Samuel Blink and the Forbidden Forest (7 page)

Samuel was now gripped by Aunt Eda's story. He wondered if she had been the same, then. If she'd been so strict and buttoned up. He doubted it. And what had happened to Uncle Henrik?

As she approached the crucial part of the story, Aunt Eda was clearly finding it difficult to go on talking. Her words had stopped as suddenly as people who have just realized they are running toward a cliff. She made herself a cup of egg coffee, and poured Samuel a cloudberry juice.

Outside the door, Ibsen was dragging his metal bowl across the hallway as he licked the last remains of his steak.

“Right,” Aunt Eda said, blowing ripples across the surface of her coffee. “I will tell you the rest of the story now.”

She took a deep breath, as if she was about to go underwater. And when she started talking the wind that had been rapping against the window suddenly went quiet, as if it too had stopped to listen.

“We realized something was wrong.

“Our goats were going missing. Effery night one would simply disappear. Uncle Henrik was in such despair that he went to FlÃ¥m and he told the willagers…well, you can guess what they said. They blamed it on creatures in the forest. Trolls, in particular. Trolls were famous for stealing goats, they told him.

“I told Henrik not to listen to these ignorant people, who lived by their superstitions. But Henrik said there was no other way to explain it. There were no other goat farmers in the area to steal our goats, and Henrik said that it was impossible to lose a goat effery night
by accident
.

“So on the day we had lost our eleffenth goat, he went into the bookshop in FlÃ¥m and purchased a copy of Professor Tanglewood's book. And it said that trolls were known to steal goats, as well as to kill humans.

“The more he read, the more he beleefed in
The Creatures of Shadow Forest
. He sat there and his eyes would feed on the words for hours at a time.

“After he'd read the book, Henrik said that there was only one way to find our goats and that was to go into the forest. I reminded him of the promise he had made to me—about never being tempted to head into the trees where a man had gone missing. But I knew it was no good. He had the same eyes he had before a ski jump. He just kept on saying ‘No one can get away with stealing—not even trolls.'

“I told him, ‘I'll come with you,' but he said I had to stay and look after the nine goats we had left. I told him, ‘People don't come out of that forest.' He said that ‘The only people who don't come out of forests are people who don't
want
to come out of forests. Don't worry, Eda, my sweetheart, whateffer happens, I will find my way back to you. No troll will stop me. I promise.'

“So he headed out to the forest and I waited for him. I waited and waited. After three days I went to FlÃ¥m. I told the police he had gone missing, but they made excuses. They said Shadow Forest wasn't part of their area. I told efferyone he had gone missing, but no one dared to go into the forest to look for him. Not even Oskar, who had made so much money from Henrik's cheese.

“I would watch guard of the goats effery night like Henrik had told me, but I couldn't stay awake for effer and when I eventually fell asleep another goat went missing. And this happened, until there were no goats. No goats, and no Henrik.

“On the morning the last goat disappeared, it had been snowing heavily. I went out early into the field and I saw footprints in the snow, heading away from the forest. My heart lifted for a moment. Henrik had returned! But then I realized the footprints curfed back round into the forest. I took a closer look at the footprints and realized it wasn't the pattern of a shoe, but the mark of a bare foot. And not just any foot—a big foot with three toes.
A troll's footprint.
Henrik had been right all along. Trolls had been stealing our goats and taking them back into the forest! And heffen knows what they had done to Henrik.

“I was in despair. I didn't know what to do. I would lie awake thinking about what might haff happened to him in the forest. But I got hold of such thoughts and kept them in check—I wasn't ready to lose my mind just yet.

“I know what you're thinking. You're wondering if I was tempted to go and follow him into the forest. Well, I can tell you, there were many occasions when I packed my rucksack, put on my boots and grabbed hold of my jaffelin, ready to go and find him.

“But effery time I headed up through that goatless field, I always felt something hold me back. I remembered him telling me to wait in the house and I kept on hearing his last words: ‘Whatever happens, I will find my way back to you.' Maybe it was my own weakness. Maybe I was too frightened. But I never was able to step into the forest.

“I just stayed in the house and occupied myself as much as I could with books or knitting or other things that might distract me. I kept praying for some company, for something to keep me busy, and someone decided to take note of my prayers because one morning I found a stray dog asleep on the grass. That's right. It was Ibsen. He might not have been as good company as your uncle, but he was certainly a lot better than a goat. And he made me feel safe. He was my protector from the trolls.

“Over time, I am pleased to tell you that the horrible thoughts about what might have happened to Henrik in the forest were replaced with better things. Like memories of him flying through the air on his skis, or smiling at the smell of his ‘Gold Medal.'

“Of course, it would be easier if I didn't have to look at those horrible dark trees every day. But I can't moof house, any more than I can head out into the forest. And anyway, I've got you and Martha now…What a team, eh? Ibsen, Samuel, Martha and old Aunt Eda.”

Samuel looked at his aunt and saw the tears she was trying to hold back glaze her eyes. He sipped his cloudberry juice, as if trying to get rid of a bad taste.

Trolls and huldres and a hundred other creatures, all living in the forest behind the house. It was too much to believe in, and he didn't. Not fully, anyway. After all, what does a footprint in the snow prove? And why should anyone believe a mad professor?

But he remembered his own fear when he had stared into the darkness of the forest, and gulped back the rest of the juice.

“So,” said Aunt Eda. “Now you know.”

“Yes,” said Samuel, although he didn't really.

He went and joined his sister in the sitting room. She was staring out of the back window, toward the forest.

“Martha,” he said.

His sister turned to him.

“Martha—”

But he didn't know what to say.

