by Matt Haig
He opened his eyelids. A blurred figure was leaning over the bed with two sparkling, maternal eyes looking down into his.
“Mum?” he said. “Mum? Is that you?”
As his vision sharpened into focus, the two maternal eyes became one, and the person he had thought was his mother turned out to be the ugliest-looking woman he had ever seen. In addition to having only one eye—positioned in the middle of her forehead—she had various other hideous features. Her black hair was wild and tatty, like a strange kind of plant. She had a bulbous red nose with hairs dangling out of her nostrils, and her mouth contained five wonky teeth, each as gray and desolate as old headstones in a graveyard.
“It’s awake, Troll-Father!”
Her booming voice did nothing for Samuel’s headache. Each word was a brick banging the inside of his skull.
Trolls.
“I’m coming, Troll-Mother.”
A male troll of slightly less ugly appearance (if only because most of his face was covered with a beard) came into Samuel’s view. He too had an eye socket in the middle of his forehead, but with no eye inside.
He held his hands out blindly over the bed, in the vague direction of Troll-Mother.
“All right, grabby fingers,” she said. “Keep your beard on!”
Then something disgusting happened.
Troll-Mother dug her fingers into her eye socket and, after a little effort, pulled out her eyeball. After that, she passed the eye to her husband, who promptly squeezed it into the hole in his forehead.
“What is it?” Troll-Mother asked, wanting to know what kind of creature was lying in her bed.
Once the eyeball was in place, Troll-Father looked at Samuel, his jaw dropping in disbelief. “A human,” he said. “A human boy.”
“Oh,” she said. “A human! A human boy!” Her voice suddenly changed, and she looked full of sorrow. “Oh…oh…I’m so sorry, sir…If I’d have known, sir, I’d never have hit you with my rabbit pan, sir! Oh, what must you think of me? Oh, I do apologize, sir. And for the house as well, sir. It is a terrible scruffy mess. If we’d known you was coming by, we’d have tidied the place up a bit. It’s just that it’s terrible hard to keep on top of things, what with only one eye between us all.”
Samuel sat up and looked around. The whole house was packed into one room, and lit by fat candles. From the bed, he could see a stove and a dining table and another bed. Two troll children with single empty eye sockets were sitting on the floor and stroking Ibsen, who was lying down and staring straight at Samuel.
“You’re trolls,” said Samuel, in a terrified voice.
“We be that, sir,” said Troll-Father, in a much more gentle voice than that of his wife.
“Are you…going to eat me?” Samuel asked, fear intensifying his headache.
Troll-Father looked confused. “Eat you, sir?”
“I thought trolls ate humans. I thought they boiled them in a pot. It says so in…”—Samuel looked around for his book and saw it lying by the front door, where it must have fallen when he had been knocked out by the saucepan—“in that book.”
“Well, sir, we don’t eat humans,” said Troll-Father. “I can assure you of that. You don’t want to believe in books, sir. They be normally full of lies.”
Samuel saw troll shadows, flickering in the candlelight.
He remembered what the Truth Pixie had said. The creatures with no shadows are the deadly ones. Those with shadows are harmless.
“The only thing we cook in a pot be rabbits. Unless you’ve got long fluffy ears you’re safe with us, sir,” said Troll-Mother. “I be so sad for clouting you round the head like that, it’s just you have to be careful, don’t you not? With all this evil all about us. Anyway, we hid you well and true from those horrid creatures. They came and knocked on all the houses in the village, but we said we hadn’t seen you, we did. I thought they was about to search us up and down and sideways, but I think they was in some kind of hurry. Must be taking prisoners.”
Prisoners.
The image of Martha sitting in the cage flashed back into Samuel’s mind.
“I’ve got to go,” Samuel said. He tried to get up but the pain from the bump on his head pulled him back. “I’ve got to find my sister.”
“Your sister?” Troll-Mother asked.
“She was in a cage. There was a wagon. It was those…”
“Huldres.” Troll-Father whispered the word, as if it was something that could do evil if spoken aloud.
