“Maybe the sign meant meat for the reindeer to eat,” I lied.
“But reindeers are herbivores – they don’t eat meat,” Sookie said, unconvinced.
“Well, maybe it’s not actual meat,” I thought fast. “You know, like nuts are called meat.”
“Maybe,” Sookie said hopefully and she left.
No point telling her what those meatballs she gulped down were made of. Let her eventually figure out where ingredients came from when she was older. In some ways, she acted like a normal little girl, I tried to convince myself.
I grabbed a tart green apple from the fruit bowl because I was actually starving, and went to get my own clothes on so I could follow my sister and find out exactly how my aunt was preparing her to become a witch.
I hung in the shadows of the barn as Sookie scattered seed on the ground for the clucking chickens. Then she raced to the pasture and climbed over the fence, which my aunt had told her was forbjuden. She fed handfuls of hay to her favorite reindeer, the one she thought was Rudolph. Then Sookie headed for the lake.
For a moment I couldn’t spot her among the tall reeds of lake grass. Then I heard the soft chilling song. My sister was singing an eerie tune and she was being accompanied by an odd percussion. I crept closer.
Past the grass, waves lapped the rocky shore. Sookie sat on a log and sang a peculiar tune in a language I’d never heard. The black cat purred loudly, matching the song beat for beat.
As my sister sang, mystical fog steamed up from the edge of the lake and twisted its way toward the town. There was no doubt Sookie was causing it.
“Your sister possesses powerful magic,” my aunt whispered behind me. “She would make a dangerous witch.”
I jumped, and it was all I could do not to shriek. I turned my head and sputtered, “She is not a witch.”
“Not yet,” my aunt said quietly. “But I’ve tried all my influence to convince your sister not to use her magic. I’ve even taken her to your school every afternoon so that she’d stay away from that cat. But in the end, it must be your sister’s choice.
“Listen to them now,” my aunt’s voice was full of sorrow. “That cat is teaching your sister a song of dark magic.”
I shook my head in confusion. I thought my aunt was the witch. She had that creepy reindeer herder that sort of looked like a troll. She was with Sookie every morning, and my sister had to be learning magic from someone. Was Aunt Hildegaard expecting me to believe a cat was teaching Sookie these things?
“So why wouldn’t you just shoo away the cat?” I asked suspiciously. I stood up from my crouched position. But my aunt grabbed my hand in her calloused palm and tugged me behind a pine tree.
“Don’t interrupt! It could be unsafe for your sister; she’s in a trance. It would certainly be perilous for you. That evil creature will scratch out your eyes before your sister knows what’s happening.”
Still suspicious, I said, “So are you trying to tell me you’re not a witch?”
“No, and neither are you,” said my aunt.
I looked up at Aunt Hildegaard in surprise.
“When I met you girls for the first time, I wasn’t prepared,” Aunt Hildegaard said. Not prepared for what? I wondered.
“I needed to see, like I had with your mother, if you’d inherited the family legacy.” My blood began to race. Legacy? My aunt continued in a harsh, whispery tone.
“I didn’t think you were part of our family secret because your mother knew nothing about the shadowy world of magic.” My aunt squeezed my hand slightly. “So it shocked me when I first greeted you both and sensed magic that poured from the two of you.”
“But I don’t have any magic ability,” I squeaked in surprise.
“Perhaps not,” my aunt mused, “but magic clings to you.” Then she reached over and lifted a strand of my green hair. “I realized when I met you both that I was in the presence of a powerful witch. Because of Sookie’s tender age, I suspected you at first.”
“Me?” I shook my head. “It’s the fairies’ fault you detect magic on me. I brushed up against a fairy lord once.”
My aunt’s eyes widened in surprise. “You’ve been in contact with the fairy world?”
“I carry this feather around that I took from the fairies.” I pulled out my white feather that was attached to my silver chain. “That’s the magic you sense on me. I gave Sookie a feather, but she stopped wearing it.” I frowned thinking about how my sister had been nothing but trouble since she had spent a short time in Fairy.
