Troll Bridge

by Jane Yolen

  “I’ll take care of your mothers. You take the princes to the other houses and carry all the Dairy Princesses here. Be careful not to hurt them.”

  “But Moira, they can’t go out until dark,” Jakob reminded her.

  “Then you’re on your own, Griffsons.”

  “We usually are,” Galen said. “Come on, guys.” They went toward the back door, which Arri and Buri swung open, careful not to let a bit of the sunlight touch their own hands.

  Moira headed, instead, toward the front door where the troll wives still lay, stunned and bleeding. She knelt down to tend them.

  “Going somewhere?” The familiar voice slid into her head.

  She looked up. “Foss!”

  He’d insinuated himself past the gray stone Aenmarr and through the open door, his ears pricked up, his long tail fluffed out. Sunlight made his coat gleam.

  “Where were you? Why didn’t you help us?” Moira asked.

  “I was recovering. You seem to have done just fine without me.”

  “It was a close thing, Foss,” Jakob said. Moira could hear the suspicion in his voice. “We could have used a distraction or three.”

  Arri hid himself behind Jakob. “Papa be saying not to trust…”

  “Papa is dead,” the fox said bluntly. “He’s a big rock in your front yard. You can use him for a climbing stone.”

  One of the troll wives behind Moira groaned.

  Foss trotted over somewhat daintily, stared down at them, and growled.

  “Don’t you growl at them,” Moira said, shaking her finger in his face. “Without them we’d be lunch.”

  “Take the cleaver and cut off their heads,” Foss told her.

  “Will not.”

  Tilting his head to one side, Foss blinked up at her, his dark eyes giving nothing away. “No matter. Fetch my fiddle.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” Foss yipped. “It is time to go home, child.”

  Home! A single tear sprang up in Moira’s eye, and she angrily wiped it away. “All right,” she told him, “I’d love to get out of here.” Turning to Jakob, she said, “I’m going back to the cave for the fiddle.”

  He nodded. “Good. We’ll get the princesses.”

  Selvi groaned from the front door. “Do not be leaving us with the Fossegrim.”

  Foss growled at her, the hair on his back bristling, and Moira snapped at him, “Foss! Enough. Just let us go home. Settle your own problems after we leave.”

  With a low whine, Foss lay down in the corner by the fire and commenced licking his front paw. “Very well, child. Get the fiddle.”

  “I’m going, I’m going.” She thought a minute. There was something in his casual acceptance that felt wrong. She turned to Jakob. “I think you’d better stay here and watch him.”

  He shrugged, nodded. Looked puzzled, head to one side. But she didn’t say any more. She didn’t dare. Then she turned back and tried to give a reassuring smile to the troll wives. “Foss can’t hurt you.” She hoped she was right.

  Without waiting for an answer, she went bounding outside just as if she hadn’t spent the night leaping through fires and hanging upside down in a troll’s larder. She spared a quick glance to the mound of gray stone next to the front door, then ran down the path toward the cave.

  First the fiddle. Then—home!

  24

  Jakob

  With Galen and Erik out collecting princesses, and the trolls eyeing Foss warily, the cottage was suddenly quiet. Jakob crawled up into one of the giant chairs, the smallest one. Leaning back against the rough wood, he waited for his head to stop pounding.

  It didn’t. His head ached, his back burned, his right leg felt like it was going to break in half.

  I just want to get home, he thought. To Mom. To Dad. I’ll sleep for a week. Even after the longest road trip he’d never felt this tired. Of course, even after the longest road trip, he’d never been almost burned alive and nearly eaten by trolls.

  “Soon,” Foss said in his head. “Soon.”

  Jakob eyed the fox lying in the corner. Aenmarr had seemed so sure that Foss was not to be trusted. And he did trick us into coming here to Trollholm. But he’d saved Jakob’s life after that. And Erik’s. And he probably would have saved Galen’s, too, if he’d known Gale was alive.

  And besides, Jakob thought, why should I trust the word of a troll who’d been trying to kill me for days?

  He bit his lower lip, remembering that the troll wives were afraid of Foss. And Moira had seemed odd about him, too. And … there was something else, something that Jakob couldn’t quite get.

