Dreaming Again

by Jack Dann

  David snorted again. ‘Very muscular girls.’

  ‘Maybe they go to gym together.’

  ‘Look at that one, the girl in the red dress, the fluffy-haired blonde,’ David said, pointing with his fork at a girl — woman — at the end of the table behind us. ‘She could be a wrestler with those arms.’

  I swivelled my neck to sneak another glance. Her red dress was a tiny sleeveless thing, and her triceps muscles rippled visibly. Her biceps were stunning. I wondered what it would be like to lick her arms. It would be a smoother, softer experience than it had been with David.

  Two voluptuous girls with long, straight blonde hair sat on her left wearing ruffly pale violet confections that made the most of their amazing pecs and lats.

  The girl next to them, with short spiky dark hair, was even more impressive. I couldn’t help myself: ‘How about the deltoids on the one in the sparkly top! Wow!’

  He looked at her, then back at me, and gave his right shoulder a reassuring squeeze with the left hand, as if to check that the muscles were still there. ‘Well, my muscles are bigger.’

  ‘Not much, proportionally,’ I said.

  He looked gratifyingly distressed. ‘But how has she done it? You know the weights I lift.’

  I pretended to smile. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You should have been happy to have had a fella who didn’t let himself go. At least I’ve always taken care of myself.’ As I watched, he pulled in the stomach which had persistently evaded his best efforts towards perfection.

  ‘Yeah, right,’ I said. He’d driven me mad with his obsession with exercise, for seven long years. Up before dawn every day. Cycling one day, weights the next. Especially if a first night of a play was coming up. No slow mornings of coffee and the papers in bed for us …

  But it was not my problem any more. I had more important concerns, now. I wiggled my shoulders until the small knot that had developed between them came loose. No wonder I’d needed months of remedial massages in Sweden.

  David turned back to his oozing steak, then peered at my plate. ‘What’s this nonsense with eating fish, anyway?’ he said, with a stern look. ‘It’s not right or proper for people like us. You’re not trying to deny your heritage, are you?’ He wiggled his one long eyebrow to underline the word ‘heritage’.

  So, he’s back to that again, I thought. I sighed as deeply as I could manage, and tried to look put-upon.

  ‘Look, David, I don’t want to deny anything. But I don’t have to give in to it. I can fight it. And, when I called you, I told you, I’ve gone off red meat. That’s it. End of argument.’ For months now, I hadn’t been able to bear the thought of benefiting from the killing of my fellow mammals. Each of them was somebody’s furry, milk-drinking baby. But I hadn’t had to sit at a dinner table and watch anyone eat steak oozing delicious juices either.

  ‘You’re not going soft on me, are you?’ he said. ‘That’s not like the delightfully predacious Talia I remember.’ He gave a wolfish grin. ‘No, I know what it is. It’s just because you’ve put on weight, isn’t it? You’ve gone veggie to lose weight. Actresses do that all the time.’

  As he sniggered, I considered punching his long, designer-stubbled jaw. The restaurant owner would understand, if I told her. As long as it was a her. ‘You insufferable —’

  He interrupted me: ‘Not that it’s a bad thing.’ He winked theatrically. ‘Your tits look great, sweetie.’

  I was briefly distracted from my building fury by the waiter walking past, taking another huge platter of food to the girls’-night-out table. It was piled with lady’s fingers, those long, thin Middle Eastern pastries stuffed with spicy minced lamb. The smell was torture.

  ‘But how did you manage to get so much of the added weight to go up top?’ David asked. ‘Surely you wouldn’t have had a breast op.’

  He’d pushed me to my limit. I snapped. ‘You’re right, you know,’ I said. ‘They are trolls.’

  His mouth hung open. It was not a pretty sight. Given that he was temporarily speechless — a rare and welcome event — I went on. ‘Well, not adult trolls yet, not quite. They’re troll nymphs, a few years from metamorphosis.’

  ‘Trollettes,’ he said, with an evil grin.

  ‘Troll nymphs,’ I said firmly, keeping the conversational upper hand as long as I could. ‘It’s dark outside, so they can leave home without getting turned into stone. But they won’t be able to come out to places like this much longer. Around the time they turn thirty, the metamorphosis starts. In a couple of years, most of them won’t even be able to get through the door. They’ll be huge, like sumo wrestlers only bigger, and the camouflage will kick in.’

