by Misty Simon
Wouldn’t it be fun to see him dressed as a sailor? Or a fireman? And he could have an Easter Bunny costume, and a Santa Suit for the holidays… I probably wouldn’t be able to convince him to dress up like Cupid for Valentine’s Day, but then that wouldn’t be any big loss on my part, after all. Apparently, a half-naked Arrol was not a happy Arrol.
And I was getting way off topic. Arrol was talking still, and I didn’t want to lose the easy truce we’d worked out earlier. Time to get back on task.
“Should we start with the ball or the book?” I sat back on the couch, waiting to see what everyone thought. I wasn’t in this alone anymore.
“The book,” Arrol said definitely. “I want to look through it and see what kinds of spells are in here. I never did get a look at it before.”
His master had never let him look at the book? Which brought me back to another question that had been nagging in the back of my mind.
“Who is your master? You’ve never said anything about him.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“But some information you have could seriously help us with this whole thing.”
“I still don’t want to talk about it.”
Part of me wanted to press him. But the other part didn’t want to upset him any further. Having your butt hanging out in front of people when you woke up wouldn’t be a fun thing to go through, no matter who you were.
But I did have to try one more time. “What did he do to you that was so awful?”
“Now that is definitely a question I’m not going into, no matter what you want. Plus, we’re not talking about a him, it was a her.” His eyebrows drew down.
That would explain quite a bit, wouldn’t it? “And what was her name?”
“No way! No way am I going to put her name out there. It has the same effect as saying the name of the book. She would be here in a moment. I’m not going to do that. I’m not whacked in the head.”
I laughed. “No, you aren’t whacked in the head.”
“Let’s check out the book, shall we? I’ve been jonesing to get a gander at this beauty since the 1800s, yo.”
This time the sound that came out of me was more of a guffaw.
Arrol started reading from a page near the back, and the guffaw was immediately aborted in mid-guff.
“Hello, Danner Tenley. This book is in no way an answer to all of life’s questions. But because you have found it, you are now the owner of all the responsibility and pleasure inherent within its pages. Take care of the book and the messenger.” Arrol looked up at me from below lowered eyebrows.
“I must have a relative from long ago with the same name, or maybe my mom wasn’t the only one to curse her child with my name.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And your master is most likely moldering in a grave, so I don’t know why you think she’d come back.” Then something occurred to me. “Unless you think she’d come back as a ghost.”
“Silly woman, there are no such things as ghosts.”
Ha-ha-ha. This coming from a living, breathing, grinning gnome. And I knew for a fact there were ghosts, since my cousin Mel Hargrove was our resident ghostherder.
“I highly doubt she’s dead.” Arrol dropped his bomb right into the middle of this party.
“But how can that be? She’d be over two hundred years old. And while that may work for you and your kind, I assure you it doesn’t work for humans.”
“Yeah, Arrol, it might feel like she’s always around, but no way is she still actually living. I think we would have heard about a woman who was two hundred plus years old.” Toby came over to sit next to me on his couch and faced Arrol.
“Not if she didn’t want to have been heard of.”
“If you really think she’s still alive, then we should call her to see if she can help us. Do you just have to say her name?” Toby asked, looking over Arrol’s shoulder. He flipped down the cover again. “We just have to say this Ralinda name and she’ll poof into the room?”
I cringed and waited for some kind of huge cloud of black smoke to rise from the floor like the entrance of the witch in the Wizard of Oz.
When nothing happened, I relaxed and shot a look over to Arrol. I had a feeling sympathy hovered somewhere over my eyebrows though, because his drew down.
“Do not feel sorry for me. I know what I’m doing.”
“But if we could have help, maybe we could get everything to work out the right way. Why wouldn’t we want to do that?” Toby put a hand on Arrol’s shoulder in consolation. “A woman—a witch, I assume from the Book of Shadows thing—who has two hundred years of life experience would be a tremendous help in getting what we want from the troll without having to give anything up. Don’t you think?”
“It’s Marinda and five hundred years,” Arrol mumbled. “She was already three hundred when we moved here from Germany.”
I gasped because I couldn’t help myself. “Over five hundred years old?”
From behind me, someone said, “And I look damn good for my age, don’t I?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I did not know what to expect when I turned around. A crone with a few strands of hair on her head? A sack of bones? A pointy hat and a broom clutched by a woman in a sober dress of black?
I’ll tell you that the furthest thing from my mind was that I would turn around to see the owner of the thrift store with her silver earrings, long silvery brown hair, a snug little sweater detailing her high perfect breasts, and formfitting jeans that would make a model jealous of her little firm thighs.
“You!” I took a step back.
“You!” Arrol put the book behind his small back, not that it did any good, but he tried.
“Me!” the woman said, spreading her arms open wide.
“But…but…but…”
“Close your mouth, woman. Don’t give her a chance to get near the book, or she’ll take it back without a second thought for you.”
“She could be the troll,” I whispered for only Arrol’s ears.
“No, no green tinge, and I don’t smell that particular stink, though there is another one wreaking havoc through my system. It’s the smell of imprisonment.”
