***
Tami woke up earlier than usual. The soup was perfectly done and simmering over the coals. Using a potholder, Tami carefully removed the pot and silently slipped out of the house. She knew that she would be in trouble later for avoiding her chores, leaving the house while she was sick, or whatever her mother decided was her most grievous transgression. But now, she didn’t care about that. The thought of going back to Troll’s March should have filled her with dread, but Tami was finding the idea exhilarating. It was secret for one. If her mother knew, Tami would surely get the switching of a lifetime. And it was something that Kasha and her friends would never do; they had run away yesterday rather than go into troll territory. They would think that she was incredibly brave or crazy. Either one would be an improvement over how they currently felt about her.
The eastern sky was pale, but the sun had not quite crested the horizon by the time Tami made it to the forest. The heavy pot slowed her down. By now, her parents would be up, having breakfast and wondering where she had gotten off to. Out of habit, Tami scanned right and left, forward and back for Kasha and friends, but she saw no one. Once she tripped and lurched forward, nearly dropping the soup. But she did not, and none was spilled thanks to the tight lid.
The sun was all the way up when Tami reached the burnt oak. She continued on, along the path that the troll had shown her yesterday. The pot was getting very heavy and Tami set it down for a moment and rested on a fallen log.
She heard a congested, rubbing boulder sneeze come from not too far ahead.
“Mr. Troll? Hello, it’s me. I brought you chicken soup like I promised,” Tami said.
There were loud rustling and stomping sounds and then she saw the troll coming down the path. He looked terrible. His nose was red and profuse amounts of snot were running down his face. His breathing sounded like a rusty nail being drawn down a slate chalkboard.
“Tami? You came back?” he said.
“Of course I did. I promised didn’t I? Here’s the soup. My mother made it especially for you.”
She took off the lid and held it out with both hands. The troll looked at it suspiciously. He tried to sniff it, but of course, he could smell nothing.
Normally, one pot of soup was about a dozen bowlfuls. However, the troll raised the entire pot up to his cavernous maw and drank half the contents in two tremendous gulps.
“Hmm, not bad,” he said.
He raised the pot up again and quickly swallowed the remaining contents. Then, making sure that no drop or morsel was missed, the troll stuck out his long, black tongue and licked the bowel clean.
“I’m going to have to remember to really scrub that bowel before we use it again,” Tami thought.
“That was delicious,” said the troll. “Thank you. I think I feel a little better.”
“Well, you won’t feel better all at once,” Tami said. “But after mother makes me her soup, I always feel better by the next day. Well, I should be going. My parents are going to be mad at me for being gone.”
“Do you have to? I could show you my house.”
For a moment, Tami was afraid that the troll wanted to lure her to his house so he could eat her. But if he wanted to eat her, she thought, he didn’t have to take her home to do it, did he? Besides, they had made a bargain. Then it struck her; the troll was lonely.
“If it isn’t too far, I could see your house for a few minutes,” she told him.
The troll’s house was a large shack constructed of whole logs, stacked boulders, and mud. Tami was somewhat surprised that he lived in a house, even one as ramshackle as this. She had supposed that troll’s lived in dank caves or holes in the ground. And she thought she remembered hearing something about trolls living under bridges. Even more surprising were the animal pens. The troll had chickens, turkeys, and several boars kept in pens behind his house. The inside was cluttered with gnawed bones, rusty tools, a roughly hewn table, and, Tami saw to her dismay, a human skull. She tried not to let her distress show.
“Well, this is...nice,” she said.
“Sit?” he asked, motioning to a nearby rock.
Rather than be rude, Tami brushed off the rock and sat down. The troll sat down on the floor across from her.
“I saw you have chickens outside. I could get you the recipe for the soup and then you could have it whenever you like,” Tami said.
“I don’t cook,” he said.
“If you don’t cook, then you just eat all of those animals raw?” Tami asked.
“Yes. Today was the first time that I have eaten cooked food,” the troll said. “Good though.”
“Would you like to learn how to cook?” Tami asked. Looking around, she saw that there wasn’t even a hearth in the troll’s house.
“You would teach me?”
“Yes. But we would have to make another bargain. First, you would have to promise to stop eating humans,” she told him.
“Umm, can I confess something to you? I have never eaten a human,” he said, looking down.
“What about this skull then?”
“He died of natural causes. Wolves had already gotten to him when I found him. All of my talk about eating little girls is just talk. It’s why I don’t live with other trolls. The others used to tease me and drove me out. If you hadn’t come up with the bargain, I would have found some other way to let you escape.”
Tami was sympathetic. She could certainly relate to being teased.
“Okay. The other thing is that you clean in here,” she said.
“Clean?”
“Yes. Throw the garbage away. Air it out some. Straighten up.”
