* * *
For several days they kept to the road, until one day they came to a high cliff rising beside it. There a path turned off, and the Crow-Girl suggested that they take it.
Since it was the first path they had seen in several days, they decided to do so. Whether it led directly to the cove, they didn’t know, but in any case it led toward the sea, and from there they could walk along the shore until they reached the cove.
The path was narrow and difficult. The two sheep had to be tied so that they walked one behind the other, for there was no room for them to walk side by side.
Slowly the group made headway. Then the Crow-Girl shouted, “Look, it’s the sea!”
And far out, there was a shining strip of silver. Suddenly walking became easier with it in sight.
All day they followed the stony path, where the sea seemed close by, and the hollows of the valleys, where it could not be seen. The ground was wet and difficult, their feet became stuck, and the ice-cold water seeped into their shoes.
Their shadows moved from beside them to behind them. Doup and the puppy fell asleep, each in a basket, and awoke again. The sun hung low and shone in their faces. The sea had turned bright blue.
They had been going upward for a long time and now reached the crest of a ridge. Foula went first, then stopped and waited. She had stepped off the path onto dry ground, and one after the other they all made their way up to her. The Crow-Girl came last with the horse behind her.
Down below lay the cove. The brook spread like a shining fan across the rocky shore. The little house stood out sharply white against the sky-blue sea, where the current was drawing great swirls in endless movement. A bird of prey repeated those circles in the sky, before it let itself be moved backward, in above the land.
Foula stepped over to the Crow-Girl and put an arm around her shoulders. “How beautiful it is here,” she said.
The Crow-Girl nodded.
They started the climb down. The Crow-Girl went first, and she was going at such speed that she was almost stumbling on loose stones and sharp rocks. When she reached the end of the path, she let go of the horse, rushed over to the house, threw open the door, and ran into the room.
It was completely empty.
The settle and everything that had been in it were gone: the table and chairs, her two big goatskins, and all the kettles and pots and pans. The only thing that remained was the old swan wing she had used for sweeping in front of the hearth.
Then she ran into the larder. It was just as empty: only a smashed crock was left lying in one corner.
Foula and Eidi and Doup appeared in the doorway. “What in the world has happened?” asked Foula.
But the Crow-Girl could not say anything at all. She felt as if someone had hit her very hard. Paralyzed and silent, she stood in the middle of the room staring at the bare walls. Then she thought of the driftwood and rushed out of the house and around to the back.
All the firewood was gone.
Her whole body began to shake. She stamped her feet on the ground, and strange sounds forced their way out of her mouth. Her fists struck out at the empty air, because there was no one they could strike. She was so angry that she felt she might go to pieces.
“Thief,” she then screamed. “And she called me a little thief! That thieving hag, that…”
For she was certain that it was the woman from the hamlet by the fjord who had been there with her husband. She stomped her cold, wet feet until her soles began to burn and her anger began to abate.
“It’s shameful to take all of someone’s worldly goods—not to mention stealing from a child,” Foula said behind her. “But we don’t know, after all, that it was they who did it, and even if we knew, it wouldn’t help us just now. Done is done, and in a short while the sun will go down, so we had better gather some heather to sleep on. And some firewood. Eidi will look after Doup and the animals. Come on, we must get busy!”
Her voice was calm and determined.
The Crow-Girl let her fists fall and turned toward her. “Yes,” she said, drying her eyes. “Let’s get busy”
* * *
They worked hard, until it grew so dark they could no longer see a thing. But by then, a large bed had been made up in one corner of the room and a wet fire fizzed and sputtered on the hearth.
They each ate a hunk of bread and a piece of smoked mutton and went to bed exhausted.
Thus began their life at the cove.
14
The first thing Foula did was to start clearing a piece of ground for planting potatoes. She chose an area enclosed by a stone fence behind the house with the damaged roof.
They had placed the horse in the part of the house where the roof did not leak, and there Foula had found an old shovel and some other tools beneath the thick dust.
From early morning until late evening she dug her way through the head-high forest of ferns that had spread across the small field. And each time she had managed to clear a little part, she cut up a potato so that there was an eye on each piece and then placed the pieces in the ground.
Eidi and the Crow-Girl gathered firewood. They took the horse with them and walked along the shore, filling the baskets. Soon a long row of wood lay piled behind the house, just as there had been in earlier times.
The Crow-Girl also showed Eidi how to gather mussels and snails and to harvest sea kale. And it was not long before they could begin collecting seagull eggs, even if both were afraid of the screeching birds that dove down pointing their sharp beaks at their heads.
The sheep walked around at large, and a couple of times a day the Crow-Girl went out to look after them. She took along the pup, whom she had begun to call Glennie, and tried to teach that little black lump the calls that the old Glennie had obeyed. But the young Glennie was more concerned with dancing gnats and buzzing bees than with large animals.
Foula’s sheep had twins, as Rossan had predicted, two small dark-brown lambs that tumbled along beside their mother to get a drop of milk.
