Forest of Shadows Page 18

  “Up, up, up and away,” Obscuren said, seeming to settle into another’s words comfortably, as if the conversation of the previous night had been a bit of a strain for her.

  Elsa wobbled out of the raft first, followed by Kristoff. When he turned to offer his hand to help Anna step out, she ignored it and leapt over the side. Obscuren indicated with a nod that they should take off their glowworm bracelets and leave the little creatures on the post. With a wistful sigh, Anna unwrapped the glowworm and gave it a little pat in thanks.

  “Will it be okay here?” she asked.

  “Home is where the heart is,” Obscuren said, and when Anna looked for clarification, the Librarian King’s assistant explained, “I’ll take them back with me. They’re not needed where we’re going.”

  And with that, Obscuren left the raft behind and stepped off into the darkness, silent as the moon sailing through the night sky.

  Anna, Elsa, and Kristoff followed her, not nearly as gracefully, but they managed to reach the beginning of the steps and started to feel their way up the side of the rock, following the carved path that wound its way to the cave ceiling.

  “Stop a moment,” Obscuren said, and there were a few quick taps, and then a creak as the Hulder pushed open a square hatch in the ceiling. Light streamed through.

  Squinting her eyes against the unexpected brightness, Anna emerged from the dirt floor of a round room with stone walls carved with runes and windows blocked by grassy tussocks. She caught a glimpse of blue in the window. Her heart leapt. “Wait, is that sky?” she asked.

  “We’re in a turf house,” Elsa said as she shrugged off her cloak and her mother’s scarf before stepping aside from the trapdoor to make space for Kristoff to climb up beside them.

  Of course! Turf houses dotted Arendelle’s wilderness of scraggly birches and spruces. They were made by digging a dwelling-sized hole deep into the ground, which was then covered by a roof made of grass. Turf houses came in all shapes and sizes, but Anna’s favorites were the ones that looked like Earth Giants sunk into the soil, the green grass of the roofs resembling troll hair. Anna looked around, hoping to see a neat row of books. “Um, Obscuren, are you sure this is your library?” she said.

  It didn’t look so much like a library as it did a too-crammed gift shop. Sure, there were a few books scattered here and there, with bleached covers that looked like they’d been forgotten long ago and left out to wither in the sun. But mostly there were items.

  There were sideways chairs lying on top of rolled-up rugs next to a careful stack of mirrors. There was a pile of gardening tools, broken clay figurines, and more than one pile of rusted old keys. And there were socks—lots and lots of mismatched socks.

  “Welcome to the Library of Lost Things,” Obscuren said. Above the ground and in the warm light of the turf house, the Hulder seemed to look less like rock and more like a tree, softly sprouting leaves where before there had been the rough texture of a pebble.

  “Before you say anything, we did not steal any of these things. We simply find things that are lost and give them homes. That includes everything from missing spectacles, to hair bands, to legendary swords. Please,” the Hulder continued, stepping aside, “feel free to roam.”

  “Thank you!” Anna cheered.

  “Can the Nattmara find us up here? Or are we still hidden and all that?” Kristoff asked, peering out a window.

  “With me, you are still hidden from the Nattmara,” Obscuren said.

  “Phew!” Kristoff said.

  “That’s a relief,” said Elsa, peering through the mess of objects.

  “We should split up,” Anna said, then looked at Elsa. “Right?”

  Elsa nodded, and so the three of them began their search.

  Some of the lost objects were beautiful—bronze vases from another age and even a necklace of heavy sapphires that Anna thought would complement Gerda’s eyes—if Anna were able to turn them back from yellow, that is. She set the necklace down and hurried to the next pile. She picked up a round mirror. It was little, meant to slip into a pocket, and clasped cleverly to look like a clamshell. She opened it, then set it to the side. It was pretty, but not what she was looking for.

  Scanning the room, Anna searched for a glint of metal, trying to find anything that could possibly be the sword of myth. She moved aside a rickety chair and a mountain of missing socks and tried to push down her disappointment, but it kept rising, like a hot-air balloon, not wanting to be weighed down. There had to be something in this library. Anna’s thoughts skidded to a halt. Her eye had caught on a statue in the center of the room. It was a figure of a human girl in a sky-blue dress with a glittering train, and a platinum blond braid. It looked to be about as tall as Elsa’s knee, and it also happened to look a lot like Elsa.

