by Logan Keys
Making a head cover out of her wet rag, Sally pitches her voice high and serene. "Oh Bartholemew, come and touch my hair. The ones between have grown so longeth. Let's be heathens this evenin’. Leave the candles a flickerin'."
A dry voice interrupts her charade. “Glad we amuse you, Anita.”
“Jared!” Sally jumps from the water and yanks a small towel from the dresser over her middle. It covers hardly anything, so she moves it up and down like she’s playing a game of foosball.
The official leader of their little establishment, Jared Boutenhuis, sits on Sally’s bed. His strange top hat caps a wiry spindle of hair, greasy and unevenly cut. Flinty green eyes focus from deep within their sockets in disturbing intensity, and when he speaks, a thick moustache bounces above an invisible lip.
Sally glances from the open door to the bed and back again as if she can banish the creep with a simple glare.
His gaze is busy though, snaking up and down her thighs. “Heard you were missing this morning.”
“Huh?”
“When we found Nelly sacrificed,” he says, with a suck of teeth.
“Sacrificed?”
“Well, what else is it?”
Sally shrugs. “Mauled maybe?”
His left eye twitches and then winks three times in quick succession. “Ain’t no maulin’ I ever seen that didn’t eat the entrails after guttin’ the prey.”
She cringes. “Lovely image. Thanks for that. So, what, you think I had something to do with it?”
Sally settles the bath towel at an angle which covers her somewhat, and Jared adjusts his pant leg with a noisy shuffle of boot scuffing the hard wood.
“City folk seem to bring the madness whenever they come,” he remarks.
“I don’t know why that cow looks like she was put in a blender, but I certainly wouldn’t have done it. I don’t even eat meat!”
Jared raises a brow and his moustache twitches as if that kind of cookery was enough to show just how the modern mind is not to be trusted.
After Jared leaves, Sally dresses herself in her city clothes and pulls her hair into a severe style, twisted at the nape of her neck. She’d show these idiots city madness, alright. She avoids the mirror (other than a cursory glance) before finally giving in to a single dust of finger pads along her jaw.
“It was a troll.”
Sally jumps forward, head connecting with the mirror before she turns to find Uncle Jimmy in her bedroom doorway, gun still married to his shoulder.
“You people really need to learn to knock!” She takes deep breaths, trying to slow her heart rate.
Jimmy lifts a cup and spits into it. “It’s a troll that done it.”
Sally nods slowly in confusion, eyes wide. “I, um, okay, I don’t understand. What’s a troll? Is that a spiritual thing or…?”
A laugh wheezes out over a lip full of chewing tobacco and Jimmy shakes his head, making the long grey hair fly around his bony shoulders. “No, a troll. Like a fairy-tale troll. Trolls under the bridge, Billy goats gruff, you know… troll.”
Sally thinks maybe he should see a doctor, too. Good. They can go together. She decides to tell him about her leg but Jimmy continues cryptically, “It ain’t just any ol’ city folk that brings them out either. It’s anyone with the blood.”
“The blood?” she asks, wondering if she should be encouraging him.
“Yup. They don’t mess with us much, but by chance you got any English in ya?” His beady eyes dance and he leans in a weave from leg to leg, what she can only guess to be excitement.
It’s best if Sally doesn’t bring him back to reality too soon. Or maybe she’s thinking of sleep-walkers and waking them up?
“My father was British,” she says, in a patronizing tone.
His grey head cocks to the side. “Your mother was a pretty lady. Had no idea she’d settle up with a European man, but figures. She was a flighty little thing, not really Amish material if you reckon’.”
“So, what’s my father have to do with this?”
Jimmy smiles, showing yellow teeth speckled with brown bits. “Fe fi fo fum, I smell the blood of an English mun.”
Sally opens her mouth in shock and wonders if maybe straitjackets are in order. “Isn’t that about giants?”
“Semantics. In some cultures, they were called trolls. Others, giants.”
Recovering slightly, she says, “So why doesn’t it come get me, then?”