  He sniggered. ‘They’ll develop baggy green uniforms?’

  ‘Don’t be frivolous,’ I snapped. ‘This is serious. They’re evolved to blend into mountains. They’ll look like a heap of rocks, most of the time. If you saw the group of them moving, they’d look like a small landslide. In winter in Europe they’d be paler, like ermines, to blend into the snow.’ I hoped I was making an impression on David with this disgraceful breach of the secrecy agreement I’d signed.

  ‘What a heartbreaking story,’ he said. ‘Gloriously nubile muscular treats one minute, boulder-like monsters the next. Are you sure they’re really trolls? I was just indulging my well-known mordant wit.’ He put on the facial expression he used for photographs of himself as a semi-famous playwright: one side of the unibrow lifted, the other lowered. I tried not to laugh.

  ‘I’m absolutely sure, David.’ Deciding that I might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb, I carried on breaching secrecy. I’d feel bad about it in the morning, but right then I didn’t care. Anything to score another point.

  ‘They’re definitely troll nymphs,’ I said. ‘I worked with them in Scandinavia. There’s something subtle about the proportions of the arms and legs. Nothing crude; it’s not like their knees are on backwards or anything, but the bones aren’t quite human, either. Once you’ve studied them, it’s unmistakable. And the endocrine system is fascinating. Even the blood is incredible.’ I’ve seen a lot of blood in my life — mostly through a microscope — but I’d never seen blood quite like that before I went to the institute in Sweden.

  ‘I’m impressed. So, you actually did something useful after you deserted me.’ Surprisingly — even shockingly — he truly did look impressed.

  ‘Thanks, I think,’ I said. ‘And be careful around them, you old wolf. Gloriously nubile or not, they’re more dangerous than ever at this stage.’ I glanced back at their table. The huge platter of lady’s fingers was empty already. ‘They’re highly evolved predators, with an amazing sense of smell, and they have to eat enormous amounts to fuel the metamorphosis.’

  ‘They’ve certainly been tucking into the food tonight.’ This from the man who’d practically inhaled a huge steak and a mound of chips.

  ‘And you know their favourite food, don’t you, David?’ It was so nice, knowing more than Mister Know-It-All, about something other than the endocrine system.

  ‘Shock me,’ he said, with a devil-may-care man-of-the-world look.

  ‘They’re a protected species in Scandinavia, but it’s kept very quiet. They’re isolated in the mountains, in a secret spot, or they’d be exterminated in weeks. Vigilantes would hunt them down. The people have long memories, there.’

  ‘Cut to the chase,’ he said. He hated any conversation he didn’t dominate. ‘Their favourite food is …?’

  I didn’t want to lose the upper hand now. ‘Human flesh, David. The younger and sweeter the better. Babies, if they can catch them. Back in the old days, you didn’t let a child wander too near a heap of rocks — just in case it wasn’t really a heap of rocks.’ I ruined the effect by shuddering involuntarily; I simply wasn’t the woman I used to be.

  For the first time in the evening, he looked genuinely excited. ‘Really? No wonder they starred in so many fairy tales. Kids love that stuff.’ He’d made most of his income, over the years, in plays
for schools.

  ‘Yeah, human nature never changes. Kids have always loved disgusting, scary things.’ Things like you, I thought.

  ‘They’re revolting beasts,’ he said. He leaned across the table, his brown eyes gleaming. ‘Children, I mean, not trolls. I’m assuming that the trolls can’t help themselves. They’d be acting instinctively, at the mercy of their genetic coding. However much of a monster I might be, at least I don’t go in for human babies.’

  Despite myself, I almost laughed. ‘You’re well-known to detest them, in fact.’ But that was enough talk of trolls and babies. The conversation could take far too many dangerous turns from here. More importantly, I felt the unmistakable tug of duty: I had to be home by 10 pm, alone.

  The gods were with me. At that moment the waiter came to take our plates, and I distracted David with the help of the cakes on display in the big glass case at the back of the restaurant. But I knew that getting rid of him wouldn’t be easy. He’d want to come home with me for coffee: several cups of coffee in fact, a brandy or two, and, despite everything, he’d try to talk me into bed. Despite everything, I might even have been tempted, if I let it get that far.

