Autumn of Elves

by Joanne Vruno

  “Well, I’m ready for that nap, how about you guys?” said Dad. He stretched his arms above his head. “The couch is calling me.” He stood up and moved to the living room.

  Mom was next. She plopped down on the recliner while Emily looked across the table at me. I felt kind of sorry for her. I said, “I think I’m going to finish reading my book in my room. It’s really exciting right now, and I can’t wait to find out what happens next. When I’m done with it I’ll lend it to you.”

  “All right,” said Emily with a sigh of disappointment. “I’m going to take Chica downstairs with me and watch TV.”

  I watched Emily as she called the dog and had Chica follow her down the basement stairs. I then dashed to my room and made sure the door was closed before I turned toward Enar and Elsa. “I’m so sorry it took so long to get here,” I said in apology. “I didn’t want to look suspicious, especially after what happened today. Emily saw her first troll! We were at a picnic table at the fair when she started commenting about a girl stealing cookies from tables around us. When Grandma and I asked her which girl, she pointed to a troll.”

  “What are we going to do? Can she see us, too?” asked Elsa, her face full of concern.

  “We think so. That’s why I asked you to move to my room, to keep you two out of sight. Grandma wants you to tell Alf and Aina so there isn’t a chance Emily looks out the window and sees a gnome walking across the yard.”

  “Isn’t she too young to have your powers?” inquired Enar. “I thought she had to be twelve, not ten.”

  “Twelve is the chosen age. That’s why this is so confusing! Grandma’s meeting right now at her house with Silver, Dolph, Lunt, and your parents. With the thoughts of the light elves, a gnome, and tomtes hopefully they’ll come up with a plan. One of your parents will be contacting you to let us know what they’ve decided and how to handle this situation. Until then we need to make sure Emily doesn’t see anybody who’s not human.

  “I’m really scared she’s going to let others know you’re here or run into a creature that’ll harm her,” I continued. “That troll sensed that Emily had noticed her and was trying to get her to react. Grandma told Emily to calm down and made the troll seem like a small child. Not all situations may be as easy to handle, and with school starting in two days, Grandma and I aren’t always going to be around to help her. What if a creature enters the school? I can easily picture trolls in a school lunchroom. We know how they love to eat.”

  Elsa came over and sat on the bed by me and patted my leg. “They’ll come up with a plan. The elves will watch her while she’s outside. They can alert your grandmother if any creature enters the school or crosses Emily’s path.”

  “Elsa’s right,” Enar said. “Silver and Dolph will do everything they can to keep Emily safe and our existence a secret. I’m going to let Alf know.” And with that Enar vanished from of the room.

  With tomte speed, both Elsa and Enar could easily move around the house without Emily detecting them. It was just when they stopped moving that we needed to have concerns. I also wondered about their speaking to each other. I’ll never forget the first time their voices woke me up. I was scared to death seeing creatures right by my bed. They were doing their job checking on all the rooms in the house to see that all was safe. They didn’t know I could see them. I started screaming. If Emily saw them now, what would she think? I had at least known from Grandma that Silver and the elves were real before I met the tomtes, but even then, having a strange creature in my room was more than I could handle.

  My concern and worries about Emily’s safety grew as I relived all the strange events I’d endured over the summer. The dwarf encounters were definitely the worst! We almost lost Chica in the woods as she went after a dwarf. Chills spread up my arms with that memory. I definitely needed to protect my little sister. She just couldn’t go through what Chica and I did.

  Elsa, as though she could read my thoughts, said, “We’re all going to protect Emily. I think she can handle being taught to ignore creatures. She’s young, but she’s smart and strong, with a giant heart when it comes to helping others. It’ll work out. I just wonder what the light elf village will do if both of you have guardianship powers. I guess the colony will have extra protection, which is good. It’s just that it’s not typical for a village to have more than one guardian or maybe a guardian and a trainee.”

  Enar suddenly appeared. “Alf and Aina have both been informed,” he said. “We were discussing possible ways of handling this. After all, we’re all on the same side trying to keep both Emily and you safe.”

  “I always feel better knowing you two are here and Alf and Aina are outside,” I said. “Tomtes and gnomes are the best, and I think I got lucky to have all four of you. If you weren’t here today, I don’t think I could stay calm. I do hope we’ll hear soon from the others about what they plan to do.”

  I had both tomtes flanking me as we waited for some news.

  All three of us were in deep thought as Lina, the mother of the twins, appeared out of nowhere. She looked troubled as she first spoke to her children. “I know I do not need to say this, but I am anyway. Elsa and Enar, we need you to be extra vigilant. The house needs to be completely secure, and you need to always be aware of which room Emily is in so your paths do not cross until we think she’s ready for it. I know you two will do a great job with this.”

