Troll Tunnels

by Erin M. Hartshorn

  “No,” I told her before I took the phone from her brother and said, “Thank you.”

  I debated turning on the speakerphone but instead tucked the phone under my chin.

  Carole’s voice was as dry as the air with the heat on. “I was beginning to wonder if you were going to pick up.”

  “I’m cooking.”

  “What’s for dinner?”

  “Lamb stew with orzo and lemon. What’s up?” I’d toss in some greens, too, so I didn’t have to serve vegetables on the side.

  “Maggie tells me you’ve been making friends with the other witches.”

  “You two have been telling me to long enough!” I sipped the stew and frowned. It needed more pepper, but I was afraid I’d added too much lemon. This time, I didn’t think using my magic as a base was going to be the right answer. I tossed in another handful of orzo, then went for the spice cabinet to grab the baking soda — just a pinch of that should help.

  “That’s true. And with most of the witches, I would have no worries. But…”

  I stirred the stew to mix the baking soda in. I’d have to let it sit for a few minutes for everything to blend before I tasted to see if it had helped. If I’d ruined the stew, I could always order pizza. That wouldn’t be my first choice, though. I liked lamb stew.

  “But?” I prompted. I knew where she was going with this, or I thought I did, but I wasn’t going to make it easy on her.

  She knew what I was doing, of course. “Pepper, you know what I’m worried about. What are my two main worries when it comes to witches?”

  Keenly aware that the twins were within earshot, I thought hard about the best way to phrase my answer. “The two biggest worries about magic are knowledge of magic becoming widespread and anything that would lead to that, like letting more magic loose in the world.”

  “And what happens if Tiamat comes through?”

  “The trolls get upset with me for the bedrock of magic being broken?”

  Her laugh was a rueful chuckle. “That too, I suppose. But I cannot imagine a goddess of chaos being willing to live quietly as a human to teach those who have pledged themselves to her.”

  “It doesn’t seem likely, no.” I stirred the stew and tried another bite. Definitely better. “So are you saying I shouldn’t be friends with Svetlana?”

  Carole sighed, a note that struck me as very similar to mine when trying to explain to the twins why they should keep their room clean. “Not precisely. But I worry for you. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “Me, either.” I pulled bowls down from the cupboard and set them on the counter. “If it makes you feel any better, it wasn’t my idea to hire her.”

  “Hire her?”

  So that was what apoplexy sounded like.

  “She applied for the job. She was the best qualified applicant I had, and there was no good reason not to hire her. She’s the new assistant manager.”

  “You gave her the keys to the coffeehouse!?”

  I cringed and pulled the cellphone away from my ear. When it became clear that she wasn’t going to yell any more, I brought the phone back and said, “If there is one place in Boston I am certain she can do no damage, that’s it.”

  “Hmmm.” After a moment, she said, “No, that’s fair. You’ve made the place a sanctuary, and she can’t hurt you there. It’s also completely understandable that she would migrate there, feeling away from home if not alone. I just — be careful, Pepper. I’ve warned you about the dark.”

  “You have,” I agreed. “Anything else?”

  “I do wish you wouldn’t be so flippant, but you will be you. Do me a favor and keep in touch — keep going to Maggie’s, keep calling me. If anything changes, I want to know.”

  “Life is change.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I’ll keep you in the loop, I promise. Now, if you’re not going to come over and join us for dinner, I have to go.”

  “I should have called sooner. Lamb stew sounds wonderful, but I imagine it would be cold by the time I arrived.”

  “I’ll have you over for dinner again soon.” When I said this, Tina squealed from the other room, and I shook my head in amusement. “I hope you’re prepared to be inundated with questions. Tina doesn’t seem to think Hsien explains enough.”

  “A familiar complaint.”

  After I hung up the phone, I slid it into my pocket. “Gavin, put your violin away. You can finish practicing after dinner, since you were interrupted. Tina, please set the table.”