  I gulped my chocolate cake down in four or five huge, delicious mouthfuls. I suspect David wolfed his in one big bite; I couldn’t bear to look.

  Cruelly, he asked, ‘What would you do if they discovered that the cocoa bean could feel pain? Would you give that up too?’

  ‘That’s a moral dilemma for another meal,’ I said, and placed notes on the table for more than my share of the meal. I wasn’t almost famous, like him, but at least I had a steady income. I stood up, and walked to the door, talking over my shoulder as I went: ‘Gotta go, sweetie, lovely catching up, must do it again soon, bye …’

  He just sat there staring; I was into my car in seconds, and off.

  Once I was home, I sat in the old blue car for a moment, relieved to have escaped so simply. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d tried to follow me, but there was no sign of that. I was in perfect time for the 10 pm feed.

  Inside the house, I paid off my elderly baby-sitter and carried the sleeping babies from their big cot out to the glassed-in room at the back of the house. The light of the full moon streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The boys woke and started mewling with hunger; their vigorous little bodies knew it was time for food.

  I lay back on the huge squashy sofa and stripped down for action, then I carefully attached a soft, sleepy, hungry baby to each nipple. Once they were suckling steadily, there in the moonlight, I allowed my body to relax at last into an animal languor. It was such a relief. The twins took no notice; they love me with four paws and eight teats just as much as they love the version with two legs and two breasts.

  But then I heard the crunch of dead leaves outside. My senses have always been sharp, and they were amplified by motherhood, doubtless to help me protect the young. I looked out carefully: something was trying to conceal itself between the huge deep-green camellia bushes. It was a troll nymph, there in my backyard in the moonlight — the dark-haired girl in the sparkly top.

  My lupine instincts took over. She was a danger to my young. The hair at the back of my neck bristled, and I made a guttural noise deep in my throat. It felt good. I went further: I stood on all four paws over my babies, and howled a loud warning to the predator. The twins lay under me, reaching upwards for a teat like the famous bronze babies in Rome. The fact that I was standing on the sofa may have undercut the iconic nature of the tableau somewhat, but that was not my problem.

  From out in her hiding-place, the troll nymph saw that I’d spotted her. She looked up, startled.

  ‘Annafrid,’ I growled. My hearing is too sharp for me not to have caught her name over dinner.

  ‘Can I come in?’ she said. ‘Please? I’d like to talk.’ She looked at me a little guiltily, a child caught out doing something silly — not a predator caught in the act. I sniffed very carefully, checking the tiniest nuances of her smell. The air was deliciously full of fascinating pheromones: not-human and not-wolf.

  With difficulty, I started to pull myself together. Transmuting from human form into wolf was all too easy, but it took a huge effort of will to melt back into the soft human form — especially in the moonlight. Growling gently, I worked through the whole painful process, and reflexively pulled a few clothes on. The twins started to whine with frustration.

  ‘All right, Annafrid,’ I said at last, ‘come in. The back door’s not locked.’ I’d known since adolescence that I could take care of myself, as long as I didn’t come across too many mad peasants with silver bullets, and no one had cause for revenge; I’ve never so much as tasted human meat. The whole idea had always made me nauseous, even before I’d got myself pregnant. Apart from any moral questions, it was so shockingly unhygienic. You never know where people have been.

  The troll nymph walked in, looking tentative. Her deltoids shimmered prettily in the moonlight, and her top sparkled. So did her dark-lashed blue eyes.

  ‘May I hold one of them? Please?’ she asked, glancing at the twins.

  The wolf in me wanted to growl, but I knew that Annafrid was taking her medication. I could smell it in her sweat.

  I handed Remus to her. She held him clumsily, as if he might explode. ‘It’s so little,’ she said. ‘Hardly even a mouthful.’

  The window over the sink shattered, and a greying middle-aged wolf leapt over the kitchen bench and straight at Annafrid. He pushed her to the ground, and stood over her throat. She managed to keep hold of the writhing, screaming baby; her muscles were mercifully useful as well as decorative. Romulus in my arms and Remus in hers both started to howl. Their lung capacity is excellent and their ancestry appropriate; the noise was indescribable.

