~~~
They’d walked for a while, discussing the RC model airplane or helicopter Robert was rumored to be buying soon. Rob asked Marissa about how school had gone and apologized for embarrassing her, explaining that it was his little brother. They engaged in small talk until Marissa had led them up into the first full tree line of the forests above Maple Springs. There she took Robert by the hand, sending shivers up his back again.
“C’mon. I need to tell you something.”
“Alright,” he replied, a half step behind and being pulled further into the forest towards a stream he could hear running. “Where are we going?”
“I need some water. It will be easier to explain that way.”
“Whu?” Rob started. But he was still being pulled aggressively in the direction Marissa wanted to go. “Why not just get a drink at home?”
She didn’t look at him as she made up a ridge and over towards the stream whose burbling grew increasingly louder. “No, not like that. Follow me.”
Their hands had separated as Marissa scrambled quickly down the opposite side of the ridge into a slightly wider little vale, parted casually by a meandering stream lined with a large granite boulders and the usually mossy, forest soil in between. About ten paces still out from the edge of the stream, she kicked off her tennis shoes and found a small collection of three or four boulders around which the stream slowed and pooled and made for a cool rest spot under the shade of several Quaking Aspens and a large maple. She turned her head back towards Robert and noticed his slowing steps and hesitation.
“C’mon! I want to show you this!” She said, somewhat hoarsely.
“What? The stream?” Rob murmured as he final caught up and sat on one of the boulders across from her.
She smirked a playfully evil smirk, as though she’d been taunting him, and replied, “No, not exactly. Watch this…”
Her voice had dropped to near whisper at the end. But it wasn’t the tone that suddenly enthralled Robert, but the mystic way she slowly and cautiously lifted her left hand from the boulder upon which she had been propped with that hand and scooped it into the water. Although her hand was upturned and cupped, she did not lift it out of the water to drink or to show him as Rob thought she was doing. Instead she sat, waiting.
“Oh!” she said in a hushed tone, and then pushed up her sleeve as far as she possibly could towards her shoulder on that arm. “I almost forgot!”
Her smile was pleasant. She sat watching Robert with her grin as though she were awaiting a reaction. Then her mouth faltered just a bit and her eyes flicked to her hand in the water when she noticed Robert wouldn’t stop staring at her and look at what she’d intended. He caught on quickly enough to look at her hand in the steam. Just in time in fact.
The water seemed to be pooling around her wrist and slowly climbing up her arm. The glistening surface of the water seemed to be creating a shield, or casing about her. It rose nearly to the edge of her sleeve before Marissa stared intently at it, as though she were willing it to stop there. And it did.
“How? How are you doing that?” Robert whispered. He moved to poke the film of water on Marissa’s hand to test it.
“Wait! Don’t do that,” she stopped him. “I’m not sure I can keep it there if you do.”
Retracting his hand as though he’d touched something hot for a split second, Rob asked again, “But how are you doing that? Do you know magic?”
It wasn’t a facetious question. He’d only recently learned from his experience with Kile and his mother’s story that indeed there was magic in the world. But he couldn’t imagine how Marissa would know any…he was pretty sure you’d have to be a troll or a sprite to work it.
“Pretty cool, eh?” She grinned. Then, while leaving her one hand in the water, she turned her head and stretched a little to place her other palm upon the closest Aspen trunk. “Now, watch this!”
Robert did. He stared intently at her hand, waiting to see what she’d work there on the tree. Soon, he realized it had been happening since she touched the trunk but it was slow enough he just didn’t notice it. Her hand was changing shades and developing small pocks marked by ridges. Inside the pockmarks her skin was turning rather dark and woody. Outside, covering the majority of her, her skin was turning a slightly green-tinted white or grey. Her hand and arm were matching the shape and color of the tree trunk with which she was in contact. Soon her fingers would virtually blend in with the tree as camouflage.
Marissa permitted the contact to hold as she smiled at Robert and gauged his reaction. Her hair seemed to be growing tiny buds of aspen leaves. Her face became somewhat woody looking and shaded the same colors, eyes turning a dark, earthy-looking hazel in the iris and the pale bark-color in the whites. She was literally turning into a tree.
“Marissa!” he whispered in a dry, irritated voice. “Stop!... Marissa stop! Please, before you turn into a tree and can’t move!”
She removed her hand from the tree trunk first. Color, human color, began returning almost immediately. A few leaves fell from her hair as they might in the Autumn. Her eyes returned to normal almost immediately. In the last half-second or so of transformation she pulled her hand out of the water and shook it off, the surface wrap around her splashing back into the pool or upon the nearby boulders upon which they sat.
“So?” she smiled. “What d’ya think?”
Robert was shaking his head and still trying to take it in. He looked at the water spots on the rocks, a little afraid to touch them. Then he peered at the tree. He returned his gaze to the smirking redhead before him. “Uh… nice trick, Marissa!”
She blew him a raspberry. “Idiot.”
They both laughed, and Robert seemed much more comfortable after that. She tried her luck again. “But what do you think? Can you believe what I just showed you?”
