CHAPTER THREE: REGRET

Nuuska had pushed his hat back off his face and blinked in the light of the spring afternoon. The silver leaves of the ash rustled in the breeze above them as Mumintroll yawned and sat sleepily up from the grass. His back was stained green and dotted here and there with tiny insects that had suddenly found their shady hideaway gone and their legs stuck in his long, white fur. Nuuska had reached up and pulled some of them away. Mumintroll turned his head to look down at him, haloed with blue sky, a soft smile crinkling his equally-blue eyes.

"Sorry," he said. "I was trying not to wake you."

He took Nuuska's hand and held it as he looked back out at the hills.

"I'm glad you came back."

"I hope it isn't here," Nuuska replied, and his voice was thicker than it should be. "Did it follow me here?"

Mumintroll said nothing. Nuuska asked again, worried.

"Tell me it isn't here. Please. Please, tell me I didn't lead it here."

The sky was painfully blue.

"Mumintroll, please."

Nuuska awoke to quiet voices. His body ached, and his eyes refused to open. Mumintroll was still holding his hand.

"Please, dear," came Muminmama's whisper. "Take a few minutes, wash your face, and eat something."

"I'm not hungry," said Mumintroll lowly against Nuuska's arm.

"You won't be any good to him if you starve yourself. You have to eat and stay strong."

"But what if he wakes up?"

"Then, I'll be right here with him until you get back."

It was a lovely autumn day outside the warm kitchen, the yellow grass rustling like a thousand sheaves of paper. Mama set a bowl of chicken soup down on the counter with a big, metal soup spoon and jumped a little as she spotted the eyes peering over the edge.

"Oh, my dear!" she gasped. "You scared me! Didn't I tell you to go sit down?"

Nuuska had nodded, his grubby little fingers tapping the countertop. Mama sighed.

"Well, go on then, sit down and I'll bring this out to you in a moment."

He turned out of the kitchen too quickly, and his ears went funny, stirring the inside of his head and making the world spin. Mama caught his arm as he stumbled.

"Dizzy, are we? Come on now, step carefully, I've got you."

She had made up a comfortable space for him on the bench seat, since he had still been small enough to lie longwise on it without his feet dangling off. She kept an arm behind him as he climbed up and sat down. She felt his forehead under his long hair and gave a concerned hum.

"Yes, I thought so. Here, eat your soup, and you'll feel a bit better. You can stay as long as you need to, alright? We have plenty of room upstairs if you want to stay the night."

Nuuska held the giant bowl in his lap, the giant spoon in one hand, and gazed up at her with a feeling as fuzzy as her steady paws. Hesitantly, he replied:

"Thank you, Mama."

It was the first time he'd ever called anyone "Mama."

Mama smiled down at him. His chest stung.

"Silk thread and my smallest needle," said Mama, turning away.

Nuuska frowned. His soup was gone. Something was in the window behind him.

"Curved. I washed it in boiling honey-water each time I finished."

Nuuska flinched at the touch of cold skin to face. He took a deep, sore breath as he opened his eyes. There was a stranger looking at him.

"Hello, young man," she said flatly. "How are we feeling?"

He didn't answer, confused. There was movement nearby, and more familiar paws held his hand.

"It's alright, dear," said Muminmama from beside the stranger. "She's a doctor, she's trying to help."

His mouth and throat were dry, and it took a moment for him to find his voice. Even then, it was small and quiet.

"Mumintroll?"

"He's alright. He only just went away to eat, so don't worry."

The doctor took his hand from Mama and felt at his wrist, counting against her wristwatch. Nuuska's eyes burned and were heavy, and he let them close again. He said nothing as the doctor let him go and sighed.

"And he's out again. I'm not surprised. Pulse is weak, heart is fast. It's a good thing he got here when he did, lucky boy."

There was silence.

"Are—" Mama started, then hesitated "—are you sure you're alright?"

"Of course."

"There's no shame in taking a moment, you know."

"I know." The doctor took a deep, shaking breath. "This is embarrassing."

"It doesn't need to be."

"But it is. You've done fine by yourself. I didn't need to come here. I-I didn't need to hurry out while it was dark. That poor woman…"

The deep, controlled breathing wasn't working anymore.

"There, there," said Mama. "It wasn't your fault."

"I don't even know her name. What was her name?"

"We can find out. It's alright."

"Did she have family? Who's going to tell them? That thing, it… it barely left anything to bury."