  Anna gasped as she stepped closer. It was a statue of Elsa. Specifically, the one the sisters had installed in the town cuckoo clock a few years before. Last spring, the Elsa figure had disappeared in a sudden storm, blown away by unusually strong winds. Anna peered at the statue.

  A little green wreath with candles had been perched on top of statue Elsa’s head, and Anna had the briefest thought that the statue looked more comfortable here, surrounded by other wondrous things, than it had looming above the masses, day in and day out. She was glad the Huldrefólk had found a new home for it, and so she kept searching.

  But no matter how hard or long they looked, they did not find the coveted sword in the turf house.

  The closest things to a mythical sword they’d managed to unearth were a few shields and helmets from the time of King Runeard, but nothing older than that. Anna’s shoulders slumped. If the Huldrefólk didn’t have Revolute, and if Sorenson was lost, and if the trolls had fled the Nattmara…what were they going to do? They were running out of places to find answers.

  “There’s not a single sword in this library!” Elsa said to Obscuren an hour later as the gang flopped in front of a large fireplace to eat from Kristoff’s traveler’s pack.

  Obscuren sighed. “So it appears.” The Hulder’s skin had taken on the runes of the turf house walls, and speaking to Obscuren now almost felt like talking to alphabet soup. She seemed to droop slightly, and it was clear to Anna that Obscuren wasn’t used to having to converse so much.

  “Why not?” Kristoff asked. “Arendelle’s history seems to be full of swords, as far as I can tell. Why didn’t the Huldrefólk ever find one? Maybe it’s at another location?”

  “Sometimes,” Obscuren said, settling down onto the dirt floor to rest, “great swords are buried with their heroes.”

  “ARRGH!”

  Anna’s heart began to pound furiously as a cry that sounded a bit like a seagull reverberated through the turf house. Wide-eyed, Anna turned to see what had made such a terrifying sound—expecting to see the Nattmara or a mob of yellow-eyed villagers coming for them—but all she saw was Elsa, who’d leapt to her feet.

  “Well, that’s just great!” Elsa’s blue eyes flashed and her cheeks reddened. For the first time in a long time, Anna thought that her sister looked visibly upset.

  “What’s wrong?” Anna scrambled to her feet, too. “We just need to find out where Aren was buried—”

  Elsa snorted, and it was such an un-Elsa-like sound that Anna grew quiet.

  “We can’t find where he was buried.” Elsa paced the floor. “Don’t you remember the story? Aren was swallowed by a dragon!”

  Anna blinked. “He was?” She’d forgotten that. She glanced over at Kristoff, who was looking at Elsa with something like awe, as though he couldn’t quite believe that calm and collected Elsa was panicking.

  “Yes,” Elsa said, exasperated. “A dragon came to the fjord, and it threatened to eat everyone! And so Aren, our greatest leader besides King Runeard, who loved his home and people more than anything, decided to go face the dragon…who”—Elsa paused, then changed to her most dramatic voice—“‘lives where the sea is a sky,’ and never came back.” Elsa took a deep breath. “B
ecause the dragon swallowed him. And dragons don’t exist, and neither does this sword, and Anna, oh, I’ve tried listening, but there’s nothing we can do!”

  “Curious,” Obscuren called out. During Elsa’s tirade, the Hulder had gone to a stone wall. “That’s not what all stories say.” She waved a delicate arm at the walls around them. “In that long-ago time when Huldrefólk and humans were more comfortable with each other, we would meet here, in a place of compromise between earth and sky. Each community carved their stories into these walls. This is one of the oldest turf houses. And here, the myth of Aren changes, slightly.

  “This”—the Hulder pointed at a carved rune that looked like a sideways S-shape—“according to our legend, says that a great danger came from the waters, and in order to save his home and people that he loved, Aren set out in a boat and was never seen again.”

