第1章 The Goat Farm

White Bear King Valemon

The fire hisses, then snaps, and the dog looks up from his place on the hearth. His hackles rise; a low growl escapes him. Aunt looks up from her knitting. A hush falls on the room-that curious feeling of something-about-to-happen seizes us. As for my cousins, the eldest holds her needle in midair; the middle one falls quiet, taking her hands away from the loom and setting them in her lap. The twins are silent, for once.

And me? Somewhere deep within me, my heart pounds, distant as an echo, as if it is already far away, in another place and another time.

There's a story I know about a white bear who came and took the youngest daughter away with him, promising the family everything they wanted and more, if the father would only let him take her. In the story, the family was sitting in their house when something passed by outside the window. Hands to their hearts, they all gasped. Pressed up against the window was the face of a bear-a white bear-his wet nose smearing the glass, his eyes searching the room. As he moved past, it was as if a splotch of sunlight momentarily penetrated the gloom.

That is that story. In my story I am sitting in the house with my aunt and uncle and cousins when something passes by outside the window. In the twilight it is just a dark shape. The room dims as the shadow goes by, and even after it passes, the darkness lingers, as if the sun has gone for good.

Aunt sets her knitting in her lap. She tries not to smile, holding her lips firm, but the smile makes its way to her forehead, and her eyebrows twitch with satisfaction.

My stomach works its way into a knot; my breath catches halfway down my throat.

A sharp knock on the door makes us all jump. Aunt gets up, smooths her skirt, and crosses to open it. My cousins glance at me, then away when I return their look. Greta isn't here. She must be hiding, which is just as well.

The man has to stoop to come in the low doorway, then, when inside, unfolds himself, but something makes him seem still stooped. It's a hump on his back. Even standing up straight it's there, like a rump roast oddly perched on one shoulder. I can't stop staring at it. He's chesty like an old goat, and wiry everywhere else. He's got the billy goat's scraggly beard and mean little eyes like black buttons. As ill-mannered as a goat, too, for he doesn't bother to take off his hat.

He squints around the room with his glittery eyes without saying "God dag" or "Takk for sist." No, his jaw works away at his cud of tobacco, and when he finally opens his mouth to reveal his stained teeth, it's to bleat out, "Which is the girl, then?"

His beady eyes gleam as they drift over pretty Helga's curves, glint as they take in Katinka's blonde braids, almost sparkle when they behold Flicka's ruddy cheeks. But when Aunt points to me, he turns his squint on me and his eyes turn flat and dark. "Well, I hope she can work," he grunts.

"Aye," says Aunt. "She's as hearty as a horse."

"Her name?"

"Astri."

"How old?"

"Thirteen. Fourteen by summer."

"Not a handful, I hope," he says. "I don't care for trouble in a girl. Don't care for it!" This he proclaims with a shake of his shaggy head and a stamp of his walking stick.

"She'll be no trouble to you, Mr. Svaalberd," Aunt lies. "Get your things, Astri."

My limbs are so numb I can barely climb the ladder into the loft. There is Greta, sitting on the lump of my straw mattress, her face wet with tears.

"Little sister," I say softly, and we embrace. I'd been able to keep from crying till now, when I hear her trembling intake of breath. "Greta," I whisper, "stop crying. Don't make me cry. I can't show Mr. Goat any weakness. You show a billy goat you're afraid of him, and he'll be lording it over you day and night."

Greta stops sniffling and takes my hands. "Big sister," she says, "you must be stronger-and meaner-than he is!"

"Aye, that's so," I say. "I shall be." I dry her tears with my apron and swipe at my own, too.

Her tiny hands press something into mine, something heavy, wrapped with a child's clumsiness in a piece of cloth. "You take this, Astri," she says.

I unwrap it to see our mother's silver brooch. "Keep it," Greta whispers. "Aunt will take it away if she finds out about it, you know."

I nod. Greta is already so wise for such a tiny thing. Too wise, maybe.

"Little sister," I tell her, holding my voice steady, "Papa will send for us, and then we'll go to America to join him."

Greta drops her head and nods. She doesn't want me to see she's crying, but her shoulders are shaking.

"Astri!" Aunt yells up the stairs. "Don't dawdle!"

I kiss the top of Greta's head and place my hand on her face for just a moment-all I dare, or risk a broken heart.

Down the ladder I go to stand by the door, my bundle under my arm. I can't help but notice there are now two shiny coins glinting on the table, along with a large, lumpy package. My cousins are eyeing the coins with the same intensity that the dog is sniffing the package. Now I know how much I'm worth: not as much as Jesus, who I'm told was sold for thirty pieces of silver. I am worth two silver coins and a haunch of goat.

Uncle comes and tucks a wisp of hair behind my ear, almost tenderly. "I'm sorry, Astri," he says. "It can't be helped."

That's all there is for a good-bye, and then out the door I go.

In the story, the young maid climbed upon the white bear's back, and he said, "Are you afraid?"

No, she wasn't.

"Have you ever sat softer or seen clearer?" the white bear asked.

"No, never!" said she.

Well. That is a story and this is my real life, and instead of White Bear King Valemon, I've got Old Mr. Goat Svaalberd. And instead of "Sit on my back," he says "Carry my bag," and on we troop through the darkening woods, the goatman in front and me behind, under the weight of his rucksack and my own small bundle of belongings. The only thing white is the snow-falling from the sky in flakes as big as mittens. Strange for it to be snowing already, while leaves are still on the trees. It heaps up on them, making the branches droop, and piles up on the goatman's hump until it looks like a small snowy mountain growing out of his back.

"Aren't you afraid of the trolls who come out at night?" he says.

"I'm not afraid," I tell him, though it's a lie. It's twilight; the sun has slipped behind the mountains, and the shadows begin to dissolve into darkness. The time of day when honest, churchgoing people go home to bed.

He breaks off a rowan twig and gives it to me. "Tuck that into your dress," says he, "for protection."

I stumble along behind the goatman, trying to memorize every boulder and tree, every bend in the trail so I can find my way back. But evening is ending and the full night is coming on. We leave a dotted line of footprints behind us, which are rapidly filled in with snow. By morning there won't be a trace of us left behind.

When the youngest daughter arrived at the bear's house, it was a castle she found, with many rooms all lit up, rooms gleaming with gold and silver, a table already laid, everything as grand as grand could be. Anything she wanted, she just rang a little silver bell, and there it was.

Not so for me, for when I come to the lair of Mr. Goat, it is a hovel, and filthy inside. The walls are soot-covered, and the fireplace so full of cinders that every time the door opens or shuts, ashes and smoke puff out into the room, enough to make you choke. A hard lump-ash, I suppose-settles in my throat.

The goatman's dog-Rolf, his name is-plunks himself down on the hearth and trains his yellow eyes on me.

Old Goatbeard lights a smoky fire in the fireplace and dumps a cold, greasy hunk of mutton on the table. Then he saws off the heel of a loaf of bread with a big, wide-bladed knife-the only thing shiny in the whole place, polished clean by the bread it slices.

When I scowl at the bread, he says, "Oh, a princess, are we? I suppose you're accustomed to pork roast and applesauce every night."

I say no, for of course we never had any such thing and most of the time no mutton, either, but at least our table was clean and what bread we had wasn't gray with ash and covered with sooty fingerprints.

With the last bit of bread, I swallow the lump that's been stuck in my throat. It slides down and lodges in my chest, where it stays, a smooth, cold stone pressed next to my heart.

Now it is time to sleep, and the goatman shows me my little bed in the corner.

Never trust a billy goat, Astri!

I know it, and so when Svaalberd goes outside to the privy, I sneak quietly to the table and take the heavy knife with the gleaming blade. Lacking the silken pillows with gold fringe that the girl got at King Valemon's castle, I tuck my own little bundle under my head. And under the bundle I slide the knife.

Work

In the morning, I am awakened by a sharp kick to my backside.

"What a worthless lass you are!" the goatman growls. "Look! The day is half dead, and you lie abed like a princess. I'm not feeding you for nothing. Up now and to your tasks."

And so my day begins: milking, hauling, washing, scrubbing, chasing goats, feeding goats, catching goats, avoiding ornery goats. These are the saddest bunch of neglected animals you've ever seen. It nearly makes me weep-their coats matted and tangled, their ribs jutting out, since all they've been eating is sticks. Seems that nobody bothered to cut them hay. So, along with all the other chores, I can see I'll be gathering fodder all winter, too.

So the weeks pass. I've mucked out the goats' shed and trimmed their hooves and pulled the burrs out of their coats. The leaves have dropped from the trees, and the early snow has melted, turning the farmyard into a muddy mess, most of which gets tracked into the house and has to be swept out again by me.

From time to time I get-I don't know how to describe it-a strange feeling that makes me prickle all over. "I feel as if someone is watching me," I tell the goatman.