  “Hey, Foss,” he said.

  “Hmm?” the fox answered, opening one dark eye and looking at Jakob.

  “How’s that fiddle going to get us home?”

  Foss opened his other eye. “I am going to teach you and the girl child how to play it.”

  Jakob chuckled. “I don’t think either of us can learn to play the fiddle in an afternoon.”

  “It is a magic fiddle.” Lifting his head up off his paws, Foss stared at Jakob with his dark eyes. It was like staring into black fathomless pools. “A magic fiddle—and you are a musician.”

  “Yes, but…”

  “Tell me, child of man, do you not hear music all the time? Music such that you cannot keep your toes from tapping, your lips from whistling, your fingers from tracing the lines of your chosen instrument in the air?”

  Jakob had never thought of it that way, but he nodded.

  Foss nodded back. “Then you are a musician. And so is the girl.” The fox’s lips pulled back from his teeth in an animal grin. “And I am the Fossegrim, a teacher of musicians. I will teach you to play such music as to make the lame to dance and graybeards spring up from the chimney corner.”

  “Okay,” Jakob said, though that was a bizarre thing to want: graybeards and the lame dancing and springing. “But why do we both need to learn? And for what reason?”

  “It will take two of you all day to do what the Fossegrim could do in an eyeblink.”

  “Do what, exactly?” Jakob asked.

  “Give me back my true form.” Foss sighed. “I have not felt an instrument under my fingers in far too long.”

  “But why couldn’t we do this before? We had the fiddle. All we had to do was fiddle away happily under the waterfall.” Sitting up, he glared at Foss. “Only you were so bent on killing the trolls that you risked all our lives while I was negotiating our way out.”

  Foss laid his head back on his paws as if dismissing Jakob’s concerns. He did everything but yawn. “I am sorry for misleading you, child of man. Aenmarr may very well have let you go. But he did more than just take my fiddle; he wrapped me in spells that tied me to this form and to this land. And as long as he lived, he would never have released me. Both the fiddle and his death were necessary.”

  “How do you know that? Besides, what right did you have to decide for us?” Jakob’s voice rose in anger.

  Huddling with their mothers, the troll brothers flinched at the sound.

  For a minute Jakob couldn’t go on, remembering the head under the table, the familiar eyes staring sightlessly at him. His voice was strained, almost a whisper. “I didn’t mean to kill anyone.”

  “Not again,” Foss said, and this time he did yawn. But when Jakob’s eyes flashed at him, he immediately apologized. Or as close to an apology as he could get. “You have killed no one, human child. Aenmarr killed his son. His wives killed Aenmarr.”

  Jakob frowned. “Technically…”

  “I do not know this technically. Nor do I need to. But when you are home again, you will know better.”

  “Maybe. But you can’t be sure.”

  “Nothing about the outside world is sure, human child. But in Trollholm there are things that are certain. For example, it is certain that trolls are mean, ugly, stupid, hungry…”

  “And fossegrims?”

  “There is only one.”

  “So you are it, our only wa
y out.”

  The fox said nothing.

  Jakob thought about this, leaning back in the big chair once again. “So, once we return you to your other shape, you can get us all out of here? Every human—princesses included?”

  “Yes, child of man,” Foss replied. “Yes, I can.”

  “Okay,” Jakob said, and let his eyelids droop, shutting out the troll house as easily as the shutters kept out the sunlight. “It’s a deal.”

  “A deal?” Foss asked.

  Jakob smiled. “A pact,” he explained before falling into a deep and much-needed sleep.

  * * *

  GALEN AND ERIK RETURNED, CARRYING a princess apiece who they set down next to the others. They were quarreling about which girl was heavier and their squabbling woke Jakob. He looked down at the girls as his brothers went back for more. There were already ten girls lying there, side by side.

  He’d no idea how long he’d slept. Seconds? Minutes? Longer? He didn’t dare let that happen again. After all, he’d promised Moira to keep watch. But his nap hadn’t changed anything. The fox still lay head on paws, as before. The three troll wives were alive and breathing, their sons by their sides.

  “What about them?” Jakob asked the fox, gesturing toward the enchanted girls, pretending he’d never nodded off.