  “How is that any better?” Elsa asked, and Anna was shocked to see her sister’s foot twitch, as though she had just resisted the urge to stomp her feet. “That just means Revolute is probably somewhere at the bottom of the ocean, and even if it were possible to scour all the waters, we just don’t have time.” Elsa turned sharply, sending her braid whipping out behind her and almost smacking a shocked Kristoff across the nose. “So you see,” she addressed Anna, “we’re never going to find Revolute!”

  But actually…Anna did see.

  Anna opened her mouth. “Elsa—”

  “The Nattmara is still out there, the Blight chokes the land, and all of our friends are probably stuck in a nightmare by now!”

  Kristoff flinched at her words.

  “You wanted to visit the Huldrefólk because they were supposed to be able to tell us something,” Elsa continued, “to show us the way to a made-up sword. Is there anything else, any other clue—”

  “Elsa—”

  Her sister threw her hands in the air. “The people are all counting on me!”

  “ELSA!”

  Elsa’s furor stumbled to a halt, and, panting, she looked over at Anna, who pushed away a smile.

  “How can you be so calm at a time like this?” Elsa demanded, and Anna had to stop from giggling.

  “I’m calm because I learned from the best,” Anna said, and she could feel a fiery hope burning bright in her chest. “And because I know where Revolute is.”

  “WAIT, WHAT?” ELSA SAID.

  Anna couldn’t help smiling now at hearing her signature line coming from Elsa’s mouth.

  “What do you mean, you know where Revolute is?”

  Somewhere along the way, it had clicked as Anna stared at the carvings on the walls and listened to Obscuren’s tale. The Arendellians’ story and the Huldrefólk’s story were different, but the same. Like Anna and Elsa. And just like the royal sisters, the stories made the most sense when they were together.

  “Why can’t both things be true?” Anna suggested. “Why can’t he have been eaten by a dragon, as our story says, and be sent out on a boat? It’s all in the stories—Aren was swallowed by a dragon who lived in a place where the sea is a sky.”

  “But for the sea to be a sky, you have to be under the…” Elsa’s voice trailed off and her eyes lit up. “The Earth Giant’s Passage! It goes under the fjord, which means the sea is the sky. And that’s where the dragon boat is!” Elsa’s hand flew to her mouth in wonder. “The tumulus,” she said softly. “It’s Aren’s tumulus, which means…”

  “That’s where Revolute is buried,” Anna finished with a nod. “Exactly.”

  “Way to go, Anna!” Kristoff said. “You solved it!”

  “Thanks!” She flashed him a smile. “This means we have to go back to the castle,” Anna said, looking up at the Hulder, who stood there tall and impassive as they spoke. “And we need to get there as soon as possible! Elsa, can you…” Anna twirled her finger.

  “Magic? But it’ll draw the Nattmara right to us,” Elsa said.

  Obscuren chimed in. “If you wanted to use your magic without the Nattmara sensing it, I think it would need to be now.”

  Elsa nodded. In the safety of the turf house, she crafted a sleigh of ice—ice so clear that Anna could see right through it. It was practically invisible. And then Anna felt a whoosh of cold air blow by her, and she shivered as snowflakes danced in the air, shaping themselves into a massive snow bear, who loomed much too large in the tiny turf house.

  “Elsa,” Anna said, taking in the snow bear with wonder, “he’s beautiful.”

  The bear growled.

  “He says his name is Bjorn,” Obscuren translated.

  “I can hear my reindeer, Sven, talk, too,” Kristoff said to the Hulder. His voice sounded glum, and Anna knew he was still worried about his best friend. She hoped Sven was all right, and, at the very least, safe on the royal ship.

  Obscuren rested a hand on Kristoff’s arm and flashed a sad smile. “The Huldrefólk are known for finding things that are lost, because we know how to listen,” she said. “But we’re not the only beings who listen. Animals can, too. They can tell a kind heart from one filled with cruelty. And I suspect, Kristoff, that you’re someone who knows exactly what Sven is saying to you.”

  Kristoff shook his head. “I just hope he’s okay.”

  “If we leave right now, he will be,” Anna said, trying to say it with so much confidence that it would just have to be true.

  As quickly as they could, they buckled the snow bear up to the sleigh, and then said their farewells to Obscuren.

