a whisper, but it had the sudden quiet anger of a cat’s hiss. It wasn’t her voice that worried him, though; it was the expression on her face. Her eyes looked so hurt that, for the first time since he had arrived, Samuel felt guilty for being so rude.
He wanted to say “I’m sorry” but somehow couldn’t get the words out. However, the apology was there on his face as Aunt Eda nodded, and sipped her soup.
There was an awkward silence, which was only interrupted by the sound of Ibsen’s whimpering. “Oh, Ibsen, what is it?” Aunt Eda asked.
Ibsen was looking at the window, pointing his nose toward the forest. Samuel looked at the dog and thought there was something strange about it, but couldn’t decide what.
Aunt Eda ignored Ibsen and carried on sipping her soup.
“Now,” she said. “After we haff eaten, I will explain the rules to you both. After all, you can’t follow rules unless you know what they are in the first place. Okay?”
Martha nodded. Samuel did nothing. He didn’t want to hear the rules. Why should he do as his aunt said? After all, no one ever did what he said. Not even when doing what he said was a matter of life or death—like stopping his parents’ car before a log crushes it.
“Rules keep things in place,” Aunt Eda said. “And me and you must be kept in certain places too. And for our own good.”
Samuel looked at her cardigan buttoned right up to the top, and realized exactly what Aunt Eda was. She was a person buttoned right to the top. He wondered what it was that kept all her invisible buttons in place.
“Okay,” said Aunt Eda. “Now you haff finished your soup, it is time to hear the rules.”
Samuel was going to argue, but he looked at his sister and saw she was listening to his aunt. Maybe Martha’s interested, he thought. Maybe she wants to know the rules. So Samuel decided to be quiet, and sit perfectly still, as his aunt ran through her list from one to ten.
The Rules
* * *
The Rules
1. Never go up to the attic.
2. Don’t say anything bad about Uncle Henrik, as he is not here to defend himself.
3. Take your shoes off at the front door.
4. Never feed Ibsen between mealtimes, even when he begs.
5. Eat all of your meals. One day, you might need all the strength you can get.
6. Always ask my permission before you go outside.
7. Don’t ever go outside after dark.
8. If it starts to get dark when you are already outside, come in straightaway as fast as you can.
9. NEVER—UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES—GO INTO THE FOREST.
* * *
The Huldre-folk
It was dark outside the windows.
Samuel and Martha had never known darkness like this. In England, the nights were always softened by some distant streetlight. But here, next to a dense forest and miles from the nearest village, the darkness was so intense it almost had a weight. You could feel it pressing in, outside the windows, like the whole house was in the grip of a giant.
Samuel saw something reflected in the glass and turned around. “What’s that?” he asked. He was pointing to the weird light that shone up at Aunt Eda’s face.
“It’s a special lamp,” she said softly. “A happiness lamp. It stops me getting too sad when it is so dark.”
Samuel looked at his sister and wondered if the lamp might help her.
“Could Martha have a go?” he asked.
“If she wants a go. Martha, do you want to use my happiness lamp?”
Martha looked at the ultraviolet tubes of light and shook her head.
Aunt Eda turned from the lamp and smiled at Martha. “You might be part huldre,” she joked.
“What’s a huldre?” Samuel asked, on Martha’s behalf.
Aunt Eda paused for a long time, and looked through the gap in the curtains at the darkness. Maybe it would be a good idea to tell them about the huldres, she thought. Just in case anything happens.
“The huldre-folk are creatures who are said to be scared of light,” she said eventually, changing the angle of her lamp. She was trying to make the huldres sound less serious than she knew they were, as if they were just something out of a storybook, rather than creatures living in the forest behind her house. “They effaporate if they are exposed to the sun. They liff in a separate world under the ground, and only come out at night. They get jealous of the humans who don’t have to spend their days in the dark. Huldre in Norwegian means ‘underneath.’ The huldre-folk are supposedly as tall as you and me, but they are werry ugly. They haff a tail and gray skin and strange eyes and bony bodies. They are said to trap humans and other creatures in prisons underground…”
She went quiet suddenly, remembering what Old Tor was said to have seen.
Samuel thought of the nightmares he sometimes had, about gray-skinned monsters with tails and wide-apart eyes. But these were only nightmares. He knew they weren’t real.
“Do you believe in the huldre-folk?” Samuel asked.
Aunt Eda moved her mouth as if the question was something to chew on. Then she said: “I believe there are more things out there than we understand.”
She’s mad, thought Samuel. Absolutely raving mad.
Okay, so Mum might have believed in star signs but she didn’t believe in creatures with tails who lived in underground worlds. Maybe the happiness lamp made her mad. A madness lamp, sending mad ideas into her brain.
