Troll Mill. Katherine Langrish

soaking into his shoulders and arms, trickling down his back. The first house in the village was Bjørn’s. The door stood wide open, and rain was driving in. Peer hesitated, and then stepped quickly inside. He pushed the door shut, shivering.

      The fire was out. The dark house smelled of cold, bitter ashes. Angry tears pricked Peer’s eyelids. He remembered Kersten’s warmth and gaiety and good cooking. Whatever had gone wrong?

      Still holding the baby, he blundered across the room and cracked his shins on something wooden that moved. It swung back and hit him again, and he put a hand out to still it. A cradle.

      Thankfully, Peer lowered the baby into the cradle and stood for a moment, trying to make his brain work. What now? Did anyone else in the village have a young baby? No. Gudrun was the only person who could feed it. But what will Bjørn think if he comes home, and the baby’s gone? Should I wait for him? But he might not be back for ages. He might capsize, he might never come home at all…

      Peer crushed down rising panic. When he does come, he’ll be cold, he told himself sternly. He’ll need to get warm.

       At least I can light the fire.

      It was the obvious, the sensible thing to do, and he groped his way to the ledge where Bjørn kept his strike-a-light, and a box of dry wood shavings. Clumsy in the dark, he knocked the box to the floor and had to feel about for the knob of flint and the crescent-shaped steel striker. He scooped a handful of shavings into the hearth and struck flint and steel together repeatedly, showering sparks. The wood shavings caught. Wriggling red-hot worms appeared in the darkness, and Peer blew, coaxing them into clear flames. The room glimmered into view. With a sigh of relief he grabbed a handful of kindling, and carefully fed the blaze with twigs and branches. The fire nibbled them from his fingers like a live, bright animal. When at last it was burning steadily and giving out heat, he got stiffly to his feet.

      The house had only one room and little furniture. The firelight picked out a few details and crowded the rest with shadows. It gleamed here on a polished wooden bowl, there on a thin-bladed sickle hanging on the wall. Peer wandered about. In a corner stood Bjørn and Kersten’s bed, the rough blankets neatly folded. He felt like an intruder. And there was nothing to show why Kersten had suddenly rushed out of the house, carrying her baby.

      His foot came down on something hard. It clinked. He picked it up, his fingers exploring the unusual shape before he held it into the light. A small iron key on a ring.

      A key? His eyes flew to the darkest corner of the room where a big wooden chest stood, a chest for valuables, with a curved lid that Bjørn always kept padlocked shut.

      It was open now, dragged out crookedly from the wall, the padlock unhooked and the lid hurled back. Peer threw himself on his knees and plunged his arms into the solid black shadow that was the interior, feeling about into every corner. But whatever Bjørn normally kept there was gone. The chest was empty.

      Bjørn’s been robbed. Peer got to his feet, his head spinning. Is that why Kersten was so upset? But no; it doesn’t make sense. She’d tell Bjørn, not run into the sea. She’d have told me! And who could have done it? He tried to imagine robbers arriving, forcing Kersten to find the key, open the chest…

      It still didn’t make sense. Trollsvik was such a small place, the neighbours so close. Kersten need only scream to raise the entire village. And he couldn’t imagine what Bjørn might own that anyone would want to steal. He sat down on a bench, his head aching, longing for Bjørn to come.

      At last he gave up. He banked the fire up with logs and peat, and bent to scoop the baby out of the cradle. It was awake, and hungry. It had crammed its tiny fingers into its mouth and was munching them busily. Peer’s heart sank.

      “I haven’t got anything for you!” he told it, as if speaking to his dog, Loki. “Come on–let’s get you wrapped up.” He grabbed an old cloak from a peg behind the door, and as he bundled it around them both, the baby looked straight into his eyes.

      It didn’t smile–Peer didn’t know if it was even old enough to smile. It gazed into his face with the most serious and penetrating of stares, as if his soul were a well and it was looking right down to the very bottom. Peer looked back. The baby didn’t know about robbers, or the wild night outside, or its missing parents. It didn’t know that it might die, or grow up an orphan. It didn’t even know it needed help. It knew only what was right here and now: the hunger in its belly and Peer’s arms holding it, firmly wrapped and warm, and his face looking down at it. For this baby, Peer was the only person in the world. He drew a shaky breath.

      “They left you,” he said through gritted teeth. “But I won’t. You come with me!” Pressing the baby to his shoulder, he elbowed the door open and strode furiously out into the pitch-black night.

      A bullying wind leaped into his face, spitting rain and sleet. Peer tried to pull another fold up over the baby’s head as he hurried along. No one was about, but the wind blew smoke at him, and the smell of cooking. He splashed by Einar’s house, and a goat, sheltering against a wall, scrambled to its feet and barged past, nearly knocking him over. As he cursed it, the door latch clicked and Einar poked his head out. “Who’s there?” he quavered.

      “It’s me…” began Peer, but he couldn’t go on. Kersten had thrown herself into the sea. Bjørn’s house had been robbed. He was holding their baby. He could never explain. Face burning, he turned and fled, leaving Einar puzzled on the doorstep.

      Feeling like a thief, Peer slunk out of the village, and the wind blustered after him up the hill. He cupped the baby’s head against his throat with one rain-chilled hand, and felt a tickle of warmth against his skin as it breathed.

      He trudged up the path. The cloak kept unwrapping and tangling round his legs; he had nothing to pin it with and needed both arms for the baby. Every gust of wind blew it open, and rain soaked into him. But he hardly noticed. His mind was back on the shore, reliving the moments when Kersten had rushed down the shingle. If only I’d grabbed her, he thought. Surely I could have stopped her! But I was holding the baby. Why did she do it? Why?

      The baby shrank in his arms as if curling up. Afraid it would slip, he stopped and tried to find a dry edge of cloak to wrap around it, but the woollen fabric was all muddy or sodden, and he gave up in despair. The baby’s head tipped back. There were those dark eyes staring at him again. Uneasily he returned their stare. Something was wrong. This baby was too good, too quiet. Little Eirik would be screaming his head off by now, he thought. What did that mean? Was the baby too cold to cry? Too weak?

      Frightened, he plunged on up the path. He had to get it to Gudrun. She could give it warmth and milk. But at the moment the rain was beating down out of the black night; he could hardly see where to put his feet, and there were a couple of miles of rough track to go, past the old mill and up through the wood. The trees overhanging the path were not in leaf yet, and gave no shelter.

      Ahead of him the black roofline of the mill appeared between the trees, the thatch twisted into crooked horns above narrow gables. Peer tripped over the hem of the cloak, ripping it. His pace slowed. The mill…It was on just such a wild night that he’d first seen it, three years ago. His half-uncle Baldur had brought him jolting all the way over Troll Fell in an ox-cart, through thunder and drenching rain. He’d caught his first glimpse of the mill in a flash of lightning. Peer remembered huddling in the bottom of the cart, staring fearfully up at the mean windows, like leering eyes, the rotting thatch and patched shutters.

      He still hated going past there after dark, even now that it was empty. The yard was choked with dead leaves, the sheds crumbling. The very walls reeked.

      True, his uncles had long gone. They had tried to sell him to the trolls, but their brutish greed had led them to quarrel over a cupful of the trolls’ dark beer. Gulping down the strange brew, they had changed into trollish creatures themselves, tusks sprouting from their faces. Though Peer and his friends had escaped, Baldur and Grim Grimsson had remained under Troll Fell. No one had ever seen them again.

      But the mill had a bad name still. Who