Along with everything else.
“Get out,” he says, too quietly.
“I’ve nowhere to go. My family can’t afford to feed me for another winter, and my beau died.” I plant my hands on my hips and feign a boldness I don’t feel. “See here, sir, you’ll let me work or kill me where I stand, for I won’t go of my own volition. Now which will it be?”
2.
In the deepest corner of my heart, I can’t believe I’m challenging the beast like this, but it’s true that I cannot go home. And there’s nowhere else for me, a half-trained brewer’s assistant. It’s not as though I can travel hundreds of miles alone to Kerkhof and find employment. The other towns between here and there are too poor for me to make a living, and it’s unlikely they’d hire a single woman anyway. With Owen gone, I’m unwilling to barter myself in marriage, assuming anyone else would wed me. Most likely, considering my reputation in the village, I’d be given to some old man.
The silence builds, tightening my skin over my bones, until I fear I might snap like lute strings adjusted by unskilled hands. Finally, the raspy voice speaks again, “You will avoid the east wing entirely. Do not even approach. If it pleases you to tend to the rest of the keep, so be it.”
“Then I can stay?” I ask cautiously.
“Your kinfolk must be dreadful indeed if you prefer to bide here.”
It’s a personal admission to someone I just met, but maybe it will make him feel sorry for me if I tell the truth. “Not dreadful, just . . . indifferent.”
Perhaps that is worse, though, because I could hate Da if he’d ever truly mistreated me instead of morosely stealing my childhood. He imbued me with the sense that he loves me a little, only . . . not enough. Not enough to see me instead of my dead mother.
“I see.”
“What should I call you?” I ask.
“We won’t interact enough for that to become an issue.”
“That’s most discourteous. I’ve given you my name politely. You can’t do the same? If you choose not to, I’ll resolve the matter, and I promise you don’t want that. I named our pet rat Brave Sir Reginald.”
Pathetic amount of good that did me too. My stepmother found the little animal and promptly broke its neck, shrieking all the while about disease. I got a whipping because I upset my stepmother and cried silently for two days, not just for the rat.
“Njål,” the beast says finally. “In another life, I was known as Njål.”
“Pleased to meet you, Sir Njål.”
“Just Njål. I am owed no honorifics.”
“I see,” I say, although I truly don’t.
It seems too intimate to go straight to first names, though he doesn’t seem to own a second. How long has the monster lived here alone in darkness? A memory scrabbles at the back of my mind, some scrap left from the stories I heard on some old grandmam’s knee as a little one. “Njål means ‘giant,’ doesn’t it?”
But there’s no answer. Instead, I hear quiet footfalls moving off, scrapes of soft soles on stone. Oddly, it’s a comforting noise; I’m not hearing cloven hooves or the scrabble of inhuman claws. He’s deft at staying in the shadows because I didn’t get a glimpse of him, not even an outline.
After that strange encounter, it seems so prosaic, but there’s work to be done. I store the soup in the pantry, which is cold enough to prevent spoilage. The entire keep radiates an unnatural chill, barely beaten back by the fire crackling in the hearth, and I pause before it to warm up before I set about scrubbing the kitchen from top to bottom. In time, I’ll tackle a few other rooms, but for now, for the first day, this is where I’ll focus my efforts.
The mysterious Njål didn’t tell me anything about the premises so I investigate on my own, eventually finding a well in a small courtyard that must tap the spring that feeds the lake below. The water appears to be frozen solid, though, so strange. I’ve never known that to happen, no matter how fierce the winter. Sighing, I haul some snow and ice from outside and melt it in a pot. Some of it, I use to clean the kitchen and what’s to be my room. The rest I save for a quick bath. It should still be warm enough when I finish work and I’d love to go to sleep clean. It’s been ages since I could strip down and wash up properly. Such luxuries were reserved for my stepmother and little sisters, though I usually got stuck doing the hauling.
This room shows no sign that anyone has cooked a meal for years, so how has Njål been subsisting here? For all I know he eats live vermin like Brave Sir Reginald. A shiver works through me as I pass from the kitchen into the cozy room at the back, already warmed by the double-sided fireplace, cunningly designed to heat both the cooking area and the private living quarters. The mattress needs a good airing, however, so I haul it out back and whack it until a cloud of dust billows out. Right now, I don’t sense the acute observation that dogged my steps earlier. Njål must have been watching me from the moment I stepped inside.
With effort, I drape the mattress across a desiccated hedge. Will I be expected to tame the garden as well? Probably not, as all the plants are dead and the ground is frozen. The keep is far too large for one person to look after, but at least my days will be full. Likewise, all the linens need to be washed properly. By some miracle, the cloth hasn’t been devoured by moths, despite a lack of proper care. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen any signs of pests inside the walls, no tracks in the dust or dead insects. That seems . . . strange, but no odder than anything else in this eldritch place.
I accept there’s little more I can do today and finally take a bath in the kitchen with the water I saved earlier. There’s no one to bother me, and it’s quite nice in front of the fire.
Afterward, I head to my cozy room and roll up in the blanket I brought from home in front of the hearth. From here, I can see through the double-sided fireplace into the shadowed kitchen. The rug is a bit musty, but not enough to keep exhaustion from taking me.
My little room has no windows, so an internal clock wakes me countless hours later, instead of my chattering sisters or the crowing of a rooster. Stiff to the bone, I roll out of my pallet and tame my hair into a simple plait, then don my work dress. I have exactly two, one for work and one for good, though I hate wearing the second one, because I used to glow whenever I put it on to meet Owen.
I can remember better times when I had a new coat every year and shiny shoes, but as the winters got worse, people bought less and less ale, until our family was barely scraping by, and our best went to Tillie and Millie. I tell myself firmly not to think of them and head to the courtyard to retrieve the bedding. It takes me most of the morning to put the room to rights, but I’ll sleep in a proper bed this evening.
Pleased with myself, I put the kettle on and heat the soup I made the day before. Soon the kitchen simmers with a delicious scent, and I hear soft footfalls approaching.
“Good day,” I call out. “There’s enough for two. Will you eat with me?”
“I handle my own meals,” comes the terse rejoinder.
I shrug. “Suit yourself. What can I do for you then?”
Knowing it might be impolite, I can’t help but tuck into my meal because I haven’t eaten since the day before, and I’ve worked more than enough to earn these beans. Njål is near, but damned if I can tell exactly where.