"Someone is," he says. "It's me. I've got my eye on you, make no mistake!"

So the days go by.

"Daydreaming again, Astri?" Goatbeard interrupts my thoughts, scowling at me.

What am I thinking? Papa can't come all the way back from America. For all I know, once you're there, you can't ever return.

"Where do Aunt and Uncle live?" I ask, without looking up from my milking.

"You know yourself. You were there," says Svaalberd. He's examining the gate of the does' pen to try to figure how Snowflake keeps getting out. That nanny goat is always standing somewhere you don't expect. She'll have her face in the window, or you'll see her wandering around off on a hill somewhere. So far, the goatman hasn't puzzled it out, and I'm not about to tell him how she does it. Right now, he is putting so much concentration into his search that he is talking to me instead of telling me to hold my tongue or shut my trap or just applying the back of his hand to some portion of my head like he usually would.

"Yes, but where do they live from here?" I continue.

"A far piece. You know yourself, you walked it."

"Yes, but what direction is it from here?"

He stops and looks at me, his eyes little slits. "Why do you want to know?"

"Maybe I would like to go home for a visit," I say.

"Maybe you would doesn't mean that maybe you will," he says. "The work here doesn't stop because you want to go sip tea with the Queen."

"I never said a single thing about sipping tea with the Queen. I just want to go home and see my sister. And I don't see anything wrong with it."

"I'll tell you what's wrong with it," he says, launching himself toward me and taking my braid in his filthy fist. "What's wrong with it is that I hired you to work for me and not trot home as if it were Christmas any day of the week." He yanks on my braid so that my head tips back and I have to look at his face upside down, which, it turns out, is just as ugly as it is right-side up.

"If you hired me, then when do I get my pay?" I reply to his forehead.

"You're lucky to get your bed and board, and I've heard just about enough out of you." He drops the braid and ends the conversation with a slap to the back of my head. If I keep prodding him, I'll end up with a black eye, so I bite my lip-hard. Sometimes I have to bite my lip so hard it bleeds.

Every day is like this: Work work work, bite my tongue or get slapped, and finally it is night again. Maybe, I think, if I were to run away, night would be the time to do it. But nighttime is different than the daytime; it's almost like a different place, or maybe a different world altogether, a world said to be inhabited by huldrefolk-the hidden people.

Nonetheless, every night I go outside and wonder: Can these nighttime beings be any worse than the devil I live with now? And will this night be the night I am brave enough?

Like tonight. On my way out the door, I lift the latch slowly. I don't glance at the goatman for fear he is watching me. The dog cocks an ear but doesn't open his eyes.

When I pry open the door, of course it lets out a squawk.

"Where you going, girl?" the goatman growls.

"To use the privy," I answer. "Where do you think?"

"That's enough mouth from you," he says.

I let the door bang shut behind me, and I crunch across the frosty ground-not all the way to the outhouse-and stop. The moon overhead has a big white ring around it, like a puddle of cream within a puddle of milk.

I stare out at the dark wall of trees that circle the farm, opening my eyes as wide as I can, trying to peer past the darkness.I could walk away right now, and just walk downhill. Eventually I would come to something. A farm, a village, a river…

If I'm going to go, I should go now. Once it snows for good, I'll be stuck here for the winter.

But, oh! It is so dark. And quiet in a way it never is in the daytime. Tonight is the quietest yet, so hushed that there is nothing to be heard at all. Nothing but a soft whirr, like the thrumming of my own heart, yet somehow far away.

I hold my breath, listening. Where is it coming from?

"Girl, what are you doing out here?" It's the goatman, standing in the doorway.

"I hear something strange," I call back to him.

"You hear me telling you to get back inside, is what you hear, or your backside will smart!" he says with a snort.

In I go and climb into my bed. I unwrap Mama's brooch from its cloth wrapping and trace my fingers over it. It's covered in depressed discs like tiny silver spoons. You'd think it would make me remember Mama, but nothing comes of it. I don't even remember her face. Mostly, I remember Papa and the stories he told of Soria Moria and the castle that lies east of the sun and west of the moon. In the story the girl dreamed of a golden wreath that was so lovely she couldn't live unless she got it.

If I could have any wish, I wouldn't squander it on a golden wreath. I might wish for a pair of shoes not so worn out or stockings not so full of holes. What I really want most-well, it's impossible, so there's no use wishing it, or even thinking of it, though sometimes I can't help it. To have my family all together again, whole and complete, that's what I dream of, and I guess that's sort of like a golden wreath. At least, it's as impossible a thing to get as that.

Usually I'm so tired at night, I collapse and dream of nothing. And it's a good thing, too, because nothing is exactly what I get from old Goatbeard.

"You'd best be careful out there at night," he says from the gloom of his corner.

"Why?" I ask.

"Why!" he snorts. "You know yourself the forest is full of huldrefolk, the invisibles. 'Tis said they are the children Eve was so ashamed of that she hid them from God. And God said, 'Let those who were hidden from me be hidden from all mankind,' and so they and all their children stay so, even to this day."

"And so they are invisible," I add, "and we can't see them, and they can't see us."

"There are times when the veil parts, and it's possible to see into the other side," the goatman says. "There's no wall that separates us from them, 'tis just the barest veil." He lowers his voice to a dark whisper. "And there are times those folk live side by side with us, whether we know it or not." He grunts and rolls over. "Don't think it can't happen!" he says, and after a few moments, begins to snore.

I touch the log wall by my bed. Are there really hidden people out there? Are they real? Or just made up to keep girls like me from running away?

The Drop of Tallow

In the morning, the first thing out of Svaalberd's mouth is "Have you stolen the knife again, mus?" He calls me that-mouse-when he's being friendly. Otherwise it's "dog" or "cow" or "rat" or "pig." I doubt if I am human anymore, by the names he calls me.

I hand Svaalberd the knife, and he slices off some dried mutton, thin slices you can see through, and he carves off a curling slice of brown cheese. He hands me two slices of bread, one for the cheese and one for the meat. This is my breakfast.

It's better than I got at Aunt and Uncle's.

There was no mutton there, and sometimes we had cheese, but often we didn't. And the bread was sometimes made of bark.

There, I've said it. That's how poor we were. We had to eat bark bread. Still, I'd rather be back at Aunt and Uncle's starving with Greta.

Every Sunday morning, old Goatbeard drags his oak chest over to the table, where he fumbles for his keys, puts a key in the lock, and with a click, unlocks the chest. He digs down inside it, and I hear the rustle of paper and an enticing clinkity jingle.

"There's some fine things in that chest, I shouldn't wonder," I say one morning.

"There's more than you think," he says. "Inside this box, girl, lies prodigious power."

I mouth the word he says: prodigious.

"It means a powerful much, is what. In this box lies the power to conjure up and put down the devil and get him to do all that you command. Herein lies the power to cure diseases, remove curses, find buried treasure, and turn back the attacks of snakes and dogs. You stay away from this chest, if you know what's best for you," he says. Then he pulls out his Bible.

"Is it the Holy Book I'm to stay away from?" I ask him.

"Nay," he says, "'tis something else. But nothing for the likes of you."

He then commences to read aloud from his Bible. I say "read," but look at him! How his eyes are pretending to move along the paper, and how he now and then turns a page when it occurs to him. I watch the ropy vein in his neck pulse when he starts in to read brimstone and hellfire-the same vein that pops out when he's about to give me a thrashing. He puts on a good show, but I know he can't read.

"Where did you learn those stories?" I ask him.

"I learnt them from here!" he exclaims. "I'm reading them straight out of the book!"

"Hmmf," I sniff, and study the space between the cheese and the bread, wishing there was some butter to fill that in.

He drones on about Esau and Jacob and how Esau was the hairy one and Jacob was the smooth one and how one day Jacob killed a couple of goats and put their skins over himself and went into his old, blind father's tent bent on trickery of some sort. Meantime, I drift off and start thinking about what sort of trickery I might use on old Goatbeard himself and how to weasel my way out of here.

There are some troubles. It was so dark and snowy when we came from Aunt and Uncle's, I don't even know which direction to go. If Greta and I were really to run away, we would need food for any sort of journey, maybe money, too, and how would I get either one?

There's food in the storehouse, I know, for Svaalberd goes out there with rounds of crisp flatbread I've made and returns with hanks of goat. I suppose there's grain and cheeses and meats, smoked or not, and I don't know what else, as I'm never allowed inside. He keeps the place locked tight, and the key hangs on his heavy iron ring, all a-clatter with keys.

But even if all I wanted was to run away in general, with no particular place to go, even that would be difficult. All day long Mr. Goat watches me with one steely eye. If he lets up for one minute, Rolf hauls himself up and walks stiff-legged over to wherever I am, plops himself down, and trains his yellow eyes on me.

