Dangerous Secrets

by Mari Mancusi

  “Shhh,” I said, hushing him. “Something’s happening.”

  My eyes locked on to the ice harvester, who was now standing in the center of what had become a troll circle and wringing her hands together.

  “Grand Pabbie,” she said in a trembling voice, “you helped my mother once before. Now I need your help as well.”

  “What is it, my child?” asked the oldest and largest of the trolls.

  “My Elias died in an ice accident last week,” she replied. A tear slipped down her cheek. “It was sudden. Tragic…”

  She dropped to her knees, her shoulders racked with sobs. A few of the female trolls rolled up to her to give her comforting hugs and rub her back.

  “He was my world. My sun and my stars,” she cried. “I cannot go on without him.”

  “I am truly sorry to hear this,” the older troll—Grand Pabbie—replied solemnly. “Elias was a good man. He did not deserve his fate.”

  The woman swallowed hard. “A good man. And a good husband.” She brought a hand to her stomach. “He would have made a good father, too. Alas, he died before he knew I carried his child inside me.”

  The female trolls now broke into excited chatter, reaching out to place their hands on the woman’s stomach. She smiled uncertainly through her tears, as though wondering if she should shoo them away or welcome this enthusiastic response.

  “It’s a boy!” the eldest female troll crowed. “A big, bouncing baby boy!”

  The woman’s eyes widened. “You can tell?”

  “Of course!” said the troll who had made the announcement. She had what looked like dandelions growing out of her head. “Bulda knows all when it comes to babies!”

  “Ooh! You should name the baby Bulda!” declared another female troll. “It’s such a pretty name.”

  “Or Pebble! I’ve always been fond of the name Pebble!” added a young girl troll with crooked teeth and a big smile. “It’s just the cutest!”

  The woman did not look like she thought the name Pebble was the cutest. But she kept silent, likely afraid of offending.

  “Don’t listen to them,” Bulda broke in. “Those are all troll names. You need a people name.” She tapped her finger to her stony chin. “What about simply naming him after his father? That would be a wonderful tribute and a way to remember him.”

  The woman struggled to her feet. “Don’t you understand?” Her voice took on a near-hysterical pitch. “That’s why I’m here! I don’t want to remember him!”

  Grand Pabbie stepped forward with a solemn look on his stony face. “You want to forget,” he said. It wasn’t a question. She nodded, tears coursing silently down her cheeks.

  “I can’t sleep at night. I can’t work during the day. All I can see is him. I can’t bear it anymore! Please, take the memories from me. I beg you!”

  Grand Pabbie motioned for her to kneel before him. “I can do what you ask,” he said. “But it will come at a price. I can make your mind forget. But the heart is not so easily changed. You may not remember Elias. But you will always feel him in your heart. Like a phantom pain that will never completely go away. And you will not know why.”

  “That’s what I want,” she choked out. “Anything to take the memories away.”

  “Very well,” Grand Pabbie replied solemnly. He lay a hand on her forehead and closed his eyes. Agnarr and I watched, mesmerized, as the Northern Lights in the sky above her head seemed to change. For a split second I saw an image of a man, tall, strong, carrying an ax, hacking away at a block of ice. Then, just as quickly as it had appeared, it burst away in a cloud of stardust. As if it had never been there at all.

  A moment later, the woman rose unsteadily to her feet. She looked dazed.

  But the tears, I noticed, had stopped.

  “What am I doing here?” she asked, sounding perplexed.

  “You came for a blessing for your baby!” Bulda told her gently. “Remember?”

  “My…baby?” She stared at Bulda for a moment, then nodded, reaching for her stomach again. She remembered that.

  “Yes. You told us his name was Pebble,” added the young troll, winking at her friend.

  Grand Pabbie steered her away from the women. “You must get back to the ice now,” he instructed. “Your family is waiting for you there.”

  “My family.” A small smile crossed her face. “Yes. I must get back to my family.” She waved at the trolls. “Thank you for the blessing!”

