Tangled Magick

by Jennifer Carson

  The piskie rubbed his shoulder and then pointed to a small hole in the baseboard across the room. “Ye mind placing it by that there wee hole?”

  Leif raised his eyebrows. “You want me to help you steal it from me?”

  “Ye carves a new wee beastie every day.” The little man straightened up and pulled at the lapels of his waistcoat, rocking back on his heels. “Ain’t gonna hurt ye to share.”

  A smirk formed on Leif’s lips. The piskie’s pants looked like they had been made from the scraps of fabric his mother discarded after sewing Reed’s new overalls. The green waistcoat looked awfully familiar too—and that brass button! Leif was sure it was the one missing from his father’s wool coat.

  Fast as a snake’s tongue, Leif grabbed the little pest, pinching the back of his coat between two fingers. The piskie struggled to escape, little feet pounding nothing but air. “I didn’t know ye’d be so upset! I swear! I will na’ take another!”

  From the corner of his eye, Leif saw another red head poke from the hole in the baseboard. He felt a tug and the piskie dropped to the floor. He’d wiggled right out of his coat! Little puffs of dust rose from the floor as the piskie ran away.

  Leif scrambled after him but wasn’t fast enough. The pest grinned and waved before disappearing behind the wall. The other piskie waggled his tongue and wiggled his ears before he followed.

  Pounding his fist on the floor, Leif cursed. “Goose pie!”

  “Watch your mouth, dear! Geese have feelings too.” Leif’s mother swept into the room, carrying a steaming plate of roasted pork and the first potatoes of the season. She gave Leif a quizzical look as she set the copper platter on the dining table. “What are you doing?”

  Leif rose from the floor and brushed himself off. “We have piskies in the house!”

  His mother propped a hand on her hip. “Nonsense. What would the neighbors think if we told them we had piskies? They’d think no better of us than a family of ogres. No more nonsense. Set the table. Your father and Reed should be home any minute.”

  “But—”

  “No, no buts, Leif. Set the table.” She turned and disappeared back into the kitchen, the hem of her skirt shushing across the wooden floor.

  Leif mumbled to himself. “Who cares what the neighbors think?” He had to get rid of the pests before they caused a bunch of trouble. He snapped his fingers at the dining hutch, and the glass doors blew open. Green glass plates sailed through the air and settled themselves gently on the dining table, followed by mugs and utensils.

  “Hey there, my boy!” Farmer Burrbridge called as he opened the front door. “Blistering blueberries, you better not let her see you doing that!”

  Reed laughed as he pushed past his dad and into the room, carrying a string laden with fish. “Leif is no Hybilia Frodliker,” he whispered out of the side of his mouth as he put his hand to his face. “But a little magick is better than no magick at all.”

  “Doing what?” Faria asked as she swept back into the room carrying a pitcher. She set it on the table and wiped her hands on her apron. Turning to her husband, she pecked him on the cheek and smiled at Reed. “Let her see you doing what, dear?”

  Leif’s face lit up like a strawberry in the meadow. The hair on his ears shivered. If his momma knew he’d had the dishes enchanted too, he would be in a lot of trouble—and so would Aletta. He shuffled his feet, trying to think of something that would appease her curiosity.

  “He was trying to spin a plate on his finger, like the minstrel who visited the Wedge last month,” Reed answered. “Right, Leif?”

  Leif smiled at his little brother. “Uh, yeah, right.”

  Their mother pulled out her chair and sat down, folding her hands in her lap. “Well, you know how I feel about that kind of mischief…especially with those dishes. You know they were passed down—”

  “From your great-great-great-grandmother, yes, we know,” Leif sighed. “I’m sorry. I’ll clean up the table and wash the dishes for you after dinner to make up.”

  A little smile pulled at the corners of her mouth. “That will be fine, dear. Make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

  Farmer Burrbridge patted his wife’s shoulder. “You’re such a softie, Faria.”

  Leif’s mother shooed him to his seat at the head of the table. “Oh, do sit down, Richard, and eat your meal.”

  “Father,” Leif began as Mr. Burrbridge sat down, “piskies have invaded our house.”

  “What?” Farmer Burrbridge laughed. “Never. What would the neighbors say?” He waggled his furry brows at Faria and grinned.

