To the tribe
PERSONAL—comely widow who owns a large farm in one of the finest districts in LaPorte County, Indiana, desires to make the acquaintance of a gentleman equally well provided, with view of joining fortunes. No replies by letter considered unless sender is willing to follow answer with personal visit. Triflers need not apply.
—Popularly attributed to Belle Gunness
La Porte, Indiana, 1907
This happened many years ago, in the valley where I grew up.” My children crowded around me on the bed; their hands were sticky with porridge and the empty china was stacked on the floor, where Prince, our collie dog, huffed and rolled over in his sleep. I had turned the kerosene lamp on the bedside table down, and the little flame cast the room in a soft, warm glow.
Outside the window, it was dark.
“A man was out in the woods chopping wood,” I said, “when his wife suddenly came out from among the trees. She looked just as she had that same morning when the man set out from home. She was carrying a bowl of sour-cream porridge, which she offered him to eat. ‘This is for you, dear husband, for working so hard in the woods,’ she said. The man took the porridge from her hands, and it smelled so good and looked even better. Then he noticed that his wife wasn’t sitting on the log with him but was crouching down in the underbrush, and he suddenly got suspicious that his wife was not really his wife at all but a hulder from beneath the earth!” At this my children chuckled and shuddered, and crept even closer to me under the knitted blanket.
“‘I think you are fooling me!’ The man cast the food aside. ‘I think you are a hulder,’ he cried. And up she went, and now he could see the long tail trailing under her skirt, and she ran off, screaming and cursing and neighing like a horse!”
The girls giggled with delight, but my son’s eyes were large with fear. He was not yet four and a little too young for such terrible tales.
“Why did she give him food?” asked Lucy, her little face upturned.
“Because that’s how they cast a spell, the hulder people. If you eat or drink something of theirs, they can catch you.” I widened my eyes and twisted my lips. Lucy whined and squirmed beside me, and I could not help but chuckle.
“What happens then?” Myrtle’s soft mouth hung open. She was easier to scare than her younger sister was, and I saw just as much fear as delight in her expression.
“Oh, they take you with them into the earth—and you can never come back then, or see your family again.” I shook my head with a solemn expression.
“Why?” Lucy asked. I could see a trace of porridge on her round cheek.
“They always want a human bride or groom.” I reached out with a finger to wipe off the smear.
“But she looked like his wife.” Lucy’s clear brow furrowed as she struggled to understand.
“That’s right. The hulder can look like anyone you know.”
“But how will we know then?” Lucy suddenly sat up straight. “How will we know that you are you?”
“Well, that’s easy. If I am kind, I am myself. If I’m not . . . then I’m a hulder.” I suddenly felt hot. A tightening in my chest made it hard to breathe.
“And you’ll take us underground?” Myrtle shuddered beside me. Her dark eyes glistened in the dim light. “Never to come back?”
“Just that.” I reached over to the bedside table for some of the silver-wrapped caramels I kept in a bowl. The story had suddenly soured on me.
I did not want to speak more of it.
1.
Brynhild
Selbu, Norway, 1877
The smell of meat drove me out of the storehouse to rest against the timbered wall. My head was spinning and I felt sick. It had happened often lately.
“You should be careful, Little Brynhild.” Gurine came outside as well, climbing slowly down the stone steps while wiping her hands on her apron. She was chewing on something: a piece of mutton. The old woman had become scrawny over the winter; age had sucked all the fat away, leaving her a bony frame and wisps of white-gray hair. She followed my gaze across the farmyard to the six men who stood by the barn. It was a cold but sunny morning in May; the birches in the yard were budding and the horses grazed in the pasture. One of the men, a farmhand called Ivar, told a story while gesturing wildly with his hands. All the others laughed. They were far enough away that we could not hear what he said, but we could certainly hear the laughter: hard peals of mirth hauled through the air. For a moment, I thought they were looking at me, but if they did, their gazes shifted away before I could be certain.
“They are not to be trusted, the young ones,” said Gurine. “Like bucks in heat, the lot of them.” She spat gray gristle down on the grass.
“He can’t deny me forever,” I said, although I was not so sure about that. I could not make myself stop looking at him, standing there laughing with his head thrown back. His dark, thick hair curled out from under his knitted cap, he looked healthy and strong, and his cheeks blushed red in the chill morning air. His hands were buried deep in his pockets. I knew those hands well, could feel the ghost of them on my skin even as I spoke. “I can make him do it, even if he says no.” Even if things had changed between us, I still held out hope that I would know those hands once more. I found it hard to believe that all was lost.
“You put too much trust in the priest, Little Brynhild. He was never a friend to women like us,” Gurine said.
“Women like us?” I glanced at her.
“Women with nothing to their names.”
“Well, he doesn’t much like sinners either. I will talk to the priest about Anders. If the priest says he must, he will.” I lifted my chin just a little.
“Oh, Little Brynhild.” The old woman shook her head. “I don’t think it will be that easy . . . Anders has a farm to his name, and money too. Who do you think the priest will believe?”
My hand fluttered to my belly, caressing it through the worn fabric of my apron. “I have the child as proof.”
Gurine clucked with her tongue. “You could have gotten that child anywhere.”
I nodded. Anders had said that as well when I went to his room and told him what had happened. He laughed even, as if I should have known better than to come to him with my plight. “I haven’t been with anyone else,” I told Gurine, although she already knew that. We shared work and a bed at the farm six days a week, and it had become too hard to lie about the changes in me. We often toiled alone in the kitchen, stirring porridge and carving meat, so it was better that she knew in case I became faint. The fumes from the food did not agree with me since the child took hold. I was often tired and sick. The price I paid for my candidness was Gurine’s constant warnings and a quiet offer to solve my problem with a knitting needle. She had seen this before, she said. It never ended well for the girl.