The lass hurried after him, catching her brother’s sleeve as he reached the bottom of the staircase. “Hans Peter,” she said in a low voice, “if you know something about this enchantment that would help me, I would very much like to hear it.”
“Be careful. Wait out your year. Come home,” he said. He shrugged out of her grip and took the stairs two at a time.
She followed more slowly, allowing Tordis to catch up to her. Upstairs, the lass found a bedchamber had been prepared by one of Askel’s numerous servants. She couldn’t help but notice that it was much smaller than her bedroom at home—the ice palace, rather. There was no private washroom, only a chamber pot and a washbasin with a ewer of hot water beside it. She did a quick wash, pulled out a clean shift, and climbed into bed.
She told herself that she had trouble getting to sleep because this bed was narrower than she was used to. The sheets were coarser, and the furniture made different shadows.
She refused to admit to herself that she was waiting for a familiar weight to settle itself in the bed next to her. For familiar breath to blow softly against her cheek. In the end she made Rollo get in the bed, where he proceeded to snore and kick and keep her awake until dawn, when she finally gave up and got dressed.
Chapter 18
Three days passed in a blur. The lass spent most of each day in her father’s room, holding his good hand and talking to him. She “invented” stories about creatures called fauns and salamanders and selkies that inhabited a fantastical palace of ice. She described books she had read in the palace library. She said she was trying to teach herself a new language, but when he asked what it was, she hastily said, “Fransk.” She didn’t want him to know that she was learning troll.
She sent Einar to the nearest bookstore to buy a stack of popular novels, and she and Tordis took turns reading to Jarl. They left his side only when the nurse changed his bandages or bathed him, and even then it was a wrench for the lass to be parted from her father.
The day after her arrival, Hans Peter hitched up the reindeer and returned to their old cottage. Everyone had begged him to stay, but he refused. He said that he had things to do (“Ha!” was Frida’s response to this), and that Jorunn would be frantic with worry.
“I wish I had brought my little book, so we could have written to her,” the lass said, stroking the nose of the white-faced doe while Hans Peter put his small bundle of clothes and a large hamper of food into the wagon. “Then you could have stayed.”
“I wouldn’t have stayed anyway,” he said tersely.
“I need to talk to you,” she insisted. She had been insisting for the past day and a half. She wanted to talk to Hans Peter, alone, and ask him about the ice palace and the enchantment.
“No, you don’t,” Hans Peter said. Then he sighed and sat down on the driver’s seat. “All right, dear little lassie, listen well. You are right: I was there. I have seen the great snow plain and the palace of ice. I know Erasmus the faun, and the salamanders that make such fine meals. But I also know the mistress of that house, and the extent of her designs on those who dwell within. Which is why I say to you: be careful, wait out your year, and come home.”
“But I think that I can—”
“Be careful. Wait out your year. Come home,” he repeated. He gathered up the reins and released the brake on the front left wheel. “You can keep the parka for now, but I would like it back when you return.”
He shook the reins and whistled, and the lass hurried out of the way as the reindeer set off. Hans Peter looked back briefly when he reached the end of the street, and waved. His hair shone almost completely white in the sun, making him look like an old, old man.
“Well!” Frida came down the steps and glared after the wagon. “Is he gone, then? And not even a good-bye to his mother, or the brother whose hospitality he took advantage of?”
Her mother’s shrewish voice set the lass’s teeth on edge. “You know that Hans Peter isn’t much for goodbyes. And neither is Askel. It would have only embarrassed them both.”
Her mother merely sniffed. “I’m going back inside. It’s chill out.”
All too soon the end of her visit came, and the lass found herself packing her knapsack one morning. Askel said that he would drive her outside of the city to meet the isbjørn at dusk, but Jarl was taking a nap and no one else was around, so she began to stow her things. She wore a pretty blue dress for now, but had left out her trousers, a sweater, and the parka to change into later.
There was a knock at the door. “Pika? It’s me,” Tordis said, sticking her head into the room. “Anxious to go?”