Nuuska pried his eyes open again, unsure if he was dreaming or not. He wasn't. The doctor had her arms around Mama, face buried in her shoulder.

This was real. The monster was here. He had led it here. People were trying to help him, and they were getting hurt. Someone had died. This was his fault. His throat began to burn, and he wished desperately that he had the energy to move, that he could speak, that he could say he was sorry, he was so sorry. Instead, his eyes closed on him again, and the heaviness of sleep dragged him back down into nothingness.

The doctor pulled away from Mama and sat back, guilty. She looked at Nuuska, fast asleep, and shook her head.

"He shouldn't be here," she said thoughtfully. Then, she stopped, frowning, and sat straight.

"He shouldn't be here," she said again. "He's not dead. He's in one piece."

"Mostly," commented Mama morosely, and the doctor shook her head.

"No, I mean, if that thing wanted to kill him, it would have done it. Based on what you said, it was the same, it had the element of surprise then, too. It should have killed this boy, but it didn't… because it didn't want to."

…

Mumintroll ate quickly at first but soon found himself slowing down, lost in thick, viscous thought. Maybe Mama was right—he should have kept eating, kept moving, stayed strong and keen. The monster wasn't finished with them yet, and he had no way to fight it. His teeth were not sharp, his claws were short and dull, and he was in no way as large and intimidating as his cousins across the sea, the ones who blended well into the sides of mountains and could crush an enemy with one fist. No, he was small and soft. All he had were his good ears and the winter fat in his belly.

Lilla-My climbed out from under the linen-covered china cabinet, startling him.

"What were you doing there?" he asked with a sigh.

"Setting a trap," she said and sneezed. "That thing is going to come back, and when it does, I'll be ready!"

Mumintroll grumbled, "I don't know what good a trap will be. It won't get into the house to start with."

"Well, I don't care. I'm going to be prepared, just in case!" She jumped up on to the dining chair next to him: "Don't tell me you haven't thought about it, too."

"Of course I have!" he said, a little hurt. "I just don't think it can get in, is all. Papa's got all the doors locked tight."

Lilla-My lifted an eyebrow and nodded out the window: "Did you pull up your rope ladder?"

Mumintroll's ears lifted, and he tensed. His rope ladder! His bedroom window was still open! He leapt from his seat and ran up the stairs. Oh, stupid! Stupid! He hadn't been back to his room since he'd woken up that horrible night. He hadn't thought about the window, the rope ladder, none of it! That creature could have gotten inside at any time, and it would have been his fault! Stupid!

He reached his bedroom and threw the door open. Snow had floated in through the open window and left a layer on the floor, frost coating the walls and furniture. He pulled up his rope ladder, cursing himself, and shut the window firmly, latching it and drawing the curtain. Disappointed, he sat heavily down in the snow and let the chill soak through him until it hurt. Then, he kept sitting.

When he did finally return downstairs, Lilla-My was sorting things on the dining table.

"I found a toy gun, but it's broken," she said, hands on her hips. "But there's a slingshot, kitchen knives, and a stick. We can make this work."

Mumintroll morosely took up the slingshot. It was a solid piece of wood in the shape of a Y with a brown leather grip around the base and a tube of elastic attached to the arms.

"It's probably Papa's," he said.

"If we can find some rocks, I'll shoot the monster's eyes out!" said Lilla-My, and she took it from him to snap the sling against the table so that it sounded.

"Have you ever used one before?" asked Mumintroll doubtfully.

"No, but it can't be that hard."

He stared down at the kitchen knives and hesitantly picked one up. His reflection peered tiredly back at him in the steel. Mama and Papa had always warned them against playing with knives. But he wasn't playing. He gripped the handle tighter.

"Have fun," he said flatly. "I'm going back upstairs."

"The doctor is still in there. They won't let you."

"Did you even try?"

"Uh, yeah," said Lilla-My, offended.

The sky was already dimming outside the window. Mumintroll sat down again with a heavy sigh and poked at what was left of his lunch.

"I don't like this," he mumbled.

"Nobody does," Lilla-My replied, hopping down from her chair. "It's not sweet enough for my taste."

"No, I mean this. This whole thing. I don't like it. I don't know what to do. What happens when it comes back? What's it going to do? What will happen to us?"

"Nothing!" insisted Lilla-My as she kicked a small coal out of the fireplace. "Nothing is going to happen to us! We just won't let it!"