"Behold!" Svaalberd shouts in a voice like a parson's, startling me out of my reverie. "Away from the fatness of the earth shall your dwelling be, and away from the dew of heaven on high, and thou shalt…"

I lose track of his preaching and start pondering just what he's got that's so precious he has to lock it up. Or is he just a miserly old man who so treasures his moldy cheese and weevil-infested grain that he fears the likes of me?

"…fill the wood box, clean the fireplace," Svaalberd goes on, "scrub out the copper kettles-till they shine, mind you!" By now I've figured out that he has laid off scripture and has moved on to my list of chores. "…I'll be expecting supper when I get home, too." He shuts the Bible with a thump and finishes by saying, "Genesis twenty-seven and twenty-eight. Amen."

The Bible goes back in the chest, where it is locked away with a rattle and a clank. Then he hoists himself out of his chair and takes his ring of keys out to the storehouse. After a while he comes by again, this time with two big bags. With these slung over his shoulder, he proceeds away down the mountainside.

"Bring me a pair of shoes!" I holler after him. "Or a golden wreath!"

But he's too far away or else pretending not to hear me.

As soon as he's gone, I run to the storehouse myself. It's a far piece from the house, all uphill. Why he built the little building so far away, I don't know, and by the time I get to it, my heart is beating hard. I stop and press my ear to the door. It seems, for a moment…a sound. Then, nothing. I try the latch again. But of course, the door is locked. He's probably said a charm over it.

It seems the goatman has a charm and a spell for everything. To keep the fire burning and to quench it, to stanch blood, to ward against fever and snakebite.

You can bet I pay close attention when he mumbles these things, and I've been learning a thing or two. To turn back a wasp you have only to say, "Brown man! Brown man in the bush! Sting stick and stone but not Christian man's flesh and bone!" If you need still more, recite the Lord's Prayer.

I'll thank you to keep that to yourself.

As the sun is setting, here the goatman comes, back up the mountain with the same two sacks, looking just as full as they did going down. Up to the storehouse he goes and then back down to the house.

"How is it you had all day and still didn't clean the ashes out of the fireplace?" he asks when he comes in.

It seems the only thing he brought me is a cross word.

In the story of the white bear, one night the girl got up and, when she heard the bear sleeping, struck a match and lit a candle. When the light shone upon him, she saw that he was not a bear but the loveliest prince anyone ever set eyes on!

So this night I decide to look, to see if anything similar happens to the goatman. I creep out of bed and toss Rolf a crust of bread to keep him quiet. There are still enough embers in the fire to light a candle, and so I take the pathetic stub of candle that Svaalberd allows me, get a little flame burning, and steal quietly to his bed, holding the light as near to him as I dare. My heart is pounding. What if? I think. What if he has turned into a beautiful man? What then?

I lean over, closer and closer, and just like in the story, a drop of hot tallow from the candle drips onto his shirt.

"What the devil?" the goatman yelps, jumping up. "What are you doing, girl?"

Of course I have nothing to say to that.

"Lonely, are you? Is that it? Come looking for companionship?" He reaches out toward me, and I slap his hand away.

"Don't touch me," I growl, using the tone I learned from his own dog. I snap my teeth, too, and run to my bed-hearing his hoarse breathing behind me. Then I feel his arms wrap around my waist, and he throws me down on my bed, me facedown and him on top of me.

"Foolish man!" I cry. "You've forgotten something!"

"What's that?" he says, his foul breath on my neck.

With my hand under the pillow, I feel the knife handle and curl my fingers around it. In one swift movement, I pull it out and twist around to face him, placing the blade against his neck.

His eyes bulge, and the big vein on his neck stands out, pulsing and pulsing. Just the slightest push from me will slice it clear through.

Straw into Gold

Rolf whines, and the goatman grunts and stands up, moving away from the knife.

He doesn't reproach or threaten me as I expect. He says, "Come summer, we will go down to the church and have the parson marry us. Then I'll take you to my bed."

"One of us will go to hell first," I mumble.

"What's that?" he says, spinning around. He grabs my arm; the knife clatters to the floor. He yanks me out of bed and pushes me out of the house.

"You're a danger to me and to my peace of mind," he grumbles as he hustles me across the farmyard. "I won't have a murderess in the house, waiting till I sleep to slit my throat-"

"I never did! You were the one who threatened-"

"You're a girl who can't be trusted, I can see that, all right!" he squawks, dragging me up the hill. He's rattling the keys, turning the lock on the storehouse door, and then I'm inside, shivering in my shift. The door is slammed, a key is turned, and with a click I am locked inside.

"Here is the place for girls who can't be trusted!" he yells from outside the door, then stomps away.

I'll sit right here on the step and weep, I will. I mean to, but I hear something-the same sound I heard once in the quiet of the night. A whirr. A hum. Coming from somewhere nearby. From inside this building.

Up the dark stairs I go. With each step the sound grows louder and the darkness less dark.

The sound is both familiar and unfamiliar-as if I've heard it a thousand times before, but never quite like this. It makes a kind of strange music, almost. It calls back memories the way certain smells do, like the way crushed cardamom makes a smell like Christmas.

At the top of the stairs, I stand and gape. Candlelight illuminates the loft-a room meant for storing food, and there is plenty here: Smoked meats and sausages hang from the rafters; there are stacks of flatbread and barrels of barley and rye. There's a heap of sheepskins, too, and piles of wool.

But it isn't this that makes me stare. It's that, in the midst of all this, there is a spinning wheel purring away, and at the spinning wheel sits a girl. Or what looks like a girl, all surrounded by the glow of candlelight.

"Hei!" I say.

She looks up at me but says nothing.

"Who are you?" I ask.

No answer.

"What's your name?"

Still no answer.

"How long have you been sitting here, spinning?"

Nothing.

"Are you deaf?" I ask. "DEAF?" I shout.

No answer.

"Maybe you're just rude!"

No response.

A strange-looking creature she is: small but soft and round as rising bread dough, and her hands like white sweet rolls, spinning wool. How old might she be? She looks on the one hand like a child, on the other like a very old woman. She's a strange one, so silent and unspeaking, with her wide gray eyes and her soft face.

She knows how to spin, there's no denying that. On the floor to one side of her is a heap of wool, and on the other side is a pile of well-spun yarn, smooth and perfect, all neatly looped into skeins.

"That's very fine yarn you've made," I tell her.

Maybe there's the hint of a smile, although it might be just the way the candlelight flickers along her face.

Deep into the night she sits and spins, her wheel purring like a contented cat. While she spins yarn, I spin yarns. I tell her stories of Soria Moria, and the castle that lies east of the sun and west of the moon.

I tell her how I made the same mistake as the girl in the story who dropped tallow on the bear-prince's shirt. "Do you know that story?" I ask the spinning girl. "And how the prince woke and said, 'What have you done? Now you have made us both unhappy forever. If you had only held out one year I should have been saved. I have been bewitched to be a bear by day and a man by night. But now all is over between us, and I must go to the castle that lies east of the sun and west of the moon, where I will have to marry the troll princess with a nose three ells long.'"

I tell the spinning girl that I tried the same thing with the candle, and everything happened just like in the story, except that it turns out old Goatbeard is just as goaty and trollish in sleep as he is in daylight. "And it begins to seem that you and I are princesses," I tell her, "held captive by the old troll himself!" I am being more than nice to call her a princess, for she looks nothing at all like any princess you might imagine. But then neither do I, I suppose.

"In the stories," I go on, "someone always comes to rescue the princesses. A prince or even a simple boy in raggedy clothes with a spot of soot on his nose. And so shall someone rescue us, I shouldn't wonder."

That's what I tell her, but as her wheel whirs, my mind whirs along with it, and soon I've run out of golden thread with which to spin my pretty stories and I'm left with just the thin thread of truth. And that wiry, rough little thread tells me that if anyone is going to do any rescuing from this place, it's going to have to be me.

Winter

Something is different. As soon as I open my eyes, I can tell. The tiny square of light coming in the one grubby window has changed; it isn't yellow-gold anymore. This light is a pale gray-blue, like milk without the cream mixed in. I know before I look outside: It has snowed.

The door bangs open, and I hear the stomp of the goatman's boots, then catch the whiff of the cold outdoors, of snow wetting down his woolen jacket.

"Get up, you lazy wench. The work doesn't end because it snows. The goats need feeding."

I get up and pull on the clothes and shoes he tosses me, then stomp out to the goat shed.

It must have snowed all night long; it's knee-deep and still coming down. I'm trudging through it when I notice Svaalberd leading Snowflake right into the house.

"What kind of madness is this? Girls sleep in the storehouse while the goats go in the house?" I ask.

"She's about to give birth, and I don't want to risk the kid freezing outside," he says. "Fetch some straw and bring it in here."

I retrieve some straw, bring it in, and strew it around.

