Never Fear Read Online Free PDF Page B

half-moon
cookies in the stone oven. “Where are your bad
brothers?”
    “ They are out in the
pasture, Mama. It is the first day of Yule, and Stekkjastur, the
first of the Yuletide Lads, is coming and he will try to drink the
sheep’s milk.”
    “ Yes,
Lilja, the nasty Yuletide Lads may be coming. I am hoping not. It
is good to prepare for them. Mayhap they will pass our farm this
year. We do not have so very many animals.” She checked the baking
cookies and breathed in their scent. “Go and get your brothers,”
she added, calling after the already departing girl, who was
donning her fur and boots. “But if those sheep are not hidden
safely away, they get no half-moon cookies!”
    “ Yes, Mama, and I will
tell them to get the cows ready for tomorrow when Giljagaur will
try to skim the froth from the milk pails.”
    “ Very good, Lilja. That is
the nice little girl I know. And perhaps your father will also be
home before Christmas Eve. He and your uncle said they would try to
bring a candle for us all. And if work was good, maybe two. That is
why they have been working so hard up in the north these past
months, Lilja, to bring you bad children the gift of light. You,
Lilja, I have hope for… But Leifur and Magnús I fear will never
learn.”
    “ I will be good, Mama. I
helped you bake the half-moons. And Leifur and Magnús are not
always bad. Sometimes they are nice to me.”
    “ Run along, Lilja, and
tell those boys to make haste.” She turned and pulled the cookies
from the oven. Perfect. “I have a bad feeling this Christmas,” she
said to the cooling cookies. “Snorri, please come home soon. I am
afraid for our children. They cause such mischief, but I love them.
Leifur and Magnús need their father. They cannot manage this farm
without you. Magnús is fourteen now, almost a man, but he still has
much to learn. Please come home soon.”
    Berglind often spoke aloud to herself.
It gave her solace when she became worried. It made things not so
quiet. The winters in Iceland could be still as death, and at
Christmas time, death was always waiting at the
doorstep.
    She walked over to the hearth and sat
on the wooden stool in front of it. “Oh please, I beg the gods to
spare us this year. We have had enough tragedy. That evil hag Grýla
ate my baby, Stenn, and her monstrous cat ate Snorri’s poor
brother, Torvild. We thought his boots were new, but he…” She began
to cry, as she always did when she revisited that awful time. She
did this only once during Yule, on the first day… remembered. Then
locked it away.
    She keened over their loss, calling
out her baby’s name. It had been fifteen years, but she saw the
hag’s cruel countenance like it was yesterday. She could see Grýla
biting into her baby’s raw flesh while he screamed and cried. She
could hear the sounds of the flesh tearing loose, see the hag’s
mouth covered in her baby’s blood. And she and Snorri could do
nothing. The hag had frozen them in place with a spell. They were
forced to watch, horrified, as the evil beast ate their child
alive.
    When she had finished
consuming their little Stenn, when the last finger bone had been
crunched up and swallowed, Grýla spoke, “Berglind and Snorri
you will have
more children.” She’d coughed and spat and picked at her teeth
before continuing her imprecation. “But if they prove not to be
good and decent children, I will come for them—no matter their age.
I will roast them on a spit, then my beloved husband, Leppalúdi,
and I will eat them. Heed my words. I will be watching. I am always
watching.” Then she’d laughed maniacally, her teeth bared, dripping
red gore—their baby’s gore. Then she’d waved at them with gnarled,
bloodied fingers and left.
    It had been several minutes before
they could move, sobs wracked from both of them, their faces sodden
with tears.
    Fifteen years ago. Berglind had
thought she would never recover. Stenn had been their first child,
and it proved to be many