  Carole wasn’t wrong, but why tell her that I was already worried about Svetlana? Her and Anneke’s frequent trips to the Wicked Whatever even before she had filled out an application felt like they were keeping an eye on me — and the fact that Clay had talked about me to them scared me spitless. But all I could do was keep an eye on them and hope I was prepared for whatever they had planned.

  Chapter 22

  How could it possibly be Thursday again? But here I was, sitting at a table next to Chris, who had come in despite the snow that was already whipping around buildings and trying its best to pile up in sheltered corners. I tried to focus on healing magic. The work didn’t bother me nearly as much as knowing that I wasn’t progressing fast enough to do real good with it. I wanted to heal Benjamin. I wanted to know how to fix Clay if I had to — without him trying to kill me or wanting to turn Tiamat loose on the city. If it came to that, I wanted to be able to truly soothe my children’s fevers with a touch, to not have to see them suffer when they brought home the latest bugs from school.

  I leaned my forehead on the table in front of me. “Why does it have to be so hard?”

  Chris laughed softly, ruefully even. “Would you rather go through nursing school, or medical school and a residency?”

  “Gods, no!” I rotated my head just enough to look at them. “I thought we’d covered that. I don’t want the responsibility.”

  “You already have that. Why else do this?”

  Groaning, I closed my eyes. They weren’t wrong, but I didn’t have to like it.

  “Come on, Pepper. Sit up. You can do this.” They sipped their latte. “If you can make coffee and create this haven — and other things I’ve heard rumors of — you can move energy from one point to another.”

  I inhaled sharply. What sort of rumors had they heard? Judging by the look on their face, they knew they had piqued my curiosity, and they weren’t above using it as a carrot to get me to do my work.

  “You’ll tell me these rumors?”

  “Maybe.” They didn’t quite hide their grin behind their cup. “If you do this exercise well enough.”

  Mock fuming, I sat up straight and glared at them. Right, then. Focus on the energy. All I had to do was move the healing energy — the magic — that Chris held in their right hand to their left. It shouldn’t be any different from moving a ghost into a bead, right? Or the disastrous time I’d decided to store my energy in my cellphone battery. Too many stories that Chris might have heard.

  Forcing my shoulders to relax, I let these thoughts drift out of my head. Don’t think of the pink-and-purple elephants.

  I knew how to move my own magic, but — I wanted to say I didn’t know how to move others’ magic, but that wasn’t true, was it? I’d been nudging the boulders of the trolls’ magic around, making it go where I wanted. That was brute force, though, and this required a more delicate touch. I could do delicate, couldn’t I?

  If I wanted to move my magic from one spot to another, I thought in terms of grounding it, of electrical flow, of high potential and low potential. That was what I’d done last time Chris had been in, and that was basically what they wanted me to do this time. I was sure they would make it harder in time, but this — I imagined the magic in my mind as a ball of light, like the one Tina was practicing with. I could feel that it was there, but it helped me to be able to picture it as well. I imagined a tendril coming off this ball, like sugar dripping from molten candy or electricity arcing between two
points. This tendril reached from their right hand, over the latte cup that Chris had put down, and landed in the left hand and begin to pool there. As it curled in on itself, more and more of the magic flowed along the tendril until there was none left in the right hand, merely the last thin filament hanging in the air above the left hand. Then that too was absorbed. I had done it.

  Chris nodded. “Not bad. Now move it back.”

  I glowered. Behind Chris, I caught sight of Trish, methodically cleaning the condiment bar and answering questions from our customers. What did she think of my tête-à-têtes with Chris? We sat here and talked regularly, and I always looked worn out afterward, but I was pretty sure from the outside nothing much appeared to happen.

  I was willing to bet Grant saw rather more than that when he was here, but I wasn’t going to ask him.

  Chris raised their left eyebrow at me. “Move it back?”

  “Fine.”

  It was easier this time, as though having created the pathway once, it remained there for me to use. Could that be true? I paused with the magic most of the way back to the right hand and started shifting it to the left again, stopping when it felt evenly balanced between the two. I moved it back and forth a little, never quite leaving either hand, a Slinky of magic, then moved it back to the balanced position again and severed it. I looked at Chris triumphantly.

