From the doorway, a rectangle of light fell onto the stone floor. Cassie stepped into it. She peered into the darkness. It was complete blackness—no contours, no shadows. Her heart thudded faster and she forced herself to stay calm. Wishing for her flashlight, she stepped out of the rectangle.
Behind her, the light dimmed, and a voice said, “No one ever tries to break in.”
Cassie bolted for the door. Her hands slapped solid stone. She pounded on the wall, but the door had vanished. Dammit, it’s a trap. She should have realized it. The materializing door had been too convenient. She pressed her back against the wall and strained to see or hear the troll. The room was as dark and as quiet as outer space. Her own breathing thundered. “Where are you?” she said. “Who are you?”
Without warning, the walls brightened like sheets of fluorescent bulbs. Sterile and white as a hospital, the room blazed. Cassie’s eyes teared. She squinted, looking for the troll, but the room was blindingly empty. “You aren’t a new one,” the voice said from nowhere. “You’re alive.”
“And I intend to stay that way.” Wishing she had some way to defend herself, she spun in a circle to see the whole room. “Show yourself.”
In the center of the room, sparking out of nothing, a flame danced. Cassie had expected a Cro-Magnon man with horns and fangs. Somehow, this flame was worse. Pulsing red and orange, it ballooned into a writhing jellyfish. Red spread into pink, and the pink jellyfish sprouted tentacles. The tentacles thickened into arms and legs that stretched like rubber bands. It budded a head.
Cassie flattened against the wall. Oh, that was not human. “What are you?”
The thing appeared taller than Cassie because its . . . she hesitated to call them “feet” . . . did not touch the floor. It hovered six inches above. Translucent, it shone like the blinding walls. Still shifting shape, it began to look somewhat like a woman.
The pseudo-woman’s skin rolled like water. Her face mushed into four noses, then smushed into one. Cassie swallowed, feeling queasy. “Can you . . . please pick a face?” She tried to sound casual, but her voice was shaking so hard that she half-squeaked the last word. She hoped the pseudo-woman hadn’t noticed.
Blue spread over her skin, and the creature drooped. Purple tears poured from blank eyes. “Easy for you,” she said. “You were born.” Her tears ground valleys in her cheeks, and then were absorbed into her neck. Soon, her face was concave.
Cassie had to look away. “What are you?”
“You would call me a troll.”
Cassie glanced back to see orange blooming on the troll’s throat. The orange swirled like a giant kaleidoscope, and within seconds, the rash covered her entire body.
“What are you?” the troll asked.
“Uh, human,” Cassie said.
The troll dismissed her. “We have no need for humans.” Spikes poked out of the troll’s skin. They flashed as they multiplied.
Wishing she felt braver in the face of this creature, Cassie said, “I’ve come to free my husband.”
“You are Cassie?” She softened her spikes like a deflating puffer fish. “You are the munaqsri’s Cassie?”
Cassie shivered. “You know me?” How did a troll know her name?
“Oh, yes.” The troll smiled, and her mouth slid to her ear. She looked like a garish Picasso woman, plus drooping spikes. “He has mentioned you.”
Bear had talked about her—to the troll? What did it mean? It meant Bear was alive. She felt her heart thumping like timpani. “He has? To you? Who are you?”
“I am the troll princess.”
Cassie froze. “You married my husband.”
“Of course.” She sprouted feathers on her spikes. Blossoming over her body, translucent feathers clothed her in seconds. “It was the bargain.”
Cassie wanted to leap at her—she’d taken Bear!—but her stomach seized. She doubled over, hissing. Dammit, they were getting worse. She puffed until it passed. Straightening, she said, “Bargain’s over. I’m bringing him home.”
“Oh, no, we’re not finished with him.”
Cassie didn’t like the sound of that. It sounded like . . . Her heart pounded, and her hands shook. “You hurt one inch of his fur . . .”
The troll princess laughed. “You are a funny thing. So lively.”
“I want to see him. Now.”
