Troll Bridge Read online

 

  “That sounds like a quote, too.”

  “It’s Churchill, Katie. The chief is a history professor in Duluth. But I have more.”

  “More from the chief?”

  “No, Katie, from the oldest resident of Vanderby, the official gold cane holder.”

  “And who is that, Jim?”

  “His name is Olaf Gunnerson and he spoke to me this morning, right before going to his hundred-and-fifth birthday party in the nursing home.”

 

  “I am Olaf Gunnerson and I am a hundred and five today. And I want to say that those missing kids are probably in Trollholm. With the trolls. My mother used to say that whenever anyone disappeared around here. You know, run off or something.”

 

  “So between the mayor’s terrorists and Mr. Gunnerson’s trolls we have…”

  “No real news, Katie.”

  “Thanks, Jim, and now we’ll get Bob to give us the sports.”

  “Hi, Katie, Bob here, we could sure use some tree-tall trolls to help the Timberwolves, who just dropped their fifth straight game in a row.”

  22

  Jacob

  Strung up once more, Jakob listened to Moira squabbling with his brothers as they all swung head-down in the larder.

  “Ow.”

  “Quit banging into me.”

  “I’m not doing it on purpose.”

  “My head hurts.”

  “Shut up!”

  “Why? Are they going to eat us for being too loud?”

  “They’re going to eat us anyway.”

  Jakob couldn’t even tell who was talking anymore. Their voices all sounded the same, a dull background buzz to accompany the final few hours of his short life.

  What a waste, he thought. Going through all that just to end back here, hung from hooks like four slabs of ham.

  They’d tried to fight Aenmarr. Jakob had thought Moira particularly brave, flailing and biting and scratching at the big troll’s leathery green skin. But he’d just laughed and scooped them up like recalcitrant children. Within seconds they’d been trussed securely and hung upside down over the blood-stained table that had so recently held a meat statue of a giant fox.

  The fox!

  Jakob found his voice again. “Hey.” The others went on arguing. “Hey!”

  Moira was the first to stop. “What is it, Jakob?”

  Jakob wriggled around until he could see her. Her face was an alarming red. “We have to contact the fox.”

  “Foss? Think he can get us out of here?” Moira’s shoulders strained as she tried to free her hands. Jakob knew the rope wouldn’t budge. He’d tried already. Aenmarr tied a mean knot.

  “I don’t know what Foss can do,” he answered. “Or even what he would do. But he’s our only hope now.”

  Moira nodded, an odd gesture upside down. Then she winced. “My head hurts.”

  “Never mind that,” Erik said with a groan. “Let’s all concentrate. Send the little red guy a message.”

  “What do you mean?” Galen asked.

  “Foss,” Erik said. “Call him.”

  “Sorry, left my cell phone in the car.”

  Suddenly Jakob realized that Galen really didn’t know what they meant. He’d never met Foss. He might not even be musician enough to hear the fox’s words in his mind. They’d have to work without him.

  “All right.” Jakob watched as Moira and Eric squeezed their eyes shut, then did the same. He concentrated hard, picturing his thoughts leaping out of his body and shooting through the air to the fox’s cave, or wherever he was at the moment. Pictured the fox turning and sniffing the air, pricking up his ears.

  “What are you guys doing?” Galen asked. “Shouldn’t we be trying to get loose? I’ll try Mama Trigvi…”

  But they ignored him.

  Foss, Jakob thought at him. Oh great, Fossegrim. We who have assisted you in the return of your fiddle, we who have been soldiers in your fight against Aenmarr, we need your help now. Without assistance, all is lost. I know you are a clever creature. Think of something, please. Get us out of here!

  Jakob opened his eyes. Saw the others slowly opening theirs. Sending one last Please! out into the ether, he asked, “Anyone get through?”

  “Blank as a troll’s brain,” Erik said, shrugging, which was hard to do with the ropes pulled so tight.

  “I don’t know,” Moira said. “It almost felt as if he were listening, but I can’t be sure.” She shook her head. It didn’t look quite as odd upside down as nodding had. “I didn’t hear anything back from him, though.”

  They all glanced at Galen. “I don’t have a clue to what you’re talking about. I was just praying.”

  “What now?” Erik asked.