"Who's that girl in the storehouse?" I ask him as he pats Snowflake's heavy belly.

"This is what comes of her getting out when she shouldn't!" he exclaims.

"Who?"

"Snowflake!"

"I'm asking of the girl. Who is she?"

"She didn't say anything to you, I don't suppose?" the goatman asks me.

"Why?" I ask back.

"Well, did she?" His eyes shift here and there while he pretends to busy himself with Snowflake.

"You must know yourself if she talks or doesn't," I say.

"Nary a word to me," he says.

"Nor to me," say I.

He nods, pleased, and gives Snowflake a satisfied smack.

"Well?" I persist. "What about her?"

"She'll be having twins, I shouldn't doubt."

"The girl?"

"No, Snowflake!" he says.

"I'm asking of the girl," I remind him.

"Found her when she was just a babe, crawling about on all fours out in the wild, all alone. Seems her people just threw her away. Thought she was a changeling, most like," he says.

Changeling! A sudden chill passes through my sweater and makes me shiver.

"Left for the trolls to take, I shouldn't wonder. But it seems even the trolls didn't want her!" He laughs at this, and then goes on. "So I took her. Turned out she wasn't much of a worker. Too slow to be much good at anything. But once she found spinning, well! When it comes to spinning, there's not her like to be found."

"Is she happy at that work, then?" I ask.

"Why, if she isn't, she ought to be!" is his answer. "She's got it better than she should."

Snowflake bleats and cries. She tries to lie down, then stands, then tries to lie down again. Oh, but Svaalberd is all gentleness, speaking kindnesses to her like he never has to me.

"Good girl," he says, as she begins to bear down, pushing and bleating by turns. She seems to be having a time of it, but after a bit something starts to appear.

"There's a leg," I say.

The goatman turns to me and says, "Why do you stand there, useless? Build up the fire some!"

I throw more wood on the fire, while peppering him with questions about the spinning girl. He says that the girl never uttered a sound, on account of her mother getting too close to an elder tree before she was born, he reckons.

"Why do you keep her locked up like that?" I ask.

"For her own safety, that's why. She might wander off and get lost! She could get hurt."

The baby goat lands with a plop on the straw, and Svaalberd says, proud as a papa, "There's the kid! A doe."

Snowflake turns around and starts in cleaning up the tiny creature, sweet as can be, with its floppy ears too big for the rest of it.

"Anyway, she's got strange powers, that one," the goatman says.

"Snowflake?" I ask, over her cries. She's bleating and pushing again.

"No, the girl," says the goatman. "You don't want her too near the does' shed, or they may stop giving milk. And you don't see me shaving, do you? No, you don't. For should the girl get hold of my whiskers, she could make a potion with them and cast a spell to weaken and sicken me."

I look at his scraggly beard and think, I would not want to touch those whiskers, even if I could make a potion out of them.

"Do you really believe that?" I say. "The parson says we're not to hold to such things-superstitions and the like. And when it comes to matters of health, we should put our faith in the doctor."

"Doctor!" Svaalberd scoffs. "When have you ever seen one of those in these parts?" Just as he says this, out comes another kid, plop! onto the straw.

"Twins, it is," Svaalberd exclaims, then, "Ohhh…" His tone changes, and I look up from my bellows work, for the fire seems all smoke and nothing else today.

He tsks and clucks and shakes his shaggy head. "Take this one out, and put it in the snow."

I study the second kid, small as a kitten and unsteady. He rocks on his little pegs trying to stand, and his funny ears flop from side to side. "He isn't dead," I say. "And look: Snowflake is cleaning him up, too. She's not rejected him."

"He'll never grow up right," Svaalberd says. "So there's no point in feeding him."

"It's only his leg is a little funny," I suggest.

"Nay," the goatman says. "Best to get it over now."

"But-" I start.

"Maybe you'd like to go fetch the doctor!" he snaps and shows me the back of his hand. "Now take him out."

"Do it yourself," I tell him, turning back to poke at the fire. "I don't care if you slap me. I won't do it."

When I look over my shoulder, there is just the one kid, and Snowflake staring at the door. If I didn't like old Goatbeard before, now where he is concerned, my heart has hardened into black coal.

The Ash Lad

So our life goes on. Snowflake and her kid in the house with Svaalberd, and me in the storehouse with Spinning Girl. Luckily there's a stove in there. So I've got both stove and fireplace for which to chop kindling, to carry wood, to stoke and to tend.

At first, I keep my eye on the girl, wondering if she's human or what. Could she be a hulder-maid-one of the invisibles, as Svaalberd said? Her work seems to go from dusk until dawn, as they say the huldrefolks' does.

"Who are you?" I ask her, and "From whence do you come?" and even "Are you a human girl, or what?"

What is it, I wonder, that makes us human?

"Turn around one time," I tell her, and she does. There's no tail poking out from under her skirt. She's not hollowed out from behind, either, as they say huldre-maids are.

"Sometimes I feel like a hulder-maid myself," I say, "for there are times when I feel as hollow as a lightning-struck tree trunk." There are times, too, when I feel as invisible as air.

Human or no, Spinning Girl and I get used to each other. She soon comes after my hair as if it's a pile of dirty wool, picking the sticks, twigs, dirt, and thistles out of it, then braiding it or twisting it into fancy plaits.

That's in the eventide. Workdays, I go through my chores, trying to stop wishing I could get away. Because running away is impossible now that winter is here. The snow stays and winter stays, and I stay.

Some people think it's a romantic job to tend the goats, for they picture the goat girl up in the mountain seter when it's summer and the sun is in the sky all the time. The grass is thick and green and the sun warm on your face, and nothing to do all day but braid wildflowers into wreaths and gather cloudberries. Those people forget about winter.

Then it's wake up in the dark, eat breakfast in the dark, haul feed in the dark, gather forage in the dark, cut fir boughs in the dark, haul water in the dark. Oh, and shovel the snow and chop the wood and haul the wood and clean out the ashes and start the fire and rake the coals and cook the porridge and make the candles and knead the bread. All in the dark, dark, dark.

The sun, if there is any at all, never gets above the trees, so you only imagine it. The best you can hope for is to see its pale, cold light winking between the branches. All the while your hands are frozen, red, and cracked. You have to blow on them to get your fingers to bend. And your shoes are always full of snow because your master is too mean to buy you a pair of boots.

The days and weeks go by, and by, and by. The snow is melting; the sun is getting higher in the sky; the goats drop their kids, and they're all let out to find some grass. Still, I barely notice any of it, since all I know is milking goats, making cheese, hauling buckets, all accompanied by a kick or a slap or a tug on my braids.

Yank. "Girl, why haven't you covered the milk?" The goatman points to the buckets lined up next to me.

"I'm still milking."

"Keep your tongue in your mouth," he says.

I shrug. Slap to the back of the head. "You cover them pails," he says. "Keep the dirt out."

I turn slowly to stare at him. This is the man who hasn't bathed since King Olaf challenged the gods of Dale-Gudbrand.

"You don't bathe," I say. "Your house isn't fit for pigs to live in. The barn was full of goat dung until I came and cleaned it up. You haven't let me wash my hair the whole time I've been here. And you're worried that a dust mote might alight on the cream?"

I feel a hand yank my arm and lift me up, then my heels dragging in the dirt. I can see the hand coming at my face, and although I turn away at the last minute, the blow lands on my cheek. A sharp sting followed by an ache that will blossom into a purple bruise, I'm sure. A few more of those, and I lose count. I run my tongue along my teeth to see if they're all still there, but my lips are already puffy and swollen, my mouth full of something I suppose is blood.

I'm tossed down into the yard, which is a mud hole from the spring thaw. So first I feel cold muck seeping through my dress, and next I feel something wet slosh over me. At first I think-hope-I'm under the pump and he's pumping cold water over me, but this liquid comes at me from a bucket. It's warm and sticky and stinks like Odin's underdrawers.

"And by the way, that is your job-emptying the chamber pot," the goatman says. "And since you didn't, that's what you deserve, you filthy-mouthed little wench." Off he stomps to the house, muttering.

Mud-caked, bloody, and stinking, I stand up and am about to scrape some of the filth off me when something catches my eye. Something different, something that doesn't belong.

It couldn't be a person. Not a single person has come by in all the long months I've been here-including, I think bitterly, any of my relatives. And sadly, Greta, who I know would have come had she been allowed to travel by herself. But of course she is only eight years old and too young for that.

Is it an animal? A tree suddenly burst into leaves? Or a hulder caught out in broad daylight? No, it's a human being, with a corona of light around his head, so it could only be a saint or maybe the crown prince. Oh, sure, the crown prince would come visiting when I'm in worse condition than a pig.

