Windswept by Margi Preus

Author:Margi Preus
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abrams
Published: 2022-09-13T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

ON THE WAY TO THE MOUNTAINS

After fits and stops and coughing and sputtering, they jounced and bounced over what was left of the roads from the Other Times. Who knew anything could go so fast? Surely, they would soon reach the mountains!

Out the windows, the landscape went by in a torrent of color. Falling leaves—red, gold, yellow, burgundy—flew by.

By this time, they had all forgotten the advice the goat lady had given them about finding their way to her sister’s. All any of them could think about was getting to the mountains as fast as possible.

The youngers stuck their heads out the windows and hollered and sang. When the bus slowed and rolled to a stop, everyone piled out and gathered fallen branches, twigs, scraps of wood, and pinecones in the woods that lined the roadway. These they fed to the hungry engine. Then Puff leapt to life again.

Everywhere they stopped, they picked up twist ties, bottle caps, a raggedy tarp, lengths of string, bubble wrap, and plastic everything: bottles, jugs, jars, boxes, bins, lids, and bits and tinier bits. Everything they found was picked up, bagged, and stashed on board. That’s because Shortcut said they should always leave wherever they were on earth in better shape than they found it.

Once they got over the excitement, they settled in. Boots slept. Ren sang. Ant spent a lot of time scratching his antlers against a table leg. And Tag read. She read the fairy-tale book as if it were a field guide, gleaning whatever information she could about what kind of enchantments trolls put on people, how enchantments were made, and how they could be broken.

In one story, a troll turned a prince into a white bear. In other stories, trolls bewitched lads into wild ducks. They regularly kidnapped princesses and carried them off to their mountain lairs. Some of these stories she read aloud, then cautioned her listeners, “You can never beat a troll with strength. They are very strong and they can use magic against you. The only way to beat them is by outwitting them.”

“I don’t believe in trolls,” Boots said.

“You mean you think trolls are meant to be a metafork?” Ren asked.

“A metaphor?” Ant said.

“Yes,” Ren said. “You know, they represent something. I think they represent the worst of human nature. They’re motivated by greed, are only interested in power, believe untruths, are mean and mal-evil-ous. They’re like some people who convince themselves that wrong is right and right is wrong.”

“So you agree with me,” Boots said. “There is no such thing as trolls or fairies.”

“I didn’t say that. I just said that in the stories, trolls are metaforks. I didn’t say they were metaforks in real life.”

While her companions were otherwise engaged, Tag took notes in the margins of the pages, writing down any tidbit she could learn about trolls.

– “vast, ugly, hairy giants or ogres with a malignant character” she copied from a story.

– some have multiple heads

– they may share a single eye

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