The Islands of the Blessed

  “I heard her begging for food,” accused Blewit. “You’re letting her waste away.”

  “I am not,” Jack said.

  “Liar.”

  “Calm down, Blewit,” said the Bugaboo, suddenly appearing from the darkness with the Nemesis. “We all know Hazel eats as much as the Great Worm and her nine wormlets.” Blewit grumbled under his breath, but he didn’t contradict his king.

  They sat together under a nearly full moon. The odor of crushed mint rose from the ground where they were sitting, and a nightingale began to sing from a tree. The village seemed so peaceful—and had once been peaceful, Jack thought. He longed for those days again. Season had followed season with comforting regularity—plowing, planting, harvesting, a pause for winter. No surprises.

  All had been predictable until the Bard arrived.

  That was when the world had waked up and noticed the sleepy little village on the shores of the North Sea. First the rider on the Nightmare thundered in from across the sea. Jack still shivered to remember the Rider’s thorny legs gripping the belly of its horse and the white blood dripping down. Then the Northmen missed the village by only a hair, though they didn’t miss Jack and Lucy. They had carried the children off as slaves.

  This year alone, in only a few days, the village had been visited by a Wild Hunt, a draugr had taken up residence in the hazel wood, and now a troop of hobgoblins was camped in Jack’s garden. He sighed inwardly. He was the Bard’s apprentice and, as the old man had said, such a calling wasn’t just singing and picking wildflowers. It was a bard’s job to deal with things that went bump in the night.

  “I have to go in now,” the boy said. “I don’t know whether I can lift Hazel.”

  “Weakling!” sneered Mr. Blewit. He swept the little girl up easily and carried her to the door. The motley wool robes of the hobgoblin shifted eerily like the shadows of bushes dancing in the wind.

  Jack was suddenly reminded of the Bugaboo’s mission. “Did you ask Pega again if she would marry you?” he asked.

  “I don’t want to talk about it!” the Bugaboo cried, flinging his cloak over his head and disappearing completely.

  “That means yes, and that means she said no,” said the Nemesis. Then all three creatures bade Jack good night and vanished into the darkness.

  Jack dragged Hazel inside and rolled her onto a pile of heather and straw. She didn’t stir as she was bumped along and she didn’t wake up screaming in the night, as Blewit had predicted. She slept as soundly as a sprogling, which was very sound indeed. The first Jack heard from her was a monotonous “Food … food … food …” around dawn.

  Chapter Twelve

  THE TANNER BRATS

  During the next few weeks, when Jack wasn’t helping the Bard, he was trying to keep peace at home. Pega returned and was of great help, but even she was becoming irritable. Hazel threw unexplained tantrums. Father spent most of his time in the fields or drinking ale with the blacksmith. Mother found fault with everything. The only good thing was that Thorgil stayed away. Jack didn’t know what he would have done if she’d been added to the explosive mix.

  “It’s those Tanner brats,” said Blewit at one of Jack’s nightly meetings with the hobgoblins. “They’ve decided to move in permanently, and they’re trying to drive out Pega and Hazel.”

  “Are you sure?” said Jack. He knew Blewit complained about everything, even that the sun rose in the east and disturbed his sleep. Blewit, like all hobgoblins, was happiest underground.

  “He’s right,” said the Bugaboo. “We can hear everything they say.” He unfurled his ears to demonstrate how very keen hobgoblin hearing could be. “They’ve been unforgivably cruel to dear Pega. I was within a heartbeat of taking steps, but the Bard said I had to get your permission.”

  Jack wondered what “taking steps” involved. Hobgoblins, if threatened, could stand up to dragons. “I haven’t noticed Ymma and Ythla doing anything bad,” he said.

  “Blistering beetles! The first thing Dragon Tongue taught you was how to observe and melt into the background,” exploded Blewit. “What good is it spying on animals when you’ve got people at home that need watching?”

  It had simply never occurred to Jack that the same skills he used to study animals could work on humans. The Bard called it “being cloaked in the life force.” You became part of the landscape, no more noticeable than a tree or rock. Jack had become so good at this, mice perched on his feet to nibble seeds and birds landed on his shoulders.

