West of the Moon

by Katherine Langrish

  His foot came down on something small and hard. He picked it up and held it to the light. A small iron key.

  His eyes flew to the darkest corner of the room. A long wooden box stood there, a chest for valuables. Bjørn always kept the lid padlocked shut. It was open now, dragged out crookedly from the wall, the padlock unhooked and the lid hurled back. Peer knelt, plunging his arms into the solid black shadow that was the interior, feeling into every corner. The chest was empty.

  It didn’t make sense. Peer tried to imagine robbers arriving, forcing Kersten to find the key, open the chest… but Kersten need only scream to raise the entire village. And why would she run into the sea? And what could Bjørn possibly own, that anyone might want to steal? He paced about in growing anxiety, waiting for Bjørn to return. At last he gave up. He covered the fire, and bent to scoop the baby out of the cradle. It was awake, and hungry. It had crammed its tiny fingers into its mouth and was munching them busily. Peer’s heart sank.

  “I haven’t got anything for you!” he told it, as if speaking to his dog, Loki. “Let’s get you wrapped up.” He grabbed an old cloak from a peg behind the door, and as he bundled it around them both, the baby looked straight into his eyes.

  It didn’t smile – Peer didn’t know if it was even old enough to smile. It gazed into his face with a serious, penetrating stare, as if his soul were a well and it was looking right down to the very bottom. Peer gazed back. The baby didn’t know about robbers, or the wild night outside, or its missing parents. It didn’t know that it might die or grow up an orphan. It knew only what was right here and now: the hunger in its belly, and Peer’s arms holding it, firmly wrapped and warm. He drew a shaky breath.

  “They left you,” he said through gritted teeth. “But I won’t. You come with me!” Pressing the baby to his shoulder, he elbowed the door open and strode furiously out into the pitch-black night.

  The wind spat rain and sleet. Peer splashed past Einar’s house, and a goat, sheltering against a wall, scrambled to its feet and barged past, nearly knocking him down. As he cursed it, the doorlatch clicked and Einar looked out. “Who’s there?”

  “It’s me,” began Peer, but he couldn’t explain. Kersten had thrown herself into the sea. Bjørn’s house had been robbed. He was holding their baby… He left Einar puzzled on the doorstep, and slunk out of the village like a thief.

  Driving rain followed him up the hill. Every gust of wind blew his cloak open. The baby wriggled. Afraid it would slip, he stopped, trying to find a dry edge to wrap around it, but the woollen fabric seemed all muddy or sodden, and he gave up in despair. The baby’s head tipped back and those dark eyes stared at him again. Uneasily Peer stared back. Something was wrong. This baby was too good, too quiet. Little Eirik would be screaming his head off by now, he thought. Was the baby too cold to cry? Too weak?

  Frightened, he plunged on up the path. Gudrun could give it warmth and milk. But at the moment he could hardly see where to put his feet; and there were a couple of miles of rough track to go, past the old mill and up through the leafless wood.

  Ahead of him the black roofline of the mill appeared between the trees, the thatch twisted into crooked horns above narrow gables. It was on just such a wild night that Peer had first seen it, three years ago. His uncles had long gone, but the mill had a bad name still. Odd creatures were said to loiter in its dark rooms and squint through the broken shutters. A splash from the mill pond might be Granny Greenteeth, lurking under the weed-clogged surface, waiting to drag down anyone who strayed.

  Peer clutched the baby tighter. There was no way of avoiding the place: the road led right up to it, before crossing the stream on an old wooden bridge. As he passed he glanced up. The walls leaned over, cold and silent.

  The river snarled over the weir in white froth. He looked upstream at the waterwheel, in the darkness hardly more than a tall looming bulk – and was instantly giddy. The wheel’s moving! Only the water tearing underneath, perhaps; or were those black, dripping blades really lifting, one after another, rolling upwards, picking up speed?

  An unearthly squeal skewered the night. Peer shot off the bridge. The anguished noise went on and on, far too long for anything with lungs. It came from deep within the mill. Peer fought for his wits. The machinery! It was the sound of great wooden axles screeching into life.

  The wheel was turning. The mill was awake! Peer flinched, half expecting the lopsided windows to wink open with yellow light. He got a grip on himself. The mill can’t start by itself. Someone’s opened the sluice, started the wheel. But who?

