The Huldra Hostility

by Michael Almich

  They found a stern and agitated Tom T waiting for them at the top. He jumped with his gnarled staff onto the rope and was transported down to the scene below. As the rest of the boys reached the rope, the diminutive Tom T stood guard, spinning his staff. Shy thought it was some sort of weird show, until Daniel pointed out that the nisse was knocking red arrows out of the air.

  Shy raised his eyebrows yet again in amazement over the drab little nisse. When he looked close, he could see a pile of arrows at Tom T’s feet! Then he saw a shadow block out the sun, followed by a keening wail that pierced their hearing. They looked up in time to see the lindworm dive at the nisse.

  “Tom… LOOK OUT!” Shy yelled.

  The nisse was fast. He tossed his staff and flipped backwards out of the way of the diving lindworm. The staff continued to spin, and he caught it on its way down, as he rode the magic rope upwards.

  When the nisse reached the platform, he sat down and looked at the boys. They looked around at each other. They could still hear the lindworm as it screeched into the west. Evidently the appearance of Tom T had been enough for it to give up on its targets.

  No one said anything until Henry pointed and exclaimed, “Ralph!”

  They looked at the thin boy. He had a red arrow sticking out from the back of his arm. His white t-shirt was stained red, and it was spreading.

  The nisse hissed loudly and hopped up.

  The sight of the bloody arrow reminded the boys of the danger from the reds. They gathered around Ralph, but their eyes continued to search the trees and ground for any sign of red.

  The nisse worked fast but efficiently. He drew out some small purple leaves from some hidden crevice of his rag-like clothes. He crushed them quickly and mixed them with what Shy though might have been tree sap. Smoothly the nisse brushed the concoction around where the arrow had pierced flesh. Ralph did not say much, but gamely clenched his teeth and grimaced as Tom T worked the arrow out. Shy reflected on how the small, quiet boy reacted. He was tougher than everyone suspected, Shy thought to himself.

  Tom threw the arrow down to the forest floor from their perch, and now mixed up some other herbs from his pouch. He swabbed the back of Ralph’s arm with the new concoction. His patient let out an audible sigh of relief.

  The boys sat and looked at each other and their surroundings without talking. No more arrows had appeared and they began to relax.

  Suddenly a thought came back to Shy.

  “How were you able to see the arrows?” Shy asked the group. Then, before they could answer, he continued, “And the lindworm? You were able to see that too! How?”

  The boys started smiling and looked at each other proudly. After a few seconds of the smiling, Shy was unable to keep the dumbfounded look on his face. He began to share their smiles.

  “Come on guys! Tell me!” He said as Henry started to giggle.

  Soon, as their adrenaline washed away, all the boys began to break into fits of giggling, and Shy found himself joining in.

  “What is so funny?” He demanded as he laughed.

  He felt, rather than heard, Tom T stir behind him. Shy turned and the Nisse began to back away.

  “Shylock, they have used the recipe. Now, you are all in danger.”

  “What recipe?” Shy was confused by the serious tone of the nisse.

  Then, the realization hit him like a ton of bricks. He drifted quickly back to a year ago. He had returned triumphant from the other side of the waterfall. He had gotten the treasure… but, it was just a box, with a mysterious recipe inside. Tom T had said that the box held some kind of power, besides the recipe. Power to enslave all the seelie fairy folk if it fell into unseelie hands. Shy had not given the recipe much thought from that point on. What was it again, he thought.

  Henry could hold it in no longer… he began reciting from memory,

  “Beneath the seen lies many a danger

  Beauty uncovered holds hidden device

  To play in the garden safely

  The wise will always look twice.

  Take the beauty of the petals of the butterwort plant

  Steep with water not yet soiled.

  Mix in sap from an elder pine

  Wipe the lids of unseeing eyes

  To uncover that which is hidden.”

  Shy stared. They had used the recipe. He thought through the words… beneath the seen… uncover that which is hidden. He should have guessed it was a recipe for seeing through the magic of the Glamour.