When he steps forward, I see that it isn't the crown prince, just a boy, not so much older than me, with a pack upon his back. He stands under a birch tree that has come out in catkins all lit up from the sun behind them-as is the boy's yellow hair. That is what makes the halo. A swarm of spring midges enhances the effect.

I must be gaping, for he says so, adding, "Your master, miss?"

I'm sure I've never heard a more honeyed voice, and I open my mouth to reply, but my mouth being swollen-a tooth or two broken, likely-only garble comes out.

"Poor soul," the boy mutters and begins to make his way toward the house, giving me a wide berth.

The goatman comes out and calls to me. "Mus!" he says. "Catch Snowflake and put her back in the pen. Then finish that milking you didn't get done."

Sure enough, Snowflake is out nibbling at the lower branches of the firs. I go after her while trying to keep my eye on the boy and my master. Svaalberd points off into the distance as if he's giving directions, while the boy nods and shields his eyes against the sun to look. So he's lost, which explains how he got here. The two of them go inside the house. What else are they talking about? I wonder. As soon as I get Snowflake in the shed, I run to the house and stand in the doorway, listening.

"…thought she was a changeling, you know," the goatman's saying as he wraps up a hunk of cheese. "Her kin tried all kinds of remedies: They flogged her three Thursdays in a row, threatened to put her in the fire, and finally threw her out. I found her crawling about the forest on all fours, took pity on her, and brought her here. Her own people wanted naught to do with her."

At first I think he's talking about Spinning Girl, but then he says, "Covers herself in dung every day. Try as I might, she won't keep herself clean-" and I realize he's talking about me.

This makes me so mad, I fly into the house with my nails toward Svaalberd's eyeballs. Of course, he subdues me and nods his head in a pitying way. He hands the parcel of cheese and bread to the boy, and the boy gives him a coin. (And though it's the bread and cheese I made, am I likely to ever see that coin? No.)

"Done my best to raise her up Christian, but as you can see, she's little but a wild bear herself. You see how she injures herself," he says, clucking his tongue and touching-a little too hard-my tender bruises. "She runs into things, falls. Who knows how these things happen?"

"For the love of God!" I cry. "What a liar you are!" But my lips are so swollen it comes out sounding like my mouth is full of porridge.

"Never learned to talk properly, either, poor girl."

I kick him in the shins, and he winces. For a moment I think his temper will win and he'll smack me, which he surely would do if the boy weren't here.

For the boy, old Goatbeard manages the kind of smile the devil might use if he were trying to impersonate the baby Jesus in the manger. It makes me want to vomit. Or perhaps that's from all the blood I've swallowed, and suddenly I have to run outside and empty my stomach over the fence.

Naturally, that's when the handsome fellow steps out of the house. Mr. Goat follows, shaking his head as if with concern for my immortal soul.

"Many thanks for setting me back on the proper course," the boy says. "I'll be on my way…" My heart sinks. Even one night might give my injuries enough time to heal so I could speak to him. "Off to America," he finishes.

I look up. America? A thousand questions crowd my mind. How are you getting there? Which direction is it? How much money do you need for a venture like that? Do you know my father?

Instead of any of those, I manage, with great care, to form a nearly coherent sentence: "I want to go with you."

The boy turns to me, looking at me as if for the first time.

"Aye." Mr. Goat nods, his eyes shifting uneasily. "From time to time she comes out with something that sounds as if it makes perfect sense, poor thing."

I resist with all my might throwing a clod of dirt at him. I'll pay enough as it is. And he'll only twist my actions to make me seem more dull-witted.

"Our ship will be sailing within a fortnight. I'm to be meeting my kin there, so I'd best be off," the boy says, shouldering his pack, already moving away. Already just a bright spot moving among the dark pines.

When the boy is just about to disappear over the rise, I make my move, bolting for the edge of the farmyard. I can hear the goatman chasing me, breathing hard, and then, oh! his paws clutching. He claps his hand over my mouth, and while I twist and struggle, he kicks open the door to the storehouse. With a shove I am inside, the door slams shut, and the lock turns with a hard metallic clank that seems to ring inside me.

I won't sink down right here and weep. Oh, no. I won't give him the satisfaction. Instead, I dash right up the steps to the loft and stand at the window that faces out over the valley, where I can watch the blond head flickering like sunshine among the birches.

The sun is ahead of him now; he is walking west. West. That is the direction I will have to go to get to America.

Spinning Girl presses a damp rag to my face and wipes the blood and filth from my limbs. When I'm as clean as I'm going to get, she goes back to her work. As she spins her yarn, I spin a golden dream out of dust motes. A dream of going to America.

To the Seter

The next morning, the goatman shouts from outside the storehouse. "Up, you worthless girl. It's time to take the goats up the mountain to the seter."

He stands outside with a jacket over his arm and a walking staff in his hand.

"It looks to me as if you're taking them yourself," I say.

"Just showing you how to get there," he answers.

"If you point in the general direction," I tell him, "I'll find it."

"Wouldn't it be fine if it were so simple as that?" he says.

"What about the spinning girl?" I ask. "What is she going to do?"

"That's no concern of yours," he says, striking off with such a stride that I have to run to keep up.

Then I remember something. "You told the boy I was a changeling. That's the same story you told me about the girl in the loft."

"Maybe it was you; maybe it was her," he says. "It was one of you-who's to know which one?"

"What do you mean by that?" I ask him.

He stops for a moment, turns back to me, and eyes me up and down. "By looks, I'd say it was her. But by temperament, I'd say it was you."

Before I can ask any more about that, he charges up and over a hill.

Through a grove of stunted birches we go, then through tall timber, their trunks twisted by the wind. Here and there a little patch of snow. After a while I start to wonder just where we are going. Our way seems to lead more down than up.

The goatman prattles on about jobs for me to do once I'm at the seter, while pointing out the plants and herbs growing along the way. "You must get up on the roof and pull out the saplings that have started to grow in the sod. While you're up there, clean out the chimney. Here's yarrow, good to stanch bleeding. You've also got to oil the leather hinges and grease the latches."

I think of the ship that's leaving in less than a fortnight. If I can get away from the goatman and find my way back to Greta, maybe we could get to the ship in time. But what will we do for money? I don't suppose they'll let us on the ship for nothing! And then there's the issue of just where we are now compared with where that ship is.

We come out of the trees into an open meadow, bright with new spring grass, and I forget about all these troubles. Glittering mountain peaks surround us, from which silvery waterfalls tumble down. Streams are moving again and chatter along over stones. The smell of the new grass, of growing things, of warm earth and running water-all of it smells of possibility. This is what America smells like, I think.

Why, it makes me want to sing!

"'This king, I must tell, was out of his head,'" I sing. "'His child by trolls had been taken. And troll king and princess soon would be wed-'"

"You shouldn't be singing of trolls," Svaalberd barks. "Not here."

"Why?"

"'Tis said they live hereabouts," he says.

"Do you really believe in all that?" I ask him. "You, a Christian man and all?"

"You're the one singing about them," he says.

"Just because I sing a song about them doesn't mean I believe in them," I tell him.

"Well, if you don't, you ought to," he mumbles.

"The parson says we're not to continue believing in trolls and such," I say. "And furthermore, we're not to be relying on spells and charms. It shows a disrespect for God, he says." That part is hard to believe, for it seems to me that most folks in these parts believe so fervently in God that scarcely a charm can be spoken without saying the Lord's Prayer or invoking the Holy Trinity. Why, a charm is really useless without it.

"If you want to sing, you should sing a hymn," the goatman says, starting in: "'The world is very evil, the times are waxing late. Be sober and keep vigil, the Judge is at the gate…'"

My jaw drops, because his singing voice hardly matches anything else about him. It is low and melodious, quite a pleasure to hear. "You should sing more often," I say, when he's finished his verse.

He smiles and comes toward me like he means to kiss me! You can be sure I scramble away as fast as ever I can, so I am out of breath when we stop at the edge of a river, rushing with melting ice. The jingle of the goats' bells can barely be heard over the noise of it.

"Here we cross," says Svaalberd.

"Where's the bridge?" I ask.

"There isn't one."

"How are we supposed to get across?"

"Walk or swim."

"I hope you're jesting," I say. The water is as cold as the snow and ice that it so recently was. Its swift current could pull you down as fast as any water sprite. "What about the goats?"

"The goats can swim."

"Well, I can't."

"I'll carry you across the river," says he.

The thought of letting old Goatbeard carry me-in any way or for any reason whatsoever-turns my stomach.

"How is it we're so far down in the valley?" I ask him. "It seems we've gone more down than up. Shouldn't we be climbing up the mountain to get to the seter?"

"I thought we might as well go to the church first and get married. And then you can go on up to the seter."

Marry! "I don't remember saying I would marry you," I protest.

"You have to marry someone," he says.

If I could think of one of his curses, I'd lay it on him right now. Instead, I say, "Well, look. You cross the river first."