"How?"

She picked up the hot coal and waved it to cool off before placing it in the saddle of the slingshot and aiming at the mantle. The coal hit the stone hard, leaving a black mark and a poof of dust.

"Like that!"

…

"We called it a Rake," said the doctor, whose name was Silje. She walked with Mama and Papa down the stairs and sipped something stronger than coffee from her pocket flask. "It was one of those stories that you're told so you don't stay out past dark. 'If you're not home by sundown, the Rake will get you!' That sort of thing."

Papa grumbled solemnly: "A bogeyman. Every place has one."

"I've never heard of it," said Mama, turning to look at them from the bottom landing. "Why would anyone need to scare their children to get them to come inside? Isn't dinner enough?"

Silje shrugged: "Not for everyone, I guess."

It was calm outside the windows before them, no wind, no sound, no sun. Silje sighed and sat in the padded chair by the fireplace.

"I know when I was a kid," she suddenly continued, "I'd much rather be out on the roof with my friends than at the dining table by myself, or maybe looking for shooting stars, fireflies, whatever. The monster wasn't real, and we all knew that after a certain age. It's… it's not supposed to be real."

Papa settled on to the hearth: "Stories tend to have something real about them, you know. The World-Snake is a probably just a dragon, the Ten Plagues were from a volcanic eruption… there's always something."

Mumintroll appeared from the dining room, paws behind his back and Lilla-My at his side.

"Is he alright?" he asked nervously. "Can we go back up?"

Silje sat up straight, hid her flask, and put on a kind smile: "If things keep going the way they are, he'll be just fine. There's nothing to worry about. You can go see him, if you'd like."

Mumintroll's eyes lit up for the first time since autumn, and the two of them hurried away up the stairs without another word. Only once they were gone did Silje sit back again and drink.

Mama wrung her paws, sitting in the other chair: "In your stories, then, what's it like? Does it drink blood? Does it need a full moon? Anything?"

"It's a predator, I think," Silje said, eyes far away. "Some people say it eats you, others say it takes you to its den to become one—it's folklore, fairytales. No one can agree on the details. But no, I don't think it drinks blood or anything like that."

She went to take another sip and stopped, sighing. She screwed the cap back on and put it away. Mama watched and stood anxiously: "I-I think we'll need some tea."

This was going to be a long night, she thought. They would need something to drink, yes, and she needed something to do. Sitting and talking would hardly get them anywhere, but oh, there was nothing else they could do right now! She would go mad if she stayed sitting.

As she stepped through into the kitchen, focused on the iron kettle by the sink, her ears twitched before she even knew she'd heard something. She stopped, still reaching for the kettle. It was… scratching? Like a squirrel on the roof, or a raccoon in a cabinet. She slowly pulled the kettle toward her and held it against her chest. Beneath her feet, a metal can fell.

Mama backed away carefully, the hatch door to the cellar creaking very slightly. The muffled scratching stopped.

"Papa," she whispered, unable to look away. "Papa."

The dining room archway bumped her elbow, and she turned and hurried through, wary of the padding of her feet on the floor. Papa and Silje looked up and stood immediately at the sight of her face.

"The cellar!" she whispered. "There's something in the cellar!"

Papa swallowed hard, took up his baton beside him, and waved the others back: "Upstairs. Upstairs, the both of you."

"Absolutely not," hissed Silje, taking up the firepoker. Mama shook her head but found herself backing toward the stairs anyway.

Papa tiptoed to the kitchen, where the door to the cellar sat innocently in the floor. The scratching, which had begun again, quieted as he approached. He listened, baton grip creaking in his paws. The hatch door had no lock. The windows down there should have been closed, the outside door latched. Nonetheless, here something was, and the hatch door slowly lifted upward. Inch-by-inch the space widened. It was pitch dark down there. Papa stood his ground.

"You're not welcome here!" he bellowed as threateningly as he could. "Leave!"

The door stopped, and the darkness peered out.

"I'm warning you!" yelled Papa. "Leave now!"

After a long moment, a low, raspy chuckle raised from the cellar, seemingly so far away and yet so near. Papa hadn't had time to shudder before the door flung open.

…

Upstairs, Mumintroll's ears twitched, and he turned quickly to the door. Lilla-My felt the floor shake under her feet.