Later on, lying in bed, Samuel told Martha: “I hate this place.”
Martha said nothing.
“And I hate her. I hate her hairy chin and her Rudolph soup and her no TV and her buttons and her rules.”
Martha still said nothing.
“Martha…Martha, say something…Please…Just sing a song…make a sound…Please…I can’t take it just listening to her all the time. Please, sis. Please…”
But still Martha said nothing. Somewhere, deep inside, she wanted to talk to her brother, but the words weren’t there.
“Do you know what you are, Martha?” he asked, getting out of bed. “You’re a selfish cow. You might as well have a cow’s tail because that’s what you are. You’re selfish and I know it’s because you’re sad about Mum and Dad, but I’m sad too and I’d be less sad if you spoke to me. Martha? Speak! Say something!”
He was shaking her now, but she still didn’
t say a word. She just scrunched her eyes shut and—when his hands left her—burrowed deep down into the darkness under the blankets.
Like a rabbit, thought Samuel. Or a huldre.
When she heard Samuel climb back into bed, Martha came out from under the duvet and stared at him, at the dark, crumpled silhouette lying in the next bed. She felt as if there was a whole universe between them. In fact, she felt as if there was a universe on every side now.
She didn’t mind feeling like this. She knew, actually, that it was the best way to be. If you weren’t really a part of the world—the world that spoke and smiled and sang—then you could never feel truly upset.
After all, she had felt close to her parents and look what happened.
No. This was how it was going to be. Martha Blink, with a universe on every side, to defend herself against all the pain and tears and happiness of the world.
The Cat with Two Collars
The next afternoon, having asked his aunt for permission, Samuel was out playing on the grass that ran from the back of the house to the border of the forest. He knew Aunt Eda was watching him, from the kitchen window, making sure he didn’t head too far toward the trees.
What can I do? Samuel thought.
He had only wanted to go outside because there was nothing to do inside. No TV. No video games. A sister whose voice had died with their parents.
Bored of reading old books, he’d headed out onto the grass slope that ran between the house and the trees. But now that he was outside he realized there was nothing to do out here either. Just a forest he couldn’t enter, and grass. Lots and lots of grass.
He was about to head back inside when he saw a black cat with the brightest green eyes, staring straight at him.
Strange, thought Samuel. Aunt Eda doesn’t have a cat.
As Samuel got closer, he saw that the cat was wearing two collars. One black. One white. Both made from a kind of cloth, with a small metal disc attached to each.
“Here, kitty kitty.”
Samuel crouched down, and beckoned it closer with his fingers, but the cat didn’t make a move. It just stayed there, as proud as a queen, watching the boy with its dark and weary eyes.
“Here, kitty kitty. Here, kitty kitty.”
Samuel moved his hand closer, stroked the cat’s head, and tucked his finger inside one of the collars. He tried to lead the cat forward with the collar, but met resistance. The cat tried to reverse away, and did so, but lost its collar in the process.
Samuel examined the metal disc that was fastened to the white fabric, and read the engraving.
HEK
“Hek,” said Samuel. “It suits you. Weird name for a weird cat.”
The cat stayed sitting in the same spot, and hissed up at the boy who had just stolen one of its collars.
“Nope, I’m sorry,” Samuel said. “It’s mine now. And what do you need two collars for any—”
Samuel’s question sank into a shocked silence. He was sure—as sure as you can be about such things—that the cat’s eyes had just changed. He could have sworn that they switched from green to black, or a very dark gray, just for one second.
He felt a coldness run through him, a coldness that was more than a product of the chill wind as he realized there was something unnatural about the feline creature in front of him.
“Creepy cat,” mumbled Samuel. “Freaky, creepy cat.”
Samuel turned and looked toward the house. Through the living-room window he could see Aunt Eda as she walked toward the kitchen to begin preparing Ibsen’s supper.
Although he was scared, he was reluctant to go back inside. After all, finding this strange cat was probably going to be the most exciting thing that could happen to him in this boring place.
“What are you looking at?” Samuel said.
The cat’s eyes, which were now back to normal, were staring directly at the white collar Samuel had just stolen.
“You really like this collar, don’t you?”
The cat hissed again, but this wasn’t a normal hiss. It was a hiss that drew from its mouth a small cloud of black smoke that rose out into the air.
It was then that Samuel began to feel a slight dizziness. A kind of confusion that made him forget himself.
Who am I? Where am I?
I am Spamuel Link.
I am in Boreway.
I am Lambuel Sink.
I am in Snoreway.
During this strange state of mind, Samuel’s whole body felt itself loosen, including the hand that had been clutching on to the white collar.