  Lina then quickly turned to me. “Aly, we want you show Emily the book on Norse mythology and the creatures. She’s very vulnerable right now, and creatures could use that to their advantage. If she knows something about each creature, their characteristics and descriptions, it should help keep her from approaching one. Your grandmother also thought that, if you talk about imagining what a world would be like with these creatures in it, it may help her get prepared. Basically, Aly, we may have you give Emily the first lessons of creature identification. She may figure out from a picture that the girl at the fair was a troll. If she does, that’ll give both of you a chance to talk about the dangers in reacting to trolls. This could open the door to her believing that trolls exist. Expand on that idea when it comes up that maybe it was a troll. Then bring up the fact that, if it was, you two need to use caution if you ever see anyone else that looks like a troll. Maybe suggest that, if either of you sees a troll, you promise to ignore it because the book states they’re extremely dangerous.”

  “That’s a good idea. I can do that. Maybe I should go downstairs now and show her the book. I can tell her it’s like the book I’ve been reading about demi-gods and creatures from mythology.” I headed to the door, book in hand.

  Three

  I found Emily curled up on the couch flipping through channels on the television. “Nothing’s on tonight,” she exclaimed with some ­frus­tration

  “That’s all right. I finished my book and it got me thinking about creatures from mythology and why so many books have these creatures in them. I remembered a book Grandma gave me a long time ago. I was too young to understand it then, but I thought it’d be interesting to look at now. Want to join me?”

  “I guess. There’s nothing else to do,” sighed Emily.

  I chuckled.”You know you don’t have to.”

  “No, it’s fine,” said Emily. “I was just looking for something more entertaining, but . . .”

  I sat down next to Emily as we opened the ancient book together.

  “Grandma said this book’s been handed down for generations in our family. It sure seems old. Look at the print, it’s in old-fashioned cursive. I wonder how old this book actually is.” I said as I started to turn the pages.

  “Can you read it? I’m not good with cursive, especially the curly kind like this.” said Emily.

  I started reading the part about the about Odin and the Norse gods. As I got into the chapter describing the mythical worlds of the tree of life and the names became too hard t
o pronounce, I turned to Emily and said “Let’s skip over this chapter. We already know something about Odin, Thor, and the giants from the movies. Thor, anyway.”

  “Sure, let’s get to weird creatures. We can go back later if we want to,” Emily agreed.

  I turned the pages and we looked at pictures of giants. I had quickly looked at some of these pictures last summer so it was good for me to read all about them now.

  “Man, they look creepy, don’t they? Some live in the frozen lands, and some just live in forests and mountains. Check out their teeth. It says here they eat people.”

  Emily leaned over to take a closer look. “Do you ever wonder who made these creatures up? They really had good imaginations!”

  The next page I wanted to go through quickly—the dwarfs! The picture was too close to the actual creature. I focused on the words as I read out loud and tried not to look at the picture that was too similar to the dwarf I had met this past summer. Luckily for me, Emily didn’t comment, so I turned the page.

  The elves were next. Emily immediately commented, “Now these I’d love to meet. They’re beautiful. Look how nicely they’re dressed and how friendly they seem.”

  I smiled. I watched Emily become completely infatuated with the light elves and their powers as I read about all the natural saving abilities they possessed. I knew she would enjoy meeting them someday. If only she knew how close she already was to that happening.

  Gnomes were on the next page. As I read their description, I thought of the four I already knew, especially Lunt. All those weeks of training to ignore him and then having him as my guard when I entered the woods. I had learned the most about protecting myself from creatures from him.

  “They look just like the garden statues,” remarked Emily.

  I turned the page to tomtes when Emily made a sound of surprise. I quickly turned in her direction as she spoke. “Aly, you’re going to think I’m nuts, but I’ve seen these creatures.”

  I turned my gasp of surprise into a laugh. “Where?”

  “Here, in our house!” Emily looked hesitant, almost ­unnerved.

  “Here? What do you mean you saw tomtes here?”

  Emily had gone a little pale. “I know it might sound strange. In fact, it is strange, but sometimes when I’m down here in the basement alone, I see these two little people-like creatures. I thought it was just my imagination, but how can I imagine something I never saw before? They look just like these in the book. Could we have tomtes living with us?”

  I wasn’t sure how to answer that. I didn’t want to lie and say no, but I didn’t think I should tell her, either. I hesitated before I said, “Are you sure you saw these creatures?”

  Emily nodded vigorously.

  “Well then, let’s read about them.”

  The description stated facts I already knew about tomtes. They chose a home to protect and guarded it from any kind of intrusion or danger. They were loyal to the people within their house, and their sole purpose was to keep every member of their human family safe.

  Emily turned big, wide eyes up to mine. “Aly, we have tomtes in our house! I knew they wouldn’t hurt me, that I didn’t have to be afraid of them. Wait until I tell Mom and Dad!”

  “Whoa!” I said quickly. I couldn’t let my sister do that, but how would I stop her? As I searched my brain for a convincing ­argument, some of the text about tomtes maybe gave me the right course. “Emily, it says here that some tomtes like to stay hidden from the families and only appear to a few members of the family. If they want to stay hidden, I think you should honor that. If they want Mom and Dad to know about them, they’ll appear to them. You wouldn’t want to frighten the tomtes, would you?”