  Jakob didn’t answer, because just then the larder door crashed open and Aenmarr strode in.

  “I be deciding to kill you first, Little Doom,” he said. “What you be saying to that?”

  Jakob’s heart leapt into his throat, and he was suddenly sweating. Actually, he couldn’t think of anything to say.

  Striding to the wall, Aenmarr very deliberately plucked a giant cleaver from the pegs. He tested its edge with his thumb. “Do you be having any last requests?”

  “Well, actually I…” Jakob began.

  Aenmarr interrupted him, roaring, “Well, too bad!” while whipping the cleaver back for an overhand stroke that Jakob knew would easily split him in two.

  Moira screamed. Galen, too.

  Jakob squeezed his eyes shut, not daring to watch the final blow come down. He thought he heard Erik breathe, “I’m sorry,” but his heart was pounding too loud for him to hear clearly. Gritting his teeth, he waited for the sharp pain of the cleaver’s edge.

  It never came.

  Jakob opened one eye to see Selvi holding Aenmarr’s wrist.

  “What,” Aenmarr said to her very slowly. “Be. You. Doing?”

  “I … uh…” she stammered. Finally she blurted out: “They be musicians!” She took a deep breath, never letting go of her husband’s wrist. “Doom be teaching my son the guitar.” She smiled up at her husband, and Aenmarr’s ugly green face softened. “Our son.”

  “Our son? A musician?” he breathed, pointing at Jakob. “He be saying that?”

  Selvi nodded. “He be…”

  Jakob assumed she would have kept speaking, but all the air was suddenly forced out of her lungs by Aenmarr’s boulder-sized fist hitting her in the midsection. She crumpled to the ground.

  “Foolish old woman,” he said. “You be daring to oppose my will? In my own house?” He winked at Jakob. “Women, eh?” Then he hefted his cleaver again. “Now, where be we?”

  Jakob didn’t even have time to squeeze his eyes shut before Trigvi leapt into the room, throwing herself in front of him.

  “No, Aenmarr! We be having a chance for our sons to—” That was as far as she got before she, too, took a shot from Aenmarr and fell over.

  The troll boys scampered in next crying, “Daddy, Daddy, no!”

  Aenmarr slapped them into silence till they cowered next to their mothers.

  Jakob heard low sobs coming from behind him. Moira was crying.

  “You … monster,” she gasped.

  Aenmarr turned, glared at her. Then he smiled an ear-to-pointed-ear grin that showed off his long, sharp teeth. “Exactly, little princess.”

  Trigvi and Selvi stirred on the floor, and Moira called out to them. “How can you let him treat you that way? How can you let him treat your children that way?”

  Neither of the wives on the floor answered, but Botvi suddenly filled the doorway.

  “Because he be protecting us,” she said quietly.

  Moira snorted. “Protecting you from what?”

  “From him.” Botvi pointed at Jakob. “Aenmarr be telling me now. Killer of my son!” A single swamp-green tear rolled down her cheek. “Killer of my Oddi.”

  Jakob nodded, tears of his own suddenly filling his eyes as
he remembered Oddi’s death. “I didn’t mean to.”

  Trigvi and Selvi got shakily to their feet. They turned hurt eyes at him. Hurt and angry.

  “How did you be not meaning to?” Botvi accused.

  “I … I…” Jakob said.

  “Enough!” bellowed Aenmarr, raising the cleaver again.

  Jakob yelled back, “I tricked Oddi, yes. So it was my fault he died.” Jakob wished he could point an accusatory finger at Aenmarr, but his hands were tied behind his back. “But it was your husband who killed him.”

  “That be nonsense,” said Aenmarr. “I be killing no one since that young prince for the stew the night before last, Botvi.”

  “Not for lack of trying,” Erik muttered.

  Botvi stared straight ahead. “The last night we be seeing Oddi.”

  “Did you notice,” Jakob said, “that the prince you killed looked a lot like me, Aenmarr?”

  “You all look alike: sweet meat wrapped in pale flesh,” Aenmarr said.

  “Oddi and I traded places. He cast a spell to disguise himself and then leapt up on the hook. That wasn’t me you cut into pieces for stew.” Jakob wriggled, trying to fix Aenmarr with a hard stare. He kept spinning away and had to call over his shoulder, “It was your own son you killed. Chopped, stewed, and ate.”

