Troll Or Derby, A Fairy Wicked Tale (16 page)

When I sang, and the audience responded, it was the most amazing feeling. I’d have done anything for that attention to never end. It blotted out all memories of pain, all sadness, all feelings of loss. I was whole again, at least as long as the music lasted.

Dave tried the old pig’s blood over the stage routine one night, just like that movie,
Carrie
. It’s not quite the big deal that it is for fairies, because some of them feed on blood, and they get really excited by it. Trolls, obviously, are not disgusted by it. But Dave had just seen the movie and I guess it was a wellspring of inspiration for the guy, because he’d locked me in a closet that same week.

Anyway, the bucket thing failed, and pig blood rained down all over the stage next to me, but only a drop or two got on me. Certainly wasn’t the big dramatic success he was planning. It was as if someone had placed a shield charm on me, or something. I dunno.

Well, the crowd roared with laughter, even though the blood didn’t “get” me the way Dave intended. My guitarist slipped around in it, my harpsichordist took a running start and slid through it, just for kicks, and the crowd went even crazier. We played Sunday Bloody Sunday and Jag beat his scepter into the ground and applauded. The whole crowd just ate it up (literally). It couldn’t have gone better if we’d planned it.

I knew it was Dave’s doing instantly, of course. But as I was singing, I couldn’t help but notice his doings. His face had gone from disappointment, to wonder, to outright pleasure, as he informed everyone that the bloody splash had been his doing. No one dared challenge him about how it wasn’t a misfire, of course. He was the rotten little prince of the Unseelie Court. No way.

It was following that show that I overheard Dave bragging about all the things he’d done to me that week. As long as Dave had an audience, he’d spill his guts just like a bucket of pig’s blood.

I had a hunch that today, that was going to come back to haunt him.

Chapter Eighteen

Have a Croak and a Smile

Deb

Harlow took me by the hand again, and led me outside the tent.

“Why did you bring me here?”

“I was hoping she would tell us more than that, frankly.” He crossed the aisle to a booth where tiny pixies buzzed overhead, tethered on what looked to be piano strings. A woman bent at the waist, her head inside a tub, where what looked like cotton candy spun around. When she rose to upright, her hair was as wispy as cotton candy, and bright purple.

Her shirt read “Dolly’s Delights,” and her face was printed on it. Except for the color of her freckly fair skin, she looked exactly like a life-size troll doll.

She called out to us. “Hey, what can I get ya?” She gestured to the booth. Cellophane-wrapped frogs, mismatched plastic Easter eggs filled with wriggling shapes, and a huge tub of iced bottles were among the offerings.

“Two Croaks, please.”

“Want me to open them for you?” she asked.

“Sure,” Harlow said.

She opened the bottles and the usual tiny fog of carbonation rolled out, followed by a loud croaking sound, like a bullfrog.

Dolly laughed. “Never gets old. Enjoy, kids.”

Harlow took a big swig of his, but I wasn’t so sure. Madame Zelda told me to be careful what I drank, and besides, if this was going to taste the way it sounded, why would I want it?

“It’s safe,” he said. “Doesn’t taste like frog at all, really. Just a little hint of licorice, maybe—but other than that, it’s basically cola.”

I took a sniff—the bubbles tickled my nose just like a regular Coke. I shrugged and took a drink.

“A little trivia,” he said. “You know how the real Coke has this big secret formula?”

“Yeah,” I said. “You going to tell me it’s magic?”

“No,” he said. “Well, it might be, I don’t know. But I will tell you that the drink as you know it now didn’t exist until after some mortal English guy brought home a Croak from the Troll Market, at the turn of the century.” He nodded.

“Well, you’re just a regular historian, aren’t you?” I said.

He shook his head. “Don’t I wish.”

As I was lifting the bottle to my lips, someone hurtled into me. “Deb, no!” A hand slapped my face, hard, and the bottle slipped through my fingers, crashing into the cobblestones.

“Deb! Deb! Don’t trust him!” It was Derek.

“What the hell?” I said. “What are you doing here?”

“Saving you!” he said. And then he jerked me hard by the wrist, away from Harlow.

I heard a growl behind me, felt the hot warm breath of the troll, and turned my head to look. I was so confused. What was my neighbor from the trailer park doing in the Troll Market? Why would he think he could save me? How in the world could he stand up to a troll, if he couldn’t even whup me at basketball? And did I really want to be rescued?

It took Harlow all of about three seconds to stop Derek. His beefy hands held the boy by the back of his shirt. Looping a finger down beneath the yoke of his tee shirt, he pulled out a tiny silver chain.

“Slave,” Harlow said. “Who’s your master?”

Derek was defiant. “I came to help Deb. Dave told me if I did some work for him, he’d tell me where she was.”

“Why would you do that?” I screamed. “You trusted Dave? Are you stupid?” All my anger and frustration poured out. “You’ve never been smart! You’ve always been a pest! Who asked for your help? Now you’ve gone and fucked yourself, Derek! Dave kills people!”

He looked as if I’d physically struck him, and much harder than Harlow could have.

“I—I’m sorry, Deb. I wanted to help you.” He stared at his feet. “Coach told me to stay out of it—”

“And you should have listened to him!” I said. “Look around you. Do you feel comfortable here?”

Derek winced. I don’t know what he expected me to say or do when he found me—but I was guessing not this.

“What exactly was your plan, anyway? You’d just waltz into …
wherever we are … and we’d walk out together hand-in-hand?” His face turned bright red. That was exactly what he’d thought.
What an idiot.

