03 - The Islands of the Blessed Page 9

  “Many a Christian house has its resident hobgoblin,” the Bugaboo said sadly. “He watches over the family and secretly does small chores, like cleaning out the fireplace or rocking the baby’s cradle. Gradually, he wastes away out of loneliness. He’s never appreciated, though he would give his life for his humans. If he’s discovered, he’s pelted with rocks.”

  “So that’s being mudstruck,” murmured Jack.

  “Please! We don’t use the word in polite company,” the Nemesis growled.

  “And now it’s time for me to introduce the child to her real parents,” the Bard said, standing and brushing a few flecks of ash from his robe. “Jack and Thorgil will accompany me. You hobgoblins can stay here, if you wish.”

  “Blewit would never let his darling out of his sight,” said the Bugaboo. “He’ll insist on following, and we, of course, must support him. But never fear. No human ever sees us when we want to remain hidden.”

  Chapter Eleven

  HAZEL COMES HOME

  Hidden they were, from farmers planting fields and from John the Fletcher hunting for the draugr that had killed his hens. None of the women traveling to the baker’s house, from which the warm smell of bread radiated, saw the hobgoblins. Not one of the boys playing Bull in the Barn noticed the speckled shapes flitting from shadow to shadow. Of course, the motley wool cloaks helped, but even without such cover, the hobgoblins blended into the background with remarkable ease. Jack could detect them because he knew what to look for.

  Everyone noticed Hazel. How could they not, Jack thought miserably. She puffed out her cheeks and wiggled her ears with glee. This was a grand adventure! She was seeing more mud people than she had ever dreamed possible and thought they were pleased with her as well. They raised their eyebrows and opened their mouths into an O, exactly like a hobgoblin when he was happy.

  “Who is this lassie?” inquired a farm wife, after watching Hazel snap at a butterfly.

  “Jack’s relative from the north,” the Bard said blandly. “His great-aunt’s brother’s granddaughter. Doesn’t she look exactly like Giles Crookleg?”

  “Why… yes,” said the woman, trying to work out the relationship.

  “We’ll have to teach her manners,” hissed Jack when they were alone again. Hazel was hopping down the road. She did it extremely well, aided by her sturdy legs and lots of practice. “Everyone will think she’s demented.”

  “I disagree,” Thorgil said unexpectedly. “Everyone will think she’s simply playing. She’s no different than a puppy trying out its paws.”

  “Very wise, shield maiden,” the Bard said.

  If the hobgoblins were invisible to people, the animals could certainly see them. There was much baaing and bellowing as black-faced sheep scurried out of their way. A cat arched its back and spat when the Nemesis grinned at it. Chickens fled in panic when Mr. Blewit’s long, unhappy face peered out of a gooseberry bush.

  They arrived at the path leading to Jack’s farm, and he unconsciously slowed down. Now was the moment he dreaded. Now he wished they could return to the Bard’s house, spend more time preparing for this meeting, and train Hazel to be more like…

  Lucy.

  Lucy was the daughter his parents had loved all those years Hazel was missing. Lucy was like a ray of light dancing over a pond, the joy of Father’s eyes from the first moment he saw her. Her hair was as golden as sunset clouds, her eyes as blue as forget-me-nots. People caught their breath when they saw her, for no child in the village had ever been so beautiful. How could stocky, earthbound Hazel ever take her place?

  Pega came out of the barn with an armload of hay. Hazel whooped and ran to her. “The pretty lady!” she squealed. She collided with Pega, sending hay in all directions.

  “Why, it’s—it’s—how did you get here?” gasped Pega, trying to catch her breath. She waved distractedly at the others.

  “Da brought me,” cried the child. “Please say you’ll be our queen! The Bugaboo is most dreadfully unhappy.”

  “Dear saints in Heaven, is he here too?” said Pega, looking around. She tried to walk, but Hazel had clamped her sturdy arms around the girl’s legs.

  “The hobgoblins have promised to stay out of sight,” the Bard said, amused. “I presume Giles and Alditha are at home? Good. Wipe that glum expression off your face, Jack, and unhook your sister.”