  ‘David! Down, David!’ I shouted. ‘Don’t you dare hurt my baby!’

  I dropped Romulus on the sofa, snatched Remus from Annafrid with my right arm, and pushed David’s snout away from her throat with my left. He snarled at me.

  As I scrambled onto the sofa with my two babies safely in my arms, David threw back his head and howled. All the dogs in the neighbourhood, as well as my twins, joined in.

  ‘Stop the histrionics at once, you middle-aged thespian,’ I said. ‘Can’t you see she’s not resisting? Get off her this instant, and transform back.’

  He snarled at her and me then, and growled a few times, but finally complied. His clothes must have been lying in a heap somewhere — wherever he’d changed — so I passed him the sofa throw. He knotted it around his thickened waist.

  As soon as he was decent, and his vocal cords had settled in, he started shouting back at me.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing, woman? You should be thanking me for rescuing you, and those babies of ours that you’d so treacherously kept secret from me! How could you?’

  ‘Stop jumping to conclusions, you egocentric idiot!’ I shouted. ‘What makes you think they’re anything to do with you?’ He’d never wanted children; he wasn’t going to claim my gorgeous babies now.

  He took no notice. ‘I knew something was up at the restaurant. You didn’t smell right. You’re lucky I followed you to find out what you were so eager to get back to, and caught her in the act. She’s a troll nymph! She’s just here to eat our babies! Why aren’t you doing anything about it?’

  By this time, I’d reattached the twins to my leaking nipples, which had the great virtue of stopping the babies’ ear-splitting howling. ‘My babies,’ I said, ‘not ours,’ and glared at him. ‘And you’re wrong about Annafrid, too. Maybe you should have snooped around outside the window a bit longer before you leapt to conclusions about what she was doing.’ I nodded to Annafrid, hoping that she’d take the hint and explain herself.

  ‘Actually, I came here to thank you, Talia,’ she said. ‘You changed our lives. Those trials you were doing in Sweden … the pills you were testing on my relatives are wonderful. They really work.’ She waved happily towards the twins, still suckin
g away. ‘Even the smell doesn’t tempt me. Your babies are perfectly safe from me!’ She beamed, clearly overcome with joy.

  ‘It wasn’t just me, it was the whole team,’ I said, blushing modestly. Then I looked David in the eye. ‘She’s talking about a new medication for troll nymphs, to suppress the desire for human flesh. That’s what I was working on when I was in Sweden: the clinical trials.’

  David sat on the Turkish rug, exuding disbelief — but speechless for the moment.

  ‘I’m so pleased the medication really works,’ I said to Annafrid, with perfect sincerity. ‘I’d have hated to have been forced to kill you.’ Actually, I wasn’t sure who would have won in a serious match between Wolf Woman and Troll Nymph, but I wasn’t going to let on.

  Annafrid gushed on: ‘I was so proud, just being in the same restaurant. My group — we all had a wonderful night.’

  I felt all warm and runny inside. David just rolled his eyes.

  ‘That wasn’t a coincidence, was it?’ I said to Annafrid. ‘A group of wild trolls, in inner Melbourne?’

  She shook her head and gave a rueful half-smile. ‘No. Most of us live up in the Dandenongs. Elfrida and Birgit flew down from Sydney; there’s a lesbian colony up in the Blue Mountains.’ Troll males are almost always solitary and brutish, though enormous. Heterosexuality should never be assumed among female trolls.

  ‘Elfrida and Brigit — they were the pair in the matching satin frills?’ I asked.

  She nodded, and said, ‘We’ve been monitoring your emails since you got back to Australia. Sorry about that …’ She scuffed her feet uncomfortably, while I tried to look impassive. Soon, she went on: ‘Um, well, our relatives in Sweden had told us about you, and we all wanted to see you. All of us who could pass for human.’

  ‘Oh?’ I said.

  Annafrid looked serious. ‘It’s very important to me. I lost my mother that way. She snatched a human toddler, when I was just a baby. They came for her with machine guns and hand grenades. Afterwards, my older sister smuggled me out here to Australia. She’s changed now, poor Agnetha. She can hardly talk any more.’ Tears were glistening in her huge blue eyes. Trolls were formidable after the metamorphosis, but they lost easy use of many of their higher functions.