West of the Moon (12 page)

I thank her kindly, and as we are starting our way down the hill, she calls to us in a cheery voice, “Take care! I've heard
that sometimes the emigrants never make it to America, but are sent to Turkey and sold as slaves!”

Greta stares at me, her eyes wide.

“Even in America, I've heard tell,” the milkmaid says, her voice low and serious, “they keep slaves.”

I turn slowly back to face her. “Nay!” I say. “That can't be true.”

“'Tis,” she says darkly.

The three of us turn and walk away in silence, pondering this.

“She's but a simple dairymaid,” I say, finally. “Even so, she's been helpful enough, for she's told us where we need to go. And that is just about as good as a magic ball of yarn.”

The Bridge

or a long time, every time I cast a glance over my shoulder, I can see the dark, wobbly splotch that is Svaalberd following us. But now, coming down into the trees, I can't see much. It's hard to know if he's near or far, here or there, even if he's ahead or behind.

“What we could really use now is a pair of seven-league boots,” I tell the girls.

“You mean the kind of boots that take you fifteen miles every time you take a step?” Greta says. “Do you think there really are such things?”

“There are more things in heaven and earth than can be dreamed,” I tell her. “As the dairymaids say.”

We're following a path along the river. Down and down we go, into a gloomy gorge. Greta walks hand in hand with Spinning Girl, while I take up the rear.

Eventually, we come to a bridge. We would hurry right across, but a noise stops us.

“You don't suppose there's a troll living under that bridge, do you?” Greta says. We listen for a moment to what sounds
like the rumbling of an enormous stomach and the smacking of giant lips.

“No,” I tell her, not sure at all. “That's just the river growling and smacking. Just in case, here's what we'll do. You take Spinning Girl across and tell the troll not to waste his time on such little morsels as you. Tell him to wait for your sister, who is much bigger and tastier and who is coming along right behind you.”

“No!” Greta says. “For then he'll eat you!”

“Oh, no,” I tell her, “for I know a trick or two myself.”

Holding Spinning Girl's hand, Greta steps out onto the bridge. “Trip trop, trip trop,” she says, “here we come, the tiniest girls you ever did see. But wait a moment and my sister will come by, and she's much bigger and tastier than both of us put together.” The two girls step off the bridge on the far side of the river.

Now it's my turn. The growling of the river has grown louder and hungrier sounding. “Troll,” I announce, “if troll you are, I want to point out that I am not a goat, just a goat girl. Hardly a mouthful. What you must do is wait a bit for the goatman who will surely be coming along soon enough. He's much bigger and tastier than I and has a hump on his back that would carve up into a nice roast for Sunday dinner, if you don't mind my mentioning Sunday.”

“Does he now?” peals a voice like a bell. It's so clear and
real I feel the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Then I hear the sound of splashing, like someone or something wading about in the water under the bridge.

“Indeed, I think that's what I'll do—eat you up!” says the voice. “Yum! Yum! Yum!”

“That's not what you're supposed to say,” I squeak.

“'Tisn't?” comes the voice.

“No,” say I. “You're supposed to say, ‘Very well, then, be off with you.'”

“Maybe I would have said
that
if
you
had said you were going up the hill to get fat, but you didn't. Also, you are not going up the hill but down it.”

I watch as the top of a head appears, then a pair of shoulders, then the whole of a person. It's a boy carrying a fishing pole and a stringer of fish. And laughing!

“Well, you're little, that's certain,” says he, “but if you're a goat girl, then where are your goats?”

“I've left them at the farm of the man who owns them,” I say.

“Is that the man with the hump?”

“That's the one. He hasn't come by this way, I suppose?”

“Nay,” says the boy. “But let's ask my ma, for not much gets past her!”

We follow the boy along the well-worn trail, as sheep run ahead of us, their bells clanging in the rosy twilight. After a
bit, we come into a farmyard where the lad's ma is out pitching scraps to a litter of piglets. The boy introduces us as Little Girl, Littler Girl, and Littlest Girl, and his ma trundles off to the house with the stringer of fish.

Later, as we scrape our bread around on the plates, sopping up every bit of juice, the farmwife asks, “How do such wee lasses come here all by themselves, I wonder?” She chucks Greta on the chin.

“Well, our ma died,” I explain, “and so my sister and I had to go live with our mean aunt.”

“That was poor luck,” says she.

