by Edith Pattou
That night I dreamed of Neddy once more, but this time it was a happy dream, of greeting him at the door after a long journey and him promising me he wouldn’t go so far away again.
Another thread of hope.
Neddy
IT WAS AN ODD COMBINATION, feeling so weak and wrung out and yet so impossibly happy all at the same time. I couldn’t even walk, and yet I wanted to run into Trondheim, proclaiming my joy to everyone I met.
Sib’s eyes held the same kind of light as mine, though she appeared to be very weary, to the point that she too looked like she had been through the Sweating Sickness.
It was the following morning, and Sib brought me a small bowl of oatmeal and cream Mother had prepared. I didn’t have a large appetite yet, but managed a few bites. Sib went to open the windows, letting in sunlight and a fresh breeze.
As I gazed at Sib’s face, it looked to me as if she had aged. She was as beautiful as she had always been, but there seemed to be lines in her face I had not noticed before.
“Sib,” I said abruptly, setting aside my oatmeal, “how did you heal me?”
She came and sat by me. “It was the elixir; it finally worked,” she said. “And the weather changed,” she added. “Feel the wind, Neddy. It is a good one.”
“I don’t think you are telling me everything,” I said weakly.
“You need to rest now, Neddy,” she said.
And she was right, for I was asleep before she even finished her sentence.
Mother
THE SWEATING SICKNESS ALL BUT DISAPPEARED with the change in weather. It was as if the cool, crisp wind washed it away for good.
I didn’t say anything to Sib about what I had seen. I didn’t know if she knew I had been watching; if so, she too chose not to say anything to me. And I decided not to tell anyone else. I wondered if it was possible I had imagined it all. So much had happened in these past weeks. I had been exhausted.
As Arne said, the weather changed. In the nick of time. It was as simple as that. But sometimes I wondered.
Sib was exhausted, too. I noticed that she slept almost as much as Neddy, and her energy was low. I worried that she was going to fall sick, too, but she assured me she was fine, just tired.
It took time for Neddy to heal, which wasn’t surprising, seeing how close he had come to death. But as he healed, it became clear that something had changed between Sib and him. Arne noticed it also, and after we had tucked Estelle and Winn into bed one night and were sitting at the kitchen table drinking tea, I told him I thought it wouldn’t be too long before we had a wedding to celebrate.
“There does seem to be something there,” Arne said in agreement, “but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
“Oh, I’m sure, Arne,” I said. “It is because they almost lost each other.”
He nodded again. We had all experienced so much loss these past weeks. All I knew for sure was that Neddy lived and that he and Sib had found their way to each other.
Estelle
IT SEEMED THAT THE TIME of the terrible maladie was over. The air had changed. People were starting to come out of their houses.
There was still much sadness. So many people had died, and those who hadn’t had at least one person they were mourning and often many more than that. I knew it was important to be kind to Gudrun and her brother and sister, who had lost their poor maman. I remembered well how sad I was to lose my own maman and took special care with them.
I helped too with little Lissa, who had also lost her maman. And I thanked the bon Dieu that bébé Winn had not fallen ill. If something had happened to him, it would have shattered my heart. I had promised Rose to take good care of him, and I was determined to do so, no matter what.
A few days after Oncle Neddy had almost died (I wasn’t supposed to know how close he had come to death, but I overheard Grand-mère Eugenia and Grand-père Arne talking about how if it wasn’t for Tante Sib, he would surely have died), I asked if I could take Winn for a walk before dinner as we had before the sickness came.
Grand-mère Eugenia looked a little hesitant, but then she smiled and said, “Why not? You have been cooped up for so long. Be sure to go just to the river and back, and do not speak to or get close to anyone. Just as a precaution.”
I agreed and bundled Winn up into the sling I wore across my chest. He seemed a little heavier to me. Meals had been more sparse in the past weeks because of the sickness, but Grand-mère Eugenia always made sure there was enough for Winn and me, and he was a growing bébé, after all.