  “Do I get a cookie?”

  They gave me a look of tolerant amusement. “It’s your coffee shop. Go for it.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Better yet, do something nice — come to the gathering next Monday.” They hadn’t come to either of the witches’ meetings since our last session. I knew part of why not, but I still wished they would try.

  “Because you did a simple task?”

  “I did something simple, you can do something simple.”

  They swallowed and shook their head slightly. “Not that simple. I’ll think about it, okay? But I’m not guaranteeing anything.”

  That was going to have to be good enough. I stretched my neck, rubbed it to release some tension, and got ready for the next exercise. I still wanted to know what rumors Chris had heard about me, especially since the only person that we knew in common was Carole.

  On my way home, the few tourists on the street with me didn’t have their cameras pointing ridiculously long lenses at buildings or their phones out to take selfies. No, today they huddled against the wind, heads bowed, trying to evade the flakes that were coming down more heavily by the minute. I was startled to feel Sverth’s characteristic solidity in a nearby alley about a block before the T. I ducked into the alley as if trying to get out of the wind, then searched the shadows, looking for his silhouette.

  Garbage bags were piled next to the dumpster, a heap of misshapen objects thrown hurriedly rather than carefully arranged. A few had been rearranged into a windbreak, and the homeless guy behind it burrowed under his blanket. I touched the dumpster next to him, fed my magic into it, and wove an electrostatic net that looped over the top of the windbreak, repelling the snow and generating a little warmth. It wasn’t much, but it should prevent him from dying of exposure, at least until one of the bags or the dumpster shifted and disrupted the spell.

  Sverth drew himself out of the shadows of a doorway. “Generously done.”

  I shrugged. I had given most of my magic to the homeless guy, but I knew I could replenish at home with a cup or two of tea, some sleep, and a couple days of rest. Not that I remembered what it was like to get a couple days of rest. Still, a small price for possibly saving someone. “I can’t save everybody, but I do what I can.”

  He nodded, his shaggy curls bobbing. “You do much to help. So, I too, am doing what I can, though Iárn still will not speak to me.” He nudged a barrel he stood next to. “Trollmiod.”

  I blinked and licked my lips. Was he honestly offering me an entire barrel of trollmiod? Given that a couple of mouthfuls were sufficient to fill my magic to overflowing, an entire barrel was … “I can’t possibly drink that much.”

  “Not at once, no.” A shy smile touched his lips, and he did not look at me. “But if you have it nearby, you can refill your cup with it when you need to.”

  “Just one problem. This isn’t exactly nearby for me.”

  “Iárn would notice if I came too close to your work or your home. He does not want me near you.”

  Given the depth of Sverth’s feelings for and obedience to Iárn, even this meeting with me was shocking, a betrayal of his leader’s commands. True, he had already been accused of betraying Iárn’s trust, but we both knew that hadn’t happened. If Iárn were to find him here now, though, speaking to me, the punishment would be severe.

  “Okay.” I stood considering the barrel. “So I need to get this to the coffee shop.” It would be far easier to tuck a barrel into the storage area there than to cart this up the four flights of stairs to my apartment. I was going to need a handcart. “Can you stay with this while I go get a dolly to move it with?”

  “No one will take it.”

  That seemed a little — not optimistic, but overly assured.

  “Are you sure?”

  “You didn’t see it until I pointed it out to you. No one else will, either.”

  Presumably related to the “don’t notice me” fields that the trolls themselves seemed to project. I could work with that.

  “All right. I’ll go get the dolly. Thank you.”

  He slid into the shadows, then the wall behind him, and even the barrel faded a bit. I knew it was there, but I wanted to ignore it. All right, then. Back to the Wicked Whatever.

