“YOU DO LOOK smug,” Gudrun teased. “Like the cat that got the cream.”
“And so he should,” put in Ralf. “He’s going to be a rich man. A successful miller!”
Peer grinned shyly. He sat, as he often did now, holding Ran in the crook of his arm. The baby looked about with her dark, solemn eyes, stretching her hand towards anything that interested her. By now, everyone in the family had noticed the fine webs lacing between her tiny fingers. No one talked about it.
Eirik hauled himself up against Peer’s knee. He grabbed Ran’s hand and planted a wet kiss on it, looking at her with an impish smile. Ran blew bubbles. Gudrun turned, rubbing dough from her fingers.
“Did Ran make that noise? I suppose it’s something. I’ve wondered if she’s deaf. She never smiles. She never cries.”
Peer looked down at the baby. “She’ll learn, won’t she?” he asked. “I thought she smiled at me the other day – she sort of crinkled her nose.”
Gudrun sniffed. “Peer, if she had really smiled, you wouldn’t think. You’d know.”
I’ll make her a toy!” said Peer, suddenly. He handed Ran to Hilde, and spent the next half hour constructing a little wooden whistle with two stops. When blown, it produced a pretty, warbling note. Ran’s eyes opened wide and she reached for it, but still she didn’t smile.
“How clever of you, Peer!” exclaimed Hilde. “Look, she heard it. Now we know for sure she’s not deaf.”
Peer smiled, thinking of the comb he was carving for Hilde. It was nearly finished, but he didn’t want to give it to her in front of everyone. He was waiting for the perfect moment. “My father showed me how to make whistles,” he said, aloud. “I haven’t made one for years.”
“I’d forgotten your father was a woodcarver,” said Ralf. “Didn’t he make the dragonhead for our ship, the Long Serpent?”
Peer nodded slowly. “He was working on it just before he died.” He fell silent, his hands between his knees, remembering how they had burned his father’s body on the beach at Hammerhaven, with the dragonship drawn up on the strand close by. He had watched the flames shooting into the cold sky, and the ship had seemed to arch its proud dragon neck, glaring over the crowds like a sentinel. That dragonship had sailed all the way to Vinland and back again.
“Thorolf ’s still the skipper,” Ralf said. “He takes her voyaging every summer. They’ll be sailing soon. I wonder…” And he gave a long, unconscious sigh.
Gudrun stared at him, biting her lip. Suddenly she burst out, “It’s no good dreaming, Ralf. There’s too much work to do. Sheep shearing next, and then harvest time. Nearly every morning, you’re off to the mill, and here I am, coping with two babies and the children. You can’t go.”
Ralf looked at her in surprise. “Why, Gudrun!”
“It’s all very well for you, Ralf!” Gudrun’s voice shook. “I haven’t set foot off the farm in weeks. I can’t remember when I last spoke to one of the neighbours.”
“You’re right.” Ralf got to his feet. “By thunder, you’re right, Gudrun. We’ve been working so hard, we’ve forgotten how to have fun. Here’s a plan! We’ll take a holiday tomorrow, children, babies and all. We’ll go down to Trollsvik. You can visit the womenfolk and have a good chat, and I’ll find Bjørn. It’s time he clapped eyes on his daughter. The children can play on the beach. How does that sound?”
Gudrun sniffed and smiled.
Next morning, the children were scrubbed and paraded.
“You can’t go to the village with a neck like that!” Gudrun pushed up her sleeves and dunked the spluttering Sigurd for a second time. “And put on a clean tunic!” she added, opening the chest where the best clothes were kept.
“Gudrun, they’ll only get dirty on the beach,” Ralf tried to say. His wife tossed him a comb. “Use this, Ralf. And clean your nails! Hilde?”
“Yes, Ma?” asked Hilde meekly, winking at Peer.
“Come and help me pin my cloak. Are we ready?”
“This is more trouble than any Viking expedition,” Ralf joked. He lifted her on to the pony, put Ran into her arms, stood back and saluted. “Lead on, Captain!” And with Peer and Hilde leading the pony, the twins and Loki running ahead, and Ralf bringing up the rear with Eirik on his shoulders, the family set off.
