Troll Bridge (19 page)

Jakob had never thought of it that way, but he nodded.

Foss nodded back. “Then you are a musician. And so is the girl.” The fox's lips pulled back from his teeth in an animal grin. “And I am the Fossegrim, a teacher of musicians. I will teach you to play such music as to make the lame to dance and graybeards spring up from the chimney corner.”

“Okay,” Jakob said, though that was a bizarre thing to want: graybeards and the lame dancing and springing. “But why do we both need to learn? And for what reason?”

“It will take two of you all day to do what the Fossegrim could do in an eyeblink.”

“Do what, exactly?” Jakob asked.

“Give me back my true form.” Foss sighed. “I have not felt an instrument under my fingers in far too long.”

“But why couldn't we do this before? We had the fiddle. All we had to do was fiddle away happily under the waterfall.” Sitting up, he glared at Foss. “Only you were so bent on killing the trolls that you risked all our lives while I was negotiating our way out.”

Foss laid his head back on his paws as if dismissing Jakob's concerns. He did everything but yawn. “I am sorry for misleading you, child of man. Aenmarr may very well have let you go. But he did more than just take my fiddle; he wrapped me in spells that tied me to this form and to this land. And as long as he lived, he would never have released me. Both the fiddle
and
his death were necessary.”

“How do you know that? Besides, what right did you have to decide
for
us?” Jakob's voice rose in anger.

Huddling with their mothers, the troll brothers flinched at the sound.

For a minute Jakob couldn't go on, remembering the head under the table, the familiar eyes staring sightlessly at him. His voice was strained, almost a whisper. “I didn't mean to kill anyone.”

“Not again,” Foss said, and this time he did yawn. But when Jakob's eyes flashed at him, he immediately apologized. Or as close to an apology as he could get. “You have killed no one, human child. Aenmarr killed his son. His wives killed Aenmarr.”

Jakob frowned. “Technically…”

“I do not know this
technically.
Nor do I need to. But when you are home again, you will know better.”

“Maybe. But you can't be sure.”

“Nothing about the outside world is sure, human child. But in Trollholm there are things that are certain. For example, it is certain that trolls are mean, ugly, stupid, hungry…”

“And fossegrims?”

“There is only one.”

“So you are it, our only way out.”

The fox said nothing.

Jakob thought about this, leaning back in the big chair once again. “So, once we return you to your other shape, you can get us all out of here? Every human—princesses included?”

“Yes, child of man,” Foss replied. “Yes, I can.”

“Okay,” Jakob said, and let his eyelids droop, shutting out the troll house as easily as the shutters kept out the sunlight. “It's a deal.”

“A deal?” Foss asked.

Jakob smiled. “A pact,” he explained before falling into a deep and much-needed sleep.

*   *   *

GALEN AND ERIK RETURNED, CARRYING
a princess apiece who they set down next to the others. They were quarreling about which girl was heavier and their squabbling woke Jakob. He looked down at the girls as his brothers went back for more. There were already ten girls lying there, side by side.

He'd no idea how long he'd slept. Seconds? Minutes? Longer? He didn't dare let that happen again. After all, he'd promised Moira to keep watch. But his nap hadn't changed anything. The fox still lay head on paws, as before. The three troll wives were alive and breathing, their sons by their sides.

“What about them?” Jakob asked the fox, gesturing toward the enchanted girls, pretending he'd never nodded off.

“When I return to my true form,” Foss answered, “I will lift the spell on them.”

“How?”

“Magic.” The fox refused to say more.

Jakob nodded, but noticed Selvi looking in his direction. She shook her head slightly, winked, then turned away. Jakob glanced back at Foss, but the fox's eyes were closed. He didn't seem to have noticed the troll wife's signal.

If
it was a signal.

Jakob was just too tired to figure out what Selvi meant by the wink.
I'll just have to play it by ear.
Smiling at his own poor music joke, Jakob rested his eyelids again until Galen and Erik returned with the last princess, a tall, slim, handsome African American girl, with her crown perched on a head full of dreadlocks.

“Come on, sleepyhead,” Galen called up to him. “We could have used some help here. They may be princesses, but they aren't lightweights.”