"What was that?" she asked, and getting no answer, she turned to the window. It was night! When had it gotten dark again? She should be downstairs in her hunting spot, not here!

A scream rattled the floorboards beneath them.

…

"Stop it!" Mama yelled from the stairs. "Stop it, stop it right now!"

She found her feet and raced down to smack the creature with her kettle, and it turned slowly to look at her, its eyes burning. It turned its body away from Silje on the floor, creeping toward Mama.

" ?" it asked coyly, imitating Mama's voice.

She backed away from it slowly: "What… what do you want? Why are you here?"

" ."

"Who?"

" ."

…

Mumintroll was frozen in place, staring at the door. He could hear Mama down there, seemingly speaking to herself. But it wasn't her, was it.

Lilla-My ran to the door and reached up for the knob, and Mumintroll snatched her away from it: "Don't!"

"Why not?!"

"You'll tell it where we are!"

"Not if I'm quiet!"

"You're not quiet!"

"Never have been," came a weak voice from behind them.

…

Mama's back met the wall, and she pressed herself against it: "Why? Why, what do you want him for?"

"H e' ."

"He doesn't belong to anyone! He's n-not even here anymore!"

"O h ?" purred the creature, still coming closer.

"W-we sent him away! You hurt him! He needed help!"

…

"You're awake!" breathed Mumintroll, unsticking himself from where he stood and rushing to take Nuuska's face into his paws. "You're alright!"

Nuuska touched his arm, wide-eyed and struggling to focus: "What's—what's happening?"

The floor shook as something fell against the stairs.

"Please!" begged Mama. "Please, there's no one here! There's no one else here!"

Lilla-My shrank away from the door, and Mumintroll grabbed the back of her shirt, pulling her toward the bed: "Hide! Quickly!"

She did not argue and ducked under the bedframe without a word. Mumintroll reached carefully under Nuuska's body to pick him up: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

Nuuska bit his tongue and suppressed the urge to yell as he was clumsily put on the floor and slid under the bed like a sack of potatoes. His skin pulled against all the strong stitches, but none of them broke.

Mumintroll glanced around the room—what could he do? He flattened out the bedsheets, pulling them taut and even as if they hadn't been used. He opened the window, letting the cold, fresh air come sweeping in, the candle light flickering.

Outside on the stairs, Mama gave one last yelp. There were hard, clawed steps approaching, and for a moment, all fell silent.

The door knob began to jiggle.

Mumintroll hurried under the bed, snatching the kitchen knife from the bedside table and pulling the bedcloth down so that it covered the gap to the floor. Nuuska breathed hard against the back of his neck, Lilla-My sitting sandwiched between them.

There was the sound of something thin sliding into the crack of the door, then the click of the latch lifting out of place. The door creaked open, and the three children held their breath.

Crsssh-tp… crsssh-tp…

Blackened hands scraped against the wooden floor. They were crooked and long, and what might have passed for feet clacked roughly down behind them, the pads leaving black smudges behind. The creature snuffed around, tasting the air, slowly passing the bed. The children listened as it looked into the armoire, into the trunk chests against the wall, into the dusty corners of the room. It came toward the bed again and stopped at the open window, sniffing, its claws tapping idly against the windowsill.

Go out, willed Mumintroll. Go on, get out.

The creature did not. Instead, it fell very, very quiet.

Lilla-My held tightly to Mumintroll's fur, Nuuska clutching them both. All three of them resisted the urge to yell as spindly, black talons reached slowly under the edge of the bedcloth. It lifted suddenly, the other hand snatching Mumintroll by the throat and dragging him out.

"No!" he screamed. "No, no!"

"Y e s ," hissed the creature, its broken teeth glinting in the candle light. Its mouth did not move as it spoke.

Mumintroll kicked and stabbed at the creature's arm, but it was no use. It caught the blade and ripped it from his paw, tossing it aside. Its grip tightened.

" e' ?" it asked with a growl, its throat waggling. Its nose was burnt and withered into its flat face.

Mumintroll said nothing, could say nothing. He scratched and wriggled.

" ?" repeated the creature, and it leaned down to bare its teeth.

It squeezed harder. The room was throbbing, the candlelight dimmer and dimmer.

" . ."

Mumintroll choked, and his legs would not kick anymore. There was a murmur from under the bed. The creature's head snapped to look.

"A h ."

