Grim Hill: The Family Secret

by Linda DeMeulemeester

  Ugh. No wonder my breath tasted gross; I had been resuscitated by a troll.

  Then I remembered the rest of the words on the town statue: foul is fair. More gratefully, I muttered to Osgaard, “Thank you for saving me. But please don’t eat my friend.”

  “I am not bound to the boy,” Osgaard said, shaking his head sadly.

  Gnawer of the Moon smiled in a nasty, twisted grimace. “I want to eat. I’ll need my strength, for tonight I help the witches.” He puffed his chest in pride, informing us, “I am keeper of the bell, book, and candle.”

  “You’re helping the witches?” My thoughts began to race. That meant Gnawer of the Moon knew where the witches would meet. I had to stop that ceremony. I also had to stop the trolls from eating Clive.

  “Um, Cat, how are you managing to talk to those creatures?” Clive had shimmied across the stone floor to get closer to me.

  Thinking of what Osgaard had said, I asked Gnawer of the Moon, “So do you like milk?”

  That got all the trolls’ attention. “Milk is delicious,” the other three said.

  “Lovely milk,” said Gnawer with longing. “But nasty farmers put salt around their barns, and we cannot cross. And we can’t go out in daylight, so we never get sweet milk.”

  “Cat, what are they saying?” Clive’s gaze bobbed frantically between me and the trolls.

  I wasn’t sure how I was talking to the trolls, but it didn’t seem any different than talking with Clive. “I’m, um, negotiating.” Clive didn’t need to know the trolls had it in mind to eat him – at least not for the moment.

  “I’ll give you milk if you let us free,” I offered. “I’ll give you each a huge glass of milk.” When they hesitated I said, “I’ll give you two glasses of milk.”

  Gnawer stuck out a gruesome black tongue and licked his lips. Then he wavered when he said, “But I need my energy to help the witches tonight. I must hold the book for the new witch to sign and use troll magic to light the candle and ring the bell. Troll magic runs on meat.” He looked again at Clive.

  My heart sped up. “Why do you want to help the witches anyway?” I squeaked. Then more thoughtfully I added, “They don’t speak kindly of you.”

  “What do you mean?” Gnawer snarled.

  I gulped. Right, Cat, make the troll angry. Way to go. “Well, whenever Ms. Grimmaar – I mean, the head witch – talks about trolls, she calls you stupid.”

  The trolls howled and Clive asked in alarm, “What’s going on?”

  “Do you lie?” Gnawer bellowed.

  “The child is a speaker of truth like her aunt,” said Osgaard.

  “What do you know?” another troll growled at him. “You’ve been protecting that woman’s farm for so long, Night Roamer, you’ve even taken a human name. You are a tomtar now, not a troll. And,” he spat in disgust, “you’re beginning to look and smell human.”

  Osgaard didn’t smell that human to me. Again I wiped my mouth.

  “And I’ve been with humans long enough to know this child speaks the truth and it’s the witches who lie.”

  The trolls grouped on the other side of the cave to make their decision. Again they hissed and growled while Clive and I moved closer to each other, shivering in our soggy, freezing clothes.

  “I came to the farm to check on you,” whispered Clive. “Your aunt told me you’d gone after your sister and she was worried. We split up to search for you and, well, when I saw you fall into the river …”

  “You jumped in after me,” I finished. Clive was insanely brave.

  Now we were the trolls’ prisoners, and time was running out. We huddled miserably, and when our teeth began chattering, Osgaard threw a stinking fur hide over us. We accepted it with gratitude.

  The trolls debated for a long time; they didn’t seem to be fast movers. Osgaard kept coming over and giving us updates.

  “There’s still the problem of the witches,” Osgaard shook his head, giving Clive a mournful look. “They control trolls, and they can be most cruel. My brother and cousin are wondering if they should just eat the boy and obey the witches.”

  Because Osgaard spoke to us in halting English, Clive let out a yelp. “Couldn’t they just pretend to help the witches?” he said quickly. “Aren’t trolls clever enough to trick the witches?”

