by Matt Haig
“It is all about how you look at things, sir. When you look at that wall over there, you probably be seeing a load of old stones.”
Samuel looked at the wall and nodded, for that was indeed what he saw.
“Of course you do. But when I look at that wall, my heart fills with warmth for my dear father.”
“Why?” asked Samuel. “Did he build it?”
“Not exactly,” Troll-Father said. “Do you know what be happening when trolls die?”
“No,” Samuel said.
“Their bodies slowly change shape and then be turning to stone,” Troll-Father said matter-of-factly.
“Stone! Stone! Stone!” chanted Troll-Daughter.
Troll-Father pointed to another wall.
“They be my grandparents,” he said. “And that wall behind me is my wife’s mother.” He smiled at some distant memory.
“She was the toughest stone to break into pieces!” Troll-Mother laughed. “As stubborn in death as in life she was, sir.”
Samuel looked around at the four walls and felt a strange chill travel through him, as if all the stones were watching the conversation.
“Trolls have always lived inside their families,” said Troll-Father, after taking a sip of his wine. “Ever since time began. What are you meant to do—be burying them in the ground?” Troll-Father laughed, as if that was the most ridiculous idea he had ever come up with.
“That is what humans do,” Samuel said. He tried not to think of his parents’ wooden coffins lowering into the earth.
“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t realize.”
“It’s okay.”
Troll-Father tapped the side of his head. “But they are in here, aren’t they?”
Samuel nodded.
“Well then, that is where you must be building a house. A house made of memories, for you to visit anytime you please.”
The meal ended, and it was time for Samuel and Ibsen to leave.
“Good-bye,” said Samuel, placing the book back under his arm. “And thank you. For the casserole. And everything.”
“Good-bye,” said Troll-Mother. “And be excusing my children, sir.”
“Good-bye, Samuel Blink,” said Troll-Son. “Samuel Blink. Samuel Blink.”
“Bye bye bye bye,” said Troll-Daughter.
“Be careful,” said Troll-Father. “Please, be most ever so careful.”
“Yes,” said Samuel, looking to see all four members of the family wave him off. “I will.”
Walking away from Trollhelm, Samuel thought about what Troll-Father had said.
The present is a home built with the stones of the past.
Maybe there was truth as well as comfort in those words. Maybe his parents were still alive, in a peculiar way, in the minds of Samuel and Martha. And maybe they always would be.
But it wasn’t enough. As far as Samuel could see it, memories were only useful if they could be shared. And Martha was the only person in the world he had left to share them with.
If he never rescued Martha, he knew he would be truly alone.
The Flaking Moon
Martha hadn’t seen her brother.
Like the other prisoners, she had no idea why the wagon had stopped moving or why two of the guards had run up the hill. And when, a little later, an empty-handed Vjpp and Grentul came back to the wagon, Martha thought nothing of it.
“Perhaps they were practicing a song for us,” suggested the Tomtegubb. “A surprise song that they didn’t want us to hear.”
“It’s a nice thought,” said Troll-the-Left. “But somehow I doubt it.”
With a crack of the wagon driver’s whip, the horses were off again, faster than before. The huldres were anxious to make up lost ground. They knew the Changemaker would be expecting them, and they knew they had to be back home, safely belowground, before sunrise.
The Snow Witch lay down on the floor of the cage and closed her eyes. She was frowning, deep in concentration. Whispered words left her lips, so soft they blended with the breeze.
“What are you doing?” asked Troll-the-Left, shaking her with his right hand. “You’re making yourself ill.”
“Leave her,” said Troll-the-Right. “She knows what she is doing.”
“Look!” The Tomtegubb was pointing at the air in front of his eyes.
A snowflake danced sideways on the breeze, before floating out of the other side of the cage. Martha and the other creatures watched as the snow began to fall all around them, getting heavier and heavier until the ground was a white carpet.
“The moon is very flaky tonight,” said the Tomtegubb. Like all Tomtegubbs, he believed that snow was made of moon flakes. “Isn’t it pretty?”