  “But Father…” Leif tried again.

  “Oh Leif, no more nonsense,” his mother said. “It’s time for dinner. Gather hands, all around.”

  Leif reluctantly held out his hands, clasping one with his father on the left and the other with Reed on his right. His father squeezed his hand and Leif sighed. “Bless us this meal. Thank the earth from which it came and the kitchen from which it was prepared.”

  And let’s hope the little thieves don’t steal it all.

  Chapter 4

  The wagon wheels kept jamming in the ruts of the bumpy forest road. Mae could tell by the jarring that the two-track path they had turned onto was not traveled often. The trolls would have to rock the wagon back and forth to free the wheels, sending the ponies into fits of bucking and kicking and the troll queen into frenzied madness at their inability to travel as fast as she wanted. Mae gleaned all of this information in the anxious hours of the night, while the hapennies and Callum slept in an enchanted slumber around her.

  As the first streaks of a gray dawn touched the horizon, Tory Longbridge moaned. His eyes blinked open and he looked around bleary-eyed.

  Mae put her hand over his mouth. He searched her face, his forehead wrinkling, questions flashing in his eyes. Putting her finger to her lips, Mae made a shushing face. When Tory nodded, she removed her hand from his mouth. Tory leaned toward her and motioned for her to come closer—although they were already packed into the bed of the wagon like pickles in a jar. She tilted her head so that his lips tickled the hair on her ears. Her heart step-danced against her ribs.

  “What’s happening?” Tory asked. He tilted his ear toward her for the answer.

  Mae found herself wondering if the fur on the backs of his ears shone like strands of copper in the light. “The maiden who came to us for help,” she whispered, “is a troll queen! Everyone is under an enchantment of some kind.”

  Tory nodded, the frown lines returning to his brow. He leaned in again. “Why do you suppose I woke up?”

  Mae shrugged. Could it be that Tory has a bit of magick waking in him too?

  “What are we going to do?” he asked.

  “I think the best thing to do right now is pretend we are enchanted as well, like the others,” Mae answered.

  Tory nodded and lay back down, one arm tucked under his head, the other reaching for Mae’s hand. His fingers curled around hers. A ripple of excitement made her nose twitch. No one but Leif had ever held her hand before.

  Her stomach twinged as she thought of Leif.

  Leif, at home. Safe in the Wedge. Waiting for her to return.

  She closed her eyes and let the wagon rock her into a fitful sleep.

  Chapter 5

  Mae was awakened by shouts. Hapennies were being pulled roughly out of the wagon and forced into a line. Their expressions were dazed, and many shook their heads as if to clear a fog from their mind. Their hands were shackled. Mae shivered, remembering the feel of the heavy iron chains her former guardian, Gelbane, had clapped on her.

  The sun was resting just barely over the trees. They had traveled all night and into the morning.

  As she was grabbed by rough hands, Mae tried to stay limp as the troll pulled her from the wagon bed.

  “Play nice, Drugan,” Huldfrejya shrieked. “I don’t want my slaves so bruised that they can’t work.”

  The troll grunted and set Mae on her feet. He grabbed h
er chin and shook her head. “Wakey, wakey.”

  Mae opened her eyes slowly, pretending to be a little dazed, but her mind raced frantically as she took in the deeply etched lines of the troll’s face before her. He was old, with yellowing fangs and sagging ears. His black eyes looked weary, as if he hadn’t slept in years.

  Behind him, the forest spread out. Why had they stopped in the middle of a forest? Wait, there was a path. Mae squinted as she tried to see where it led. Lumpy gray-blue shapes sprouted out of the distant landscape. Ruins of a castle?

  Drugan shoved her toward the other hapennies. Poppy was crying, her tears shining like dew on her rosy cheeks. “What’s happening, Mae?” she asked as another troll pushed Maewyn next to her in line and shackled Poppy’s wrists with the heavy iron bracelets. A cold shiver travelled down her spine. She remembered all too well the feel of shackles against her skin. Just then, another troll leading a pony passed them. Callum was draped over the saddle, his toes dragging on the brown earth.

  Mae swallowed hard. Her nose twitched and her ears drooped in defeat. “It will be all right, Poppy. Try not to fret.”