  “I suppose I could spy on them,” he faltered, thinking that there was something low about the activity when it involved people.

  “Well, you’d better do something fast,” Blewit said. “They’re making my Hazel miserable, and I won’t put up with it much longer.”

  So Jack began observing the activities in his house. When he stood next to a wall, he became wall. When he stood in the shadows, he became shadow. It surprised him how effective the magic was. Even Mother, who was a wise woman, couldn’t detect him.

  Ymma and Ythla had always seemed ready to help with tasks, and yet they didn’t accomplish much. Jack saw that they did chores so carelessly, Pega often had to redo the work. The Tanners frequently stole small items to carry back to their hovel. Turnips and apples, a cup, a piece of leather, and a horn spoon found their way into the girls’ pockets. Nothing large was taken, but all together, the theft was considerable.

  Mrs. Tanner seemed honest, but she must have known what was going on. Occasionally, in a halfhearted way, she tried to discipline her daughters. She never went so far as to return any of the ill-gotten goods.

  Now Jack was watching as the Tanner girls cleaned house. As usual, when they thought they were alone, they spent most of the time poking into corners and trying to open chests. When Pega came through the door with a pail of milk, Ymma whispered, “I hope the milk won’t turn sour,” just loud enough to be overheard. Pega flushed.

  This was another game Jack had discovered. Pega had been born with a birthmark covering half her face. She had ears that stuck straight out through wispy hair, and her mouth was as wide as a frog’s. Jack no longer noticed her looks, Thorgil had never noticed them, and the Bugaboo thought she was positively ravishing. But most people didn’t want Pega around. Her ugliness might mark unborn babies. She might turn milk sour.

  The Tanner girls subtly and continuously drew attention to the girl’s disfigurement.

  Hazel bounded in, and Pega quickly put the milk pail on a shelf before the child could knock it over. “I do love you,” said Hazel, hugging the older girl.

  Ymma and Ythla whispered together. Jack heard the word half-wit. This was another game, to make Hazel feel stupid.

  “I love you, too, but I’ve got work to do.” Pega pried Hazel’s arms loose and covered the milk with a cloth. She pointedly ignored Ymma and Ythla.

  “Please, please, please, take me for a walk.”

  Pega started to object and then, seeing the little girl’s anxious face, relented. “Oh, very well. While the cream rises, you and I can hunt for bugs in the garden. I’ll let you feed them to the hens.”

  “Make sure she doesn’t eat them herself,” said Ythla slyly.

  “Make sure you don’t find them in your hair,” retorted Pega, sweeping Hazel through the door.

  The house fell silent as Ymma and Ythla finished tidying and sweeping. They worked silently, each anticipating the movements of the other like a pair of wolves. Ymma gathered a handful of dirt and moved swiftly to the milk pail, and Ythla whisked off the cover.

  “What are you doing?” said Jack, stepping out of the shadows.

  Ymma screamed and dropped the dirt on the floor. “Where did you come from?” she cried. Ythla’s face had turned white.

  “I’m a bard. I come and go where I will.” Jack strode forward and restored the cover to the milk.

  “You’re a damned wizard!” Ymma spat at him. Then, perhaps recalling that Jack was the son of the house, she smiled sweetly. “It was a clever
trick, though, wasn’t it, Ythla?” Her sister nodded enthusiastically. “I’m truly sorry. I shouldn’t have lost my temper.”

  Jack watched coldly as they left. He’d observed them teasing Hazel and then sitting back contentedly as she was scolded for bad behavior. One of their favorite tricks was to hold food in front of the little girl and then snatch it away.

  “Oopsie!” sang Ythla on one occasion, yanking a piece of cheese away for the third time. The little girl reacted with the ear-piercing screech that only a sprogling could produce. Mother ran in.

  “I want my cheese,” wailed Hazel.

  “You really, really must learn not to cry every time you have a hunger pang,” Mother scolded, taking her into her arms.

  “But they took my cheese!” Hazel pointed at the Tanner girls.

  “Don’t make up tales, darling. It isn’t nice,” said Mother. By now Ythla had popped the morsel into her mouth. “I think you’ll feel a lot nicer with a nap.”

