East

Troll Queen

ON THE DAY I BROUGHT the softskin boy to Huldre I wrote in my Book:

It is done. He is here at last and my joy is unbounded.

But my father rages at me. It must be undone, he says.

I point out to him that it cannot be undone. Death is death in the green lands as well as in Huldre.

"Then there will be punishment" he says. "You cannot keep what you stole., unless conditions that I set down are met."

I have never seen my father so angry. But I am not worried. I shall meet his conditions. And it shall be as I have willed it to be.