West of the Moon

by Katherine Langrish

  “Couldn’t you do something?” Hilde cried. “Arne!”

  “It was so quick,” said Arne glumly. “I mean, Harald wasn’t fooling around. The one with the bearclaw necklace stood up – maybe he thought we were going to say something. I thought so too, but Harald just – he just…” He stopped and looked down.

  “They were Skraelings!” Halfdan shouted. “Outlaws, for all we know. Spies, even. Harald did the right thing. He kept us safe.”

  Tjørvi pushed him aside and stamped past. Halfdan ran after him, arguing. Magnus smacked Floki around the ear and said gruffly, “Come along, lad, and clean up.”

  Peer held back. He didn’t want to go in with them, to the noise and the smoke and the smells. He didn’t want to be anywhere near Harald. “There’ll be a breeze on the shore,” he said to Hilde. “Let them get their own supper. Come for a walk with me and Loki.”

  “All right,” she said quietly.

  Arne glanced over his shoulder, but Tjørvi said, “That’s right, get along with the lad, Hilde. We can manage to ladle stew out of the pot by ourselves.” He dropped a swollen eyelid at Peer and hustled Arne ahead of him through the door.

  Peer looked at Hilde. “You’re upset.”

  She folded her arms and hunched her shoulders. “He killed two men and stole from the bodies. And none of them stopped him…”

  “It wouldn’t be easy to stop him,” Peer said gently, and she turned to him with a small sob.

  The door reopened, and out came Astrid. “Heigh-ho!” she yawned. “Gunnar’s all over his darling boy. Have you heard what he did? Horrible, isn’t it?”

  “It’s awful,” said Hilde passionately. “That’s what I said.” Astrid eyed her. “Were you surprised? Harald’s killed real people, you know, not just Skraelings.”

  “Skraelings are people!”

  “Yes – well – never having seen one, I can’t say. Are you going to the shore? I’ll come too.”

  With poor grace, Peer led the way along the path they’d trodden to the shore. The two girls walked behind.

  “Oof,” Astrid sighed. “It’s good to get out. I’ve been cooped up all day.”

  “You could have got out before,” said Hilde. “There are plenty of outside jobs to do. Carrying water. Collecting firewood…”

  “I’m busy looking after Gunnar,” said Astrid coolly.

  The grassland halted at the shore in a sudden edge of turf, a foot or two high, eroded by winter storms and cut here and there by tiny black brooks that tinkled out of the marsh to vanish in the shingle. Peer jumped on to the stones. Astrid teetered on the brink behind him. “Help me down.”

  “For goodness’ sake,” said Hilde. “Jump! It’s nothing.”

  “I might hurt myself. Please, Peer,” Astrid said sweetly. Biting his lip, he reached up and swung her down. She was lighter than he expected, despite being so tall, and her beautiful hair brushed his face. She clung to his arm as they picked their way across oval pebbles to the level beach. Hilde followed. Peer couldn’t guess what she was thinking.

  The sea was a glimmering curve with a milk-white rim. At the edge of the tide they walked in a film of water where the gravel stirred underfoot, sucked back and forth by advancing and retreating ripples.

  “How bright the stars are,” Astrid said to Peer. “Do you know their names?”

  “Some.” She was still holding his arm. He couldn’t shake her off. He looked up. “Over the headland, that’s the Wagon. See? And if you follow up from the two stars on the end, they’ll lead you to the Nail. That marks north.”

  “Clever,” said Astrid.

  “The Nail’s much lower here than it is at home,” said Hilde.

  “Because we’ve come south,” said Peer. “I thought we’d come west,” Astrid complained.

  Hilde rolled her eyes. “And south, too. How can you not know that, Astrid?”

  “I leave all that sort of thing to the men,” said Astrid, unperturbed. She released Peer’s arm. “I think I’ll go and sit on that rock.”

  She wandered off. Peer looked sideways at Hilde, who was staring at the softly splashing sea. “Are you upset?” he asked again.

  “A bit.” She crossed her arms. “I leave all that sort of thing to the men. Astrid doesn’t care about anything, does she? She leaves nearly everything to someone else. Cleaning to the Nis. Cooking and fetching and carrying to me.”

  “She looks after Gunnar,” said Peer.