“We have no need for you to see him,” the princess said. Cassie felt cool wind on her back and heard waves crash. She glanced behind her. The wooden door now stood open. “You can leave. We don’t need you.” The troll princess waved her feathered tentacles at the open door. “Go on, it is no trick. I promise you are free to leave. You can trust me—it is a magic promise.”
“Not without Bear. Promise me he can leave.”
“I told you, we need him.”
“For what?”
Feathers combined into cilia. “He has to cooperate. The queen is disappointed in him. She had such high hopes for a munaqsri.”
“You’d free him if he cooperated?” Could it be that simple? Meet their demands and then Bear could go free?
“You could convince him!” the troll said. Excited, the cilia waved. She shimmered in the white light. “Yes, he would listen to his Cassie.”
Cassie didn’t trust the troll. It couldn’t be something good if Bear was refusing. She thought of the mermaid Sedna saying, No one knows what trolls want. “What won’t he do?”
“He won’t make me a baby.”
For an instant, Cassie felt as if her heart had stopped.
THIRTY
Latitude indeterminate
Longitude indeterminate
Altitude indeterminate
THE TROLL PRINCESS MELTED THE WALLS. Retreating to the center of the room, Cassie tried to tell herself that this place was no different from Bear’s ice castle and that the troll princess was no more inhuman than the winds, but it felt different. The troll pushed her jellied tentacles against another white wall, and it dissolved like a sugar cobweb. The castle itself was an illusion of earthliness.
Thick smoke poured into the room. “Do not be afraid,” the troll princess said, and blinked with three eyes. A fourth blossomed on her forehead.
The smoke pressed on Cassie’s skin like fabric, curling around her. She batted at her arms. Covered in clouds, the troll princess repeated, “Do not be afraid. We won’t hurt you.”
It wasn’t smoke, Cassie realized, it was trolls. The air was thick with trolls. In the squirming cloud, she saw traces of eyes and teeth, fur and feathers, arms and tentacles. Strobelike color flashed, like a surreal discotheque, and she panicked. “Don’t touch me!” She slapped at them. It felt like pushing through rain. She realized she had felt this waterair before—when the trolls had taken Bear, back before the castle had melted.
Hundreds of trolls pressed their flimsy forms against her, only to dissipate like mist. She thought of her mother, imprisoned here for years, and knew it was hopeless to have come here without a clear plan. She wanted to screech like the aspen. Bear was almost in reach. She couldn’t have come so far only to fail.
“Follow me,” the troll princess said. Through the wispy shapes, she shone iridescent. She bobbed like a floating Japanese lantern.
Gritting her teeth, Cassie elbowed trolls out of her way. The trolls melted, as insubstantial as ghosts, as soundless as wisps of cloud. It was an eerie silence. The only sound was her own breathing. The trolls did not breathe. Shuddering, she hugged her stomach. Her uncles had been right: This was no place for living things. All her instincts were screaming at her to run away, but she kept going, deeper into the trolls.
Her heart sank as she followed the princess farther into the castle and through more and more trolls. Who was she to think she could go up against this—whatever “this” was? She was just a human. She didn’t have any magic.
Her stomach squeezed, and she had to stop. Clutching her stomach, she panted. Trolls swarmed her. She felt their light, damp touch on her neck and on her face
. Colors teased the corners of her eyes.
Trolls thinned in front of her, and Cassie pushed sweat-streaked hair out of her eyes. She was standing before a dais of basalt. Filling the dais was the troll queen. Unlike the wisps all around her, the troll queen seemed as solid as a granite mountain. A thousand eyes coated her body like rivets.
Cassie straightened her shoulders and tried to stare back into the queen’s splintered gaze. She hadn’t let Father Forest or the winds see her fear; she wasn’t going to let this queen see it either. Even if her rescue mission was doomed.
In unison, the eyes blinked. “We have no need for another human,” the queen said in a voice like a hive of bees. “Why have you brought her to us?”
The troll princess floated to the dais. She was now a purple orb with a distorted humanesque face. She whispered to the queen.
With her thousand eyes, the queen scrutinized Cassie. “Interesting.” She closed half her eyes, and those eyes hardened into silver plates.