Jakob climbed down from the chair and helped them lay out the last girl, smoothing her dress down over her knees.

“When do you think Moira will be back?” Erik asked Jakob. But before Jakob could do more than shrug, Moira came bounding through the larder door, carrying the fiddle over her head.

“I'm here,” she cried, her breath in short pants. Obviously she'd been running. She noticed all the girls and counted them quickly. Then she grinned. “Let's go home!”

Foss leapt to his feet, yipping with excitement. Botvi and Trigvi jumped up as well. Apparently, they weren't as hurt as they'd appeared. They crossed the room in two heavy troll steps, heavy enough to shake the floor. Botvi grabbed up Moira, and Trigvi plucked the fiddle from her grasp. It was done with such precision, they must have planned it in advance, though, for the life of him, Jakob couldn't have said when.

Moira squealed.

Erik cursed.

Galen yelled, “Ladies! What are you doing?”

“Stopping the Fossegrim,” Selvi said from the floor.

Foss growled at the trolls, showing his teeth, and the troll wives flinched. But Trigvi and Botvi didn't drop their burdens.

“See!” screamed Foss in Jakob's mind. “This is what you get for trusting trolls.”

Erik ran past the troll wives into the larder and came out again carrying the two knives used to cut the brothers and Moira down earlier. The knives were half as big as he was. “I never trusted them,” he said, tossing one of the knives to Galen who caught it awkwardly.

“Good child,” Foss said. “Now, kill them!”

But Galen didn't move, for he, at least, had heard no orders.

“Wait!” Jakob shouted.

“Yeah,” Moira said. “Wait. I don't need one of you idiots to stab me accidentally.”

Galen froze, and Jakob threw himself in front of Erik, who looked ready to charge. “Hold on,” he said softly, putting his hands on his brother's chest.

Trigvi held the fiddle by the neck in one hand, as if she were about to smash it against the wall. “Be going now, ill-omened creature. Be gone from our house.”

Foss growled deep in his throat. The hackles on his neck bristled. “If the troll woman smashes my fiddle, none of you will ever leave this place.”

Trigvi hauled her arm back and Jakob shouted, “Wait!” Turning to Selvi, he said, “Mama Selvi, make her wait, please.”

Trigvi and Selvi exchanged glances. “Be saying your piece, Little Doom,” Selvi said.

Jakob took a deep breath. “We need him, Mama Selvi. I don't trust him, either. But if we are to forge a new Compact—one where I teach your boys to play, and Moira teaches you ladies to sing—then you are going to have to trust me.” Jakob swallowed and tried to stand up straighter, puff his chest out. “I am not the Fossegrim. I am not Aenmarr. I am Jakob Griffson, musician. And I swear I will not deceive you.”

For a moment, he was afraid that Selvi hadn't been convinced by his speech, for she was frowning. The lines on her forehead were like canyons and she sat as still as her stone husband. It was clear that trolls were not fast thinkers. But were they deep thinkers?

Finally Selvi nodded, her giant head moving slowly. Once to Jakob, and once to Trigvi.

“Be giving Little Doom the fiddle,” she said.

Trigvi snapped her head around. “But…”

“Now!” Selvi snapped.

Trigvi placed the fiddle in Jakob's hands and then turned away.

It looked like no violin he'd ever seen. Intricate patterns were drawn on the body, and the neck was thick with mother-of-pearl and bone inlay. Strangely, it had more tuning pegs than playable strings, with half of the strings disappearing beneath the fingerboard.

Jakob looked at Foss. “How am I'm supposed to play this? I'm a guitarist not…”

Foss interrupted. “With the girl.” He looked up at Botvi who was still holding Moira by the arm.

“The girl is going to have a bit of trouble doing anything,” Moira said, “if I'm not set down!”

“Mama Selvi?” Jakob begged.

Selvi nodded to Botvi, her great head moving slowly up and down like a balanced stone. Just as slowly, Botvi let Moira down to the floor.

“All right,” Selvi said, “now we be hearing you play.”

25

Moira

Moira felt awkward. She had her arms wrapped around Jakob, left hand on his elbow, right holding a bow. Jakob had the fiddle tucked under his chin, the neck balanced on his left thumb.