His fingers fell open and the collar dropped down to the ground. He blinked his eyes, and blinked again, and gradually the feeling of dizziness went away.
I am Samuel Blink. I am in Norway.
He looked down onto the grass and saw a black cat with a black collar staring up at him.
“Here, kitty kitty. Here, kitty kitty.”
Samuel looked at the cat’s green eyes, and had no idea that only a few moments before he had seen them switch to black. Nor did he remember the small cloud of black vapor that had been hissed toward him, or the white collar that now rested on the ground underneath his feet.
The cat hissed, and kept hissing, frustratedly trying to produce another vapor cloud, but none came. Of course, Samuel didn’t realize this was what the cat was trying to do, as the events of the last minute were no longer inside his mind.
“What’s your problem?” Samuel asked as the cat kept hissing out nothing but air. He crouched back down and reached again toward it. “Come on,” he said. “You could be my pet.”
Just as he was about to touch his finger inside the black collar, the cat turned and ran as fast as it could toward the forest. Samuel began running up the slope after it, but only made a few steps before hearing his aunt behind him.
“Samuel! Stop! Stop! Come here this minute!”
He turned to see Aunt Eda standing outside the house, holding the knife that was being used to chop up Ibsen’s dinner.
Under normal circumstances, he would have carried on running. After all, the things parents and aunts don’t want you to do are normally the best type of things to do, and worth double effort.
But when Samuel saw the black cat dart over pinecones and disappear into the soupy darkness between the trees, he stopped. Not because Aunt Eda told him to. Not because he was getting out of breath as he pushed against the wind. No, he stopped because of a sudden fear as he got closer to the forest, a fear that felt as real and solid as a brick wall.
He stood still for a moment, looking at the rough trunks of the pine trees that were only a few meters in front of him. They stood like awesome gateposts to the shadowy and unknown land beyond. He thought he heard something, a strange and distant calling, that didn’t seem to belong to the world he knew.
Then he saw a shifting shape. Darkness moving amid darkness, where the cat had just been. A bird? He didn’t know. He didn’t want to. He turned around, and walked the way of the wind back to his rather frightened-looking aunt. And as he headed down the slope, he did not see the white collar lift up on that same wind and roll off down the grass, over the drive, tumbling closer toward the distant fjord.
The Flight of the Shadow Witch
With a simple arch of her neck, the Shadow Witch turned from a black cat into a raven, and the remaining collar shrunk around her to become the most perfect fit.
She flew low through the trees, past the old huldre village, where skeletons lay inside the houses, on and on she kept flying, past the stone cottages of trolls, weaving her way through pine trees until she reached the clearing in the North of the forest.
There was a tree there. A broad and dark-trunked tree, larger than any found in the outside world, with a wooden palace cradled in its branches. The vast tree stood alone, away from the pines that bordered the clearing, and was known—by those who called it anything at all—as the Still Tree.
The Shadow Witch flew inside a window of the large tree palace, a
nd turned into her true form. A gray and wizened old woman, with black eyes, and shadows leaking from her mouth as she breathed.
“Master, I have news.”
The man she was addressing was hunched over his desk, with a quill in his hand and a blank piece of parchment in front of him, both of which had been conjured with the help of his servant the Shadow Witch. This was the room in which he now spent most of his time. It was his study, and his desk was by a bookcase containing nothing but the bestselling book he had written many years ago, The Creatures of Shadow Forest. There were other shelves in the room, but instead of books they contained heads. Pickled heads. In jars. The heads of what he called the Enemies of the Forest. All those creatures who had tried—and failed—to escape to the outside world.
The man, whose name was Professor Horatio Tanglewood, had been working on his latest book for ten years. He was trying to write his life story, but he was still struggling to find the right first sentence.
“‘I was born on a clear and star-filled night,’” he mumbled aloud. “No! Rubbish! Useless!”
The Shadow Witch cleared her throat. “Master.”
“Yes! What is it?” he barked, but didn’t turn around.
“Master, I bring you some news.” The Shadow Witch could hear the weakness of her own words. After all these years, she was still terrified by the man who controlled her.
“Go on,” he commanded. “Go. On.”
So the Shadow Witch carried on talking to the back of the man’s head.
“Master, I was outside of the forest, keeping an eye on the white wooden house as you told me to do. I was just sitting on the grass when I saw…a boy. A human boy, master.”
“A boy?” Professor Tanglewood turned around in his chair. He had a long and thin face, aged but not as ancient as the witch. Underneath his left eye there was a thin and horizontal scar. His hair was still dark, and in a more evil version of the world, he could have almost passed for handsome.