by Julie Wright
Chapter Nine
Note to self:
Trolls come with instructions. Who knew?
Farmor, my grandmother, stood on the porch with a cape similar to the one she’d made for me draped over her thin frame. Either I’d grown or she’d shrunk over the last year because we were roughly the same height. Her grey hair was pulled into a knot at the back of her head. She smiled, the lines of her face deepening.
It was like I’d wished for my own voice to go away, because my voice box stopped working. I had all sorts of things to say: “How did you get here?” or, “How did you get here so fast?” or, “I really am crazy, aren’t I?”
Nothing came out except a squeak.
“If you don’t understand, älskling, then I must explain it to you, since you didn’t read the letter I sent you for your birthday.” She pocketed her phone. “Aren’t you going to invite me inside?”
Still unable to speak, I opened the door wider, inviting her in.
“What? No hug for your Farmor?”
Baffled and still unable to speak, I let her wrap her arms around me. After a moment, she pulled away and said, “We won’t need that any longer.” She took the phone from my hand and pressed the off button for me before handing it back.
I put it in my pocket and stared. k'12
“What is it? You look like you’re seeing ghosts.” My grandma unwrapped the scarf from around her neck and removed her cape and gloves, laying them all over the side of the table in the entry way. She had on jeans and a turtleneck and hiking boots. Her cheeks were red from the cold.
“How did you get here?” I finally said, grateful my voice actually worked. “Were you already coming here? Had your plane already landed when I called you?” This explanation made sense—a little. I nodded twice, relieved to find a reasonable explanation for her presence.
“No. I was . . . busy . . . in Sweden when you called.” She frowned as though whatever had made her busy had also been unpleasant. “You said it was an emergency. Of course I came right away. Let’s find your birthday present.”
She turned on her heel and started up the stairs to my room, leaving me no choice but to close my mouth that had been hanging open in astonishment and follow her. She came right away? She came in under a minute. Over three thousand miles in under a minute? Who did that?
In my room, she lifted her hand, and cried out, “Troll Kvinna!” The little wooden troll she’d sent for my birthday flew from under the bed and into her palm. My breath caught in my throat. Unbelievable.
She arched an eyebrow at me as she held the little figurine under my nose. “You keep my present under your bed?”
While still shaking her head in disbelief and irritation, she held out her other hand and cried, “Scrivet!” and a card lifted up from the box the troll came in, and flew to her hand.
“All you needed to help you through this was right here.” She held her hands out to me.
“I didn’t know there was a card. I didn’t see it.” In my defense, I really hadn’t. The little troll burning me was sort of a distraction. I took the card from her and opened it.
Min älskling,
I hope your birthday was wonderful. So much changes in the girls in our family when they turn sixteen. Be careful with birthday wishes, at least until November. In fact, do not make any wishes at all until Hallow’s Eve. If you keep the wish troll in your pocket or on your person—then you will be relieved of all ill side effects. Keep it with you at all times. Wrap it in a kerchief to avoid overheating. Call me immediately. I cannot come to you, but we must talk.
Farmor
I read it again to see if it made more sense the second time, then waved the card at her. “This doesn’t tell me anything. This is all cryptic nonsense! Did you think I’d have any idea what you were talking about?”
“I couldn’t be here to give it to you myself,” she said. “And you never returned any of my calls for me to explain better. And you never called me as you were instructed several times in email. I had to be cryptic. Your mother thinks I’m crazy. Even this little bit makes me look insane.”
“Mom does not think you’re crazy.”
She lifted an eyebrow at me again, and I had to concede that on occasion my mom had called Farmor a prime candidate for the nut house, but had the good sense not to admit it out loud.
“She thinks I’m crazy, and if I wrote out all your instructions, it would have only proved her right. How else would you have had me write them?”
“How would I know? I still don’t have any idea what’s going on or what this means.” I took a deep breath, realizing I’d never fought with Farmor before. Not ever. And here we were practically yelling at each other. “I’m sorry. It’s been a stressful couple of days. Let’s start over.”
“Excellent idea.” She sat on the edge of my bed.
“What’s happening to me?”
“You’ve reached womanhood—the age where you come into your powers.”
“Powers?” My head started hurting with that one glorious and terrible word.
She patted the place beside her on the bed, indicating I should join her. I did as directed.
“Allyson, you are a Troll Kvinna, as am I, as is my mother and her great-grandmother and many women throughout our family. We have powers. We control elements, cast spells, and affect the world around us.”
“Powers? Like what? Are you saying . . . you’re a witch?”
Grandma looked at me with a smirk. “What? You’ve never heard your mother call me that before?”
“My mom’s never called you a—”
Grandma stopped me by putting a finger against my mouth. “Lesson number one: Never lie to a woman with a scrying glass.”
I stayed quiet a moment before saying, “You have a scrying glass? Really?” We sold fake scrying glasses in Mom’s shop. Some people who bought them actually claimed to be able to use them, but they were just pretty little mirrors that didn’t shine anything more than the reflection of the person looking in it.
“No Troll Kvinna worth her salt would ever do without one. It allows me to see into time—the past, present, and future all lie within my glass.”
