Troll Mill

The house had only one room and little furniture. The firelight picked out a few details and crowded the rest with shadows. It gleamed here on a polished wooden bowl, there on a thin-bladed sickle hanging on the wall. Peer wandered about. In a corner stood Bjørn and Kersten’s bed, the rough blankets neatly folded. He felt like an intruder. And there was nothing to show why Kersten had suddenly rushed out of the house, carrying her baby.

His foot came down on something hard. It clinked. He picked it up, his fingers exploring the unusual shape before he held it into the light. A small iron key on a ring.

A key? His eyes flew to the darkest corner of the room where a big wooden chest stood, a chest for valuables, with a curved lid that Bjørn always kept padlocked shut.

It was open now, dragged out crookedly from the wall, the padlock unhooked and the lid hurled back. Peer threw himself on his knees and plunged his arms into the solid black shadow that was the interior, feeling about into every corner. But whatever Bjørn normally kept there was gone. The chest was empty.

Bjørn’s been robbed. Peer got to his feet, his head spinning. Is that why Kersten was so upset? But no; it doesn’t make sense. She’d tell Bjørn, not run into the sea. She’d have told me! And who could have done it? He tried to imagine robbers arriving, forcing Kersten to find the key, open the chest…

It still didn’t make sense. Trollsvik was such a small place, the neighbours so close. Kersten need only scream to raise the entire village. And he couldn’t imagine what Bjørn might own that anyone would want to steal. He sat down on a bench, his head aching, longing for Bjørn to come.

At last he gave up. He banked the fire up with logs and peat, 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. “Come on–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 the most serious and penetrating of stares, as if his soul were a well and it was looking right down to the very bottom. Peer looked 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 didn’t even know it needed help. It knew only what was right here and now: the hunger in its belly and Peer’s arms holding it, firmly wrapped and warm, and his face looking down at it. For this baby, Peer was the only person in the world. 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.

A bullying wind leaped into his face, spitting rain and sleet. Peer tried to pull another fold up over the baby’s head as he hurried along. No one was about, but the wind blew smoke at him, and the smell of cooking. He splashed by Einar’s house, and a goat, sheltering against a wall, scrambled to its feet and barged past, nearly knocking him over. As he cursed it, the door latch clicked and Einar poked his head out. “Who’s there?” he quavered.

“It’s me…” began Peer, but he couldn’t go on. Kersten had thrown herself into the sea. Bjørn’s house had been robbed. He was holding their baby. He could never explain. Face burning, he turned and fled, leaving Einar puzzled on the doorstep.

Feeling like a thief, Peer slunk out of the village, and the wind blustered after him up the hill. He cupped the baby’s head against his throat with one rain-chilled hand, and felt a tickle of warmth against his skin as it breathed.

He trudged up the path. The cloak kept unwrapping and tangling round his legs; he had nothing to pin it with and needed both arms for the baby. Every gust of wind blew it open, and rain soaked into him. But he hardly noticed. His mind was back on the shore, reliving the moments when Kersten had rushed down the shingle. If only I’d grabbed her, he thought. Surely I could have stopped her! But I was holding the baby. Why did she do it? Why?

The baby shrank in his arms as if curling up. Afraid it would slip, he stopped and tried to find a dry edge of cloak to wrap around it, but the woollen fabric was all muddy or sodden, and he gave up in despair. The baby’s head tipped back. There were those dark eyes staring at him again. Uneasily he returned their stare. Something was wrong. This baby was too good, too quiet. Little Eirik would be screaming his head off by now, he thought. What did that mean? Was the baby too cold to cry? Too weak?

Frightened, he plunged on up the path. He had to get it to Gudrun. She could give it warmth and milk. But at the moment the rain was beating down out of the black night; 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 wood. The trees overhanging the path were not in leaf yet, and gave no shelter.

Ahead of him the black roofline of the mill appeared between the trees, the thatch twisted into crooked horns above narrow gables. Peer tripped over the hem of the cloak, ripping it. His pace slowed. The mill…It was on just such a wild night that he’d first seen it, three years ago. His half-uncle Baldur had brought him jolting all the way over Troll Fell in an ox-cart, through thunder and drenching rain. He’d caught his first glimpse of the mill in a flash of lightning. Peer remembered huddling in the bottom of the cart, staring fearfully up at the mean windows, like leering eyes, the rotting thatch and patched shutters.

He still hated going past there after dark, even now that it was empty. The yard was choked with dead leaves, the sheds crumbling. The very walls reeked.

True, his uncles had long gone. They had tried to sell him to the trolls, but their brutish greed had led them to quarrel over a cupful of the trolls’ dark beer. Gulping down the strange brew, they had changed into trollish creatures themselves, tusks sprouting from their faces. Though Peer and his friends had escaped, Baldur and Grim Grimsson had remained under Troll Fell. No one had ever seen them again.

