Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin (15 page)

“What’s wrong with the apples?” I asked.

“What’s wrong with the apples?” said Deer Horns. “Did you ever see an apple tree full of ripe apples this early in the year?”

I thought for a moment. “Actually, I’ve never seen an apple tree at all. They don’t grow on The Mountain, where I’m from. I’ve only seen apples off the tree.”

“Well, that’s no ordinary apple tree,” said Mard.

Bork leaned over the fire to speak to me. He had as much hair on his arms as I did on my head. “It’s
poisoned
,” he said. “You could have died … or worse. You should thank us.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“To sludge!” said Bork, lifting his cup. “And no poison apples!” The rest of the trolls grunted, “To sludge!” and they slurped down their drinks. Then they all watched me expectantly. I guess I had to drink it or be considered impolite. What did trolls do with impolite guests? I put it to my mouth and took a sip. It tasted like rotten vegetables, and it was slimy, and I think I swallowed a worm. The trolls all smiled and nodded.

“Ah! That’s the stuff!”

“Sets you up for life!”

“Makes you big and strong!”

I wanted to ask more questions, partly because I was curious, but mostly so I wouldn’t have to drink more of the sludge. “How do you know the apples are poisoned?” One poisoned apple seemed believable, but an entire
tree
of them was strange.

“Oh, the apples again,” said Deer Horns. “We’d best tell him the story, shouldn’t we? You tell it, Bork.”

“Why me? You tell it, Slop.”

“You found the boy,” said Deer Horns, or Slop, “and you make the story sound so pretty.”

Bork grumbled under his breath, but when he started speaking, his voice was low and dramatic.

“A long time ago, there was a witch, see? She was the queen of some other kingdom far from here—beyond
Yonder—beyond Beyond even! She tried to kill her stepdaughter ’cause she was jealous of her beauty.”

Gran used to tell me this story, and it was one of my favorites. The girl ran away and lived with dwarves, but the witch-queen found her out and fed her a poisoned apple—one that would make her fall asleep forever. But it didn’t work because a prince woke her with true love’s first kiss and all that, and she lived happily ever after with her prince. That was where Gran’s story ended, but Bork kept going and told a story I didn’t know.

“But the witch’s poison apple didn’t die. The dwarves (careless creatures) threw it down the mountain and it fell in the dirt. Soon that apple was dirt itself, but the
seeds
didn’t turn to dirt. Those seeds took root and grew into an apple tree. A magical
poison
apple tree.”

“Magic?” I said. “How do you know it’s magic?”

The trolls shifted and looked around.

“Because,” said Slop as he scratched at his horns, “the fruit is ripe year-round. What but magic could make it ripe all year long?”

They all nodded and grunted in agreement, but I sensed there was something they weren’t telling me.

“So if I ate the apples, I would have fallen asleep forever?” I asked.

“Until true love’s first kiss, maybe.”

That sounded as good as dead to me. True love was for fair princesses and maidens and knights in shining armor. The only girl I was even friends with was Red, and I think she’d rather hit me in the face than kiss me. Maybe she could punch me awake.

“Have you ever seen someone eat those apples?”

“No,” said Bork.

“Then how do you know they’re poison?” Something about the apples intrigued me.

“A deer ate those apples once,” said Slop. “I saw him, and the next day we found him dead.” He rubbed the horns on his helmet.

“Wolves got him, Slop,” said Bork.

“Those weren’t wolves. Those apples ate him from the inside out!”

“Enough about death and fruit!” said Mard. “Eat your sludge.” The trolls all got busy slurping and snorting, and so I did my best to blend in by holding my cup to my lips. Every now and then, I spilled a little behind me until my cup was empty.

But unluckily for me, trolls are very hospitable, and Mard took my cup and plunged it into the pot of sludge. She handed it back to me with sludge dripping down the sides. “You need more meat on you. Eat.” I ate another worm. It wriggled down my throat.

