Troll Brother

by P. Edward Auman

  ~~~

  In the morning of the last Saturday in May, and the day after school was out for good that year, the boys arose slowly and came down for breakfast. Kile began making his own “crunchy” scrambled eggs, but Robert just opted for a cold cereal with milk.

  Mom had passed through the kitchen, grabbing her cup of coffee and some toast, and apparently on a whim went out the back door. She returned, still sipping her coffee but staring at a leather-like sheet with writing on it. Sitting down at the table, Robert could tell the print was in Trollish and sat wondering why Mom was seemingly trying to read it. When Kile turned around with his pan of eggs he saw the sheet and smiled at both Mrs. Johansson and Robert. While he slide his food onto a plate on the table he responded.

  "New message! Here. I will read it for you.”

  Mom turned the sheet around and pushed it towards Kile’s seat while he placed the pan on the kitchen counter and then returned. Robert wondered how she had decided which way was up, because he certainly couldn’t tell.

  The troll read for a moment and then looked up at Mrs. Johansson to speak. “They say Ricky is doing very well. He has almost learned how to shimmer and he can even use the breakroc spell…at least on tiny rocks.”

  A mouthful of egg was shoveled into Kile’s mouth and he attempted to smile at the same time as he chewed. His breath was heavy through his nose as he tried to keep his lips closed as Mrs. Johansson had taught him earlier in the week. While Rob watched to see what his mother’s reaction would be, she merely sipped her coffee again, placed it back on the table, and wrapped her fingers around it as if warming them.

  “What else does it say?” she asked.

  “Oh?” Kile fussed a little before taking another forkful of egg. “Nothing really. Just tells me to wait a while longer and to keep visiting you.”

  “Hmmm,” came the reply. “Why are there so many words.”

  “Oh, ehm…there’s not so much words here,” Kile indicated tapping the sheet backhandedly.

  Mrs. Johansson hunkered down over the table a little more and brought her face several more inches closer to Kile’s. “Then why does it say they’re taking my boy to the Morning Shadow Mountain?”

  “Wha?!” Kile squawked. He tried to recover quickly and swept the sheet with his hand as he continued. “Nothing about that. Why you say that?”

  “Yeah, Mom,” Robert interjected. “Where d’ya see that?”

  Mom slid the sheet closer to herself but kept it pointed towards Kile. She placed her finger about mid-way down and towards the left half of the writing. She tapped a few of the Trollish figures in a row as she annunciated clearly, “Taking infant human to safety of Morning Shadow Mountain.”

  Kile’s eyes were large but it was now Robert’s turn to be shocked.

  “Wha?! How’d you…” he said half laughing and half speaking. “Mom? You read Troll?”

  Mrs. Johansson sat back in her chair, placing both hands around the mug again but frowning and scowling at the little troll, who was not bothering to use glimmer at the moment, being familiar with both humans, and trying to rest his magic.

  “No. But I can read Faerie pretty well,” she finally replied. “Trolls apparently use the words pretty plainly… I assume they’re meaning my son when they say “infant human,” right?”

  “Wow!” Rob said breathlessly.

  “Uh,” started Kile. “It’s nothing…they are just taking Ricky to another troll cave. Probably just to make sure no one stops his magic lessons.”

  “Sure,” Mom said, clearly not completely satisfied. “So explain what all the rest says. That’s a long letter and it seems like it’s very literal…I can’t quite make out what they’re trying to say.”

  “Uh…” Kile looked to Robert for some sort of defense, eyes wide. “Well…it just talks about how they are doing. They say Ricky is learning his magic fast.”

  “Yeah, got that.”

  “And, um, …well, there’s not much else really to say.” The troll was not covering very well, that much was clear even without seeing Mom’s eyes glaring at him, brows furled.

  “I’ll tell you what then. You just tell me what that word right there means,” she said and placed her finger on one particularly ugly marking that was mostly a swirl but with two barbs coming off of it and a flat line drawn underneath.