But the mill had a bad name still. Who could say if it was really empty? Odd creatures were said to loiter in its dark rooms and squint from behind the broken shutters. A sullen splash from the millpond 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 bending to cross the stream over an old wooden bridge. As he passed he glanced up, feeling like a mouse scuttling along past some gigantic cat. The walls leaned over him, cold and silent.

He hurried on to the bridge. The wind snatched and pushed him, and he grabbed at the handrail. The noise of the river rose around him, snarling over the weir in white froth. As he crossed, he looked upstream towards the water wheel, in the darkness hardly more than a tall, looming bulk. Through three long years it had never stirred. Perhaps it was already rotting away.

There was a gust of dank, cold air, and a surge of water. The bridge trembled. Clinging to the rail, Peer looked again at the wheel, and was instantly giddy. It’s moving! But it can’t be. Surely it was only the water tearing past underneath…or were those black, dripping blades really lifting, one after another, rolling upwards, picking up speed? His skin prickled. The wheel was turning. He could hear the slash of its paddles striking the water.

An unearthly squeal skewered the night. Peer shot off the bridge. The anguished noise went on and on without stopping, 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 swollen wooden axles twisting into tortured life. Then the motion eased, the squealing stopped, but the mill went on rumbling like some monstrous stomach. Muffled by wind and rain, the millstones grumbled round, the clapper rattled.

Eyes fixed on the mill, Peer stumbled backwards, half expecting the lopsided windows to blink alive with yellow light. He slithered and almost fell. The shock cleared his head. It’s just a building. It can’t start working by itself. There’s someone here. Someone’s opened the sluice, started the wheel. But who?

He stared along the overgrown path that led to the dam through a wilderness of whispering bushes. Anything might be crouching there, hiding…or watching. He listened, afraid to move, but heard no footstep, no voice. No light glimmered from the walls of the mill. Bare branches shook in the wind over the damaged roof. The wheel creaked round in the thrashing stream. And from high up on 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 turned hastily, striding on between the cart tracks. The steep path slanted uphill into the woods. Often, as he went, he heard stones clatter on the path behind him, dislodged perhaps by rain. 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 2 A Brush with the Trolls (#ulink_d6aa9731-f885-585b-8362-eefa7b7d309c)

A few hours earlier, just before sunset, Peer’s best friend Hilde stood high on the seaward shoulder of Troll Fell, looking out over a huge gulf of air. In front of her feet, the ground dropped away in fans of unstable scree. Far, far below, the fjord flashed trembling silver between headlands half-drowned in shadow. On the simmering brightness, a tiny dark boat crept deliberately along like an insect.

She flung out her arms as if she might soar away like an eagle. A strong wind blew back the hair from her face and slapped at her skirts. She closed her eyes, leaning on the wind, feeling its cold buoyant pressure. She heard it hiss in the thorn trees that clung to the slopes, and she heard the sheep bleating–the dark, complaining voices of the ewes and the shrill baby cries of the lambs.

“Hiillde!” A long drawn-out yell floated from the skyline. She turned quickly to see her little brother racing down towards her, a small brown dog running at his heels. Bracing herself for the crash, she caught him and swung him round.

“Oof! Don’t keep doing that, Sigurd. You’re pretty heavy for an eight year old! Where’s Pa and Sigrid?”

“They’re coming. What are you looking at?”

“The view.”

“The view?” Sigurd echoed in scorn. “What’s so special about that?”

Hilde laughed and ruffled his hair. “Nothing, I suppose. But 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 eagerly.

“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 wide hillside turned an unearthly green. Long drifts of tired snow, still lying in every dip and hollow, woke into blinding sparkles, and the crooked thorn trees sprang out, every mossy twig a shrill yellow. Hilde’s eyes watered. Two figures came over the skyline and started descending: a tall man in a plaid cloak, holding hands with a little fair-haired girl whose red hood glowed like a jewel. Shadows like stick men streamed up the slope behind them.

Sigurd pushed Loki aside and jumped to his feet, waving to his twin sister. “Sigrid, come and look! We can see Bjørn’s boat.”

The little girl broke free from her father and came running. “Where?”

Sigurd pointed. “Lucky things,” he complained. “They get to go fishing, and we have to count sheep. Why can’t Sigrid and I have some fun?”

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

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

“I know who she wants to go fishing with,” said Sigrid slyly. “With Bjørn’s brother,Arnë! She likes him–don’t you, Hilde?”

“Don’t be silly,” said Hilde sharply. “You know perfectly well that Arnë doesn’t even live in the village any more. Not since last summer. He works a fishing boat out of Hammerhaven—”

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