by Julie Wright
Farmor tugged at my hand, silently instructing me to move forward. I did as directed, my watery legs threatening to collapse from underneath me. But the step didn’t feel right at all. Cold moss squished up under my toes. Startled, I looked down to find my feet bare. And peeking out from under my cape were my bare legs and the ends of leaves.
I opened my cape, looked down, and then turned to Farmor for an explanation to how I came to be dressed in a gown of leaves. Had I lost my shoes and clothes somewhere in the Atlantic? I hoped not. Those were my favorite jeans.
“You must come to the vows dressed in nature,” she whispered. “I changed all non-natural items while we traveled. We’re already late enough as it is. You’re the last of the lärling to show, and I didn’t want to embarrass you by making you change in front of everyone. Your cape is made from cotton, silk, and natural gemstones. Your other clothing had man-made fibers in them.”
I placed my hand just under my collarbone. The pendant scrying glass still hung there. Relief hit me so violently I wanted to throw up. I didn’t ask what a lärling was since the magic book mentioned initiates being called lärling. Others like me were here. But they’d all arrived first.
We walked from under a bunch of trees and into a clearing in front of the entrance to a cave. Our travel companions trailed behind us, whether acting as an entourage or guards, I couldn’t tell.
There was nothing clear about the clearing. It was packed with people aside from the sliver of a trail leading to the cave entrance. The mossy path was flanked on both sides by trolls and Troll Kvinnor. They all held a candle in their right hands, the tiny flames illuminating a warm glow on each individual face. All those candles in the middle of a forest? Smoky the Bear would not have approved.
All the Troll Kvinnor wore gowns woven from leaves like mine, and yet all the styles were entirely different. Some of their dresses were short, and others were so long they went down to their feet. No one seemed to be bothered by the fact that the temperature hovered at freezing and that none of them wore shoes or bothered to cover up in anything warm besides their capes, which were as varied and elaborate as the leafy dresses. Every color I’d ever seen in my entire life was represented in the fabrics and embroidery. The green dresses under the capes looked like stems to the brilliantly colored flower petals of the capes. That’s what we all looked like—a fancy bouquet of women.
But the Troll Kvinnor weren’t the only women present. There were actual female trolls as well. They were as ugly as the men, but in a decidedly feminine way. Their bodies were more slender and a little shorter. All the women had hooped earrings as well as ornate gold necklaces dripping with gems of every color. I didn’t know if the gems were real or not, but even if they were real, the necklaces were horribly mismatched and too gaudy to be pretty. The female trolls wore dresses that looked like they’d been pieced together from the skins of animals. Fur-lined boots laced up to their knees. So not everyone was stupid enough to be barefoot in the freezing cold. The male trolls were dressed similarly to their women—fur-lined boots and skins patched together around their bodies to hold in their warmth.
None of the female trolls looked all that pleased to see me, but they acted respectful by bowing their heads as I walked past them. And yet, their resentment burned hot. I felt their eyes smoldering holes into my back after I’d passed.
Considering everything explained to me, I now held power that once belonged to those women trolls. Farmor had said there’d been a truce, but it must have been a shaky truce, or these women wouldn’t be looking at me with such contempt. If I did as directed by the Elva imposter, I’d be giving back some of the power. But I didn’t hold all of it. A little power from me would not be much compared to all the power held by all the caped women in the group. I couldn’t really change things for the female trolls.
I tried not to appear terrified, but had no way of knowing if I succeeded or failed in looking calm. My feet made the slow agonizing steps towards the mouth of the cave with the people all bowing their heads and dipping slightly in some form of respect.
“I’m freezing,” I muttered to Farmor.
“Be grateful they spelled this part of the forest so we wouldn’t be walking through the snow. It would be much colder then,” she whispered back.
Colder? How could it possibly be colder?
My toes would have to be cut off due to frostbite. Oddly, little white blossoms of flowers poked up through the ice crystals and moss. The pain from the cold ground moved up my legs until they cramped slightly. When we finally arrived at the mouth of the cave, waves of heat washed over me in a way that gave hope. Perhaps they had a bonfire going on inside. Please, please, please have a bonfire going.
There was no need to duck to enter the cave. The fissure in the rock opened up at least ten feet into the air. Standing in front of it felt a little like standing in front of a heater. I loved heaters and could have stood there baking myself slowly for a long time, but Farmor beckoned me on with a little tug. I chewed the inside of my cheek. If such a habit calmed Jake’s nerves, then hopefully it would work for me too.
It didn’t.
Upon entering, my jaw dropped. This was not the cave I’d seen in the shadow visions. Not at all. Pathways had been smoothed around the stalagmites. The walls were brightly colored in yellows, blues, and reds. Paintings of Viking ships, forests, and deer herds lined the cavern walls. And not like your petroglyph kind of artwork, but actual paintings with painstaking details. There wasn’t a bonfire, but heat flowed through the tunnels like a steam room in a spa. Trolls stood at attention holding staffs with torches on top to light our way. There were no female trolls inside the cave. Only the Troll Kvinnor in the capes and leafy dresses and the male trolls were found inside.
