Because Joseph had disconnected his landline, I had to call him on his mobile to let him know I was arriving a day early to visit him. Unlike most visitors to Olafheim, I did not go immediately to the shops and restaurants on Kittelsen and Dovre, but further South, turning left from the huge Viking statue in the corner and towards the singular, gray road that wound between brown hills, green trees sprouting on both sides. I was surrounded by the most beautiful, rolling hills I’d ever seen, a nice change from the concrete jungle of LA. Joseph’s house was sitting alone on one such hill, in the mountain’s shadow. The perfect isolated spot for a writer like Joseph to work in. The sky was brooding; gray clouds hung over the town, as if they couldn’t make up their mind on whether to rain or not. 

As I approached the door, I heard the sound of something shattering on the floor—a plate? Hesitating a bit, I rang the doorbell. 

After some time, Joseph opened the door. Behind him was his daughter, fifteen-year-old Greta, her icy blue eyes staring out at me, and her blonde hair falling past her shoulders. Joseph seemed to have gone gaunt since the last time we had met; his cheekbones were prominent, and there were bags underneath his eyes. I was surprised; there was no way this could have been the same man I had seen only a few months ago.  

“Thomas,” he said, relief in his voice. “I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow.” 

“Change of plans,” I said. “I was able to take time off early. I hope that’s not a problem.” 

“No, no, it’s… It’s fine,” Joseph said, leading me indoors.  

We sat down for lunch and began to catch up on each other’s lives; Joseph had been busy working on his next book; he had been slowly gaining renown as a writer of mystery and horror fiction, while I had been busy lecturing at our old university.  

As we talked Greta quickly devoured her food, her plate empty within minutes. She seemed very pensive, saying little, which surprised me. Before her mom’s death, she had been more energetic and full of life. I noticed she had a bruise on her pale cheek, and I asked her what had happened.

“I was punched,” she said, casting a quick glance at Joseph.

“Greta got into a fight at school,” Joseph said quickly. I sensed some tension between her and Joseph, like coming in after two people have had an argument, but said nothing. Greta ate her food in silence, devouring her second helping like it was nothing. I remembered it was a school day, and asked why she was at home.

“She’s been suspended,” Joseph said. “She’s out of school until Monday.”

“That bad, huh?” I asked.

Greta glared at me and ate some more.  

I was confused. This didn’t sound like the Greta I remembered. Joseph had told me when they first moved here that Greta was adjusting slowly, but I didn’t think she’d act out like this.

After lunch, Joseph suggested I check out the Village Square while it was still light out. I asked if he would come with me, but he shook his head. He had to stay and complete a few more pages. I nodded, and said I wouldn’t be long.

By now there were locals and tourists making their way around the various shops and restaurants. Some walked on foot, others had rented multi-seat bikes, and a few rode on horse-drawn carriages. There were adults dressed in bunads taking part in a traditional dance while tourists watched, folk music filling the air. Olafheim was a little piece of Norway in the heart of California, and I enjoyed looking at the Norwegian-style buildings, which had a simple, Old World charm, a stark contrast to the gray scenery back home. My taking in of the sights and sounds, however, was interrupted by the noises of a commotion near me. 

A crowd of people had gathered on the sidewalk, a few police cars parked near the Wandering Odin Inn. I watched with them as two cops hauled a woman in handcuffs, the woman wildly screaming at them to let her go.

“That wasn’t my son!” she cried out. “You have to believe me—look in his eyes!”

They ignored her words and drove away, the crowd dispersing after they had gone.

“Another sad case of filicide,” a voice next to me said. “Nothing new for Olafheim.”

A man with a white beard and small glasses over his small, gray eyes stood next to me.

“What did you say?” I asked.

“No one likes to talk about it, but this town is infamous for its history of parents abusing and killing their kids,” he said. “More progressive people would say it’s a mental problem, or mass hysteria, but more traditional folk would say it’s something else entirely.”

