Boots and the Seven Leaguers Read online

  Something else scrabbled into the undergrowth. I saw only a pair of long tan ears before it disappeared.

  The stone wiggled beneath me.

  I leaped up and turned around in a single fluid motion. Well, fluid for a troll, anyway.

  “Who’s there?” I cried.

  A thin little fairy man, part grey, part green, goggled up at me. He wore a long grey coat fitted with acorn buttons. Green fairy wings, translucent, veined with grey, stuck out behind his hunched shoulders. On his head was a thistle hat. There were soft dark shadows under his eyes. Or rather the soft dark shadows were his eyes. His shoes were enormous, grey and slightly furred, as if he wore mice on his feet.

  It was those shoes I’d mistaken for a stone.

  “Take care, troll, or pay the toll,” he whispered in a low, sad voice.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but I didn’t see you.” Be polite to strangers, Mom always warned, and this little man was very strange indeed.

  “Rarely seen in the green.”

  “Right.”

  “Hold tight, that’s right!” he replied.

  I nodded.

  “I’m the King here, so we sing here.”

  “King here?”

  His shadow eyes got darker.

  I closed my mouth. Tried to think what to say that wouldn’t offend. Maybe the pan had been right, and I was Troll. Terribly. Thick. But at last it came to me—everything the little man was saying rhymed.

  Was I supposed to rhyme back at him? I strained at some sort of answer. But trolls aren’t the rhyming kind. We leave that sort of thing to fairies.

  And meanwhile Pook was getting farther and farther away. I needed him. Only he could follow Magog’s scent. Without Pook I was going to be lost. Terribly, horribly lost.

  “No time to rhyme,” I said, and then giggled. I’d made up a rhyme without meaning to. It was an awfully feeble sort of poem, but there it was!

  The little man burst into a song that consisted of chanting words without any kind of tune. As he chanted, he hopped around.

  King of the weeds,

  King of the edge,

  King of a …

  I suddenly realized that what he was saying were the lyrics of one of the songs on Boots’s first CD, so I sang back to him, “… kingdom of mallow and sedge!”

  The little man clapped his hands and nodded, and—for the first time—smiled at me. It was a sad little smile, consisting of a twitch at either end of his mouth and nothing more.

  “Dance and dancer, ask and answer,” he said. Then he set a finger aside his nose.

  Ask and answer. What did he mean? That I could ask him a question and he’d help me find Magog? In Dad’s stories, strange old men in the woods often turned out to be of great assistance. But what did I need to know most?

  Everything.

  I looked over the little king’s shoulder to the wood’s edge. There was no sign of Pook.

  So, now I knew the question that needed asking.

  “Kind sir, my friend …” I hesitated, wanting to frame the question well.

  “The end of your friend?” he said.

  Oh yes, it would have to be in rhyme. This conversation was going to be harder than I realized.

  “Listen, King … um.”

  Trolls and rhymes. Not an easy mix. Even Boots has to work hard at his lyrics. He said so in the article.

  So, I struggled. Sing, fling, ring, sting, swing … “Uh … I need to bring …” That wasn’t getting me anywhere. “Some sort of thing …”

  Oh no! I thought, but I must have said some of it aloud, because the little king smiled sadly at me, this time showing mossy teeth. As if he’d suddenly made up his mind about something important, he held out a long-fingered grey hand.

  “Woodbine and briar, to home and to fire,” he said, touching me on the shoulder.

  Before I could tell him that I had no time for a visit—only there was nothing I could think up immediately to rhyme with visit—we were suddenly surrounded by a strange green mist that made my eyes tear up. The green seemed to pick us up and carry us into an ever-darkening green.

  When the mist cleared, I looked around.

  The house was a single, low-ceilinged underground room. Not much of a place for a king, I thought. I was forced to duck for fear of bumping my head and ruining his roof.