  Tom T stirred behind Shy and began shooing them onto the pathways that led back to the heart of the forest cabins and the Hive.

  “Go, young ones,” the brown hairy little creature said as he herded them. “A red arrow can still pierce my protections. You are not completely safe here. Go find Thaddeus and tell him what you have all done.” His voice was heavy with resignation. “Tell him and master Shylock how you have all moved us toward war.”

  Shy glanced at the nisse. He was brought back to his purpose with that one word… war. He needed to rescue Gust, and then find a way to return the box. He remembered one other thing. He had left the rope and batteries at the edge of the clearing, where the first arrow had almost hit him. He made a mental note to go back and get those supplies. They could come in handy when he finally set out.

  ***

  They traveled over rope bridges, pathways made from planks, and even swung across empty air between the pines. Daniel had the lead.

  Once they had moved out of sight of Tom T, Daniel stopped them and like a quarterback calling a huddle, he pulled them together.

  “Shy, Eddie is a spy! We have watched him spying on you, and then going right to Morrie!”

  Shy looked at them all. He felt like they wanted him to condemn the new boy, and maybe he deserved it, because there sure seemed to be something evil about Morrie. Instead, Shy said, “So, you were all spying on him, spying on me?”

  It obviously wasn’t the reaction the boys had been looking for. They all looked at each other. Daniel had a look on his face like he had just bitten into something sour.

  Henry, of course, was the first to speak up. He said, “Shy that little rat is in with Morrie. There is something wrong there… he is just not right… aaaannnd he hates us!”

  There was a chorus of agreement in the murmurs from the other boys.

  “Look Shy,” Daniel began again, “he was there, watching those nasty little red-hatted gnomes attack you. He didn’t help.”

  “Did you let him use the recipe? Could he even see the reds?” Shy fired back. He wasn’t sure why he was defending the boy, but it just seemed unfair.

  Again, the boys all looked at each other. No one answered.

  “How could he have helped me if he couldn’t see like you guys? The Glamour would have hidden it all from him. He probably thought we were all nuts.” Shy added.

  Daniel straightened up from the huddle. “Shy, all I am saying is I don’t want us to go back to the Hive and tell you our story because I don’t want him to overhear. I don’t trust him, and there is something wrong with how he runs to Morrie constantly. He is ratting us out somehow. Let’s go up to my cabin. The Eagle. He won’t be able to overhear us there.”

  “What about Tad? Should we let him in on this?” Shy asked.

  “Not just yet. After we talk… OK?”

  Shy nodded his assent. Daniel smiled, and changed their course, heading more toward the north edge of the Forest cabins.

  ***

  One thing Eddie had done well in his time at camp was get to know every inch of the pathways in the forest canopy. He was confident he knew them better than any of the other boys, with the exception of those creepy hidden entrances that Shy seemed to keep coming up with. The one they used today shot them up into the air like a rocket. It had almost looked like they were hanging onto an invisible tow rope, like he had seen at the bunny hill when he had been skiing.

  When the other boys ran into the meadow and started howling, Eddie had run. He remembered the
fear when that invisible flying thing - what had Shy called it? Lindworm, that was it – had attacked them in the woods after Shy had howled. He wasn’t sticking around for that again!

  Still, they had been acting weird, even beyond the howling. He had gotten back into the Forest cabins and headed back in the direction of the howling, finally climbing a tall pine that had precariously placed small climbing rungs on the outside of the tree. He was pretty sure this was one spot the other boys had never discovered. It carried him high above the other pathways. He had a clear view of the surrounding area from there. He watched the boys tear across the meadow, alternating between diving on the ground and popping up and running. He watched them fly into the trees two by two. He knew something was going on that he could not see.

