Читать книгу Otter's Tale - Susan D. Guyer - Страница 4

Normally Otter didn't mind getting wet, but now she was fed up with it. It had been raining steadily all day and she was soaked to the skin. The long woolen skirt that Björn's wife, Jutta, had handed down to her dragged in the muddy trail, making it even harder to walk. She stopped once again to pull up the heavy skirt and then howled out her frustration in a long wail, "Grandmother Sunna!"

The older woman who was trudging along the narrow path ahead of her with a heavy load strapped to her back stopped to see what the problem was, wiping her face with the wet shawl wrapped over her head and shoulders. Seeing the young girl standing still and shivering in the cold rain, she called back impatiently, "Come along now, Otter! We can't stay here! Just a little farther and then I'll look for a place for us to camp."

Otter rubbed the throbbing lump on her cheek and looked back along the small trail that wound through the dense forest. "They're probably searching for us on the main road," she called to her grandmother. "Nobody would come back here in all this rain."

Sunna sighed and shifted the bundle on her back. "It'll be getting dark soon anyway," she muttered and looked around for a good place to leave the trail. As Otter drew closer, Sunna noticed the reddish purple swelling on the side of her face. "That must hurt," she said curtly. "Once we get a shelter set up, I'll see if I can find something to make it feel better."

They moved downhill away from the trail, careful not to slip and fall on the wet undergrowth. Soon they reached the bottom of the hill and found themselves near a small, marshy lake. Sunna pointed to a dead fir tree that had half fallen over on a hillock near the water. "We can turn that into a shelter," she told Otter.

Otter watched in fascination as her grandmother untied the large bundle she had taken off her back and unrolled it. It was a very large piece of leather made of raindeer hides that had been cut in wide strips and sewn together carefully. "This is part of the lavvu or tent that your grandfather and I used many years ago before we came to Nordmark," she explained to Otter, stroking the leather gently. "I had to cut it apart because the whole thing would have been too heavy for me to carry. But it should be enough to keep us out of the rain through the night."

She skillfully draped the hide over the fallen trunk of the tree to make a small cave that was just large enough for both of them to lie in. There was a pile of old leaves under the tree that had kept fairly dry, so she spread these out as a sort of bed to lie on.

"Stay here where it's dry while I try to find something to put on your cheek to take the swelling down," Sunna told her, at the same time handing her a chunk of bread and some cheese she had taken out of a pouch tied to the belt around her waist.

While she was waiting for her grandmother to return, Otter munched on the bread and thought about what had happened that morning. Spring was late that year. It had been raining and cold for several days, which put everybody in a bad mood. When Otter climbed out of her bed around dawn, she noticed that Sunna was gone, but that she had gotten everything ready for breakfast. The fire in the hearth was crackling cheerfully, a large pot of water had been boiled and moved away from the flames, there was bread and cheese on the table.

Her older half-brother Björn stuck his head through the curtains of the cupboard bed he shared with his wife. All of the beds in the house were in the kitchen, which was also their living area. It was much warmer that way during the long cold winter months. "Have you seen Jutta?" he asked sleepily. "She's not here."

Otter was surprised that her sister-in-law was already up and about. Usually she was the last one to join them for the breakfast that Sunna always prepared. Otter shrugged her shoulders and was opening the door to go outside to their outhouse when Jutta rushed in. Her shawl and hair were dripping wet and her face was flushed. Triumphantly she held up the head and bleeding neck of a dead goose and waved it at Björn, who was now climbing out of their bed with a shocked look on his face.

"It's witchcraft!" Jutta shrieked. "I caught her in the act. She took my favorite goose and killed it in the forest. I saw her smear the blood all over a rock up there on the hill. She's put a curse on me! That's why I haven't been able to keep any of my babies!"

Still standing next to the open door, Otter shook her head in disbelief. Of course she knew that Jutta had had several miscarriages since she married Björn, but Otter was sure that her grandmother had played no role in that. Sunna was a skilled midwife and healer. Otter seriously doubted that her grandmother would ever put a curse on anyone, not even Jutta. That's not the way Sunna was. Jutta, on the other hand, was vindictive and mean-spirited. If anyone were making any evil curses, Otter thought, it had to be Jutta.