“I can...clean,” he said. “It is a deal?”
Tami held out her hand.
“Deal.”
A short time later, Tami was preparing to leave.
“Tami,” said the troll.
“Yes?”
“You asked my name yesterday and I said nothing. I did not tell you, because I do not remember my name. It has been so long since I’ve used it that I’ve forgotten it,” he said.
“That’s terribly sad,” she told him. “I could give you a new name if you like.”
“I would like that,” he said.
“Hmm, what name for a troll? How about Reginald? I’ve always liked Reginald. And people can call you Reg or Reggie for short.”
“Reginald,” he said, trying it out. He shrugged. “I like it if you like it.”
“I like it,” she told him. “I’ll see you later, Reginald. Hopefully, you’ll feel better tomorrow. You haven’t been sneezing.”
Tami walked along the path back toward Nakesh Village, carrying the now empty pot. Things had gotten a lot more complicated. What had been an exciting adventure, a onetime thing, seemed to have resulted in Tami making a friend. And what a friend. Reginald was much more complex than she had expected—was it possible that she could civilize him? Her whole village had lived in fear for years of the troll of Troll’s March. No one ever ventured into that part of the woods and the troll never left his territory. It was a happy arrangement. No one would be happy to learn that Tami had gone into Troll’s March. But perhaps if they got to know him, maybe they would feel differently?
“Hey look! It’s fatty freckle face,” came a shout. “Get her!”
Lost in thought, Tami had failed to see Kasha and her friends sitting near some trees that bordered the stream. She turned and ran back in the direction of Troll’s March as the trio grabbed rocks from the ground and began to chase. Tami had almost no head start and Troll’s March was still a good distance off. She could hear the footfalls of her pursuers drawing closer. A rock struck her in the back of the head and Tami fell. For a moment, she was dazed. She began to pick herself up, but a foot in her back pushed her back down.
“What should we do with her today?” one of them, a girl named Devni, asked.
“I know,” said Kasha. “Go tur
n over some rocks by the stream and get some worms. I bet fatty freckle face loves to eat worms.”
Tami heard one of the three sprinting back to the stream, laughing as they went.
Either I’m still dizzy from getting hit by the rock, or the ground is vibrating, she thought.
Yes, it was—a steady thrum, thrum. Then she heard heavy footfalls in the distance.
Kasha was going into graphic detail about how the worm would taste and feel going down Tami’s throat. She didn’t notice the increasingly loud, thumping footsteps. Her friend, Kuria, did though.
“What’s that?” Kuria asked.
“What’s what?” said Kasha.
“That sound. Don’t you hear it?”
“RAWR!”
Reginald burst out onto the path from the woods.
“Get off of Tami!” he said.
All three girls screamed. Kasha started to run, but Tami reached out, caught her foot, and tripped her. The other two did not get far. Reginald’s long strides let him catch them and scoop them up easily. He carried them back and set them down next to a cowering Kasha. He held out his hand to Tami, who took it and let the troll help her up. She was smiling.
“Kasha, Devni, Kuria. I’d like you to meet Reginald,” she said.
They were petrified. Reginald added to their fear by stooping down and bellowing in their frozen faces, gnashing his teeth and letting his rotten breath wash over them.
“Hygiene. Work on hygiene,” Tami thought.
“When you chased me into Troll’s March yesterday, Reginald caught me. And what were you going to do with me, Reginald?”
“Eat!”
“Aaahh!” Kasha screamed.
“That’s right. For a troll, young girls are a delicacy. However, Reginald and I came to an understanding.”
“Tami is my friend!” the troll said. “You leave her alone or you deal with me!”
“We will! I promise. We’ll leave Tami alone. Won’t we?” said Kasha.
“Oh yes!” the other two said in unison.
“Good. If Tami tells me you lied, well...” Reginald licked his lips and smiled.
Devni swooned and the other two had to catch her.
“Oh, and don’t tell anyone about my friend or I’ll have him come see you,” Tami said.
“We won’t. Not a soul.” they promised.
“Now go!” said Reginald.
Kasha and Curia began to run, half-dragging Devni along with them. When Devni realized that they were getting a reprieve, her own legs took over and she outdistanced both of the others.
Tami laughed as she watched them go. Reginald joined her, but troll laughter sounded worse than troll sneezes.
“Thank you, Reginald,” she said. “How did you know I was in trouble?”
“Nose still doesn’t work, but my hearing is just fine,” he told her, pointing to his large ears.
They laughed together again. This time, she didn’t think that it sounded so bad.
End
About the Author
Erik C. Martin is a native Clevelander, currently residing in sunny southern California. He has authored several short stories and, thus far, two fantasy novels which are pending publication. He welcomes feedback at
[email protected]. Check out his blog at https://martin-inabind.blogspot.com.
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