  Yellow and green roots stuck down from the ceiling and were looped and doubled over till they formed hanging chairs that were padded with orange and green cushions made of lichen. Smaller roots were twisted up for hooks, from which hung lanterns filled with fireflies. There was a blazing fire in the hearth.

  “Um … cozy,” I said. Then added quickly, “But not dozy.” I smiled in what I hoped was a winning fashion. If you’re a troll, it’s hard to be charming. That’s why Mom always warns us to be polite.

  He smiled. “Cozy but not dozy, the Weed King’s domain, where we are free of wind and rain.”

  The Weed King? Oh! That had never occurred to my slow troll mind.

  He sat down and patted a seat nearby. “Come up and sit—my young troll wit.”

  I sat.

  A wit? No one had ever called me that before! Besides, I didn’t feel witty. Doing rhymes was tough work.

  “House small. Troll … um, tall,” I told him, reaching up and touching the ceiling. Things began pattering down on my head, including one very surprised pink worm.

  The Weed King grimaced. “I like your style and big troll smile. Please stay awhile.” He handed me a cup of something that was pink and smelled awfully sweet.

  How could I stay? Pook was long gone. And little Magog even longer. The Weed King was a nice host and all—once you got used to his rhymes—but I was not here in the New Forest for a visit.

  I shook my head. “Been fun. Gotta run.”

  The Weed King’s shadow eyes grew dark and cold and very old. They looked no longer like shadows but like shrouds. Behind him the roots began to snake about.

  I wondered if he were as good a host as he seemed.

  It’s never safe to mess with royalty, Mom says. They’re only loyal to their own.

  Besides, weeds are known to take over wherever they grow. And—I suddenly remembered—how my mother hates the weeds in her garden. She drags them out with terrible efficiency.

  So, I remained in an uncomfortable crouch, my head scraping the ceiling, and tried to look again like the witty young troll with the big smile the Weed King seemed to like so much.

  At the same time, I was saying what he clearly didn’t want to hear from me. “Kind sir, I really have to go. Er … my friend the pookah’s not real slow.”

  That explanation seemed to work. The roots became still again and the Weed King’s eyes went from black to a soil color.

  Then he shook his head. “In the forest, without a plan, is good for neither troll nor man.”

  He jumped up from the couch and began rummaging around in a hanging-root wardrobe on one side of the room. All the while he muttered to himself in rhymes that I could only half make out. Something about chasms and has ’ems, rain and wind and kith and kin, and a terrible gap and the need of a—

  “Map!” he cried triumphantly, holding up a tattered piece of moldy paper and turning toward me.

  “Map?” I was astonished.

  He waited for me to finish the rhyme.

  “A map … for this chap?”

  He clapped his hands together and a piece of the moldy paper spiraled to the floor. I hoped it wasn’t an important piece.

  “The forest plan—for you to scan.” He handed it to me.

  I took the map. It was as tan as the underside of bark, and as rough. I looked it over quickly.

  There were three wavy lines that were probably rivers.

  Several triangles I was sure meant mountains.

  Three long gashes that might have been the chasms.

  Then the place where a piece of the map was missing. (Was it bad form to grub around on the Weed King’s floor to find it?)
<
br />   And finally, in the very center of the map was a dark spot around which was drawn the form of a long white snake.

  The Great White Wyrm.

  “Do not squirm—go straight to the Wyrm,” the Weed King said.

  “Do you mean me—?” I began, but before I could find a proper rhyme to finish the question, I was enveloped once again by the green mist. My eyes began to tear up, and by the time I had rubbed them clear with the side of my hand, I found myself back in the woods.

  Alone.

  Woodwife of the greening grove,

  I give to you undying love.

  —“Woodwife,” from TROLLGATE

  CHAPTER TEN

  WOODWIFE

  I looked around. I didn’t see Pook anywhere. And I couldn’t hear him, either. No crashings through the forest. No twigs snapping. No baying. No howls.

  “Pook!” I cried out.

  There was a long green silence. Even the overlaced canopy of leaves was quiet, as if all the birds had fled the place.