There weren’t many people out, but the few I saw looked cheerier than I’d seen in a while.
It was a lovely, crisp evening, and it seemed a shame to head straight back once we got to the Nidelva River, so I decided to walk along a little path I had noticed some time ago, one that went beside the river to the north. Just a short way, I told myself.
The river looked très jolie, in the late afternoon sun, all sparkly and blue-gray. Winn let out a happy gurgle, and I laughed.
As we rounded a corner, I saw what looked like a white horse standing by the river. I felt a tremor of fear, remembering the stories Gudrun had told me about the Nokken, the white horse who dragged children into the river.
But I realized it wasn’t a horse, but a white reindeer, and there were two children with it. It was a beautiful animal, and I wanted to get a closer look. A white reindeer named Vaettur had carried Rose safely away from Niflheim and the evil Troll Queen. I had longed to see one ever since Rose told me the story.
The boy and girl with the reindeer were dressed in white and looked to be my age or a little older. The girl was very pretty, with light yellow hair, and the boy looked nice, with a welcoming smile.
“Hello!” the girl called to me.
I walked toward them. Winn let out another gurgle and wriggled in excitement at seeing the reindeer.
“What a magnifique animal!” I said.
“Thank you,” said the boy.
“Is it yours?” I asked.
“It is,” said the girl. “Would you like a ride?”
I was thrilled, thinking what a great story it would be to tell Gudrun that I rode a white reindeer along the Nidelva River. It wasn’t very large, and I was used to riding on horses back in Fransk, so I wasn’t afraid.
The girl came up closer to me and held out her arms to take Winn. “I’ll watch the sweet bairn while you ride.”
“No,” I said, pulling away. I suddenly remembered what Grand-mère Eugenia had said about not speaking to strangers.
All at once, I noticed that up close the girl’s skin was funny, all ridged and creased. Rose had told me that troll skin was hard and ridged.
I took a few steps back, wrapping my arms protectively around Winn. But then I felt someone grab me from behind. Hard. I was being lifted up onto the back of the reindeer.
I struggled against it, but the grip was too strong. I was on the reindeer, and we were galloping alongside the river.
And then we were up in the air, flying.
I caught my breath, terrified. The ground was swirling away in a dizzying blur. I started to scream, but a hand closed over my mouth.
Rose
I HAD HOPED THAT PERHAPS after the previous night’s happy dream of Neddy, the nightmares were finally over.
But I was wrong. And the one I had that night was the worst of all.
I was in Winn’s nursery. I was sitting in a rocking chair near his cradle, sewing, and Estelle sat next to me, reading a book. It was a sunny, hot afternoon, and I was sleepy. I dozed off. A sound woke me, and I opened my eyes to see a large white snake beside the cradle. It had raised itself up and was hovering above it.
I let out a cry and tried to stand, but my arms and legs were frozen. They were not bound by anything, but still I wasn’t able to move. I watched in horror as the snake dipped its head down and grabbed the bairn in its mouth.
The bairn looked different, though, smaller, and for a moment I was relieved. It wasn’t
Winn after all, just a doll that had been lying in the cradle. The snake lifted the doll out of the bed, its mouth clamped on a shoulder, and pivoted, lowering itself to the floor and dropping the doll in front of it. The doll rolled toward me, and I could clearly see that it had Winn’s face.
I struggled desperately against the unseen bonds that held me down.
Suddenly the snake began to swallow Winn, first the legs, then the torso, and finally the head. I watched in horror as the snake’s mouth closed over Winn’s eyes.
I screamed.
Then the snake changed into Jaaloki, and he glided to Estelle, grabbing her by the neck. She let out a strangled cry, and in the flash of a moment, they disappeared.
I woke up trembling violently. No! Not Winn and Estelle.
I was sure I must have screamed out loud and that it would have awakened Charles, but saw he was still fast asleep on his bedroll.