  “I thought Vinland would be a wonderful adventure. Remember Pa first telling us about the Skraelings? People with brown skin, he said, and black hair. I’ve tried to imagine them ever since.” She shivered. “And now I’m imagining blood. I was stupid to expect adventures. I’m only here to keep Astrid company. I’m a girl: I belong in the house.”

  Peer almost laughed. “That’s not how I think of you.”

  “Isn’t it? How do you think of me?”

  “How can you ask? I think you could do anything. I think you’re braver than I am.”

  She gave him a grateful smile, and he glowed. “I’m not so brave,” she said. “These days I’m almost afraid of going to bed at night…” Side by side they walked on, and he half-listened, entranced by her flyaway hair silver in the moonlight, her smooth skin and clear eyes. “…You don’t know what it’s like, sharing that little room with them. Gunnar has terrible dreams. I hear him waking, and crying out, and Astrid trying to calm him.” She stopped and turned. “Peer, there’s something I’ve wanted to tell you for ages, only we’ve never been on our own, I’ve never had the chance…”

  His heart kicked. His blood leaped. Hilde loved him. She was about to tell him so…

  Then he realised what she was saying: “…and Astrid was working seidr. She hid Gunnar’s soul, to keep it safe. She has a bone box with a little voice inside that tells her things. I’ve heard it humming.” She stared at him, waiting for a reaction. “Are you listening?”

  He drew a hand across his eyes. “Tell me that again.”

  She did so, with dogged patience. “And Astrid does have troll blood. I was supposed to keep it a secret, but Halfdan and Magnus and Floki all seem to know; it’s just that they daren’t tell Gunnar. I don’t know whether to trust her at all.”

  The letdown had been severe. Peer’s voice shook as he sought for some kind of answer. “Aren’t you rather hard on Astrid?”

  Hilde choked. “If you’d been there – if you’d heard her telling Gunnar to stick needles in a corpse’s feet —”

  “Yes, it sounds bad.” Since they had to talk about Astrid, Peer set his mind to it. “But what about Gunnar? What has Astrid done that’s so wrong? Gunnar’s killed somebody – him and Harald together. And the way they did it must have been pretty dreadful, or why is he so afraid?”

  Hilde began to speak, and stopped.

  “And you know,” said Peer slowly, “the more I think about it, the more I wonder whether Thorolf left after some quarrel. We’ve only Gunnar’s word for it that he ever meant to settle here. He might have decided that living with Gunnar and Harald wasn’t worth the trouble.”

  “Do you think he won’t come back?” said Hilde quietly.

  “I wonder. And I’ve noticed something else. I’ve noticed that when we talk about Thorolf, it’s always you and me, or sometimes Arne or Tjørvi. The others, who sailed with Gunnar before – they don’t say anything. Maybe they know something we don’t.”

  Hilde thought about it, and shook her head. “Oh, Peer, that can’t be right. Look at Floki, he can’t keep his mouth shut about anything. If Gunnar and Thorolf had fallen out, we’d have heard all about it by now.”

  “I suppose that’s true,” said Peer. “I hope so. I want to see Thorolf as much as you do.”

  Hilde started. Something galloped past them, kicking up splatters of wet gravel. “It’s only the Nis,” said Peer. He could just see it, careering across the beach in happy circles. “Out for a run.”

  The moon was clear of the headland, casting sharp shadow
s. The wet beach ticked, clicked, pattered, as though a myriad little people were busy among the stones. Peer looked harder. The gravel danced in patterns.

  The Nis dashed past again, jinking and skipping, making little rushes here and there, picking up shells, “What are you doing?” Peer called.

  “Playing with the wiklatmu’jk,” the Nis cried in a high-pitched voice like a bird call.

  “What?” said Hilde.

  “Look!” Peer pointed. Ahead, on a patch of smooth sand, someone had laid out figures in lines of pebbles. One had legs, one had a triangular skirt. To the side was a comical short-legged animal with a stiff tail. Hilde and Peer bent over them.

  “That’s us,” whispered Hilde. “Us and Loki. Did the Nis do it?”

  Peer shook his head. He straightened up, his face alive with delight. “Hilde, the whole beach is covered with – tiny – people.”

  She stared.

  “I’ve been seeing them all along,” he went on. “I just didn’t notice. They’re everywhere. But I can only see them when I’m not looking straight.”