  The path that led to the dam was overgrown with a wilderness of whispering bushes. Anything might crouch there, hiding… or watching. From high up the fell came the distant shriek of some bird, a sound broken into pieces by the gale.

  He drew a deep, careful breath. With all this rain, perhaps the sluicegate’s collapsed, and the water’s escaping under the wheel.

  That’ll be it.

  He hurried on. The cart track slanted uphill into the woods. Often, as he went, he heard stones clatter on the path behind him, dislodged perhaps by rain and weather. And, all the way, he had the feeling that someone or something was following him, climbing out of the dark pocket where the mill sat in its narrow valley. He tried looking over his shoulder, but that made him stumble, and it was too dark to see.

  Chapter 20

  A Brush with the Trolls

  A FEW HOURS earlier, just before sunset, Hilde stood on the seaward shoulder of Troll Fell, looking out over a huge gulf of air. Far below, the fjord flashed trembling silver, between headlands half-drowned in shadow. A tiny dark boat was creeping along on the brightness.

  “Hiillde!”

  She turned to see her little brother racing down the hill towards her, a small brown dog running at his heels. Braced for the crash, she caught him and swung him round.

  “Oof! You’re getting pretty heavy for an eight-year-old. Where’s Pa and Sigrid?”

  “They’re coming. What were you staring at?”

  “See that boat down there? That’s Peer and Bjørn.”

  Sigurd craned his neck. “So it is. Hey, Loki, it’s Peer! Where’s Peer?” Loki pricked his ears, barking.

  “Don’t tease him!” said Hilde. Sigurd threw himself down beside Loki, laughing and tussling.

  Fierce sunlight blazed through a gap in the clouds. The hillside turned unearthly green. The long drifts of tired snow lying in every dip and hollow woke into blinding sparkles, and the crooked thorn trees sprang out, every mossy twig a shrill yellow. Two more people came over the skyline: a tall man in a plaid cloak and a little fair-haired girl whose red hood glowed like a jewel.

  Sigurd jumped up, waving to his twin. “Sigrid, we can see the boat! Lucky things,” he added. “Peer gets to go fishing with Bjørn, and we have to count sheep. Why can’t Sigrid and I have some fun?”

  “You can, when you’re older,” said Hilde. “I didn’t go fishing, did I?”

  “You didn’t want to,” Sigurd muttered.

  “I know who she’d like to go fishing with!” said Sigrid slyly. “Bjørn’s brother, Arne! Wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you, Hilde?”

  “Not very likely,” said Hilde calmly, “since Arne doesn’t even live in the village any more. You know perfectly well that he works a fishing boat out of Hammerhaven —”

  “And it’s bigger than Bjørn’s!” Sigurd interrupted. “Bjørn’s boat is a faering, with a mast but only two sets of oars. Arne’s boat is a six-oarer!”

  “That’s right, and he has a partner to help him sail it,” Hilde said.

  “You know a lot about him,” Sigrid giggled.

  “Don’t be silly. Arne is twenty-two; he’s a grown man.”

  “So? You’re sixteen, you’re grown-up, too! When he came to say goodbye to you, he held your hand. You went all pink.”

  Hilde gave her little sister a withering glance, and wrapped her arms around herself with a shiver. Out at sea, the clouds had eaten up the sun.


  “It’s going to rain, Pa,” she said as Ralf joined them.

  “We can see Peer,” Sigrid squeaked, pointing at the boat. “Look, Pa, look!”

  “Aha!” Ralf peered down the slope, scanning every rock and boulder. “Now I wonder if our lost sheep have gone over this edge. I don’t see any. But they wouldn’t show up against all the grey stones.”

  “How many are missing?” Hilde demanded.

  “Let’s see.” Grimly, Ralf ticked them off on his fingers. “The old ewe with the bell round her neck, two of the black sheep, the lame one, the speckled one, and the one with the broken horn. And their lambs. It can’t be wolves or foxes. They’d leave tracks.”

  “Stolen?” asked Hilde. “By the trolls?”

  “That thought does worry me,” Ralf admitted.

  The wind blew rain into their faces. The fjord below was a brooding gulf of shadows. Sigrid tugged Hilde’s sleeve. “The boat’s gone. Where is it?”

  “Don’t worry, Siggy. They’ll be coming in to land. We can’t see the shore from here; the hillside gets in the way. Pa, let’s go. Those clouds are coming up fast.”

