Winterfrost (3 page)

Without taking time to dress, Bettina went downstairs to check the fire. She could feel its warmth even as she opened the kitchen door and stepped into the wood room. Strangely, it had burned down only a little since she’d filled the firebox before going to bed the night before. Someone must have stoked the fire in the early morning hours. But who?

The answer, when it came to her, seemed obvious: Mr. Pedersen must have stopped by to check on them, knowing they were on their own. Likely he had entered the wood room to knock on the kitchen door, as neighbors never use front doors when visiting. When he hadn’t gotten any answer, he had rightly assumed that the girls were still sleeping, and, like any good neighbor, he had added enough wood to keep the house warm until Bettina woke.

Bettina felt both secure and embarrassed at the same time. It was a comfort knowing that the Pedersens were close by. Rasmus and Lisa Pedersen would do just about anything for their neighbors. But at the same time, it annoyed her that on her first morning alone, she had not only slept late, but she had nearly let the house get cold in the dead of winter. So much for proving that she could handle the farm on her own!

Then Bettina had a thought. What if Mr. Pedersen felt like he needed to take care of the barn chores for her as well? She couldn’t let that happen!

Still in her nightgown, Bettina threw a blanket over her shoulders and braced herself for the cold winter blast before opening the door.

When she pulled open the heavy oak door, she gasped — but it wasn’t the cold air that stole the very breath from her lungs. An unexpected winter wonderland was laid out before her. Everything was white, from the fir trees to the red-brick barn to the thin fence wires. But it wasn’t snow.

“Winterfrost!” Bettina cried.

Sometime after she and baby Pia had settled in for the night, a thick fog must have settled over Lolland, and as the night temperatures dipped, that fog had frozen itself to every blade of grass, every twig in the trees, leaving behind a thick sugary cover and air as still as a baby’s breath. A winterfrost on Lolland was rare and spectacular, and Bettina could not recall the last time she’d seen such beauty. She barely felt a chill as she stood with the door open wide, staring at Mor’s winter flower beds, now looking as though someone had sprinkled sparkly white sugar on every leaf and stem.

She wished Farfar could see this.

“There’s nothing so wonder-filled as winterfrost. It’s
magical
!” he would say, and Mor would scoff.

“What? You’ve heard the tales of winterfrost,” he’d answer Mor. “The most mysterious of events occur during winterfrost.”

“Tales, indeed! Fairy tales, I’d say!” Mor would press her lips together and shake her head. “Don’t you go filling my girl’s head with nonsense!”

But when Mor was out of earshot or when Farfar and Bettina walked alone in the woods, he spoke of winterfrost as if it were a magical doorway to another world. A rare and precious opportunity, afforded to those who believed in the goodness of nature and the possibility that we share the forest with more than just the animals who scurry across our boot-worn paths.

And now it was here, right before her eyes — a winterfrost! Bettina vowed to ride her bicycle to the churchyard in town to tell Farfar about this day as soon as Mor or Far returned home.

A soft sound from above pulled Bettina’s thoughts back into the house. Pia was awake and needed her. Bettina quickly closed the door and threw the blanket over a peg on the wall. She raced up the narrow wooden stairs, eager for her baby sister to experience this fantastic winter phenomenon for the very first time, and thrilled to be the one who would get to show it to her.

“Pia,” she called on the way up, “wait until you see what’s outside!”

But in all her excitement over the winterfrost, Bettina had neglected to notice one thing. There were no tracks in the snow in the driveway, nor were there any on the walk leading to the house. Mr. Pedersen had not been there that morning.

Klakke spent his night traveling between the barn and the forest, his mood sour. He didn’t go see Gammel, mostly because Gammel would know that Klakke had been up to no good. And he’d know without Klakke saying a word, for many an old nisse could look directly inside the heart of another. And no one had mastered that skill as well as Gammel.

At some time in the night, under the cover of darkness, Klakke had returned to the barn, his pockets full of herbs and his mind filled with mischief. The large red barn door was closed, but Klakke had no trouble pushing it open just a crack; like all nisse, he was especially strong for his size. This time he didn’t bother to close the door behind him.

Hans and Henrietta were pawing at their stall doors, and both gave a loud whinny when they saw their small friend. Most times Klakke would have returned the friendly
hello
s, but not this night. Tonight the little nisse only scowled at the horses. He did what he’d come to do, then climbed the ladder swiftly in spite of the fact that it was quite obviously made for legs much longer than his own.

Klakke tried, but he couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t morning yet, and his body’s clock was telling him he ought to be in the forest visiting with the night animals. Or gathering nuts for his daytime friends. But a strange sadness that very much resembled self-pity had settled so deep into his bones, he was sure they ached.

The little nisse sighed and peered out of the loft’s only window and into the early morning darkness. In the light of the farm’s single barnyard lamp, he could see that a heavy fog had come down like a fluffy white blanket over everything, hiding from view the ground below. A fog so dense on a cold night like this just might bring . . .

For the first time since Christmas Eve, Klakke’s heavy heart lightened a bit. He flew out of the hayloft with such quickness, the sleepy barn cats didn’t even have time to be startled. He had to get outdoors and see for himself.

Hans and Henrietta eyed the nisse suspiciously, but Klakke didn’t bother to stop. He squeezed himself through the crack in the red wooden barn door, and there it was.

A winterfrost!

