Otter's Tale. Susan D. Guyer

      Chapter One

       Flight

      Normally Otter didn't mind getting wet, but now she was fed up with it. It had been raining steadily all day and she was soaked to the skin. The long woolen skirt that Björn's wife, Jutta, had handed down to her dragged in the muddy trail, making it even harder to walk. She stopped once again to pull up the heavy skirt and then howled out her frustration in a long wail, "Grandmother Sunna!"

      The older woman who was trudging along the narrow path ahead of her with a heavy load strapped to her back stopped to see what the problem was, wiping her face with the wet shawl wrapped over her head and shoulders. Seeing the young girl standing still and shivering in the cold rain, she called back impatiently, "Come along now, Otter! We can't stay here! Just a little farther and then I'll look for a place for us to camp."

      Otter rubbed the throbbing lump on her cheek and looked back along the small trail that wound through the dense forest. "They're probably searching for us on the main road," she called to her grandmother. "Nobody would come back here in all this rain."

      Sunna sighed and shifted the bundle on her back. "It'll be getting dark soon anyway," she muttered and looked around for a good place to leave the trail. As Otter drew closer, Sunna noticed the reddish purple swelling on the side of her face. "That must hurt," she said curtly. "Once we get a shelter set up, I'll see if I can find something to make it feel better."

      They moved downhill away from the trail, careful not to slip and fall on the wet undergrowth. Soon they reached the bottom of the hill and found themselves near a small, marshy lake. Sunna pointed to a dead fir tree that had half fallen over on a hillock near the water. "We can turn that into a shelter," she told Otter.

      Otter watched in fascination as her grandmother untied the large bundle she had taken off her back and unrolled it. It was a very large piece of leather made of raindeer hides that had been cut in wide strips and sewn together carefully. "This is part of the lavvu or tent that your grandfather and I used many years ago before we came to Nordmark," she explained to Otter, stroking the leather gently. "I had to cut it apart because the whole thing would have been too heavy for me to carry. But it should be enough to keep us out of the rain through the night."

      She skillfully draped the hide over the fallen trunk of the tree to make a small cave that was just large enough for both of them to lie in. There was a pile of old leaves under the tree that had kept fairly dry, so she spread these out as a sort of bed to lie on.

      "Stay here where it's dry while I try to find something to put on your cheek to take the swelling down," Sunna told her, at the same time handing her a chunk of bread and some cheese she had taken out of a pouch tied to the belt around her waist.

      While she was waiting for her grandmother to return, Otter munched on the bread and thought about what had happened that morning. Spring was late that year. It had been raining and cold for several days, which put everybody in a bad mood. When Otter climbed out of her bed around dawn, she noticed that Sunna was gone, but that she had gotten everything ready for breakfast. The fire in the hearth was crackling cheerfully, a large pot of water had been boiled and moved away from the flames, there was bread and cheese on the table.

      Her older half-brother Björn stuck his head through the curtains of the cupboard bed he shared with his wife. All of the beds in the house were in the kitchen, which was also their living area. It was much warmer that way during the long cold winter months. "Have you seen Jutta?" he asked sleepily. "She's not here."

      Otter was surprised that her sister-in-law was already up and about. Usually she was the last one to join them for the breakfast that Sunna always prepared. Otter shrugged her shoulders and was opening the door to go outside to their outhouse when Jutta rushed in. Her shawl and hair were dripping wet and her face was flushed. Triumphantly she held up the head and bleeding neck of a dead goose and waved it at Björn, who was now climbing out of their bed with a shocked look on his face.

      "It's witchcraft!" Jutta shrieked. "I caught her in the act. She took my favorite goose and killed it in the forest. I saw her smear the blood all over a rock up there on the hill. She's put a curse on me! That's why I haven't been able to keep any of my babies!"

      Still standing next to the open door, Otter shook her head in disbelief. Of course she knew that Jutta had had several miscarriages since she married Björn, but Otter was sure that her grandmother had played no role in that. Sunna was a skilled midwife and healer. Otter seriously doubted that her grandmother would ever put a curse on anyone, not even Jutta. That's not the way Sunna was. Jutta, on the other hand, was vindictive and mean-spirited. If anyone were making any evil curses, Otter thought, it had to be Jutta.

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