Boil a Manchild for Odin (Opening)

 

(The complete story is available in the collection Seven True Lies, which you can buy,  either in trade paperback or as an Acrobat download, from my bookstore.)

I am young at seven hundred seasons.

            I am not yet wed, I have caught no manchilds, and the mountain thinks me odd.

            But as with many things if you sit to think on them, odd is seen through odd eyes mostly and that is what I tell myself, that I am not so odd perhaps which I sometimes tell my father and sometimes tell his father and sometimes tell his father too who is over four thousand seasons for we are an old race in more ways than one. I tell them this not to argue but to be true to what I see, but they usually do not understand or agree and instead look at me as if I wish to argue and say nothing to me. They too think me odd, I think.

            Mother agrees with the mountain and certainly thinks me odd. Trolls marry at five hundred, she says, or sooner and prods me with her stick so hard it hurts or bats me with something near at hand a pan a ladle maybe or a broom so hard it hurts and then leaves me with my ribs or head still hurting and so fast I have no time to think of an answer and she too looks hurt as she stomps out and away from me to have such a son that no one wants, ashamed she sometimes tells me that the whole mountain thinks me odd.

            I too believe she has a son no one wants for the shefolk of the mountain think me odd as well and few will talk to me. Fewer still have asked to dance with me at feast and none has ever held my hand. Most look at me as if I would be better off with the wolves.

            But that does not worry me much. I worry that the mountain laughs at Mother behind her back for having such an odd son no one wants. That is what I worry about and sit to think on often. That Mother is unhappy. Father does not care, leave the boy alone he says he will marry soon enough but then he is not shefolk and no one will laugh behind his back unless he wishes himself married to the earth for father is our chief.

            I have caught no manchilds. That is odd for seven hundred seasons says Mother. By now any son of mine she says should have caught at least two, maybe three. Your father, she almost always adds, had caught four at your age and she prods me again with her stick or something else close at hand, a broom or a ladle, so it hurts.

            Father, I think but never have time to finish thinking and then say before she stomps out again, reached my age before the roads grew wide and before the rail arrived when catching manchilds was easy. And, I add to myself, but would not tell her even if I had the time, of the four manchilds he caught I hear two died of fright when they first saw him and should not count as caughts for they must be alive when we boil them to count. Also, I think to myself and wouldn’t say either, Father likes the hunt and I have not that thirst.

            I think this is my own private oddness. I should have the thirst, it is a troll thirst, but I cannot find it no matter how hard I look or how long.

            But now I must catch a manchild. I and a shefolk called Hulgur. We chose the blue stones.

            Odin is angry with us. And Father’s father’s father who is the wisest among us and who never has to shout has decided that we must once again boil a manchild for Odin to please him.

            I do not understand Odin. I have thought on him often. If we are his first people, and I believe this to be true, why does he drive us farther into the mountain and deeper into the earth? Why does he give the forest to manfolk like he took our grasses and lakes many seasons ago and gave them to manfolk? Why did he give them roads and iron rail and engines to fly on them like the fastest deer? Father’s father’s father says it is Odin’s way to make us stronger. I know Father’s father’s father is wise but I am not sure he is right. I have asked Odin to answer my questions for over two hundred seasons but he does not talk back. The only good I find about roads and rail is they drove the wolves away too.

            And so, at his father’s father’s wish, my father called a meeting of the whole mountain.

            The great hall was lit with many torches and not a troll was missing. They stood in murmuring groups by clan or family except for the children who didn’t care about such and sat mixed along the walls, wide-eyed and silent for a change. Each of us were to choose one stone from the many in the skin held open by Father’s father. One by one my father called our names and we heard it and walked up to Father’s father and stuck our hand within the skin and rattled the stones and tried to sense the color blue with our fingers, some to choose it and some like me to avoid it. But trolls do not see color through touch so many were disappointed to find their stone red or green or gray or black or white or many-colored like flint, and I was disappointed to find mine blue. Hulgur I could not tell. She seemed pleased to find the stone she chose was blue, but I think she was disappointed that I found the other. She thinks me odd.

            Now she and I must find and bring a manchild to boil for Odin or he will stay angry with us and drive us to the center of the earth where there is nothing but darkness and no fire will ever burn.

            “You chose the fetching stones,” my father said to me and Hulgur from his high seat. “Bring us the manchild before next new moon. We will boil it at first sliver.”