  Kile swallowed hard. “Er…that says…”

  Once again Kile looked to Robert for a way out, but didn’t find one. His eyes flicked from mother to son and back to the writing on the sheet.

  Sara Johansson slammed the table with her clenched fist and bent very low, nearly touching her nose to Kile’s as she exhibited the dangerous redheaded flare up Dad had warned Robert about. She growled through teeth gritted so hard it was hard to tell if she had lips, curled and retracted as they were.

  “You tell me what that says, you little lying troll, or I’m going to bring some of my other faerie friends into the picture and have them strip your bones right out of you…without magic!”

  Robert whispered very quietly, “Jeez, Mom.”

  “Quiet Robert. The sprites warned me about trolls, but I was just waiting to see if it was true. They’re tricky faeries. All the while they act dumb, but they’re usually keeping secrets. The rest of the faeries don’t trust them.”

  “I, er…” Kile said, patting his chest as though he were searching pockets for something. “It says gob…”

  “Gob?!”

  “Goblins…” Kile rasped, dropping his eyes trying not to make contact.

  “What?!”

  Sara Johansson stood quickly from the table and strode to the back door. She looked outside, knowing she wasn’t going to see her little boy from there, but searching the mountain side with her eyes all the same.

  Kile, too, stood up and started pacing the kitchen. He gestured with his hands while he spoke.

  “I sorry. Not trying to trick you, but not want you to worry.”

  “Well I’m pretty worried now!” Mrs. J. said in an aggravated voice. “Tell me what’s really going on.”

  “Nothing, nothing!” Kile whimpered.

  “NO! Tell me what’s going on with Ricky.”

  Kile swallowed again. His voice was raspy and reverberated in a funny tone as he spoke. “We have spotted some goblins in the mountains, but that’s very strange! Goblins in these mountains stay very high, and very deep within the mountains. Not many, that I know. But some have come down and guards watch them like they’re looking for something.”

  Robert motioned from his chair and it then became Kile’s turn to give a quick communicative shake of his head, warning Rob to stay quiet on what they had seen the previous weekend.

  “They don’t want to bring the human…er, Ricky, out of the caves and back home because they are afraid goblins might see and maybe attack humans too. So, they took him to another city through the caves where he will be safe. When guards check the mountain, and it seem safe, then Ricky can come home!”

  “And how long will that be?” Mrs. Johansson asked.

  “Well…”

  “Be honest with me, Kile, I mean it!” she said, wagging a finger in front of his face.

  “That why they say two months. They want to search mountain and see what the goblins are doing. Then they can let Ricky come home.”

  Mom sat staring at the troll, arms folded before her, as he in turn fidgeted with his hands and kicked at the floor with his feet.

  “Alright. You send them a message back that says if Ricky is not home in two months total, then I’m coming after him.” She started to stomp off towards the stairs to go up to get dressed for the day, but turned back and added, “And tell them I’ll be bringing friends, so they better be ready.”

  Troll and human boy were left in the kitchen with an awkward silence. Kile eyed the stairway through the kitchen archway as Mom headed up. Eventually he sat back down at his place, but he didn’t start eating his eggs a
gain right away.

  “Oh, man, Kile! I’ve never seen Mom act like that. You probably better just come clean on everything you know from now on.”

  “Come clean?” Kile asked, face still uncertain.

  “Yeah, you know. Tell the truth,” Rob said. And then with a second more of consideration he added, “Tell everything you know, too.”

  “Oh,” Kile sounded despondant. “Should Kile leave now?”

  “What? Just because you got in trouble?” Robert laughed.

  The little troll was nodding and still fretting about with his hands.

  “Nah. Welcome to the family, Kile. You’re one of us now if you get yelled at too.”

  Kile remained leery but he nodded and then picked up his fork. Within two bites he had seemed to put aside the confrontation and was busy with his near dozen eggs worth of scrambled crunchy eggs.