The lass picked up her hairbrush and smiled at her sister. “No,” she said. “I just didn’t want to waste my last hour with Father by having to pack.”
“Can’t you stay longer?”
The lass made a face. “I promised that I would go back today. The longer I stay, the longer my year will be.”
Tordis stared at her. “What do you mean?”
“I have to stay with the bear for a year and a day. Since I’ve been here for five days, that means I have to stay five days longer at the isbjørn’s palace.”
“Is everything really . . . all right . . . there?”
Now the lass laughed. “I live in a palace with a giant isbjørn,” she reminded her sister. “It’s as ‘all right’ as it could be.” She shook her head, laughing, as she continued to pack. “And it will be a relief to get away from Mother,” she muttered, half to herself.
“Mother is much happier now, you know,” Tordis said.
“Oh, I’m sure. But her happiness seems to have made her rather nosy,” the lass replied. “She’s been poking and prying all week. ‘What do you eat? How many servants are there? Does the bear have courtiers?’ “ She pitched her voice higher in imitation of Frida.
It was Tordis’s turn to laugh. “That’s her exactly,” she said. “But it’s not like you have anything to hide,” she continued. Then her gaze sharpened on the lass, who had lowered her eyes. “Do you?”
“N-no.”
Tordis came around the bed and put her arm around the lass. “What’s bothering you, little sister?”
“Nothing,” the lass said, folding and refolding a shift. The lie sounded obvious even to her ears.
“Nothing?”
“It’s just that—” The lass brought herself up short.
“It’s just that what?”
Two voices warred in the lass’s head. One was the voice of the white bear, warning her not to tell any “secrets.” The other voice was her own, almost crying with loneliness as her sister embraced her. She enjoyed the bear’s company, but there was a vast difference between being with him and being with another human, especially one of her sisters.
“It’s that . . .” She still hesitated, not sure how to begin. “Well, don’t tell Mother or Father, but every night someone gets into bed with me,” she said in one breath.
“Someone gets into bed with you? Who?” Tordis’s brows drew together.
“I don’t know.” The lass shrugged. “I can never find a candle at night. It’s a huge bed, and . . . they just get in on the other side and go to sleep. They’re gone in the morning.”
“They?”
“Um, it? I can’t see. . . .”
Tordis put her free hand to her throat in dismay. “Is this thing that’s sleeping with you human?”
“I think so.”
“How can you be sure?”
The lass blushed. “I felt his head,” she muttered.
“It’s a man?” Tordis’s eyes narrowed.
The lass didn’t have to speak. Her flaming cheeks said it all.
“A strange man is lying beside you every night? You poor child!” Tordis clucked her tongue. “Just because you think it’s a man doesn’t mean that it really is, you know.”
The lass pulled away to get a better look at Tordis’s face. “I don’t understand.”
“This is an enchanted palace,” her sister pointe
d out. “This . . . man . . . who shares your bed may be under an enchantment as well. It could be a horrible troll, who feels human only to lure you into a sense of security.”
“I really don’t think so.” And the lass didn’t. There was something so . . . solid and ordinary about her nightly visitor. Compared to the minotaurus in the kitchen, he was almost boring.
“What if this whatever-it-is is playing some game with you? Trying to convince you that it’s innocent, so you’ll forget it’s even there?”
“But what good would that do?”
“Living as deep in the forest as I do, I’ve heard some horrible stories,” Tordis said with solemn certainty. “You don’t know what this creature could do to you.”
“I don’t feel threatened,” the lass argued.
Tordis just shook her head. “That doesn’t matter. You must look at this creature in good light, to make sure that it is not some hideous monster.”
“But I told you: I can’t ever find any candles at night, and the fire goes out.”
Tordis tapped her lips, then went over to a candelabrum on the dresser. The lass had not burned any of those particular candles because they were the herb-scented kind that made her sneeze. Her sister took a small pair of scissors from the pocket of her apron and cut off the top of one. She handed the stub to the lass along with a box of matches she took from another pocket.