            Not yet the eldest, but past being chief, Father’s father squatted between the two tall chairs, my father’s to the right, and my father’s father’s father’s to the left, holding between his pointed knees the skin now closed and all stones returned to it. He has hair like gray rivers. He has black and angry eyes. He said nothing. It is not his place to speak and you can tell that he does not like this much.

            Father’s father’s father sat very big and silent and was now expected to say something. The hall was long noiseless to give him time to think. He did not speak and did not speak and in the end lifted his hand and pointed finger and slowly carved the air at me and Hulgur. “Go,” he said and I wonder at how slow he thinks.

            “Go,” said my father, and so we did.

            The whole mountain see us leave. Hulgur a step or perhaps two behind me. I look back, she does not.

            Well outside I look up and I see less than a quarter moon waning just above the trees. I stop and turn and look at her and I think Hulgur wishes she could marry the earth. She doesn’t say so, but I can see so, or that the wolves would come and take me, the sooner the better.

            I show I do not notice and ask her, “Hulgur. Do you know where we catch manchilds?”

            “Kurr,” she says to me, looking at me without really looking at me, “You are hefolk. You answer.”

            Hulgur is not a fine looking shefolk. She is tall and thin and has a scrawny tail.

            “I have never caught one,” I say. “Maybe by a road.”

            “Maybe,” she says.

            “Or by a farming house.”

            “Maybe,” she says.

            “Or by the lakes.”

            “Maybe,” she says.

            “Do you know of any farming houses?” I ask.

            “I have not crossed a road for many seasons,” she says.

            “Nor I,” I say. Though I did cross a road one summer twelve seasons ago. Mother thought I had run away or married the earth she was so mad when I came back. Father asked what had I done away so long and when I answered I had been looking he didn’t answer and didn’t answer.

            “Do you know how to think like a tree?” I ask.

            “No,” she says.

            “Nor I,” I say.

            I find a stone and I sit down to think on this. She doesn’t sit but looks at me.

            “Shall we hunt as one or as two?” I ask.

            “You answer,” she says.

            Capturing manchilds was never simple. Not if you believe Father or Father’s father. But I know it was never as hard as now.

            Five hundred seasons ago, when I was a child and the roads were few and narrow and the rail had yet to come with its flying engines that sound like they’ve been running a full season or even longer without stopping once to find their breath and wolves were often seen and shunned or fought, catching manchilds was, some say who are not known to brag, like netting salmon. All you did then, they say, was find a farmhouse or a camp or a road or a grass and then a place in shadow to stay very still and think like a tree so they don’t see you. One is bound to come near you sooner or later and then you nab it and walk off. What could be simpler?

            I can think of few things simpler and I wish then were now for I don’t know nowadays who among us can think like a tree. I cannot. Father says he can but says he has not done so for many seasons. Maybe his father, or his. I asked Father once to teach me. He sat down to think on that. Thinking like a tree is not taught, he says after a long time, it is known. And then he does not say more, even when I ask more.

            Odin is angry with us, yes I think so too. I am not sure why, and he will not answer my questions. But he must be angry and that is why manchilds are harder to catch. That is why manfolk are now many and strong with their blast pokes that kill an elk or a deer or even a bear from a hundred paces and make loud noises like little thunders.

            Fura was the last to catch a manchild. This was eighty or so seasons ago. He stalked for three moons he says, all through one summer, and even so he says, for Fura is honest, it was luck in the end that one of the manchilds strayed from the camp he stood by trying to think like a tree and then hurt her leg and couldn’t run. Fura is not one to brag or tell it better than it was. Not that we can’t run as fast as manchilds, we can run much faster, but they are small and hide easily in cracks and up in trees and get away from us which they mustn’t do lest they tell and the manfolk come after us with their blast pokes. No one heard her cry for help. Except Fura who said he did not manage to think like a tree and thought that maybe he had scared the manchild to death when she saw him for she went white as a new moon or as snow and fell very silent so silent he said he thought that perhaps she had married the earth, but then he listened closely and heard her heart and heard her breathing and lifted her into the skin he had brought, he said. Then he ran for a day and a night and a day to reach the mountain and the child was still alive when he got here.

            They boiled her the same evening without fattening her any to please Odin for he was angry with us then too and the manchild was very loud in the kettle and struggled hard with the thongs that kept her still and then she screamed and screamed and turned pink then red then silent. Each of us got a morsel which was very small for there wasn’t much to her and we ate to Odin’s honor and Father’s father said that this pleased Odin but I don’t think so for the very next moon one of their blast pokes hit Eras in the eye and he ran all the way back to the mountain and bled to death on the floor of the great hall and Odin did nothing to stop the blood to keep him alive.