  That got Gnawer’s attention, and I realized his pride had been hurt when I told him the witches called trolls stupid. So I added, “The witch also said you were nasty, lazy, filthy creatures.” I looked around the cave that was littered with fish bones, old junk tires, and bottles, and strangely, I caught an occasional glimpse of silver. “Um … no offence. If you let us go,” I bargained, “we will help you defeat them and you’ll be free of their control.”

  “Then we will help you trick them,” decided Gnawer. “How?”

  “I’ve got an idea,” I said. Clive had been onto something. We could fake a move, like in soccer when you aim the ball one way and then deke it back for another player to make a breakaway.

  I remembered back to the hotel room in Stockholm when Sookie had stayed up all night practicing her signature. Even then Ms. Grimmaar had been preparing Sookie for the Walpurgis ceremony.

  “Yes, I have a plan.”

  CHAPTER 25 - The Witches’ Revenge

  BY THE TIME the trolls released us, the sun had sunk on the horizon. A stab of fear sliced my heart: Walpurgis Night was hastening upon us. In the twilight shadows of the forest, Gnawer of the Moon, Osgaard, and their two cousins followed us back to the farm. We took a gloomy winding path so they could stay safely in the shadows and out of the dying sun. Weird – even in twilight I could clearly see the highest leaf on the tallest tree, not to mention hear the tiniest crack of a branch above me.

  “Good heavens,” said Aunt Hildegaard when Clive and I walked to the cabin with the trolls in tow.

  Quickly, I explained to my aunt the bargain I had struck with the trolls. While she stood on the porch and ladled milk out of her jug and into their gaping maws, Clive and I went into the house to prepare. I loaned Clive a thick flannel shirt that my aunt kept hanging on a hook in the kitchen and a warm wool hat. I put on my warmest jacket and threw stick matches into my pocket. There was no time to change out of my jeans, which had dried and were now stiff and itchy.

  Going into our bedroom, I grabbed a sheet of paper from Sookie’s notebook, tape, and a fat glue stick. When we returned to the kitchen, Clive grabbed the box of salt sitting on the counter. “If salt keeps trolls from crossing, maybe it will …”

  “… work on other supernatural creatures – like witches,” I finished for Clive. “Good idea; I’m sure it will.”

  Both Clive and I were half-starved, so we also grabbed bananas and a slice each of the dark brown bread. We stuffed our faces as we rushed outside, where we found the trolls arguing – again. They hissed like a nest of snakes, and Gnawer was complaining that my aunt had shortchanged them.

  “We only got one glass of milk when we were promised two.”

  “You’ll get the second glass of milk once you’ve fulfilled the last part of the bargain,” I said. “And as a bonus, you can each have a ladle of cream.”

  The trolls crowed in delight and my aunt gave me a surprised look. “You speak troll?” she said. “And how did you know I was already going to offer them cream?”

  “Yeah, you seem to know what I’m going to say before I say it,” added Clive.

  Osgaard leaned over and whispered into my aunt’s ear. When he had finished explaining, she regarded me with a curious stare. “You are indeed a strong child. Not many could endure the breath of a troll. Pure magic has filled your lungs.”

  So that’s why my chest kept tingling and there was an odd buzzing in my ears – not to mention the night vision.

  “Hey,” I said to Gnawer, “stop licking the glue stick. You need it for tonight.”

  Gnawer snarled, so I quickly added, “Then you can eat the whole thing if you want.” He seemed satisfied with that. I took a belled
reindeer collar off a hook in the barn, and Gnawer had everything he needed. I hoped Osgaard would go through the plan with him one more time.

  The trolls lumbered away with Osgaard the Night Roamer, and Clive and I piled into my aunt’s truck to set out for town. We were going to need reinforcements.

  *

  While my aunt waited in her truck, I had run to the hotel to find Jasper.

  We were now standing across the channel from Blakulla, its hulking spike looming over us. Northern lights streaked the sky in ominous ghostly light that danced and twisted in glowing reds.

  “Cat, you’ve got to see this,” Jasper urged. He held a book in front of me, and my eyes widened in surprise.

  The tooled leather and strange runes on the cover were a smaller version of a magic book I’d seen once before – in a place I didn’t care to remember. Jasper was holding out a grimoire!

