Free The Toll by Jeanette Lynn Page B

down,
realizing where his fist now settled, sandwiched between two rather
large mounds, pressed up against my heart.
    Releasing me quickly, he shoved me
back. “Dinna flatter yerself, nugget,” he grunted, “I willna be
rollin’ ‘round in the mud wit’ the pigs. Wouldna be messin’ wit’
the crusty likes of ye.”
    Turning around so he couldn’t see the
look on my face, I had no choice but to expose my bared back to
him, slipping the voluminous bit of white material he’d offered
over my head. Smoothing it out, I gave it an experimental sniff,
somewhat mollified when it didn’t smell like a dirty, week old
stocking.
    Efficiently covered, I slipped off the
rest of my underthings and gathered them all into a pile beside me.
Shifting about restlessly, I still felt naked and exposed,
supremely vulnerable. My feet were bare against the cool metal
floor of the cage and I curled my toes at the
discomfort.
    “ Come,” he ordered, showing
up moments later, opening the door barring me in.
    Cautious, I stepped out tentatively,
ducking quickly under his outstretched arm, not wanting to follow,
yet unwilling to find out what he’d do to me if I
didn’t.
    “ Take those wit’ ya.” He
motioned to my mound of wet clothing, and I scooped them up,
docilely trailing behind. “Ye’ll be cleanin’ up yer boot mess on
tha wall first, then yer clothes.” Gesturing about as he talked, he
walked me through what he wanted me to do after that, in great
detail, and I felt myself sinking deeper and deeper into
despair. Is this to be my life now? A
troll’s slave?
    “ How... how long did Otvla
have to work off?” I queried cautiously. “How much was her toll to
pay?”
    Pausing, but only briefly, he spared
me a quick glance from over his shoulder before he started rifling
through a musty old trunk full of moth eaten garments. “One summer,
if she did as I’d asked, but it’d be two for ye, hers plus yers,
seein’ as that’s fittin’ an’ fair ta me.”
    “ Two seasons!” I shouted.
“I can’t be your indentured servant for two seasons! That’s
ridiculous! What did she do? And what did I do, for that matter, to earn my
own season?”
    “ Ye canna go back on it
now. A deal is a deal, nugget, an’ that’s that.”
    “ Explain!” I cried. My
chest started heaving and it felt as if the walls of the cave were
closing in on me, squeezing me, surrounding me, boxing me in,
constricting me tight.
    Biting my lip, I stumbled back into
the wall behind me, a whimper escaping my lips. It was almost as
bad as when he’d choked me, this suffocating sensation, but this
time the pain was inward and slowly creeping its way out, eating at
me from the inside out.
    “ I dinna have ta. Ye be
knowin’, anyway. Trespassin’ an’ all tha’, see? Ye agreed ta me
terms, an’ they’re reasonable enough.”
    “ Trespassing? That’s shit!
And reasonable to who? You?” I bellowed, tossing my wet clothes at
him before I took off, scrambling towards the wall that kept me
away from my freedom and the outside world. Frantic and panicked, I
clawed at it when I reached it, digging my nails in as I tried,
fruitlessly, to dig my way through. Unrelenting, unwilling to just
give up like that, I kept at it, even as my nails broke and my
knuckles bloodied, leaving behind small gouges dotted with
crimson.
    “ Ye done yet?” Troll called
from behind me. “There’s work ta be done an’ I aint got all
day.”
    Heaving with the effort to
keep myself upright, I crumpled to the floor, noticing my wet
clothes as they were plopped down right beside me. Oddly enough, my
cape was in the wet, messy pile too. Had
he found it? And if so, why? What am I saying? Who
cares!
    My shoulders shook as I stared at
them, tears silently slipping down my cheeks.
    “ I know what ye’re
thinkin’,” he grumbled as he wandered off, “an’ it willna be
workin’, ye hear. If ye run I’ll find ye. Willna be likin’ the
consequences.”
    Blinking to clear my