"It's shallow," he says.

"I don't believe it," I insist.

"Well, it is."

"It doesn't look shallow."

"Well, it is."

"Prove it. You go across and let me watch."

"Hold my jacket," he says, handing me the jacket he's been carrying over his arm.

I take it and glance quickly at the goats, who all have their heads down, munching grass. All except Daisy, who is busy biting the ears of the kids.

Svaalberd spits and makes the sign of the cross. "Trolls in the depths," he says. "See! The sign of the cross. Keep away-I belong to God!"

The devil you do, I think, but I keep my mouth shut, and he wades into the water. The water is glacial blue foamed into almost white. Who knows what sorcery might lie beneath?

Rolf plunges in after him and commences to swim. The goats look up from their munching to eyeball Svaalberd, then turn their heads toward me. They don't want to cross that river either and will wait for me before they do anything.

Svaalberd has to pick his way along the stones and boulders littering the river bottom, which he can't see but can feel with his feet. That and the rushing current naturally make for slow going. But I can see the water never gets higher than his waist.

Midway, he stops, turns, and calls back to me. "See?" He stretches his arms to show-well, what? That they are still above water, I suppose.

"Go all the way across," I call out. "It could still get deeper."

He slowly plows his way across the river. His shirt gets wet, and I can see the muscles in his back ripple and flex. Except for the hump, which I have long since gotten used to, his back from here looks like a young man's!

I squint. Does he look better because he is so far away, and there is a barrier between us? Or has some kind of bewitchery happened to him in the river?

I think of a story my uncle told of a man on this mountain slope who'd seen a hulder-maid from across a river. She was beautiful, and the man hadn't noticed the tail poking out from under her skirt. He was fooled into marrying her, as it happens. Somehow, though, he'd gotten out of the marriage yet still ended up with a treasure of troll gold and some magic of his own.

Could the stories be true? I wonder.

A sudden vivid memory of those two coins on Uncle's table rushes back to me-how had the goatman come by those? Why had I never wondered about this before? Why does he keep everything locked up tight when nary a soul passes by?

What if…I begin to wonder…What if the old goat has a treasure hidden somewhere on his property? A hoard of gold?

Svaalberd climbs up the far bank and stands to his full height, which from this distance looks reasonable. He doesn't look so stooped.

Of this man who'd gotten a troll treasure, much was whispered. He'd had a wife long ago when he was young, so it was said. A human wife. She'd been a kloke kone-a wisewoman, a healer-who helped the neighbors with births and burns and knew all manner of cures. Still, for all that, she had been unable to save herself when she became ill, and so she died. The man, it was said, had removed himself from the company of people and had gone up in the mountains to farm some bit of rocky ground.

"Come on!" he shouts. "You can make it easily. My legs are numb with cold. I don't want to wade back for you now…" He shouts on and on. I stop listening and let the rush of the water and the roar of excitement fill my ears.

I have become aware of something heavy in one of the goatman's jacket pockets. My hand slips into the pocket and my fingers feel the keys-his big ring of keys. The ring goes into my hand, and I drop the jacket, then turn and bolt, running as fast as I can up and down the steep hillside, my heart pounding. The goats' bells cling clang, and their hooves clatter as they follow behind me. Stones skitter under my feet and ping down the slope as I race and run, now slipping, now hopping, now skidding, now running, my thumping feet pounding out the words: treasure treasure treasure.

Treasure

Past the bright patches of snow, into the tall pines through the twisted birches, back into the pasture, and finally I run full bore into the farmyard and stop. How odd, how still, how quiet it is. A stream of sunlight makes its crooked way through the trees. It seems so gentle-empty, the whole place sweeter. Pleasant, even. But I have no time to think of that. I have to find the treasure.

Treasure! The word has pounded itself into my brain on the long run back to the farm. First, the storeroom, for which I now have the key.

The key in the lock, the latch unlatched, and I am inside, turning over crates, peeking inside barrels, kicking over old planks. Sausages, cheese, old potatoes, and my own little bundle of things-all these things get stuffed into a gunnysack.

Spinning Girl sits staring at me as I do this, and a part of me knows that I haven't properly thought of what to do about her.

"Girl," I say to her, "this is your chance to make your escape. What do you want to do?"

No answer.

Perhaps she has her own plan, I think, which doesn't involve me.

A dog barks. From afar, but they're coming, dog and master.

I dash into the yard, and from there into the house. Straightaway, my eyes alight upon Svaalberd's locked chest.

"There are some fine things in that chest, I shouldn't wonder," I say, crossing quickly to it, fumbling with the ring of keys until I find the right one. The lock clicks; the lid opens. There is the Bible, and next to it a leather pouch. Clinkity jingle it goes when I pick it up. It takes but one peek to see what is inside: coins. Many coins.

To take them would be stealing.

But if it's troll's treasure? Is it a sin to steal what's already stolen? Stolen thrice: once from humans by trolls, then from the trolls by the goatman. And finally-I stuff the bag of coins in the gunnysack-stolen from the goatman by me.

I touch the Bible, but I won't take it. That would be a sin.

Still, I lift it up. There's a sheaf of papers, and beneath that, more papers. I leaf through them, words on paper, keep looking. And then I see it-what the goatman must have been talking about. His book of charms and cures and spells: the Black Book.

I stare at its smudged black cover, but I don't pick it up-oh, no! It might burn my fingers! I leave that book where it lies, replace the papers, place the Bible back on top, and slam the lid down. Moving past the table, I take the wide-bladed knife, slide it into the sack, and out I go, blinking, into the daylight.

But, oh! Svaalberd is right there, just coming around the side of the storehouse, turning to notice the door of it hanging open.

Quick! His back is turned, and I dash across the yard and duck into the goat shed. But how can I get out without him seeing me? I think of Snowflake, and how she escapes. And how Svaalberd never did discover how she does it. But I know. And the forest edge is right there, right outside that busted board.

The dog's hoarse cry grows closer.

Keeping my eyes on the shed door, I back into the nanny's stall. A soft sound makes me turn, and it's all I can do to stifle a scream. There's Spinning Girl, hunkered in the shadows.

Rolf's toenails click against the hard-packed dirt in the shed.

I look at the girl, her gray eyes suddenly lit with fear, and push her toward the board that leads to freedom. Behind me, the dog woofs a cheery greeting at me.

"Go away, Rolf!" I growl.

But he snuffles around outside the stall door, panting and whining, and now yelping, and that'll raise the master! My shushing is to no avail. A punch in the snout would just set him to howling.

I could take out the knife and silence the dog with a lunging stab, make the barking stop. Once the dog was still, I could cover it with straw. It would take Mr. Goat some time, looking all over. Time enough for me to slip out under the broken board. I should do it if I'm going to. I should do it now.

But I can't. Instead, I pull the sausages out of the gunnysack and shove them under the door. The dog drags them away, disappearing into a corner.

But it's too late, isn't it? The goatman is already in the shed. His footsteps grow closer.

The Ring of Keys

Iscoot to the wall, pulling the girl with me. Gingerly, I raise the busted board and push her through. Not so easy, as she is round and the opening is square. But there, now she's out, and it's my turn. My head is out; I smell the spring air!

But, ah! A hand clamps around my leg. Out of the corner of my eye I see the girl waddling away into the forest while Svaalberd drags me, kicking and wiggling, out of the shed and into the house. I get plunked in a chair, and the sack is overturned and all the contents roll and clatter onto the kitchen table. The cheese and bits of broken flatbread and old potatoes, and of course the coins come out, clinkity clink, and the knife clunks out, and my own little bundle falls out and comes undone, and finally, even Mama's brooch lands with a polite little clatter on the tabletop.

Mr. Goat looks up at me. The corner of one eye twitches, and the vein in his neck pulses. "I see what kind of plotting you've been up to when you were pretending to work." He grunts and spits as he drags the unlocked chest over to the table. "Your people led me to believe that in spite of all, you were a good girl, a trustworthy girl, and here I find you stealing from the master and about to run away." He tsk-tsks and runs his tongue along his snaggleteeth.

All the while, he's pinching up the coins and popping them into the box. I follow his eyes as they dart to the brooch. They gleam, as if to say, "Now there's a pretty bit of finery!"

When I see his hand inching toward it, his fingers reaching for it, my heart leaps into my mouth, and the knife leaps into my hand. My hand rises up over my head, and in one unflinching moment, the heavy blade comes down-down upon the goatman's hands-and when the blade is raised, two of his fingers are gone.

Let me tell you, old Goatbeard is none too happy about it. He hops up and screams, staring wild-eyed at his hand, at the blood pumping out.

I hop up, too; the wooden box is opened, and everything he's tossed into it seems to leap up and fling itself back into the gunnysack: every coin, every bit of food, every crumb on the table. Out of the expanding pool of blood, I pluck my mother's brooch. The fingers I leave behind.