  “I got the idea from you, Cat. When you took a look at Ms. Dreeble’s book, and we realized she was under a spell, I started to wonder how the spell was affecting Ms. Grimmaar.” Then he shook his head ruefully. “I thought all I had to do was check her daybook on the desk in her office like you did.” Jasper’s face burned red. “So I, um, snuck the keys from the cabinet in the office.”

  Then he continued. “Her office is one strange place, Cat, cluttered with jars of creepy-looking roots and slimy eyes of newts, and bottles of phosphorescent green and yellow liquids that seem to boil inside their stoppers. I walked past her bookshelf …” Jasper stopped to gulp.

  “And?” Trepidation made me quiver, or was it Osgaard’s troll breath still rattling around inside me?

  “It was as if my feather was going to sear right through my skin. So I pulled the feather out and waved it over the shelf. It lit up brightest next to this book.” Jasper began to flip the pages. “At first I couldn’t read anything. It was all in runes.”

  “Now check this out.” Jasper passed his feather over the page.

  I gasped. The ink letters shimmied and shifted and then I read:

  To become a witch, one must undergo the ritual of bell, book, and candle. First, the bell will be rung through the town, and it will lure the magically inclined. Burn the black candle of dark magic during the ceremony on Walpurgis Night. Once the new witch drinks from the cup and signs the book of witches, she will be forever bound.

  Then added on the page in a spidery scrawl was a note. The little girl has the strongest fairy magic I have ever encountered. She heard the summons of the bell from a distance … If you lure the child, we can channel her powers. When the students gather on the shore on Walpurgis Night for their celebrations, we will have the ability to drown them all. We will finally exact our revenge.

  “No,” I said softly. The witches were going to use Sookie to drown the town’s students. I had to stop my sister and the witches. But could I fight my family curse?

  “The Sámi shaman knew,” I said miserably. “I survived drowning, and now things are worse.”

  Jasper gave me a worried look and started to speak, but I cut him off.

  “You’re right,” I sighed. “Now’s not the time to worry about what’s ahead. It’s time for action.”

  “How did you know that’s what I was going to say?” Puzzled, Jasper frowned.

  “Long story,” I said, which wasn’t really the truth, but explaining that magical troll breath was helping me read minds seemed weird. Instead, I ran out of the hotel to tell my aunt the terrible news. She told me to wait for her here, and drove off to find townspeople to help.

  But I worried we were already too late. Bonfires dotted the stretch of beach. The channel cut right to the lake, and I knew hundreds of students would be gathering there as well to sing and celebrate Walpurgis Night.

  We couldn’t wait. We gathered our friends, and like the times before, they didn’t need a long explanation. It was as if their subconscious understood there was trouble. With the help of Mitch, who seemed to know a lot about breaking locks, we got into the boat rental booth and dragged out two row boats.

  Mitch, Mia, Amarjeet, and Amanda piled into the first boat. “Good thing I joined the rowing club last summer,” Mia said, taking charge of her crew.

  Zach took a handful of kronor out of his pocket and counted it on the counter of the rental booth. Checking the sign on the wall, he said, “What do you think – three hours?” Then he laid the cash next to the till.

  “Shouldn’t you be in the other boat?” Clive suggested when Zach took a seat beside me, forcing Clive to sit beside Jasper.

  “Shouldn’t you?” Zach said cheerfully and pulled the oar.

  As we swept out into the deep, freezing water, I hoped I wasn’t leading my friends to their doom.

  CHAPTER 26 - Bell, Book, and Candle

  THE ROCKY SHORES of Blakulla were cruel and forbidding. Black branches floating on the surrounding water made it difficult for us to make our way across. One of the row boats scraped against a jagged rock, and we stepped into icy water up to our knees. Mitch and Amarjeet hauled the first boat to shore, while Clive and Zach hauled the other. Mia and Amanda secured the oars under the seats in each boat. Jasper and I followed along the rocky coast looking for the thin line that would mark the derelict funicular – our passageway up.

  “There it is,” Jasper pointed. “Are you sure it works?”

  The path up the mountain was steep and treacherous; it would take hours to climb – hours we didn’t have. “It is out of order, has been for years.” I gulped. “But we’ve got no choice.”