Once in a while Foula went with the Crow-Girl out to the ewe, and while the Crow-Girl held it, Foula milked a mug of milk for Doup, so that he could keep his round cheeks.
Eidi’s sheep had her first lamb—a light-brown one with the finest curly wool. But it was male, so Foula hurried to warn her that at some point it would be butchered, just as one of her own would.
All the potatoes were eventually in the ground, and Foula was busy clearing room for the other vegetables. The hard work did not seem to bother her. She shook her head when the Crow-Girl offered to help.
“You have enough to look after,” she said. “Driftwood and the sheep and all the things you go about gathering up. You’re the one who’s best at that. And I’m best with the soil. In earlier times I had the finest vegetable patch in the whole area. And I intend to have it again.”
Then she had to laugh at the thought of where she was. “I’d like to know whom I should compare myself with.”
* * *
They did not always have enough food, but they did not starve. They put mussels and seagull eggs in the warm ashes of the fire and each evening cut a small piece off the smoked mutton leg Rossan had given them. When the bone was plucked clean of every single shred of meat, Glennie got it to gnaw on.
After Foula had found the shovel, the Crow-Girl began hunting for things in the other house and in the ruin. Earlier she had never thought about who had lived in the two dwellings. They were just there, and always had been. But now she wished that she had asked her grandmother. Curious, she rummaged under piles of stone and old plaster and dust.
In the ruin she found her best loot, a rusty old iron pot, which she scoured clean with sand and, flush with victory, brought home. But there were also other good things—such as a chipped crock, a broken ladle that could still be used, and a dented pot lid.
In the house she found nothing other than the head of a hammer and a box of old nails.
Once in a while she walked up to the
valley where her grandparents were buried. There, she would sit on a stone and look down toward the cove and enjoy the sight of smoke curling up from the chimney, the little flock of many-colored sheep scattered out across the slopes, the eagles circling high above, the green grass, the blue sky, and the green-blue sea.
—And, once in a great while, a pair of crows flying by.
* * *
One day she was sitting with Doup down by the brook, trying to teach him to wash his hands. He still did not like water.
“Look,” she said, “you stick your hands in the water and then do like this.” She rubbed her hands together.
Doup remained at a good distance from the brook and did the same with his dry hands.
The Crow-Girl began to laugh. “Yes, that’s right, but you need water.”
So she leaned down, took some water in her hands, and carried it over to Doup. Wetting his hands, she showed him once more how he should rub them together.
Doup looked as if he had a few misgivings, but he did it.
Then she took him by the hand and walked with him along the stream, down toward the shore. Glennie came leaping behind with wagging tail and cheerful barks.
But before she reached the sea, she came to a stop. Two men were walking along the shore toward them. They had the sun at their backs so she could not see their faces, even when she shaded her eyes with her hand. But she could see that the larger of them had a gun on his back. And when they came closer, she could also see that the one with the gun was a grown man; the other was a boy a half a head taller than she, and he had a couple of ducks hanging over his shoulder.
When the two strangers had come nearly right up to them, the man stretched out his arms as if he wanted to pick up Doup. But Doup became frightened and ran over to the Crow-Girl.
“Mine Cwo,” he called, and she lifted him up.
“Well, of course, he can’t recognize me,” said the man. “And I daresay you can’t either.”
He extended his hand to shake, and the Crow-Girl cautiously gave him hers, while she held Doup with her other arm.
“My name is Frid, and I am the boy’s father.” And a pair of blue, blue eyes looked at her above a gray-flecked beard. His eyes still had a sorrowful tinge, but their empty, desperate look was gone. “And this is my older son, Ravnar.”
The boy stepped forward and shook her hand. His eyes were just as blue as his father’s, but his hair was dark.
“So we found you at last,” said Frid.
The Crow-Girl was completely dumbfounded and did not know what to say. She just stood there holding Doup and staring at them.
Foula came running over from the field. Panting, she positioned herself beside the Crow-Girl and looked around as she tried to catch her breath.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” she asked worriedly.
And Frid explained it all to her.
“Well, so you are Doup’s father,” she exclaimed with a sigh of relief.
“Doup, is that what you call him?”
The Crow-Girl nodded. “It was he himself who started it. I didn’t know, of course, what his name was.”
“It doesn’t matter. If he is used to being called Doup, let’s just keep on doing so. I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you have taken care of him, and particularly now when I can see how well he’s doing. If there is anything I can do in return, you must tell me.”
The Crow-Girl could not nod, for Doup had gotten hold of her braid and was clutching it tightly.
“Little scamp, let go,” she said, and forced his hand open. Then she put him down on the ground.
“You must need to sit down,” said Foula. “Come over to the house; we have a bench outdoors there. But indoors there are only beds and the bare floor to sit on.”
They led Frid and Ravnar to the bench and seated themselves on a couple of large stones that they had dragged over for that very purpose. Eidi came out of the house and greeted them in surprise.