  And with that, she disappeared into the night. The trolls remained, however, hanging out and munching on some nearby mushrooms, chatting among themselves.

  I turned back to Agnarr. “That was crazy,” I whispered. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Magic,” he said slowly. “True magic.” He shook his head. “Good thing the people of Arendelle don’t know about these guys.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Aksel would probably blame them for his purple sheep.”

  Agnarr snorted. “Hey, maybe if they meet the trolls, they can stop blaming the Northuldra for everything that goes wrong in town.”

  I tried not to flinch at his causal joke. At least he didn’t believe that the Northuldra were to blame for everything. But I hated the reminder that many people still did.

  “I can’t believe the trolls just wiped her memory like that,” I said, mostly to change the subject. “Or that she wanted them to! Who would want their memories wiped?”

  Agnarr opened his mouth, then clamped it shut again, his face going stark white.

  I frowned. “What’s wrong?”

  “You don’t think…” His voice trailed off.

  But I realized exactly what he was thinking. The map we’d followed had belonged to his mother. That meant she probably knew about the trolls. Maybe she had come here, too, before she vanished. Maybe she’d had a similar request.

  To forget her life in Arendelle.

  To forget her husband and son.

  “Come on!” I urged Agnarr, grabbing his hand. “Let’s go talk to them.”

  “What? No!” he cried, alarmed. “We can’t!”

  “Why not?”

  “They could be dangerous.”

  I glanced over at the trolls. Two of them were playing a game by rolling round stones. Another was rocking a little troll baby. I looked back at Agnarr with one eyebrow raised.

  Agnarr let out a frustrated breath. “Fine,” he said. “Let’s go meet some trolls.”

  We emerged from behind the tree and made our way down into the valley. It was starting to get darker, and the crystals around the trolls’ necks had begun to glow. Hearing us, they looked up. For a moment they just stared as we stared back, an uncomfortable silence growing between us.

  But then Grand Pabbie stepped forward.

  “Your Majesties,” he said with a reverential bow. “I didn’t expect to see you here so soon.”

  I STARED AT THE ELDER TROLL, CONFUSION swirling through me. How could he possibly have been expecting us? Was this more magic?

  “I—I think there must be some mistake,” Agnarr stammered.

  Grand Pabbie pressed his stone lips together. “Are you not King Agnarr?”

  “Well, I’m Agnarr. Technically I’m not king yet. Not till my twenty-first birthday.”

  “I see.” Grand Pabbie turned to me. “And you, my dear. Does that make you Princess Iduna? I am not always clear how titles work in your land.”

  “Just plain Iduna,” I said, drumming my fingers on my thigh. “I’m not royalty at all.”

  Grand Pabbie nodded solemnly. “You two are not married yet?”

  I felt my cheeks heat up, and I was able only to shake my head in answer. This was getting embarrassing.

  Grand Pabbie shook his head as though trying to rid himself of a pesky thought. “I am sorry,” he said. “The Northern Lights show me many things. But sometimes they come out of order. You are not here, then, I take it, to ask me to save your daughter’s life.”

  “We don’t have a daughter,” I answered,
feeling a little annoyed now. This troll was dangling everything I had ever wanted right in front of me as though it were fact.

  Agnarr and I married.

  With a little girl.

  The vision was so powerful it hurt my stomach. Because I knew it could never come true.

  I swallowed hard, but when I spoke, my voice was resolute. “We’re not married. We’re just friends.”

  The trolls burst out laughing. I glanced at Agnarr. “What’s so funny?” he demanded, also sounding annoyed.

  “You two are not just friends,” Bulda proclaimed with a wide, toothy grin. “And if you’re not married yet, well, we can easily fix that, can’t we, ladies?”

  The female trolls cheered.

  “We should go,” Agnarr said, grabbing my hand and trying to pull me away. This whole thing was clearly freaking him out. “Come on, Iduna.”