Samuel woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of singing.

It was only a faint sound, but as he couldn't sleep deeply, it was loud enough to make him open his eyes and wonder at what he'd heard.

He lay in the dark, and waited for the voice to return, but there was nothing. Just the gentle patter of rain against the window. He rolled over, and saw the dark shape of his sister, sleeping her deep and dreamless sleep.

Then he heard it again. The singing.

It sounded familiar, like a nursery rhyme his mum used to sing, and he recognized the voice. And the language. Samuel pulled back the covers and went to the window. Peeping through the curtains, he looked out into the dark and rainy night and couldn't see anything at first. Everything was the same purple black as the sky.

But then slowly, as his eyes adjusted to the pale moonlight, he could see varying degrees of darkness. The thick black of the distant forest and the lesser dark of the grass slope in front. He scanned the grass slope, letting his ears lead his eyes until he saw a small round shape, like a walking barrel, heading down the hill toward the fjord.
A creature. From the forest.
He opened the window, to hear the creature's voice a bit clearer.

Samuel stayed there at the window, listening to the creature's funny songs as he watched its small, fat silhouette walk down the hill.

The rain stopped and the singing died with it, after which there was nothing to be heard but the eerie silence of the moon.

Samuel lost sight of the creature, and the pitter patter of the rain began again. Or at least, that is what it sounded like. Yet when Samuel put his hand out of the window, he felt no drops on his skin.

That's not rain.

He was right. And within moments he saw something in the distance. A dull throb of light from inside the forest, like a dying and fallen sun. As this golden glow grew closer, Samuel felt his heart begin to race, almost in time with the sound that was moving forward, out of the forest.

And then he realized what the noise was. It was horses. Three white stallions, and the figures riding them were each holding a flaming torch. They were out of the forest, now, although the faces of the riders were still too dark and far away to be seen.

Samuel, believing he'd get a better view downstairs, left the bedroom. He tiptoed past Aunt Eda's door, and headed softly down to the living room. Once there, he went to the window and pushed his head between the curtains. He could see the flaming torches move closer, illuminating the three riders. At first he'd thought they were humans, but now, by the light of the flickering torches, he could see that they were strange and bony gray-skinned creatures, with wide-apart eyes and flattened, screwed-up noses. It was them. The monsters of his nightmares.
I'm dreaming,
he told himself.
I must be dreaming.

They were shouting orders, and whipping their horses, as they galloped after the barrel-shaped singing silhouette.

“Samuel? Samuel? What is the matter?”

Aunt Eda was standing behind him, in her nightgown, looking very worried indeed.

“I don't know,” Samuel said as his aunt joined him at the window. He now realized this wasn't a dream.

“Huldres,”
his aunt whispered urgently.

The huldres rode out of view, heading toward the fjord. It went quiet for a while, and Samuel and Aunt Eda stood as still and silent as the glass vases on the shelves. When the huldres galloped back into sight, they were dragging the singing creature inside a net.

“Come away,” Aunt Eda said. “Away from the window. Away! Now!”

“Ow,” said Samuel as she yanked his arm. “Get off me.”

Samuel resisted his aunt's grip and stayed looking out of the window.

“Samuel. Come away or they'll see you. Come away. Now…If they see you, they will come for you. And me. And your sister.”

“You're boring,” he told her, but he couldn't hide the fear in his voice.

“Boring people stay alife,” she said.

Samuel could hear the genuine terror in his aunt's voice, so he stepped back and listened as the huldres and their horses dragged the poor singing creature back to the thick darkness of the trees.

Aunt Eda held Samuel, and this time he didn't resist. He felt the fading gallop of her heart and the tight grip of her strong arms.

“Who was that creature? The one who sang?” Samuel asked.

“A Tomtegubb,” said Aunt Eda.

“Have you seen one before?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice trembling like a loose log. “Yes, I have. And…and so have you.”

Samuel didn't understand. “I don't understand.”

“Was that singing not familiar to you? Like the wardrobe and the wallpaper you recognized.”

“I…” said Samuel, pulling away, “I…don't…I…”

And that is when Aunt Eda told Samuel something she hadn't told him before. About the time her sister—Samuel's mother—came to visit, bringing her husband and children along too.

“That's right, Samuel. You…you…came here when you were two and Martha was just a baby. Your mother heard about Uncle Henrik going missing and came to comfort me. She didn't beleef my stories about the creatures of the forest, of course. Well, not until she heard you scream in the night.”

Samuel was more than confused as he stood there, straining to see his aunt's face in the dark.

“No. My mum said she'd never gone back to Norway. You're lying. She said—”

“She said that to protect you, Samuel,” interrupted Aunt Eda. “She wanted you to forget you'd ever been here and forget that you saw something similar to what you've just seen now. Your parents never came back after she knew the creatures were real because they thought you and Martha would be unsafe here. And I was never able to see you in England, because I wanted to stay here for when Henrik returned.”

Samuel wanted to think this was all a lie, but he remembered the strange dreams he had always had, about creatures he now knew were huldres.

“I've been here before,” he whispered as the thought became solid in his mind. “I knew it. I've been here before. The monsters were real.”

“Yes,” said Aunt Eda. “And now do you realize why my rules are so important? Why you can't go out after dark or go near the forest?”

“But I don't get it,” Samuel said. “Why don't you just move?”

He could hear his aunt gulp back her sadness. “I told Henrik I would stay,” she said. “If I left the house, I'd be giffing up on him. Do you understand?”

“Henrik's not coming back,” Samuel said.

“No,” said Aunt Eda. “He will. I know it. He made a promise, and he never broke a promise in all his life.”