He began to sing:
“Moon flake, moon flake, what do you see?
Floating from the sky to me?”
“It’s her,” said Troll-the-Left. “She’s making it happen.”
“Look,” said Troll-the-Right. “Look at her face.”
Everyone looked at the Snow Witch’s face. The lines in her skin were getting deeper. Her thin lips were getting even thinner. The hair that went down to her ankles was spreading across the cage floor.
“She’s getting older every moment,” said the Tomtegubb. “She can hardly breathe.”
“It’s a spell,” said Troll-the-Left. “She’s casting a spell. She’s making it snow.”
“She’s flaking the moon!”
Martha looked at the flakes melting into the huldres’ flaming torches. Then she looked at the ground outside.
The snow was ankle deep now, and the guards were getting worried.
“Enna oder kullook?”
“Nit fijoo. Nit fijoo!”
As the snow got deeper, the horses that were pulling the cage were finding it increasingly hard work. The wagon driver kept whipping the animals harder and harder, but it was no good. Being whipped on the back didn’t give them any more strength in their legs.
“Obkenoot!” Grentul’s cry prompted all the huldres to start pushing the wagon.
The Snow Witch’s frown had become a grimace. She was in tremendous pain as the spell sucked the last years out of her body.
It was a blizzard now. There was as much snow as there was air in between.
“We should stop her,” said Troll-the-Left.
“Leave her,” said Troll-the-Right.
“She’s in pain.”
“She knows what she’s doing.”
Martha felt the Snow Witch’s white hair tickle her ankles as it kept on growing. She looked at the aging witch and saw her fingernails lengthening so fast they stretched out of the cage. Martha moved over toward the Snow Witch and crouched down in front of her. She shook her head.
The Snow Witch coughed, and whispered an answer. “My winter had already come. Your summer is still waiting. Let it be, human child.”
Martha shook her head again.
“You will escape,” said the Snow Witch. “You will find your words. Leave me. It is better this way.”
Martha looked out of the cage and saw the huldres struggling to lift their legs out of the knee-deep snow. She looked in front and saw the horses struggling to keep pulling the carriage.
Snow was everywhere. It was in the troll’s two beards. It was making the Tomtegubb look like a large snowball. It was getting stuck behind the huldres’ ears and up their scrunchedup noses and decorated their caloosh-skin clothes.
Then it finally worked.
The wagon, and the cage it carried, came to a halt. At first the horses were blamed, and the wagon driver’s whip punished their backs. But then Grentul noticed the wheels were stuck because the snow had risen above the axle, and was continuing to rise.
“Nit da enna kullook,” he said as he watched the thick snow extinguish the flaming torches. “Enna kullook!”
He caught sight of the Snow Witch’s long nails growing fast out of the cage.
“Odduck felk!”
His order was swiftly followed and Vjpp and another guard
entered the cage, threw Martha aside, and started shaking the Snow Witch.
But it was too late.
The spell was complete.
And the Snow Witch, lying under a shroud of white snow and white hair, was dead.
The Stubborn Spoon
Farther south in the forest, Aunt Eda was sitting at the Truth Pixie’s table, with a bowl of gorgeous yellow soup tickling her nostrils. Outside the window, snow was falling heavily. It was the middle of the night, but Aunt Eda had promised herself not to sleep until she found Samuel and Martha. She’d also told herself not to stop walking, but that was before she had caught a heavenly smell wafting through the air. A smell so tantalizing, it made Aunt Eda think of nothing else. The smell was the Truth Pixie’s Hewlip soup, which he always kept on the stove overnight, just in case anyone should be passing.
Aunt Eda had, of course, read The Creatures of Shadow Forest, including the page about Truth Pixies. But she couldn’t remember precisely what it had said. Or she didn’t want to. You see, Aunt Eda had gone a day and half a night without eating and now she would have found anything tasty, let alone a soup that was designed to hypnotize people with its smell.
