West of the Moon (7 page)

“What do you mean by that?” I ask him.

He stops for a moment, turns back to me, and eyes me up and down. “By looks, I'd say it was her. But by temperament, I'd say it was you.”

Before I can ask any more about that, he charges up and over a hill.

Through a grove of stunted birches we go, then through tall timber, their trunks twisted by the wind. Here and there a little patch of snow. After a while I start to wonder just where we are going. Our way seems to lead more down than up.

The goatman prattles on about jobs for me to do once I'm at the
seter
, while pointing out the plants and herbs growing along the way. “You must get up on the roof and pull out the saplings that have started to grow in the sod. While you're up there, clean out the chimney. Here's yarrow, good to stanch bleeding. You've also got to oil the leather hinges and grease the latches.”

I think of the ship that's leaving in less than a fortnight. If I can get away from the goatman and find my way back to Greta, maybe we could get to the ship in time. But what will we do for money? I don't suppose they'll let us on the ship for nothing! And then there's the issue of just where we are now compared with where that ship is.

We come out of the trees into an open meadow, bright with new spring grass, and I forget about all these troubles. Glittering mountain peaks surround us, from which silvery
waterfalls tumble down. Streams are moving again and chatter along over stones. The smell of the new grass, of growing things, of warm earth and running water—all of it smells of possibility. This is what America smells like, I think.

Why, it makes me want to sing!

“‘This king, I must tell, was out of his head,'” I sing. “‘His child by trolls had been taken. And troll king and princess soon would be wed—'”

“You shouldn't be singing of trolls,” Svaalberd barks. “Not here.”

“Why?”

“'Tis said they live hereabouts,” he says.

“Do you really believe in all that?” I ask him. “You, a Christian man and all?”

“You're the one singing about them,” he says.

“Just because I sing a song about them doesn't mean I believe in them,” I tell him.

“Well, if you don't, you ought to,” he mumbles.

“The parson says we're not to continue believing in trolls and such,” I say. “And furthermore, we're not to be relying on spells and charms. It shows a disrespect for God, he says.” That part is hard to believe, for it seems to me that most folks in these parts believe so fervently in God that scarcely a charm can be spoken without saying the Lord's Prayer or invoking the Holy Trinity. Why, a charm is really useless without it.

“If you want to sing, you should sing a hymn,” the goatman says, starting in: “‘The world is very evil, the times are waxing late. Be sober and keep vigil, the Judge is at the gate …'”

My jaw drops, because his singing voice hardly matches anything else about him. It is low and melodious, quite a pleasure to hear. “You should sing more often,” I say, when he's finished his verse.

He smiles and comes toward me like he means to kiss me! You can be sure I scramble away as fast as ever I can, so I am out of breath when we stop at the edge of a river, rushing with melting ice. The jingle of the goats' bells can barely be heard over the noise of it.

“Here we cross,” says Svaalberd.

“Where's the bridge?” I ask.

“There isn't one.”

“How are we supposed to get across?”

“Walk or swim.”

“I hope you're jesting,” I say. The water is as cold as the snow and ice that it so recently was. Its swift current could pull you down as fast as any water sprite. “What about the goats?”

“The goats can swim.”

“Well, I can't.”

“I'll carry you across the river,” says he.

The thought of letting old Goatbeard carry me—in any way or for any reason whatsoever—turns my stomach.

“How is it we're so far down in the valley?” I ask him. “It seems we've gone more down than up. Shouldn't we be climbing
up
the mountain to get to the
seter
?”

“I thought we might as well go to the church first and get married. And then you can go on up to the
seter
.”

Marry! “I don't remember saying I would marry you,” I protest.

“You have to marry someone,” he says.

If I could think of one of his curses, I'd lay it on him right now. Instead, I say, “Well, look. You cross the river first.”

“It's shallow,” he says.

“I don't believe it,” I insist.

“Well, it is.”

“It doesn't look shallow.”

“Well, it is.”

“Prove it. You go across and let me watch.”

“Hold my jacket,” he says, handing me the jacket he's been carrying over his arm.

I take it and glance quickly at the goats, who all have their heads down, munching grass. All except Daisy, who is busy biting the ears of the kids.

Svaalberd spits and makes the sign of the cross. “Trolls in the depths,” he says. “See! The sign of the cross. Keep away—I belong to God!”

The devil you do, I think, but I keep my mouth shut, and
he wades into the water. The water is glacial blue foamed into almost white. Who knows what sorcery might lie beneath?

Rolf plunges in after him and commences to swim. The goats look up from their munching to eyeball Svaalberd, then turn their heads toward me. They don't want to cross that river either and will wait for me before they do anything.

Svaalberd has to pick his way along the stones and boulders littering the river bottom, which he can't see but can feel with his feet. That and the rushing current naturally make for slow going. But I can see the water never gets higher than his waist.

Midway, he stops, turns, and calls back to me. “See?” He stretches his arms to show—well, what? That they are still above water, I suppose.

“Go all the way across,” I call out. “It could still get deeper.”