“Well, what fun is that?” Jimmy shrugs and spits, leaving some of it in his white beard.
“I dunno,” she replies eyeing the chew with distaste. “I’m not a troll.”
“It is maybe wanting to drag it out. We don’t get lots of visitors.”
Sally rolls her eyes and crosses her arms, about done with the conversation. “That’s silly.”
“I thought so too. I’ve seen it though, ugly sucker, nothing like the fables. Well, like the scarier ones, I guess. They also sometimes look for kinship in folks.”
Sally swallows. “What?”
“Yep. Trolls get lonely too.” He waggles his salt-pepper brows, and she wrinkles her nose.
“Oh, yuck! I’m leaving soon, anyway. I’ve already put in my applications for a new position, so you and your troll can hang out all you want once I’m gone.”
He shakes his head slowly. “It’s best not to ignore this little problem.”
Sally bites her lip, feeling like an idiot for asking but the story’s getting to her. “Little?” she asks, in a tiny voice.
“Yea, you’re right,” he chuckles. “He’s one big son of a bitch.”
It’s Tuesday, and two days after the weirdest day ever in Sally’s life. Jimmy, she’d ushered out with the tisk tisk she uses for all geriatrics.
Jimmy, the man with a troll story.
Jimmy the loon.
There’s one time that she can recall that is a close second to it. Back in New York she’d had a cab driver swear he was a leprechaun, and he’d even promised a pot of gold if she’d only give him a rub for good luck.
But this thing with Jimmy… being related to him made it clinical. Now she’s going to have to add crazy to her family illnesses on that little sheet at the doctor’s office.
Inwardly she flinches, remembering the last time she’d filled out such documents. Number eleven. Eleven was going too far, was too many cuts. What was left to fix, they’d asked. It was already perfect. But there’s no such thing as perfect. Perfection is a myth.
Sally, the imperfect.
Today, Sally requests a carriage ride to town, for necessities. She waits at the end of the lane as it trots up with horses that look quite melted. Once aboard the old-style wagon thingy, they bump over the pathways toward civilization. With each lurch on the wooden seat her fear ebbs.
Every minute that goes by is another rise on the nut-meter for her great uncle and his bedtime story. No such thing as trolls.
It takes such a long time to reach the small shop where some poor soul has graced the Amish community with some sort of miniature grocery store. Bare necessities, if that.
Sally leaves David, her driver, and Horny, his giant horse (don’t ask) to go inside.
She enters the crammed and dusty shed of a shop, with wooden floor slats far enough apart to stick your fingers through, and grabs a wooden basket from the pile near the door. A man yells from the back a muffled string of words in greeting, but Sally’s miles away, eyeing the small selection of wine bottles.
When her basket is full enough to clink with every step, she grabs some more protein bars that don’t look quite expired and a magazine with last year’s fall selection on the cover. Too bad no crackers and cheese—that didn’t come from the inside of a spray can, anyway.
She pauses in the medicine aisle, looking for something for her leg, which still burns and itches like crazy.
“Can I help you, Ma’am?”
The store’s clerk approaches, a heavy-set man with Coke bottle glasses that make his eyes appear to t
ake up half his face, and a mullet that is a natural feature — being that the top of his head doesn’t seem to grow any hair.
Sally gestures toward the cabinet filled with mostly animal-type medicines. “I’m looking for some cream for a cut, antibacterial ointment?”
He seems to blink extra times per second than average as a rule, but at this it’s like his eyes have a seizure. “No, ma’am, we don’t have any of that. No ma’am, sure don’t. We’ve some creams for burns, sure do, but for cuts we don’t have anything like ‘at.”
“Well okay then, thanks.”
He leans forward to check her basket and Sally backs away slightly out of reach.
He spots the bottles, and this makes him grin, showing off a large gap in his front teeth. “I partake of the Good Lord’s juice myself. I figure if it’s good enough for ‘im to have, it should be law we all can have a nip at dinner.”
