fifteen

“No lolo,” said Squeak.

“Oh, I’m not sad,” said Sylva. “Not anymore.” She had slept almost all day long, so she was full of energy now at dusk. The Bell fairy house was mostly neat and clean, but there were a few hairpins on the moss floor, and there were always a few sticks and twigs out of place, so Sylva had a bit of a tidy up, played a game of fairy peek-a-boo with Squeak, and then settled down to read.

She was just about at the part where the princess slayed the dragon when she heard a rumbling beneath the great-room floor.

BRUUMMMMM. BRUMM.

“Squeak!” said Squeak.

“Hush, Squeak. It’s nothing,” said Sylva, more sharply than she meant to. “Thunder, maybe?” But she drew her fairy blanket up close to her as she kept reading.

Not two pages later, when the princess had scaled the wall of the castle, the rumbling came again.

BRUMMMMM.

And again.

BRUMM. BRUMM.

“Oh no!” said Sylva in a whisper. “Squeak, I’ve tried to think it was something else. But now we have to face it. It’s the trolls, Squeak. The trolls are coming. And we’re all alone!”

Sylva peered out the window. She saw exactly what she was expecting: nothing at all. Trolls, as you know, travel underground, in tunnels, so their passage cannot be seen. But Sylva had spent enough time in Troll Tracking at Fairy School to know that trolls left clues as to where they were.

“Oh, Squeak,” said Sylva. “Is that a crack in the grass?”

It was.

“And are those roots coming up a bit more than they should?”

They were.

“And—oh my!—has a whole branch snapped off the spruce tree?”

It had.

Sylva took Squeak in her arms. There had to be a lot of trolls to leave this many signs. “Don’t worry, little one. The trolls are meanies, but our magic is more powerful than theirs. They can’t get past our birch-twig door no matter how hard they try.”

At least she hoped not. Sylva wasn’t actually sure what this many trolls could do. Trolls almost never pooled their magic together—unlike fairies, who often helped and shared. But if the trolls did join forces, if they wanted something so much they would put their differences aside—

“Oh, Squeak! Who could say what such powerful ancient magic could do!”

Sylva knelt down and put her hand on the soft moss just inside their door. She was listening and feeling for the trolls, not looking for them.

Brrrruummmm. Brummm.

The vibrations under the ground were getting fainter and farther away.

“They’re not heading this way,” said Sylva. “But where are they heading?”

She put her ear to the ground to listen harder. She had a suspicion she knew where the trolls were going to wreak their mischief and meanness. She hoped very much she was wrong.

But she could feel it.

The vibrations led past the Bell fairy house . . .

. . . around Deepwater Spring . . .

. . . alongside Cathedral Pines . . .

. . . and deep into the Windswept Gardens.

Which meant the trolls would soon be right under—

“Queen Mab’s palace!” Sylva caught her breath. “But why so many of them? And why tonight?”

Moonlight lit up Squeak’s fairy crib, and Squeak squeaked again.

“Oh no!” cried Sylva. She could barely say the words. “The trolls want to steal the Narwhal’s Tusk!”