  Hilde half-shut her eyes and peeped out of the corners. Nothing. Wait, there was something scurrying through the gravel.

  “It’s crabs,” she said.

  “It isn’t,” Peer insisted. “They’re all over the place, knocking and chipping at the pebbles. Don’t try so hard. Try looking at them the way you look at a faint star.”

  The moonlit beach didn’t change at all: but something happened behind her eyes. For a second she saw the stones alive with hurrying, busy little creatures, tugging and pushing and rearranging the pebbles, making patterns and scattering them again. She saw their little black shadows, the size of her thumb.

  She lost the way to do it, and they were gone. The picture of the girl and the boy and the dog was gone too. In its place was a serpentine curve, with four little lines descending from it, and one tall line sticking up from the middle.

  “A snake with legs?”

  “It’s a ship,” Peer said suddenly. “See, the hull, and the dragonhead, and the mast – and those things that look like legs are the oars. It’s our ship – Water Snake. They’re making pictures of what they see.”

  “What did the Nis call them? The weeklat something?”

  “Wiklatmu’jk.”

  “The weeklatmoojig?” Hilde repeated. “How does it know?”

  “It comes out playing every night,” Peer said. “It’s made friends.” He swung round, scanning the bay, forest and stars with shining eyes. “Ralf was right. This is a wonderful country.”

  “Let’s ask the Nis about them,” said Hilde. “Where’s it gone?”

  They had been slowly walking along the curve of the bay. Ahead of them a line of rocks ran out from the southern headland. The sea had scooped hollows around the bases of the rocks, which the retreating tide had left full of water, almost invisible in the moonlight. The Nis was scrambling about between the tide pools. Peer could hear distant splashes as it tossed pebbles into the water.

  “Let’s run!”

  He caught her hand. They pounded across the shingle, clattered over flat stones that slid and clinked like coins, splashed, shockingly, across a flat shining stretch that turned out to be water, so that Hilde shrieked and laughed as the spray flew – tugging each other along by the swinging clasp of their joined hands, till at last Hilde stepped on the hem of her dress and fell over, pulling Peer after her. Loki pounced on them both, play-biting.

  Breathless with laughter, they sat up. Hilde brushed gravel off her dress and flicked the bigger bits at Peer, till she saw that he had stopped laughing and was looking at her in a way that made the back of her neck shiver. She got up quickly. “Look, we’re at the rocks. We’d better turn back. Astrid is miles behind. Let’s call the Nis and go.”

  “Hilde.” He was still looking at her. “Please listen to me.” Hilde suddenly saw two things with perfect clarity. The first was that she’d known all along that Peer still loved her. Only she hadn’t let herself know, because it was easier – because she wasn’t sure how she felt. The second was that Peer was no longer the gawky lad who had kissed her last year. He had changed. No, he hadn’t, he was the same as ever, he had just… grown up. She faced him, twining her fingers into her apron. “All right then – go on.”

  She wasn’t used to being shy with Peer. It came out wrong. It sounded petulant and brusque. Peer winced. He drew in a deep breath – she saw his chest heave – but before he could speak, the Nis appeared over the rocks. It leaped on to the beach, prattling excitedly.

  “Come and see what I has found!”

  The breath left Peer in a defeated whoosh. The Nis skipped about, bright-eyed, cracking its knuckles. “A present for you, Peer Ulfsson! Come see, come see!” it cried, springing over a strip of water and frisking away.

  “Shall we?” asked Hilde in a small voice. Without a word, Peer followed it. Hilde rubbed her hot face with both hands, and went after them.

  Almost immediately, she wished she hadn’t. The rocks were full of inky shadows and unexpected holes. Some were loose, tipping alarmingly. There was a reek of salt and seaweed and all the nameless things that the sea swept up and dumped. She cracked her knee and muttered a bad word.

  Peer looked back. “Can you manage?” he asked curtly.

  “Yes.” The last thing she wanted was for him to help her. She hoisted her skirts and clambered grimly on.

  Cheeping with excitement, the Nis led them to a long pool. Repeated tides had pushed up sand and gravel into a ridge blocking the entrance, so that although waves broke against the rocks a few yards away, only a few ripples ran in over the sand bar to disturb the pool itself. An old black log was jammed there too, half buried.