“Take these and look at this monster that shares your bed,” Tordis advised her. “Our priest says that a candle made in a Christian home can banish any illusion. It’s the only way you may be sure that you are safe.”
“And if I’m not?” The lass felt an icy trickle down her spine.
“Do what you think best: lock yourself away at night, or escape the palace and come home.” Tordis pressed the little box and the short bit of candle into the lass’s hands. “Have it with you always. Promise me.”
“All right, I will,” the lass said, more to reassure Tordis than anything else. She took the proffered items and put them into the bodice of her gown while Tordis watched. The herbs in the candle tickled her nose, and she itched where it rested against her skin. She wiped her fingers surreptitiously on one of her shifts as she packed the last away.
“I’ll just go and see if Father is awake yet,” she said, edging around the bed. She regretted saying anything now.
Troubled, the lass went to spend the last few precious hours with her father. She could not concentrate on the novel they were hurrying to finish, and she found that the candle itched even worse as her skin warmed the wax. By the time she took leave of her family she was cross, tired, and breaking out in a rash.
“Let’s just get back to the palace so that I can have a bath,” she grumped to Rollo as they waited in the little copse of trees outside the city. Askel and Torst had driven her there, but she had made them leave at once, knowing that the isbjørn would be shy of her brothers.
“You came,” the isbjørn said, coming out of the trees as though summoned by her thoughts.
Despite her rash and her bad mood, her stomach fluttered when she saw the bear, and she couldn’t stop a smile from spreading across her face. “Of course,” she said. “I gave my word!” And she scrambled onto his back without being invited, kicking his ribs with her heels as if he were a horse. “Let’s go.” She rubbed at her chest, willing it to stop itching.
The bear rumbled something that might have been a laugh or a complaint, and began to run. Rollo came after, tongue lolling in anticipation. They were going home.
Chapter 19
Back at the palace, things soon settled into their old routine. The lass would read and try to teach herself the troll language. She and the isbjørn would have their meals together and talk, and sometimes she would ride on his back as he raced Rollo across the snow plain. Whenever she thought the bear or one of the servants was off his or her guard, she would blurt out a question and try to surprise them into answering.
She didn’t make much progress, though. The servants and the isbjørn were all accustomed to her startling questions, and they remained silent on the topic of trolls or enchantment.
But not everything was back the way it used to be. She knew that she had upset Erasmus with her questions, but she had hoped that in time he would shake off his fears and wait on her again. Fiona was hardly a cheery companion, and the lass knew that Rollo missed Erasmus as well.
“Mrs. Grey?” The housekeeper was folding linens at one end of the long kitchen table. “Where is Erasmus? I’ve been back from my visit for over a month, and yet I haven’t seen him. Is he angry with me?”
The housekeeper’s sturdy, gray-skinned hands closed on the napkin she was folding, crumpling it into a tiny ball. Her stone eyes closed, and she breathed heavily through her nostrils. This made them flare, taking the gargoyle’s face from merely homely to downright hideous.
The lass drew back. “Mrs. Grey?” The salamanders stopped cavorting in the kitchen fire. Garth dropped the knife he had been sharpening and lurched out of the kitchen with a muttered oath.
Mrs. Grey’s hands unclenched. Her nails had gone right through the fine linen of the napkin. She smoothed it out, surveyed the holes, and then tossed it into the fire, where one of the salamanders turned it to ash with a burst of breath. The housekeeper flexed the gray wings that were always folded against her back, something the lass had never seen her do. When they had settled again, Mrs. Grey looked at the lass and said, “Erasmus is no longer here.”
“Where is he?”
“He is no longer here,” Mrs. Grey said again. She cleared her throat, a sound like rocks tumbling in a barrel. “Perhaps you should not spend so much time in the kitchen with the staff, my lady. It isn’t seemly.”