  “But Mom and Dad should know about them!”

  “I don’t know. Mom and Dad’ll think your imagination ran wild. Remember when we came back from Grandma’s that time and told them about the adventure we made up? They’ll just think you’re making up another story. Plus, if the tomtes don’t want others to know about them and you tell a bunch of people, they might feel they have to leave,” I said, struggling to convince Emily to not tell anyone about Enar and Elsa.

  “I didn’t think of that. Do you really think they might leave?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know, but do you want to take a chance on it?”

  “Oh, Aly, I told you! I don’t want them to leave! What if I already blew it and they go away!” Emily looked so forlorn I wanted desperately to tell her our tomtes weren’t going anywhere, but knew I couldn’t.

  “Emily, we don’t know everything about tomtes,” I said as I put my arm around her shoulder. “Besides, we’re alone right now. Chances are they couldn’t hear us and don’t know we know about them. They’ll probably stay. I just don’t think we should spread the word they’re here. Let’s just wait and see if they stay around. You let me know if you see them again. Here, let’s see what creatures are next in the book.” I quickly turned the page and of course it was trolls.

  It took seconds before Emily burst out, “That looks like the girl stealing cookies at the fair! You remember her. Doesn’t that look exactly like her? The cookie thief was a troll!”

  I immediately started reading out loud about trolls. Emily absorbed the information like a sponge.

  When I got done, Emily whispered, “So they’ll attack humans? Does that means I could have been in danger at the fair?” In a moment, in a more normal volume, she said, “Hey, wait a minute, you and Grandma saw her too, didn’t you? Grandma told me she was just a little girl who belonged with her family members at the tables. You two can see trolls, too! Admit it. Did you know the troll could be dangerous? Is that why Grandma said she wasn’t feeling well and wanted us to leave so suddenly? Can you see tomtes too?”

  I didn’t think dodging the truth was going to help Emily. In fact, I suddenly knew I could help Emily take her first real steps into understanding the hidden worlds and creatures both Grandma and I knew were there. I smiled at my sister and squeezed her hand. “Yes to all the questions. We needed to get you out of the fair quickly before the troll came too close to you.”

  “So Grandma and you can see what I can see?” I pressed my eyes shut and nodded. “For how long?”

  “I saw my first creature at the beginning of summer. Grandma told me being able to see them is a gift that has been passed down for generations to some of the females of our family. Dad and Mom can’t see them and don’t know about any of this, and neither can anybody else. You can’t let anyone know or we put them in danger. That’s why I pretended I didn’t know about the tomtes. I think it’s time you and I go to Grandma’s. She’ll explain all this to you better than I can. Let’s call Grandma now.”

  I picked up the phone off its stand and tapped in Grandma’s number. Emily listened in as I spoke. I figured this was my best course of action, especially since guardianship might not be part of Emily’s being able to see creatures. But it was time for Emily to be taught how to avoid most creatures she might come in contact with. Grandma agreed all three of us needed to meet as soon as possible. She would pick us up around eleven o’clock the next morning. Until then, I was supposed to keep my eye on Emily and make sure our parents stayed in the dark about the creatures.

  As I hung up the phone and turned to Emily I felt the tables had turned. I was no longer the student but one of the instructors. I stressed to Emily the importance of secrecy.

  “Please, Em, don’t let anyone know about the creatures and do not approach any of them. All will be explained tomorrow.”

  Four

  The tomtes questioned me as soon as I shut my bedroom door, “Did she identify the girl at the fair as a troll?” Elsa asked.

  “Yes, right away, and she’s also seen you two in the house. She sensed you were harmless.” I gave a little laugh. “Emily actually enjoyed you watching television with her.
”

  “So are we to stay hidden if she knows about us?” asked Enar.

  “I think it’s best for tonight. When you go into her room, don’t talk. Maybe just one of you should check on her tonight. Tomorrow we’re meeting with my grandmother. Then we’ll hear her thoughts. I just hope she has a plan.”

  Elsa patted my hand.

  “Emily wanted to let our parents know about you, but I think I talked her out of doing that. She thinks at this point I can only see trolls and tomtes. I didn’t let her know I can see all hidden creatures. She also doesn’t know she most likely can, too. I’m leaving all that to Grandma to ­explain. Grandma, Silver, and Dolph make the rules in this situation.”

  “I can’t wait to meet Emily in person,” said Elsa. “But I worry it may be more tricky to keep us secret from your parents if we visit too much.”

  “It’s going to be tricky to keep this quiet no matter what’s decided,” piped in Enar. “Just think about it. Emily can’t know you’re to become the new guardian. Emily may also have guardianship skills. But, I suppose she might not. We have to wait and see what develops within her, and nobody knows when or if it might happen. You spent your instruction time with your grandma, away from others. You had the whole summer to learn what you needed to do. But Emily might be in school or here. I hope, if she is to get skills, they arrive when there aren’t other humans around and one of us is.”