The Bridge by James Butler Page A

was the last step to spiritual freedom for the Huldufolk.
    “You’re old enough now, so I’m going to tell you the story you’ve been begging me to tell since you were a little girl. One day you’ll have your own children and you’ll have to tell it to them, so you remember it now. It all started hundreds of years ago, according to the outsiders’ time. Before the great war. Do you remember what the war was about?”
    “It was when the outsiders killed each other because of their religious beliefs. Grandma wrote about it in her books, but it sounded so stupid. People have always believed what they wanted to. I never understood what they were fighting about.”
    “Control, they were fighting about control. They did more than kill each other. They killed entire generations of people, animals and forests. They destroyed books like your grandmother wrote to prevent others from learning and they almost destroyed this beautiful planet. If it hadn’t been for Alfheim, we wouldn’t be here now. If you forget everything else, there’s one thing you must always remember: When all attempts at communication fail, the weak-minded go to war. You must always communicate. Promise me you will remember that.”
    Meva nodded.
    “Those were dangerous times for The Hidden People. A war over religious beliefs. That’s what people were told, but the truth is it was a war over control. There was this poem we learned from the outsiders: Those who control have all the gold. The war was about money and slavery. The winner takes all, but no one ever thought about there not being a winner. What if everybody loses?”
    She patted her hand on one of the bridge ’s old beams.
    “This old bridge has been here since the very beginning.” They walked off the bridge and into the forest.
    “Didn’t the Huldufolk have a religion or something?”
    “Only if you call ‘knowing’ a religion. We depend on science and knowledge, but we don’t worship them. Religion can’t exist without fear and that’s one of the messages the dark shadows bring with them.”
    They sat down and leaned back against the giant tree.
    “This giant fir tree was where it happened. Your grandmother saw your grandfather right here from the entrance of this old bridge, but it really started long before then.”
    Meva closed her eyes and listened.
    “Once upon a time , a long, long time ago, the Huldufolk came from Iceland where they believed that all clan members were equal whether they were male or female. Each member had an equal vote. No one member’s vote counted more than any of the others.
    “ Agnar was one of the elders. He was very learned in the way of the Huldufolk and very powerful. He was in love with the most beautiful woman in the clan. Her name was Heidi and she was soon to be mother of his child. They had decided that if the baby was a girl, her name would be Hannah.”
    “Our Hannah?” said Meva.
    “Yes, it was my grandmother. Agnar was very learned as well in the way of the outsiders, how they were controlled by the dark shadows. His aim was to marry Heidi and become chieftain of the clan, something that had never been done before. He knew that with the power the Huldufolk held over the outsiders, they could take control of the whole of Iceland and the outsiders would become their slaves, but his intentions were rejected by the clan, and the beautiful Heidi, feeling the dark shadows had taken control of Agnar, chose another to be her husband even though she was pregnant with Agnar’s child.
    “ The outsiders somehow learned of Agnar’s intentions and waged war against the clan. They claimed it was because of the Huldufolk refusal to worship the outsiders’ god and be ruled by the outsiders’ government, be the outsiders’ slaves, but when they went to destroy the Huldufolk village, the clan and the village had disappeared. Not a trace of them could be found anywhere. It was though they had never existed.
    “ The clan left Iceland and set