He slowly plows his way across the river. His shirt gets wet, and I can see the muscles in his back ripple and flex. Except for the hump, which I have long since gotten used to, his back from here looks like a young man's!

I squint. Does he look better because he is so far away, and there is a barrier between us? Or has some kind of bewitchery happened to him in the river?

I think of a story my uncle told of a man on this mountain slope who'd seen a
hulder
-maid from across a river. She was beautiful, and the man hadn't noticed the tail poking out from
under her skirt. He was fooled into marrying her, as it happens. Somehow, though, he'd gotten out of the marriage yet still ended up with a treasure of troll gold and some magic of his own.

Could the stories be true? I wonder.

A sudden vivid memory of those two coins on Uncle's table rushes back to me—how had the goatman come by those? Why had I never wondered about this before? Why does he keep everything locked up tight when nary a soul passes by?

What if … I begin to wonder … What if the old goat has a treasure hidden somewhere on his property? A hoard of gold?

Svaalberd climbs up the far bank and stands to his full height, which from this distance looks reasonable. He doesn't look so stooped.

Of this man who'd gotten a troll treasure, much was whispered. He'd had a wife long ago when he was young, so it was said. A human wife. She'd been a
kloke kone
—a wisewoman, a healer—who helped the neighbors with births and burns and knew all manner of cures. Still, for all that, she had been unable to save herself when she became ill, and so she died. The man, it was said, had removed himself from the company of people and had gone up in the mountains to farm some bit of rocky ground.

“Come on!” he shouts. “You can make it easily. My legs are
numb with cold. I don't want to wade back for you now …” He shouts on and on. I stop listening and let the rush of the water and the roar of excitement fill my ears.

I have become aware of something heavy in one of the goatman's jacket pockets. My hand slips into the pocket and my fingers feel the keys—his big ring of keys. The ring goes into my hand, and I drop the jacket, then turn and bolt, running as fast as I can up and down the steep hillside, my heart pounding. The goats' bells
cling clang
, and their hooves clatter as they follow behind me. Stones skitter under my feet and
ping
down the slope as I race and run, now slipping, now hopping, now skidding, now running, my thumping feet pounding out the words:
treasure treasure treasure.

Treasure

ast the bright patches of snow, into the tall pines through the twisted birches, back into the pasture, and finally I run full bore into the farmyard and stop. How odd, how still, how quiet it is. A stream of sunlight makes its crooked way through the trees. It seems so gentle—empty, the whole place sweeter. Pleasant, even. But I have no time to think of that. I have to find the treasure.

Treasure!
The word has pounded itself into my brain on the long run back to the farm. First, the storeroom, for which I now have the key.

The key in the lock, the latch unlatched, and I am inside, turning over crates, peeking inside barrels, kicking over old planks. Sausages, cheese, old potatoes, and my own little bundle of things—all these things get stuffed into a gunnysack.

Spinning Girl sits staring at me as I do this, and a part of me knows that I haven't properly thought of what to do about her.

“Girl,” I say to her, “this is your chance to make your escape. What do you want to do?”

No answer.

Perhaps she has her own plan, I think, which doesn't involve me.

A dog barks. From afar, but they're coming, dog and master.

I dash into the yard, and from there into the house. Straightaway, my eyes alight upon Svaalberd's locked chest.

“There are some fine things in that chest, I shouldn't wonder,” I say, crossing quickly to it, fumbling with the ring of keys until I find the right one. The lock clicks; the lid opens. There is the Bible, and next to it a leather pouch.
Clinkity jingle
it goes when I pick it up. It takes but one peek to see what is inside: coins. Many coins.

To take them would be stealing.

But if it's troll's treasure? Is it a sin to steal what's already stolen? Stolen thrice: once from humans by trolls, then from the trolls by the goatman. And finally—I stuff the bag of coins in the gunnysack—stolen from the goatman by me.

I touch the Bible, but I won't take it.
That
would be a sin.

Still, I lift it up. There's a sheaf of papers, and beneath that, more papers. I leaf through them, words on paper, keep looking. And then I see it—what the goatman must have been talking about. His book of charms and cures and spells: the Black Book.

I stare at its smudged black cover, but I don't pick it up—oh, no! It might burn my fingers! I leave that book where it lies, replace the papers, place the Bible back on top, and slam the
lid down. Moving past the table, I take the wide-bladed knife, slide it into the sack, and out I go, blinking, into the daylight.

But, oh! Svaalberd is right there, just coming around the side of the storehouse, turning to notice the door of it hanging open.

Quick! His back is turned, and I dash across the yard and duck into the goat shed. But how can I get out without him seeing me? I think of Snowflake, and how she escapes. And how Svaalberd never did discover how she does it. But
I
know. And the forest edge is right there, right outside that busted board.

The dog's hoarse cry grows closer.

Keeping my eyes on the shed door, I back into the nanny's stall. A soft sound makes me turn, and it's all I can do to stifle a scream. There's Spinning Girl, hunkered in the shadows.

Rolf's toenails click against the hard-packed dirt in the shed.