I went into room after room. I was going to count them but quickly gave up. The place was enormous, and because of its size I began to think of it as a castle.
I got the feeling that the castle was carved right into the mountain, which was impossible, yet by then I had become accustomed to impossible things. There were no windows or doors that I could see, save for the large door we had entered. Most of the rooms looked as though they had not been used in a long time. It was not because they were stuffy or dusty (in fact, they were neat as a pin), but there was a general sense of emptiness, even loneliness, about each room.
I became more and more intrigued as I explored, forgetting completely my uneasiness about the white bear.
I began to weave a picture in my mind of whoever it was who lived there (other than a white bear). It became a sort of game to piece together the clues that revealed him—Well, that was the first thing I figured out—that it was a man who lived there. There was little of a feminine touch in most of the rooms I had seen.
He loved music. And books. I thought again of the library. Neddy.
I was suddenly hit with a pang of homesickness so severe that I sank down on the thick blue carpet of the room in which I stood. I had been so swept up in the wild ride getting there and then exploring the castle that I had barely thought of my family at all. There I was, thousands of miles from those I loved most in the world, in a strange deserted castle, no doubt with an enormous white bear prowling somewhere nearby.
A chill went through me and I wrapped my pieced-together cloak tighter around my shoulders. Oh, Neddy...
I am not one who cries easily, but at that moment tears spilled from my eyes. I don't know how long I sat there, huddled into my cloak, feeling miserable.
It was hunger that finally got me to my feet and moving again. It had likely been hours since the hot bread and tea. But I wasn't sure how to find my way back to the room where I had eaten. So I decided to go forward, and rushed down the corridor, ignoring the rooms to either side of me, thinking I might find a stairway that would take me back down to the floor where I had begun.
I had just glimpsed a flight of stairs and was heading toward it when something caught my eye—a door was slightly ajar and I could see lamps lit inside the room. The merest hint of color and light flashed out at me. I pushed the door open and then caught my breath in amazement.
A loom. It was the most beautiful loom I had ever seen, more beautiful than I could ever have imagined. It was made of a rich chestnut-colored wood that was polished so that it gleamed, and the posts were carved with intricate designs, as were the crossbeams. The warp threads had been set up with an astonishing palette of wool in such rich colors as the pale green of early spring grass and the purple of fleur-de-lis.
I ran my fingers reverently along the threads. In a sort of trance I sank down on the small stool that was perched in front of the loom, as if it had been waiting for me. I felt like I was in a dream, watching myself, but I took up the shuttle and beater and began to weave. Though it was a completely unfamiliar loom, with a different feel to the shuttle and the tension in the warp threads, it took only a few passes before I understood it, and then I was gone, lost in the world of texture, color, and movement that I loved so well. I could feel the grass brushing against my bare feet, and the violet smell of the fleur-de-lis was thick in my nostrils.
The loom was like a Thoroughbred compared to the worn, stumbling workhorse of a loom I had used in Widow Hautzig's shed. And working on it was as different as the looms themselves. It was the difference between walking with a stranger and walking with your heartmate. It was the difference between working for duty and working for love.
I have no idea how long I wove.
With no window to the outside world, I could not keep time. I might have been an entire day at the loom, or even longer. What finally brought me to my senses was hunger. My head was light and there was a faint buzzing in my ears. But still I could not stop. My fingers slowly moving, I gazed around the room.
There wasn't just the one loom but several others—small hand looms, a weighted loom similar to the one at home, and an upright loom that I guessed to be a tapestry loom, though I had never seen one before, only heard Widow Hautzig describe them. In addition to the looms, there were several spinning wheels (which I would have gone to examine more closely if my knees had not been so weak) as well as shelves filled to overflowing with everything that one could possibly want for creating cloth and sewing it together.
There was a whole section of shelving devoted entirely to thread. A rainbow of colors and textures. Some spools even looked to have silk thread on them, with colors that included shimmery golds, silvers, and bronzes.
There were bins of carded wool, baskets of raw fluffy wool awaiting carding, and skeins of finished wool, ready for weaving. There were bottles of liquid color for dyeing and bowls of powdered pigment in every color ever seen in nature and some I had never seen before. There were sharp, glittery scissors, needles for knitting, and sewing needles of every thickness and length. I was dumbstruck.
But finally, I knew I must find something to eat or I would become ill. I lurched to the door and out into the hall. My head swimming, I made my way to the stairs. Just looking along the curving staircase made my ears ring and my legs shake, but I started down anyway. I finished my descent sitting, dragging my rear down each step like a very young child.
At the bottom I pulled myself upright using the banister and began to walk forward. I sniffed the air for the smell of stew, but there was no scent. I began to worry that I was far from that room where I had eaten. Or that the food was in a different room.
Or worse, that there would be no food at all.
At the end of the hall I rounded the corner, and standing there was the white bear. He was somehow larger and whiter than I remembered. I let out a small scream and fell clumsily to the ground. I felt close to fainting but took several deep, gasping breaths and the feeling passed.
The white bear watched me with his sad black eyes. Then he said in that hollow deep voice that always seemed like it was wrenched from him, "There is food. Come."
I got up shakily and followed.
After a while he stopped, and I stopped, too, stumbling a little.
"If you need ... grab ... my fur."
"Thank you," I replied, my voice thin. I was too addled by hunger to be afraid. I reached up and set my hand on his back.
He started walking again, and I followed along to the room he had led me to before, when we had first arrived. I did stumble once along the way, and kept myself from falling by grabbing a handful of white for. He didn't pause or flinch.
Once again there was a stewpot on the hearth, with a thick soup of lentils and ham bubbling inside. The white bear stood in the doorway, watching me for a moment, then he turned and disappeared.
As I ate, my mind whirled with thoughts about this extraordinary place and all the things in it—the loom, the delicious food that appeared out of nowhere, and most of all, the white bear.
Troll Queen
BEFORE I TOOK THE softskin boy, I went back several times to the green lands. I traveled in my own sleigh, taking only Urda, and I did not try to talk to the boy but only watched, learning of his life. I wrote in my Book:
It seems these softskins die with great frequency; their lives are shortened by a wide variety of illnesses and accidents. The boy I watch is a fifth-born child, but two older than he have already died. It shall be no surprise then if he, too, shall seem to perish.