Page 2 of Troll Charming

“Shit!” The spell is broken, and I am staring at the lit-up screen. My old best friend Beth is on the other end.That at least brings a smile to my face.

I pick it up quickly, but it’s hardly what I expected. Instead of her usual uber-perky excited tone, her voice is uncharacteristically somber on the other end of the line, and my heart sinks.

“I can’t make it,” she tells me. “Something came up, I’m sooooo sorry.”

“But we’ve been planning this for months,” I hear myself whining, the abandonment trauma from years ago playing through my voice.

Beth is super apologetic, doing her best to assure me she will make it up to me. I don’t want to seem like a total loser and let on just how disappointed I am, so I quickly adapt my tone to sound like I don’t care. “Okay, honey, well, we will really miss you.”

“That’s the thing,” Beth says, taking her apologetic tone to new levels, “Tammy, Pat, and Ally can’t make it, either. They would have called themselves, but things have been crazy. You know, modern life and all…”she tries to explain in her typically chirpy optimistic tone.

“What? All of them?” I interrupt her as I push through the tears forming in my eyes and my throat starts to close.

“Tammy’s son is sick with the flu, Pat’s fiancé surprised her with a nonrefundable weekend getaway in Mexico, and Ally…” Beth pauses. “She’s just Ally, flaky as always.”

“Oh.” My heart drops into my stomach. “I see, okay.” I should be yelling right now; I should be mad, but I don’t have the energy. “I guess that’s that. But what about you? I was so looking forward to catching up…”I am still doing my best to match her cheery tone.

Only Beth could be cancelling on me and make it sound like a good thing.

“Yeah, I’m so sorry, Alex. Tickets to Rob’s favorite band fell into my lap, and it’s only this weekend, and he will just be so excited! I’m going to surprise him. But you’ll have fun. It will be like your own getaway! A whole week in nature! But we’ll get together soon, okay?”

There she goes spinning this as a good thing, in typical Beth fashion.

“Okay, next time.” It would be too humiliating to admit how important this weekend was to me. To them, it was apparently just one of many options. I press the red button, ending the call without a goodbye, dropping my phone back onto the couch with disgust.

There won’t be a next time.Once again, in my group of one-time best friends, it seems I am the odd man out. They all have real lives and are just being too polite to tell me the truth. They have better things to do than waste a week with me. I heard Beth, who’s always their spokesperson, make their excuses, but I’m not sure I even believe they are real. I now wonder if they were ever my real friends in the first place. Or maybe, to them, we were just casual friends. But with all the abandonments I dealt with in the foster care system, they were much more than that. To me, at least. But time to grow up. I won’t give anyone the chance to abandon me again.

Choking down my tears, I pick up the brochure on the table. The hikers smile up at me from the glossy pages with their brand-new backpacks and designer hiking clothes, and the green mountains behind them taunt me.

“Screw them,” I mumble out loud. Screw them and their perfect full lives. I’m going by myself.

CHAPTER 2

“Timber!” The intense cracking from the old Phoenix tree falling to the ground deafens my long, uncovered ears. Giving it the final blow with my ax, I feel the thing sigh as if thankful to be released from its aging, crimpled body. Cutting it down was a mercy, as it stood for years, dying from within.

“There is a time for everything,” I whisper part of the old prayer. It was time for it to fall.

Since my return from my last job at the Ravenstone Realm Renaissance Festival, where magic creatures such as myself and others can walk more or less freely amongst men, I have been doing my best to adjust to this new life. At the festival, with the aid of various spells and warding, all assumed my appearance was a result of makeup. I had all but gotten used to mixing in unnoticed amongst humans. It had certainly been freeing. And working with my brothers in arms there to defeat the dark creatures that sought to enter our world through an ancient void had given me all the sense of purpose I had ever hoped for.

Having returned to my village, the elders have tasked me to serve with the team in charge of the defense and care of our borders. Though I am honored beyond measure to take on thisresponsibility, six months filled with removing threats of falling trees, keeping out an occasional errant magical mischief maker, and settling common disputes are, in a word, tedious. I need something else.

Lately, I feel like something is missing deep inside me, like a wound that has never healed. I realize my need goes down to my very roots. I need a mate, a female I can claim as my own. Like the felling of the tree, it is time. It is past time. At forty-five years old, I should have an entire pack of children under my feet, yet I am alone still.

I stare at the tree and think about the village, my home, like a fairytale, with its beautiful little houses, white plaster, and black trim. Three stories each, with giant fireplaces to keep out the cold and kitchens worthy of a castle. All were constructed in a time of simple rules. It was a time when trolls, ogres, fairies, elves, and all the magical creatures could walk freely instead of hiding in the shadows. We would once have been welcomed in the world of men, but now we are considered monsters. In the olden times, mates were easy to come by, plentiful and ready for claiming.

It was a time when cell phones, Wi-Fi, cameras, and computers were nonexistent. But in this time of technology, we hide and guard our village from outsiders. Our kind are spread out, separated and isolated in little enclaves and villages, making mingling and meeting potential mates all but impossible.

Every potential female in this village of monsters and magic makers is partnered, betrothed, or uninterested. And even if there were other magical beings nearby, no one new can penetrate our village’s circle of protection without powerful magic or permission, all but assuring neither them nor their friends would ever find mates here. This is home, and there’s no village nor land more beautiful, but I fear I will be stuck herealone if I stay and will probably end up just like that tree that now lies on its side waiting to rot.

“She was a beauty.” Troth, my fellow in this task and an ogre of the second rank, places his hand on my shoulder, pulling me out of my depressing reverie. “Her time was done,” he says rather gruffly, if not succinctly. Of course I’ve spent enough time with him to know he does indeed have feelings if you dig deeply enough.

“She’s stood there for over a thousand years; songs and poetry have been written about her,” I reply.

“This is true. My great-grandfather sired my grandfather under that tree. It was once the custom when one wanted a firstborn son,”Troth adds. “And now she lays here, dead like the rest of us one day.”

“The tree will rise again. It just needs a little rest before its new trunk climbs to the sky, and we will once more sing praises of its beauty. Maybe even more children will be made underneath its branches,”I say, looking for what hope I can find in the situation.

“If anyone can find a mate, that is,” Troth mutters. He looks at me and shakes his head. This conversation is an old one between the two of us. Neither one has been able to connect with a lady of our ilk.

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