  “In my family,” the Hulder said, “we don’t say goodbye.”

  “What do you say, then?” Anna asked.

  “We say, ‘Till we see you again.’”

  Anna smiled. “Till we see you again.”

  “Maybe,” Obscuren said, already disappearing behind a stack of lost and broken plates. “But I’ll probably see you first. Unless you look very, very closely.”

  Obscuren reached out an arm and cracked open the door. There was a second while the Hulder took in the land, and then she flung the door open wide for the bear and the sled. “Remember,” the Hulder called as they slipped from the safety of the turf house and slid out under the sky. “Home is where the heart is. Good luck, friends of Arendelle.”

  “Goodbye, friend,” Anna said.

  But Obscuren was gone.

  As Bjorn loped away from the turf house, home did not look like home anymore. Anna saw a haze had settled over Arendelle as color drained from the world. It was as though the earth itself were afraid, turning pale with fear. Anna held out her hand, studying it in the sunlight. It still looked pink in the cold. Glancing at Elsa, Anna was comforted by the fact that her mother’s scarf, wrapped around Elsa’s shoulders, was still burgundy, while Kristoff’s hair was still the color of wheat. The color that wheat was supposed to be, Anna corrected herself. But there was still time before sunset. There was still time to remedy this all.

  “It looks like the forest after a fire,” Kristoff said, glancing at the terrain as he guided the snow bear around a bend with a careful tug of the reins.

  “What do you mean?” Elsa asked.

  “The way the ash drifts,” Kristoff explained. “It floats on the air instead of falling.”

  “Maybe,” Anna said, trying to force cheer into her words, “that’s a good thing. I read in the library that forest fires are necessary to clear the bramble and make way for new life.”

  Kristoff shook his head. “Tell that to the people who’ve lost their homes.” He jounced the reins, and the sleigh went faster.

  Anna held a spyglass of ice from Elsa up to her eye, scanning the horizon for any sign of the Nattmara. So far, so good. There was no sign of the wolf. Well, no signs other than this pale shadow of their home and the fearful thump of Anna’s own heart.

  Except, what was that? A dark smudge seemed to move from the washed-out green of the spruces.

  “Elsa,” Anna whispered, and slipped the spyglass back to her sister. “Something’s moving. Over there.”

  Elsa peered over her
shoulder, then looked ahead again. “You’re right,” she said. “I think it’s following us.”

  Kristoff snapped the reins harder and Bjorn veered right, sending a swirl of pale white leaves into the air. Anna looked back. The smudge also veered right. Yes. Whatever it was, it was definitely following them. Bjorn’s ears swiveled, and then Anna heard it.

  A cry: Ahhhhhhhh! It seemed to come from the direction of the smudge. And it wasn’t the bone-cold howl of the Nattmara. This noise sounded almost human, as though someone were trying to call out a name. In fact…Ahhhhhh! Naaaaaaaa!

  “Stop!” Anna lurched upright. “It’s Sorenson!”

  Elsa gasped. “What?”

  Kristoff pulled the reins, flinging Anna into Elsa as they sped back to the scientist. As they got closer, the cry became clearer. “Annaaaa! Elsaaaaa!”

  “Sorenson!” Anna shouted, relieved he was okay.

  Or was he? The scientist looked the worse for wear. His coat was torn, shredded by the Nattmara’s claws, and he limped, his ankle swollen. But he was alive, and not only that, his eyes didn’t appear to be either pitch black or yellow.

  “Stop the sleigh!” Anna said, and Kristoff pulled Bjorn to a walk.

  The snow bear snorted, protesting the change in pace.

  “Sorenson!” Anna called as she swung out of the sleigh and hurried toward him. “We’re so glad to see you! How did you escape?”

  “Hello to you, Anna, and to you, Your Majesty,” Sorenson said. He spoke in a strange cadence, as if he had somehow managed to twist his tongue as well as his ankle. “I’ll tell you all about it in a minute. Just let me catch my breath.”

  “We don’t really have time,” Elsa said, looking to the sky. The sun was definitely low now, approaching dinnertime. “How about you tell us in the sleigh?”

  He nodded. “That’s a good idea, but we can’t take a sleigh where we need to go.”