Some of the trolls’ horribly mangled teeth stuck out of their lips even when their mouths were closed. But there were others who didn’t really look all that bad. They looked human in a way that the others just didn’t. They weren’t what you would call attractive guys—certainly not in the same league as Jake, but they were the kinds of guys that I’d give the benefit of the doubt if they asked me to dance. It was a weird assortment of people and creatures. All the other lärling must have already started because I was the only newcomer.
Farmor led me with my entourage/guards down through the tunnel of the cave. We wound around for what seemed a long time. I tried talking a few times to ask questions. But each time I got noisy, Farmor squeezed my hand tight to discourage me. But I needed to talk—needed to ask questions. I didn’t know what to do.
I held the pendant underneath my shirt for a brief moment. Hang on, Jake.
We walked down a staircase that had been carved into the rock floor and turned a corner. A huge lake-like pool of water took up the middle of the cavern. Fog clung to the water’s surface. A small canoe sort of boat that had the look of a miniature Viking ship sat tied to the shore. The ship resembled a dragon with its back carved out allowing people to sit inside it. The tail that rose up over the end of the boat curled into a tight spiral, and the head that was the front of the boat almost looked real. The dragon’s mane was made of gold, and its eyes were made from emeralds. The way the emeralds and gold reflected the torch light made the dragon seem alive.
Farmor took me to where the boat bobbed gently in the water and stopped. “I bring the daughter of Britta to the shore of the waters that separate the lands of the trolls from the humans. I bring her to the trials, the vows, and the courts that will prove her,” she announced loudly. Everyone standing on the shore all around the pool of water waved their torch from the left to the right which, for a brief moment, made it look like I’d been encircled by fire. For a moment a memory came to me of being ringed by this same fire before.
The dragon’s head nodded as if in approval. Farmor motioned for me to get into the boat. I gulped. Was she serious? The boat’s head just moved, and she wanted me to get in? Did boat dragons bite? Farmor gave me a short nod as I looked to her f
or direction. This left me with little more to do than step inside the boat. It dipped in the water and groaned under my weight.
“Oh, stop it,” I muttered to the dragon head. “I don’t weight that much.”
Farmor stepped in behind me—without the dragon making any sarcastic noises—and my entourage/guards untied us and pushed us out into the water.
“You must direct the boat to the other side,” Farmor instructed.
“Direct it? How? There aren’t any paddles in here.” And there weren’t. There was nothing but the two wooden seats that we each occupied. There wasn’t even a life preserver. I looked down into the black murk of the lake and estimated its depth. From the way the wood of the boat felt cold to my bare feet, the water must have been freezing in spite of the fog that appeared to be steam. The air of the room was warm, but the water was cold enough that I’d freeze to death if I accidentally fell in.
“You must befriend the water, make it move with your power, make it dance with you,” Farmor said.
Oo-kaay, the way she phrased that was just plain weird, but she meant magic. I shrugged and focused on how to phrase it so I didn’t end up capsizing us. Finally I said, “I wish the water current would carry our boat safely to the other side.”
I waited for the tingle of electricity.
Nothing.
The people at the shore all stood with their torchlight and humorless faces watching me make a fool out of myself. Great. The only thing these trials were going to prove was that I was a first-class idiot.
Farmor raised an eyebrow at me and took a deep breath. “Wish power doesn’t work here and will never work for you again. Your powers are fully developed. Use them.”
“But I don’t know how to use them—”
She silenced me with a scowl, and I remembered the book on magic. The first half of the book went into painful detail on the elements and how to work with them to achieve goals.
But I didn’t know any spells—not anything real. This entire vow-trial thing was totally unfair. Even the mean teachers in school never gave tests without telling exactly what to study.
I thought for a long time as we drifted slowly in a little eddying circle in the middle of the lake in the middle of the cave. What had my lecture on water said? It mentioned working with the elements, not against them. They could not be forced into submission. Farmor used the term dance. I had to lead a willing partner in order to make anything happen.
During all the wish spells, currents of electricity had flowed through me, flowed from my mind, to my core, and out into the world. Could that happen without the wish?
I closed my eyes and focused hard on the place in the grey matter behind my eyes—the place where I’d felt the electricity start each time. And something sparked. Surprised, I opened my eyes to find Farmor smiling at me encouragingly.
Assuming the spark meant I’d done something right, I closed my eyes and tried again. The spark blossomed until my whole body was goose-pimpled and could no longer hold the current of electricity arcing through me. It left my body, went through the boat, and into the water. Enough flowed into the water that if anyone actually touched the surface, they’d get electrocuted. It was wicked weird to know all of that had come from me.
But nothing happened. The boat still bobbed and drifted aimlessly.
“You must dance,” Farmor said. She still smiled, so I must not have failed yet.
So I tried again. Nothing.
“You’re going to have to dance faster.” Farmor pointed to the water seeping into the boat through a hole that had not been there before.