Cassie lifted her chin and summoned her courage. This was what it had all been for—all for this moment. She would face down a troll queen. She would not take no for an answer. She would wring Bear out of her, if she had to. “I’m here for my husband. And you cannot stop me.”
“Very well,” the queen said.
Cassie’s jaw dropped open. “Excuse me?” She must have misheard, or at least misunderstood. “You’ll let me . . . He’s free to go?”
“Convince him to make my daughter a baby, and he is free.”
Cassie opened and shut her mouth. “Can I talk to him?”
“Of course,” the queen said.
Cassie’s head spun. All he had to do was sleep with the troll princess, and he would be free? She bit her lip. Had he refused because he loved Cassie too much, or had he refused because he had not loved Cassie enough?
All around her, the trolls rustled. It sounded like wind in autumn leaves.
Out of the trolls, Bear came. Soundless, his paws padded on the stone. Cassie dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands. Her knees shook. Two feet in front of her, he stopped. His black eyes were unfathomable.
Cassie could not speak. She stretched her fingertips and touched his muzzle. His fur was as soft as she remembered. She buried her hand in his pelt. He nuzzled her hair. She threw her arms around his broad neck. “Good to see you, Your Royal Ursine Highness,” she whispered.
“You came for me.”
“Just in the area,” she said. “Thought I’d say hello.”
Bear dipped his head to Cassie’s abdomen. He pressed his furry face to it. Cassie stroked his ears. “He . . . she . . . is moving,” Bear said. He looked at her. “Can you forgive me?”
Cassie swallowed a lump in her throat. “Yes. You?”
“Yes,” he said.
She smiled, and then she hugged her stomach again as a contraction robbed her breath.
“My bears should have taken care of you,” he said, concern in his voice.
When she could breathe again, she answered, “They did.” It seemed like years ago that she’d been on the ice.
“Good,” he said. They were silent for a moment. Cassie wished she could find words—there was so much she had wanted to say. As she’d crossed the ice, the tundra, and the forest, she’d imagined this moment over and over, but this wasn’t how she’d pictured it, with thousands of trolls looking on.
“I missed you,” he said simply.
She flushed and looked down at her pregnant self, speckled with blood and dirt. “Hardly the movie star rescuer.”
“You are beautiful,” he said.
She snorted.
“You have a beautiful soul.”
“Nice euphemism.”
“On an island of trolls, it is a compliment.”
She glanced over at the troll queen. Spikes sprouted from her head and tail, outgrowths of the eye plates. “So,” Cassie said conversationally, “is she going to skewer us?” Her voice cracked on the last word.
He touched her cheek with his wet nose and whispered in her ear, “Tell me the plan. I am ready.”
She wanted to cry. So close! “Find the castle, find Bear. . . . That’s as far as I got. You have any ideas?”
“I cannot do as they ask. It is not possible,” he said. “They have no bodies. Otherwise, I would have been home to you in an instant.” Home to you—the words sounded like music.
Of course, he couldn’t impregnate a woman who had no body. He couldn’t even magic her molecules—she had no molecules. “Besides, I’d be jealous.” Her voice caught again.
“She cannot help us,” the troll queen said. Cassie gripped his fur—no! She could not be losing him again. The troll princess drooped blue, and the queen stretched a tentacle to stroke her, as if to comfort her. It moved through the princess’s body as if through water. She retracted the tentacle, and for an instant she was translucent. The queen, Cassie realized, was as shapeless as the other trolls. Bear was right—none of them had bodies. It was all an illusion. The queen’s eyes fixed back on Cassie. Pulsing orange now, she said, “Remove the human. We have no need of her.”
The trolls descended on them. “No!” Cassie shouted. Hundreds of trolls slid between Cassie and Bear and, crowbarlike, wedged them apart. She couldn’t lose him a second time! “No, stop! Please!”
Bear was shouting too. She fought against the trolls. Each one she pushed back was replaced by a dozen more. It was like fighting ocean waves. Trolls flowed into her.