My aunt took my feather in her hand and closed her eyes. Then she looked at me. “You’ve taken something from the fairies,” she said incredulously. “That is a courageous act.”
I’d never thought of it that way, since I’d been scared to death the whole time. Behind us a hush stole over the forest that was deeply shadowed by rock cliffs and fir trees. The scent of pine and loamy, damp ground filled the air. But through the eerie quiet, my sister kept chanting in the distance.
“Why did you assume one of us was a witch? How do you feel magic?” I asked.
“I am a tenth generation witch fighter,” said Aunt Hildegaard. “Back when the witch scares first overtook this medieval town, your ancestors fought against the witches.”
“You mean our ancestors accused women of witchcraft?” I said startled and with more than a little guilt. Headmistress Grimmaar had said the townspeople had been especially cruel and heartless.
Aunt Hildegaard shook her head. “No one in our family was ever the accuser. But once a witch was spotted, we helped to drive them out. Not by murdering them,” she shook her head sadly, “but by thwarting their magic – sabotaging their rituals, fighting against their spells. It was enough to drive them away.”
I thought I understood. It was like how my friends and I fought magic by finding out our opponent’s weakness.
“The medieval courts were the ones that murdered witches,” my aunt said.
“Who were their accusers then?”
“Children,” said my aunt. “Little children have a closer connection to the otherworld than adults. They could sense the women who had used fairy magic for evil.”
For a while we stood there in the green silence of the forest. Then my aunt said, “I’m surprised that you can still detect fairy magic at your age. The older you become, the less magic feels real. If I wasn’t cursed to keep the family secret going – to be the possessor of a witch’s bell and to watch guard against dark magic – I would forget myself.”
I pointed to my feather again. “This helps me remember.”
“Of course,” my aunt said. Was that admiration in her voice?
Then my aunt’s words hit me. “Wait, what family secret?”
“After banishing witches for centuries, our family was placed under a powerful curse. Magic will always run through our family line. For every generation, a choice must be made to fight against magic or become its slave.”
“But Mom isn’t affected,” I said hopefully, even though I knew she suffered from the magic without remembering.
“But you do have relatives that disappeared and have been forgotten,” my aunt said. A cold chill crept into my heart. Sookie had already disappeared once and was forgotten until I fetched her back from Fairy.
My aunt, her voice brimming with sorrow, continued. “Back when I was a bit younger than you, a coven of witches had gathered on Walpurgis Night to bring revenge on the children who had betrayed them. My friends and I had discovered an old funicular that rode to the top of Blakulla Mountain. It has since been out of order; even then it was a rickety lift. Once we reached the top of the mountain, we crept up on their bonfire and managed to stop their ceremony. I grabbed the bell they used for their enchantment, and my friend grabbed their candle and extinguished the flame.”
Then Aunt Hildegaard’s voice broke. “But Lars had already disappeared by the time we arrived, and my own sister had already drunk from their cup and signed their book. She had already become a
witch. I never saw her again after that night.”
“How come my mom doesn’t know anything about this?” I asked.
“Your own grandmother, my other sister, had already moved to North America when your mother was born. Even then she had no recollection of your other aunt. Like everyone else in this town, she too had forgotten her sister, one of the disappeared.”
I remembered what the old man in the café had said about his friend never coming back – about children disappearing. He must have been with Aunt Hildegaard that Walpurgis Night.
“I’m not going to just wait for my sister to vanish,” I said stubbornly.
“Of course not,” said my aunt. “We have to fight for her.”
At the thought of Sookie, I glanced back to the lakeshore. But Sookie had moved closer to the edge of the forest, and I could hear her talking to someone. In the shadows of the tree, I saw Sookie talking to the cat – and the cat was talking back!
My aunt and I ran toward my sister.
Then we froze in shock when the cat arched its back and was cocooned by a sickly, mustard-colored smoke. The smoke roiled and grew, morphing into the shape of a person. Then like a mummy breaking out of its sarcophagus, Ms. Grimmaar stepped from the smoke. The cat – our headmistress – was a shape-shifting witch!