            I think sometimes that Odin likes manchilds alive and not boiled, which is why he gave manfolk their blast pokes and their iron rail and their screaming saw that can cut a tree as easily as you break a reed with your fingers so now the woodsman comes with a large engine cart and cuts more trees in a day than I saw him cut in half a moon as a child at one hundred seasons, while he gave us nothing.

            Which is why I think he gave them the little light that burns at night by their doors and the magic wooden boxes that hold inside them many small manfolk talking and singing and fighting and running while the blue light flickers in the window if you watch it from a distance or from the edge of the woods or from the other side of the road, while he gave us nothing.

            Which is why he’s made manchilds hard to catch.

            When I ask Father’s father he says that Odin chose manfolk to love when we angered him. What did we do to anger him, I ask. We have not boiled enough manchilds for him, he says. I do not understand. If he wants them boiled why make them hard to catch, I ask. Father’s father does not answer or is still thinking of an answer when he gets hungry, he says, and walks away.

            One moon ago Talla drowned in Big River and Hild who is his daughter ran for a day and a night to reach the mountain and cried and told Father who then told Borr and Vaka to go fetch Talla so he could marry the earth properly. They ran and Hild ran too to show them where it had happened and they found him after looking up and down Big River for two days but Borr broke his foot on the way back carrying Talla with Vaka, for Talla was very heavy and hard to carry so Borr slipped and broke his foot. Hild ran back for more help and we got Talla back and helped Borr back but the foot had turned ugly and Borr got sick and screaming and staring but seeing nothing and then he died three nights ago and Odin did nothing to stop the screaming or to heal the foot. Father said Odin was hard angry with us now, for not as long as Father’s father’s father could remember had two trolls died in the same moon except during the Quarrel or by the teeth of wolves. That’s why Hulgur and I much catch a manchild to boil. The first in eighty seasons.

            “We leave tomorrow at first sun,” I say to Hulgur.

            “I will be ready,” she answers then walks away swinging her scrawny tail like an angry cat wishing she could marry the earth I think, or that wolves would find me so someone other than Kurr the odd one must choose the blue stone.

:

            “Honey, I know you don’t want to go,” said her mother, “but you have to.”

            “But why?” she asked again.

            “Because I’m going too, and because Daddy wants you to.”

            “Why can’t I stay with Elsa?”

            “You know we can’t leave you.”

            “But she gets to stay.”

            “She is older.”

            “I’m old enough.”

            “No, darling, you’re not.”

            “Mom. It’s not fair.”

            “I’m sorry. I’m sure we’ll have fun. You’ll see.”

            “Not at the farm. Not alone.”

            “You’re not alone, we’re with you.”

            “Oh, I didn’t mean that.”

            “You’ll survive. Better get your stuff ready tonight, honey. We’re leaving early.”

            Her mom closed the door behind her and Britt knew it was hopeless. She would have to go with them. She found her soccer tote bag at the bottom of her closet and began picking out what to bring.

:

            She’s up ahead ten paces or more, her tail still lashing unpleased telling me to keep my distance and leave her alone. We have not yet decided what to do or how to catch the manchild, only that we will walk down the mountain and through a day and a night of Beckforest before we cross first Big River and then Little River. The road lies just beyond. There we will stay hidden to look and think more on what to do. To this we have agreed. But not to walking closer than ten paces. She is not a good looking shefolk so I don’t mind much but it would be nice to talk with her for until we get closer to the road there is no need to walk silently.

            But I am happy to be walking. The trees on the mountain are tall and thick and pat me now and then as I pass. I feel the wind in my hair and in my eyes and I smell the outside of the mountain fresh again. Thoughts tumble onto me like soft boulders I don’t know from where and bounce and are gone. No need to sit to think on them for they are happy to be here with me under the real sky and I wish again she would slow down a little so I can tell her I am happy walking, even if it is ten paces behind.

            She disappears around a bend and when I get there I find her sitting to think. On a large stone gray and white and black with moss. Her feet look like badgers asleep with toes and I smile at them like badgers with toes and she sees I do.

            “Why do you laugh? she says.

            “I do not laugh,” I say.

            “Smile then.”

            “At your feet,” I say. “They look like sleeping badgers.”

