THE BOAT DANCED ungracefully in from the fishing grounds. Her crew, a man and a boy, reached steadily back and forth, working their two pairs of oars through the choppy water. Out beyond the islands, the wind tore a long yellow rift in the clouds and the setting sun blinked through in stormy brilliance.
Dazzled, the boy missed his stroke. The oars sliced through air instead of water, and he flew backwards off his seat into a tangle of nets and a slithery heap of fat, bright fish.
“Resting?” teased his friend Bjørn. “Had enough for one day?”
Peer laughed, then gasped as spray slapped his face. He scrambled up with dripping hair, snatching for the loose oars.
“Bad weather’s coming,” said Bjørn. The breeze stiffened, carrying cold points of rain. “But we’ll get home before it catches us.”
“You will,” Peer said. “I’ll get soaked on my way up the hill.”
“Stay with us,” offered Bjørn. “Kersten would love to see you. You can earn your supper by admiring the baby.” He glanced around, smiling at Peer’s sudden silence. “Come on. Surely you’re used to babies, up at the farm? How old is little Eirik now? About a year? He’s a fine little fellow, isn’t he? It’s sad his grandpa never saw him.”
“Yes… although actually,” said Peer, “he might have lost patience with the noise. Dear old Eirik, he was always grumbling, ‘A poet needs peace and quiet!’ Little Eirik screams such a lot. Babies! I never knew they were so much trouble.”
“Ours is a good little soul,” Bjørn said proudly. “Never cries.”
“So how is Kersten?” Peer asked, his eye on the shore. Bjørn pulled a couple of hard strokes on one oar to straighten up. “Fine, thanks.” The boat shot in on the back of a breaking wave, and Peer sprang out into a welter of froth and seaweed. Bjørn followed and together they ran the boat higher up the stony beach.
“A grand day’s work,” Bjørn said. Reaching into the boat, he hooked his fingers into the gills of a heavy, shining cod and hefted it in his blunt, capable hands. “Plenty of eating on that one. Take it with you.” He handed it to Peer, long strands of sea-stiffened fair hair blowing across his face. “Or will you stay?”
“I’ll stay,” Peer decided. “They won’t worry. They know I’m with you.” Absurdly, he hugged the fish, smiling. Three years ago he’d been a friendless orphan, and he could still hardly believe that he had a family now, who cared about him.
“Good choice!” said Bjørn. “Kersten can fry that fish, then, and we’ll have it with lots of warm bread and hot sizzling butter. Hungry?”
“Starving.” Peer licked his lips.
“Go on ahead while I finish up. Off with you! Here comes the wet.”
Cold rain swept in from the sea as Peer dashed across the clattering shingle, dodging boulders and jumping over inlets where the tide swirled and sloshed. It was fun, pitting himself against the weather. Soon he came to the channel where the stream ran down to the sea. Beside it, the path to the village wound up through the sand dunes. Rain hissed through the long wiry grass. He slowed to a plod, looking forward to sitting snugly by the fire while Kersten cooked.
Footsteps thudded on the path. In a flurry of flying hair and swirling cloak, a woman ran headlong out of the mist and slammed into him. Peer dropped the fish, and the woman grabbed him, struggling for balance. He tried to push her off and his hands tangled in her wet hair. Her hood fell back.
“Kersten!” Peer’s voice rose in cold fright. “What’s wrong?”
She clutched him fiercely. “Is Gudrun still breast-feeding?”
Peer gaped. “What?”
She shook his arm angrily. “Is Gudrun still suckling her baby?” She threw back a fold of her huge cloak. It flapped heavily in the wind, slapping his legs like wet hide. In the crook of her arm, wrapped in a lambskin —
Her baby? Peer blinked in horror. She thrust it into his arms; he had to take it before she dropped it.
“Take her to Gudrun – Gudrun can feed her —”
“Kersten,” Peer croaked. “What’s happened? Where are you going?”
She looked at him with eyes like dark holes. “Home.” Then she was past him, the cloak dragging after her. He snatched for it. Sleek wet fur tugged through his fingers. “Kersten! Stop!”
She ran down the path, and he began to run too, but the baby jolting in his arms slowed him to long desperate strides.
“Kersten!” His feet skated on wet grass, sank into pockets of soft sand. She was on the beach now, running straight for the water. He could never catch her. Peer skidded to a crazy halt. He saw Bjørn bending over the boat, doing something with the nets. Peer filled his lungs and bellowed, “Bjørn!” at the top of his voice. He pointed.
Bjørn turned, staring. Then he flung himself forwards, pounding across the beach to intercept Kersten. And Kersten stopped. She threw herself flat, and the wet sealskin cloak billowed over her, hiding her from head to foot. Underneath it, she continued to move, in heavy lolloping jumps. She must be crawling, drawing the skin cloak closely around her. She rolled. Waves rushed up and sucked her into the water. Trapped in those encumbering folds, she would drown.
“Kersten!” Peer screamed. The body in the water twisted, lithe and muscular, and plunged forward into the next grey wave.
Bjørn was racing for his boat. He hurled himself on it, driving it down the shingle into the water, wrenching the bows around to point into the waves.
“Bjørn!” Peer cried into the wind. Spray filled his mouth with salt. He stammered and spat. “Your baby – your baby!”
Bjørn jumped into the boat. The oars rattled out and he dug them into the water with savage strokes, twisting to scan the sea. Peer heard him shout, his voice cracking, “Kersten! Kersten, come back…” The boat reared over lines of white breakers, and was swallowed by rain and darkness.
Peer stared. A sleek head bobbed in the water. He ran forward in wild hope. It was gone. Then he saw another – and another, rising and falling with the swell. Swift dark bodies swept easily between wave and wave.
“Seals!” he whispered.