  “When I return to my true form,” Foss answered, “I will lift the spell on them.”

  “How?”

  “Magic.” The fox refused to say more.

  Jakob nodded, but noticed Selvi looking in his direction. She shook her head slightly, winked, then turned away. Jakob glanced back at Foss, but the fox’s eyes were closed. He didn’t seem to have noticed the troll wife’s signal.

  If it was a signal.

  Jakob was just too tired to figure out what Selvi meant by the wink. I’ll just have to play it by ear. Smiling at his own poor music joke, Jakob rested his eyelids again until Galen and Erik returned with the last princess, a tall, slim, handsome African American girl, with her crown perched on a head full of dreadlocks.

  “Come on, sleepyhead,” Galen called up to him. “We could have used some help here. They may be princesses, but they aren’t lightweights.”

  Jakob climbed down from the chair and helped them lay out the last girl, smoothing her dress down over her knees.

  “When do you think Moira will be back?” Erik asked Jakob. But before Jakob could do more than shrug, Moira came bounding through the larder door, carrying the fiddle over her head.

  “I’m here,” she cried, her breath in short pants. Obviously she’d been running. She noticed all the girls and counted them quickly. Then she grinned. “Let’s go home!”

  Foss leapt to his feet, yipping with excitement. Botvi and Trigvi jumped up as well. Apparently, they weren’t as hurt as they’d appeared. They crossed the room in two heavy troll steps, heavy enough to shake the floor. Botvi grabbed up Moira, and Trigvi plucked the fiddle from her grasp. It was done with such precision, they must have planned it in advance, though, for the life of him, Jakob couldn’t have said when.

  Moira squealed.

  Erik cursed.

  Galen yelled, “Ladies! What are you doing?”

  “Stopping the Fossegrim,” Selvi said from the floor.

  Foss growled at the trolls, showing his teeth, and the troll wives flinched. But Trigvi and Botvi didn’t drop their burdens.

  “See!” screamed Foss in Jakob’s mind. “This is what you get for trusting trolls.”

  Erik ran past the troll wives into the larder and came out again carrying the two knives used to cut the brothers and Moira down earlier. The knives were half as big as he was. “I never trusted them,” he said, tossing one of the knives to Galen who caught it awkwardly.

  “Good child,” Foss said. “Now, kill them!”

  But Galen didn’t move, for he, at least, had heard no orders.

  “Wait!” Jakob shouted.

  “Yeah,” Moira said. “Wait. I don’t need one of you idiots to stab me accidentally.”

  Galen froze, and Jakob threw himself in front of Erik, who looked ready to charge. “Hold on,” he said softly, putting his hands on his brother’s chest.

  Trigvi held the fiddle by the neck in one hand, as if she were about to smash it against the wall. “Be going now, ill-omened creature. Be gone from our house.”

  Foss growled deep in his throat. The hackles on his neck bristled. “If the troll woman smashes my fiddle, none of you will ever leave this place.”

  Trigvi hauled her arm back and Jakob shouted, “Wait!” Turning to Selvi, he said, “Mama Selvi, make her wait, please.”

  Trigvi and Selvi exchanged glances. “Be saying your piece, Little Doom,” Selvi said.

  Jakob took a deep breath. “We need him, Mama Selvi. I don’t trust him, either. But if we are to forge a new Compact—one where I teach your boys to play, and Moira teaches you ladies to sing—then you are going to have to trust me.” Jakob swallowed and tried to stand up straighter, puff his chest out. “I am not the Fossegrim. I am not Aenmarr. I am Jakob Griffson, musician. And I swear I will not deceive you.”

  For a moment, he was afraid that Selvi hadn’t been convinced by his speech, for she was frowning. The lines on her forehead were like canyons and she sat as still as her stone husband. It was clear that trolls were not fast thinkers. But were they deep thinkers?

  Finally Selvi nodded, her giant head moving slowly. Once to Jakob, and once to Trigvi.

  “Be giving Little Doom the fiddle,” she said.

  Trigvi snapped her head around. “But…”

  “Now!” Selvi snapped.

  Trigvi placed the fiddle in Jakob’s hands and then turned away.