  He lay flat on his high perch and hung his head over the edge of the platform and waited. It was not too long before the boys came into his view. Eddie smiled as they stopped just under his perch and began to huddle and talk. Many things began to make sense. Evidently, there was some potion, recipe they called it, that could make him able to see what they claimed to see. All the monsters, the magic entrances, everything. Eddie was skeptical, but he knew one way to resolve his skepticism. He needed to get that potion.

  He was surprised about two other things he overheard. First, Shy defended him in the face of all those boys. Shy pointed out how they were not seeing the whole Eddie. He was beginning to like Shy more and more. Secondly, he was surprised by the boys’ obvious hatred of Morrie. Even Shy seemed to agree. Maybe he needed to re-evaluate his friendship with Moriarty. He was always nice to Eddie, and welcoming. Especially when Eddie brought him tales of what the boys had been doing. Morrie would always ask about the box that Shy had hidden. In fact, the camp leader was always especially interested in what Shy was doing. Now, Eddie felt bad for telling him so much about Shy. Shy was his one defender amongst the boys.

  As he watched the seven boys troop out of sight, towards the north, he began to lay his plans to get some of that recipe.

  Chapter Seven

  “Trolls, reds, goblins, and worse… She gathers them”

  When they had reached the heights of the Eagle cabin, they took turns scrambling up the rope. Daniel and Sam went first. Over two summers, they had developed a method for climbing the rope, and scurried up quickly. When it was Shy’s turn, he struggled to wrap the rope around his leg like Sam and Daniel had done. It rubbed right on the bug bite that had been bothering Shy all day. After a few seconds of trying to avoid it, Shy realized it actually felt good; it was like he was scratching the bite as he climbed the rope, relieving the itching for a short time.

  The cabin was plenty roomy for two, but seven boys in the cabin made it a little cramped. They sat two to a hammock, and Shy spread out on his back, with Henry and Ralph, on the floor.

  Shy was amazed, just as he had been when he entered the Raven cabin for the first time. It seemed each cabin had its own unique twists. The ceiling on the Eagle was made from clear plexi-glass, like they had on the boards at the Minnesota Wild hockey game his dad had brought him to once. The sunlight poured in. The cabin was so high that no branches hung over the cabin to obscure his view. It truly was like an eagle nest, Shy thought. He saw thin wispy clouds crossing the blue sky.

  “OK, you wanna hear our story Shy? How we got the recipe made?” Daniel took the lead.

  “Yup.”

  On the floor, Henry nudged Ralph and said, “This is your tale to tell Ralphie.”

  The smallest of their group, Ralph seemed to shrink even smaller as their attention focused on him. He looked around at them all with a bit of panic in his eyes.

  Daniel spoke, “It’s OK Ralph, I’ll start if you want.”

  He waited and when Ralph gave a little nod, Daniel began.

  “It was Ralph’s idea… initially. He had memorized the recipe last summer when we first read it. Evidently, he thought about it all year. He had an idea of what it was, what it could do. It still took him these several weeks to get up the nerve to tell us.”

  Daniel paused with a smile and glanced at Ralph, who was now fiddling with his glasses in his lap and didn’t look up. Daniel continued.

  “He finally told us, or me anyway, that he thought the recipe could give us all the sight, the ability that you have to see through the Glamour. You were being so secretive an’ sneaking away often, so we all figured you had some plan up your sleeve. We knew that the only way we could really help you would be if we could make this recipe and hope that it worked.”

  “Ralph figured that the first part, paragraph… what do they call it in poetry?”

  “Stanza,” Ralph finally spoke up, “They call it a stanza.”

  He had put his glasses back on and looked around, embarrassed that he had spoken.

  “Right. So, the wording in the first stanza was basically a warning. The second stanza started the recipe. First thing was the petals of a butterwort plant. That was right up Ralph’s alley since he was doing the plant identification for the Camp Games. He could easily spend time looking for that while he was practicing for the games. Turns out that this area is one of the few places in the U.S. that butterwort grows. It grows in areas where the soil is poor, in pine forests and even on rock walls. Ralph can go on and on about it for you later if you want, but here is one other interesting fact: since it grows in poor soil, it needs to supplement its nutrients by digesting bugs! It’s a carnivore.”