Foss pranced around them. “Good, good. Pull your elbow up a little, human girl. Good.”

“Let's get on with it, Foss,” Moira said.

“We will begin when you are ready. And I will say when you are ready.” Foss looked at her critically. “I would rather not have you two miss a note and turn me into a cuttlefish.”

“A what?” Jakob asked.

“A cousin of an octopus,” Moira said. “Don't you know anything?”

Foss sighed. “All right, we will try a simple song.”

“But we still don't know how to play this thing,” Moira said. “Is it a fiddle or a harp? A sitar or a guitar? Techniques differ, you know. Pluck, strum, bow…”

“You are musicians,” the fox shot back.

“Well,
I
am.” Moira frowned at the back of Jakob's head. “
He's
a pop star.”

“Hey!” Jakob said.

“Sorry, Jakob,” she said, “but it's true. You're not a
real
musician.”

“And you are? Because you play
classical
?”

The tone of his voice set her teeth on edge. She'd dealt with this kind of thing before. “Look, every teenager who strums a guitar thinks he's the next…” She paused, realizing she didn't know who teenage guitarists would want to be. “Andrés Segovia,” she finished lamely.

“Andrés who?”

“See!” Moira turned to Foss. “One of the greatest guitarists of all time, and he doesn't even know the name.” Sneering at Jakob, she said, “Because Andrés Segovia was a
classical
guitarist.”

Jakob's face burned bright red. He opened his mouth to retort but Foss interrupted, barking his annoyance at them.

“You both know what music is, and how to make it.” He sighed again. “Now pay attention.”

“What are they talking about?” Galen said to Erik. “And who are they talking to?”

“Haven't got it yet, big brother?” Erik paused. “The fox speaks in their heads.” He smiled. “And mine.”

“I don't hear anything.”

“He only speaks to real musicians,” Moira snapped.

Galen glowered. “And what do you call me?”

“Front man,” Erik said.

Foss ignored the exchange as he circled around them. When he spoke again, it was only to Moira and Jakob. “The fiddle is in the
huldastilt
tuning. Most
hardanger
fiddles would be useless after playing a song in this tuning. But the Fossegrim's fiddle is an exceptional instrument. The body is of wood cut from
Yggdrasil,
the world tree. Bones of the great worm, Fafnir, line its fingerboard. The playing strings are wound from the guts of the cats that pulled Frigga's carriage; the understrings forged from the same metal as Sigmund's sword.”

“Yada, yada, yada,” Jakob said. “Get on with it.”

But Moira had dealt with composers and conductors easily as arrogant as Foss. The only thing one could do was wait patiently until they grew tired of the sound of their own voices. Eventually, they'd want to hear some music.

“Little Doom, you will guide the melody with your nimble left hand.”

“While I flail madly away with the bow?” Moira said. This time she couldn't help herself. Standing with her arms around Jakob was embarrassing if they weren't actually playing music.

Jakob twisted to look at her and shook his head.

Shut up Moira,
she told herself.

Foss didn't react to her sarcasm. Instead he said, “You have had some training in bowed instruments. I can see it in your fingers.”

Moira gasped. How had he known? She hadn't actually played a bowed instrument since elementary school where she'd taken two years of Suzuki lessons on a quarter-size violin.

Ignoring her reverie, the fox continued his instructions. “Do not rely on the bow overmuch. The
hardanger
is different from anything you have played before. And the Fossegrim
hardanger
even more so.” He finally stopped circling and stood before them. “I will put the song in your mind. You have only to let it out through your fingers.”

Moira's eyes widened. That's exactly how she felt at times, reading a new piece, or playing an old familiar one—as if the songs filled her to bursting, and shot out of her fingers on to the strings.

“Ah,” said Foss, “you begin to understand.”

Moira nodded.

“Then let us play. This is ‘Fille Vern,' a simple dance tune.” He bared his teeth. “I am sure your trolls will enjoy it.”

Just like that, she and Jakob began playing. And as Foss had said, there was a song in their minds, and now they were releasing it onto the fiddle.