West of the Moon (11 page)

And so it is for me, for when I wake, I am lying on a little grassy patch in the midst of a gloomy forest. Gone is the golden meadow and the lake made of hammered copper and the red-gold sun. The rubies, emeralds, and jeweled necklaces of the night before have been replaced by dusty raspberries, buzzing dragonflies, and cobwebs strung from branch to branch. And there, in the heather, are Spinning Girl and Greta, still asleep.

Mist rises from the lake like the smoke from old men's pipes. I rise quietly, pick up the gunnysack, and walk down to the water's edge. Peering into the black water, I see a girl's reflection, both familiar and unfamiliar. For a moment I think I am seeing the face of Spinning Girl. I look up, expecting to see her, but she is not there. It is just a ripple in the water that distorted the reflection, which is mine: dark eyes set in pale cheeks, dust-colored hair, upon which
rests the wreath, now limp and colorless. This I set aside.

Off comes my dress, and into my hand goes the lump of soap. Then into the icy water I wade, in just my muslin undershift. I unwind my braids, dip my head into the water, and lather my hair. A cloud of grease, grime, and soot settles on the surface, which I push away with my hands, then rinse my hair in the clear water.

I think of the bewitched princess who, in order to have her troll-hide removed, was scrubbed in whey, then rubbed in sour milk.

Like her, I am scrubbed clean, but instead of sweet and pretty, I feel my skin tightening in the cold water, becoming taut and tough as a gristly old troll-hide. The water pricks all over like needles, and I set my mind to
never mind
: Never mind about the cold water, and never mind about the hardships to come.

For a moment, everything is strangely still and silent. Even the dragonflies have alighted on something. All I hear is the water dripping from my hair into the lake.
Tap tap tap.

Then the screech of a raven draws my eye to the shore, where something rises, peering, above the bushes.

I squint.

A bear? Snout in the air, sniffing? Maybe it is a bear like in the story. Well, not exactly, because this bear isn't white. Naturally, I wouldn't get a
white
bear for my story, but a dirty, dingy, sooty-looking one with a hump.
That
is not a bear!

There, through the mist, a dark figure, now with
two
humps on his back, one that wiggles and thrashes! It's the goatman, all right, and the second hump is my sister thrown over his shoulder.

In a thrice, I am on the shore. “Put her down,” I yell at him, snatching up the gunnysack, “or I drop the sack in the lake!” I twist the top of the sack to make a knot, then swing the sack in bigger and bigger arcs, and holler, “I'll toss it in if you don't put her down!”

The goatman moves to the lakeshore and dangles Greta over the water. “Throw the sack over to me now, or I'll throw the
girl
in the pond,” he hollers back. He lets go of one of her arms, and Greta gives a little involuntary shriek.

“You throw her in and I'll throw the sack in, and we'll see which one sinks faster,” I say to him. I've got him there.

Svaalberd sets Greta down but keeps hold of her arm, even though she tugs and squirms.

“Give me the sack and I'll let the girl go,” he says.

“Let go of the girl and I'll give you the sack,” I tell him.

Now we're as stuck as two moose with their antlers locked. And how to untangle them?

He's calculating. His face twitches with the effort. He knows he's fast and strong. He might, he thinks, be able to release Greta, then grab the sack, and me, and Greta again, all three, before we can get away.

And I am thinking the same thing. That is, I know
I
could elude him, but I don't know if Greta and Spinning Girl can. And speaking of Spinning Girl, where is she?

Then suddenly, she is there, jangling the ring of keys. The goatman jerks with surprise and lurches toward her. Greta twists free. He lunges back to grab at her, but she darts away. The two girls skitter about like chickens in a farmyard, and the goatman whirls and twists, trying to catch first one, then the other, as if trying to grab one for the stew pot. Meantime, my mind whirls and twists and lunges and grasps at anything, any idea, any solution, but—nothing.

There's a strange noise—a cough, maybe, or a squeal and a snort. It's Spinning Girl. She's got her head thrown back, and sound comes from her mouth! She's laughing! She thinks this is a game—like the one my cousins used to play, where one person was “it” and had to try to tag the others. And then I realize: This is probably the only time in her whole life she's ever played a game.

Spinning Girl's laughter makes me want to laugh; it makes me want to stop everything and hug her. And for a moment it takes away my dizzying fear, just long enough to think. To think of what to do.

I rush toward the goatman and he twists and starts, then plunges after me. I slide my arm through the knot in the sack, grasp hold of one of the smooth-skinned birch trees, and up I
go like a bear cub: feet, knees, elbows, hands, in a way I didn't even know I knew.

And there he is below, standing like a bear with his claws raking the tree trunk, head tipped back, glaring up at me. Greta and Spinning Girl stare, too, with their mouths agape, as if I am on fire. I can't ask why they're staring so hard—there's no time for that.

I just shout, “Run, little sister! Run, Spinning Girl! Run to Soria Moria.”