  Jack pried one of Hazel’s hands loose and dragged her away, but the little girl kept a firm grip on Pega’s skirt. “You are a strong little lassie, aren’t you?” said Pega, following to keep her clothes from getting torn.

  “I shall wait in the barn,” Thorgil said haughtily. “I have taken an oath never to enter that house again.” Jack didn’t argue with her. He had more than enough problems.

  Everyone was sitting in the sunny herb garden. Mother was weaving, and Mrs. Tanner was twisting wool into yarn. The Tanner girls were riddling seeds, shaking them in baskets to see which were heavy and might still grow. Father was mending a milk pail.

  Mother’s hand flew to her mouth and she stood up abruptly, knocking over the loom. “Oh, Giles! Oh, Giles, look!”

  Father turned and for a moment seemed utterly bewildered. He reached out and then yanked his hand back as though he’d touched a live coal. “By all that’s holy, she looks like my old da,” he whispered.

  Hazel dropped Pega’s skirt. Her eyes grew very big.

  “She’s the image of you, Giles,” said Mother.

  Jack realized that his father had forgotten how he himself looked. He’d never looked in the chief’s mirror, the only one in the village, and only rarely at his reflection in a puddle. He often said that thinking about one’s appearance was wicked vanity. In fact, Hazel was exactly like him. She had the same gray eyes and brown hair, the same sturdy frame and determined expression.

  “Well, Hazel, what do you think?” the Bard said. “Do they meet with your approval?”

  Hazel shrank against Pega. “They’re all right for mud people,” she said. Mother looked up, puzzled.

  “That’s what her foster family calls people in this part of the world,” the Bard said. Jack noticed that he didn’t use the word hobgoblin.

  “Then she is… who I think she is,” said Father. The old man nodded.

  “My dear, dear child,” Mother said, holding out her arms. “I’m so glad you’re home.”

  The little girl recoiled. “This isn’t my home, and you’re not my mumsie!” she cried. “My mumsie is pretty. You’re an old mud woman. Da says you want to steal me and never let me go!” She began to hiccup, and then she screeched the way a young sprogling did when it was distraught.

  “Hey!” shouted Pega, rapping Hazel on the head with her knuckles. “What a rotten thing to say! You ought to be glad to have more than one mumsie. I never even had one, or else I don’t remember her. She probably sold me for a loaf of bread.”

  Hazel looked up, her eyes blinking erratically. She had never seen Pega so angry.

  “Pay attention, you brat. You’ve got two mothers and two fathers. You should thank God on your knees for such luck. Now march over there and apologize to that nice lady.”

  Hazel snuffled and wiped her nose on Pega’s skirt. “Really? You can have more than one?”

  “Of course, you ninny.”

  The little girl turned toward Mother. She still clung to Pega, but she had stopped crying. She made a hobgoblin curtsy, somewhat like a frog lowering itself onto a lily pad. “I’m sorry, nice lady.”

  Jack looked at Pega over Hazel’s head, and she nodded slightly. He knelt beside the little girl and smoothed back her springy hair. “You have only one brother, I fear, but he loves you as much as two. Welcome home, little sister.”

  She studied him very seriously from head to foot. Jack thought for a moment and decided to risk it. “Long ago I asked you to look at my hands. Do you remember?”

  Hazel grimaced. “Maybe.”

  “I said that our hands were shaped alike. Our fingers weren’t long and sticky like�
�� the others. It showed that you belonged with me. Have you thought about that?”

  The little girl hung her head. “After you went away, I looked into a pail of water. I saw… I saw…” Her lip quivered and she looked ready to cry again.

  “It’s all right,” Jack said softly. “You don’t have to talk about it if it upsets you.”

  “I saw him!” She jabbed her finger at Giles Crookleg. “I saw my face and it was like him. Then I knew I was the ugliest sprogling that ever lived!” She howled and buried her face in Pega’s skirt.

  “We have our work cut out for us,” said the Bard.

  Jack was exhausted by the time evening came. The Bard and Thorgil had departed; Pega had gone to stay with Brother Aiden, hoping to avoid another marriage proposal from the Bugaboo. Jack was left alone to shield Hazel from trouble.