As weird as that information was, I had more important things to wonder about. “I know what a scrying glass is. So are you telling me I’m a witch?”
“Yes. You’re a Troll Kvinna, or witch, as they say in English, though the way Americans use the word is so crass. Ours is an ancient power wrested away from the trolls in a time long gone.”
“Trolls? Wrested? We stole power from trolls? Really?” I stood up from the bed and walked in tight little circles in front of her. “This is crazy! Did you know this was going to happen to me? Did you know my wishes would all come true no matter how stupid they were? Because I have made some epic stupid wishes. Did you know my best friend was going to get quarantined and that my parents would disappear? Did you know all that?” I was shouting again.
“Ja, I knew, well, not specifically all that, but of course there would be things happening. That’s why I sent you the wishing troll. If you’d kept him with you, he would have countered all your wishes, and nothing would have happened at all. The troll dampens your power. I meant to come on your birthday to be with you for the transition, but we had some troubles with the Troll King. I couldn’t come right away. They only let me come now because I told them you were strong enough to break their bindings if you weren’t properly guided.”
“My what?” I shouted.
“Look, I know you’re angry. It’s a difficult transition—coming into your power. I wanted to come, but couldn’t. That’s why I sent you the wishing troll.” She repeated the bit about the wishing troll as though to make sure blame was placed where it belonged.
I waved away the blame as though it were a troublesome fly buzzing about my head. “You could’ve called me and explained it!”
“I did call. You never answered. And you were fine. I checked in on you a few times. Nothing horrible had happen
ed.”
“Nothing horrible? I turned someone’s hair green, made half the school sick, and stole thirty-two minutes from the entire world!”
Her eyes followed me as I paced around the bed, waving my arms in the air. A faint smile sat on her lips, which infuriated me.
“What happened to my carefree Allyson?”
“She should be in jail. She stole thirty-two minutes and lied to a police officer!”
Farmor laughed outright, her face wrinkling into lines that showed she laughed a lot. I’d forgotten how much I loved that sound she made when joy bubbled out from her. “Oh, what would the world have done with that thirty-two minutes anyway? Watch another program on TV?” She stood up and placed her arms around me, making some of my fear and agitation melt, whether I wanted it to or not. “Allyson, everything is okay. You made a few wishes, said a few hopes out loud, but wishes are reversible, mostly. If they weren’t, you wouldn’t believe the mess the world would be in.”
I grudgingly admitted to myself that it felt good to be held, to feel like someone else would be taking control of all the things that were wicked insane in my life. “What happens on Halloween?” I mumbled into her shirt.
“Hmm?”
I pulled away. “You said I needed the wishing troll until Halloween. What happens on Halloween?”
“Your powers are charged fully. It will take more than a simple wish to make things happen then. Then, you’ll have to gain skill to cast full spells. While your powers charge, you are like an infant, getting your way simply because you cried. You make a wish, utter a hope out loud like a prayer, and you get it. As a baby grows, she needs to earn what she gets. So must you after Hallow’s Eve.”
“I didn’t wish for my parents to disappear. How is that getting what I wanted?”
Farmor took her turn to pace the room. “That one is interesting.” She tapped at her chin and looked to be deep in thought. “What did you wish for . . . exactly. You must tell me exactly.”
I sifted through the jumbled thoughts in my head. It was like my brain had frozen up because the information inside I remained inaccessible. I think it suffered from information overload. “I don’t know exactly. I can’t remember. This might be post-traumatic stress disorder.”
She made a pshaw noise and went back into the hallway. “Spegel!” she called. A small, round disc floated into my room and into Farmor’s waiting hand. Scrolled silver framed the sky blue disc. Worked into the silver above and below the blue glass were little carvings in the metal. At the top was a Viking ship, on the bottom was a Dalahäst—a wooden horse.
“So you just call something, and it comes to you?”
She smiled. “There are advantages to being who we are.”
“Apparently. So what about my mom and dad?”
She held out the scrying glass and waved her hand over it; the shiny blue surface broke and rippled like waves. In the watery depths of the glass I saw my image standing on Essex Street crying out to the sky. “I wish my parents would get back together and learn to get along!” Wind whirled leaves around my image as though it were the center of a miniature cyclone.
The waves flattened out and hardened into the surface of her scrying glass. She turned her wizened old eyes to me and tsked. “Nothing like wanting the impossible. Love doesn’t work like that. Troll magic does many things, but it cannot force itself on another person’s will of love. That has caused a great many problems for the trolls and for us Troll Kvinnor also. If your parents don’t want to be together as man and wife, then the magic has to find a loophole—something that can bring them together without forcing their will of love. Compulsion isn’t magic. Compulsion is chaos. The universe protects true love.”
“That means what?” I asked. My head ached too much for me to comprehend anything.
“That means your parents don’t want to be together right now. So the magic had to bring them together in a way that did not interfere with their free will. Let’s see . . .” She waved her hand over the glass again. We looked into the rippled watery surface where my mother’s image sat at her computer desk typing furiously at her keyboard. Farmor gave another wave and the ripples seemed to focus on the words appearing on my mom’s computer screen.