“Not such terrible luck, for our pa went to America to get rich so he could send money for us to join him,” I tell them.

“Oh, that is fine luck, then!” says the boy.

“But in the meantime, my mean aunt sold me to an even meaner master,” I say.

“Oh, that was terrible bad luck!” says the farmwife.

“Not
so
terrible, for the mean old man had a troll treasure laid up in his house,” I tell her.

“Treasure!” the boy exclaims. “Is that so, then?”

“It's so, indeed, for I laid hands on it and ran away and fetched my sister, and now we're setting off for America to find our papa.”

“That's fine luck, then!” the boy chimes in.

“Not such good luck, after all,” I say, “for the old man caught up with us and got the treasure back!”

At this, the farmwife and her son exhale sighs of deepest disappointment, while I wonder where he's gotten to, old Mr. Svaalberd.

The farmwife takes away our plates. “You lasses sleep here,” she says, “as it is getting late. My hens are laying, so there'll be fresh eggs for breakfast, so don't be in too much of a hurry to rush off, neither. We won't send you away with empty stomachs!”

She then clamps eyes on Spinning Girl, who's fallen asleep in a chair. “That one looks plumb worn out, poor thing,” she says, then whispers, “Is there something a wee bit wrong with her?”

I shrug. “She doesn't say much, so it's hard to know if anything is wrong with her or not,” I say. “When it comes to spinning, there's not her like to be found.”

“Is that so?” the woman says, casting a more respectful eye on the girl. “Well, they're for bed, these two.” To me she says, “You, stay here.”

While the farmwife makes beds of sheepskins on the floor, I glance out the window, wondering if Svaalberd is outside circling the farmhouse at this very moment.

Once the girls are tucked in under their woolly blankets,
the woman turns to me. “First of all,” she says, “I'm going to brush your hair, which sorely needs it. I don't suppose you have a brush, for you seem to have nothing at all.”

“Why, there you are wrong,” I proclaim, producing the hairbrush the dairymaid gave me.

“You're full of surprises, you are,” she says as she puts the brush to my scalp. Right away it gets hung up in the tangles. These she picks apart with her fingers, as if pulling dirt from wool. “So you've caught America fever like so many others!” she says, sighing. “Just like the three billy goats, folks are—the grass always looks tastier somewhere else!” She clucks her tongue and tugs and pulls at my hair until my scalp aches. “But what I wonder is, where are all the things you need for such a journey as that?” she says. “It seems you're going off to America without anything, when most others bring their whole lot with them, plus food for twelve weeks of sailing: bread and whey cheese and dried meat and mutton and butter and sour milk and potatoes and all.”

She ticks off a list of things we should take, and the list is so long that the brush begins to move smoothly through my tresses. I wonder when the coins will start falling from my hair, but they never do. There's just an ache that travels from my scalp down to where I guess my heart is. Is this what it's like to have a mother? I wonder. Did I wriggle and squirm long ago when Mama brushed my hair? I don't remember. Now I
am as still as a church mouse, feeling these brush strokes in my heart.

“You could stay here with me, you girls,” the farmwife says softly. “It's a mite lonely now, without my husband, and I've always wanted a daughter.” She sighs, and I wonder: What if we stayed here, the three of us, and this kind woman could be our mother? Spinning Girl would spin the wool of their sheep, and Greta would make everyone happy, as she always does, and I … Well, I don't seem to be good at anything at all, unless it's making trouble.

Seven-League Boots

he first thing I see when I open my eyes is Spinning Girl. She's been up all night spinning straw into gold, by the looks of it. Beautiful yarn she's made—as if shot through with golden threads! The farmwife is turning it over in her hands, admiring it.

“'Tis fine, indeed!” the woman coos.

“'Twould be hard to find its like,” I tell Spinning Girl, and she gives me a skein of it. Looking closer, I can see what those shining threads really are—not gold at all, but strands of hair.
My
hair!

My hand goes to my head, and I feel the smooth softness of brushed hair. Then I remember that the farmwife brushed it the night before when she told me about all the things we needed for a trip to America. These things crowd my mind: food and cooking pots and bedding and money to pay for our passage and such as that. And how are we going to get all that, now that we haven't got the treasure? Perhaps we
should
stay here with the farmwife and her son. One glance at Spinning Girl's glowing face, and I can guess that she'd be happy here.

But, oh! Have we come only this far to give up already? What about America? What about Papa?