Free Winterfrost by Michelle Houts Page B

asked her to make any promises. She knew he believed she would go home and wait, but how could she? She’d go home, feed the animals, replenish her food supply, and then head out on her own to find Pia. As they parted ways, guilt tugged at Bettina’s stomach, but even the guilt wouldn’t keep her from looking for her sister.
    Gammel watched the human girl wend her way through the woods toward home. By the time she was out of sight, she would be returned to her normal size once again.
    It was true that Gammel hadn’t asked Bettina to promise to stay home and wait. How could he? A nisse, after all, would never ask someone to make a promise he knew she’d never keep.

Klakke had been on his best behavior since baby Pia had disappeared from beneath the big oak tree. He knew it was all his fault. He also knew that while he only took Pia out of impulsive curiosity, the one who took her from him likely did so for other reasons. His name was Ulf, and his character was known throughout the nisse world. That Pia was likely in Ulf’s hands worried Klakke from the inside out.
    Though young and often foolish, Klakke knew better than to try to intervene in baby Pia’s rescue. The situation was for Gammel to solve, and Klakke would do best to just take care of the Larsens’ farm. That was, after all, his responsibility and his alone. It was the reason he had come to Lolland in the first place. So, Klakke had returned to the Larsens’ barn in the evening, just in time to feed the animals. The horses were unusually spookish, so Klakke sang every verse of “Jeg bœrer med Smil min Byrde”
—
“I Carry My Burden with a Smile” — as he went about his work. It seemed to calm Hans and Henrietta, and even the goats stopped their constant fussing to listen as well.
    When Klakke fed the cats, the tiger mother dodged him twice, but she eventually came alongside and allowed Klakke to run his small hands across her back. When he got closer to her tail, though, she skirted sideways. Just in case.
    But Klakke wasn’t there to tease. He fed all the animals and carried fresh water buckets much larger than himself. With little effort at all, he hoisted the heavy buckets over his head. Keeping them steady was by far the harder task.
    Klakke’s guilt subsided one chore at a time. Working hard always made him feel better.
    “There you be, my pets,” he told the horses after he’d climbed the edge of the stall. He stood atop the wooden gate, looking eye to eye with Hans and Henrietta. The horses were used to his presence, and they continued to noisily chomp their grain while he spoke.
    “Seems I’ve upset the way of living here at the Larsen place,” he admitted. “But don’t you worry, my friends. ’Cause Old Gammel’s going to fix everything right back to the way it was. And he’s going to do it real quick. Before the mister and missus come home.”
    Hans and Henrietta bobbed their heads as if to communicate their understanding. It was enough to satisfy Klakke. He hopped nimbly from the stall wall to the barn floor below.
    By the time he finished all the barn chores, the sun was ready to creep up over the barren sugar beet fields. And when it did, Klakke knew he’d best be out of sight. On a normal day, he would have climbed the ladder to the hayloft and slept the day away in hidden comfort. But this was not a normal day, and Klakke was feeling an added responsibility to the Larsens. Especially to young Bettina.
    Klakke slipped through the barn door, opened just a crack, and hurried to the wood room. There he restarted the fire that had gone out; Bettina shouldn’t come home to a cold house. It would be bad enough, he thought, that she must come back to a house that was empty and quiet. With a fire roaring inside the stove, Klakke was sure the house would be warm before Bettina returned. He was sure Gammel wouldn’t have sent her anywhere else but home. Morning light had not yet broken the horizon, so Klakke sneaked into the