That man makes me furious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! His smug sense of accomplishment when he’s purposely late from bringing the kids back from his visits makes me want to just scream! He knows I hate tardiness more than anything. It makes me grateful I don’t have to put up with that every day. The only way I’d spend any length of time with him again is if we were both stranded in the Amazon fighting anacondas.
Farmor snorted, and the glass hardened into its smooth shiny surface again. “Well, we know where they are now.”
“We do?” I asked.
“They’re in the Amazon fighting anacondas.” She shook her head. “Your mother has always been a bit overdramatic.”
“Are you kidding? The Amazon? Snakes?”
“Not kidding. And big snakes.” Farmor glanced around my room. “Where’s Robison?”
“Downstairs watching TV.”
“You’ll need to get him a babysitter.” She called her own cape from downstairs and then called my cape from the peg and into her hands.
“Why? What are we going to do?”
“We have to go get them of course. And the Amazon is no place for a little boy.” She threw my cape at me.
I made a clumsy catch. My cape—a costume, but not really, not anymore. Now, it seemed more like a uniform. I followed her out of my room and down the stairs. “Get them? You mean, as in go to the Amazon where they’re fighting snakes?”
“Is there any other way to get them?”
I stumbled down the last couple of steps. Several ways that didn’t include me going where my parents were came to mind. Everything seemed so unlikely. My grandmother from Sweden stood in my house. Could she really be a witch? Could I really be a witch? Could we really be going to the Amazon? “I don’t know,” I said. “Isn’t the Amazon dangerous? Can’t we snap our fingers or chant a spell and bring them back that way?”
“You wished them there. Wishes are not like spells. With wishes, you must face the affected person directly, or it won’t work. We’ll have to go to them.”
I gasped and covered my mouth. “What if I got my parents killed?” I whispered.
She had already rounded the banister and found her way into the family room. She leaned back so her head poked out of the family room door frame and put her finger to her lips. “Shh! Robison’s sleeping.”
“Don’t we need passports to leave the country?” I whispered.
She chuckled. “No, älskling. And your parents have not been killed. And we cannot snap our fingers to undo your magic. We must face a problem directly. Your parents will need to learn to work together and be together—to get along with each other to be able to return as that was your wish. And since we know they can’t get along, they will fight themselves into being cursed where they are forever. You’ll have to go to them and wish them home.”
“Oh no.” I groaned, realizing Farmor was right. They would fight and fight and fight until a snake ate them both. They’d be looking to blame each other. I hung my head in my hands and pressed my palms against my eyes. “What have I done?”
“Nothing that can’t be undone, älskling. Wish magic is easy to fix. It’s not so easy when it’s spells and conjures, but at least those can be done long distance. Now get the boy a babysitter.” She motioned toward where Robison lay curled up on the couch.
I was Robison’s babysitter. If I was busy with something, Mom had Dad keep an eye on him, or she would take him to the shop, and he’d do chores until she closed. We didn’t have a regular sitter to call on, and I had no idea how to get one. I thought about his friends, but the only close friend he had was Heather—Jake’s sister.
I swallowed down the lump in my throat and decided this was an emergency. They would never approve of a boy/girl sleepover normally, but with an emerge
ncy . . . . With a deep breath for courage, I picked up the phone and dialed Heather’s number. I almost wished Jake answered the phone and then almost wished he didn’t, but managed to hold my tongue and not wish for anything.
Jake’s mom answered.
“Hello, Mrs. Warren. This is Ally Peterson—Robison’s big sister. I have a bit of an emergency.” I made up a huge story about my mom being out of town for a tradeshow for her shop and my dad being out of town fixing someone’s computer, and my grandma who’d come into town to stay with us needing to go to the doctor. I played the good and caring sister, stating that Robison wouldn’t be able to get any sleep in a waiting room all night and could he please stay with them for the night—just this one time—and go to school with Heather in the morning?
Mrs. Warren took pity on me and my plight and agreed. She even offered to come pick him up, but I thought it would be best for me to take him to her so that I could leave Farmor in the car acting ill and looking like she needed a doctor.
I hurried to pack Robison an overnight bag with clothes for school, his toothbrush, his school backpack, and anything else he might need. Farmor collected a few odds and ends from the house. We met back in the family room to gather up the kid, and get him to the Warren’s house.
Robison wouldn’t budge. He muttered, and rolled over, and slept through every attempt to entice him into wakefulness. “What’s wrong with him?” I asked, while at the same time searching through my mind to see if I could remember wishing he’d go to sleep.
“Surely you’ve heard the phrase rest a spell.” She smiled; I didn’t think her pun was funny.
“But he always wakes up pretty easy.” And this was totally true. Robison and I had little in common that way. I hated getting up, and so my mom bought me the loudest, the most obnoxious alarm clock she could find.
“He’s been spelled. I can still smell the magic on him. Being spelled is exhausting. Now he needs to rest the spell, let it absorb through and out of him.”
“He’s acting like he’s been given a tranquilizer. Will he wake up soon? The Warrens are going to think I drugged him.”