“So,” said another troll as he slurped the last of his sludge. This one looked very old. All the trolls had wrinkles, but this one’s skin had wrinkles inside of wrinkles and his tangled hair was streaked with white. “I heard the king got married.”

“King Barth-a-hew married?” said Bork. “Who would marry such an ugly thing?”

“I heard the girl can make things gold.”

“Straw,” I said. “She makes straw into gold.”

“A witch,” said Slop, the horned troll. “The king married a witch.”

“I can smell the trouble from here. I wouldn’t get within ten steps of that witch,” said Bork.

“Well, people don’t come within ten steps of us and we’re not bad,” said another troll.

“The witch who made that apple was bad,” said Bork. Others grunted their agreements.

I wondered if my mother’s family in Yonder were all witches. Were they nice witches or mean witches? Maybe Mother was really running from
them
.

“But they’re not all bad, are they?” I asked. “Some witches try to help.”

“Witches don’t help,” said Mard. “They just make more trouble.”

“You would know,” said a big troll, and Mard whacked him on the back of the head with her clublike arm. He whacked her back. Then all the trolls started whacking each other, and they rolled and wrestled on the ground. I stood quickly, spilling sludge all down my shirt. A couple of trolls came very near the fire, and sparks flew up in the air before they rolled away laughing in their grunty, snorty way. It seemed this was common troll after-dinner play.

I looked on as the trolls wrestled and snorted and punched each other, almost enjoying the scene, until one troll suddenly sank down into the ground beneath some leaves. All the trolls gasped. Quickly they hauled the troll out and began shoveling leaves over the place where he had fallen. Mard waddled over to me and tried to turn
me around, but then another troll slipped on the edge. Soon the entire mass of leaves was scattered, revealing something the trolls did not want me to see. I broke away from Mard.

Beneath the leaves was a hole and in the hole was a huge stash of curious objects: a boot, a mirror, lots of little boxes and trinkets that looked old and valuable, a coil of golden rope that looked oddly like hair, a shimmering cloak, and a golden harp. The harp was playing all by itself.

CHAPTER TWENTY
Trolls Smell, but They Also SMELL

The trolls and I stood still and silent for a moment, transfixed by the pile of treasures below. The only sound was the soft tinkling of the harp. “What is all that?” I asked. My words broke the spell.

“Nothing!” they all shouted, and a wall of trolls formed in front of the hole, shuffling me back out of the way.

“The harp is playing by itself,” I said, wide-eyed.

“No it isn’t. That’s the wind.”

“The harp is very sensitive to a breeze,” said Bork.

All the trolls nodded and grunted their agreement.

“Oh, stop,” said Mard. “You might as well explain it to him.”

“But … our secret,” said Bork.

“He
is
the secret,” said Mard. “You can smell it all over him.”

“Smell
what
on me?” I was getting tired of them
saying I smelled. All I could smell was the rancid reek of trolls.

“Magic,” said Mard. “You smell like magic.”

“Magic? You can smell … magic?” I asked.

“It smells sweet,” said Bork, “but also kind of … bitter, like a tart berry. It’s hard to describe, but the smell is unmistakable and it’s all over you.”

“Oh,” I said, furtively trying to sniff myself to see if I could detect sweetness or bitterness or berries.

“So that means all that stuff in that hole is—”

“Yes,” said Bork.

“But you can’t have it,” said Slop. “You can’t even touch it. We’re protecting it.”

“From what?”

“Humans!” said Mard. “Nasty, meddlesome creatures! They always cause mischief no matter what, but with magic, they cause the most mischief of all. Curses, famines, destruction, madness, and death. One of these days, they’re going to turn the whole world into a magical mess.”

All the trolls snorted in agreement. “Humans used to make us find it for them,” continued Mard. “Slaves, we were—or our ancestors were—kept on chains and sniffing like dogs to find magic things for humans.”