“Now, now, Arrol. I was never really all that bad, my little gnome.” The previously open and lovely face twisted into something just a tiny bit cruel. “I think you’re remembering the way you were, not me.”
“I know what I remember, witch, even if you do not. I had over a hundred years to sit in that hole in the wall and remember.”
“And I think it has skewed your view to some extent.”
“Um, excuse me,” I squeaked. “I don’t want to bust in on this obviously wonderful and touching reunion, but time is short, and my cousin is missing. I also have a troll on my ass, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“Troll?” This from Marinda.
“Shush!” Arrol.
“Don’t you shush her, Arrol. I have a right to know what is going on in this town. And I will find out with or without your permission.” Marinda stalked over to Toby’s couch and plopped down like she owned the place.
Huh. Actually, I guess she had at one time. That was really strange to think about. And I still couldn’t get over the fact she was supposed to be five hundred plus years old. I could only wish to look that good back when I was eighteen.
“So…” I started.
“I think I’ll go get something to drink for everyone,” Toby said, already heading for the relative safety of the kitchen.
“I’ll help,” Arrol offered, following close on Toby’s heels.
“You will stay here, Arrol.”
No, that wasn’t me, but this was. “Not to step on your toes or anything, but if I remember correctly, Arrol is my responsibility now.” At least that’s what I’d taken away from the script in the book. “And I was the one who released him from the wall.” I wouldn’t meet Marinda’s eyes. What if she could shoot laser beams? “And I say that if he wants to go with Toby,
that’s his decision.”
That didn’t go over very well with her. There was much sputtering and gurgling. But Arrol actually gave me what I thought was a real smile of his very own and trotted after Toby.
I continued my earlier conversation as if nothing had happened. “So how did you have my name, and why did you put it in your book? I assume that is your book, then, even though I can’t read the title. What is the title, by the way?” I admit I was being sneaky. Two things. First, I wanted to know if she would freeze up like the troll and Arrol did. Second, would she actually say the word and would that bring the troll? I hadn’t had the balls to do it myself, but if she said it, then I wouldn’t be the troublemaker. Loved my crazy brain sometimes.
“If you think I’m going to freeze, you’re mistaken. I made up the password Crotchety Women, but it doesn’t bind me in the same way. I’m also not stupid enough to say the book’s name when there is the possibility of a troll out there stalking you for it.”
I meeped.
“That is what’s happening, isn’t it? Some troll has come after you and stolen your cousin to get you to hand over the book.” She tapped a manicured fingernail to her lips. “Now, I wonder what he could want and how he found out about the book.”
I could have told her, but I wanted to see if she could work it out for herself. Especially since I wasn’t quite in the mood to be helpful at this point in time.
“He must have heard about it from the underground.” She seemed well pleased with her own answer as she sat back and crossed her legs. Her smug smile hit something inside me that boiled.
“What curse did you put on Arrol?” I still wasn’t completely convinced she wasn’t the troll. Sure, there was no green tinge, and she knew about the code word. But only his true master would know what happened with Arrol and the smile.
“Do we really have time to go over this right now? It’s not important, and he’s fine. We have more urgent things to discuss.”
I shook my head. “No, we’re going to make time for this. I need to know what you did to him and what I need to do to return him to his own face. That smile is just freaky.”
Her smile grew more feral. “It is, isn’t it? I think I did a great job of punishing him.”
“But he’s been like that forever.”
“Only about a hundred years.” She waved her hand in dismissal.
“Yeah, that’s a hell of a long time.” If you couldn’t tell, I was getting just a wee bit irritated with this woman’s attitude. How would she like it if she were cursed with a perma-smile?
“Oh, don’t get your panties in a wad.”
“My panties aren’t wadded, thank you very much. But I want some answers.”
She shifted on the couch to face me more fully. “I cursed him because he was horribly rude.”
Was that a case of the black pot and the kettle, or what?
“I think the punishment has gone on long enough. I want you to change him back,” I demanded.
“He hasn’t yet learned the lesson I wanted to teach him. I’m not lifting a finger until he does.”
“Then I’ll lift a finger.”
“You can’t do anything with that book until I unlock it for you.”
This was getting ridiculous. “It’s already unlocked. We looked through the pages already.” Well, Arrol had, anyway.
“And were you able to glean anything from them?”
“Um…”
“Just as I thought. Did Arrol let you see it at all?”
“He read part of it to me.”
“The part I allowed to be seen. Now, if you want to be able to access the whole thing, you need me.”
“And will you help me?” It ultimately came back to Phoebe. It was a weird feeling, since I had constantly wanted her gone. But she was still mine. Even if I thought she was annoying, she was mine. And that thing couldn’t have her.
“I need to know all the details regarding what has been happening. I have felt some disturbances but didn’t know where they were coming from, necessarily.”
Okay, that was a little better than before.
“Oh, and how did that fortune-telling ball work out for you?”