Before she picked up her spoon, she decided to say something nice to the chef, who was still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
“I must tell you, I haff eaten lots of soups in my time. Reindeer soups, cod soups, beetroot soups. Lots of different soups. But I haff neffer smelled a soup like this.”
The Truth Pixie nodded nervously. He did not care about nice words. The only thing he cared about was the sight of exploding heads. It had been so long! For months he had kept this soup on the stove, hoping to tempt passersby. And he had been so close earlier this evening. Now, at last, it was finally going to happen.
He watched, with an extreme sense of giddiness, as Aunt Eda picked up the silver spoon and lifted it slowly toward her bowl.
“You will like my soup very much,” the Truth Pixie said, rubbing his hands together.
“Yes,” said Aunt Eda. “I’m sure I will.”
But then, just as she lowered her spoon to sink it into the steaming and deadly soup, something strange happened. The spoon stopped in midair. She tried to press it farther toward the soup, but it was no good. It was like trying to join the wrong ends of two very strong magnets together.
“How strange,” Aunt Eda said, and not for the first time that day.
Ever since she had entered the forest, strange things had been happening. For example, she had nearly fallen into a caloosh trap, but had managed to hold on to her javelin that had lodged across the width of the hole, and then pull herself up and out with the greatest of ease.
“How strange,” Aunt Eda had said, before continuing her journey.
Then there was the encounter with the Flying Skullpecker. Now, for those of you who don’t know, a Flying Skullpecker is the most dangerous kind of bird you could ever hope to meet.
They had once been straightforward woodpeckers, but when Professor Tanglewood transformed the creatures, he changed the forest’s two woodpeckers as well. Once the Shadow Witch had stolen their shadows, he told her to make their beaks strong enough to peck through human heads. When Aunt Eda saw one of them flying with its large, sharp beak pointed toward her, she tried to run away. The bird eventually caught up, and landed on Aunt Eda’s bun. Its beak quickly began to peck her head, but Aunt Eda didn’t feel a thing.
When Aunt Eda grabbed hold of the bird, she saw that its sharp yellow beak had bent and broken, no longer able to cause harm. She let the bird go and felt her head, which had no injuries at all.
“How strange,” Aunt Eda had said again.
And now she was faced with a bowl of soup that didn’t want to be eaten. Or a spoon that didn’t want to go near the bowl.
She leaned forward over the Truth Pixie’s table and tried again. This time, the spoon slid left and hit the table.
“What are you doing?” the Truth Pixie asked. “Why aren’t you eating my soup? My special soup?”
“I don’t know. I’m…trying.” Aunt Eda was now standing up, thrusting the spoon toward the soup and not getting any closer. “But this spoon is so stubborn.”
She placed the spoon down, and tried to use her hands, but just as she was about to grab the bowl, it slid across the table. When she reached out to touch it just to check she wasn’t imagining things, the bowl flew through the window that the Truth Pixie always kept open for people to smell his cooking.
“Oh no,” the Truth Pixie said. “You’re a witch.”
“A witch?” Aunt Eda was appalled at the pixie’s rudeness. “I most certainly—”
And then it dawned on her. The bracelet she was wearing. The one with the pewter disc. She looked at it. She looked at the engraving. HEK.
“Look, I’ve got no shadow,” the Truth Pixie said, backing away. “You can’t do anything to me. Another witch already stole it.”
“Oh,” Aunt Eda said. “Oh…oh…oh…”
She remembered how easily she’d climbed out of the hole. She remembered the Skullpecker’s broken beak. And now it made sense. The magical bracelet was protecting her from danger. And if that was true, danger must have been inside the soup.
“You were trying…to poison me.” Aunt Eda spoke the words as the memory reached her. The memory of the page she had once read in Professor Tanglewood’s book. “Weren’t you?” She bent down and stared at the little creature with eyes so sharp they could have cut through even the greatest lie. But, of course, the Truth Pixie’s mouth couldn’t squeeze out small lies, let alone great big ones.
“Nnnn—yes!”