“Now we must prepare for your initiation,” Ms. Grimmaar said to Sookie.
“I’ve made a terrible mistake.” My aunt’s forlorn voice echoed doom. “I’ve led your sister right into the arms of the witch.”
She wasn’t the only one. My stomach sickened when I thought of how relieved I was that Sookie had been hanging around with my teachers instead of staying at the farm in the afternoons. All along, while we had morning class with Ms. Dreeble and Mr. Morrows, Ms. Grimmaar had been tutoring Sookie in casting dark spells.
“Sookie,” I shouted. Finally, I was able to move and sprang forward.
Sookie turned once and glanced back at me. Then she ran off with Ms. Grimmaar into the waiting darkness of the woods.
CHAPTER 23 - The Bridge
I RACED INTO the dark, forbidding forest after Sookie.
My aunt shouted behind me, “Come back! You do not want to get lost in the forest on Walpurgis Night.” But I kept on running.
Then in a resigned voice, Aunt Hildegaard called after me, “Do not let Sookie drink from the cup or sign the book. If she does, she’ll be lost forever.”
I ran faster. But the gloom of the forest blackened the path, and the trees twisted in every direction, creating a hopeless maze. I stopped for a second, held my breath, and listened. Several yards away I heard the crunch of pine needles.
Mustering the stealth I used to sneak up on an opposing soccer player, I crept up on them. Ms. Grimmaar had seemed like such a cool teacher, and even now she seemed so beautiful with her dark hair and piercing light eyes. Then I remembered the words from the town statue: fair is foul. They had that right.
Just as I lurched out of the trees to make a grab for my sister, a cruel cackle in the distance set my teeth on edge.
It was a trap.
A small black bear rooted around in the clearing and I carefully backed away into the trees. My heart pounded in my throat, but the bear ignored me as I turned and ran, leaping through bushes and jumping over thick roots and fallen branches.
The forest came alive with screeches, clomps, and squeals while animals joined in a chorus. Still I searched for my sister, but it was as if the trees shifted every time I turned, and I found myself back at the clearing with the bear. Once more I backed away, although this time the bear glanced my way and growled menacingly. I had to get a grip and pay better attention. I didn’t think the bear would ignore me a third time …
Through the winding path and dense clumps of trees, I kept moving. Sometimes I heard my sister’s shrill laughter and Ms. Grimmaar’s cackle, but they were getting farther away. Above me clouds moved in and covered the sky as the air thickened with a coming storm. Soon icy sleet began to fall.
I looked at the sky and decided to follow the direction of the clouds, which began streaming faster and faster across the horizon. If nothing else, following their direction would keep me from running in circles and stumbling back on that bear.
The wind picked up and began to screech in my ears, and I felt the temperature drop. My ears ached and I covered them with my hands. As if from nowhere, dark clouds blackened the sky and a muffled roar broke from above. Hailstones thundered down, bending and snapping branches, and I dived under the sweeping arms of a huge fir tree. The hailstones were as large as my thumb and they bounced high off the forest floor.
Hugging the tree trunk, I wanted to give up. It was impossible to get anywhere in this shifting, uncanny forest, and I couldn’t stop shivering. Courage, Cat, a small voice inside me whispered. The voice would have to do a lot better than that. Then I heard Sookie close by.
“Are we going to see Santa?” She sounded excited.
“Soon,” said Ms. Grimmaar.
My blood began to boil at the way the witch was manipulating my sister. Anger flooded through me, and I warmed up, so that when the hail stopped moments later, I was back on the trail and closing in.
I’d finally caught sight of Sookie and Ms. Grimmaar as they crossed a bridge over a violently churning river. They had disappeared into the forest on the other side, and I began crossing the rickety wood and rope suspension bridge. It was the sound of the water as it churned beneath me that triggered my memory. But I was already halfway across the bridge when I remembered my dream …
Then I froze.