“Yes, they’ve got her. They’re taking her to…”
He tried to remember the name of the overlord of the forest. The Rainmaker? The Changemaster?
Troll-Father suddenly seemed to regret having the eye. He didn’t know where to look. It was then that Samuel realized the book really might have gotten it wrong about the trolls.
“They’ll be taking her to the Changemaker,” said Troll-Mother.
As soon as she said “Changemaker,” two gasps rose out of the eyeless boy and girl on the floor.
The little troll girl nearly cried, but no tears could stream from her empty eye socket.
“Don’t be scared, Troll-Daughter,” said Troll-Father.
“Be the Changemaker coming to get us?” the boy asked.
“No, Troll-Son,” said Troll-Father.
“He will if you don’t eat all your casserole,” said Troll-Mother.
There was a silence, and Samuel tried to sit farther up in the bed.
“Can I see the human?” Troll-Son asked.
“Me! Me! Me!” said Troll-Daughter. She shot both her hands in the air like she knew the answer to something.
Troll-Mother went red with embarrassment.
“I must be saying sorry for my children,” she said. “They not be clean and polite like you, sir. They be horrible little things, the both of them. They have no idea how to behave.”
Samuel wondered why her children made her so cross, as they seemed perfectly normal to him.
“Oh well,” sighed Troll-Mother. “I suppose they’ll want to have a look at you. Troll-Father, give them the eye.”
Troll-Father unplugged the eyeball from its socket and tapped his son on the shoulder. Troll-Son blindly felt for the eyeball and, after he eventually found it resting in his father’s palm, squeezed it into his forehead.
“Hello,” said Samuel.
“Hello,” said Troll-Son, who—now that his parents couldn’t see him—was picking his nose. “I be Troll-Son.”
“I’m Samuel,” said Samuel. “Samuel Blink.”
“Samuel Blink,” said Troll-Son, in clear admiration. He tried the exotic name over and over on his tongue. “Samuel Blink. Samuel Blink. Samuel Blink. Samuel…”
“Forgive my son, sir,” said Troll-Father. “We be only humble trolls. We’re not used to fancy names like that. We’re not worthy of them, you see.”
“Troll-Son, stop picking your nose!” said Troll-Mother, though how she knew where her son’s fingers were Samuel had no idea. “Now, give the eye to your sister before you be shaming yourself any more.”
The boy troll wiped his grubby finger on his even grubbier tunic, then pulled the eye out of his forehead, making a kind of sucking sound as he did so. Troll-Son tried to give the eyeball to his sister, but the little girl—who must have been no older than six years old—couldn’t find her brother’s hands.
“Where it be?” said Troll-Daughter. “Where it be? Where it be?” And she kept opening and closing her hands, saying over and over, “Where it be? Where it be? Where it be?”
Samuel watched as Troll-Mother went red with embarrassment again. “I am being so ever so sorry, sir,” she said, walking blindly past her husband toward her children. “They are troll children, with no manners at all.”
“It’s okay,” said Samuel.
But just then, just as the little girl’s fingers found the eyeball, both children received a slap on the back of the head from their mother, who knew the heights of her children well enough to mak
e sure she hit the right spot.
“Behave yourselves! You useless little pixies!” she shouted as she whacked them. (To call someone a pixie was the biggest insult a troll could give.)
“There’s no need of hitting them,” said Troll-Father, wincing his eye socket as if it was he who was being hit. “They can’t see what they be doing.”
“No, but the human can. What in Shadow Forest must he be thinking?” And she whacked her children again, only this time she swung a little bit too fast and knocked the eyeball out of Troll-Daughter’s fingers.
“I lost it! I lost it! I lost it!”
Samuel watched in horror as the eyeball flew through the air. It landed on the bed, and rolled across the sheets until it rested a centimeter away from his left hand, from where it looked straight up at him. Staring.
Just staring.
Well, what else could an eyeball do?
The Truth about Humans
The four blind trolls started clamoring about, their hands feeling the bed and down on the floor, desperately hunting for the missing eye.