  But I stood firm, planting my feet. We’d come this far. And the trolls were strange, maybe, but they didn’t seem evil or malicious. And if they could help…

  I looked down at Grand Pabbie. “We’re here to find information about Agnarr’s mother,” I told him. “Do you know if she came here once? Maybe to seek help of some kind?”

  The trolls all started whispering furiously among themselves. Agnarr was beginning to look really nervous. I knew he wanted to know but at the same time was petrified of finding out.

  “This is ridiculous,” he whispered to me. “They clearly don’t know anything. We should—”

  “Yes,” Grand Pabbie interrupted.

  Agnarr’s face turned pale. “You knew her?”

  “She came to us many years ago,” he said. “I remember her well. She was very sad, your mother.”

  I could see Agnarr’s hard swallow. The slight tremble in his legs. I reached out and slipped my hand into his, trying to give him strength.

  “I do not wish to speak ill of any man,” Grand Pabbie continued. “But suffice to say your mother married out of duty to her kingdom, not for love. And the marriage was not a happy one. And though she loved her baby boy, she could not see the sun through the clouds. She told us she would lie in bed all day crying. Mourning the life and kingdom she left behind. Your father grew impatient at her behavior. He couldn’t understand why she was so sad when he had given her everything she could possibly desire. But there was one thing he could never give her.”

  “Love,” Bulda whispered to me, cuddling up against my leg. A tear slipped down her stony cheek. “Poor dear was starving for love.”

  “She struggled with her sadness for years,” Grand Pabbie continued. “But at last she could take it no more. She fled the castle with only the clothes on her back—”

  “And left her son behind,” Agnarr interrupted, his voice now layered with contempt. “How could a mother do that? To her own child!”

  Grand Pabbie gave him a look. “You must understand. It was the hardest thing she ever had to do. Also, the bravest. She knew she could not make a life for you outside the castle. If she took you, they would come after you. It would likely start a war between her home country and Arendelle. Many would die. And your life would hang in the balance.” His eyes met Agnarr’s. “Leaving you behind wasn’t selfish. In fact, it was the most selfless act she could have chosen.”

  I felt a lump in my throat, imagining what Agnarr’s mother must have gone through. How much she must have been hurting to take such drastic measures, and how anguished she must have been at having to leave her only child behind to keep him safe. I risked a glance at Agnarr. His face was still pale. He’d wanted answers. But perhaps not these answers.

  “So she came here?” I prompted.

  Grand Pabbie nodded. “She did. She knew we had the ability to help her forget. And forgetting was the only way she could live with what she’d done. She wanted to forget who she was. Who she’d left behind.”

  He paused, then added, “But before we performed the spell, she had one other request. To see her son, not as he was then, but as he would be.” Grand Pabbie’s eyes zeroed in on Agnarr. “So we searched the Northern Lights for visions of your future. It is how I knew you would come to us someday.”

  “But you thought we’d be married,” I reminded him. “With a daughter.”

  “Two daughters, actually,” Bulda piped up. “Two beautiful little girls.” She closed her eyes and sighed happily.

  Two daughters? I looked at Agnarr with incredulity, but he had turned and walked a few feet away, his head bowed and his hands clasped in front of him. I went to him and wrapped my arms around his waist.

  “Are you all right?” I whispered. “I know that’s a lot to hear.”

  “It’s just so awful,” he said, his voice cracking on the words. “To think she was so unhappy. And I couldn’t do anything to help her.”

  Tears welled in my eyes at the pain in his voice. “No. You couldn’t. You were only a child, Agnarr. And also, you can’t make people happy. They have to find it inside themselves.”

  He nodded stiffly, going quiet. I didn’t want to press him, so I just stood there, holding him close. But deep down, I couldn’t help wondering if he had realized the parallel of his mother’s story to his own. She had been forced to marry someone she didn’t love. And now her son was being asked to do the same. For the good of the realm.

  But what would it do to Agnarr?

  The trolls might claim to see the future, but I saw ours clear in front of me.

  And it did not end with a happily ever after.