A feeling of déjà vu overwhelmed me – those flashes of memory that told me I had been here before, even if it was impossible. The water boiled furiously below the bridge, the dark clouds scudded across the sky above me, and in the distance I heard the witch cackle. I’d definitely done this before – even if it was in a dream. Beneath me the bridge began to sway, and I got that stomach sickening feeling from my nightmare. But this time I was wide awake.
I’m going to die, I thought. This is where I drown. In that split second I’d remembered my encounter with the Sámi shaman back at the amusement park in Stockholm and how she told me I would drown. My knees buckled.
“Cat,” a voice shouted, “watch out!”
But it was too late. A three-fingered hand grabbed the suspension rope and with amazing power gave it a treacherous twist. The bridge dipped and slipped from under my feet, and I was pitched head first into the icy water.
Down I went as the freezing water made it impossible for me to move my arms and legs. It’s just like my dream, I thought calmly. The cold felt like I had dived into a tub of ice cubes. It was no surprise when I felt a tug on my leg. But when I looked below, it wasn’t the Sámi shaman.
It was something far more hideous.
I screamed, but only a stream of bubbles escaped my mouth. The last thing I remember was hearing the deep, muffled echo of something else plunging into the water.
Then I sank into utter darkness.
CHAPTER 24 - Gnawer of The Moon
“WAKE UP!” THE gravelly voice shot into my ear, making it ache.
I tried to take a breath but only choked as an icy, disgusting swill of water sloshed in my lungs. A gush of ice and fire burned down my throat and into my chest, then another and another until I was retching up slimy bilge that had a lingering taste of fish.
Sputtering and coughing, I finally opened my eyes and tried to make out the hulking shadows in the gloom. I was inside a damp, dripping cave that smelled like a garbage can and was lit by several smoking torches.
“You’re alive,” Clive said in relief. “I thought you were a goner.”
My arms and legs wouldn’t move as if they were anchored to heavy stones. I blinked and gasped as my heart caught in my throat. On the other side of the cave, what I thought were three big rocks moved. One was creeping toward me.
“We’re kind of out of the fire into the frying pan,” Clive said with a hi
nt of despair.
The ugly creature I’d seen pulling me down to my watery death loomed before me. He reminded me slightly of my aunt’s reindeer herder, that is, if the reindeer herder had a hideous monster for a cousin.
The beast hulking over me was covered in wiry mats of hair. His huge horn-like ears pointed sharply away from his head, and his eyes glowed a menacing orange. His flesh clung to him in corpse gray, and he reached toward me with three long sausage fingers ending in cruel black talons, the thumb curled into a horrible claw. I gulped. There was no doubt about it: we were surrounded by trolls.
An argument broke out among the three creatures, and they sounded like enormous cats fighting over fish bones – all snaps and hisses and feral growls.
“They’re mine,” complained the first troll who had been reaching for me. “I’ve been fishing for weeks, and so it’s my catch. I was thinking of making them slaves, but I’ve been craving human flesh lately.”
“I caught the boy,” said another troll, “so back off.”
“You have to share,” complained the third, who was uglier than the other two, if possible. “I shared my dinner with you last month.”
“Nasty bony fishes those were,” spat the first troll. “And the old leather boot you pulled from the river bed was hardly a feast.”
A cold chill settled over my already frozen spine. We’d been captured by the most dangerous trolls of all – water trolls.
“Crap,” I muttered.
“No one is eating the girl,” a voice spoke out of the shadows. “Gnawer of the Moon, even though you are my brother, I am also bound to this girl’s aunt, whose farm I protect. The girl has fed me milk, and in return I have given her the breath of life.”
Then from the shadows emerged my aunt’s reindeer herder, Osgaard. I knew he was evil.
“I tried to give you mouth-to-mouth resuscitation,” whispered Clive, “but you were turning blue until he breathed air into your lungs.”
My first thought was, Clive’s lips touched mine? Even though I was shivering with cold, my face began to burn. I tried to sort out the last events as they sluggishly unfolded in my mind. It was as if my brain had become waterlogged as well.
Grim Hill: The Family Secret Page 11