“We’re sinking?” No way. They were going to drown me if I couldn’t make the water move? Did my parents know what they were doing to me? The freezing water touched my bare toes as it seeped into the boat. I scooted my feet back and yelled, “Stop that!” to the dragon head. The head actually turned to look at me and grinned a big toothy smile. The stupid boat wanted to drown me! And Farmor was in the boat! If I drowned, then she did too. I squeezed my eyes shut and filled myself with energy then released it to the water. But with that release, I imagined bowing to the water, like a guy in one of my mom’s old lady movies whenever he asked someone to dance. I imagined bowing and taking a step forward. I imagined holding the water in my arms and taking another step forward.
The water underneath the boat responded to the energy this time, and with every step forward I took, it took a step back—very much like some weird sort of dance.
As the water retreated, the boat moved along the water’s surface, closer and closer to the opposite shore. The water hadn’t risen any higher in our boat. We weren’t going to drown after all.
The dragon yawned, bored.
“If you don’t like how long it’s taking, then try helping,” I said. My head started to hurt with the same pounding behind my eyes that had plagued me those first few days after my birthday. When we made it to the shore, I scrambled out of the boat. “I did it!”
The dragon didn’t look all that impressed.
“A few more left, älskling, then you can rest.” Farmor smiled but didn’t look as excited as I felt about my brief victory.
More?
And I was tired. Exhausted. What time is it? There was no way to know because my cell phone had been in the pocket of my jeans. For all I knew, some dolphin was using it to call a pod on the other end of the Atlantic.
But I’d made it off the lake, and we hadn’t drowned. No matter the fatigue, the success of completion tasted sweet. I moved to give Farmor a hug. She stepped back a little and shook her head sadly. It was then that I noticed the torchlight flickering through her head. She wasn’t solid.
My hand reached for her but went through her shoulder. “What’s going on? What happened to you?” I asked, my voice shrill like Lisa Snoddy’s voice when she’d found herself in the jungle.
“Once the trial begins, I am only allowed to be with you as an escort to help give direction and light. I am not allowed to be present physically so that I cannot cheat for you by passing off my magic for yours. Until your trials are over, I am held bound from power—except for this . . .” She raised her hand to show me the flame inside a glass globe floating on top of her palm. That was our light. “You must accomplish your trials alone.”
She must have seen how absolutely scared this news made me, because she smiled. “You’re doing wonderfully. Don’t worry. Keep going.”
I hesitated. Keep going? Were there any other choices? No. No other choices existed. Farmor said there was a penalty for not completing the vows—a penalty I couldn’t afford to pay. Jake waited for me at the end. He would pay the price for my failure.
The dragon must have felt impatient because he shoved me hard in the back with his nose, pushing me forward a few stumbling steps.
I glared back at him. “I hope you sink.”
The dragon snickered as I followed Farmor up through the path of torch bearers lighting our way. The cave was more open on this side, not like the tunnel. None of the people or trolls talked to me or even smiled at me. Their eyes simply followed along as if they weighed me . . . judged me.
I’d moved the boat, but had I been too slow? Was it done the wrong way? Was I supposed to have washed the boat up on the shore with a huge wave? Were the trials graded like school? Could they be passed with a C?
We finally came to another tunnel and entered. It was a tight squeeze so there were no torch bearers to witness anything inside. Farmor had her light on her hand to prevent stumbling in the dark. I almost checked the scrying glass under my shirt but instinctively stopped. Could they see into these tunnels without actually being in them? What if they walked through them when my trial was over and watched the shadow version of my trials? I didn’t want to be disqualified for sneaking in a scrying glass.
Claustrophobia nearly drove me to insanity before the tunnel opened up into a huge room. This room was colder, and a breeze blew as though we were no longer inside. The cave had an opening to the out
side somewhere.
Farmor pointed to the far right where a display of brass tubes had been lashed to the wall. “These pipes are part of that organ.” She waved to the instrument sitting against the opposite wall.
“But the pipes aren’t attached to it so how does it—”
“You must play a song, and move the wind through the pipes.”
“But if the organ isn’t attached, then how—”
She seemed bugged to have to keep interrupting me. And it bugged me to be continually interrupted. “You move the wind. Dance with the wind as you did the water. Once you begin, don’t stop for anything.” She stepped back against the wall to wait out this weird task. I didn’t look at her for long because it was totally unnerving to be able to see through her like she was a ghost.
At least the boat had made sense. I needed to cross the water, so of course I should have to figure out exactly how. But a song? What purpose did a song play in any of this? But I finally understood why Farmor had insisted I take piano lessons all those years ago. She’d even paid for them and sent me all kinds of encouragement the couple of times I almost quit.
I took a deep breath and moved to sit at the organ. The stone seat felt like an ice cube. The cold seeped through the cape and the leaves and into my bones. Music notes had been painted on the stone tablet set above the keys. They expected me to play whatever they wanted to hear. I shivered in the breeze, wished they’d provided a pillow or something to put some distance between me and the ice bench, and wondered how I was supposed to play anything on an organ that had no pipes with fingers so cold they might snap if bent too far.