  “But Callum—”

  “I know.” Mae sighed. She had no idea what Huldfrejya had done to the wizard or where she was taking him. “Don’t worry. I’ll figure it out.” But she wasn’t sure she would.

  The line began to move like molasses on a cold morning. Mae’s eyes darted to and fro, looking for an escape route, but there were trees and trolls everywhere. Some of the trolls bustled around carrying barrels and casks from the wagon. Others made sure the hapenny line kept moving. Maewyn saw Mr. Whiteknoll leaning heavily on Cook Barley. The troll queen stood at the front of the line, tapping her toes with impatience. As each hapenny approached, she pointed to the left or the right. Cook Barley was sent to the left, but Mr. Whiteknoll was shooed toward the right.

  Poppy slowed and grabbed Mae’s hand. It was clammy and cold. A tremor worked its way through Mae’s body as they approached the troll queen.

  “So, the only two girls in the whole camp.” She grabbed Poppy’s face, pinching her chin. “This one’s pretty. Too pretty.” Huldfrejya shoved Poppy toward the left, her hand slipping from Mae’s grasp. “We’ll cut off her hair.”

  Poppy sucked in her breath and made a noise that sounded like the whimper of a newborn pup.

  Thin fingers dug into Mae’s shoulder and spun her in a circle. “Must be some reason they’d keep you around. You’re much smaller than the rest of them. Got any special talents?”

  “N—no,” Maewyn managed to stutter.

  “Can you sew?”

  Maewyn blinked. She couldn’t sew, but she knew a spell for sewing. She nodded.

  “Make tea?”

  Maewyn nodded again.

  “What else can you do?”

  Maewyn bit her lip. “I’m really good at keeping things tidy.”

  “You’ll do.” Huldfrejya nodded and called one of her trolls over. “Folkvarus. The two girls be my new personal maids. Take them to my quarters and kick that old bag of bones out of the castle. She is no longer useful to me.”

  The one named Folkvarus grabbed Mae and Poppy’s arms and pulled them forward. The troll dragged the girls past their friends and up a winding path through the forest. Mae looked back at the drawn faces of the other hapennies and worried about what was going to happen to them. She saw Tory being pushed toward the right. Her escort gave her a tug, and Mae cast her eyes forward and quickened her step.

  Poppy gripped Mae’s arm. “Where are we going?”

  “Don’t those furry ears work?” their escort retorted. “The queen’s chamber, like she ordered.”

  “But why are we headed into the forest?” Mae asked.

  “You are no front-door guests,” her escort said.

  Shivers shot down Mae’s spine. Her stomach flip-flopped. She pulled Poppy closer to her. There was a shimmer ahead, making the castle ruins waver and the path appear to be covered in faerie dust.

  “Don’t go fainting on me when you pass through the barrier,” Folkvarus said.

  “Barrier?” Poppy’s voice trembled.

  Mae’s body tingled, and shocks of energy shot out the ends of her curls. She heard popping and hissing sounds as they stepped through a curtain of magick.

  The forest opened up to reveal not ruins, but a castle looming on a dark hill, the main spire so tall it nearly pierced the clouds. Tangled ivy scaled the walls and strangled the towers.

  Folkvarus pushed the girls forward.

  “What was that?” Mae asked.

  “Never you mind, nosey,” Folkvarus said. “Just keep stepping lively, one foot in front of the other.”

  Mae snorted. “That would be much easier if we didn’t have these shackles on our wrists.”

  Folkvarus rubbed his forearm as if he had chains on too. “They’ll fall off eventually.”

  Poppy hiccupped and sniffled.

  The winding path led to an ancient-looking wooden door set in a hill and half-hidden with dark ivy. The castle loomed tall above. The troll swiped the ivy aside and shoved the door open with his shoulder. “Infernal crawling pestilence,” he muttered. He waved Mae and Poppy on. “Inside, quickly, before it grows back.”

  The girls exchanged an apprehensive glance.

  “In now, I tell you!” the troll barked.

  Mae scurried inside and strained to see past the small circle of light spread by a single torch. The corridor was dim and damp, and she heard water trickling. Large patches of moss clung to the crumbling mortar. The door slammed shut behind them, accompanied by more muttering from her captor as he grabbed the torch from its bracket.

