Troll Mill (24 page)

The sun was nearly gone. It sparked red and low through the trees around the mill. The last glowing warmth on twigs and branches faded. Darkness came creeping from deep in the woods. A cold breath ruffled the water, and the leaves whispered. Peer shifted quietly, easing his stiff legs.

Just along the bank, two twisted willows mingled their trailing hair, leaning their heads together as if sharing unpleasant secrets. Their long branches quivered and parted. Out hobbled an old woman in a dingy black cloak, her head wrapped in a scarf.

Granny Green-teeth!
Peer scrambled to his feet, his heart thudding with dread.
Has she seen me? Why is she here? To meet the lubbers, or to gloat?
He braced himself, ready to run like a deer. Loki pressed against his legs, growling.

The old woman beckoned. “Peer Ulfsson!” she called softly. “Come closer. Let me take a look at you. Why, what a fine young man you’ve grown to be! Breaking hearts wherever you go, I’m sure. But rash and foolish,
eh, like all young fellows?”

“The babies—where are they?” Peer’s mouth was sour with fear, and the words came out as a croak. Granny Green-teeth’s sharp eyes glittered.

“I’ve got a bone to pick with you, Peer Ulfsson. For three years, Troll Mill was empty.” Webs of greenish skin stretched back from the skinny forefinger she pointed at him. “And I was patient, my son, very patient, waiting for the mill to
rot.”
The last word was louder. “I helped it on its way. I sent my winter floods sucking at the foundations. One day the wheel would break, the walls would tumble. No more millers lording it over my river!

“But you came back. Meddling. Interfering. First your uncles, and then you and your friends from the farm, patching and mending and building up. Among all of you, you’d have the mill running day and night, night and day, with never a moment’s peace for me in my water. You—and Baldur Grimsson.”

“He’s nothing to do with me,” said Peer fiercely. “He’s grinding bones for the trolls.
That ought to please you. The troll princess is your friend, isn’t she? That’s what you said three years ago. You went to her wedding.”

Granny Green-teeth spat on the ground. “Friend? No longer. Where’s my invitation to her son’s naming feast? Who does she think she is, with her airs and graces? Sending Baldur Grimsson here to grind bones at the mill, when she knows how I hate him! I’ll make her sorry!”

Her voice softened. “But you and me, we understand each other. I know why you need the mill. You’ve got nothing else. A poor boy, alone in the world, has to take what he can. It isn’t fair, is it? You’ve worked and worked, and what have you got to show for it? You don’t want Baldur Grimsson at the mill any more than I do. So we’re on the same side. We need the same things. You can still be the miller, if you really want to. I can help you, and you can help me.”

“How?” asked Peer warily.

“That’s
the question!” She gave a low chuckle. “By giving me … oh, nothing much. Nothing you can’t spare! One life, just a little one. The seal-child. You’re waiting here for
her, aren’t you? But she’s mine. You go quietly away now and leave her to me.”

Revolted but relieved, Peer couldn’t reply.
She hasn’t got Ran! So the babies are still alive!
Granny Green-teeth misunderstood his silence. She rubbed her hands together, and her twitching fingers made him think of the pale, whiskered things that crawl at the bottom of ponds. “Good boy. See how easy it is? You don’t have to
do
anything. Just go away. The others will never know. You can say you heard a noise in the mill and went to look. What have they ever done for you? Nothing. But let old Granny keep the bairn, and old Granny will give you the mill.”

Clammy white mist formed over the millpond, drifting up the banks in clinging wreaths. Surely it was full of ghosts. The touch on Peer’s skin was like hundreds of tiny wet fingertips.

She thinks it’s just Ran the lubbers got. She doesn’t know what happened last night. But the lubbers will soon be coming. What can I do? Keep talking.

Peer dragged out his words slowly. “What you’re asking me to do would be murder.
The baby would drown.”

“Yesss …” Granny Green-teeth sighed. Her shallow jaw opened, showing double rows of narrow points, sloping backward like the teeth of fishes. “Yesss, they only stay warm for a little while. Then they go cold and silent, and the stream tumbles them out of my arms, leaving me lonely, hungry … but this one’s different. Like this!” She spread out her webbed hands. “A seal-child, see, a water baby. Only half human. I’ll hold her tight, till the mortal part … dissolves, and she’ll be mine forever. Mine to bring up as my own.”