  “No, I won’t,” grumbled Hazel, but she followed Mother up the ladder to the loft. This was a huge improvement on the little girl’s behavior from when she first arrived. Pega had drummed the importance of obedience into her head.

  Blewit was right. I haven’t been paying attention, thought Jack. He’d discovered why Hazel had so many tantrums and why everyone was so short-tempered. The Tanner girls might even have been responsible for some of Thorgil’s evil moods earlier.

  Jack waited until the Tanners had departed for their hovel. Pega and Hazel had fallen asleep in each other’s arms at the far end of the house. In a low voice he described everything he’d observed to his parents.

  “Ymma and Ythla are mistreating Hazel?” said Mother. “You must be mistaken. Why, only this morning Ymma told me she’d never seen a more adorable child.”

  “She’s lying,” Jack said bluntly.

  Mother looked upset. “As for stealing, I’ve noticed a few turnips go missing, but the Tanners have been dreadfully poor. I’d hate to punish them for a crime born of hunger.”

  Jack’s hopes fell. He’d been counting on her support.

  “Just how did you find this out?” said Father.

  Jack knew he couldn’t admit to using magic. Nothing was more likely to start a lecture about demons dragging wizards down to Hell. “I’ve simply been around more. The Tanners are making Pega unhappy as well.”

  Father yawned deeply and removed his shoes. “It’s only women’s fiddle-faddle,” he said.

  “They might drive her away.”

  “Where would she go?” Father said comfortably. “It isn’t as though people are lining up to hire such an ill-favored lass. The Tanners have been useful and the girls are excellent Christians. They join me for prayers, which is more than I can say for you.”

  Jack was praying at that very moment—for patience. “Doesn’t it bother you that Ymma and Ythla lie, steal, and play nasty tricks?”

  “Seems to me”—Father cast a glance at the loft where his bed lay—“that you’re mightily free with advice for a lad. Seems to me you’ve learned a few nasty tricks yourself, hanging about in shadows and doing wizardry.” And Jack knew that the Tanner girls had got to his father first and that there was no more point to arguing. “Clean up your own sty before you come squealing to me,” Father advised. He lumbered to his feet and climbed the ladder. Mother, with an apologetic look, followed.

  Jack kicked the straw of his bedding and slammed his fist into the wall, only hurting himself. Fearing to wake Pega and Hazel, he went outside to cool off.

  The sky was strewn with a thousand stars, shining so brightly that he could make out the shapes of trees and bushes. A faint, tinkling sound came from all around. It was as though the stars themselves were whispering, but Jack had heard that sound before. It was when he was recovering in the hall of the Mountain Queen in Jotunheim. Her palace had been so huge that when he looked down from a high window, all he could see were swirling clouds of ice crystals. It was this, striking against the ice walls, that made the sweet chiming.

  “On nights like these—,” said a voice next to his ear. Jack jumped straight up and came down ready to fight. “Whoa! I’m not an enemy,” cried the Bugaboo, dodging the boy’s fists.

  “Then don’t leap out at me!” Jack yelled.

  “Take a deep breath, laddie,” said the Nemesis, popping up on the other side of him. “We’re not the ones you’re angry with.” Blewit stepped out from behind a bush.

  Jack sat down on the ground. “No, you’re not,” he admitted.

  “We were listening to the argument,” the Bugaboo said. “You can’t blame your parents. To them you’re still a sprogling.”

  “But how can they allow Pega and Hazel to suffer?”

  “They don’t see what they don’t want to see. Let’s sit awhile and enjoy the sky. I was about to say, before you performed a leap that would do a hobgoblin proud, that on nights like these the walls between the nine worlds grow thin.”

  Jack gazed up, listening to the faint echo of ice falling on ice in far Jotunheim. The trolls were folded inside their mountain, taking refuge from summer. Yet each year the sun shone more brightly, and each year more of their realm melted away. It made him sad to think of it. “Look!” he cried, pointing. A streak of light crossed the heavens like a spark. Then another and another.

  “Now, that is a treat. They’re leaves falling from the Great Tree,” the Bugaboo said.

