West of the Moon Read Free Page A

Bible. I say “read,” but look at him! How his eyes are pretending to move along the paper, and how he now and then turns a page when it occurs to him. I watch the ropy vein in his neck pulse when he starts in to read brimstone and hellfire—the same vein that pops out when he’s about to give me a thrashing. He puts on a good show, but I know he can’t read.
    â€œWhere did you learn those stories?” I ask him.
    â€œI learnt them from here!” he exclaims. “I’m reading them straight out of the book!”
    â€œHmmf,” I sniff, and study the space between the cheese and the bread, wishing there was some butter to fill that in.
    He drones on about Esau and Jacob and how Esau was the hairy one and Jacob was the smooth one and how one day Jacob killed a couple of goats and put their skins over himself and went into his old, blind father’s tent bent on trickery of some sort. Meantime, I drift off and start thinking about what sort of trickery I might use on old Goatbeard himself and how to weasel my way out of here.
    There are some troubles. It was so dark and snowy when we came from Aunt and Uncle’s, I don’t even know which direction to go. If Greta and I were really to run away, we would need food for any sort of journey, maybe money, too, and how would I get either one?
    There’s food in the storehouse, I know, for Svaalberd goes out there with rounds of crisp flatbread I’ve made and returns with hanks of goat. I suppose there’s grain and cheeses and meats, smoked or not, and I don’t know what else, as I’m never allowed inside. He keeps the place locked tight, and the key hangs on his heavy iron ring, all a-clatter with keys.
    But even if all I wanted was to run away in general, with no particular place to go, even that would be difficult. All day long Mr. Goat watches me with one steely eye. If he lets up forone minute, Rolf hauls himself up and walks stiff-legged over to wherever I am, plops himself down, and trains his yellow eyes on me.
    â€œBehold!” Svaalberd shouts in a voice like a parson’s, startling me out of my reverie. “Away from the fatness of the earth shall your dwelling be, and away from the dew of heaven on high, and thou shalt…”
    I lose track of his preaching and start pondering just what he’s got that’s so precious he has to lock it up. Or is he just a miserly old man who so treasures his moldy cheese and weevil-infested grain that he fears the likes of me?
    â€œâ€¦ fill the wood box, clean the fireplace,” Svaalberd goes on, “scrub out the copper kettles—till they shine, mind you!” By now I’ve figured out that he has laid off scripture and has moved on to my list of chores. “… I’ll be expecting supper when I get home, too.” He shuts the Bible with a thump and finishes by saying, “Genesis twenty-seven and twenty-eight. Amen.”
    The Bible goes back in the chest, where it is locked away with a rattle and a clank. Then he hoists himself out of his chair and takes his ring of keys out to the storehouse. After a while he comes by again, this time with two big bags. With these slung over his shoulder, he proceeds away down the mountainside.
    â€œBring me a pair of shoes!” I holler after him. “Or a golden wreath!”
    But he’s too far away or else pretending not to hear me.
    As soon as he’s gone, I run to the storehouse myself. It’s a far piece from the house, all uphill. Why he built the little building so far away, I don’t know, and by the time I get to it, my heart is beating hard. I stop and press my ear to the door. It seems, for a moment … a sound. Then, nothing. I try the latch again. But of course, the door is locked. He’s probably said a charm over it.
    It seems the goatman has a charm and a spell for everything. To keep the fire burning and to quench it, to stanch blood, to ward against