  I tried again. “Pook!” My voice echoed in the stillness.

  And then I heard a small answering cry, more like a whimper, really, as if someone were in terrible trouble.

  “Pook!” This time my voice came out in a whisper that tore like a rag on a nail. I turned quickly.

  The cry came once more.

  Pushing through thorny branches and reeds that slip-slapped against my leggings, I went through a little boggy place and over a stone bridge. And then under a great windblown elm that was lying half against another tree, I saw what was making the sound.

  It wasn’t Pook crying or Magog whining, but a thin and knobbly human girl. Dressed in a red knitted jacket, green bodice, and blue gown, her waist-length yellow hair loose about her face, she was lying faceup on top of a log. One foot was caught in the crevice of the log and she was trying to pull her leg out with no success.

  A human this far inside the New Forest! I thought quickly, or as quickly as a troll thinks: She must be terribly lost and frightened.

  I stuffed the map down into my jerkin and went over.

  “Can I help?” I asked in my softest voice. Seeing a troll in the woods—even a half-grown troll—can be startling. Especially to human girls.

  She looked up, her eyes glazed with tears.

  “Is there something I can do to help?” I asked again.

  I suddenly noticed that her eyes were so green, they might have been made of spring grass.

  “Can you free me, kind sir?”

  Sir! I looked deep into those green eyes. Swam in them. Wondered if she was part sidhe, to be so lovely. I knew in that instant I would do anything for her.

  “Just close your eyes, my lady, and hold still.”

  She held still, but her eyes never left mine, and the look she gave me made me feel strong and capable and fully grown.

  I bent over and put my hands on either side of the log. Her foot was wedged in tighter than I’d originally thought, and the log didn’t want to give up its prize easily. But I was a troll and strength was my greatest gift. I’d already been through my first surge and had unloaded two gigantic generators. What was a tree compared to that? My chest swelled, my muscles rippled, and with one great pull, I had the two sides apart.

  “Draw your foot out now,” I said sweetly. “I’ll hang on to the log so that it doesn’t close up and hurt you again.”

  She pulled out her foot, wincing at each movement. She must have been in terrible pain.

  I wanted to hold her dear foot in my hand.

  I wanted to count those sweet little toes.

  I wanted to touch them with my lips.

  I didn’t, of course. I had to keep the pieces of log prized apart.

  But as soon as she was free, I let the log go. It clapped shut with an awful snap.

  “That’s no ordinary log, then,” I said slowly.

  Duh!

  Troll. Terribly. Thick.

  “It’s one of the Huntsman’s traps,” she said. “He sets them all about the woods to catch me and my sisters.”

  There are more like her? In the woods? I couldn’t think why the Huntsman would trap them. I couldn’t think at all.

  She braided up her golden hair into a long silky rope and slung it over her shoulder. If anything, she was more beautiful than before.

  Then I had it. A real question. “The Huntsman? Who is he? And how could anyone be so cruel?”

  “He would have us love him only,” she said. “But my sisters and I can’t love him at all.”

  “Not at all,” I whispered.

  “Only you.”

  “Me?” I couldn’t shake myself loose of her gaze. “But you hardly know me.”

  “I know you came to my rescue,” the girl said. “What more need I know?” She moved toward me.

  My tongue suddenly seemed terribly tangled. At that moment I wished I could braid my tongue up as she had done her golden hair. One part of me knew I was making no sense. The Gog part. But the other part—more like Magog—was whispering, Think, Gog, think. Only, who could think with her so close?

  There were lovely blue shadows under her eyes, around her mouth. There was a ghost of a perfect smile hovering on her mouth. I had never seen such a smile, such a mouth, such eyes. Such perfection.

  “I mean—how could you—love me?” I stuttered. “You’re a human. I’m a troll and not yet—well, almost—I mean, I—”

  “Hush, my love,” she whispered, throwing her arms around me.

  What could I do but embrace her in return?