Peer sneaked a look at Hilde round the end of the pony’s nose. Her fair skin was flushed and freckled, and her golden plaits shone. She was swinging along, humming to herself. Over her best blue dress she wore an embroidered linen apron, almost blindingly white in the sunshine, and a white linen hood.
He felt in his pocket. He’d sat up half of last night, straining his eyes in the firelight, finishing Hilde’s comb. He explored it with his fingers. The teeth were a bit thick, perhaps. But the curved back was nicely carved. He gripped it tightly. “You do look pretty, Hilde,” he said shyly.
Hilde glanced at him. “Thanks,” she said curtly, and stopped humming. With a sigh, Peer let the comb slide into the depths of his pocket.
The mill came in sight. Even Peer felt secretly glad to be going somewhere else. “Would you like to see what we’ve done, Gudrun?” he offered half-heartedly. But Gudrun, swaying downhill on the pony, clutched Ran more tightly to her chest and said in alarm, “Another time, perhaps!”
He lowered his head and trudged on.
“It’s a strange business!” said Einar, shaking his head.
“What is, Einar?” Gudrun finished a morsel of his wife’s salted cheese. “Try this, Ralf, it’s so good! What do you put in it, Asa?”
“Just a little thyme!” As fat as Gudrun was thin, Asa beamed at her. “But then our goats forage along the seashore, you know, and they eat the seaweed. I think that gives the cheese some of its flavour.”
“This business of Bjørn Egilsson,” persisted Einar.
“Oh, terrible!” Asa joined in. “You wouldn’t believe what’s been going on.” Her voice dropped. “Day and night, he’s out there, rowing and calling for his wife – if wife she was!”
“What else might she be?” Ralf asked, his hand suddenly suspended between mouth and platter.
Asa tittered. “Well, Ralf, you know as well as I do. A seal woman she was – and the seals have called her back. To think o a neighbour of ours taking a creature like that between his sheets!”
Ralf laid the piece of cheese back on the platter. “I believe I will go and find Bjørn,” he said, rising. “Come with me, Peer? Excuse us, Einar!” Peer followed him out. Einar and Asa watched them go, and Einar raised a hand to silence Gudrun, who was about to speak.
“Don’t say a word! Ralf ’s a decent man. I can see he doesn’t want to believe it, but it’s true enough.”
“And what do you mean by that?” asked Gudrun.
Einar leaned across the table. “Bjørn’s a marked man!” he said importantly. “We’ve all seen the signs. In the last seven years, think of the luck he’s had! The best fisherman on the fjord, for sure. That’s all changed now. His wife’s gone, and taken his luck with her. And there’s worse.”
“They say,” whispered Asa, “that the draug boat follows him now, every time he goes out.”
“Harald’s seen it,” Einar continued. “Out beyond the point, three days ago. He saw Bjørn’s boat, sailing in, and beyond it another. But this second boat wasn’t always there.”
“That’s silly,” said Hilde, who was listening, with Ran swaddled on her knee. “Harald got spray in his eyes, I should think.”
“No,” said Asa. “It was a six-oarer, with a dark sail, and it flickered in and out of sight like a butterfly’s wings. There, and then gone.
“And what about the odd thing Thorkell saw on the beach? Only a week ago – late evening, nearly dark. He’s coming along past the boats, and he hears something cough. He looks around, and he sees this big, dark shape heaving itself up out of Bjørn’s boat. It topples over the side and starts to drag itself along on the shingle, scrunching and moaning.
“Like a huge black seal it was, as far as he could see in the gloaming: but there’s something uncanny about it, and it’s coming closer and closer, and he can’t hobble fast, old Thorkell. So he picks up a rock and flings it straight at the creature! Up it jumps, taller than a man; and clatters off on two legs, away down the shingle!”
Gudrun raised a sceptical eyebrow. There was a short silence. Asa wriggled on her seat and changed the subject. “So this is Bjørn’s baby, Gudrun,” she said, avidly studying Ran. “Is it true she’s a freak?”
“A freak?” Hilde gasped. “She’s quite normal!”
Asa’s face fell. “But I heard she has hair all over her body! And seal’s paws, instead of hands. Surely that’s why Bjørn won’t have anything to do with her?”
Protectively, Hilde’s hands flew to cover Ran’s.