Then Frid said that Ravnar, who had been herding sheep for a relative, had come home one day and found him in the ruined house, and that they had gone out together to search for Doup and the Crow-Girl.
And the Crow-Girl told about her whole journey from the cove and back again.
15
When the sun began to set, they went into the house, and Foula roasted the two ducks at the hearth.
That night Frid and Ravnar slept in the attic. Foula and the Crow-Girl had made up a new bed for Doup and the Crow-Girl, and Foula and Eidi slept together in the old one.
After everyone had gone to bed and the coals were banked, the Crow-Girl lay awake for a long time. Doup lay sucking his thumb, and the Crow-Girl, fumbling for him in the dark, struck something cold and hard. She cautiously lifted the music box from his hands and, finding his head, stroked his hair. He stopped sucking, but when she took away her hand, he immediately began again.
This time there was nothing to be done. Frid would take Doup with him, and she would perhaps never see him again. The Crow-Girl could scarcely bear the thought, but she had to mull it over in order to find a way out. And before she fell asleep, she felt she might have, just maybe, come up with something—but it depended on Frid.
The next morning she crept out of bed while the others slept. She threw the shawl about her and walked barefoot down to the brook, where she seated herself on the flat stone that jutted out into the water.
She took a handful of the ice-cold water and splashed it over her face. Then she took a deep breath and looked around her.
Across the land the sun was about to rise behind a veil of light clouds. The sheep were grazing on the slope, and down by the stony shore she caught sight of Frid. She got up and walked over to him.
“It’s a lovely place you have here,” he said.
“Yes, and that’s why I have something I want to ask you about.”
Frid looked at her.
“Yesterday you said that if there was something you could do for me, I should just say so.”
He nodded.
“Stay here!”
“Stay here?” He looked at her amazed, then turned his head and stared out across the sea. “You are very fond of Doup?” he said quietly.
The Crow-Girl nodded.
“I’ll talk to Ravnar about it,” he said. “I can’t simply say yes just like that. You surely understand?”
The Crow-Girl nodded again.
“I’ll give you an answer by this evening,” said Frid. “I must use the day to think about it. It’s a big decision. But we’ll be here for a couple of days at least.”
The Crow-Girl spun round on her heel, ran back along the brook, and sat down on the stone.
How dumb she was! Of course he wouldn’t agree to it. He had his own place with his own stable and his own fields lying right next to the main road. Why would he want to be out here in this wilderness?
She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and washed her face once more before she got up and returned to the house.
* * *
Foula had lit a fire in the hearth and was making soup from the bones of the two ducks. Doup and Glennie were rolling around on the floor, and Eidi, having trouble waking up, lay rubbing her eyes.
The Crow-Girl went over to Foula.
“I asked Frid to stay here,” she said to her.
“Well, that was a good idea,” said Foula. “Then we wouldn’t need to be parted from Doup. Did he want to?”
The Crow-Girl shook her head. “I don’t think so. He’ll give me an answer before evening.”
Foula put her arm around her. “You poor dear,” she merely said. And the Crow-Girl pressed her face in against Foula’s body.
* * *
They ate breakfast sitting out on the bench and on the stones around it. The soup was good and warm and filled with small pieces of meat that Foula had painstakingly picked from the bones.
“How delightful it is to have some meat,” said Foula.
“Maybe I should ge
t some more,” said Frid. “Is there any game around here?”
The Crow-Girl nodded. “There are wild goats and seals and all kinds of birds here.”
“Seals!” exclaimed Ravnar. “I’d really like to see them. I’ve never seen a seal.”
“I can take you out with me and show them to you,” suggested the Crow-Girl.
“That would be great!”
“I think I’ll go out after a goat,” said Frid, “even if they are difficult to get close to.” Then he turned to Doup. “What do you say, little Doup? Wouldn’t you like to have a goatskin to lie on?”
But Doup just stared at him with large eyes before hurrying over to the Crow-Girl and crawling up on her lap.
* * *
The water softly gurgled back and forth between the rocks.
Ravnar and the Crow-Girl sat completely still watching the seals, which, one after another, slid into the pool in order to swim farther out toward the open sea. For a moment, one of them positioned itself upright in the water and looked at them before following the others.
“Did you see that?” exclaimed Ravnar. “It looked straight into our eyes.”
The Crow-Girl nodded.
Without thinking about it, she had sat gathering beach snails from the stones just beneath the water’s surface. Now she opened her hand and let the small dark-gray snail shells disappear into the depths because she remembered that Frid might manage to shoot a goat.
“I have suggested to your father that all of you stay here.”
Ravnar nodded. “Yes, so he said. I hope that he will agree. There are all too many memories tied to our own house. I think that if I had not come home, he would have gone mad. It was completely smashed, windows and everything.” He looked at her. “But, of course, you know that. I had to plug the holes in the panes with old pillows and blankets, so that we wouldn’t freeze to death. And I couldn’t get him to say what had happened—only that my mother was dead and that he had sent Doup off with you.”
The Crow-Girl--The Children of Crow Cove Page 7