“Turn little Ran into a creature like you?” Peer choked.

Granny Green-teeth took a swift step forward. “Don’t cross me, boy. Do you want the mill? Think carefully. How will you like being alone there at night, afraid to turn around in case old Granny’s behind you?”

Her voice hushed to a rippling lilt. “But Granny’s always had a soft spot for you. She’ll help you, if you’ll help her. You’re a good lad. We won’t quarrel. We’ll deal with your uncles together. We’ll make your dream come true.
The mill will be yours. Yours. And I’ll have my child.”

Peer moistened his lips. Before he could speak, something small and excited rushed through the tangled undergrowth. A familiar little voice chirped like a cricket, “Quick, Peer Ulfsson. Hurry! The lubbers is coming!” Farther up the hillside, there was a rustling and crackling in the wood. And then came the unmistakeable sound of Eirik yelling.

“Stand aside!” Granny Green-teeth’s eyes blazed at Peer.

“HILDE!” Peer bellowed at the top of his voice. “Gudrun! Get over here, quickly! Bring those blankets!”

Then everything happened at once, and it seemed to happen very slowly. The lubbers burst through the trees. In the dusk their limbs gleamed like white roots. Granny Green-teeth swung around greedily. Peer saw her pale tongue flicker, tasting the air. “At lassst! They’ve brought me my child.”

He had time to see Eirik riding on the second lubber’s shoulders and to realize that his screams were not screams of terror, but yells of delight: Eirik had always enjoyed a
fast, romping shoulder-ride! He had time to see Ran, her face a dim blob, tucked under the arm of the first lubber.

Hilde and Gudrun arrived, pelting through the mill yard and slithering down the bank to the brink of the millpond. Seeing Eirik with the lubbers, Gudrun shrieked and dropped the blankets. Peer snatched them up.

“Lubbers!” he shouted. The lubbers turned in confusion, their mouths opening in wide gashes of alarm. “We’ve got blankets for you. See? Lovely blankets, right here!” He flapped them enticingly.

The lubbers stared at Peer and then at the dark figure lurking in the mist. “We got an agreement with Granny Green-teeth,” one of them croaked. “Gennleman’s honor and all that …”

“It’s a trick!” screeched Hilde. “She hasn’t got any blankets. She’ll only drown you, too!”

“Meddling little miss!” Granny Green-teeth drew herself up, swaying. Her eyes widened into white circles, and her voice thickened and slurred. “That child is my price.
Sssssss!
My price. I’ll have the
ssseal
baby.”

Gudrun rushed at her. “You won’t have
any
of my children!” But she clutched at a moving wraith of mist. Granny Green-teeth had fallen to the ground. Her arms shriveled, melting against her sides in long, dark ribbons. Her body twisted and thrashed. A huge glistening eel lay coiling in the grass. Gudrun jumped back with a cry. It snapped at her ankles, then wriggled rapidly over the bank and into the millpond. The water closed over it with a sullen clap and swirl of ripples.

“She’s gone!” Peer cried. “All right, you lubbers. Put down the children and you can have the blankets.”

The lubbers looked at each other.

“Do as he says,” growled the second. “I’m sick of carting them around.”

Eirik, annoyed that his ride had stopped, was bouncing heavily, and exclaiming, “More! More!”

“Throw us the blankets, then,” snarled the first lubber. Peer hesitated, and then he tossed the two blankets lightly forward, so that they fell halfway between the lubbers and himself. The second lubber stooped and lowered Eirik to the ground. Eirik crawled
forward, and Gudrun darted at him.

“My darling!” She caught him up into her arms, but Eirik twisted around to stare back at the lubbers.

“Man,” he cooed softly. The second lubber whimpered, and its eyes gleamed.

The first lubber hung back, holding Ran up in front of itself like a shield.

“Put her down, too,” demanded Peer.

“You don’t need them both!”

“Both babies, or no blankets.” Peer’s voice shook with tension. He took a step forward.

“All
right
, all
right!”
the first lubber screamed. Without warning it tossed Ran into the air and dived for the blankets.

Time slowed down even further. Peer saw Ran arcing toward him, her arms flying wide, her head tipping back. He seemed to stare for hours into her wide eyes. At the edge of sight he saw Gudrun turn, her mouth opening in terror. He saw Hilde lunge forward; she was yards out of reach. His own arms came up. He plucked Ran out of the air. Trying to protect her from the impact, he reeled, and then was falling, falling slowly backward, the baby clutched to his chest. He still had time to see
everything as he fell: Gudrun and Hilde screaming, the lubbers groveling for the blankets, Loki barking, the Nis jumping about. He fell through a layer of white mist, and all the people on the bank faded like phantoms. Then the millpond hit him in the back.

