T S McAdams - [BCS265 S01] - Feral Attachments at Kulle Bland Bergen (html) Read online

  Far from any monastery, Harald had only Olen, who reluctantly cut himself a switch. Piija made reindeer stew. Harald took two bowls and seated himself on Solveig’s bed. “Bragi, look,” he said. The stew already had Bragi’s attention, but talking should be part of it. Solveig stood behind Olen with folded arms, ready to make them stop. Harald said, “Watch, Son.” He spooned five precise bites, then handed a bowl and spoon to Bragi.

  Bragi used the spoon, but he spooned much faster than he could swallow, and twice he choked, regurgitated into the bowl, and scooped the mess into his mouth again. “No, Bragi!” Harald said. “Like this!” He repeated his demonstration, but Bragi wouldn’t look up. Olen didn’t hit him hard. Still, Bragi’s howl sprayed more stew than the bowl he threw against the wall. He howled through Harald’s useless reassurances, and when Harald touched his shoulder, Bragi flung him away with one hand, and Harald bruised a hip on the floor and ribs against Solveig’s bed.

  “No more,” Solveig said. “I know you mean it for good, but no more.” That was yesterday, and the trolls attacked last night.

  It was the most cooperation they ever saw between arcanus. Harald and Solveig, by long habit, are nearly as nocturnal as trolls, but they spent the afternoon trying to soothe Bragi, who kicked against the tether until he bled. That would leave another scar. Solveig brought him white carrots and sourdough bread, and Harald sang a circle-dance song, hoping his wife would take the hint and sing old favorites. At sunset, the boy settled without really calming. He sat on his bed and sniffed at the evening, and Harald and Solveig lay down back to back on Solveig’s bed, Harald wondering if she would turn to him in his dreams as the wood baby did.

  The trolls lined up at the edge of the clearing, closer than Arbitrary Safe Distance, looking enough like boulders and stumps that they might have gone unnoticed but for their guttural hoots. As far as Harald could see through the windows, they had encircled the shieling. When they advanced, crunching through the snow, the trolls called, “The boy! The boy!” and Bragi answered, “The forest! The cave!”

  Harald said, “Bragi, you don’t belong in the forest. You’re not a troll. You’re Bragi Kittelsen. You need schooling, proper clothes, proper food. Don’t you remember Uncle Olen’s cheese?” Bragi used to love reindeer cheese. Solveig had found the musket and was rummaging in a chest, the wrong chest; powder and balls were in the small chest under the bed.

  A troll wrenched the door from the shieling, threw it backwards into the darkness, and stepped into the kitchen, three troll-steps away. Two smoldering logs in the fireplace lit the mossy trunks of its legs. The axe that cut the logs was outside.

  The troll retreated as clanging advanced from the direction of Olen’s tent, and Olen took its place in the doorway, brandishing a handbell like a dark, noisy torch. A faint jingling from the tent told them he had left Piija with a string of pellet bells and brought the stronger ward to their rescue. With such a friend to help, how could they fail to lead Bragi back to himself? Solveig put a hand on Olen’s, in thanks, Harald thought at first, but Bragi was curled face to knees with his hands over his ears, and she may have wanted to quiet the bell.

  Persson says the boy must go back to the University with him. Harald is no more impressed than Solveig by Persson’s authority, but they should consider the idea. For Harald, sending the boy to Asbjørnsen would be like sending him to a grandparent. Wouldn’t Solveig like to see what Professor von Linne can do for their son?

  Solveig says, “This is our study.”

  Harald is not unfamiliar with the strain of resentments too large for his abdomen, chest, and skull. He sometimes exhausts himself by chopping wood or simply clenching his body in the dark until only sullenness remains, but so much arrogance with everything at stake demands a full-throated response; when he finds the words, he will wither her.

  He’s interrupted by Persson and Joŋgu and the other herder pushing past the hide curtain, squeezing into the kitchen. Joŋgu carries a coil of rope. Harald is still remembering words, so he only raises an eyebrow. Persson says, “I’m taking the feral boy.”

  Bragi stares at the forest through the window in the opposite wall. There’s a small pool of blood beneath his tethered foot. At the window behind Bragi, Olen says something in the herders’ language. Persson’s men look away. Piija joins her father and says something, two or three sentences, and the new herder says, “Okay, okay.” He turns awkwardly in the tight space, bumping Joŋgu with his shoulder, and leaves the shieling. Persson says, “Bring him back.”

  Joŋgu says, “He won’t come.”

  “You will do your job?”

  “Yes.”

  Solveig picks up the musket, which is loaded now. Feelings and ideas move through Harald’s body, and he doesn’t decide what to do, any more than water does. The channel is there, or it forms, and the river flows.

  He tells Solveig, “Let them try. Bring the gun.” She trusts him enough to follow him from the shieling, and they stand outside with Olen. The wind is cold, but it smells more like mud than snow. Moments later, Persson stumbles out the door, tangles in the deerhide, almost loses his balance. There’s a gash on his forehead, maybe from hitting a bedframe, a chest, a windowsill, even the fireplace, and he is supporting Joŋgu, who has something drastically wrong with one leg.

  Persson yells, “Einár! Your colleague is injured! Will you refuse to help with this too?” Piija and the new herder come from the other side of the shieling and help Joŋgu limp towards Olen’s tent.

  With one man hurt and one unwilling, Persson isn’t much of a threat, but Harald says, “My wife will shoot you if you interfere again.”

  Of course, Solveig remains at Kulle Bland Bergen out of love, and Harald understands this when she betrays him. There’s a protective jingling from Olen’s tent, but it’s the frantic bird that wakes Harald, a dipper that shouldn’t be singing after dark.

  Bragi is gone. Solveig kneels on the floor, holding the knife she used to free him. “He’s our son,” she says hopelessly, motioning towards the bloodstain on the floor, now the size and shape of a deer’s entrails.

  Outside, lumpish figures plunge into the forest. Joŋgu, leaning on a stick, tries to coax Persson into a tent. Persson clearly doesn’t see the lumbering two-headed troll that drives Joŋgu into the tent without him, but Persson retreats from Harald. Noticing the musket in his hand, Harald rests the butt on the ground. The snow is patchy and scuffed, and moonlight discloses few prints, none with five toes. When the snow is gone, spruce and pine needles will dry on the ground, and Harald will smell the coming summer, the passing of another spring. Maybe Piija will marry Einár and Olen will climb the mountains alone.

  Back in the shieling, he finds Solveig tucking the wood baby into Bragi’s bed. Harald and Solveig lie down together, and Solveig eventually falls asleep. Harald lies awake with one hand on the musket, hoping to protect what’s left.

  © Copyright 2018 T. S. McAdams