"Stand still, blood!" the man chants, speaking to his bloody stumps. "I bid you stop as surely as one is forbidden heaven's door…"

I know where he gets all his spells and magic. If I had the book he's got-though most likely it was his wife's book to start, and it was she who taught him all these charms-if I had that book, I might well have all that magic myself. Although, by the look of it, his blood-stopping charm isn't working. Still, he chants on, "…stand still, blood, not one drop more. In the name of three…"

Back to the chest I go and reach down under the Bible and the papers, saying to myself, "Now that I've done what I've done, it hardly matters what else I may do." I pluck that Black Book with its stained cover and thumbed and dirty pages, pluck it out of the box and take it.

The goatman notices me as if for the first time. Now he points at me with his good hand. With burning eyes and trembling finger, he says, "At the cost of your soul! Take it at the cost of your soul!"

Then out the door I dash and make straight for the birches. Maybe my nose can follow the clean, soapy scent of the yellow-haired boy who'd traveled this way.

Svaalberd howls. "I conjure you, devils in heaven and on earth, to stop the person who has stolen from me." His curses follow me as I run and run, headed west. "Do not allow this person tranquility or rest, neither sleeping nor waking…"

If I don't hear the curse, maybe it can't hurt me?

"…sitting nor lying, walking nor standing, riding nor driving…"

Down and down and down I run. Svaalberd's voice follows me: "Thus I throw this curse on her, that she will never have rest on this earth…"

Eventually I will come to a road. Or if not a road, a trail. Or if not a trail, a cow path. Anything that will lead me somewhere-away.

"What are you doing?" the globeflowers seem to ask, nodding their yellow heads at me. "Where are you going?" the darting catchflies say. And the aspen leaves just tsk tsk tsk, turning in the wind.

Oh! Greta! I have to go get her, and I have to get there before the goatman does. For, once his fingers are bound and the pain subsides, old Svaalberd will head for Aunt and Uncle's. Once there, he'll demand restitution for all that he's lost-his money, his fingers-and punishment for the crime committed.

"What's gone is gone," Aunt will say, meaning she already spent the money he gave her and has no more. "And besides, Astri is not here, and there's no use crying over the loss of her."

What will he say to that? He'll say, "I want another girl, then."

But Aunt won't give up one of her own girls. She'll suggest that he take the youngest-Greta.

The thought of it cuts into me. I might as well have swung that knife back on myself and started sawing a hole in my chest through which to pull out my own heart.

I will have to get there first, ahead of the goatman, and get Greta away.

But how? I don't know where Aunt and Uncle live!

Why, oh, why didn't I pay attention when Mr. Goat led me away that first night? I could have at least noticed if I was going up mountains or down dales. Were there streams to cross? Forests to walk through? Now I don't know where to go, and yet somehow I have to get there before the goatman does.

But what if…what if the goatman and I get there at the same time?

I turn and climb back up the mountainside. My legs burn. My lungs burn. My head spins. But I don't stop until I reach the fringe of woods below the goat farm. There I stop, hands on knees, breathing hard.

The farm is quiet. Flies buzz in that peculiar way they do when they think they're alone, with no one to pester. Rolf, stuffed with his recent meal, lies sprawled in the sun, fast asleep. This tranquil scene reminds me with a pang that I could have spent the summer at the seter. How lovely it would have been to spend every gloriously long day up high on the mountain, alone. I would have lolled about in the warm heather, weaving myself crowns of wildflowers. I would have been the princess of my domain, in my kingdom of goats. And none of this horror would have happened.

I am deep in reminiscence of what never was when old Goatbeard comes out of the house and limps toward the shed. Why a couple of missing fingers would make him limp, I do not know, but limp he does, gathering up the goats and urging them into the shed with a switch.

Then out of the shed he comes, muttering. He swings his head from side to side as if looking for something. Into the house and out again, tells the dog to stay, and finally sets off with his walking staff and flask.

I am just sneaking after him when I see her-Spinning Girl, standing among the trees on the far side of the farmyard, as if she has been waiting for me there all this time. In her hand, glinting in the sun, is Svaalberd's ring of keys.

Red as Blood, White as Snow

It's slow going with Spinning Girl. She doesn't so much walk as waddle, tipping from one side to the other, and every step is a huff and a puff. So it isn't long before we lose sight of the goatman. Finally, there's nothing to be done but to stop.

We sit down on a sun-warmed stone and pluck at tufts of bog cotton.

"Once, there was a queen," I begin, by way of explaining our predicament, "whose nose began to bleed. As she looked at the red blood on the white snow, she said, 'If I had a daughter as white as snow and red as blood, it wouldn't matter at all about my sons.' The next thing she knew, she had a daughter, but her twelve sons turned into wild ducks and flew away."

I look at Spinning Girl. "Maybe you were bewitched like that," I muse. "If there was some way to make you all the way human again, what would it be?"

Of course there is no answer to that.

"In the case of the boys-who-were-ducks," I continue, "it all hinged on bog cotton." I toss a bit of fluff in the air and watch it get carried away by the breeze. "In order to break the enchantment, the daughter had to pick enough bog cotton to weave each of her brothers a waistcoat, scarf, and cap. She managed her task, impossible as it was. She turned all her brothers back into humans, although one of them still had a wing because of an unfinished sleeve."

I turn to Spinning Girl. "It seems our task is as impossible as that, for somehow or other we have to find the goatman and get to the farm-and soon!"

Spinning Girl is not looking at me. Her eyes are cast down, and I follow her gaze. At our feet, in the white moss, is a drop of blood, red on the white reindeer moss. At first I think perhaps my nose has begun to bleed, but ahead of us there is another spot of blood. And ahead, another. And there, spattered on a flat stone. And there, a red stain on a patch of old snow, and on and on like this we go, following the drops of red on the moss and stones and snow.

And then-I almost let out a cry-a clump of alders, a patch of daisies, an opening in the woods. A place I recognize.

Here is a stone. Just a stone, but placed just so. It has no words carved on it, but even so, I recognize it. Under this very ground is where my mama lies.

I've never really understood why Mama wasn't buried in the churchyard, but Papa said here was best anyway. Here we could visit her every day, and she could keep an eye on our doings.

Below us is the log cottage where we lived then. The smell of it wafts up the hill to me. It seems as if I can smell the hay in the barn and the cows and the new spring grass all dotted over with violets, and in the house the cold fireplace and the musty trunk, empty now, of course. I can smell it all and more. I can smell all the way back to my childhood.

It even seems for a moment that I can hear the scrape of chairs on the floor of the house, and the rustle of skirts. And women's voices, hushed and intent.

Behind the voices, the distant lowing of cows, the cry of a rooster, a child's ceaseless wailing. And an old woman sitting at the hearth, heating something over the fire.

I shake this strange memory away and tell Spinning Girl, "Stay here awhile." She slumps onto the grass gratefully.

Then it's only a short walk before I look down on Aunt and Uncle's farm. The buildings of the farm below make a kind of circle around a central yard, which I can't see from this angle but where I know there is a well, and worn paths from the house to the barn, from the house to the privy, from the house to the storehouse and the cow barn, the drying house, goat house, henhouse, woodshed, potato cellar, toolshed-all the outbuildings.

I might have been the mistress here one day myself if Papa had been born a few moments earlier. But Papa was not the eldest twin, and it's the eldest son who inherits the farm-that's the law. Still, Papa stayed on the farm as a cotter-an extra hand-until Mama died. Then the farm fell on hard times and couldn't support us all. And why was that? Not for lack of soil or livestock; it was Aunt, who squandered anything extra on fine things for her daughters. "Their dowries," she claimed, and filled their chests with linen tablecloths, pewter candlesticks, butter presses, ale bowls, lace curtains, and crisp, white aprons while our little family went hungry.

I creep down the hill and crouch behind a barrel in the shade of the cow barn, keeping my eyes peeled for Svaalberd. A lift of the lid and a dunk of a finger is all it takes to discover the barrel's contents: beer. There are two barrelsful, which is something to wonder over. Another thing to wonder over is where everyone is. The farm seems strangely quiet, but perhaps they are all out in the fields, engaged in some chore.

Shh! There goes the goatman, creeping from chicken house to hay shed. As soon as he's inside, I race across the yard and dart into the house.

No one is home, but what is this? The table is laid with a new lace tablecloth. On top of that sits the largest tub of sour-cream porridge I've ever seen. Surrounding it are

-platters heaped high with flatbread and rounds of crisp kn?kkebr?d;

-thinly sliced cured ham, smoked mutton, and spiced sausages;

-an enormous plate of scrambled eggs flecked with bright specks of green chives;

-a vat of pea soup;

-tiny new carrots and peas, steamed and glossy with freshly churned butter;

-and cakes of all kinds: almond, marzipan, and one slathered with whipped cream and dotted all over with cherries and plums (now one plum less)

and everything as pretty as can be.