“You shouldn’t believe all you hear, Asa,” said Gudrun in a calm voice.
“Well!” Asa bridled. “I wouldn’t dare to bring up a baby like that along with my own children: but you’ve always been bold, Gudrun. At least I suppose you’ve given up thinking of Bjørn’s brother Arne for young Hilde. There’s a curse on that family now!”
“Hilde!” said Gudrun swiftly. “Why don’t you join the twins on the beach? Take Ran and go for a walk. It’s lovely out there in the sunshine!”
With a burning face Hilde scrambled up and blundered thankfully out into the hot sunlight. Behind her, she heard her mother begin in scorching tones: “Now just you listen to me, Asa…”
“Give it to her, Ma!” Hilde stuck out her tongue at the house, hitched Ran up in her arms, and walked through the village and up over the sand dunes. Down on the beach Sigurd and Sigrid were playing with Einar’s two little boys, throwing pebbles into the water to make them skip. A couple of boats were drawn up on the shingle, and she could see Ralf and Peer talking with a small group of the village men: she couldn’t see Bjørn.
Hilde turned the other way. She kicked off her shoes and paddled through the stream where it fanned out over the sand. Ahead, the cliffs under Troll Fell rose steeply out of the water, and the strand narrowed to a jumble of rocks at the point where the fjord met the open sea.
It was noon, boiling hot, and the tide was in. Splinters of light flew off the water like darts. Hilde trod gratefully into baking banks of seaweed, brittle on top, soft and slippery beneath. Sand fleas hopped over her toes. The sea curled over on to the strand and drained out through the pebbles with a crackling sound.
Further along, a ridge of rocks extended into the water like a knobbly backbone. With an effort, Hilde clambered on to a big one and sat down with Ran in her lap, thinking poisoned thoughts. Is it true, what Asa said? Bjørn doesn’t want Ran because she’s got seal blood? Is that why he doesn’t come to see her? It seemed horribly possible. She dropped an angry kiss on Ran’s silky dark head.
Waves tilted casually against the rocks and burst, spattering her with their cold salty spray. Then they sank back, and an embroidery of foam swirled after them. Further out, seabirds were diving: guillemots, cormorants and gulls quarrelling in great tangled knots on the surface, screaming over the fish.
Hilde longed to scream too – at Asa (stupid woman!) – at Arne (because he’s forgotten me) – at Bjørn (why should we have to bring Ran to him? He should have come to us!) – and at Peer (still gawping at me with sheep’s eyes!).
Suddenly the gulls lifted, scattering into the air. Where they had been – Hilde’s heart gave a great skip and a thud – a shape drifted in the water, as long as a man… or a woman.
Kersten! Oh no, I don’t want to see! Kersten drowned weeks ago! Hilde scrambled to her feet. She stood upright on the rock, clutching Ran and staring, staring into the sea, all the skin on her body prickling with horror. There it was again, a dark mass glancing through a wave, floating just under the surface. Slick, slimy, glistening, it broke through in a formless curve. Hilde drew her breath to scream.
Then she saw. The shape bunched, twisted. A flipper smacked the water. There was a sharp exhalation of breath. A head rose from the waves, small, glossy, with huge shining eyes.
And looked at her.
Balanced on the rock, Hilde gazed into those wild, joyful eyes. Ran leaned forward in her arms, struggling. The sea swung upwards, sank back. Overhead, the gulls screamed in circles, and the cliffs seemed to lean over, watching.
“K-Kersten? Is that you?”
Hilde’s whisper was too soft, too tentative, to be heard over the clap and crash of water on the rocks. She waited, trembling. Now something would happen. Some enormous secret would be told, some sorrowful, dark message delivered.
At last we will know. At last we will understand!
Then, as she held her breath, the seal was gone. She did not even see it go. The bright waves danced over the place where it had been, and the spray flew.
“Ran!” She turned the baby to her cheek, and both their faces were salty and wet. “Was that your mother?” Feeling Ran grasp her hair, she caught the little hand, holding it up. The sun shone scarlet through the thin, almost transparent webs of skin looping between finger and finger. Hilde closed the hand and kissed it.
“You, a freak?” she muttered. “How dare they! Come on, baby. Let’s go and find your father.”