Read Online West of the Moon by Katherine Langrish - Free Book Online Page A

getting bored and fidgety. “Treasure,” it yawned, showing a pink tongue and sharp little teeth like a kitten’s.
    â€œTroll gold? Yes, but why,” said Peer, struggling to make sense of it, “why would the trolls give them any? I don’t understand.”
    With a loud squeak, the scales tipped as the Nis leaped into the rafters like a squirrel. Heavy feet sounded at the door. In tramped Uncle Baldur and Uncle Grim, stamping mud from their boots, cold night air pouring from them like water. They looked sour and displeased. Grendel loped behind them, and Loki nipped quickly outside.
    Peer scrambled up. Uncle Baldur took him by the ear, led him to the door and booted him out. “Make yourself useful, you idle young layabout. I want the wheel stopped now.”
    â€œBut I don’t know how,” Peer called at the closing door.
    Uncle Baldur paused with the door a couple of inches open. “Go and lower the sluicegate, of course. And then get off to the barn. Don’t come knocking and disturbing us – it’s late!”
    And the door slammed shut.

Chapter 7
Granny Greenteeth
    I T WAS PAST midnight. A star fell over the barn roof. Peer shivered, wrapping his arms across his chest.
    â€œThey didn’t look too happy, did they?” he muttered to Loki. “Perhaps their interview with the King of Troll Fell didn’t go too well. No need to take it out on us, though. Lower the sluicegate? At this hour?”
    Loki whined softly. Peer didn’t know which was scarier, to disobey Uncle Baldur or go up near that dark millpond by himself.
    â€œInto the barn with you,” he told Loki, dragging him there by the collar. “Sit. Stay! I’m not risking you.” Loki’s eyes gleamed in the dark and again he whined gently.
    Peer crossed the yard and turned on to the wooden bridge. The mill clacked steadily. The wheel churned, chopping the water with dripping blades that glinted in the starlight. Peer leaned on the rail, trying to gather courage to go on.
    A black shadow moved at the corner of his eye. He whipped around, heart beating wildly. But it was only a woman plodding up the road, dressed in dark clothes with a scarf over her head. She was using a stick to help herself along.
    She saw him and stopped. Realising that she too might be nervous, Peer called out softly. “It’s all right. I’m the – the millers’ boy. Only the millers’ boy.”
    â€œThe millers’ boy!” repeated the woman. “And what is the millers’ boy doing out here so late?”
    â€œI have to close the sluicegate,” said Peer.
    â€œAh!” The woman looked at him. It was too dark to see her face properly, but her eyes glittered in the starlight. “So late at night, that’s a job for the miller himself. He shouldn’t be sending a boy out. They say Granny Greenteeth lives in the millpond. Aren’t you afraid of her?”
    â€œA bit,” Peer confessed, “but if I don’t go my uncles will be angry.”
    â€œAnd you’re more afraid of them.” The woman nodded angrily. “Ah, Baldur Grimsson, Grim Grimsson, I’d make you sorry if I had my way!” She shook her finger at the lightless mill before turning to Peer again. “I’ll come along with you, my son, if you like.”
    Peer hesitated. Something about the old woman made him shiver, but his father had taught him to honour old people, and he didn’t know how to refuse. And it was true he would feel braver with company, though the path to the sluice seemed no place for an old lady to be hobbling along at night. He made her a stiff little bow and offered her his arm. She took it with a chuckle and a cough.
    â€œQuite the young lord! You didn’t learn your manners from the Grimssons. What’s your name, boy?”
    â€œPeer Ulfsson – ma’am.” Peer winced as her cold claw dug into his arm. She was surprisingly