Mumintroll did not see its other hand dart under the bed again. He did not see it rip away with Lilla-My still attached by the teeth. He hardly heard the creature roar in anger, the thump of her being shaken off. But he felt the air wheeze back into his lungs, the blood rush out from behind his eyes, and a hand tug weakly at his arm.

He coughed, dizzy, and had just barely blinked the darkness away when the entire bed lifted away from the ground, flipping on to its short end and away. Nuuska's hand pulled away from him, even as he managed to reach up.

"No!"

He felt the cry escape him before he had realized what was happening. He scrambled up from the floor, stumbling, gasping for air, and hit the windowsill just as the creature leapt out and into the night.

"Nuuska!"

He climbed out after them without a thought and fell hard to the ground. His head swam as what little wind he had was knocked out of him, but he got up anyway and ran through the powdery snow as fast as he could, his heart in his throat. He couldn't see anything, only hear the sound of the creature running, feel the uncanny heat it left in its wake.

"Nuuska!" he cried into the nothingness. "Nuuska!"

"Mumintroll!" came the hoarse, despairing reply, too far ahead, too far away to ever reach.

"Nuuska!" Mumintroll called out, breathless. "I'll find you! I promise! I'll find you!"

He stumbled on the slope of the riverbank, tumbling down, and the snow slid gently and silently on top of him. All went quiet and still, and as he pushed himself shakily up, there was nothing to see but darkness ahead.

"Nuuska," he whimpered.

…

It was Mama who let Lilla-My out of the trunk chest. She leapt out immediately, fists ready, teeth bared.

"What happened?!" she demanded. "Where is it?!"

Mama said nothing, her jaw shaking. She shook her head very slightly: "I don't know."

The curtains billowed slightly. Black, sooty handprints and footprints painted the windowsill, the floor, the displaced bed frame. Lilla-My ran to the window and leapt up to look out—it was too dark. Shaking with anger, she raced out the door, slid down the stair banister, and turned in to the front room with a fierceness that prompted Silje to jump to her feet. The look that crossed her face passed from fury to relief to horror so quickly it was impossible to guess which was which.

"Don't come any closer now!" she ordered, pointing. "Stay over there!"

Her fur was dark with soot and blood. Behind her, Papa sat in a daze, staring at the floor. There was a massive bite mark, tooth for tooth, in his arm. He glanced up at Lilla-My, then stared.

"Where is it?!" he demanded. "What happened?! Are you alright?!"

Silje knelt in front of him and shushed him harshly as she pressed hard against the oozing bite with her paws.

"It came in through the cellar," said Papa. "One of the windows—where-where's Mama?"

"I'm right here, dear," Mama said, limping back down the stairs.

"I already told you, she's fine," said Silje sternly. "If you don't stop moving, this will keep bleeding, and you will pass out. Do you understand me?"

Lilla-My's anger ebbed, and she felt sick to her stomach. The cellar window. The one she'd opened and never closed. It came in through the cellar window. Mama took her shoulders and turned her away to face her.

"My," she said firmly, though her voice quivered, "where is Nuuska? Where is Mumintroll?"

The creature had thrown her off. She'd landed in the trunk chest, the same one she'd been rifling through earlier that day, and the lid had closed on her. She hadn't seen anything after that. But it had been loud.

"It took him," she said shakily. The realization was setting in. "It took him, and he chased it."

Mama quickly let her go, throwing open the front door to the yawning darkness. The frigid wind rushed in.

"Mumintroll!" she shouted, and hearing no reply, she rushed out into the snow. "Mumintroll! Mumintroll, where are you?!"

She no longer felt the sore crackling in her hurt foot, even as she stumbled.

"Mumintroll!"

She could not lose him, she couldn't, not her boy, not two in one night. She couldn't bear it, her heart couldn't take it. But she didn't need to worry, not about this.

"Mama?" Mumintroll asked hesitantly.

Mama gasped, relieved, and fumbled toward his voice. Finally, she felt him and threw her arms around him.

"Mumintroll! Oh, my dear! Are you alright? Are you hurt?"

His cheeks were wet.

"It took him, Mama. It took him. I-I couldn't catch up, I—" he let out a heavy sob "—Mama, I couldn't do anything!

He grabbed on to her, burying his face in her shoulder, and she shushed him and held him tight: "It's not your fault, dear. I promise, it's not your fault. None of us—none of us could, we tried."

"I have to go after him, Mama. I have to!"

"And we will. We'll get him back. We will."