Most days, I love being a troll. Most days I love dancing. Most days I love being me.

Today is not one of those days.

Having to wear a troll costume for the spring ballet recital when you actually are a troll is pretty bad, but that’s not the worst of it. The worst of it is that the costume my dance instructor Marie gives me has a tail.

A tail.

Whatever you think you know, whatever you’ve seen or read in movies or books, trolls do not have tails. Yet, there it is–two feet of brown velvet rope finished with a black tassel, dangling from the hem of the costume. Even without the tail, the outfit would be hideous: a patchwork dress, its rough fabric dyed a muddy, mixed shade of beige and dark green. Follow us at touroftoowoomba for more interesting stories.

“Not even fit for a bridge troll.” That’s what Grandma would say if she saw it, and she’d be right.

“I thought we were getting rid of the tail,” I say, unwilling to take the garment from Marie’s outstretched hand.

“I know we talked about that, but the tail adds a bit of playful, trollish fun, don’t you think?”

She smiles. I feel like snarling, but what can I do? I have nothing else to wear, and Marie pulled some strings with the ballet people she knows to get me this costume. She even got a seamstress to adjust it for me (not all dancers are troll-sized, after all). The recital is in just over a week, and if I do well, my performance could help me get into the high school dance academy program next semester.

It’s what I’ve worked so hard for these last few years, enduring aching muscles, sore feet, bruised toes. Lately, I’ve also had to endure Marie’s choreography for this performance, tailormade to showcase my “particular talents,” as she puts it, meaning it requires a lot of strength and stamina, but not much finesse. I’ve even endured her choice of music, Edward Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King” from Ibsen’s play “Peer Gynt.” I didn’t say no, though I’d rather drop a boulder on my toe than dance to that fake troll music.

I’ve endured it all, but I don’t know if I can endure that tail.

I stare at the costume, at Marie, at her smile and then I do what I always do: I try to make the best of it. I take the costume. I say thank you. I put the hideous thing away in my backpack. But even as I do these things, a hot swirl of anger kindles inside me, and I know a troll-rage is brewing in my gut. The fierce magic crackles through my bones, from the top of my very large head and the tip of my very long nose, all the way down to my extra large, extra wide feet. I try not to let it show, but it’s no easy thing to keep contained.

Normally, we don’t look like monsters. We’re just tall and heavy and strong, with mottled grey skin, but in the grip of a troll-rage…that’s a different story. Most troll-magic changes how and what people see, and a troll-rage changes how others see us. It makes a troll’s mouth and eyes look terrifyingly huge, makes our teeth look like fangs, and turns our voices into a roar.

Dad says trolls shouldn’t use their magic around humans at all—it’s too frightening for them, too dangerous for us, which is why, here at dance class, I do what mom and dad have taught me to do ever since I was a toddler. I breathe deep and do my best to gather up the fraying shreds of rage-magic inside me, balling it all up so it won’t show on the outside.

“Are you OK, Tilda?” Marie asks, concerned, probably because I haven’t moved, even though my music is already playing.

I nod, even though I’m not OK at all, and I begin to dance. With every step and turn I remember the last time I danced to this awful music by Grieg. That time, I was five years old and my dance group at the rec-center danced with tails of paper pinned to our behinds. Seven years later, I still remember it vividly: how everyone else happily stomped around on stage, wagging their tails, pretending to be trolls, while I, the only real troll there, made the best of it the only way I knew how: dancing my heart out, while mom and dad watched, mortified, from the audience.

I dance my heart out today, too, spinning, leaping, turning, through the routine. Nothing can stop me, not even a troll-rage. Marie taps her foot in time with the music, calling out, “Make it more trollish!” I wonder how it can be more “trollish” if I’m not enough as I am: a big-boned, long-limbed, amber-eyed, sweaty troll, sizzling with suppressed troll-rage.

Finally, the music stops. I look at myself in the mirrored wall. I see my perfect posture, my perfectly positioned arms and feet, the frizzy blonde hair escaping the ponytail. Marie nods approvingly, meaning I did OK. I should hope so. By now, I know this routine backwards and forwards, but all I can think about is how much I despise that tail and Grieg’s music.

I wish I had another costume to wear. I wish Marie had picked some other music for me, but it’s too late for that.

Later, I think, because that’s what I always tell myself. When I’m older. When I’m a real dancer. When I get into the Academy. Then, I’ll be able to dance the way I want.

Right now, that dream seems faraway and futile.

“Did you invite your parents to the recital yet?” Marie asks. “I didn’t see them on the list.”

I clear my throat.

“You know…they’re really busy. Mom’s a doctor and she works nights and stuff, and dad works all sorts of strange hours on his TV-shows. They might not be able to come.”

Marie smiles.

“Surely they’ll take time off for this?”

Marie smiles a lot, and it’s the kind of smile that wills you to smile in return, and makes you feel guilty if you don’t.

“I’ll ask again.” I say, stretching my lips into what I hope is a smile before I sit down on the floor with the other kids.