I sat up, my heart pounding.
Jaaloki’s words roared in my ears. It is the bairn who matters now.
I stood and, pulling my cloak around me, walked away from the now-dead campfire. There was a small stream a stone’s throw away, and I found my way to it, still shivering.
I sat beside the stream, listening to the rippling, bubbling sound of the water as it coursed over the stones. Pulling my cloak tighter, I closed my eyes, trying to stop my trembling, concentrating on the soothing sound.
I thought about Neddy, wondering what the dreams I’d had about him meant, if anything. Had he been sick but was now better? Oh, how I missed him. He would have understood, like no one else, the horror of the dream. And the daily nightmare I was living, having Charles with me but not with me, here but not here.
Neddy, I thought longingly. I would have given anything for him to be with me here, now.
And then he was there, beside me. I knew he couldn’t be, not really, but I could see the line of his jaw, the dark hair curling at his temples, his clear blue eyes. He was pale, with shadows under his eyes, which I saw now were filled with sorrow. He looked at me, directly into my eyes, and spoke.
“I’m sorry, Rose. They are gone. Winn and Estelle. Vanished. I should have kept them safe. I am sorry, more than I can ever say.” Tears came into his blue eyes.
My heart was thudding; my skin prickled with fear.
“Neddy!” I cried, reaching out to him. But he was gone.
“Come back,” I whispered. But I knew it was no use. The sound of the gurgling water was all I could hear. “Neddy,” I whispered again.
I then remembered him telling me that while I had been on my journey to the land that lay east of the sun and west of the moon, he had once felt me beside him in the reading room of the monastery. I hadn’t believed him at first, but we realized it must have been around the time I had been in mortal danger, was about to be attacked by a white bear, not my white bear, but the wild one Malmo had saved me from.
When Mother heard Neddy’s story, she hadn’t been at all surprised, saying that when a bond is strong between a brother and sister, and the circumstances are extraordinary or threatening, one can most assuredly communicate over large distances.
But what did it mean, this “vision,” or whatever it was, coming so close after the horrible nightmare about Winn and Estelle? And then I knew what it meant.
The Troll Queen had taken Winn. And perhaps Estelle too.
It is the bairn who matters now.
And it was as I had feared: the bairn was my bairn. My Winn.
Book Three
EST
They drifted rudderless, in raging wind.
—The Edda
Estelle
I WOKE. AND I WAS FLYING UP HIGH, icy wind on my face.
It was so cold.
I wasn’t on a reindeer anymore, but in a sleigh. With bells. I could hear the silvery, tinkling sound of them.
The girl, who wasn’t a girl anymore but a white-haired, white-skinned, ridge-faced person dressed in black furs, sat next to me. A troll.
On the other side of me was the boy, who, like the girl, had similar features, but was bald, with that same white tree-bark skin. He held a cup to my mouth, and I drank. I didn’t want to at first, but I was so cold and the drink was warm and smelled delicious.
It tasted delicious, too, like spicy sweet warm milk.
There was a third troll up at the reins of the sleigh. He turned and smiled at me, and I gasped. The smile was like being kicked in the stomach. He looked like a skeleton. I started shivering again, and the boy troll put the cup back up to my lips.
I was frightened, but mostly I was sleepy. So sleepy. I felt myself drifting off. Then I remembered.
Winn!
My eyes flew open, and I gazed down.
No, he was safe, nestled in the sling at my chest. His eyes were closed. He was sleeping.
Relief flooded through me.
The cup was at my lips again, and I drank more.
Mother
IT DID NOT SEEM POSSIBLE, not after all we had been through. But Estelle and Winn had gone, vanished.
I cursed myself for letting her go off with the bairn, by themselves. But I had felt bad for her, all cooped up with nothing but grief and sickness around her for so long.
How could I have known?
But I should have known. I should have read the portents. Yesterday Arne had sneezed to the left, and worse, I had spotted a raven sitting in a tree outside the kitchen window. I had told myself it wasn’t gray, but I should have known better.