“So we started making people believe that we ate humans so they’d leave us alone,” said Bork. “My great-great-great-great-great-grandfather Bork is the troll who is hailed for starting it all.”

“Says you,” said Slop. “For all we know, it was
my
great-great-great-great-great-great-GREAT-grand
mother
.”

Bork snorted and continued with his story. “Bork the
Brave he was called. One day as he was sniffing for magic, his master commanded him to eat a magic bean to see what it would do.”

“I bet it was poison like those apples,” said Slop.

“Don’t interrupt,” said Bork, and he continued. “Bork wasn’t stupid. Trolls may be able to smell the magic, but we don’t use it and we certainly don’t eat it. Well, I suppose something just snapped in Bork that day. He snatched his own master and said he would eat him instead if the master didn’t set him free. Legend has it that he actually did bite him, and the master was so terrified he let Bork go. Soon other trolls learned of Bork’s successful escape and they did the same, threatening to eat their masters or their wives and children. One troll even bought his freedom by threatening to eat his master’s beloved pet goat.

“Then all sorts of tales were spread about trolls eating their human masters or their wives and children, and soon the trolls were driven from The Kingdom and Yonder and Beyond and anywhere else near humans. Now if we ever come across a human, we pretend we’re going to eat them and then we allow them to escape, so they can tell everyone how they were nearly eaten by trolls. It keeps them away, all right.”

“But you still look for magic?” I asked.

“Only so we can keep it safe from the humans,” said Mard.

“Oh,” I said. The trolls were coming closer to me now.

“The smell is strong on you,” said Slop. “Even witches don’t smell like that. You
reek
of magic.”

“Oh,” I said again. The trolls all huddled tight around
me, sniffing. Would they throw me into their hoard and guard me too? “Um … maybe I should go now? I need to travel to Yonder. To find my family.”

“Stay with us tonight,” said Mard. “It’s too late for travel.”

“Yes,” said Slop. “And, besides, it’s dangerous. You can’t be too careful.” They pulled me back to their campground like a lost pet.

When it was time to sleep, I learned that the trolls didn’t have houses or sleep under any kind of covering. I asked them what they did in the rain and snow. Slop looked at me funny and said, “We let it fall.”

Mard piled dry grass on the ground for me and then covered me with giant leaves that had soft fuzz on them, so they were quite cozy. “You’ll be safe here,” she said.

Exhausted as I was, it was impossible to sleep. The trolls snored like thunder, and their stench only got worse through the night. Troll farts, I discovered, are a hundred times smellier than the human kind.

But it wasn’t really the snores or smells that kept me awake. I kept thinking of that pile of magical objects and how the trolls could smell magic. They could smell it on me. And they kept a hoard of magical things hidden away from humans. Could it be that my stiltskin was right here, amongst the trolls?

Silently, I slipped from beneath my bed of leaves and
tiptoed over to the hole. It was covered again. I shoved aside some of the leaves and reached inside. My hand fell on the harp first, but I quickly put that down. If I brought it out, the music might wake the trolls. I didn’t see how it could help me anyhow. Of course it was magical, but was it a stiltskin? Did it grow from magic? I touched the boot and brought it out. It was old and worn, with patches and holes. Just a boot. I wondered what would happen if I put it on. I almost stuck my foot inside when I heard a loud grumble and snort. Slop was sitting in a tree right above the hoard.

“A seven-league boot,” he said. “Made by a witch in Beyond. Take one step in that and you’ll be over the mountains.”

“Oh. That would be useful.” I could get to Yonder in a blink with this boot, and I could run away if more trouble came along.

“Useful,” snorted Slop. “For each step, you’ll get a horrible itch that will last for seven years. The last chap who wore that boot has been itching for twenty years. We only got the one boot off of him. He’s still wearing the other and still itching.”

I held the boot cautiously away from me. Seven years of itching would surely drive a person mad.

“Do all these objects cause bad things?”

“All of them,” said Slop. “That mirror, for instance. It will tell you or show you whatever you want.”