Knowing that she was being dismissed, the lass got to her feet and left the kitchen. She went upstairs and found Rollo lying in front of the fire in the great hall. She looked at the carving on the mantel, but she’d read it so many times it was a blur. Poking Rollo in the ribs with her toe, she went up to her apartment and checked the blank diary to see if there was any news, but no one had written that day. Hans Peter had not written at all since she returned.
“Well, I’ll just make him write,” she grumbled.
Sitting at the elegant little ice desk, the lass took up her pen. She wrote a note at the top of the page, apologizing to Jorunn because what followed was for Hans Peter’s eyes only. Then she described Mrs. Grey’s words, her sudden agitation, the salamanders’ silence, and the minotaurus’s abrupt departure.
I know that Erasmus was here when you were here, and so were the others, she wrote. Do you know where Erasmus might have gone? I don’t think he returned to his home. But did he run away? I’m concerned about him.
She signed the page with a flourish and closed the diary. Feeling much better, she went into the dressing room and took down a green gown she wanted to refit. She had never cared much about clothing before, having never really had any to call her own. But now that she had endless supplies of beautiful gowns, she was becoming vain.
She held up the gown for Rollo to see. “Whoever these used to belong to was frighteningly tall, don’t you think?” When she held the dress high enough so that the skirt didn’t puddle on the ground, the bodice was over her head.
“Frighteningly tall,” she said again, freezing. “Wealthy. Vain.” She dropped the gown as though it had burned her. The bodice, heavy with gold bullion embroidery, landed on Rollo’s head, and he yelped.
“Why did you do that?” Backing out from under the gown, the wolf shook himself.
“It’s a troll’s gown.” She looked at herself in the tall mirrors, seeing the pale blue morning gown she wore in a whole new light. “They’re all troll’s gowns.” She gave Rollo an accusing look. “Does this have the smell?”
“Er. Well. They also have a flower smell, from those little bags of dried petals hanging in the wardrobe,” he told her soothingly. Then he added, “With a little hint of rotten meat.”
??
?Bleah!”
The lass ripped the lace of her blue gown in her haste to get it off. She shed her shift and ran into the washroom to fill the bath with water as hot as she could stand. She scrubbed herself raw and then stood in the middle of the dressing room, wrapped in a towel, staring at the doors of all the wardrobes. In the end, with a sigh, she put on one of her old ragged sweaters and much-mended skirt.
“You smell better,” Rollo said, nudging her hand in a consoling way. “Like your old self.”
“That’s good, at least. Still, I wish there were some clothes here that hadn’t been worn by a troll. There must be something that used to belong to a selkie or a faun or what have you!”
She began pulling gowns out of the wardrobes, piling them onto the floor in the middle of the room. She made a careful stack of her own things: Hans Peter’s parka and boots, her other sweater and skirt, her trousers.
One of the troll gowns caught on something as she yanked it out of the wardrobe, and ripped. Cursing, the lass reached in and felt around, and felt a sharp chunk of loose ice at the back. She lifted it aside and found a bundle shoved into a hiding space between the wardrobe and the wall.
It was a knapsack not unlike the one Mrs. Grey had given the lass. Inside she found a linen shift with long, full sleeves embroidered with flowers, a dark wool skirt and red vest, and a pair of scuffed leather shoes. All the things were worn soft, of good quality but not expensive. What horrified the lass was that they had obviously belonged to a girl of about the same size as she. Where had the owner of the clothing gone?
Underneath these everyday clothes was the worst thing of all. Wrapped in muslin was a wedding bunad that had never been worn. It was gorgeous, but in a far different way than the heavy velvet skirts and pearl-encrusted bodices of the troll gowns. The skirt of the bunad was black wool, with a deep hem of embroidery in bands of red and blue and green and yellow. The red vest had silver buttons up the front, and the white blouse was of fabric as fine as gauze. There was even a set of silver earrings, and a circular brooch with dangling medallions. There were white stockings and a pair of black buckled shoes that were too stiff to have ever been worn.