Nancy - The Islands of the Blessed

Father yawned deeply and removed his shoes. “It’s only women’s fiddle-faddle,” he said.

“They might drive her away.”

“Where would she go?” Father said comfortably. “It isn’t as though people are lining up to hire such an ill-favored lass. The Tanners have been useful and the girls are excellent Christians. They join me for prayers, which is more than I can say for you.”

Jack was praying at that very moment—for patience. “Doesn’t it bother you that Ymma and Ythla lie, steal, and play nasty tricks?”

“Seems to me”—Father cast a glance at the loft where his bed lay—“that you’re mightily free with advice for a lad. Seems to me you’ve learned a few nasty tricks yourself, hanging about in shadows and doing wizardry.” And Jack knew that the Tanner girls had got to his father first and that there was no more point to arguing. “Clean up your own sty before you come squealing to me,” Father advised. He lumbered to his feet and climbed the ladder. Mother, with an apologetic look, followed.

Jack kicked the straw of his bedding and slammed his fist into the wall, only hurting himself. Fearing to wake Pega and Hazel, he went outside to cool off.

The sky was strewn with a thousand stars, shining so brightly that he could make out the shapes of trees and bushes. A faint, tinkling sound came from all around. It was as though the stars themselves were whispering, but Jack had heard that sound before. It was when he was recovering in the hall of the Mountain Queen in Jotunheim. Her palace had been so huge that when he looked down from a high window, all he could see were swirling clouds of ice crystals. It was this, striking against the ice walls, that made the sweet chiming.

“On nights like these—” said a voice next to his ear. Jack jumped straight up and came down ready to fight. “Whoa! I’m not an enemy,” cried the Bugaboo, dodging the boy’s fists.

“Then don’t leap out at me!” Jack yelled.

“Take a deep breath, laddie,” said the Nemesis, popping up on the other side of him. “We’re not the ones you’re angry with.” Blewit stepped out from behind a bush.

Jack sat down on the ground. “No, you’re not,” he admitted.

“We were listening to the argument,” the Bugaboo said. “You can’t blame your parents. To them you’re still a sprogling.”

“But how can they allow Pega and Hazel to suffer?”

“They don’t see what they don’t want to see. Let’s sit awhile and enjoy the sky. I was about to say, before you performed a leap that would do a hobgoblin proud, that on nights like these the walls between the nine worlds grow thin.”

Jack gazed up, listening to the faint echo of ice falling on ice in far Jotunheim. The trolls were folded inside their mountain, taking refuge from summer. Yet each year the sun shone more brightly, and each year more of their realm melted away. It made him sad to think of it. “Look!” he cried, pointing. A streak of light crossed the heavens like a spark. Then another and another.

“Now, that is a treat. They’re leaves falling from the Great Tree,” the Bugaboo said.

“From Yggdrassil,” Jack murmured, remembering how the Tree had reached up higher than the moon. At the top lay a heavenly green field around a hall so enormous, a thousand men could stand side by side in its doorway. It was Valhalla. He shivered. “Thorgil says the Northmen hear their dead calling to them when lights dance in the sky.”

“Many things happen when the walls between the worlds grow thin. Once I heard waves breaking on the Islands of the Blessed,” said the Bugaboo.

Jack thought of the gifts the Mountain Queen had given him: the marten-fur coat, cow-skin boots, and tunic. They had been stored away because he’d outgrown them. Only her knife was still useful.

And the cloak. It had been a very long time since Jack had thought about the spidersilk cloak. He’d given it to the Bard along with the wealth-hoard he’d used to buy Pega’s freedom. It was probably in one of the old man’s chests.

“Thank you for showing me this,” Jack told the hobgoblins. “My problems don’t seem so important after watching leaves fall from the Great Tree.” He stood up.

“You can’t be thinking of going to bed yet,” said the Nemesis. “The night’s entertainment has just begun.”

“Excuse me?” said Jack.

“We haven’t forgotten about the Tanners. We’re only waiting for your permission to take steps.”

Jack remembered how dangerous hobgoblins could be, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to involve them. “You wouldn’t do anything drastic, would you?”

“Of course not,” scoffed the Nemesis. “Only a harmless bit of hobgoblinry, no worse than saying boo at a birthday party.”

“Dragon Tongue thinks it’s an excellent idea,” the Bugaboo added.

“I suppose… if the Bard agrees, and if you promise not to hurt them…”

“Never!” The Nemesis’ eyes gleamed in the starlight.

“Well… all right.”

“At last! I get first crack at Ythla,” cried Blewit, jumping up.

“I get Ymma for what she did to dear Pega,” said the Bugaboo.

“Wait! Wait!” shouted Jack as the hobgoblins bounded off like giant frogs, but they paid no attention. He followed them as best he could in the darkness, with the streaks of light falling from the sky and the stars shaking as though they would come loose.

Jack fell several times on the way. His eyes weren’t as good as the hobgoblins’, and they were used to traveling in the dark. He was anxious to get to the Tanner hovel before anything happened. But by the time he arrived, the hobgoblins had already got inside. “Phoo! Filthy in here,” he heard the Nemesis say. Then out they came, each one carrying a Tanner. They leaped over the fields, and every time their feet touched earth, Jack heard a scream.

“We’ve come to take you away!” the hobgoblins shrieked, tossing their captives into the air and catching them.

“No! Not Mrs. Tanner!” Jack shouted. They were too swift for him.

“We’ve got a lovely dark hole full of earthworms,” Blewit warbled. It was the first time Jack had ever heard him sound happy. “We’re going to put you inside and feed you spiders and all kinds of nasty, oozy things.”

Ythla sobbed and begged for mercy.

“Mercy! Not likely, after you stole from people who took you in.”

“We’re sorry! We won’t do it again!”

“Oh, you won’t. Not where you’re going,” gloated Blewit.

By now the hobgoblins had passed beyond the village and were approaching the hazel wood. Jack’s side hurt from running and his legs threatened to give out. Now he understood why his father hadn’t been able to catch the hobgoblins when they stole Hazel all those years ago.

The creatures raced through the hazel wood, zigging and zagging along paths Jack could only guess at. The draugr is in here somewhere, he thought. But he had no time to be afraid. He stumbled after the sound of running feet, more often than not colliding with bushes or tripping over roots. By the time he got to the other side, he was at the end of his strength. He collapsed onto the ground.

He was lying in the broad road carved out by the Wild Hunt. The starlight had grown brighter, as though light were leaking from some unknown source. The hobgoblins had put down the girls and their mother. It was the first time the Tanners had got a good look at their captors.

“Oh, dear God! They’re demons,” groaned Ymma.

“We’re demons! We’re demons!” screeched the Nemesis, doing a cartwheel around the terrified group. “We’ve come to take you away!”