  Ralph was nodding his head intently, but the other boys were either daydreaming or sleeping. They had obviously heard all this before. Shy turned back to Daniel who shrugged.

  “Ralph and I think that is interesting anyway.” He said defensively and then continued, “So the Butterwort was Ralph’s job. We’ll come back to that in a minute.”

  Shy smiled as he noticed how much Daniel was enjoying telling the story. He was getting more and more like Tad.

  “The next ingredient was water not yet soiled. We figured that had to be rain, right? Water that hadn’t touched the ground. Easy enough… we just collected some when it rained at night a few days ago. The last ingredient was sap from an elder pine. This one we had no idea really, but took a guess. Since the Sentinel is the tallest tree in the Forest cabins, we figured maybe it was an elder. It was worth a try anyway, and it worked!”

  “So, all we needed was the butterwort petal. Ralph searched and searched. We thought we would be out of luck. He had covered most of the forest. Finally he went with Finn to practice his kayaking. While Finn was practicing, Ralph roamed the cliffs and rocky shore. Ralph, you wanna take over the story?”

  Shy looked around again. The other boys had definitely heard the story before. Finn, who had initially perked up at the mention of his name, was now back to arm wrestling Sawyer. Ralph was the only one paying rapt attention, but he was also squirming to try to ease the pain from the arrow wound. He obviously was not willing to tell the rest, so Daniel continued.

  “Well, he found it… the butterwort. Here’s the thing though… just as he was bending over, picking the petals, he was grabbed around the neck from behind by something black. Ralph said he tried to pry it off, but it was like a steel cable. It was choking him. He began to pass out!”

  Shy saw Ralph shiver out of the corner of his eye, and could see that the other boys had now also perked up to the story.

  “Just as things were going dark, he saw several other short black figures walk in front of him.” Daniel paused and looked at Shy.

  Shy stared back. His mind was up and running. It had to be goblins, he thought. They had very little power in the Glamour. They could have just attacked Ralph and not worried about trying to hide themselves. But why?

  He opened his mouth. Then shut it quickly as Daniel watched. What if the goblins had attacked because Ralph had discovered the plant? Goblins don’t just act like that on their own. That meant the huldra was there at camp, watching and waiting. She must have set up guard on the plant. It appeared that Tom T was right in as
suming the reds were there because of her. She must be orchestrating a whole campaign against him, Shy thought.

  “Goblins,” Shy said, “they were goblins. They are not very strong in the Glamour. But, it still seems weird that they would let him see them. The Faerie says they are good warriors, but not very smart.”

  Daniel asked the obvious question, “Why would they have attacked Ralph?”

  Shy shrugged.

  “Maybe to protect the plant?” It was the only idea he had. “What happened then? How did Ralph get away?”

  Daniel seemed to be considering how to answer before he spoke.

  “We don’t really know. When he came to, he was being set down lightly on the beach, by the kayaks. Like he had been floating on the air! Finn found him a moment later, but swore Ralph had just appeared… he hadn’t been there when Finn had looked a moment before.”

  Again the wheels spun in Shy’s head. He remembered the prior summer, being lifted up and away from the clutches of the huldra and her goblin army. It was the beautiful sylphon pixies that had saved Portia and him last summer. The same that he had seen at his school… watching over him. Could they be watching over all of the boys now? So many questions…

  When Shy didn’t speak, Daniel switched topics.

  “OK Shy… we can all see the fairy creatures now, we can see through their tricks. We are ready to help you. You’re not leaving here until you tell us what you are planning.”

  He softened the threat with a smile, but Shy noticed that all the other boys were on high alert now. This is what they had come for. Sam was guarding the exit to the Eagle cabin like a sentry. Shy felt that warmness spreading throughout his body, like he had many times the previous summer. It was good to have friends. True friends. They would do anything for you.