“See what you’ve done!” said Troll-Mother crossly, although neither of the two children she was speaking to could see what they’d done at all. “Fancy! What you must be looking like! In front of the human!”
“Now, now,” said Troll-Father, in a calming voice. “There’s no point in getting all hipperty. It will be here somewhere, it will.”
Samuel wondered why no one asked him where the eyeball might be, especially as he was the only one who could see anything.
“It’s…er…here,” he said. “It’s by my hand.”
“Oh,” said Troll-Father, embarrassed. “Would you possibly maybe just if you wouldn’t mind perhaps possibly maybe…pick it up for us?”
“HONESTLY! HOW CAN YOU ASK A HUMAN TO DO SUCH A DISGUSTING THING! HAVE YOU NO SHAME?” boomed Troll-Mother, who was now very hipperty indeed.
She looked like she was going to start whacking her husband, and Samuel had seen enough violence for one day.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ll…er…pick it up.”
Samuel looked at the slimy eyeball, with its thin red veins around the green iris. He lifted his hand but was scared to touch it.
“What are you staring at?” He mumbled the question under his breath to the eyeball.
When his hand was near enough he closed his own eyes tight shut, because somehow it made it all seem less disgusting if he couldn’t see what he was actually doing.
“There,” he said, picking it up. “I’ve got it. Who shall I give it to?”
“Well, I think it be Troll-Daughter’s turn to—” said Troll-Father timidly, but he was interrupted by his wife.
“I think it’s probably best to give it back to me, sir,” said Troll-Mother.
She moved toward the bed and Samuel handed her the eyeball, which she forced back into place in the center of her forehead, blinking a few times until it felt just right.
“What a helpful human!” she said. “I be so sorry that you had to see my children behave so awful badly.”
“I didn’t notice,” said Samuel, looking at the two eyeless child trolls as they stood perfectly still and quiet once again.
“Now, now, that is very kind, but most untrue,” said Troll-Mother. “That is just your human manners shining out. They be most horrid. Most horrid. Not clean and polite like you, sir. Not like you at all.”
“They not be that bad,” insisted Troll-Father.
“You are too soft with them, that’s the trouble,” said Troll-Mother. “When I was a youngster my father would whip me for two hours, just for scratching my eyehole. These two little rotters only get to see the whipping post two times a month, and even then it is only for ten lashes. Ten lashes! What use that be?”
Samuel gulped. Maybe it was better to have no parents at all than troll parents. Even Aunt Eda didn’t seem very strict compared to Troll-Mother.
“Now, why don’t you stay for some supper? I’ve already skinned the rabbit. It will be ready in no time…” She smiled at the thought of having a human stay for supper. “The villagers will be so jealous! A real-life human!”
Samuel looked at the floor, and tried not to look too disgusted at the sight of the trolls’ three-toed feet. “I need to find my sister,” he said, but Troll-Mother didn’t seem to be listening. She just went into the kitchen and began chopping the skinned rabbit with the bloody knife Samuel had carried into the house.
While his children tormented Ibsen, Troll-Father found the bed, and sat down near Samuel’s legs.
He offered a meek smile. “She’s always dreamed of having a human come to visit,” he said. “I think she just wants to make up for clouting you around the head with that flenking great saucepan.”
“I know,” said Samuel. “It’s very kind, really. But I have to go and find my sister. I have to get back to the road.”
Troll-Father closed his eye socket. “If you don’t mind me saying, sir. It’s probably not a good idea you going to the Changemaker.”
“But I have to rescue my sister.”
Troll-Father sighed a heavy sigh. “Nobody who be sent to the Changemaker ever comes back, if you understand me, sir. He be…very dangerous, sir. He has turned the forest into a very bad place. That is why we trolls never go out in the daylight. We’ve got to protect our shadows, see.” Troll-Father believed what he was saying. He didn’t know that the Changemaker and the Shadow Witch couldn’t steal troll shadows because of their heaviness. In fact, troll shadows are a lot heavier than troll brains, which might explain why Troll-Father had never worked it out. But the next thing he told Samuel was perfectly true. “If the Changemaker gets your shadow, you’re doomed, like them huldre-folk. They’re slaves to him. They didn’t used to be like that. They used to be nice, gentle fellows, so they did, sir. Living peaceful in a village near the border.”