  And then, in a single jerky motion that I could not control, I flung her away from me. For when my hands touched her back, I found it was hollowed out, like an old diseased tree.

  “What are you?” I asked. A Magog question. It was suddenly clear to me that she was no perfection of a human girl but one of the awful folk of the New Forest, some kind I’d never heard of.

  “I am a woodwife, of course,” she said, her golden hair suddenly showing glints of green, like the reverse of a forest where the sun peeks through the canopy of leaves.

  Oh no! A woodwife! What was I thinking? And then I remembered—I hadn’t been thinking at all.

  Her mouth turned sulky and she squinted at me. “Will you not love me?” She didn’t sound heartbroken. She sounded surprised. And somewhat put out.

  But her spell was already broken. Expecting a human girl, I’d reacted instinctively when I discovered she was no such thing. Only that instinct had saved me from her spell of love.

  I shook my head and brushed my hand savagely through my hair.

  “My mom’s warned me and warned me about love spells,” I said. Though she’d never quite gotten around to explaining exactly what was wrong with them. Probably thought I was still too young to understand. “So don’t try that again.”

  “Mothers—we hate them!” Her green eyes grew dark, like the shadows under trees. “So full of unasked-for advice.”

  I nodded. That was my mom all right.

  “Too bad, young troll. Too bad for me. But good luck for you. Who loves a woodwife, pines in the forest forever.”

  I shivered and forced myself to look away, away from her golden hair and green eyes.

  “You did save me, though,” said the woodwife slowly, “so by the Law of Harmonious Balance, I must give you a token in exchange.”

  I looked back. “A token?”

  “But what to give?” She put her finger to her lips and stood awhile in thought. “What is that in your jerkin?”

  My hand went up automatically. “A map. From the Weed King.”

  “You have luck already,” she said, her eyes now the green of new fern. “To be in the ever-changing forest without a map would have condemned you to wander for long and awful years. There are but seven maps in all, kept by the seven kings of the forest. The maps are rarely given. The Weed King must have liked you a lot.”

  “Well …” I shrugged. “He didn’t seem much of a king, actually. And awful … er … l
onely.”

  She laughed. “That’s because no one likes him—scraggly mad old rhymer living in the dirt.”

  That seemed an accurate—though unkind—description.

  “When you leave, you must throw the map back in or it will turn into fire and burn your hand off. Bet he didn’t tell you that!”

  I looked down at my feet. They suddenly seemed a long way away. “No,” I said. “He didn’t.”

  “Never never trust anyone in the forest,” she said. “Not completely.”

  “Not even you?” I whispered.

  She smiled. It was a lovely smile, of mist and sun and … She didn’t answer my question.

  “Is that advice your token?”

  This time she got a funny expression on her face. “A warning is not a token, silly boy.”

  Troll, I thought. Terribly. Thick.

  “Now, don’t pout.” She put a hand on my arm. “I was just thinking. But I have it now. My token will be to mark on your map the quickest route out of the forest.”

  “But I am not trying to get out,” I said. “I am looking for my brother. My baby brother. He’s been … stolen.”

  She shrank back from me and those green eyes became the color of the undersides of leaves.

  “Stolen?” she said in a hoarse voice. “By whom is this baby troll stolen?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Do you?”

  For a moment she was silent. Then, as if coming to a difficult decision, she said, “If he’s been taken, it can only be by the Huntsman. He’s a horrible one, with horns and hooves and a hawk’s beak. He eats small children and old women. He slaughters the rest and leaves them to rot on the forest floor. Worst of all, he cannot be persuaded. He cannot love.” Her eyes were wide with fear.

  I must have goggled at her, for she put her hand on mine.

  “But you said he wanted you and your sisters to love him,” I whispered.

  She smiled that beautiful smile. “I said it only to make you think I loved you. That’s what a woodwife does. Little lies inside a big one. But now I’m telling you the truth. You must get your baby brother before it’s too late.”

  My head hurt with the circles of her lies. “Why should I believe you now?” I asked.