by Julie Wright
“Can’t you call it to you like you did before?” I asked. So tired.
“I could, but then I wouldn’t be a very good Farmor. You need to learn a work ethic too.”
“Oh for—fine.” I got up, went to my room and fetched the little wooden troll with his green eyes and scepter. As I held it, the wood started warming up again. I shoved it in the pocket of my jeans and hoped it didn’t burn a hole through my pants.
When I returned, the dining room looked like it had been redecorated by Merlin the magician. The entire table was filled with things—books with metal bindings and locked clasps, candles, her scrying glass, jars filled with who only knew what, keys, and several old wooden boxes with symbols carved all over them.
She stood at the head of the table as though she were a teacher about to give a very important lecture on scary things. All the chairs had been removed to allow access to the table without interference. Mom poked her head in, opened her mouth as though she wanted to say something, closed it, and shook her head. She left with her eyebrows furrowed together in worry.
I wished she hadn’t left, but not out loud. She’d been out all night and needed to sleep, and I wasn’t so sure a little wooden troll in my pocket would prevent my wishes from inflicting further trouble on my family, even if I did really want my mom at that moment.
“Did you bring your iPod?” Farmor asked.
“I didn’t know we needed . . .” I began, wondering at this side of Farmor I’d never known, the side that was all business and no play. This was entirely different from the woman who left little smiley faces and corny jokes in her messages to me.
She held out her hand, called out, “iPod!” and then waited while the device floated to her. “We’ll want to upload the books into it so you can listen whenever you have a spare moment.”
I stared at the dusty, old books with their metal bindings. “Upload them?”
She must have heard the doubt in my voice, because she clipped a piece of metal attached to a wire onto the metal binding. She then plugged the other end with an attachment to my iPod. I peeked at the screen. The upload was taking place.
I would have said “Impossible” or something else equally lame, but after everything else that had happened, I just shrugged.
“I know you need to sleep, Allyson. But you need to know before Halloween what you’re getting into. Today is Friday. Tomorrow is Halloween. You must understand who we are before you can join us. And we don’t have much time.” She turned to the table and lit a candle. The flame burned tall, straight, and fire-engine red.
“A long time ago, our ancestor, Britta, led several other women of her village to hunt trolls.” While she talked, the smoke from the flame swirled down to the floor and took shape into the form of a woman. I gawked at the dark-haired figure walking through trees that hadn’t been in my dining room just seconds before. “They did not find any trolls,” she continued. “Instead, they found a cave with four stones.”
The dark-haired girl stood at a tall fissure in the side of the hill that now existed where the wall separating the dining room from the family room had been. She peered inside before stepping into the darkness beyond. Three other girls followed her. They were laughing and talking—though I couldn’t hear what they said. The dark-haired girl didn’t laugh. She seemed to be taking her hunt for trolls far more seriously than her friends.
I gasped and stepped forward, reaching my hand out to grab the last girl’s arm as she moved to pass into the cave. My hand passed through the smoke and the girl moved beyond my reach. I knew that girl. Her white-blonde hair and sharp features were identical to the woman who’d been in my backyard the night before.
Farmor continued her tale, not noticing that I’d tried to accost one of the characters from her story. “The stones glowed bright like stars in the darkness.”
The room shifted and everything went black except for four bright spots. We were in the cave.
“The women could not help themselves,” Farmor continued. “Each one was drawn to a stone. None of them could stop the impulse to touch the stone that drew her to it. The power drained into them, filling them to the point they were afraid it would burn them out, scour them away like the sun bleaching a bone in the sand. They were afraid of their new power, afraid and thrilled.”
Everything Farmor said grew into the reality around me. I saw the women take the power from the stones, saw them light up with that power.
“They did not find the trolls. The trolls, having felt the power transfer, found them instead. A great war followed between the humans and trolls, but the human women with their new magic were as powerful as the trolls, and so they formed a truce, knowing there could be no winner in their battles.”
I saw the trolls, their war, and the cost of their fight. I saw the women and trolls locked in power, neither side losing, neither side gaining.
And then I saw something I didn’t understand—a female troll who had been watching the battle, much like I’d been watching. She was tall, and oddly shaped, with a bulbous red nose and red rimmed eyes. Her teeth sat crooked in her mouth, like a broken, old farming fence. She reached out to the girl with white-blonde hair, and took her hand. Together, they walked away. It seemed like they were far away from me, far away from the battle, and they blurred as they moved so it was hard to keep track of them.
Then the dark-haired girl stood before the largest of the trolls and pricked her finger with a wicked-looking thorn. She pressed the bleeding finger to a scroll. As she did, tears leaked from her eyes. She turned her head so even she wouldn’t have to see what she’d just done.
Everything hovered in the air for a moment before falling to the ground like a rainfall of color and evaporating into the carpet.
I breathed hard standing in my dining room. The table was there with all the weird books and candles, Farmor was there. “It’s a tenuous truce,” she said, handing me something to drink.
I didn’t ask what it was, but gulped it down, feeling how dried my throat had become while watching her story.