I had just been so desperate for things to be right again. Safe. I let my guard down.
I didn’t know how I would ever forgive myself.
Poor Neddy, still so weak from his sickness. He was beside himself, organizing search parties, questioning anyone who might have seen a girl and a bairn.
The only trace that we found were hoofprints in the muddy bank of the Nidelva. A fisherman had spotted what looked to be a white reindeer, or perhaps it had been a horse. He wasn’t sure. And old Widow Lubchek, who lived near the river, swore she had heard a faint tinkling of bells, sleigh bells perhaps. But she was a fanciful sort, and we weren’t sure whether to believe her.
Neddy was sure Winn and Estelle had been taken by trolls. He recounted again the story of Rose’s encounter with the troll-snake in the underground cavern.
Those words, it is the bairn who matters now, had always worried him.
“I should have kept better watch over Winn,” Neddy said in anguish.
It didn’t make him feel any better when Sib and I both pointed out that he had been very sick and almost died.
I was worried he would become ill again, and so was Sib, I could tell.
None of us knew what to do. How do you search for two children stolen with the aid of the powerful arts of trolls?
Soren would gladly have provided one of his ships, but Neddy didn’t know where to go. He considered setting out for La Rochelle, since that was the last place we knew Rose was headed. But Sib convinced him to wait a few days at least, until he got his strength back.
There had been no word from Rose, which wasn’t surprising since no ships had been traveling to Trondheim since the outbreak of Sweating Sickness. But we hoped to hear soon.
Rose
AT DAWN THAT MORNING, I woke and went to my pack. I quietly removed the Huldre book of maps and leafed through it until I came to a page that depicted a map of a mountainous region the trolls called Kaal, with the highest peak named Kaalpok. I compared it to my tattered map of Fransk and found the section that contained the Alpes. The two were almost identical, Mont Blanc being our name for Kaalpok.
Kaalpok, I was convinced, was where Jaaloki said the Troll Queen had taken up residence. Her favorite aerie at the top of the softskin world.
And that was where I must go, to the Alpes, to Mont Blanc, to find my son and Estelle.
“Good morning,” came Charles’s voice. I looked up to see him standing across from me, already getting the campfire started. I had been s
o absorbed in my maps I had not even noticed.
“Good morning,” I replied.
“You are charting our route?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “But I am charting a new route. Plans have changed. I must travel east, to the mountainous region called the Alpes.”
“Why have the plans changed?” he asked.
I was silent. How could I tell him it was because of a dream? It would sound like madness. But it was the truth.
“I had a dream. It has convinced me we must go to the mountain called Mont Blanc.”
He listened, unfazed.
“You see,” I went on, “there is someone, who is important to both you and me, who is in danger.”
His eyebrows raised at this.
“Someone from my father’s court?”
I shook my head, impatient. I wished I could tell him once and for all that there was no such court, that his father was long dead.
He ran a hand over his eyes, then gazed at me directly. “If this person is important to you and me and is in danger, we must go.” He smiled, and I got the feeling he was almost happy to have a purpose.
“We need to stop first in La Rochelle as planned,” I said. “I have to see if there is any word from my family.”
But there was no word. According to the harbormaster, no ships were traveling anywhere near Trondheim, and hadn’t been for some time. Northern Njord had been hard hit by the Sweating Sickness.
After speaking to the harbormaster, I had a moment of doubt. Was I behaving like a madwoman, basing a journey to one of the highest mountain ranges in the world on a dream and my own far-fetched intuition? Perhaps I should instead be trying to get to Trondheim in any way possible, to see my family, make sure they were still alive.
But no. I knew this was what I must do. I didn’t know the how or why of it. I just knew I must go to the Huldre dwelling in the Alpes. The Troll Queen’s favorite, at the top of the world. Winn and Estelle had been taken there. I was sure of it.