  “Yes.” Ralf was gazing out to sea. “The old seawife is brewing up some dirty weather in that cookpot of hers!” He caught their puzzled looks, and laughed. “Did Grandfather never tell you that story? It’s a sailor’s yarn. The old seawife, Ran, sits in her kitchen at the bottom of the sea, brewing up storms in her big black pot. Oh, yes! All the drowned sailors go down to sit in rows on the benches in Ran’s kitchen!”

  Hilde gave an appreciative shudder. “That’s like one of Bjørn’s tales – about the draug, who sails the seas in half a boat and screams on the wind when people are going to drown. Brrr!”

  “I remember. That’s a good one,” said Sigurd. “You think it’s an ordinary boat, but then it gets closer and you see that the sailors are all dead and rotten. And the boat can sail against the wind and catch you anywhere. And the draug steers it, and he hasn’t got a face. And then you hear this terrible scream —”

  “Well, Peer and Bjørn are safely home,” said Ralf. “So let him scream! But we won’t see Peer tonight. He’ll stay with Bjørn and Kersten, snug and dry. Like we want to be: so let’s be off.” But he stood for a moment staring west, as if straining to see something far away, though all that Hilde saw was a line of advancing clouds like inky mountains.

  “It’s dark and I’m hungry.” Sigurd hopped from foot to foot. “What are you waiting for?”

  Reluctantly, Ralf turned away. “Only trying to catch a glimpse of the islands, but it’s too murky now.” Sigurd and Sigrid dashed ahead with Loki.

  “I passed those islands once, you know,” Ralf said to Hilde, following the twins. “In the dragonship, the summer I went to sea.”

  “I know you did, Pa.” Hilde wasn’t listening. There was no real path, only a sheep track twisting between outcrops of rock, and she had to watch where she put her feet.

  “I’d never seen them so close before,” Ralf called over his shoulder. “Never been so far from home. Some of them are big, with steep cliffs where seagulls nest. A wild sort of people live there. Fishermen, not farmers. They climb on the cliffs for gulls’ eggs, and gather seaweed and shellfish —”

  “Yes, you’ve told me.” She’d heard the story many times, and just now she wished he’d be quiet and hurry up. This rain and early darkness made her nervous. She started. Had something just peered out from behind that big stone?

  Ralf was still talking. “But many of the islands are just rocks, skerries, with the sea swilling over them and no room for anyone but seals. They’d lie basking in the sun, watching us. It’s tricky sailing. The tides come boiling up through the channels, sweeping the boat along, and there’s rocks everywhere just waiting to take a bite. But we got through. And further out, and beyond the horizon – many days’ sailing – well, you know what we found, Hilde. The land at the other end of the world!”

  The old thrill prickled down Hilde’s spine. “East of the sun and west of the moon,” she said softly. “Like a fairytale.”

  “No fairytale,” said Ralf. “To think I’ve been so far away! Why, by the time I passed the islands again on my way home, they seemed like old friends. How I’d love to… but I’ve promised your mother… and there’s the baby. Ah, well!”

  He strode on. Hilde squelched after him, looking affectionately at the back of his head. She knew part of him longed to go off again – to sail away to that wondrous land, adventurous and free. He’ll never be quite contented here, she thought. It worries Ma, but I understand. I’d go there too, if I could – to the lands lying west of the moon… Why, even Peer’s seen more of the world than I have. He used to live miles away, in Hammerhaven. I’ve spent my whole life here.

  Hammerhaven… Her mind skipped to the day, last year, when Arne had made a special visit to the farm. He’d come to say goodbye: he was moving his fine new boat to Hammerhaven, where he could sell his catch for a better price. He’d taken her hand and asked her not to forget him. Surely that meant something?

  I wonder how he is. I wonder —

  She tripped over a rock. Thunder rolled. Scraping the wet hair from her eyes, she glanced up. The storm stretched black wings over Troll Fell.

  “I think we left it a little late,” shouted Ralf, half-turning. “Sigrid, Sigurd – keep close!” He caught Sigrid’s hand, and they hurried on together past the base of a long, low crag. Blackthorn trees craned over the edge like a row of spiteful old women.

  A bird screamed from somewhere on top of the crag, a long liquid call that ended in syllables: “Huuuuututututu!” An answering cry floated up the slope from their left, and a third, distant and quavering, came from far below. Hilde caught Ralf ’s arm. “Those aren’t birds. Trolls, Pa! On both sides of us.”