  The Bard had cautioned Hazel not to mention her past, but the Tanner girls had already been alerted that something odd was going on. “What’s a sprogling?” they asked at the first opportunity.

  “It’s the Pictish word for ‘child’,” Jack replied quickly. It had been decided to say that Hazel had been stolen by Pictish traders and raised in the far north. He worried that the little girl would blurt out the truth, but she was more mature than he’d realized. Hazel only looked like a five-year-old. She was actually eight. Though the Blewits had frequently taken her to Middle Earth, she had not aged in the Land of the Silver Apples.

  “Is that why she’s so tiny? Because she lived with Picts?” demanded Ymma, the older Tanner girl. She had grubby, blond braids and a wiry body like a stoat’s.

  “Ma says she was born the same year as me,” said Ythla, the younger. “That means she’s eight, and she’s a runt.” Ythla was like a fox with a sharp nose and reddish hair.

  “Picts are small because they eat small food,” Jack said, improvising rapidly. “Dwarf cabbages, dwarf apples, chickens the size of sparrows. It’s all that grows in Pictland.” His head was beginning to ache from all the lies he had to tell.

  “Do giants get fed giant cabbages?” said Ymma, interested.

  “Gog and Magog must have eaten them,” giggled Ythla. “They were huge. And stupid. I’m glad the Wild Hunt carried them off.”

  “That’s an evil thing to say,” Jack said. “Gog and Magog are probably dead.” The Tanner girls only laughed.

  Mother and Father had tried to be welcoming, but they were unsure how to treat this odd daughter. Hazel was so very active and her behavior so bizarre. Because they were rare and valued, hobgoblin sproglings were outrageously spoiled. They squalled constantly for attention. They grabbed the best bits at mealtimes and insulted anyone who got in the way. Jack had to say, over and over until he thought he’d go mad, “Please, Hazel. Don’t do that, Hazel. That’s rude, Hazel.”

  Father would raise his hand to cuff her, as he’d cuffed young Jack, and freeze. “It’s what I deserve,” Giles Crookleg muttered to himself. “It’s my fault, the sin of pride.” Jack knew he was remembering how he’d brought Lucy home because she was beautiful and concealed the fact that she’d been switched with Hazel. Mother gently tried to correct the little girl—“No, Hazel. You can’t cram whole apples into your mouth”—and Hazel would stop whatever she was doing. A moment later she’d forgotten. Hobgoblin habits were too strong to change quickly.

  “More! More! More! More!” droned the little girl after the evening meal was finished.

  “There isn’t any more,” Mother said.

  “Don’t care! Gimme more!” screamed Hazel, until Jack grabbed her arm and dragged her outside.

  “You can’t shout at Mother like that,” he scolded when they were in the dark herb garden. “It’s disrespectful and it hurts her feelings. Do you understand?” Hazel struggled to get away, but Jack—barely—managed to hang on to her. She was very strong. “You don’t talk that way to your hobgoblin mumsie,” he said.

  “I do so. All the time,” Hazel declared.

  Jack sighed. “Well, you shouldn’t, and you definitely can’t do it here. Anyhow, we don’t have much food. A Wild Hunt destroyed most of our crops.”

  “What’s a Wild Hunt?” asked Hazel.

  “Odin and his warriors rode among the clouds and tore a road through the forest. I’ll show you tomorrow.” Jack retold the story the way a bard would, first describing the dark sky and the ominous stillness. When he got to the part where the wind carried off the ewe, Hazel was hanging on to him as though a wind might carry her off too. Jack was pleased with his storytelling. He ended the tale on a high note with everyone safe. Hazel fell asleep while leaning against him. He wondered how he would ever carry her back into the house.

  “That’s proper nightmare material,” complained Blewit, popping up from behind a rosemary bush. “Totally unsuitable for a delicate sprogling. I wouldn’t be surprised if she wakes up screaming.”

  “She’s not delicate, and she loved every minute of it,” Jack said.

  “She’s my dainty little toadflax blossom, yes she is,” crooned the hobgoblin, taking one of Hazel’s chubby hands. She didn’t stir. Like most sproglings, she was used to sleeping through parties where young ones might be whisked up at any moment and admired.

  “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 retur
ned 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.