He introduced himself as Hans, and said he was currently curating the town’s Folklore Museum, just down the street, filling in for the regular curator. “You’ll learn more about our town’s history in there,” he said, giving me a wry grin. I was confused as to how a museum on folklore would have information related to such cases, but it seemed intriguing enough to check out.

The Folklore Museum was in a building with brown-tiled roofs and white walls; outside the small wooden door that served as the museum entrance was a misshapen, funny-looking humanoid statue. The door had a small bell that jingled when we went in.

The actual museum, it turned out, was on the second floor of the building. It was a small room, with glass displays and photos and portraits hanging on the wall. Books were inside the displays, looking like they were about to fall apart, and faded illustrations of trolls, some funny, and some scary, with fangs, claws, and scales. There were posters and infographics around me. They were all about trolls, how they were nocturnal, subterranean, and ate humans. 

At the far end of one wall there was an illustration of a man dressed in old Nordic garb, with a wily, red beard and a hammer in one hand, and a crazed look in his eyes, like he wanted to bash your head in. The sign under it read “Thor: Thunder God and Slayer of Trolls and Giants.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” Hans said, walking up next to me. “He looks nothing like Hemsworth. If you ask me, Hemsworth would make a better Balder.”

Next to the picture, there was a blurry photo of a hulking figure in the shadow of a mountain, dated to the 1960s, and newspaper clippings with titles like “Woman Found Guilty of Infanticide” and “Man Arrested for Abuse and Murder of Son,” all from local newspapers, and all about Olafheim residents. There was another sign by them, with a word in big, bold letters.

“’Changelings’?” I asked, reading the sign.

“Do you know what that is?” Hans asked me.

I shook my head.

“It’s a human, usually a child, which has been switched by trolls with one of their own, enchanted to look human. People thought that if a child started acting different or caused trouble, they had been replaced by a troll.”

“And these people who abused and killed their kids--“

“It’s a trend that goes back centuries,” Hans said, shaking his head. “Torture was a popular way to try to get the trolls to pick up their child and return the human one.”

“But I thought trolls were only in Scandinavia?” I asked.

Hans shrugged. “So were this town’s founders,” he said. “And trolls live underground and in mountains; who knows what tunnels and passages they have between continents?”

He paused for a bit, before speaking again: “It’s Thursday today, isn’t it?”

I nodded. 

“In Norway it’s called Torsdag,” Hans said. “Thor’s Day. If anyone wanted to get rid of a changeling, tonight would be the night to do so.” 

“You can’t be serious,” I said in disbelief. What a quaint belief to have in the heart of California!

Presently Hans asked where I had come from; I told him LA.

“Ah, LA,” he said. “Another man just moved to here from there… a writer… Joseph, I think his name was.”

That name... Was it my friend Joseph? Hans confirmed that it was.

“He hasn’t been in town for the last few days,” Hans said. “Hope he’s okay; I heard about his daughter’s suspension.”

“You did?” I asked.

 “She was in my wife’s class; sweet girl,” Hans said. “She had been doing well until about a week ago. Started acting up and got into a fight with a girl.”

“Was she,” I began to ask, “bruised from that fight?”

Hans shook his head. “I was visiting the day that fight happened; Greta seemed unharmed, but I can’t say the same about the other girl…”

I thanked Hans for the tour and showed myself out. 

A thousand thoughts went through my head as I went down that long, solitary road back to Joseph’s house. What was Greta’s problem? Why was she fighting? How did she get that bruise? As I drove under the cloudy sky, I saw the hills and mountains, and thought of changelings, of filicide, of the tension I sensed between Greta and Joseph. It wasn’t possible, was it…? 

When I returned to Joseph’s the sun had set over the mountain, and all was engulfed in absolute darkness. Joseph had prepared dinner, and the three of us ate. He asked me about what I had seen, and I described the sights to him. He said that he had made some progress with his writing, and was soon to have it publishable. I was acutely aware of the silence outside the house, the quietness of the mountainside. It was like something was holding its breath, waiting for the moment to reveal itself.

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