Her stomach contracted, and for a second, Cassie lost ground. “No! Please, anything you want! Bargain with me! Anything!”
“No, Cassie! Save yourself!”
She shouted at the queen, “Tell me: What do you want?”
Surrounded by shadowy shapes, the queen writhed on the dais. “Life,” she hissed. Instinctively, Cassie clutched her stomach.
“Do not do it!” Bear said.
“You have life?” Wingless, the queen rose into the air. “You have life in you?”
What did that have to do with anything? Cassie looked down at her stomach and thought of her long journey here—it had to do with everything.
“No, Cassie!” Bear snapped his teeth and swiped with his claws, but the trolls still blocked him.
She’d do what she had to do to save her Bear. That’s what she’d done all along, all for him. Wasn’t it? With her arms wrapped around her stomach, she looked at her love and wondered—had she done it for him, or for herself?
The troll queen, body spreading like ink, flew above her. “We will keep you, then, and we will have your child!” she exulted.
Cassie felt the damp touch of trolls on her stomach. She swung her hand out to ward them off and struck only empty air. “Your princess promised my freedom!”
The troll princess shrank into a ball. “I didn’t know!” she wailed.
Growing like some mythical god, the queen filled the cavernous room. The trolls thickened around Cassie and Bear. Through wisps of gray, the queen throbbed orange and green. “Your baby for your king. It is our bargain.”
Cassie looked down at her bulging stomach. Here was her chance for the two things she’d wanted when she’d begun this journey: her Bear and no baby. Except that it was not that simple. It hadn’t been that simple for a while now. “There must be something else you want,” she said.
“We make no other offer,” the queen said.
Cassie stroked her stomach and almost felt déjà vu, though it wasn’t her memory she was feeling. She knew this moment. This had been her mother’s choice when she’d faced down the North Wind. This had been her father’s choice when he’d honored Gail’s sacrifice and stayed with the newborn Cassie. Cassie hadn’t understood it before. She hadn’t understood them. But she did now—the horrible frustration her father must have felt, having to make that choice, this choice. All at once, she forgave him; she forgave them both. How could she give up her baby? But how could she lose Bear? She needed him. She loved him.
“Do
not do it, Cassie,” he said. “Leave me. Please, I beg you.” She heard the words: If you love me, let me go.
She loved him enough to leave all she had ever known, to turn her world upside down, to come to this place beyond all known places, to risk her life, to almost die.
Did she love him enough to let him go?
Yes, she did.
The queen pulsed brighter. “What is your answer?”
Bowing her head, Cassie said a single word: “No.”
THIRTY-ONE
Latitude indeterminate
Longitude indeterminate
Altitude indeterminate
HISSING, THE TROLLS ROLLED OVER THEM. One troll was a drop of water, but hundreds of thousands were a tidal wave. More trolls flooded between Cassie and Bear. No, wait! She wasn’t ready yet! She hadn’t said good-bye.
Bear blurred behind trolls as if underwater. Muscles straining, he pushed at the tide. Cassie skidded backward. “At least let me say good-bye! Please!” She heard him call her name, and the trolls hissed louder. “Bear, I love you!” she yelled. Could he hear her? Please, let him have heard her. He’d never heard her say it. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” For everything! she wanted to say—for not trusting him, for endangering their baby, and most of all for failing to rescue him. She had proved to be her father’s daughter to the end. She had found her limit, the line she would not cross, the cliff she would not leap off. Bear was now a white smudge behind the gray shadows. “Bear!”
Her stomach seized.
For an instant, she lost her breath, and the trolls swept her up. She sailed backward and rammed into a wall. Her face smushed sideways against stone. “You’re crushing me!” Crushing the baby!
The walls melted, and Cassie spilled into the white room. Catching her balance, she ran toward the throne room, but the troll princess sealed the wall shut again with a word, separating Cassie from the other trolls and from Bear. Shouting, Cassie pounded on the wall until another contraction crushed the breath out of her. She felt wet run down her inner thighs. “Oh, no. God, no,” she said. “Not now. Not here.” Not without Bear. Not stranded on a troll island.