There was a crash of water in his ears, and it filled his eyes and rushed up his nose and covered his face. He lost hold of Ran.

Everything was black. Which way was up? He thrashed for air and light. Things brushed around him, slimy and flickering. With terror he felt a muscular body bend briefly against his side and glide on past.

He slipped into a colder layer. His groping hands touched something impossibly soft, melting ghostlike through his fingers. Mud—the mud at the bottom of the millpond. He could sink into it and go on sinking forever.

His eyes were screwed shut. He forced them open against the water. What lived down here? Blind fishes, perhaps; writhing eels; armored, jointed things that scuttled in the mud.

He was strangling. Stars tingled in the
water, stinging lights that came and went whether his eyes were closed or open. Something caught in his clothes, a hard root or tangle of branches. He wrenched desperately, feeling clouds of mud billowing past him like smoke.

Then he saw her, or thought he did: Granny Green-teeth in human form, sitting on the bottom of the millpond with Ran in her arms. A greenish light clung around them. Granny Green-teeth’s hair was waving upward in a terrible aureole as she bent over Ran, rocking to and fro.

A humming filled the water, filled Peer’s ears. The flashing stars turned red. He could see Ran’s face, as if lit by the flashes, bloodred and sickly green. Her dark eyes stared out into the water, expressionless, hopeless.

So this was the end of little Ran’s short life. She might be a seal-baby, she might last longer underwater than another child, but she would still drown. And then? Would some inhuman part of her linger in the millpond, to be brought up as Granny Green-teeth’s child—another malignant water spirit to haunt the mill? Images floated
through his mind: Bjorn tickling Ran, Sigurd whistling to her, Gudrun feeding her.
She never had a chance
, he thought with fierce sorrow.

But she has me!

Rage crackled through him. He struggled like a madman. The obstruction holding him gave way.

Plunging his arms deep into the mud, he pulled himself forward, stirring up more sediment. Granny Green-teeth, her head bowed, did not see.
Nearly there.
He reached for Ran. His hands clamped around her small body, and he pulled her away. Granny Green-teeth looked up. Her eyes fixed on him, lidless and blank and terrible. She lunged toward him, jaws wide. He gave a last, desperate, flailing kick, and a flash of scarlet lightning blotted out his sight.

With a roar and a rush, the other world came back: the world of air and light and sound. His head broke through into a mild, twilit evening. He stood, staggered, nearly fell, floundering along waist-deep in the pond. Pain stabbed his chest, and he clasped little Ran as though a knife skewered them
together. Any minute now, Granny Green-teeth would grab his legs. He choked, choked again. Half the millpond seemed to pour from his throat and nose. He spat green slime, shook duckweed from his hair. His first gasp of air tasted so strongly of millpond mud that he retched.

“Peer! Over here!” Hilde was halfway into the water, clinging to a willow branch with one hand and stretching out the other. “Back!” Peer spluttered. “Or she’ll get you!”

Against his chest the baby jerked, convulsed, opened her mouth. She scrunched up her face, clenched her tiny fists, drew in a mighty breath and let out an ear-shattering scream. Peer wallowed toward the bank, holding her tight: a cold little dripping morsel, hiccuping and kicking, and screaming again and again her indignation and fury and fright. Ran had found her voice at last!

He handed her to Hilde and hauled himself up the bank, feeling as though he had been underwater for hours, although it could have been no more than minutes. Loki dashed up to welcome him, and Alf shambled over, swinging his tail. Peer hugged them, rubbing
his cheek against their rough coats, before getting shakily to his feet. All he wanted was to roll over and sleep.

Eirik was crying now. He was hungry and cold, and the lubbers had run off, taking the blankets with them. “Man!” he wailed, pointing in the direction that they had vanished. “Man gone!”

“Home, right now, and dry off!” Gudrun set off through the mill yard, tight-lipped. Neither she nor Hilde looked happy, Peer realized. “What’s the matter?” he asked Hilde foggily as he stumbled along beside her. “We got the babies back!”

She raised an eyebrow. “Yes, but not the twins.”