Samuel remembered the deserted village and the skull with the wide-apart eyes.
“But I have to find her. I have to try. She’s…she’s all I’ve got.”
Troll-Father looked sad, and slowly nodded. “Very well, but you don’t want to take the road. It will take far too long. I will tell you a shortcut that will take you to the Still Tree. That is the tree the Changemaker be living in. I haven’t been there for years. Not since the Changemaker came and made all these laws…I’ve never seen him myself, sir. No. He just sends his huldres or his witch servant to do his dirty works round here…I would be going with you, but I’ve got my family to look after, you see, sir. I don’t want to end up like our neighbors. They were two trolls in the same body. Troll-the-Left and Troll-the-Right, they called them. One night they headed out of the troll territory and tried to escape the forest, but they got captured by the huldres…I can’t let anything like that happen to me. I can’t leave my family, sir. I’m most awfully sorry, sir.”
“It’s okay,” Samuel said. “I understand.”
So Troll-Father told Samuel the shortcut, which was: “Head away from the road on the narrow path that leads out of Trollhelm. Keep going until you reach an open plain. This is not the clearing, but you must cross it to get there. Travel through the plain to the woods on the other side. You will see a path. This path be leading directly to the Changemaker’s clearing…But before you set off, you and your dog should eat. You’ll go a lot slower on an empty stomach, you will. A bit of food will help that aching head, sir. Come on, sir. I’ll be helping you out of bed. Troll-Mother, can I have the eye while I help Samuel Blink out of bed?”
And so it was that Samuel came to eat rabbit casserole with the troll family. He had never eaten rabbit before, and didn’t particularly like it very much, but he was hungry and would need all the strength he could get if he was to face the Changemaker. He found it weird eating such a big meal in the middle of the night, but he tried to be as polite as he could.
“Would you like some hurgleberry wine, sir?” Troll-Mother asked, pouring herself and Troll-Father a goblet of purple wine.
“No, thank you,” Samuel said.
“You don’t mind if we be having some, do you?”
“No. Of course not.”
Troll-Mother shook her head. “Such good manners you humans be having.”
During their mealtime conversation, Samuel corrected a few of the trolls’ beliefs about humans.
Troll-Father in particular looked increasingly disappointed as he discovered that:
1. Humans do NOT live to be eight hundred years old.
2. Humans do NOT have a belly button in their backs as well as their fronts. (Samuel had to lift up his sweater to prove this.)
3. Humans did NOT climb a big ladder and cut two holes in the sky for the sun and the moon to shine through.
4. Human babies do NOT know longer words than human grown-ups.
5. Humans do NOT all get along together in peace.
This last point saddened Troll-Father so much a tear ran down the middle of his face and dripped off the end of his nose.
“Do humans have wars?” Troll-Father asked.
“Yes,” Samuel said.
Troll-Father shook his head in disbelief. “No. No. You are not like that. I can tell. Have you started any wars?”
Samuel laughed. “I am twelve years old. I’m only a child. Only the leaders of countries make those decisions. Prime ministers. Kings. Presidents.”
There was a pause, and then Troll-Son asked: “Do humans got parents, Samuel Blink?”
“What sort of question is that!” Troll-Mother boomed. “That’s a rude, hipperty question. I be so sorry, sir…Troll-Daughter, I hear you be scratching. Get your finger out of your eye socket, right now! Anyhow, I be so sorry, sir. You do not be answering him if you not want.”
“It’s okay,” said Samuel. “Yes, they have parents.”
“Do you got parents, Samuel Blink?”
“No. They’re…dead.”
There was a long, long silence. And then Troll-Father, who still had the eye, looked around the stone walls of his house. “There is an old troll saying, sir: ‘The present is a home built with the stones of the past.’”
“Oh,” said Samuel, not knowing what Troll-Father was going on about, but pretending to all the same.