Sally can’t tell if he laughs at that or has a coughing fit, but to be friendly she smiles. “Yes. Well. Do you perhaps have a restroom I can use? It’s a long way back.”
She figures she’d better go before the bumpy return to the plantation behind Horny.
“O’course, we ain’t quite a barn! In the back there, to the left.” He snatches her basket before she can argue. “I’ll just ring these up while you go.”
Sally nods slowly, suddenly irritated. In horror, she glimpses her feminine hygiene products being towed away by the stranger, and before she loses her temper, she turns to find the restroom.
After using what counts as a toilet, she bends to check her leg which is extra painful today. It had looked so bad yesterday she’d had them order her antibiotics.
When she lifts the pant leg, inching the fabric up and holding it away from the marks, she gasps and then bites her hand at the sight. Even on the unmarred skin around it there are lines of red trailing up — “Ma’am! You all right back there?”
Sally pushes the pant leg back down quickly. Was the man standing by the door listening? “Uh. Yes! Just a minute!”
While she washes in the sink, she glances up at herself in the mirror. She can’t help but look closely, and after a moment she gives into touching one particular groove — “Ma’am?”
Sally glares at the door and then stiffens when there is a loud knock.
“Oh, for hell’s sakes!” Sally throws the door open with the hope it will smash into the face of the store owner. “I said just a minute. What in the hell is wrong with you people!”
Sally slaps a hand over her mouth in surprise. Her voice hadn’t even sounded normal, and she’d just cursed at a perfect stranger, in Amish country, too.
Paying quickly, Sally avoids looking at the poor man who’s become almost mute after her admonishing. His face is as red as a stop sign, and he drops the change when he tries to hand it to her with a nervous and shaky hand.
She tries to figure a way she can say sorry but the seething won’t leave so easy. Unreasonably, Sally wants to have another go at the man. Instead, she leaves with her tail tucked firmly between her legs, and her bottles of wine clutched firmly in hand.
“Looks like a storm,” David the driver says as she climbs up into the carriage.
Sally sighs and watches the scenery move by, hoping that he is wrong.
When they approach the road for home, she notices David noticing her bottles. He lets her off at the pathway since it’s too small to allow the bigger cart to roll straight up to the house. With a mumbled thank you, Sally is practically biting her tongue in half not to say something nasty.
What is wrong with her?
She makes for home on her achy leg with an extra feeling-sorry-for -herself shuffle. The wind increases and Sally’s eyes are tugged upward to the swirling grey. She wishes for her stolen boots because her heels are forced into a dangerous wobble on the dirt path and whose bright idea had that been?
Fell ponies run along the fence beside her, their feet making thunder before real thunder sounds in answer. All of their brown eyes are stretched until the whites show. Something’s spooked them. Sally squints into the edge of the woods trying to see what it could be when a large shadow forms. From this distance, it’s no more than a swarm of bees to notice and quickly disperses before she can tell what it is.
Alarm bells sound and the path quickly fills with people.
“Anita! Come quick!”
Everyone’s talking at the same time and Sally follows them out, still carrying her packages. They turn right, toward the town hall, and the sky opens up. The drops make polka dots on her silver suit, and too late she realizes she should have left her stuff back at home because soon the brown paper bags are soaked and weigh her down as she trails behind a stream of agitated towns folk, still unsure of what the ruckus is all about.
By the time she arrives at the town hall, most of the people who live near are already seated inside. She enters the wooden building to find Jared and Jane’s mother at the front of the chapel, holding hands near the pulpit.
“What’s going on?” Sally whispers to David, who’s leaning against the door jamb.
“Jane’s gone missing.”
“The little girl? She’s probably just hiding, right?”
Jared speaks first. “As many of you know, little Janey’s been missing since early this afternoon. I don’t need to tell you all how serious this is, and with the weather turnin’, we need to get out and search the woods ASAP. Every able body is needed, folks.”