“Oh? Uh…” he pulled his red cap out of his back pocket he happened to have had tucked into when they left and placed it on his head. “I think that’s pretty cool. I don’t know anyone that can do that.”
He meant it too. He was trying to play through all the conversations he’d had with Kile about trolls and magic and other faerie folk races and did not think he’d heard of anyone controlling water or disguising themselves as a tree before.
“Well…what I mean is, if I were to explain this to you…would you trust me that I’m telling you the truth?”
“Yes!” Robert replied quickly and matter-of-factly. He had determined in that moment that he’d trust Marissa with anything from now on. The idea of sharing some knowledge of Kile and the troll city was already playing across his mind when she continued.
“Well, I want you to know what I am. And I thought that probably the easiest way to get you to believe me was to show you that.”
“Ok,” he nodded.
Marissa pulled his hands into hers. Despite the tree trunk adaptation, they were still soft, smooth and warm.
“I am part faerie.”
While Marissa wasn’t sure what the repeated blinks and then blank stare equated in Robert’s understanding, he was merely trying to figure out what the right way to respond might be. He wagered it would be best to keep quiet about what he knew for a bit longer.
“See,” Marissa continued uncomfortably. “I’m like, part wood Sprite, um, on my Mother’s side I think.”
“Oh?” It was all Robert could comfortably manage with the conflict in his mind still undecided.
“Yeah. And… um…On my father’s side I think it’s like one-eighth pixie or something.”
“Oh?” Robert was developing an expertise on replying to part-non-human-potential-girlfriend admissions. Apparently, it was best handled by a sort of finesse with tone and timeliness in the delivery of that single word.
“Yeah. I’m not really sure about that part. He doesn’t like to talk about it. He just says, all the good parts of us kids come from Mom and stops talking about
it.”
Marissa looked back at Robert’s face after the nervous explanation and saw something she was unsure of there. She looked away again and took back one of her hands to pull some strands of auburn hair back around her ear to hold them in place. As she looked back at Robert sheepishly she awaited his response.
None came. But another realization did.
“Ewe!” she said looking down at Robert’s hands and turning them over in hers. Robert! Your hands are all sweaty!”
“Oh! Uhm…” he quickly pulled them back and swiped them several times on the front of his shirt. “Sorry about that.”
She pulled her hands back, clasped them together and rested them on one knee.
“Well…” Robert said, equally sheepishly, “I’m glad you told me.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah,” he nodded in agreement.
They sat quietly, and uncomfortably again for a few seconds before either continued.
“So…” Robert said. “Uh…does that mean you’re not allowed to date humans?”
Marissa snickered so suddenly and humorously that she snorted as she caught her breath afterwards. Robert thought it was both funny and cute at the same time. While Marissa tried to stifle it with her hands, the two laughed together again.
“Yes! Yes, we can still go on dates,” she finally replied.
“Oh,” Rob said, still smiling. “Good. I…was kinda hoping we weren’t…like, having our first breakup or something.”
She snorted again, and the laughing continued.
When they finally settled down, Marissa seemed to remember an objective in their hike.
“So, Robert?”
“Yeah?”
“I wanted to show you that so you’d believe. So that when I tell you something you’d know I wasn’t just making it up.”
“Okay,” Rob felt awkward again. He’d trust her, but what was it she’d need to tell him beyond being a faerie folk? Was she also a demon or something crazy?
“See…it’s about your little brother.”
Robert’s back went instantly straight. His body felt a chill though his hands were still sweaty.
“Yeah? What about him?” He plied hesitantly.
“Well…I have to tell you, he’s not your little brother.”
“He’s not?” Rob was unsure where she was going with this.
“Yeah. I mean…he was. You definitely have a little brother. And, uh…he’s definitely a little monster. But…the person living in your house this summer is not your brother.”
Marissa stopped to watch Robert’s face again to see what he’d do as she explained this. His lips were pursed and there was a bit of a scowl on his forehead. She wasn’t sure what that meant. Was Robert actually angry at her for telling him?
“Well…here’s the thing: I think that Little Ricky is actually a troll disguised as Little Ricky.”
“Yeah?” Rob said. His face relaxing somewhat.
“Yeah! I really do. I mean, I can’t see him like some faeries can, but my mom says some of the things I’ve noticed about him in the last few weeks could be that he’s using a type of magic called glimmer. I’m pretty sure that’s a troll you got there disguised as your brother.”
“So…you can’t see him,” Robert replied hesitantly, “but you’re pretty sure he’s a troll?”
“Yes.”
“Well…what makes you think that then?”
Marissa was stymied a little that this is how she was having to get at it. It wasn’t so much hard-core evidence after all. But everything was adding up.
“I dunno. It’s like his drawing on the board at school…”
“Oh yeah…” Robert looked dejected, and Marissa found herself feeling badly for him about it again.
“No, I mean, that drawing and sort of the way the letters were written and stuff…that’s kind of the way trolls write.”