            She looks down at her feet and her hair falls forward like many brown streams rushing down her face and I cannot see her eyes but I think she looks to see if her feet look like sleeping badgers.

            Then she looks up and brushes some of the little streams aside to peek at me with black eyes and says she thinks they do not look like badgers. More like otters.

            “But otters have no white,” I say.

            “Some do,” she says and I smile at that and for a moment I think she will also smile but then there is no smile from her, just her question.

            “Does it matter girlchild or boychild?”

            I think on that for a while, for nothing was said about it.

            “I don’t think it matters,” I say. “As long as it is a manchild and we bring it back alive.”

            “That is good,” she says. But she doesn’t stand up to walk, so she is not done thinking and I stand and I wait for her voice some more.

            “Kurr,” she peeks at me again through her hair. “Why do you think Odin is so angry?”

            It is a question and she has asked it. She has surprised me and looks at me to see if I have an answer, or if I have no answer. Even though I have thought on this often I still have no answer and Odin himself will not give me one, but after a while I come upon what to tell Hulgur, which is not the reason but which is what I think best to say, even though she seems to have thought on this often as well.

            “Are those thoughts not best left to our fathers?” is what I have come upon to say, for it is what Father has taught me to answer if young ones or shefolk question Odin’s way. It is not for them to ponder, he says. It is for your father and his father to think on.

            But Hulgur has surprised me, for I didn’t know shefolk would think on things other than berries and weaving and maybe the hunt so I am surprised at her question but at the same time I am glad I came upon Father’s answer for I would not know what else to say.

            Then she surprises me even more. “That is the hefolk answer,” she says. “It is not your answer.”

            She is right and I am silent. She still peeks at me through her rivers of hair. Black eyes from among the strands. This I need to sit to think on.

            The stone is large enough for two but there is no need to share and no invitation to and I want to see her eyes which are fine and not scrawny like the rest of her and her tail but large and quick, so I sit on the trunk of a tree fallen in a storm long ago, soft now with green and yellow moss. I stretch my legs before me and stretch my feet and stretch my toes, for it feels good to sit and set my feet free. They do not look like badgers or otters. They look more like foxes with their red and white with toes.

            She looks at my feet then back at her feet as if to compare them then brushes her hair back over her head with several scoops of long and thorough fingers. Then she does nothing for a while to give me time to think. But it is not really nothing for she looks at me with her black eyes and I find it hard to find my answer when I know she is looking at me and when I know I have no answer to find. But in the end I find a path to carry what I think and I speak this path to her.

            “I don’t know why Odin is angry,” I say. “Maybe he is not angry with us. Maybe it is that he likes the manfolk.” I know I am speaking my thoughts as they grow which I should not do for we should let them grow fully before we speak them says Father, and then only to hefolk. But I speak them as they grow to Hulgur and I am surprised at what I hear reach the air.

            “Perhaps it is because he likes them,” I say. “Perhaps that is why he gave them road and iron rail.”

            “And blast poke,” she says.

            “And blast poke, “ I say. Then I think it best to add, for my own sake as well has for hers, “But deeply he favors us.”

            “For we are his first folk,” she says so soon I was unsure at first had I heard it from her or had I only thought it.

            “Yes,” I say then, “Yes, we are his first folk. So says Father’s father’s father in words from many fathers before him. And I believe it is true. Manfolk did not yet walk the world when we lived the forest and grasses and not the mountain and warred with wolves.”

            She thinks on what I have said and I think on her eyes again. Then they look at me and catch me looking at them and I quickly find something stuck to my foot, a twig or a leaf, and bend to pick it off and still she thinks on what I have said before answering.

            “So we must please him,” she says then. “So he will not forget his first folk.”

            These are strange words to hear from a shefolk and I am surprised again.

            “Yes,” I say. “We must please him.”

            “We must please him true,” she says.

            “Yes, we must please him true,” I say.

            “What would please him true do you think?” she says.

            “Boiling him a manchild,” I say.

            “Are you sure?” she says. “True sure?”

            “That,” I say, for in my heart I am not true sure about that, “is something I have not thought on enough.”

            “Nor I,” she says. And then she rises and walks off, her tail not lashing so much now, and maybe not so scrawny chasing her down the path.

::

Copyright © 2007 by Wolfstuff

This story is available in the collection Seven True Lies, which you can buy,  either in trade paperback or as an Acrobat download, from my bookstore.

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