  “From Yggdrassil,” Jack murmured, remembering how the Tree had reached up higher than the moon. At the top lay a heavenly green field around a hall so enormous, a thousand men could stand side by side in its doorway. It was Valhalla. He shivered. “Thorgil says the Northmen hear their dead calling to them when lights dance in the sky.”

  “Many things happen when the walls between the worlds grow thin. Once I heard waves breaking on the Islands of the Blessed,” said the Bugaboo.

  Jack thought of the gifts the Mountain Queen had given him: the marten-fur coat, cow-skin boots, and tunic. They had been stored away because he’d outgrown them. Only her knife was still useful.

  And the cloak. It had been a very long time since Jack had thought about the spidersilk cloak. He’d given it to the Bard along with the wealth-hoard he’d used to buy Pega’s freedom. It was probably in one of the old man’s chests.

  “Thank you for showing me this,” Jack told the hobgoblins. “My problems don’t seem so important after watching leaves fall from the Great Tree.” He stood up.

  “You can’t be thinking of going to bed yet,” said the Nemesis. “The night’s entertainment has just begun.”

  “Excuse me?” said Jack.

  “We haven’t forgotten about the Tanners. We’re only waiting for your permission to take steps.”

  Jack remembered how dangerous hobgoblins could be, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to involve them. “You wouldn’t do anything drastic, would you?”

  “Of course not,” scoffed the Nemesis. “Only a harmless bit of hobgoblinry, no worse than saying boo at a birthday party.”

  “Dragon Tongue thinks it’s an excellent idea,” the Bugaboo added.

  “I suppose … if the Bard agrees, and if you promise not to hurt them …”

  “Never!” The Nemesis’s eyes gleamed in the starlight.

  “Well … all right.”

  “At last! I get first crack at Ythla,” cried Blewit, jumping up.

  “I get Ymma for what she did to dear Pega,” said the Bugaboo.

  “Wait! Wait!” shouted Jack as the hobgoblins bounded off like giant frogs, but they paid no attention. He followed them as best he could in the darkness, with the streaks of light falling from the sky and the stars shaking as though they would come loose.

  Chapter Thirteen

  THE PATHS OPEN

  Jack fell several times on the way. His eyes weren’t as good as the hobgoblins’, and they were used to traveling in the dark. He was anxious to get to the Tanner hovel before anything happened. But by the time he arrive
d, the hobgoblins had already got inside. “Phoo! Filthy in here,” he heard the Nemesis say. Then out they came, each one carrying a Tanner. They leaped over the fields, and every time their feet touched earth, Jack heard a scream.

  “We’ve come to take you away!” the hobgoblins shrieked, tossing their captives into the air and catching them.

  “No! Not Mrs. Tanner!” Jack shouted. They were too swift for him.

  “We’ve got a lovely dark hole full of earthworms,” Blewit warbled. It was the first time Jack had ever heard him sound happy. “We’re going to put you inside and feed you spiders and all kinds of nasty, oozy things.”

  Ythla sobbed and begged for mercy.

  “Mercy! Not likely, after you stole from people who took you in.”

  “We’re sorry! We won’t do it again!”

  “Oh, you won’t. Not where you’re going,” gloated Blewit.

  By now the hobgoblins had passed beyond the village and were approaching the hazel wood. Jack’s side hurt from running and his legs threatened to give out. Now he understood why his father hadn’t been able to catch the hobgoblins when they stole Hazel all those years ago.

  The creatures raced through the hazel wood, zigging and zagging along paths Jack could only guess at. The draugr is in here somewhere, he thought. But he had no time to be afraid. He stumbled after the sound of running feet, more often than not colliding with bushes or tripping over roots. By the time he got to the other side, he was at the end of his strength. He collapsed onto the ground.

  He was lying in the broad road carved out by the Wild Hunt. The starlight had grown brighter, as though light were leaking from some unknown source. The hobgoblins had put down the girls and their mother. It was the first time the Tanners had got a good look at their captors.

  “Oh, dear God! They’re demons,” groaned Ymma.

  “We’re demons! We’re demons!” screeched the Nemesis, doing a cartwheel around the terrified group. “We’ve come to take you away!”