Katherine Langrish - West of the Moon

The late moon was rising. She stood quietly at the end of the plank, leaning on her stick. Her long skirt and cloak weren’t damp but wet – soaking wet. How had she got so wet? She pulled her scarf away from her head in fronds of trailing weed. She smiled. Even in the moonlight he could see her teeth were sharp points. Peer’s hand shook on the sluice handle. He had walked here with Granny Greenteeth herself!

The woman chuckled, like the brook gurgling. “Yesss… I like to take a stroll on a fine evening. Poor boy, didn’t you know me? Shall I tell you how?” She leaned towards him. “Watch for the sign of the river,” she whispered. “A dripping hem or sleeve. Wet footprints on the doorstep.”

Peer nodded, dry-mouthed. Granny Greenteeth drew back, as if satisfied that she had scared him. “I hate the miller,” she hissed. “Oh, how I hate him, thinking he owns my water, boasting about his mill. Now I will punish him by taking you.”

Peer clung to the post of the sluice. “But he doesn’t care anything about me. Neither of them does. The only thing they care about is their dog, Grendel. Please!”

“Ssso?” Granny Greenteeth paused. Peer waited, shivering. At last she smiled, showing dark triangular teeth. “Then I shall send that dog, Grendel, with an apple in his mouth, as a dish for my friend the Dovreking’s daughter, at her midwinter wedding. But as for you! Don’t you know the miller has plans for you?”

“Plans?” Peer’s heart thudded.

Granny Greenteeth leaned both hands on her stick, like the old woman he had supposed her to be. “We’ll have a little gossip, shall we? I hear it all, you know. Every stream on Troll Fell runs into my river!

“After the old miller died – bad riddance to him! – the two young ’uns knew where the troll gate was. And they wouldn’t let it alone. Knocking and banging, day after day! Hoping to get at the gold, weren’t they? Even tried bribes. Imagine! They left fine white bread there, and trout stolen from my water. Ah! Yet they never gave me anything.” Granny Greenteeth worked her mouth as though chewing on something bitter. She spat.

“And this went on and on, didn’t it? And at last the Troll King got tired of all this hammering and shouting outside his gate. Not seemly was it?

“So to get rid of them he thinks up something difficult. He sends word: My eldest son will be married at midwinter. He wishes to present his bride with a slave boy, as a betrothal gift. Bring me a slave boy, and you shall have your gold .”

Granny Greenteeth nodded spitefully at Peer. “And that’s where you come in, my son. Your precious uncles – your flesh and blood – will sell you to the trolls.”

Peer’s heart turned to ice.

“So now you’ll come with me, won’t you?” Granny Greenteeth coaxed. “You’ll help old Granny. Baldur Grimsson wants that gold to build a bigger mill. I’d drown him sooner! But he never puts a foot wrong. He knows I’m after him.”

“Let me go,” Peer croaked. “Please…”

“Ah, but where?” she cried. “Come to me, Peer, come to me.” She stretched out her arms to him and her voice became a low musical murmur like the brook in summer. “I’ll take you – I’ll love you – I’ll look after you. Who else will? I’ll give you an everlasting bed. Come down under the water and rest. Ressst your weary bones.”

White mist rose from the millpond, flowing in soft wreaths over the plank bridge and swirling gently around Peer’s knees. His teeth chattered and his head swam. How easy it would be to let go, to fall into the soft mist. No one would grieve. All for the best, maybe.

“All for the bessst,” Granny Greenteeth agreed.

Far away a dog barked, sharp and anxious. Peer blinked awake. “No!” He looked at the old woman. “Loki loves me,” he said thickly. “No, I won’t!”

In a whisper of wind, the mist blew away into the willows.

Granny Greenteeth nodded. “You’re stronger than you look, Peer Ulfsson. Not this time, then,” she said softly. “But I’ll wait. One day you’ll call to me. And I’ll be listening. I’ll come!”

She jerked, twice, threw her stick away and fell sideways. Her cloak twisted and clung to her body; she lay on the ground kicking – no, flapping: an immense eel in gleaming loops as thick as Peer’s leg. It raised a head with narrow glinting eyes and snapped its trap-like jaws before slithering over the bank into the pond. The black water closed over it in silent ripples.

Peer leaped off the plank. He raced down the path, drummed across the wooden bridge, hurled himself into the barn, dragged the door shut behind him and leaped into the straw. He grabbed Loki and hugged him.

“If you hadn’t barked, Loki – oh!” Loki licked his face. At last Peer stopped shaking. “I got away. But what shall I do? They’re going to sell me under the hill. Under the hill!”

Suddenly he was hot with anger. The Grimssons had sold his home, taken his money and treated him worse than their dog – and now they were going to sell him? Trade their own nephew for troll gold?

“We’ll see about that!” he exclaimed to the dark barn. The oxen munched indifferently. The hens, roosting in the beams, clucked in disapproval and irritably ruffled their feathers. Peer no longer thought of them as his hens. They had transferred their loyalty to the black cockerel, who plainly despised him. He hugged Loki again.

“Featherbrains! Traitors!” he called.

The hens squawked in shocked surprise. For a moment, Peer wondered if they had understood. But it was only the Nis, in high spirits, tipping them off their comfortable perches. He could hear it giggling. Loki’s hackles bristled under his hand. Hen after hen fell clumsily from the rafters and ran about in the straw. One ran right over him, digging its hard claws into his stomach.

“Stop it,” he called.

The Nis pranced about in the beams, kicking down dust and feathers. “News!” it carolled.

“I don’t care,” Peer groaned. “All right, what news?”

“News from Troll Fell!” said the Nis slyly.

“All right, I’m interested – go on !”

The Nis hopped. “The Gaffer’s son will marry the King of the Dovrefell’s daughter,” it said.

“You told me that already.”

“But now there’s more, Peer Ulfsson. Much more! I hear your uncles saying that now…” it took a deep breath, “the King of the Dovrefell’s son will marry the Gaffer’s daughter!”

Peer tried to work this out. “Instead?”

“No!” the Nis said impatiently. “As well!”

“Ah. So it will be a double wedding?”

The Nis nodded in ecstasy. “Even bigger wedding! Even bigger feast!”

Peer rubbed his eyes. He understood that the Gaffer of Troll Fell had pulled off an important alliance for his son and daughter, but he didn’t see why he should care. Still, one thing puzzled him. “Why would it bother the Grimssons, Nis? Why did they look so cross?”

The Nis had gone skipping off over the stalls. It answered from the other side of the barn. “Now they has to find a girl as well as a boy.”

“What!” Peer sat up.

“A girl to serve the Prince as well as a boy for the Princess,” explained the Nis. “Or the King of the Dovre will be offended.”

“You mean you knew all the time that Baldur wants to sell me to the trolls?” Peer gasped. “And you didn’t tell me?”

The Nis stopped scampering about. “Doesn’t you want to serve the trolls?” it asked, amazed.

“No!”

“Why not?”

Peer struggled to reply. “I’m a human,” he said at last. “I can’t work for trolls.”

“I’m a Nis,” said the Nis huffily, “and I works for humans.”

“Sorry,” said Peer, a little ashamed. “But you can’t like working for Uncle Baldur and Uncle Grim.”