“One that has troubles every now and again. That’s the reason I couldn’t be here to assist you on your birthday. I should have been here sooner and would have if such things were possible. It’s a challenge to keep the trolls from meddling in the mortal realm. It is that truce, and our need to not cause trouble in the prosaic realm, that makes this important for me to talk to you about now . . . before you go to rest. Halloween is coming. I don’t want you caught unaware when you are summoned to take the vows.”
I blinked. Summoned to take vows? The creepy girl with white hair had said something about vows. “What do you mean?”
“There are rules that govern us—laws. We cannot tamper in governments, kingdoms, economies, love, or death—either preventing or causing. You need to understand that. When we take the trials and then the vows, we commit to these rules. They are a binding to us. It is a burden to have magic—as you’ve seen over the last few days. If you don’t check yourself and your spells continually, you could end up destroying things you love.”
Who could argue with logic like that? Several disasters had already happened, and I was only a few days into this mess. “What if it’s too much? What if I decide to hand it all back and tell them thanks but no thanks?”
Farmor winced as if the question had hurt her. She looked away. “A Troll Kvinna cannot give back the power within her.”
She lied. I saw it in the way she wouldn’t meet my eyes. And the white-haired girl had said we could give it back. What had she told me? Something about the stones. If I touched the stone, I’d be relieved from the burden. Was it the stone on the left? Or had she said right?
I opened my mouth to ask Farmor about the girl and about the stones, when she said, “If a Troll Kvinna is unwilling to take the vows, there’s a penalty.”
She didn’t tell me what the penalty would be, and I didn’t ask. The concern in her expression was enough to let me know that the penalty was far worse t
han a few vows. I saw death in her eyes better than if someone had painted a skull and crossbones on her pupils. I could give the power back to the stone, sure. But if I did, I’d die. Great. Those were awesome options. “Where do I take the trials? Who am I vowing to? How? Is it just promising that I’ll behave and not mess with stuff I’m not supposed to?”
“You will be taken to the cave of power—that place where we first found our magic. And there—before the Troll King, his Troll Kvinna, and the court of our kind, you will prove yourself.”
“I’m going to Sweden?”
She nodded solemnly.
I couldn’t help it; almost all the exhaustion in my body had been forgotten. The girl with white hair, the death penalty issue, everything disappeared. I hadn’t been to Sweden for years and had wanted to go back for a long time. I was getting a trip to Scandinavia for my birthday! That was a zillion times cooler than a little wooden troll. Mom would be a little unhappy, but she’d get over it. It didn’t sound all that hard—just taking vows. Making a few promises sounded way better than the death penalty. And if Farmor felt I had other options besides vows, she would have told me.
Excitement filled me until I remembered the epidemic and the cheerleaders.
I didn’t want to have any surprises when I showed up at court—wow, that sounded formal. Court. I wondered if it was court like a judge and a jury, or court like in the olden days where the court was made up of men and women in ball gowns and suits and stuff.
“Farmor?”
She hadn’t stopped looking worried and solemn. “Hmm?”
“I might have already broken the vows.”
If she looked worried before, it was nothing compared to the panic that took over her face at that news. I explained the clingers, and the tree, and the really terrible birthday. I explained the wish and why I’d made it. Her expression didn’t change during my explanation. I’d expected her to lighten up, smile a little, and tell me things were fine, but she didn’t. She merely listened with that look of worry creasing the lines in her skin a little deeper.
“I told them you were stronger than those who came before you . . .” She said the words quietly, to herself. She looked up to me and said, “It is unlikely you could have broken a vow entirely. You were spellbound when you were a little girl to prevent any accidental wishes of death on someone during your wishing trial, but even coming close to breaking one of the vows is cause for prudent worry.”
I’d been spellbound as a child? That was interesting news.
Farmor sighed. “We’ll want to fix that immediately—before you go to sleep. Sorry. I know you’re tired.”
It was at that moment I realized she looked pretty miserable tired too. She’d been through a lot during the night, and she wasn’t exactly young anymore. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Will this get us into trouble?”
“No. Not if we fix it. We fix what we break, ja?”
I hurried to agree. This was something that definitely needed fixing. Kristin was involved in that mess. I felt like the worst friend ever for not thinking more about it and tried to assuage my guilt by reminding myself that my life had been pretty crazy, but it didn’t change the fact that I’d been a lousy best friend. Kristin never would have let me miss a date with the guy I totally loved.
Guy I totally loved. Friday. Today was Friday. I had a date with Jake tonight. How had I forgotten? Fixing the cheer team issues better not take too long. I needed to get some sleep before my date.
Farmor stood up and opened several jars filled with colorful liquids.
“Can’t I just wish for them to be well?” I asked.
“Yes. But you need to be with each of them individually to fix the spell. You can cast spells on people you cannot see, but you have to be directly in front of someone in order to fix it. You never could have fixed Lisa’s hair and nails if she hadn’t been right in front of you. You couldn’t have wished your parents back home. You cannot wish for these girls to be well again. The mixture I’m making is not medicinal; we’re making get-well-goodies for you to take them. It gets you into their homes without forcing your way through magic.”
“Can’t I just go buy them a few candy bars or something? Do we have to make candy?”