The poisonous atmosphere in the house had become much worse since Otter's father Isak died just before Christmas. Björn and Otter had different mothers, but Isak was their common father. Björn also had a younger brother named Elof, but he had moved away a few years before. When Björn and Elof lost their mother as young boys, Isak had moved home to Nordmark to live with his parents on their farm so that they could help look after the boys. After his parents' deaths, he and the two boys got by as well as they could. Then Sunna and her daughter Raija arrived back in Nordmark. Isak took them in, and Sunna soon had the household and family under strict, but benevolent, control. The older man had gradually fallen in love with gentle Raija, and Otter was the result of their marriage. Sadly, Raija had passed away when Otter was only three years old.

"She's a witch!" Jutta cried out again. "Haven't you seen how she smeared butter on our doorframe to attract the devil? And those evil-smelling brews she fed your father just before he died? I'm sure she poisoned him!"

Björn was not a fast-thinker, but he was quick to lose his temper, especially in the morning. Otter could see his neck and then face turning red and feared that he would hit Jutta to knock some sense into her. But then Sunna came hurrying in from outside. She, too, was wet from the rain, but carefully shook out her shawl and wiped her feet before stepping into the room.

"What do you think you're doing?" she confronted Jutta, grabbing the goose head from her outstretched hand. "You're dripping blood all over the floor."

The two women glared at each other, neither of them willing to back down from this battle. Björn looked from one to the other, not sure whose side he should take.

Jutta turned to him and shouted, "If you don't do something about it, I'm going to tell the village priest! I won't have a witch in my house!" When Björn didn't react immediately, she snatched back the goose's head and ran out the door in the direction of the village.

By this time, Björn was so angry and confused that he took a threatening step towards Sunna, his hand raised, ready to strike. This was too much for Otter, who dashed between the two of them and pushed Björn back and away from her grandmother. The blow he then delivered flung Otter across the room, where she landed on the floor in a heap near the hearth.

Shaking with rage, Björn rubbed his mouth and struggled to get himself under control. "You have to leave," he finally told Sunna. "I can't protect you if she goes to the priest. You remember what they did to you the last time."

He turned and looked at Otter lying on the floor. "Take her with you. My wife will make her life hell here. The only peace I'll get is if both of you are gone!"

He quickly pulled on his breeches and shoes, then put his jacket on over his nightshirt, grabbing his hat from a peg as he went out the door. "I'll try to slow them down, but you need to leave fast."

Stunned, Otter watched from the floor as her grandmother went to the table and calmly packed the bread and cheese in a pouch, tying it to her belt. Seeing Otter lying on the floor, she sharply told her to put on as many layers of clothing as she could. In the meantime, Sunna went to her own cupboard bed and began pulling things out of the large drawer at the bottom. By the time Otter had finished getting dressed, Sunna had tied everything together in two bundles - one large one for herself and a smaller one for Otter to carry.

They quickly left the house, walking past the smithy where Isak had worked so hard, training his sons as they grew older to become skilled blacksmiths themselves. When she and Sunna reached the nearby river, Otter looked for the family of otters that lived there and felt relieved to see them frolicking in the water as usual, despite the stormy weather. As she and Sunna began climbing the hill to reach the trail in the forest, Otter looked back and saw the little otter heads popping out of the water to watch her leave, as if they had paused for a moment in their play to say farewell.

She remembered learning how to swim there in the river with her favorite half-brother, Elof. He was the one who had given her the nickname Otter. With her wet brown hair slicked back on her head and her curious, playful eyes watching his every move as she treaded water before diving once again to explore the bottom of the river, he decided she looked like an otter pup and the name stuck. Turning away to follow her grandmother, Otter wondered where Elof was now. If he had been at home that morning, maybe none of this would ever have happened.