The Bridge by James Butler Page B

sail for the New World they had heard of which lay off to the west. They wanted a place where they would be left in peace. They settled here in the mountains, a place that would later be called Colorado, and built a utopian village, which they named Alfheim, after their old village in Iceland.
    “ Tensions between Agnar and Heidi continued to grow after the village was built. Agnar knew Hannah was his daughter yet he was not allowed to see her and Heidi was so threatened by him that she feared for her life. One night, out of her hatred for Agnar, she left Hannah to be raised by another family, then took her husband and disappeared from Alfheim. Agnar, tried to become the clan’s chieftain once more and was rejected a second time. After having failed at becoming the clan’s chieftain and the husband of Heidi, he left the clan to become an outsider. Many thought he had left to find Heidi and kill her and her husband, but he was more angered by the refusal of the clan to make him chieftain. “If you refuse to make the outsiders your slaves,” he told the clan, “then you will become theirs.” He made a promise that no matter how long it took, he would destroy the Huldufolk.
    “ Over the years, Agnar fed the fire of hatred he had built from his resentment of the clan to those outside the village until the Huldufolk were so hated and feared, they were hunted again. He married many times and watched each of his wives grow old and die, only to take another. With his last wife, he had two daughters, one of which reminded him of his first love. He named her Heidi. He had allowed his body to age so the outsiders didn’t notice he wasn’t one of them and moved from one village to another to help keep his secret. Once his children were grown and their mother was dead, he decided to return to Alfheim and take Heidi’s granddaughter, Nia, as his wife.”
    “Your mother, Nia?”
    “Yes, but nothing ever came of it. Mother said Agnar was killed in the forest by the people he had turned against us.
    “ Your grandmother sat on the bridge and looked out through the mist at your grandfather while he sat right here and slept, leaning back against this tree. The mist covered the whole bridge back then and a lot of the river above the falls. Only The Hidden People knew the secret of the mist and the bridge. She had loved him for a long time, longer than she realized, but had never talked to him or touched him because of the bridge. She was afraid to leave it. Afraid she’d never find her way back.
    “ He was not one of The Hidden People, but an outsider. When the elders built Alfheim, they put it in a time warp. Only a few seconds into the future. It was a different time from the outsiders’, so your grandfather couldn’t see her, but one day something happened, she saw it with her mind’s eye and crossed the bridge and went into the world of the outsiders to be with him at the old cemetery.”
    “The cemetery where the outsiders kept dead people?”
    “Yes , I’ve taken you there. Your grandmother, Nia, was only a teenager, about your age, and her mother had warned her many times about going into the world of the outsiders, but her love for your grandfather was so strong she had to go. She moved fast, using the skills her mother had taught her, using energy beams to pull herself from one tree to another. Half running and half flying, hiding behind the trees and rocks, anything for protection. The outsiders were always in the forest watching, trying to catch sight of The Hidden People. ‘It may be possible for us to live forever,’ her mother had told her, ‘but never forget, we can be killed. The outsiders have always hated us even though we’ve never harmed them. They’re afraid of us. They can only see those of us who cross the bridge into their time and they don’t understand. They think it’s black magic. They are not like the Huldufolk. They know nothing of the truth. If they catch you on the outside, they will