Excerpts from Book 1

Dagny shivered. Not like when you’re cold, outside and waiting for a ride. More like when her mother died. Like staring down an empty road, hoping someone, anyone would show. Knowing they would not. Scared and all alone.

Dagny shivered, trapped behind a wooden table, on a wooden bench, her ankles crossed, her shoulders bent, like a cat waiting for that perfect chance to jump down off a ledge.

The balls of her over-sized feet dug into the floor. The hairs on the back of her neck like ridged little posts, toy soldiers ready for a fight. Or perhaps prepared for flight as gooseflesh swarmed her tawny skin.

Would life now flash before her fourteen-year-old eyes, like it had her mom’s?

That memory of her mother’s last few hours flooded Dagny’s mind. Those vacant eyes staring out at hidden ghosts, and never once at her. And Dagny, just a child, kneeling by her mother’s side. Kneeling, wishing mom could talk. And then the dying woman’s whisper, “Do you see, my darling girl?” before exhaling one last time. A final shallow breath sheathed within a somber grin.

Dagny saw, alright. Even if she hadn’t then. Would her final breath be next? Perhaps. But Dagny wasn’t gonna meet it with a jest. Instead, she clenched her teeth, unhooked her legs and rose.

But as she pried herself from the old bench and away from her cold supper, the light began to drift closer.

A ghostly light, hallow and hovering. Translucent and stretched. Though no less a sliver of silver-blue mist with no surface and no lines to give it a face. No borders to shield it from dribbling down to where its feet should have swayed.

Dagny stood in her place, the light moving from the kitchen’s cast-iron stove and nearer the table. Then the shape mimed the blurred lines of what must have been limbs. A poor imitation, crooked and bowed, but no less a pair of ungainly arms with fingers to match.

Panicked, Dagny corkscrewed herself up and away from the table’s chapped wood, knocking her bowl to the floor. She then screamed and ran for the hall.

Sprawled out on the bear skin rug in her grandfather’s study, Dagny had tuned out the rest of the world. Hours passed as she mused over her mother’s markings and unfamiliar symbols of text.

Absorbed in her book, Dagny’s insides knocked against each other when her grandfather’s shouts reached her ears from outside.

Leaving the book on the study floor, Dagny leapt to her feet and sped into the kitchen. From its white paneled window she watched her grandfather emerge from the woods. The old Dwarf again called for her in a hurried and cracked voice.

Concerned by the unfamiliar panic of her grandfather’s tone, Dagny pulled her jacket and hat off their hook, slipped on her boots, and ran out through the door. As she got closer to her grandfather, the girl stopped dead in her tracks.

The old Dwarf stood at the edge of the wood, exhausted, his cloak covered in blood. Over his shoulder slung a wild boar, but much bigger than any hog Dagny had ever seen, whether on the screen, in person, or gracing a page. Her jaw dropped when she saw a third tusk growing out from the top of its blood-spattered snout.

“Don’t just stand there, girl. Get me the sled from the shed. Quickly!”

Despite his pained voice, her grandfather’s purpose and strength startled the girl into motion. Dagny sprinted towards the shed built not far to the side of her grandfather’s home.

A moment later she hurried back, pulling a large sled made of wood planks and steel runners, and tied to a thick, sisal-wound rope.

As soon as she reached her grandfather, he hauled the beast onto the sled before collapsing. His knees hit the snow-covered ground with a thud.

For the first time since meeting the Dwarf, Dagny saw weariness line his stalwart, grizzled, pale face.

Though she knew she shouldn’t, Dagny couldn’t help but to ask, “are you OK?”

The old Dwarf looked up at the girl. Beaten down and just about ready to pass out, Dagny’s grandfather forced his expression back to one of resolve, and nodded. He then motioned for her to help him back up.

“It’s nothin’. Just a scratch. That pig caught me off guard. Never saw the damn thing comin’. Clipped my leg right out from under me. I’ll be fine. Now stop gawking and help me get this beast to my shed.”

Aina, easing her own breath, walked over to Dagny and sat down on the end of the bed. She then placed her hand on Dagny’s right foot. “Are you alright, child?”

Dagny heard Aina’s voice as though from across a deep, far-reaching chasm, invisible and inhaling all sound and all life. She did not know how to respond.

The screaming echoed in Dagny’s head, and her heart pounded to the winged beat of an unsettling song, a song no one but her could hear.

All the while, her eyes darted back and forth from one Dwarf to the next trying to orient themselves as everything spun.

Aina slid a little further up the mattress and wrapped her arm around Dagny. The girl’s breathing slowed as the Dwarf stroked her feral, dark hair.

Removed from the initial shock of her howls, Dagny looked over at the Dwarf and burst into tears. Aina caressed the girl’s head. “It’s OK, love. You’re safe. Nothing can hurt you here.”

Aina’s words calmed Dagny’s mind. And as her panicked thoughts dimmed, so did the light emanating from between her fingers still strangling the brooch. But the Dwarf said nothing of the light as she reached towards Dagny’s hand and massaged her palm away from the stone, Durinn and Breda standing silently by.

Behind the carved stillness of the three Dwarves, Dagny recognized their waiting for the cause of her shrieks. So she managed to organize her thoughts into some sort of coherent mixture of words.

“I, I heard them screaming. Or, maybe, I felt their screams. So faded. So much pain. So much fear. So many of them. Helpless. Betrayed. They begged, begged for help. But I couldn’t help them. I was them! And I too couldn’t move.”

Aina brushed Dagny’s hair with her fingers as Breda confronted the girl. “Who are them, Dagny? And where?”