  It looked like no violin he’d ever seen. Intricate patterns were drawn on the body, and the neck was thick with mother-of-pearl and bone inlay. Strangely, it had more tuning pegs than playable strings, with half of the strings disappearing beneath the fingerboard.

  Jakob looked at Foss. “How am I’m supposed to play this? I’m a guitarist not…”

  Foss interrupted. “With the girl.” He looked up at Botvi who was still holding Moira by the arm.

  “The girl is going to have a bit of trouble doing anything,” Moira said, “if I’m not set down!”

  “Mama Selvi?” Jakob begged.

  Selvi nodded to Botvi, her great head moving slowly up and down like a balanced stone. Just as slowly, Botvi let Moira down to the floor.

  “All right,” Selvi said, “now we be hearing you play.”

  25

  Moira

  Moira felt awkward. She had her arms wrapped around Jakob, left hand on his elbow, right holding a bow. Jakob had the fiddle tucked under his chin, the neck balanced on his left thumb.

  Foss pranced around them. “Good, good. Pull your elbow up a little, human girl. Good.”

  “Let’s get on with it, Foss,” Moira said.

  “We will begin when you are ready. And I will say when you are ready.” Foss looked at her critically. “I would rather not have you two miss a note and turn me into a cuttlefish.”

  “A what?” Jakob asked.

  “A cousin of an octopus,” Moira said. “Don’t you know anything?”

  Foss sighed. “All right, we will try a simple song.”

  “But we still don’t know how to play this thing,” Moira said. “Is it a fiddle or a harp? A sitar or a guitar? Techniques differ, you know. Pluck, strum, bow…”

  “You are musicians,” the fox shot back.

  “Well, I am.” Moira frowned at the back of Jakob’s head. “He’s a pop star.”

  “Hey!” Jakob said.

  “Sorry, Jakob,” she said, “but it’s true. You’re not a real musician.”

  “And you are? Because you play classical?”

  The tone of his voice set her teeth on edge. She’d dealt with this kind of thing before. “Look, every teenager who strums a guitar thinks he’s the next…” She paused, realizing she didn’t know who teenage guitarists would want
to be. “Andrés Segovia,” she finished lamely.

  “Andrés who?”

  “See!” Moira turned to Foss. “One of the greatest guitarists of all time, and he doesn’t even know the name.” Sneering at Jakob, she said, “Because Andrés Segovia was a classical guitarist.”

  Jakob’s face burned bright red. He opened his mouth to retort but Foss interrupted, barking his annoyance at them.

  “You both know what music is, and how to make it.” He sighed again. “Now pay attention.”

  “What are they talking about?” Galen said to Erik. “And who are they talking to?”

  “Haven’t got it yet, big brother?” Erik paused. “The fox speaks in their heads.” He smiled. “And mine.”

  “I don’t hear anything.”

  “He only speaks to real musicians,” Moira snapped.

  Galen glowered. “And what do you call me?”

  “Front man,” Erik said.

  Foss ignored the exchange as he circled around them. When he spoke again, it was only to Moira and Jakob. “The fiddle is in the huldastilt tuning. Most hardanger fiddles would be useless after playing a song in this tuning. But the Fossegrim’s fiddle is an exceptional instrument. The body is of wood cut from Yggdrasil, the world tree. Bones of the great worm, Fafnir, line its fingerboard. The playing strings are wound from the guts of the cats that pulled Frigga’s carriage; the understrings forged from the same metal as Sigmund’s sword.”

  “Yada, yada, yada,” Jakob said. “Get on with it.”

  But Moira had dealt with composers and conductors easily as arrogant as Foss. The only thing one could do was wait patiently until they grew tired of the sound of their own voices. Eventually, they’d want to hear some music.

  “Little Doom, you will guide the melody with your nimble left hand.”

  “While I flail madly away with the bow?” Moira said. This time she couldn’t help herself. Standing with her arms around Jakob was embarrassing if they weren’t actually playing music.

  Jakob twisted to look at her and shook his head.

  Shut up Moira, she told herself.

  Foss didn’t react to her sarcasm. Instead he said, “You have had some training in bowed instruments. I can see it in your fingers.”