Young Klakke had experienced only a handful of winterfrosts in his lifetime, and each one he found to be more fascinating than the last. He was almost giddy with excitement as he skipped around the barnyard. Then he slowed to a walk, mesmerized by the crystals of frozen fog around him.

The small fir seedlings at the forest’s edge, barely taller than he, wore furry winter coats of white. The grasses drooped low to the ground with their load of fluffy frost. The air was still and silent. Even the Baltic breeze held its breath as if it were trying not to disturb the delicate balancing act that nature had accomplished overnight.

Klakke didn’t want to go back to the barn, but the morning sky was pinking up on the horizon. Daylight was coming, and, especially in the great whiteness that surrounded him, it would be impossible to stay hidden in his brown coat, red stockings, and red hat.

It was an age-old dilemma of the nisse: how to dress in such a way that they might be unseen by human eyes, yet conspicuous enough to the hawk so as not to be mistaken for a rabbit running across the fields of grass. The red hats gave birds of prey plenty of notice that a nisse was not dinner to be snatched up and carried away, but it made them more likely to be spotted by humans. However, thanks to toes turned slightly inward, nisse can run so fast that they’re out of sight before the human brain even has time to register what the eyes saw — or thought they saw. No opportunities for double takes. When a nisse is gone, he’s gone.

With daylight creeping across the island, Klakke reluctantly returned home, climbed the ladder, and tried to sleep. But he didn’t sleep well. Below he could hear Bettina’s soft voice as she spoke kindly to the animals (except the goats — everyone, even Bettina, always spoke firmly to the naughty goats) while doing the morning chores.

Soon she would discover Klakke’s pranks. But why should this interrupt his daily slumber? After all, he’d been mischievous but not mean. His pranks had caused no real harm.

Still, he felt the need to see Bettina’s expression when his mischief was discovered. Soundlessly he crawled to the edge of the mow and peered below.

“You play with the kitties while I get to work,” Bettina told Pia. “This won’t take long at all. Then we can take a walk in the forest. You’ve never seen the forest in a winterfrost.”

But the feeding took longer than ever. First, Bettina reached for the horse feed, but it wasn’t where it normally was. After a quick search, she found it sitting where the chicken feed usually sat.

“How strange,” she muttered to herself. “That isn’t where I left the horse feed.”

Bettina moved the bags back to their proper positions and then reached for a feed scoop hanging on the wall.

“What in the world?” Bettina asked aloud. Where three metal feed scoops usually hung on the barn wall, there were three empty hooks. She put her hands on her hips and turned to look around. She spotted the scoops hanging from three hooks that usually held the broom, shovel, and pitchfork.

“Now, where are
they
?”

Pia babbled something Bettina didn’t understand. The little girl’s eyes were fixed on the hayloft, and she giggled with delight.

But Bettina wasn’t delighted. She was beginning to grow less annoyed and more uncomfortable. How had everything become so mixed up overnight? Bettina shook off a shiver and spoke to Pia in a cheerful voice.

“My goodness, Pia. I need to do a better job putting my tools away from now on.”

Before long, Bettina spotted the missing shovel, broom, and pitchfork lying haphazardly in a pile of loose straw. She put everything back in its place.

She fed Hans and Henrietta and then moved on to the noisy goats. The goats seemed agitated, although they were rarely calm. But today their throaty
maaaaaa
s were louder than ever. All three jumped up, front hooves on the gate,
maaaa
-ing wildly as Bettina passed by.

“Settle down, you!” she commanded. She patted their necks and gently lifted their bony legs off the gate. Their chaos quieted to small grunts.

But when Bettina lifted the goats’ feed buckets from their pen, she saw that all the buckets were as full as they’d been the night before. No wonder the goats were acting crazy! They hadn’t eaten even a bite of feed!

“What’s the matter, guys? Aren’t you feeling well?”

The goats still seemed anxious, but their eyes were bright and they appeared healthy. Hungry, yes, but they didn’t look sick. The grain must be the problem. If Far were there, Bettina thought, he’d tell her to dump it and replace it with fresh rations. So that’s exactly what she planned to do, although not without a twinge of guilt. It wasn’t in the nature of any good Danish farmer to waste anything.

In a moment of compromise that Bettina decided was nothing short of brilliant, she took the grain outside and scattered it behind the barn where the forest bordered Mor’s gardens and the smallest of the wild animals often came to nibble. Surely the rabbits, birds, and squirrels would consider the oats and molasses a wonderful find when they happened upon them in the snow. Bettina was feeling quite pleased with herself as she watched the grain fall like confetti on the frosty ground. As she did, the faint smell of something familiar wafted through the air and caught her quite by surprise. What
was
that smell?

Mixed with the scents of molasses and oats was an odor that brought to mind a warm kitchen and Mor’s creamed potatoes next to a beautifully baked leg of lamb, steaming from the oven. Rosemary! That was the smell — fresh and green. She was sure of it. The goats’ feed smelled distinctly of rosemary!

All at once some things became much clearer to Bettina — and others made less sense than before. She knew why the goats hadn’t eaten. They hated the smell and taste of rosemary. Bettina was certain of this because one day last summer they had found a way out of their pen and into the herb garden, where they had chewed every last plant down to the bare roots in the soil. Every last plant
except
the rosemary, which was left standing tall all by itself in the garden. Bettina would never forget Mor’s frustration. “Our herb garden!” she had grumbled. “Those horrible beasts!”