“Oh?” Robert perked up. He was learning a few things that might help to keep Kile a secret just a little longer before they exchanged him back for the real Richard Johansson, III.
“Yeah,” Marissa hemmed and hawed a little more. “It’s like, even the way he moves sometimes. He doesn’t seem to quite fit in the Little Ricky body he’s wearing…kind of like clothes that are really the wrong size.”
“I see.”
“And then…sometimes…I think I can see this glimmer I’m talking about not working right.”
“Oh? When would that have happened?”
Marissa gave him a curious look. “Well…one night last week I was walking by and I noticed Ricky going out the back towards the tree line. He was carrying something. But when he turned back and went into the house it…”
“Yeah?!” Robert was intent on figuring this out.
“Well…I don’t think he had his glimmer on at all. He looked like a troll…from that distance.”
Robert was nodding. Marissa returned to the odd look. Something wasn’t right here. Rob’s reaction wasn’t at all like what she was expecting, nor what her mother warned her of when they talked about how stubborn humans were in believing.
She stood up and put her hands on her hips, akimbo, with a scowl on her own face. “You already know, don’t you!?”
“Whoa! Whoa! Not so loud,” Rob said, reflexively looking around the forest and at the nearby ridge separating them from the nearest neighborhood.
“Whad’ya mean, not so loud?” Marissa retorted. “You’re telling me you’ve known this whole time that Little Ricky’s gone?!!”
Robert stood himself. “No! Wait! What are you going on about? Yes, we made a trade. He is a troll and so, yes, I know he’s been disguising himself as Little Ricky. But it’s just for a little while longer.”
“Robert!! Don’t you realize what I’m saying? Trolls eat humans!” Marissa was practically screaming.
“OH!! No, Marissa!” He placed his hands on her shoulders trying to calm her down. She swatted both off her with her own in frustration. “They don’t! They don’t eat humans anymore.”
“Yes they do! I have an uncle that was eaten by a bridge troll not very far up from the reservoir before I was born!”
“What? Really? But, Marissa, Kile’s not a Bridge Troll. He’s a Mountain Troll!”
“That doesn’t matter! All trolls eat humans!” She was nearing tears.
“Look, Marissa,” Robert tried his hands on her shoulders again. “They’re not going to eat him. I promise. I’ve actually been to their city. I’ve even talked to their King and Queen.”
“What?” Marissa was distracted from her hysteria finally. “You went to a troll city? You mean, they took you underground?”
“Yes! And believe me, none of them are going to eat Little Ricky. Well…one of them might if he got the chance,” Rob said only half humorously, remembering Dronosh. “But, really. Mountain Trolls don’t want to eat humans. They only did it a long time ago because humans fought with them.”
“Really?” Marissa heaved her reply, shaking off tears.
“Yes, really!”
“That’s not what my mother has always taught me, though.”
Marissa stepped closer to Robert and despite being a couple inches taller than him, placed her head on his shoulders. Robert tried to give her a hug, still entirely uncomfortable with that, not quite knowing what to do around a girl.
“No, it’s true. They’re not going to eat him. We even got a letter from him just a couple weeks ago.”
“Well, that’s good.” She swiped a hand at her eyes quickly and returned her head back to Rob’s shoulder. Her body shuddered. Robert would never quite understand why that was for many more years, but she was suddenly relieved of several days in a row of realization that Robert’s brother might be dead and that she was the only one who knew it or could tell the Johanssons about it.
Robert patted her back in a very uncomfortable, very male manner with a solid slap. “It’s alright,” h
e said. “He’s coming back really soon.”
They then stood apart, Marissa wiping at her eyes, Rob looking about at their feet unsure of what to do or say next.
“Okay.”
“So…are we good?” Rob asked.
She took one of his hands in hers and started walking back towards town. “Yeah. We’re good.”
“You know,” Rob continued as they walked. “That’s actually kind of why Kile is here with us. Their Queen wants to know if it’s safe to make contact with humans again.”
“Hmmm,” Marissa nodded. Then she made a realization. “So his name is Kyle?”
“Yeah. Kile. Except he spells it weird I think. He says it means ‘tickle’ in his own language. I guess that’s sort of supposed to be an insult…’cause he’s a sort of small troll.”
Marissa smiled and flicked away the last tear from her cheek. “Oh yeah? A cute name like ‘tickle’ is supposed to be an insult?”
“Yeah…well…it’s not a very tough troll name. I think I get it. It’s kind of like that high school kid, Jean-Michael, that was calling me ‘Priscilla’ all the time when we first moved here.”
“Oh yeah!” Marissa perked up, laughing slightly. “I remember that! That was actually kind of funny.”
“Well…at least he stopped calling me that. I don’t think they’re ever going to change Kile’s name.”
“Hmmm,” Marissa murmured. “Remind me to tell you why he stopped calling you that sometime…”
Rob stopped and pulled her hand so she’d turn to look at him. They’d regained the tarmac and had nearly gotten back home when he gave her the quizzical look.
“…But not right now,” she finished. She tugged on his hand and they moved quickly towards the house.
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