  “No…” Aenmarr looked at Jakob then back at Botvi. “No. You be telling lies.”

  Botvi peered at Jakob, her green eyes nearly popping out. “He do be looking like that dinner, husband.” She turned to Selvi and Trigvi who were pushing themselves to their feet. “I be thinking Little Doom tells the truth.”

  “It be nothing,” Aenmarr said and almost casually slapped Botvi. She flew back into the wall, shaking the cottage timbers as she hit. “All princes be looking the same.” He pointed the cleaver at Jakob. “My son be killed by this pitiful creature. And now, if you hags be done screeching, he be dying by my hand.”

  Selvi and Trigvi looked to Botvi who was picking herself up off the floor. She shook herself once all over, and then said, “Get him, girls.”

  Aenmarr’s eyes widened in astonishment.

  Selvi hit him high, and Trigvi low, riding him to the floor. Screaming, Botvi leapt on his arm, wrestling the cleaver from his grasp. Aenmarr roared and threw the three troll women off, but they were back in seconds, scratching and biting and clawing and digging at his eyes.

  Aenmarr came to his feet, troll wives hanging from his arms and legs. He pummeled them, swatted at them, fists like sacks of coal. Still, Jakob could see they were hurting him. Green blood oozed from dozens of claw and teeth marks, and he was grimacing with each new wound.

  “Enough, women!” he roared, but to no avail. Their fury had no end. They kept attacking, coming at him nonstop, even though their eyes began to swell shut, their faces bleed. Selvi’s arm was hanging crooked and useless at her side, obviously broken.

  Aenmarr threw them off a tenth time. A twentieth. Jakob lost count. But finally the old troll was done fighting. Turning his back on the larder, he stomped into the main room, his three wives screaming behind him. From where he was hanging in the larder, Jakob could just see the front door. He watched as Aenmarr pushed it open, trying to get out of the house, trying to escape his wives’ wrath. But strangely, he didn’t step outside.

  He stopped cold in the doorway, and said, simply, “Oh, no.”

  Then Selvi, Trigvi, and Botvi all pushed him hard at the very same time, Botvi swinging a frying pan at his head with her other hand, and he tumbled out of the house. The troll women quickly moved away from the doorway, and Jakob could suddenly see outside, where the morning sun, a perfect blood-red half circle, was just peeking over the horizon.

  Leaping up, his face panic-stricken, Aenmarr tried to run back inside. But as he lifted his right leg, a single ray of sunlight touched his knee.

  Jakob heard a terrible grinding sound, like a hasp on marble. As he watched, Aenmarr’s leg turned hard and gray and motionless.

  Stone, Jakob thought. He’s turning to stone. The old tales are true!

  Staring at his stone leg, Aenmarr tried to take a hop-step with the other. But sunlight now shone on that one, too, and in less than an eyeblink, it was stone, as well. Aenmarr could only watch in horror as light began creeping up his body, turning his torso slowly to granite as the sun crested the horizon. Then he looked into the house to where Jakob was hanging upside down, and laughed.

  “Well, you be my doom after all,” the troll called. “You be succeeding where thousands tried and failed. You be defeating Aenmarr of Austraegir, slayer of heroes, killer of kings.” His voice was getting softer as the sun reached his arms and shoulders, as it kept climbing, transforming everything it touched to cold, gray, stone. “But beware the Fossegrim, Little Doom. For I would only eat your flesh.” Aenmarr coughed feebly as daylight hit his neck and his throat began to petrify. “That one be taking your very soul.” Then bright sunlight hit the troll full in the face and the last of his green skin turned gray.

  Selvi shut the door, and she and her two sisters collapsed against it, all of them bleeding onto the rough floorboards.

  23

  Moira

  “Mama, Mama!” cried the troll boys, picking themselves off the larder floor and racing over to their mothers who lay against the front door. They held their mothers’ hands, weeping piteously.

  “Arri, Buri…” Jakob called. “Come here. Cut us down.”

  Erik joined him, shouting. “Here, boys, come here.”

  Galen added, “Come on, you silly buggers.…”

  The troll boys were too overcome with their own weeping to listen.