When they file out of the building, it’s already dark. Some are holding flashlights and Sally’s surprised they’re allowed to use them. Her leg feels as if a fire poker has replaced the bone so that she has to step-shuffle-shuffle all the way home, back hunched over, head tucked away from the rain. A new throbbing in her face makes her huff through achy teeth.
She arrives and drops her bag on the table with a longing to open her goodies, but it doesn’t outweigh the sense of duty. She pulls on the boots to go back out into the rain and help with the search. With a poncho over her regular clothes she aims for the barns in the blackness.
The pathways are treacherous enough without her new, waddling gait, but the lack of moonlight even adds to the number of stumbles per steps. With all the animals tucked into the barns the pastures are empty, and spooky with nothing but the wind howling across the hills of grass.
Sally tries to ignore the flashed images of the cow with its guts spread out as she passes the spot where poor Nellie met her end.
Jared surprises her when he speaks quietly from his place against the fence. “Well, look what the cat drug out.” He flicks on a flashlight underneath his chin. “Boo.”
Sally tries to go around him but he blocks her path. “Oh, come on, city girl. I’s just havin’ some fun.”
“Where are they looking?”
“Does it matter?” Jared comes up close enough that she can smell the alcohol on his breath.
Her eyes narrow. “Have you been drinking?”
Jared shakes his head, but it makes his entire body sway, giving himself away.
“You’re drunk!” Sally practically cackles at the idea before she turns to go look for the group herself.
“Ah, now, stop your pretending, Anita. Tell me where the girl is.”
Arms out like a pinwheel, she spins back to face him. “Are you crazy!”
Jared chuckles cryptically and faster than a snake he snatches one of her arms in his grip. “Everything lately, it’s all gone catawampus. The only common factor’s one lone city gal marching around in spike heels and tight pants.” His hold intensifies and Sally’s panic rises. “I think you stole our Janey. Yep, I do. Probably sent her to the city for them to paint her face up like a whore. I saw your pictures, you know?”
“Let go of my arm!” She tries to yank it free.
“Those photos of your mod-el-in’. Some you’re practically naked.” Jared releases her arm abruptly and Sally stumbles backward.
“I just want to go help look for Jane. Shouldn’t that
be what you’re doing?”
“Sure. Let’s go together, you an’ me.” Jared gestures for her to lead the way.
They walk the fence line a few steps, Jared behind Sally, and he lets out a whistle. “One of the shots had you on some island-lookin’ place. Mi-ghty fine if I do say so myself. Now is that just a backdrop or do they actually send you out to a beach with your ass hiked in the air like that?”
She refuses to look back at him. “Nice language. Isn’t that like sinful or something?”
“You like puttin’ all that skin out there for the men folk? Causin’ good ones like me to look and think about your wares. Knowin’ all the time you would give it up for the asking. But I’m onto your tricks, Jezebel; we fight against the temptations like you ‘round here.”
Sally stops at the gate and Jared bumps into her. She spins around. “Back off, Jared!”
His eyes have a strange light in them she hadn’t noticed before. Jared forces her against fence and their bodies rub as she fumbles with the rusty latch behind her back.
The thing’s stuck. Revulsion fills her as she catches a whiff of him: musty, male, unwashed.
Then, like a miracle, the latch finally clicks, and she throws the gate open. Jared lunges after but she ducks under his arm and runs through.
Sally bolts, boots flapping in the dirt as she makes a beeline for the woods, one leg taking shorter steps than the other. “Help! Somebody help me!”
Jared pants close behind when she turns onto the path she’d taken that first night in the woods.
“Which way? Which way?” he taunts.
No matter how she weaves, he keeps pace. Even with him drunk she can’t outrun him with her bum leg. Sally dodges tree trunks, trips over roots, splatters through a shallow stream, and Jared splashes right behind her making barking noises and growling.
The open meadow comes into view, and she flies across the evenly footed area.
Silence is a blessing as she slows to a halt, lungs sawing in and out, hands on her knees. She looks around but Jared’s gone. She’s finally lost him.