She harrumphed at that, but conceded the point to me. She was as bad as my mom wanting me to hand write thank-you cards instead of using email. Honestly, did these people not understand the importance of a quality shortcut? Farmor went with me to the store and coached me on exactly how to word the wishes with each girl so it sounded natural, conversational, and not at all like I was casting a spell of magic on them.
It took until two in the afternoon to see them all, deliver the candy that I had to buy out of my own money, and utter a wish over each girl. It hadn’t been easy, considering none of them wanted to see me and their moms were worried about the quarantine until I assured them that I’d been with the cheerleaders just before they got sick and had already been declared immune. Some of them wouldn’t meet my eye as their moms ushered me into their rooms. They must have felt bad for hanging me the way they had. Others looked completely put out that I’d shown up without any warning or reason—likely horrified to have someone uncool like me enter the hallowed territory of their homes. And most of them were furious to have anyone show up when they had drippy, red noses and piles of sodden, snotty tissues on their nightstands.
My whole body screamed for sleep. My mom liked to use little phrases that taught life lessons—things like: You can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear, or if you lie with the dogs, you’re going to get fleas. After a day of working to undo something stupid, her saying that letting kittens out of the bag is a lot easier than putting them back in again actually made sense.
So. Tired.
“You definitely need to rest a spell.” Farmor eyed me with worry as we pulled back into my driveway.
I gave her a hug. “I would never have been able to handle this without you.”
She held me tighter. “I’m only sorry there was such a mess to unravel when I arrived. If I had been here before your birthday, you would be prepared. I am sorry that matters in Sweden took importance over matters here. Allyson, please do not hold my absence against me. You know that whatever might have kept me away had to be of life and death. Nothing less would have taken my attention from you during this time.”
She pulled away and locked her gaze onto mine.
“I know,” I assured her, wanting nothing more than to give her comfort when she seemed so incredibly troubled by the whole thing. Now that everything was resolved, all the stuff that happened could be seen as almost amusing. Even if Lisa didn’t know I’d had a moment of power over her, I knew. “Anyway, Farmor, everything’s fixed. And you’re right about me needing some rest. If I don’t get to bed now, I’ll fall asleep on my date tonight.” I got out, shut the car door, and was moving up the steps when Farmor caught my arm.
“You have a date tonight?”
Whatever look she had on her face was not a good look.
“Yeah, why?”
Her blue eyes, blue like my father’s, like mine, pierced through me. She looked like she was taking me apart piece by piece and then reassembling me. “We have so little time to teach you everything you need to know. You can’t be off with a boy when—” She inhaled sharply as she cut off what she was about to say.
“What are you saying? When . . . what?”
She looked at my stricken face before nodding slowly. “You must take the vows, or there is a penalty.”
“I’m going to take the vows. That isn’t until tomorrow night. I promise to be there. Don’t worry. No one will be killing me for being a flake, because I won’t be a flake.”
She smiled. “Ja. Of course.”
“So I can do both—go on my date and do vows tomorrow.”
“But you must study. I’ve already been delayed too long in reaching you. Failure is not an option. You must study—”
“I’ll study.” I assured her.
“You don’t get this far in school without knowing how to cram at the last minute. We have all day tomorrow. There isn’t even school to get in the way.”
“I don’t think you grasp the importance of—”
“Farmor, we’re talking the guy of my dreams, Harvard-accepted, brilliant, beautiful, everything I wish I was. And he asked me out. There is no way I’m cancelling on him. This is way important to me. There might never be a second chance. You can’t not let me go. Please. I can still do everything you want. Trust me.” I moved on as if that settled everything.
She scrambled quickly behind me. “Allyson, you don’t—”
“I promise. Everything’ll be fine.” I grinned at her and used the playful attitude she’d tried with me when she’d first arrived. “What happened to my carefree Farmor?”
She scowled as I opened the front door for us. “She had a teenage granddaughter.”
I laughed. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
She ignored the comment, but finally lowered her shoulders as if admitting defeat. “Fine. You deserve your moments of happiness. It would be wrong to deny you this time in your life—merciful, but wrong. We have so much to go over, that you will need to keep your date short. You have so much to learn. But I will not interfere. I’ll wake you from your spell rest in time for your date. I’ll clean up the downstairs so that my . . . belongings aren’t visible.” She pulled me into another hug, one that seemed to ooze with pity, and released me. “Goodnight, älskling. Don’t forget to put the wishing troll back in your pocket.”
She was being weird, but I was so tired. And what was weird anymore? How much stranger could things get beyond what had already happened? I decided not to let it bother me. It was best just to get some sleep and hope everything made sense when I woke up.
I went to my room and glared at the troll on my dresser. Farmor made me leave him home while I did the wishing to make the cheerleaders better. I decided to make one more wish before putting the troll away in my pocket again. “I wish the quarantine would be lifted off the cheerleaders starting right now.” Getting them well wasn’t enough to get them off quarantine and it wasn’t an undo wish because I hadn’t wished them on quarantine in the first place. This was a first wish, so I felt safe that it would work without them in front of me.