“You OK, Tilda?” someone asks, and I nod, feeling the last of my troll-rage escape like a puff of hot steam when I exhale.

I ride my bike home afterward, pedaling hard all the way, trying to forget the tail, but I can’t.

Maybe I should skip the recital…

I try to imagine it: not doing the recital, not trying out for the dance academy, and it’s like watching my entire future as I’ve imagined it swirling into a black hole.

No. I have to make the best of this, tail or no tail.

Mom is on her way out when I get home. She works at an emergency room in downtown Vancouver, and as always, she’s in a hurry; peering down at me through the gold-rimmed glasses perched on her bulbous nose.

“Watch out for daddy,” she whispers, kissing the top of my head, and I breathe in the comforting scent of moss and leaves and grass that always seems to cling to her. “He’s in a mood.”

Mom has a fondness for understatements, so I’m guessing a full-fledged troll-rage is imminent.

“Why?”

“That ballet lady, Marie, called.” Mom gives me a look–kind, but piercing. “You might have warned us you’d be dancing to that music… I know it can’t have been your choice, but a heads-up would’ve been nice.”

“I was hoping to change her mind, but…she picked it special for me, mom, and she’s worked with everyone, even Baryshnikov!”

“I’m guessing she’s never worked with a troll before, though.”

Drooping, I think about the tail, while mom grabs her bag and heads outside. I barely have time to get into the kitchen before I hear dad, stomping up the stairs from his basement office, every step reverberating through the house.

“Tilda!”

I brace for impact, knowing he’s been on the set of that new TV-show he’s directing all day, drinking too many coffees, and dealing with too many TV-people since well before dawn.

Trying to act casual, I grab a bowl and fill it with snail-stew from the pot on the stove. Snail-stew is dad’s specialty, and the smell of cooked snails and grated pine bark fills me with a bit of fleeting happiness before dad looms in the doorway.

“Marie called,” he huffs, angrily stuffing his massive hands into the pockets of his cable-knit cardigan. I can almost see steam puffing out of his large ears, the gold rings threaded through each meaty earlobe trembling.

“Dad…”

He probably can’t hear me, because he’s already angry enough that his mouth looks twice as wide as usual, and his eyes are the size of my bowl.

“Marie invited us to come to the recital. Said you’re dancing to a famous piece of music by… Grieg.” He almost hollers the name. “Why would you humiliate yourself, and us, like this?”

I swallow a spoonful of stew. I don’t want to argue. I just want to get away – away from dad, away from Grieg and Ibsen, away from anything that reminds me of that tail.

“Come on, dad. Marie picked it for me. She says this dance presents my skills in a way that the Dance Academy will…”

“I don’t care what Marie says. I will not let my daughter dance to Grieg. ‘Hall of the Mountain King’, indeed! As if that man ever saw a real troll in his life! I won’t let you do it, and that’s final!”

“I don’t need your permission,” I say, snarling, but dad just keeps talking.

“It’s a waste of your time. You should focus on your studies. Not this dancing nonsense.”

“It’s not nonsense! I’m a good dancer, and you’re the one who always told me to do what I love and to do my best.”

Dad gives me a long look, almost softening, but unfortunately, another thought occurs to him.

“You’re not wearing a tail for the performance, are you?”

Something in my expression must have given me away because his eyes and mouth widen with a new flush of anger.

“That’s it, Tilda. No more dancing!”

“I’m only doing this so I can get into the Dance Academy. It’s the same as when you played big stupid, scary trolls in all those Hollywood monster movies when you started out. You took those jobs and made the best of it, that’s what you told me.”

Dad hates being reminded of his early acting days, and no surprise, his mouth turns into a cavern of sharp teeth.

“That was different! In those days…” He stops, the golden earrings shaking fiercely now. “Anyway, that’s no excuse for you!” His voice is so loud it makes the snail-stew wobble in my bowl. “I didn’t move my family halfway across the world, away from our caves and forests in Sweden to see you act the fool on the dance floor. No more dancing!”

“You can’t stop me!” I shout, slamming the bowl down on the counter and storming out of the kitchen.

I run through the house, into the backyard, looking for shelter, looking for Grandma. Usually, she’s in the garden this time of day, watering the pile of leaves where she farms worms and grubs, but today, the yard is empty. Outside, I stop and let myself be still for a moment, just listening and breathing. I can still hear the sounds of the world outside, cars passing in the street, trucks barreling down the highway further off, the distant chug of a freight train, the neighbour’s old dog barking at some cat or squirrel, but even so, there’s a comforting stillness here, a stillness that belongs to Grandma’s garden, a stillness that smells of fresh-turned dirt and rain-damp grass. The grass grows tall and tufty here in our yard, like a meadow rather than a lawn, and the plants—hair-grass and timothy and mead wort (which Grandma insists on calling moose-grass)—sway and rustle around my legs when I walk through them.

“Grandma?”

There’s no answer, except the voices of the trees, whispering to each other across the fence.

