The Troll Bridge by Schwartz Jenny

Author:Schwartz, Jenny
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-02-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

Returning to the School of Sorcery was disorienting. A month of picking berries in the Sighaway Forest, of playing in its glades, eating raw honeycomb from wild hives, and tickling trout in its brooks, had given me a new sensitivity to magic. I could feel the magic being ordered around via spells and charms at the school, and it had a weight to it, an edge, that was alien to the flowing magic of the forest.

I wriggled my shoulders, trying to adjust to the sensation.

Kelly smiled at me. “Thank you.”

“I thought you might like it.” I was learning to be grateful, but accepting gratitude was a whole different challenge; especially, when I believed it was undeserved. Yes, I’d thought of Kelly and picked up a sparkling quartz rock from the expensive gravel of a large posting inn on my journey home, but I hadn’t brought him a pebble from my village. His gift was impersonal.

My gift for Peter weighed lightly in my pocket. On the last day of my berry-picking, the silver werewolf had been there, and I’d spoken to her briefly, telling her of my troll friend and how he’d once guarded the nearby bridge, and how I’d like to share with him something from my month in the forest.

Intelligent blue eyes had studied me for an extended moment before she’d vanished. My heart had sunk at the refusal, but then she’d returned with the small stone that was currently stowed in my pocket. She’d spat it from her mouth. The stone was a plain black, neither shiny nor sharp. Just a black pebble. But it came from the forest. The Sighaway Forest had accepted Peter as another villager.

In exchange, and very carefully, I’d held out my hand with three seeds in my palm. “I brought these for the cook at my father’s inn. She likes to try new vegetables. She has the other nine of the dozen I brought home, but I saved these in case, well, in case the forest might like them. They are the seeds for cow salsify. It’s a vegetable like a carrot, but it tastes a bit like beef. Not a huge amount,” I’d added hastily as her ears pricked with interest. “I thought you might like to try it, if the forest is willing to grow them? I can leave them on this leaf.” I had an oak leaf ready. “For someone to collect them.”

Instead, the werewolf scraped a shallow groove in the dirt. The intent was obvious.

Obediently, I placed the three seeds at proper hand-width spacing, and covered them with the dirt.

The werewolf disappeared.

Back at school, the business of settling in kept me occupied until bedtime and spilled over to the next day. People dropped in to chat. Then there was my new study schedule to acquire, and Matron insisted that I needed all new uniforms.

“You must have shot up over summer.” Matron smiled at me. “You look healthy and happy. Going home agreed with you.”

When I finally had a chance to portal to visit Peter, he was enthralled with the small black rock from the forest.

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