“Deb,” said Harlow. “Go easy on the kid. C’mon,” he said, turning and gesturing for us to follow him.

He led us further down the aisle of the market, until we came to a kind of cafe. The stall was extra-large, and draped in brown and black cloth, but beneath its canopy, vines and trees twisted, and flickering lights buzzed in the trees. Pixies.

“In here,” Harlow said. We had the place to ourselves.

“When’s the last time you ate, Derek?” Harlow asked.

Derek shook his head. “I don’t even know how long I’ve been here,” he said.

“Time flies when you’re sold into slavery for an evil troll overlord,” I said.

Harlow smirked, but pinched me on the thigh to signal that I should shut my trap.

Harlow ordered some kind of appetizer plate full of spicy dips and colorful foods of various textures. Derek dug in, greedily. I picked at some salty pretzelish cookies that glowed when you bit into them. I was afraid to ask what they were made of.

“Is Dave at the market?” Harlow asked.

Derek nodded. “On the other side—he sent me to spy on Zelda’s tent—told me to return to him if you went in.”

“But you only arrived as we were leaving?” Harlow asked, looking thoughtful.

“Right,” said Derek.

“Mmmm. Good,” said Harlow. “We can use this.”

“Use what?” I asked.

He didn’t answer. A shadow darkened the doorway to the cafe. The buzzing pixies began to flicker faster, faster. A tall figure approached our table. I recognized his smell before I saw his face.

He pulled out a chair and sat, grinning widely at me and winking. He patted Derek on the shoulder like he was an old friend. Then he leaned in and stared hard at Harlow, almost towering over him, before relaxing backward into his own chair.

“Well, well, Cousin,” said Dave. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Chapter 18.5

Smoky

Harlow

The last thing I needed was someone else to save. Trolls are supposed to eat people, not save people, right?

This Derek was adding to a list I hadn’t intended to start in the first place. I was minding my own business—well, minding Dave’s business—when I got sucked into this whole mess. If I’d known I’d end up with a to-do list of humans to rescue from a dark lord’s evil clutches, I probably wouldn’t have bothered leaving the mansa.

I sighed, and watched my cousin in silence. He prattled on with what was supposed to amount to some impressive story, I was sure. I’d never been one to fall for that crap.

We were probably about twelve years old, and I was visiting his family’s summer lair on Patoka Lake when I caught him tampering with an English girl. She was young—no more than ten, at the oldest—and he’d obviously glamoured her, because the look on her face as she followed him down to the fishing docks was one of pure rapture.

“Like shooting fish in a barrel, isn’t it?” I’d asked.

He’d laughed, making a gun with his finger and thumb, and firing it at the girl’s face. “Bang,” he said. She smiled in bliss.

“You want a turn with her when I’m done?” he’d asked. I wasn’t exactly sure what he’d meant, but I definitely didn’t want a turn.

“Where are your buddies?” I’d said. It was rare for Dave to not be surrounded by some passel of wannabe troll courtesans, or fairy fiends, always ready for no good.

“Eh, family time,” he said. “Jag didn’t want anyone here this weekend but relatives. You’re the only one my age.” He stroked the girl’s hair like a pet. “Said he wanted us all to bond, or something. Next, he’ll want me to call him ‘Dad.’” He stuck out his tongue in disgust.

There were tree trunks sticking out of the water, all around the dock. “Great place for fish to nest,” I said, pointing to them. “C’mon, let her go, and we’ll swim down there and bring up some eggs.”

I walked to the end of the dock and kicked off my shoes. That was back when I still wore them—when shoes my size were easier to pilfer from the garbage. Nowadays, no way.

I heard laughing behind me, and turned to see Dave undressing the girl like she was a doll. “C’mon!” he called. “Let’s hold her down and fart in her face!”

I was a coward. I didn’t know what to do. All I could think to say was, “Too easy, Dave.”

And then I ran. Well, swam. I peeled off the rest of my clothes and dove into the cold, fishy water of Patoka. I didn’t want to think about what he was doing to the girl. She wouldn’t remember, but that didn’t make it right. I wanted to drag Dave under the water and choke him. I wished my parents were here to ask for help. I wished I were stronger.

The tangled roots of the underwater trunks were teeming with life, and I looked at them blurrily through the water. All I wanted was to take a nice swim, just relax, but Dave was making it impossible. A bluegill swam by, and I grabbed it, without thinking. It struggled in my hand, flipping hard. I let go, and it swam into a hidey hole in the tree roots.

And that was it. I knew I had to try and save the girl. Everyone has fight in them—everyone wants to survive, even something with a teeny brain like a fish. It wasn’t fair, what Dave had done to her.

I broke the surface and came barreling out of the lake like an amphibious submarine on turbo. The girl was nude, and rolling in the mud on the banks of the lake. And Dave had an audience, now. A tiny blonde babe with enormous butterfly wings shimmering in a rainbow monarch pattern. April.

“Stop!” I said. I lifted the English kid over my shoulder and ran. April giggled with glee. The spitting image of her evil mother with the bloodlust of her troll father, that kid was some kind of monster, for sure. And her laugh was infectious. Even Dave couldn’t help but bust up, even with me in the middle of stealing his quarry.

We were about 100 yards from my cousins, and into the woods, when the girl’s glamour broke, hard. Her giggles and sighs turned instantly to high-pitched screaming.

I ran, naked, carrying that parcel of pure terror on my shoulder, for about a mile, I think. It’s been years and I can’t say for sure how long I ran, I just know I did so until I thought we were safely away from Dave and his fairy princess nightmare of a sister. I dropped the girl as gently as I could, with her arms and legs kicking and punching.