  The fire lit up the troll’s face, and Mae tried to hide her surprise. She hadn’t gotten a good look at their escort when he’d grabbed her arms and started dragging her toward the castle, but he didn’t seem to be like the other trolls. She studied him. His nose was flat and turned up, nostrils flaring open like a hapenny’s, but it wasn’t twitchy. His ears were big too, but nearly bare, with only a few straggly hairs clinging to the pointed ends, and he was taller than most hapennies but short for a troll. His speech was more refined too. The only things more trollish about him than his ears were the color of his skin, which was the color of the inside of an avocado, and the smell. He definitely needed a good bathing.

  “What are you looking at, half-pint?”

  Mae plucked up her courage. “Folkvarus, that’s your name, right?”

  “Yeah,” he grunted. “What of it?”

  “That doesn’t seem to be a very…um…” Mae searched for the right words. She didn’t want to make him angry. “It doesn’t seem to be a very…trollish name.”

  “What would you know about trolls?”

  Poppy elbowed Mae in the ribs and made a face that was meant to shush her.

  Mae ignored the warning. “More than I’d like to, that’s for sure.” She shivered. The shivers weren’t from the dampness of the passageway, but her memories. She’d had to fight off a horde of trolls bent on devouring her friends in the village just two years ago.

  Folkvarus grunted again and shoved the girls behind him. “Follow me.”

  Mae followed, trying to memorize each turn Folkvarus took as they drew deeper into the underbelly of the castle. She could hear Poppy doing the same thing—whispers of “right,” “left,” and “twenty paces” reached her ears.

  A deep roar rumbled through the passage, and Mae froze in her tracks, nose twitching, ears perked and alert. “What was that?”

  Folkvarus stopped and turned, the torchlight making his dark eyes shine. “What you hear is a hideous beast locked inside the dungeon, just through this door.” He raised the torch to show the girls a large wooden door on their right. Huge iron handles stood out from the darkened wood. “The queen feeds him curious slaves who won’t stop asking questions.”

  Poppy’s face turned paler than milk.

  Mae pursed her lips tight together and vowed not to ask any more question
s. Folkvarus turned with a chuckle and disappeared around the corner. Mae scrambled to catch up, thoughts sprinting through her head. Did the troll queen really keep a hideous beast in the dungeon? What kind of beast was it? Did it really eat the slaves? Was that what would happen to the queen’s old maid? Mae shuddered. She hoped not. She peered around the corner before following Folkvarus. There was definitely something strange about him.

  A narrow flight of stairs rose up in a seemingly never-ending spiral. Mae heaved a great sigh and started climbing. The light from Folkvarus’s torch was just a faint blob of yellow far ahead. Would he notice if she turned and fled? Mae paused and reached into her pocket, grasping her wand.

  “Maewyn, what are you doing?” Poppy whispered.

  Mae brought the end of her wand to her mouth and clutched it between her teeth, pointing it at the cuffs around her wrists.

  “Leysar!” she tried to whisper, but it came out sounding like “lay-thar.” A puff of green smoke shot in the air and burned her nostrils. A loud bang echoed in the stairwell. Poppy began to cough.

  “I wouldn’t be trying anything funny if I were you,” Folkvarus’s gloomy voice wafted down the stairwell. “She isn’t nice when she doesn’t get her way. And losing her new maids might make her do something to your wizard friend that isn’t too pleasant.”

  Poppy frantically gestured for Mae to put her wand away.

  Mae slipped it back into her pocket, and the girls scurried up the steps. Mae met the blue- black eyes of her escort and tried to catch her breath. “What would she do?”

  A sadness filled Folkvarus’s face. His voice was soft when he answered. “There were fifteen of us when I was brought to the castle. Now there is only me and Gilda.”

  Chapter 6

  Poppy bit her lip. “There are only twelve of us.”

  Folkvarus nodded. “Expect your numbers to dwindle quickly. The queen is not kind to her servants. She works them to the bone with little time to rest and even less food.” He turned and climbed the remaining stairs in silence. Finally, the circle of torchlight illuminated a stout, oak-paneled door.