Troll Bridge by Jane Yolen Page B

Moira prayed.
    Trigvi called in a voice deep and loud enough to shake the cottage walls, “Buri, be a good boy. Be shutting dinner up. Your father be home soon.”
    Basso cantante, Moira thought.
    â€œYes, Mother,” came the reply, as low as Trigvi’s but more youthful in timbre.
    Moira heard footsteps. A door creaking open.
    â€œWhat are you?” cried the boy. Then there was a thud and the boy spoke no more.
    Moira stifled a gasp.
    â€œThank you,” Trigvi told her son. “I be hating it when dinner speaks.” Then she began humming again.
    No, no, no, no, Moira kept repeating to herself. They just killed that poor boy. And now they’re going to eat him! Not to leave herself out of the horror she added, And then I’m going to end up married to the one who’s doing the eating.
    Not even Trigvi’s humming annoyed her now. Moira was in a panic. It was worse than when she’d been clinging to Aenmarr’s back. At least then, she’d been doing something.
    Moira had never had stage fright, but she’d talked to musicians who’d had it bad, and she tried to remember what they did to fight it. Stay calm. Concentrate on breathing. Think of something else. Go to your “happy place,” somewhere you feel safe.
    Gritting her teeth, Moira lay still in the box, clenched her fists and forced herself to remember the most difficult passages of the new Berlin piece, imagining the fingering she’d have to use. She tried to think of her mother, her father, her friends at school and in the orchestra. She pictured herself in serene, calming places: Lake of the Isles, Minnehaha Falls, Carlson Peak.
    Nothing worked. She began to tremble uncontrollably. Sweat formed on her palms, her forehead, pooled under her arms.
    Any minute they’re going to smell me in here.
    That thought did little to calm her.
    Oh God, oh God, oh God, she thought, not even a prayer, but a plea. She couldn’t breathe, the sweat, the trembling … But just before she reached the breaking point, a familiar voice popped into her head.
    â€œChild of man and woman. Did you miss me?”
    Foss had returned.
    Where have you been? Moira thought at him furiously, suddenly able to breathe again. The trembling eased.
    â€œI have recruited help,” Foss answered. “Though they know it not.” There was a pause. Then, “Are you ready to move?”
    Very. Though she wasn’t sure if any of her limbs would actually work.
    â€œGood. I will…”
    But before she discovered what the fox was going to do, a sharp yip sounded from outside the cottage, like a dog—or a fox—in great pain.
    Foss? She sat up.
    There was no reply.
    Foss? Foss!
    Then, she heard—like an unholy combination of a speeding locomotive and summer thunder—a peal of roaring laughter.
    Aenmarr, she thought, lying back down in the box. Why is he so happy?
    A door boomed open and Moira heard Aenmarr speak for the first time. Basso profundo. “Trigvi! Second wife! It is time for my second supper.”
    Foss? Answer me! But he was silent.
    He said he’d recruited help. But he also said the help didn’t know they’d been recruited.
    Doomed, she thought. Doomed to become a troll bride.
    *   *   *
    LIKE MANY A PRISONER, MOIRA discovered that it’s hard to maintain a state of constant terror. Eventually captivity is boring. Moira’s ears became her eyes, and as she lay in the box, she listened carefully to the trolls.
    She could hear them getting ready for their meal. And as long as she didn’t think about what they were making for dinner, it was astonishing how normal it all began to sound.
    Trigvi popped out to the garden. The door slammed after her.
    Buri banged a bowl with a stick in no discernible meter, while asking his father a never-ending stream of questions. “Papa, why be the sun turning us to stone? Papa, who be the princesses? Papa, what