Free Troll Bridge by Jane Yolen Page A

done.” A great belch shook the door. “When all my dinners be done.”
    â€œBah!” Jakob heard the scrape of a chair being pushed back. “All you do be eat, husband. I be finding Oddi myself. Before sunrise.”
    There were footsteps and the sound of a door creaking open, then slamming. Aenmarr grunted. “All you be doing is complaining, wife. I be going to Trigvi’s next. Perhaps she be more even-tempered.” Jakob heard Aenmarr’s chair sliding back. “ Huldres when you woo them, and hags once you marry.” His voice was growing softer as he moved away, like thunder from far off. “As sure as the sun turns you to stone.”
    Jakob heard the sound of the door creaking open again, but no slam. Then silence.
    Collapsing against the larder door, Jakob breathed a deep sigh. Safe. For now. His underarms were slick with sweat, the same way he sweated when a gig went bad. The walls of the troll’s house seemed to be pressing in on him. It was a panic attack. He could taste the fear in his mouth, that awful iron taste.
    Oh God, no, he thought, trying to force himself to breathe slowly. Not now. He had to move. He had to think about his brothers. He had to breathe. Aenmarr was surely on his way to this Trigvi’s to eat one of them.
    Forcing himself to his feet, Jakob yanked on the big oval door. It was heavy as a tombstone, but creaked open. He peeked in. The room was unadorned. There was only a single long rough-carved wooden table with three large stoneware bowls on it, only one still containing any stew. Three high-backed wooden chairs sat around the table. A fire crackled in a fireplace that was as big as the ruined town car. And high up on the far wall, suspended by two wooden pegs tucked under its headstock, was Jakob’s guitar.
    He rushed over to get it down, but it was hanging too high up to reach. So he tried to haul one of the huge chairs against the wall.
    It’s like trying to move a piano!
    For a moment he stared critically at his guitar, as if blaming it for hanging up so high. Then he sighed. Probably couldn’t reach it even if I managed to get the chair over there, anyway.
    As he passed the huge fireplace, he noted the bathtub-sized cauldron suspended over the flames by a long iron bar. Vile smelling liquid popped and bubbled over the sides. Jakob thought of Oddi and gagged.
    No sicking up, he warned himself. He wondered if any of his childhood heroes—King Arthur, Spider-Man, Stevie Ray Vaughn—had ever felt this way. His mouth twisted wryly. None of them had ever encountered a troll.
    He found another door, a huge thing two stories high that wasn’t shut completely, and listened a minute, afraid he might hear the trolls returning. When he heard nothing, he pushed the door open another crack—which was a feat in itself as it was like moving a truck—and found himself outside.
    It was night. Pitch black.
    They can’t see me. I can’t see them. Good news, he thought, and bad.
    The heavy door creaked closed after him. He wondered if Oddi’s mother, Botvi, was still out looking for him. And he wondered how good troll ears really were. He was afraid he’d find out all too soon.
    â€œOddi?” he heard Botvi calling out in her freight train voice. “Be that you?”
    Yep, Jakob thought, I’ve found out way too soon. He scrambled away from the door, panicked and blind in the pitch dark.
    â€œWhere you be running to, my son?” Botvi said, closer now. “Hold still, you be looking so strange.”
    Oh no! he thought. Of course trolls can see in the dark. It’s sunlight they can’t stand. Reaching out his hand, he trailed it along the rough stone of the house until he reached the corner and the wall dropped away. Then he darted around the side of the house and—he hoped—out of sight. Charging off into the darkness, he ran as fast as he could. Maybe his eyes were adjusting to the