I can't stop staring at it all. But there's movement out the window, and I duck down by the table. A glance tells me that Svaalberd is hobbling across the farmyard. He stops and swings his head from side to side, whether from puzzlement or pain, I cannot say. While I wait for him to decide where he's headed, I slice into the marzipan cake and take a piece. It is so soft and sweet, something I have only heard of, never tasted, and I wonder how this abundance has come to pass.

In the story of the girl and the bear, when the girl left the bear's castle to go home to visit her family, she found them living in splendor. They had everything they wished for: food and fine things and so much joy that there was no end to it.

I stare again at the table laden with food. At the fresh white tablecloth. The pretty lace curtains. The piece of cake in my hand. Is it enchanted, this cake? And all of this? Magic that will turn into vapor at any moment?

Just in case, I stuff the rest of the piece in my mouth.

With a start, I see that Svaalberd is stomping in my direction. I climb out the opposite window, alighting on the grass on the far side of the house.

Now, here's an odd thing: All of my cousins' everyday dresses are spread out in the grass as if the girls had been napping there and suddenly disappeared, leaving their dresses behind. Here their white stockings are lying like puddles of dirty snow. And here their everyday aprons. There's a sour taste in my mouth now, like you might get if the cake you just ate was baked from deviltry.

Then I notice the buckets and the soap and the cloths for drying, and realize they must have been washing here and left their clothes to dry in the sun. There is a lump of soap right there, probably the very soap I helped make out of ashes and tallow but never was allowed to use. Well. As I've now become a thief, I don't see the harm in taking one more thing, especially something I made myself. Into the sack it goes.

Peeking around the corner, I watch as Svaalberd exits the house and crosses the yard. That is when I notice something that explains everything: several long tables lined up end to end in the middle of the yard, all covered neatly in crisp white tablecloths, the edges fluttering in the breeze.

And then I know where everyone is.

Past the tables, down the hillside, winding along the road from the valley below, comes a moving river of dark colors and white splotches. The dark colors are men's jackets and women's skirts; the white splotches are the women's bright aprons and blouses. I can hear the fiddle now; its happy tones waft up the hill toward the farm.

Even from this distance, the glint and glimmer of the bridal crown makes me catch my breath. A bridal crown! Which of my cousins is the lucky bride? I wonder. I squint and pull at the corners of my eyes to see which girl it is, but all I can see is the glittering of the silver crown upon her head. However did Aunt pay for that? And how did she pay for the pounds of rice and raisins and sugar for the pudding and the barrels of beer? She would have had to sell something. But what did she have left to sell?

What looks like every living soul in the valley troops along behind the newly married couple up toward the farm, where they will have a feast of sausages, pea soup, and pudding, the beer from the barrels in the shade of the barn, and the cake with one slice missing.

The crunch of footfalls sends my heart catapulting into my throat. Svaalberd! Where is he now? I peek around the side of the house and see him crossing to the privy. Well, I know what to do about that!

The very moment he steps inside, I run across the yard, slam the door, and throw shut the iron latch-the latch that works only from the outside and that keeps the door from banging on windy days or lets others know the little house is unoccupied.

Just in time, too, because the procession is nearing the farm.

Then I race across the yard and fling myself under the table. In the meantime, old Goatbeard pounds with his fists, cursing a blue streak. But the fiddler plays, the women are "Don't you look fine?"-ing, the men "Oh is that so?"-ing. Children chase each other in play, shrieking with delight. Not a soul hears poor old Svaalberd banging on the outhouse door.

By lifting one corner of the tablecloth, I have quite a good view of the proceedings: There is Aunt, her face flushed with triumph as she nods smugly to the women, smiles haughtily at the men, and laughs indulgently at the children, who are wiping their sweaty faces on the table linens. And there are my cousins, trying to out-pretty each other in front of the boys. Meanwhile Greta runs back and forth, carrying trays and plates and bowls from the house to the tables.

Aunt invites the guests to the table and then turns to the parson. "Will you lead us in the table prayer, Reverend?" she asks ever so sweetly.

Everyone bows their heads in preparation for prayer. Even Svaalberd is quiet. Perhaps he's praying someone will let him out.

I suppose I should be praying, too, and praying for all I'm worth, but I'm watching for Greta. And here she comes out of the house carrying the marzipan cake-Aunt's eyes flash toward the missing slice, then narrow to slits as she stares at Greta.

The parson begins his prayer: "Gracious God in heaven."

"The devil in blackest hell!" a voice calls from the outhouse.

Heads remain bowed, although eyes flicker upward. Still, the parson goes on. "We humbly beseech you-"

"By Lucifer, open this cursed door!" Svaalberd shouts.

"-to bless these thy gifts-" continues the parson.

"Curse you to all eight hells!" Svaalberd hollers and, with a crash and a clatter, bursts open the door. Out he flies, head-first like a billy goat, and runs down the little slope and comes charging, arms spinning, into the crowd.

Uncle steps aside to avoid being knocked down, and the wild-eyed goatman flies past him, then staggers about in the middle of the farmyard, his face purple with rage. He curses, shakes his shaggy head, and waves his bloody, bandaged hand.

"You wretched lot who locked me in the privy should be ashamed!" he cries.

The wedding guests stand as if turned to stone.

"Here I have come now to seek restitution. That girl you sold me turned out to be a worthless wench who never did a decent day's work." (That is a lie.) "She stole my money." (That is true.) "And she-"

Aunt interrupts him. "You must have done something to deserve it, you old goat," she says.

"What did I do to deserve this?" he screams, flinging off his bandages and waving his bloody stumps at the crowd. Blood spatters on white blouses and aprons. Women shriek; men back away; children cower.

Only Aunt stands her ground. "Now, Svaalberd," she says, "you'd best go home and take care of that wound. You can see we've got a festive occasion-"

"Which you've spent plenty on, by the look of it; I can see that, all right!" he shouts. "Festivity or no, I need a new girl. I'll take"-he points one of his mutilated fingers at the bride, who clings, trembling, to her new husband, also trembling-"that one."

"She's only just married," Aunt says.

"Then this one," Svaalberd says, seizing Katinka's long braid.

"No!" Aunt cries, rushing to her. "She'll be married herself soon."

Meanwhile, I'm scrambling along under the long table as fast as I can go, my eyes on the far end, at Greta's little white stockings surrounded by grown-up legs. In the meantime, I can hear Svaalberd making his way along the line of girls toward Greta.

Aunt has an excuse for each one:

"She's half-deaf."

"This one'll never give you a day's work."

"That one's lame."

"I need a girl to replace the one who's run away!" Svaalberd shouts. "I need a girl!"

"You can have the youngest," Aunt says. "You can have Greta."

Which one of us, I wonder, wriggling along-all bruised knees and pounding heart-which one of us, me or the goatman, will reach her first?

"Where is she, then?" Svaalberd booms.

I imagine everyone's head swiveling, looking around for tiny Greta, so easily swallowed up in a sea of adults. So much smaller than you'd think for a girl of eight.

"Why"-it's Aunt's voice again-"she was there just a moment ago."

I see Aunt's hand reaching for the edge of the tablecloth.

"Again you try to cheat me!" Svaalberd roars.

The tablecloth is thrown back, and while Greta and I cling to each other, we catch glimpses of Svaalberd choking Aunt, then Uncle leaping onto the goatman's back. The goatman twists and turns and finally manages to fling Uncle into the watering trough.

Some men rush to help Uncle, others try to subdue Svaalberd, while still others have cracked the beer barrels and are quaffing their thirst while taking bets on the outcome.

Chairs are overturned, the porridge pot upended. Chickens come scuttling to peck at the crusts and crumbles that spill from the table. Even a goat prances over, climbs a chair, and is now on the table munching something. The almond cake, most like.

In the meantime, Greta and I make our long way under the tables to the end closest to the trees.

"Little sister," I say to her. "We are going to America."

She nods yes. Yes! she nods.

"Do you need to get anything before we leave?" I whisper.

She shakes her head no. It's a stab to my heart that in the midst of all this plenty, she has nothing to fetch.

"Well," I whisper, "we're not leaving without some of this feast!"

Out we jump and join the chickens, who are grabbing cardamom buns, sliced ham, and sausages. Into the sack it all goes, and Greta and I head for the trees.

The beer has done its work, for men are throwing punches at each other, settling old scores. The bridegroom has joined the beer drinkers, and the bride is slumped in a chair, weeping. This is the last thing I see as Greta and I, our sack stuffed with food and treasure, dash into the woods on the far side of the farm. And the last thing I hear ringing in my ears is my Aunt's shrill voice yelling, "There they are! The two girls! There they go!"