S
ometimes goats get up in trees, eating the leaves, when there's nothing else to eat. How they get there you never know; you just see them standing on branches, munching away. So I'm not surprised to see old Goatbeard himself climbing the tree after me.

That's fine. The longer I can distract him, the farther away the girls can get. I just keep shimmying up the tree: hands, elbows, knees, and feet. Here, in the crotch of the tree, I set the sack, untie the knot, and reach inside.

“Is this what you want, old man?” I call down to him, dropping a handful of coins. The first one
ping
s against his upturned forehead while others shower around him.

He roars, snatching at the air as the coins whistle by his ears.

I reach into the sack again, find Mama's brooch, and pin it
onto my shift. And up the tree I go. And up he comes after me.

Up I go, and up he comes. Soon, though, even my slight weight is too much, and the tree begins to bend, slowly bowing its crown toward earth. Holding on to the trunk, I let my legs dangle, suspended between earth and sky, willing the tree to bend a little more, a little more. The ground rushes up. I wait … wait … then fling myself off the tree, arms wheeling, legs kicking. Deprived of my weight, the tree springs back, with the goatman still clinging to the trunk.

Leaves flutter down. Among them, I see the Black Book, the wedding crumbs, the old potatoes, and many, many coins, tumbling and flipping in the air, catching the sunlight that breaks through the mist.

As for me, I am a bird, a cloud, a falling star. As I hurtle through the sky, all that
was
burns up behind me in a hot white tail, and all that
will be
rushes toward me, cool and green. Good-bye, I say, to what was. Good-bye to the golden meadow and the lake of hammered copper. Good-bye to the emerald bracelets, the ruby earrings, and the jeweled necklaces strung between the branches.

As the goatman scrambles down the tree and rushes about plucking up coin after scattered coin, I say good-bye to the treasure.

Then I snatch up my dress and shoes and run up and over the hill, into the sun, west to Soria Moria.

The Magic Ball of Yarn

stri,” Greta says, as we three girls struggle up the mountainside, “isn't America terribly far away? How are we ever going to get all the way there?”

“Do you know the story of the girl and the white bear?” I ask. “How, on her journey to find the bear she had lost, the girl was given things? A magic tablecloth. A pair of scissors that snipped and played so that pieces of silk and strips of velvet flew about her if she but clipped in the air.”

“In the story of the girl and the bear, it was the girl following the bear, not the other way around,” Greta says, glancing over her shoulder.

I cast a glance behind me and see a speck moving up the mountain behind us. “Can you tell who that is?” I ask Greta.

“It's him,” she says.

“All we need,” I tell her, “is a magic ball of yarn that, when you toss it in front of you, leads you where you want to go. Then we'll be fine.”

We have come upon a
seter
hut, so I say, “And perhaps here is where we'll get that yarn.”

Out comes the milkmaid, shoving up her sleeves.
“Hie!”
she says when she sees us. “Here are some tired lasses! Where are you bound, and from whence do you come?”

I tell her where we're from, and that we're going to America.

“America! Nay!” she says, pulling her head back.

“Aye, that's where we're bound,” I repeat.

“Why, that's very far away.”

“That it is,” I agree.

“And costs ever so dearly! Why, folks sell their farms and all their stock and equipment to get enough money for a venture like that,” she says, eyeing our ragged clothes.

“I suppose that's so,” I tell her. “Nonetheless, that's where we're bound.”

“But say,” she says, “you must be frightfully hungry! Wouldn't you like something to eat?”

The girls look at me hopefully. There wasn't any breakfast, nor, until now, any prospect of one. I glance over my shoulder. The speck is still but a speck.

“I suppose you haven't got a magic ball of yarn?” I ask. “That when you toss it in front of you leads you where you want to go?”

The milkmaid laughs and says no, she hasn't anything like that. “But wait right here,” she says. Into the hut she goes, and out she comes again carrying a bowl sloshing with milk.
“Drink that,” she says, “before you perish from thirst. And when you're finished, I'll give you this.” She pulls a hairbrush from her pocket.

“A hairbrush?” I ask, while Greta and Spinning Girl take turns slurping milk.

“For your hair! Once you get the tangles out, it will be devilish pretty to look at.”

“Pretty?” I touch my hair. I had forgotten that I'd washed it; its silky softness surprises me.

“Why,” Greta says, handing me the bowl, “it's so pretty, it looks like gold might fall out of it every time you brush it.”

“Gold falling from my hair! I've never heard the like of that!” I say, and swallow down the last of the milk.

“There are more things in heaven and earth than can be dreamed,” the dairymaid says. “An Englishman told me so.”

“In spite of that,” I say, “it seems true enough.”

The dairymaid takes the bowl, now empty, and hands me the hairbrush. Then she tells us that to get to America, we'll have to go to the fjord that leads to the sea. “You'll have to go down—down to the valley, that way.” She points. “And follow the trail that leads along the river. There are farms down there and a village. And farther along, the fjord.”