He went on to tell her what he had told Samuel. About his unstoppable truth telling, about the Shadow Witch, and the Changemaker, and how the Truth Pixie couldn’t help his murderous ways.
“Haff you seen any human children?” Aunt Eda asked, caring little for the pixie’s excuses.
“Yes, I saw a boy.”
“Not a girl?”
“No. A boy. A boy with a nice and juicy head.”
Aunt Eda gasped in horror. “Did he try the soup?”
“No, but he tried my sandals.” He sighed wearily. “No shadow, no sandals, and no exploding heads. My life is empty!”
Aunt Eda looked at the pixie’s bare feet, and felt relieved. Not that she knew how sandals were going to protect Samuel in such a dangerous forest.
“You are a ferry dangerous little fellow, aren’t you?” said Aunt Eda. “Ferry dangerous indeed. Now, what if a little girl came walking past your house. What would you do?”
“I would give her my soup.” The Truth Pixie slapped himself very hard on the face, but he could not stop telling the truth. “My poisonous soup.”
Aunt Eda looked at her javelin, and wondered if she should skewer the pixie’s little heart.
“Is there any way I could stop you?” she said. “From your murderous ways?”
The Truth Pixie held his hand tight over his mouth, but then blurted out: “You could lock me in the cupboard! That cupboard there. You could lock me in and turn the key.”
Aunt Eda considered. “Are you telling me the truth?”
The Truth Pixie sighed. “The truth is all I can tell.”
“I must go,” she told the Truth Pixie as she pushed him in the cupboard. “You will tell me where the human boy went and then I will go.”
And the Truth Pixie gave her directions as Aunt Eda turned the key. Then she picked up her javelin, and went out into the snow, which was fast becoming a blizzard. Aunt Eda was worried this might slow her down, but it didn’t. In fact, the snow didn’t even touch her. As it fell, it parted like a curtain, leaving a clear dry path for Aunt Eda to follow. A straight black line on the sloping white ground, which seemed to be leading her where she wanted to go.
“How strange,” said Aunt Eda, rubbing her bracelet. “How ferry strange.”
The Triumphant Tomtegubb (and the Heroic Human)
While Martha stared at the dead Sn
ow Witch, the other prisoners were noticing something else.
“Look,” said Troll-the-Left, nodding toward the open cage door. “There’s our escape.”
“Are you out of your ugly head?” asked Troll-the-Right. “The door’s only open because they’re standing right by it. We’d get caught straightaway. And have you seen their weapons?”
The huldres’ weapons were indeed pretty terrifying. Each huldre guard carried on his belt one small throwing ax, one sword, one tongue stretcher and two daggers.
“We’re going to be killed if we stay here. At least if we escape, we’ve got a chance,” said Troll-the-Left. “Look, their torches were put out by the snow. It will be harder for them to find us in the dark.”
The Tomtegubb jumped to his feet. “Come on, human! Let’s go!”
Vjpp turned around and saw the prisoners heading toward the open door. “Fregg vemper,” he hissed as he struggled through the snow.
All the huldres were now aware of the possible escape.
“Now!” Troll-the-Left said, overruling his right side. “Let’s go now!”
But his command came too late.
Vjpp and a really tall huldre were now completely blocking the doorway—Vjpp holding a dagger, the other a sword.
“Ober jann oggipdiff,” Vjpp said. His blue tongue was licking his lips at the idea of using his weapon, ready to taste violence.
No one knew what to do. They didn’t understand the huldre’s words, but they understood his dagger.
Troll-the-Left placed a protective arm in front of Martha.
“See,” said Troll-the-Right. “I told you it was a bad idea.”
“Just shut your ugly face, will you?” said Troll-the-Left.
“Come on,” said the Tomtegubb. “Let’s look on the bright side.”
While everyone was trying to find the bright side of a situation that was made only of very dark sides, something happened.
Vjpp moved closer. Close enough for Troll-the-Left to strike out and knock the dagger out of his hand and pick the huldre up by his throat.