****
Eventually Toby and Arrol came back into the living room. I was just finishing up telling Marinda about everything that had happened recently. I tried to put a lot of emphasis on Arrol’s wonderful parts in the whole thing. I didn’t think she was buying it, but at least I’d tried. I would get her to agree to help me uncurse him, or I’d figure it out myself once she unlocked the book. Yeah, I hadn’t convinced her to do that yet, either. My powers of persuasion weren’t working at their optimal power at this moment.
“Here’s some iced tea for everyone.” Toby walked over with a tray of glasses and some cookies.
Personally, I thought it was too much for the obstinate woman, but who was I?
“So you have no idea how to handle this troll, and you were going to just wing it when he came back, hopefully with your cousin?” she asked from her throne on the couch.
See?
“I wasn’t planning on winging it. I hoped to have something figured out, and I have the ball here to ask it questions. I was thinking I might be able to gain the knowledge I need before he comes back.”
“You do realize the full moon starts tomorrow night.” She took a small sip of her tea and then sent a smile over toward Toby. It was filled with naughty things. I can’t say I liked it.
Fortunately, it appeared neither did Toby, who sat on the arm of the couch next to me and deliberately hugged my shoulders. He gave me a squeeze, and I squeezed him back on the knee.
“I did realize the moon is full tomorrow. The librarian pointed it out to me.”
“Ah, yes, Mrs. Hoolihan. She’s been around forever.” Marinda stared me straight in the eyes, and I wondered what kind of message she was trying to send.
“Back to the troll. What does the moon have to do with anything?” I sat forward on the couch, wanting every scrap of information she had in her old brain.
“Are you really that naïve?”
Grrr. “I don’t know about naïve, but I certainly wouldn’t ask a question I already knew the answer to.”
“Fine.” She did the air wave thing again, and I wanted to break her wrist.
I wasn’t normally bloodthirsty, but even I had my limits. “Look, are you going to help us or not? Because I don’t have all day, or night as the case may be, to play games with you.”
A spark glimmered in her eyes, and I had another quick vision of her shooting laser beams at me.
But then she surprised me by smiling. At me. Nicely. Huh.
“You know what, Danner Tenley? I like you. I like you a lot, and I think you’ll do great.”
At what, she wouldn’t say. But we did get down to planning mode after she unlocked the book and all the many secrets started pouring out.
It was something else. But it also scared the bejesus out of me, because it showed me how completely unprepared I was for what was about to happen to me.
Did I ever really think I was ready to take on something that dripped slime and had my cousin in his nasty clutches?
There was something seriously wrong with my head.
Chapter Thirty
An hour later, I absolutely knew something was wrong with my brain. I was standing in the backyard by myself, ready to taunt a troll and bring down its wrath on my head. Yay.
“Marinda’s Maladasical Memoirs,” I said, raising my voice to the sky and the almost full moon. I crouched closer to the ground, waiting for the troll to appear in a puff of smoke with my cousin.
Nothing happened.
“Marinda’s Maladasical Memoirs!” I yelled, willing him to come so I get this over with.
And then I felt a breeze on the back of my neck and prickles running along my arms. My troll had arrived.
I turned around to face him and almost fell down on the ground in gratitude when I saw he had a struggling Phoebe
with him. Her mouth and hands were bound, but she was at least still moving. Thank God.
With his back to the house, the troll couldn’t see the four people standing with their faces pressed against the window. I’d had to come out here and do this myself. Another moment of gratitude passed through me when I remembered the way Toby had fought to come out with me. He gave in when I’d asked him to trust me.
It was amazing to know he believed in me. Surprisingly enough, I believed in myself, too. But now I had to face this guy, get the spell right, and get Phoebe away from him. Not exactly easy. But I would be damned if I didn’t give it my absolute best try.
“Hey there, trolly-troll,” I said with much more bravado than I currently felt. The ball was within touching distance on a wooden picnic table Toby had in the backyard. It had told me enough that I knew what I needed to do. It had also told me the troll’s name so I could bind him. I didn’t want to say it before I had to. But then Larry had shut up and continued to tell me to ask again later, when I asked about Toby. Which was fine. I had enough on my plate as it was. I had just been trying to distract myself anyway.
“Mortal. You have the book. I heard you call out the name.” He dragged Phoebe up against his side and licked her face.
God, I was going to pay for that. “Why don’t we do an even trade, and then you can get on with your life as a human and we can move on with our lives?” Not that I had any intention of letting him get away, but I had to lull him into a sense of security. Under my breath I started the spell that would alter his body make-up.
“Let me see the book,” he demanded.
“Sure.” I pulled it from the wooden table next to the ball and continued muttering.
“In my hand, mortal.”
I finished with a flourish. “So I will, so mote it be!” I shook the book at him for emphasis.
And stared when nothing happened. Shit!
He kept coming toward me, and now he was growling. I started the spell again, this time a little louder. I must have said some part of it wrong.
“Are you trying to curse me?” he snarled.
I didn’t want to break my concentration long enough to answer him, so I took a couple of steps back and kept talking in a low voice. “So mote it be!” I shouted.