  Moira forced herself to wriggle until she spun about, bumping into first Galen, then Erik.

  “Ow.”

  “Quit banging into me.”

  “This time I’m doing it on purpose.”

  “My head hurts.”

  “Shut up and listen.”

  “Why? It’s one troll down and five to go, but only if they cut us down first.”

  “Sing,” Moira said to them.

  “What?” they asked together.

  Jakob had spun around, too, and now all four of them were facing inward, staring at one another.

  Like four hams in a butcher shop, Moira thought, almost giggling. And that’s what we really need now—to be hams and overact. She shook her head. Okay, so now I’m officially hysterical.

  “She’s right, you know. If we sing to them, they’ll do anything for us.”

  “Sing?” Erik said. “What should we sing?”

  Jakob shrugged. “Hey—we’re the Griffson Brothers. We can control fifty thousand people at a stadium concert with our music. What’s two troll boys?”

  Erik growled, “The crowd doesn’t want to serve us for supper. That’s what.” His purpled eye glared at Jakob.

  But Galen said smoothly, “Let’s start with ‘Luv U,’ and then segue right into ‘E-mail’ and then ‘After Me, Deluge De-love.’” He nodded at Jakob. “Give us the beat.”

  “One, two, one, two, three…” Jakob began. And then, a bit raggedly—because they had no instruments and were hanging upside down and their throats were raw from shouting—the three boys began to sing.

  Suddenly, Moira realized that she’d heard those songs before. On the radio, as she fiddled with the dial, looking for a classical station when she was on the road. And when the Dairy Princesses were practicing their walks, books on their heads. And in the van going from photo op to photo op, because Caitlinn always had that music blaring from her iPod.

  The Griffson Brothers. She would have hit her head with her hand if she’d been able to move her arms at all. I suppose I should have recognized the name. She shook her head. But it’s pop music! And she shuddered.

  First Arri, then Buri looked over at them, Buri scrubbing at his runny nose with the back of his hand. Then, almost as if mesmerized, the troll boys got up, walked over, and stood in the larder listening.

  When the third song end
ed, Buri said, “That be a lot of notes.”

  “And I can teach all of them to you,” Jakob said, wriggling around until he was facing them. “And more.”

  “More?” Buri and Arri stood beneath the hanging humans, their mouths gaping open. “There be more?”

  “Only,” Moira added, doing her own wriggling, “you have to get us all down, first.”

  “All right,” Arri said, still glazed from the music.

  Buri picked up the cleaver and swung it so wildly near Galen’s feet, it nearly took off his shoe.

  “Careful,” Moira cried. Then she added, “Maybe a knife would be safer.”

  “Yeah,” Galen said, “don’t want to be like your father.”

  Buri rubbed his head, which might have been bruised from Aenmarr’s blows, but with the green skin it was hard to tell. “I not be like my father,” he said.

  “Not at all,” Moira told him softly. “Now the knife…”

  Buri dropped the cleaver with a clatter and picked up a knife, sawing away until Galen dropped onto the table.

  “Ow!” Galen complained. “How about a softer landing?”

  “I do not be knowing that. Be it a song?” Buri asked.

  “Yah,” Eric said. “It goes…” and he began to sing to the tune of “Three Blind Mice.” “Three bound boys, make lots of noise. Cut them down, without a sound. Give them a landing that’s soft and is kind. They’ll help you all out when you’re next in a bind. So get me a knife of my own, and you’ll find, we’re three unbound boys.”

  “Be singing more notes,” Buri said, sawing through the rope holding Galen’s wrists.

  Arri got another knife from the pegs and cut down Jakob, who kept singing “You Are My Sunshine” at the top of his lungs.

  * * *

  AT THE SAME TIME, GALEN managed to get both Moira and Erik onto the table without dropping them from the height, then sawed through the ropes binding them. When the four were free, they sat on the table’s edge, swinging their feet, and rubbing their wrists and shoulders.

  Moira hopped down first. “Arri, Buri, get me some washcloths and soak them in water.”

  The boys rushed to do her bidding, coming back with dripping cloths, which Moira had to wring out on the floor since she couldn’t reach the sink. It was no easy task since the cloths were as large as bath towels.