  The Nis stopped, its grey wispy hair blowing in the wind, pointing with one long finger. “For you!” it announced proudly. “Nithing the Seafarer found it!”

  Hilde heard Peer say softly, “Oh, no.”

  “What is it?” she asked, bewildered. “Peer, what are you doing?”

  She scrambled after him as he flung himself recklessly down the sharp rocks and jumped into the water. It came up to his thighs: he waded through it, arms flailing, thrashing up spray. He stumbled up the slope where the bottom rose towards the sandbank, and threw himself upon the old black log, digging the silt away from it with his hands.

  “What’s the matter?” gasped Hilde, really frightened, though she didn’t know why. Had Peer gone mad?

  Peer put both his arms around the log, and heaved. It came out of the silt with a rush, streaming water, and he hugged it to his chest. He turned to face Hilde, holding it. His face was dark against the opal sky, his eyes glittered. She stared, knowing what she was seeing before she could frame it in words.

  The black log glistened, slimy as a snail; it was horned like a snail, with two root-like stumps. It had a savage look: a twist to it like a neck, a gaping maw like some snarling animal.

  “Burned!”

  The word burst from Peer. He staggered back through the water and laid the thing on the edge of the rocks. He covered his face.

  Hilde crouched. With a finger she gently traced the blackened carvings: the criss-cross scales, the round, charred eye.

  “A dragonhead.”

  “It’s the Long Serpent,” said Peer from behind his hands. “Oh, Peer!” Hilde’s voice shook on a sob. She reached out and awkwardly patted his hair. “Oh, Peer!”

  “Thorolf ’s not coming back.” Peer’s eyes were dark; his mouth was a white line. A tear fell down his face and he wiped it away with the back of his hand.

  Hilde didn’t know what to say. “Don’t stand in the water. Come on, get out.” She gave him a hand and he struggled on to the rocks and stood dripping and shivering.

  From the peak of a rock higher above the pool, the Nis looked down, its face crinkling in an effort to understand. “Doesn’t you like it, Peer Ulfsson?”

  Peer tried to speak. The Nis scuttled down the rocks and laid a knobbly hand ligh
tly against his knee. “Doesn’t you want my present?”

  Peer bent down. “Yes, Nis, I do. It was very clever of you to find it. Thank you for showing us. Do you know who made this? My father made it.”

  “Good!” Satisfied, the Nis hopped away.

  Peer said to Hilde, “I suppose it’s stupid, but I feel as if my father was on the ship, too. I feel as though I just lost him all over again.” He picked up the burned dragonhead and said bleakly, “Let’s go.”

  “What are you going to do with it?”

  “Take it back, of course. Show it to the others. Now we know.”

  “Know what?” Hilde felt slow and clumsy. “What do we know?”

  He turned fiercely. “The ship burned, Hilde. It wasn’t wrecked, it burned. And how do you suppose that happened?”

  She hurried after him, fear pecking at her heart. “I – I don’t know. How?”

  Peer jumped off the rocks. Loki greeted him in relieved delight. “Down!” Peer snapped, striding past.

  “How did the ship catch fire?” Hilde had to run to keep up.

  Peer flung her a look of disbelief. “How do you think? Gunnar and Harald. They did it, didn’t they? All this time, they’ve been lying to us. They know quite well what happened to Thorolf.”

  “No,” Hilde said dizzily. “Surely…”

  “No?” Peer swung away. “Let’s go and ask them.”

  “Peer, don’t!” Hilde caught his arm. But he broke roughly away, running towards the low sod houses by the river mouth.

  “Peer!” she screamed. He was faster than she was, she’d never catch him. She sprinted after him, and the wind blew tears from her eyes. How quickly everything had gone wrong. Only a little while ago they’d been laughing, running in the moonlight, marvelling at the pictures made by the little wiklatmu’jk.

  Astrid rose like a ghost from a stone in front of her. “What on earth have you done to Peer? Didn’t I give you long enough? Has he kissed you?”

  “What” – Hilde pressed a hand to her ribs – “are you talking about? We’ve got to stop him. He’s going to… he’s found…”

  Astrid’s eyes narrowed. “So it’s Arne after all, is it? What a fool you are. Arne’s quite ordinary.”