  “DO YOU KNOW WHAT A PANIC YOU CAUSED, Agnarr?” Lord Peterssen demanded when we returned, exhausted and drained from our adventure, late that night. One of the soldiers had spotted us coming over the bridge and had dragged us both back to the castle, under strict orders from the regent. “Do you know how many men wasted their day searching for your body, thinking we’d find you dead in a ditch somewhere? You can’t just wander off like that without telling anyone!”

  I slumped in my chair in the council room, wishing the floor would open up and swallow me whole as Iduna bore witness to the biggest dressing down I’d received in my life.

  One I totally deserved.

  “Look, I—”

  “I warn you, do not interrupt me right now, Agnarr.” Peterssen’s voice had never sounded as threatening—and disappointed—as it did in this moment.

  My mouth snapped shut. He had every right to be livid. It was bad enough I had left the castle without my guards. But also, there had been several violent attacks carried out in the nearby hills while we were gone, all targeting the additional soldiers Peterssen had deployed to look for us…for me. While no one had been killed, several men and women were being treated for various injuries. And when interviewed, they all told the same tale: strange men coming out of nowhere, all wearing masks depicting the sun.

  All making threats against the prince of Arendelle.

  When I couldn’t be found, the castle assumed the worst. The council had even started working on a new plan for succession, just in case.

  All the while I had been off gallivanting with Iduna.

  “We didn’t go far,” I protested, guiltily trying to justify my actions. But there was no justification. No matter how unhappy I’d been, no matter how much I needed escape, I had broken protocol. I had put people in danger and had created an emergency that wasted castle resources. I had been stupid and reckless.

  Imagine what my father would say if he were still here.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Peterssen snapped back. “The attacks all happened in the nearby hills. What if these masked men had found you, all alone, unprotected?”

  “Um…Iduna would have protected me?” I said, lamely attempting a joke to defuse the situation.

  Bad idea.

  Peterssen raked a hand through his hair, frustrated with me. “This is not a joke, Agnarr!” he shouted. “This is not purple sheep or imaginary spirits. Our own soldiers were attacked by enemies of the crown. People were hurt. Our citizens are terrified. There are ev
en rumors swirling around the village that the Northuldra have returned for revenge.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Iduna, who had been silent up to this point, burst out. But Peterssen was not to be dissuaded.

  “Is it? The masks they wore depicted the sun. Northuldra are the people of the sun. It doesn’t take too much to make the connection.”

  “The Northuldra don’t wear masks like that!” Iduna protested. She looked panicked. “Also, they’re peaceful people. They’d never attack someone unprovoked!”

  Peterssen’s face grew stormy. “Enough, Iduna. I mean it.”

  She glared at him, looking as if she wanted to tear him limb from limb. I reached out and squeezed her hand, trying to comfort her. But she only yanked it away. Her whole body started trembling; she was clearly alarmed at the idea of the Northuldra returning to seek revenge against the people of Arendelle—and the prince who should never have escaped that day.

  “Calm down, Iduna!” I tried to reassure her. “It’s all right. We’re safe. We won’t allow them to get you, or me, or anyone.”

  She set her gaze on me, horror in her eyes. “Wait. You don’t think it’s them, do you?” she croaked. “You can’t possibly…”

  Peterssen cleared his throat. “We obviously don’t know who is behind the attacks. We can only speculate. But that being said, the attacks did happen—and threats were made against the prince.” He gave me a hard stare. “Until we figure out what’s going on, I need you to stay in the castle. We’ll close the gates, bar the windows. You will be under the protection and surveillance of a full guard at all times.”

  I wanted to protest. But I knew when Peterssen got that look in his eyes, there was no arguing with him, and I had caused enough trouble for a lifetime.

  But I couldn’t be cooped up in the castle like a prisoner.

  At least, not alone.

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll stay put. As long as Iduna can join us here.”

  “What?” Iduna asked in surprise.

  Peterssen shook his head. “Iduna has her own home.”

  “Yeah. Outside the castle walls. Where you literally just told me it was unsafe to be.”