In his arm the baby stirred, arching its back and thrusting thin fists into the rain. Its eyes were tight shut, but it moved its head as if seeking something to suck. Soon it would be hungry. Soon it would cry.
Peer’s teeth chattered. Clumsily he tried to arrange its wrappings, dragging the blanket over its arms. It seemed tiny, much younger than little Eirik up at the farm. Was it a boy or a girl? He couldn’t remember. It felt like ice. Didn’t babies die if they got too cold?
Gudrun, he thought. I’ve got to get it to Gudrun. Kersten said.
Holding the baby stiffly across his chest, he trudged up the path through the dunes. The sound of the sea was muffled, and he left the spray behind, but the keen rain followed, soaking his shoulders and arms, trickling down his back. The first house in the village was Bjørn’s. The door stood wide open. Peer hesitated, then stepped quickly in. He pushed the door shut, shivering.
The fire was out. The dark house smelt of cold, bitter ashes. Angry tears pricked Peer’s eyelids. He remembered Kersten’s warmth and gaiety and good cooking. Whatever had gone wrong?
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. Now what? He tried to think. 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 capsize, he might never come home at all…
Peer crushed down rising panic. When he does come, he’ll be cold, he told himself. I should light the fire.
He knew where Bjørn kept his strike-a-light and a box of dry wood-shavings, but in the dark he knocked the box to the floor and had to feel about for the knob of flint and the wedge of cold iron. He struck flint and iron together, showering sparks. The wood-shavings caught. When the fire was burning steadily, he got stiffly to his feet and looked around.
The house had only one room, and little furniture. The firelight gleamed here on a polished wooden bowl, there on a thin-bladed sickle hanging on the wall. In a corner stood Bjørn and Kersten’s bed, the blankets neatly folded. Peer 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 small and hard. He picked it up and held it to the light. A small iron key.
His eyes flew to the darkest corner of the room. A long wooden box stood there, a chest for valuables. Bjørn always kept the lid padlocked shut. It was open now, dragged out crookedly from the wall, the padlock unhooked and the lid hurled back. Peer knelt, plunging his arms into the solid black shadow that was the interior, feeling into every corner. The chest was empty.
It didn’t make sense. Peer tried to imagine robbers arriving, forcing Kersten to find the key, open the chest… but Kersten need only scream to raise the entire village. And why would she run into the sea? And what could Bjørn possibly own, that anyone might want to steal? He paced about in growing anxiety, waiting for Bjørn to return. At last he gave up. He covered the fire, 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. “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 a serious, penetrating stare, as if his soul were a well and it was looking right down to the very bottom. Peer gazed 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 knew only what was right here and now: the hunger in its belly, and Peer’s arms holding it, firmly wrapped and warm. 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.
The wind spat rain and sleet. Peer splashed past Einar’s house, and a goat, sheltering against a wall, scrambled to its feet and barged past, nearly knocking him down. As he cursed it, the doorlatch clicked and Einar looked out. “Who’s there?”
“It’s me,” began Peer, but he couldn’t explain. Kersten had thrown herself into the sea. Bjørn’s house had been robbed. He was holding their baby… He left Einar puzzled on the doorstep, and slunk out of the village like a thief.
Driving rain followed him up the hill. Every gust of wind blew his cloak open. The baby wriggled. Afraid it would slip, he stopped, trying to find a dry edge to wrap around it, but the woollen fabric seemed all muddy or sodden, and he gave up in despair. The baby’s head tipped back and those dark eyes stared at him again. Uneasily Peer stared back. Something was wrong. This baby was too good, too quiet. Little Eirik would be screaming his head off by now, he thought. Was the baby too cold to cry? Too weak?
Frightened, he plunged on up the path. Gudrun could give it warmth and milk. But at the moment 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 leafless wood.
Ahead of him the black roofline of the mill appeared between the trees, the thatch twisted into crooked horns above narrow gables. It was on just such a wild night that Peer had first seen it, three years ago. His uncles had long gone, but the mill had a bad name still. Odd creatures were said to loiter in its dark rooms and squint through the broken shutters. A splash from the mill pond might be Granny Greenteeth, lurking under the weed-clogged surface, waiting to drag down anyone who strayed.
Peer clutched the baby tighter. There was no way of avoiding the place: the road led right up to it, before crossing the stream on an old wooden bridge. As he passed he glanced up. The walls leaned over, cold and silent.
The river snarled over the weir in white froth. He looked upstream at the waterwheel, in the darkness hardly more than a tall looming bulk – and was instantly giddy. The wheel’s moving! Only the water tearing underneath, perhaps; or were those black, dripping blades really lifting, one after another, rolling upwards, picking up speed?
An unearthly squeal skewered the night. Peer shot off the bridge. The anguished noise went on and on, far too long for anything with lungs. It came from deep within the mill. Peer fought for his wits. The machinery! It was the sound of great wooden axles screeching into life.
The wheel was turning. The mill was awake! Peer flinched, half expecting the lopsided windows to wink open with yellow light. He got a grip on himself. The mill can’t start by itself. Someone’s opened the sluice, started the wheel. But who?
The path that led to the dam was overgrown with a wilderness of whispering bushes. Anything might crouch there, hiding… or watching. From high up the fell came the distant shriek of some bird, a sound broken into pieces by the gale.
He drew a deep, careful breath. With all this rain, perhaps the sluicegate’s collapsed, and the water’s escaping under the wheel.
That’ll be it.
He hurried on. The cart track slanted uphill into the woods. Often, as he went, he heard stones clatter on the path behind him, dislodged perhaps by rain and weather. And, all the way, he had the feeling that someone or something was following him, climbing out of the dark pocket where the mill sat in its narrow valley. He tried looking over his shoulder, but that made him stumble, and it was too dark to see.