Cassie examined the wood. It was half-rotted pine and looked brittle. She wondered if she could break it down. She licked her lips. Throwing her body against a door, rotten or not… Did she have a better idea? If her contractions got much worse…
Cradling her stomach protectively, she rammed her shoulder into the door. It creaked. She backed up and bashed it again. She felt herself bruising, but the door did not break. She smashed into it again.
Cassie rubbed her shoulder. All she was doing was tenderizing her arm. After everything, to be stopped by a door… The thought made her feel ill. It couldn’t end now, not like this.
She rattled the handle. Owen used to fix the station shed door all the time. She wished he were here with his tools. Squatting, she poked the wood around the handle. She bent sideways and felt for a rock. Rocks, unlike doors, were not in short supply. Finding a hand-size one, she held it like a mallet and hammered above the latch. It thudded dully, as if the air around the castle sucked sound. Behind her, in rhythm, waves pounded on the rocks. After pushing her hair behind her ears, she struck harder.
She felt the door weaken. She whacked it with all her strength, and the wood splintered. Cassie dropped the rock and pried pieces of wood away from the latch. She wormed her fingers through the widened hole, and her fingertips brushed the handle. She jiggled it. Wedging her hand in farther, she groped for the crosspiece of the latch itself.
“Yes,” she exulted. She flicked it and heard it swing off its hook. Scraping skin, she yanked her hand out of the hole and shoved the door open.
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.
CHAPTER 30
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.”