  With a gasp, Sigrid shrank close to her father, and Hilde cursed herself for speaking without thinking. Sigrid was terrified of trolls.

  Ralf cocked his head. The bubbling cries began again, relayed up the hill like a series of signals. “You’re right,” he muttered. “My fault. I should have got us home earlier. Never mind, Sigrid, the trolls won’t hurt us. It’s just the sort of night they like, you see – dark and wet and windy. Let them prance around if they want – they can’t scare us.”

  “Are they stealing the sheep?” Sigurd whispered.

  “Can’t we get home?” Sigrid’s voice was thin.

  “Of course we can,” said Hilde.

  “We’ll slip past,” said Ralf. “They won’t bother us.”

  “They will!” Sigrid clutched him with cold hands. “They stole Sigurd and me; they wanted to keep us for ever!”

  “No, no, the Grimsson brothers stole you,” Hilde tried to reassure her, “and the trolls kept them instead, and serve them right. Don’t worry, Siggy. Pa’s here; and me. You’re safe with us.”

  There was a sudden blast of wind. Rain lashed the hillside.

  “Nothing can see us in this,” shouted Ralf. “Let’s go!” Swept along by wind and weather, they stumbled half blind down a sudden slope into a narrow gully. At the bottom a thin stream rattled over pebbles. Something ran out of the dense curtains of drifting rain. Sigrid shrieked.

  Trolls were all around them: tails, snouts, glow-worm eyes. Dim lines of trolls louping and leaping from the raincloud. A pair of thin, thin legs that raked like a cockerel’s, and a round hairless body on top. Ralf and the children skidded to an appalled halt. Hilde grabbed the twins and bundled them back the way they had come. But the trolls stampeded, racing up the slope with gobbling yells. Hilde slipped. The wet hillside reeled and hit her. She lay, winded, as a troll bounded over her. Its rat-like tail slashed her legs. A horny hoof drove hard into the small of her back. A hot, sharp smell prickled her nose. Then the trolls were gone. Loki tore after them in hysterical fury.

  Covered in mud, Hilde sat up. Ralf pulled her to her feet. The world steadied. Here was Sigrid, curled up on the ground, sobbing. “It’s all right, Siggy, the
y didn’t mean to hurt us. We frightened them just as much as they frightened us…”

  “Loki chased them!” Sigurd arrived at his father’s side. “Where is he? I have to find him!” He made a lunge for the slope, but Hilde caught him. “Loki can look after himself.” And she stepped on something that crunched and splintered.

  “He can’t, he can’t! Peer told me to look after him!” Sigurd wrestled free; but just then Loki came sliding and scrabbling down the stony gully, wagging a jaunty tail. Sigurd grabbed him. “Good boy, Loki! Brave dog!” he choked into Loki’s fur. Loki shook himself.

  “Siggy, don’t cry, they’ve gone.” Hilde hugged her little sister, “The trolls have all gone.”

  “Carrying off my sheep and lambs, I’ll swear!” Ralf growled.

  Sigurd shook his head. “No they weren’t. Didn’t you see? They were carrying sacks and baskets, Pa. But what was in them?”

  Sigrid raised her head from Hilde’s shoulder. “Bones,” she gulped.

  “What? Bones, Siggy? Are you sure?”

  “Some fell out.” Sigrid buried her face again. “They fell on me. A bundle of bones, tied up like firewood.”

  “Bones?” Slowly, Ralf shook his head. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  Something else snapped under Hilde’s foot – something thin and curved that gleamed faintly in the dark. She bent to look. Nearby, Ralf was kicking at a greyish tangle, barely visible in the grass. He nodded to her. “Bones,” he mouthed.

  “Let’s get home,” Hilde shivered, and Ralf swung Sigrid on to his shoulders.

  “What about the trolls?” asked Sigurd. “What if they follow us?”

  “They won’t,” said his father easily. “Loki here has chased them all into their foxholes amongst those rocks. Forget them. I wonder what your ma has for supper?”

  Talking cheerfully, he set off at a rapid pace. Hilde followed, Sigurd tramping manfully at her side. At last they came to the proper track that led down to the farm. Far ahead in the dim wet night they saw a speck of light. Gudrun had lit the lantern to guide them home.