  The issue with the handcart didn’t occur to me until I reached the coffee shop — if I took it out through the front, I was going to have to explain why, and I couldn’t get away with some Jedi mind-trick because that wasn’t what my magic was good at. I strode past the shop, not meeting the eyes of anyone inside who might wonder why I had returned, and turned into the alley. I went in the backdoor, only to find Freddy sitting there with his arms crossed. His scowl looked particularly fierce with the fading purple and green of his black eye.

  “What are you sneaking in the back for?”

  “Excuse me? I don’t recall installing you as hall monitor.”

  He stared at me, thinking hard. “You’re the boss — not the boss boss, but the one who’s doing all the hiring and firing, so you can come and go as you please. If you show up fifteen minutes after you leave for the day, you don’t even need an excuse about forgetting something in your office. I mean, sure, we’re going to gossip about it, but you don’t care about that. So if you coming in back here, it’s ‘cause you don’t want anyone to notice.”

  “Or because I’m too embarrassed to admit I forgot something,” I said dryly.

  He shook his head. “Nope. I’m not dumb. You don’t carry a purse most of the time. You got your phone, your wallet, and your keys in your pockets. You got your coat on your back. That’s all you ever need. Just like a guy.”

  “Not just like. I don’t keep a condom in my wallet.”

  That startled a laugh from him, but he got back on track like a bloodhound. “You going to tell me what you’re trying to hide, or I just gotta sit here?”

  “Fine.” I jerked my head at the handcart that stood in the corner. “I came in to borrow that. I have to move something, and then I’m going to bring it back, but I didn’t want to answer a lot of questions, especially when the weather is turning out there.”

  “Yeah, people might wonder why you need to take it out in the snow and salt, especially when you don’t have a car.”

  “They might.” I moved to the corner. “Feel free to dissect my motives while I’m gone. Sometime, you can tell me the craziest suppositions.” Because nothing was going to be crazier than the truth.

  “Oh, I will. I will. I might even ask Jamie for some ideas.” He had worked things out with Lashonda, then. That was good — and evidently, although he hadn’t asked for a shift in his hours yet, he was willing
to give me the benefit of the doubt because I’d helped. He even held the door for me while I headed out.

  Going down the street pushing an empty handcart got a few looks, but again, most people were focused on getting out of the thickening snow. My hat was going to need to hang to dry tonight, and my gloves as well. Sure, I could try to drive out some of the water with magic, the way I’d warded the homeless man from the snow, but it wasn’t really necessary.

  When I got back to the alley, there was no sign of Sverth other than the just-visible barrel tucked into the doorway, out of the way of most of the falling snow. The garbage bags were untouched, and the homeless man appeared to be sleeping peacefully. I parked the handcart next to the barrel and tipped the barrel enough to roll it onto the base of the cart, which was far easier said than done. I slipped and fell with the barrel on top of me. I grimaced — I was soaked, and there was no telling what was on the ground here. At least I hadn’t broken the spigot off.

  Leaning one hand against the barrel and the other against the wall, I got to my feet. Still bent over, I rolled the barrel closer to the cart, nudging it back and forth until it was where I wanted it before struggling to get it upright. I almost fell again, and the barrel rocked in the wrong direction, but eventually, it was where it belonged. I fastened the lower strap around it and headed back out to the sidewalk.

  The sidewalks made for a slippery, mucky, ugly walk, with salt crunching in places and some spaces shoveled clear, while slush piled up at all the boundaries. My feet were soaked, and I thought again of those impractical boots with the three-inch heels.

  It took me three times as long as usual to travel the distance to the coffee shop. Out front, I saw Freddy and Ximena behind the counter, talking together. All the customers had left. I should let them do the same — should’ve let them before it got this bad. But first, the barrel.

  I went in the backdoor and deposited the barrel in the corner opposite where the handcart was usually parked. I put the handcart away, grabbed some paper towels from the kitchen to wipe it down, and picked up the extra travel mug I kept at work “just in case.” The trollmiod was just as potent as I remembered — more so, even, since I hadn’t expended nearly as much magic this evening. Still, I filled the mug all the way to the top, then headed out front to send my workers home while transportation was still running. That would teach me not to take the warnings seriously.