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“Just wait. Give them a chance. What if they’re just lost hikers?”
“Lost hikers?” The question squeaks from my throat much louder than I intended. “On private, fenced-in property? And you think your vegetation just got that way from, what, them peeing there? Come on, George, even you can’t be that naïve!”
“EvenIcan’t be that naïve? What does that even mean, Miranda?” He turns to me, and beads of sweat are breaking out on his brow. His eyes are wide with annoyance, or anxiety. I can’t tell which. Regardless of whether they’re trolls or just strange men in the woods in the dark, this is an uncomfortable exchange.
My heart is thumping madly in my chest. All ability to remain calm has gone the way of the dodo, for both of us. Panic blurs the edges of my vision. I try to remember any of the tools Maria gave to me and grab for the bracelet in desperation.
Forcing air into my lungs to prevent myself from hyperventilating, I look back at the men, trying to keep my eye on them as much as I can. Red flashes the evil smile of a cartoon villain, looking self-satisfied when he says, “Well,friends, you appear to be having some issues among yourselves. Perhaps you should go back to where you came from and forget all about seeing us here.”
The third man, the quietest but also the largest and most troll-looking with his dark hair cropped short, broad shoulders, and flaring nostrils, takes a step forward, effectively blocking the entire floodlight from our view. But the beams of our flashlights illuminate his grotesque smile as it spreads across his soft, round face. Many of his teeth are missing, and the few remaining look too big and circular for his mouth. They also look fuzzy and green, but I convince myself that’s a trick of the darkness. The alternative is too disgusting. George’s and my hands fly up, as if we’re facing officers of the law and not creatures of chaos.
“Hey George?” My voice cracks as I try to keep my volume at a level where he’ll hear me, but our three new friends won’t.
“Yes, Miranda?” His voice sounds similar to mine.
“I think these are in fact our trolls.”
“Yeah, I’m starting to think you were right about this after all.” His fast words cause his voice to crack.
The redhead troll is hopping from foot to foot with arms crossed. “Friends, here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to turn around and forget you saw us.” As Red talks, the big guy emits a strange green mist from his mouth. The glowing cloud grows larger and heads right toward us. “We’re going to continue living on this land until our clan can come to join us. Then, we’ll move on… You’ll never even know we were here. We have plans, see. Plans that aren’t necessarily pleasant. Plans that don’t have to involve you. We’re perfectly happy letting you continue on with your night, your land, and your lives.”
As the mist gets closer, George’s eyes freeze in wide discs. His jaw hangs slack. I know immediately he is hypnotized. Fuck. I’ll deal with George later.
I pull the pack off his back and put it on my own, flip the switch on my flashlight to off and cartwheel away from the cloud. Well, kind of. My moves are probably closer to the way cavemen used to jump around while squatting than to anything a gymnast would be caught dead doing. Still, I try to hide myself in the night so I can circle around and surprise them.
“Wait, where’d she go?” cries the mousey troll.
Luckily, these oafs seem to be as smart as I am graceful. At least I have that to my advantage. Now, with no artificial illumination, my Guardian sight kicks in, and I can see clear as day in the dark forest. Big Guy is still breathing what must be the worst smelling spell ever, directly at George. Surely, I can snap him out of whatever they’re doing to him once I’ve eliminated the trolls? Because I’m not sure how to fight foul gas right now.
Hoping to find something useful, I slip off George’s backpack and search through the goodies he brought for me. I raise an eyebrow as I pull a big coil of rope that I think is a thick paracord. Oh, I think I can work with this. The conversation I hoped to have, the one in which I would convince them to leave, seems to be out of the question at this point, and even with my training, I can’t imagine taking on Big Guy, much less him and his two smaller friends together. They may not seem as scary, but they’re still fucking trolls. So I am left with only one way I can think of to defeat them: daylight.
From where I stand, er, crouch and hide in the brush, I realize the three strangers are in front of the huge boulders along the back edge of the plot of rotten vegetation. I look at the semi-stretchy rope in my hands. Maybe I can make some kind of lasso from it. But would I be able to get it around them? I haven’t exactly had a lot of practice with a lasso. And by that, I mean I have had zero practice. I have only the one rope so I need to do this fast enough to get it around all three of them before they get a chance to fight back. I am not a fan of the odds that are definitely stacked against me.
On the plus side, the three of them are huddled together before the same boulder, one which is slightly taller than Big Guy. I hold the cord in front of me and unravel a few coils, estimating the total length I have. I don’t think I have many options on what to do with it.
“Hey lady, come here,” they call for me in a sing-song voice, as if I’m a dog that will trot up to them with my tongue lolling out.
I move behind Boulder Row, staying back so the trolls don’t see me between the gaps in the stones., I’m only one boulder away from them when I pause, and I can still see them through the gap. I should be able to fit through it when I need to. Hopefully, they can’t. Now, I need something to secure the cord to. Lucky for me, the boulder opposite the trolls is against a tree, large enough to hold strong but not too large in diameter that it eats up my length of rope. Even though I’m a long way out from being a girl scout, I secure one end of the cord around the trunk with a combination of knots and pull hard to make sure the rope will hold. It does for me, though whether or not that will be true for the three beasts I intend to restrain remains to be seen. They may look human, but I remind myself what I read about trolls’ incredible strength. They can crush cars with their bare hands! I’ll just have to trust my knots.
Holding onto the loose end of the cord, I creep up until I’m at the edge of the boulder nearest them. Big Guy, who’s roughly in the same spot where he breathed at George, stands between Red and Mousey but out in front of them and turned slightly away from me. Blindly, he continues belching his rancid, green, dark magic breath into the woods, attempting to spell me when he has no idea where I am. Mousey cowers slightly behind Big Guy. And even though Red seems to be the leader of this shoddy operation, he also hides behind his heavy.
Okay. I got this.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I need to move faster than I have ever moved in my life. But this is what I’m meant to do, right? This is what I was born to do. Silently, I squeeze through the gap between the boulders. Then, grasping the rope as tightly as I can, I just run.
Maybe I don’tjustrun. Maybe I also yell, “Go Go Guardian Speeeeeeed,” as I run the fastest I possibly can, pulling the rope around their waists before sliding back through the gap on the other side of the boulder. I know I need to get this cord as tight as I can, so I repeat the process twice more.
In my second lap, I make sure to pin their arms down so they can’t use their hands to work at the binding. The third time around, I get the rope right below their knees so they can’t slide out the bottom.
Because they were not expecting it, my plan actually works! The entire chaotic wrap-up takes me only a matter of seconds to complete, and I’m done with the whole exercise before they even know what is happening. I like to think the yelling helped confuse them, if I do say so myself. As I yank and secure the cord around the trunk of the tree, I hear them groan and grumble on the other side of the stone.
Grunts of “How’d she do this?” and “What is Guardian Speed?” hit me as Red’s solid voice commands “Stop thinking and help me get this rope off us!”
While I can, I run back to George, who is standing as still as the stone these bastards are going to become once the sun comes up.
“Come on, George. Time to go!” I call to him as I run by, but after two steps, I realize he isn’t following me. I run back and look up at him. “What am I going to do with you?”
But the words I hear are not from him.