  Eight of us jammed into the rusted funicular while Mitch fiddled with the electrical box outside. The metallic beast groaned and shook menacingly on its cable, and the bull wheels screamed in protest until we lurched forward. Mitch jumped inside. The funicular swung from side to side, and we rocked with it. Then it steadied and began a slow trek up the mountain as we stared at the distance below. If this thing fell off its cable, we’d be crushed.

  Creaking and groaning, the funicular rattled up the mountain. I hoped that witches didn’t have good hearing.

  “Look, Cat,” Jasper said in alarm.

  From this height on Blakulla, I gazed below at the hundreds of bonfires along the shores of the lake and canal. It looked like Aunt Hildegaard wasn’t having much success getting the students off the beaches. Our luck needed to change.

  As we climbed higher, I explained the plan to rescue Sookie to my friends. No one questioned that we were on a witch hunt.

  “Why does it feel as if we’ve done something like this before?” Amarjeet’s face scrunched in concentration.

  “Because we have,” Mia said in a hollow voice. “More than once, I think.”

  Zach and Mitch nodded in agreement. Was witch glamour as strong as fairy glamour? I wondered. Would they forget this like the other times? A small, unwelcome voice piped up inside me, That is, if we even survive.

  Finally, the funicular groaned to a stop, and we stepped out into the black forest. “There,” I pointed to a yellow glow seeping through the trees. A large bonfire blazed a short distance away. We hurried, but as we neared the bonfire we hung back in the shadows behind a line of skeletal black trees. “Make sure no one doubles round and sneaks up on us from behind,” I whispered to Mia, Amanda, and Mitch, while Clive gave them each pockets full of salt. Amarjeet and Zach covered the other side, while Jasper, Clive, and I crept forward.

  The witches were gathered in a large circle, and the orange-yellow flames of their fire roared and danced. Sookie stood near the center looking slightly ridiculous in her gigantic witch’s hat. But I knew there was nothing ridiculous about it – my sister was a powerful magician, and if she unleashed those powers, I feared for us all. I crept a little closer to the light, and my mouth dropped in horror.

  Through the blur of yellow flame, I made out several familiar faces. Leering at the fire was the kind woman at the troll shop back in Stockholm. I would never forget the contrast of her young face and gray hair. I would also never forget th
at it was the bell on her shop that had summoned Sookie.

  Anne Britt and Helga stood a few feet away from me dressed in witches’ cloaks and brimmed hats. So did several other students from our classes. But that wasn’t what was chilling my bones.

  Under the light of the moon, their yellow witch’s eyes glowed with thin slits of black. The cat eyes stared cruelly at my sister, malice and evil twisting their faces into ugly masks. It was now clear that the horrific face I’d seen staring into our room that night had been Ms. Grimmaar.

  No, Sookie, no! I held my breath when Gnawer of the Moon stepped out from behind a tree carrying a bell, a book, and a candle.

  “Let the initiation begin.” Ms. Grimmaar’s voice rang out in icy tones that sent chills up my arms and neck.

  The witches hoisted Sookie onto a litter draped in black silk that hung from the stretcher like a vampire’s cape. They carried her to a huge tree trunk shrouded in a table cloth of flimsy cobwebs. Gnawer stepped in front of her and placed a thick black wax candle in an old-fashioned candleholder on top of the cloth.

  Mom would have said it was a total fire hazard.

  Then Gnawer set the book at the bottom of the tree and a small gasp escaped my lips. The luminous crescent moon – a witch’s moon – decorated its cover and had begun to glow, pulsating like a beating heart. Finally, he set the large pewter bell beside the candle.

  I hoped no one noticed when Gnawer turned his back from the wind to light the candle, so that he could really light the candle with stick matches instead of troll magic. He spun around as the candle spewed thick, sulfurous black smoke that stank and made my eyes water.

  Chanting, the witches’ voices pinched my nerves like chalk’s jagged scrapes across a blackboard. Ms. Grimmaar walked over and flipped the book open. The other witches lowered the litter and set Sookie down. My little sister stumbled toward the book as if she was in a trance.

  Ms. Grimmaar handed my sister a quill pen with a black feather plume and a nib dipped in crimson ink. “You must sign the book of witches. Use your best signature, because it will remain in this book for all time. ”