I hurry down the garden path, cheeks still flushed from arguing with dad, but even on a day like today I feel better, here among the trees.

The trees in the forest outside the fence speak with voices that belong to the Pacific northwest—western hemlock and maple, Sitka spruce, red and yellow cedar. The trees inside the yard whisper back, but none of them are natives here. They were brought from Scandinavia as seedlings, planted by Grandma when my family moved into this house forty years ago. Since then, the pine and spruce, the rowans and the birches have all grown tall, shading the yard and house with their boles and branches.

Grandma and my parents chose this house because it’s close enough to the city for work, close enough to the woods for a forest troll to stay healthy, and because the backyard is big enough that Grandma can have her own place.

“My old-fashioned cave,” Grandma calls it, though it’s more like a root cellar, dug into the ground.

She doesn’t think trolls should live in houses, and she’s not just old-fashioned, she’s old. No one really knows how old, and she’s certainly not telling.

Grandma’s door is made of grey, warped wood, and it’s even older than she is. It’s the door from our family’s cave in northern Sweden, and Grandma brought it with her, wrenching it off its hinges, when she left the old country.

A short ramp leads from the garden path to the door and judging by the muddy wheel-tracks on the plywood, my best friend Irene is already inside. There’s a door-knocker too, made from an old badger skull, but I don’t bother knocking, I just burst inside, hoping dad won’t come looking for me here.

Inside, the only light comes from Grandma’s beeswax candles and the fireplace. In that soft glow, I see Irene and Grandma hunched together at the small table in the sparsely furnished room. Irene is in her wheelchair, and Grandma seated on her favourite boulder, leaning so close to Irene that at first I think she’s about to sink her teeth into her arm.

They both look up together, and Irene tries to cover something on the table with her sleeve, but I’ve already seen the gleam of sharpened flint: Grandma’s favourite knife, its edge as sharp as any razor.

“What are you doing?” I ask, feeling as though I’ve walked in on two plotting criminals.

They exchange a look that makes me even more suspicious.

“Nothing,” Grandma says quickly and turns toward me, amber eyes glinting beneath her thick white hair.

“Your grandma is teaching me troll stuff!” Irene exclaims just as quickly, wheeling herself away from the table, stray locks of black hair peeking out beneath the blue hood of her sweater.

On the table I see Grandma’s treasure box, lid flipped open, the dark wood filled with gold nuggets, shards of mountain crystal, raw garnets—all the gems and gold Grandma has gathered beneath the ground and elsewhere since she was born, each one a memory of a certain time and place, each one a treasured piece of her life.

When Grandma sees me looking, she snaps the lid shut.

“She’s teaching me all sorts about troll history and culture, for our Socials project,” Irene says, fiddling with a remaining gold nugget, bouncing it by flexing her leg stumps underneath the plaid blanket covering her lap.

“Like what?” I ask, suspicious.

“For example,” Irene says in her best classroom voice, “that trolls see gold as keepsakes, rather than something you use for money. And, that in the olden days, trolls would sometimes keep people locked up underground for years before they released them! How cool is that?”

“Grandma!” I exclaim, horrified. “Next you’re going to tell her you used to cook and eat people at your feasts.”

“Did you really?” Irene asks eagerly.

“Don’t be silly!” Grandma huffs. “Nobody cooked them!”

Irene bursts out laughing, and Grandma gives me a look, pleased and cunning at the same time.

“Your dad found out about the dance and Grieg, then?” she says and scoots over so I can sit beside her on the boulder.

“How’d you know?”

“After your dance instructor called he screamed so loud we heard it all the way out here,” she chuckles, caressing the flint knife, and again I wonder what they’ve been up to.

Grandma mostly uses her flint knife for spells and magic, but she’s not supposed to be doing that kind of stuff when Irene’s around. Not that Irene would mind.

Irene has been my best friend since Kindergarten, and she loves listening to Grandma, loves all the old jokes and stories I’ve grown tired of over the years, but when Grandma talks about eating people and keeping them captive and using magic, it’s sometimes hard to tell if she’s joking, or if she’s being serious and laughing at the same time.

“Your dad’s right,” Grandma says. “You shouldn’t dance to Grieg. That man knew nothing about trolls or dancing. And that costume you told me this Marie wants you to wear…” She looks up, teeth gleaming in a tight grimace. “Did she at least get rid of the tail?”

“No. Marie thinks the tail is playful and fun and trollish.”

Grandma mutters something in Swedish, and I’m glad Irene can’t understand her.

“Tell her what you wore when you danced,” Irene prods, and Grandma grins, a wide and wicked smile full of sharp teeth.

“I wore a dress made of spider-silk and gold. Magicked, too, of course. We used our magic freely back then. No one thought anything of enchanting things or even people.”

“Sounds a whole lot better than your costume,” Irene remarks and I roll my eyes.

“I don’t like it either, but I have to make the best of it. And now dad wants me to stop dancing. I’ve worked so hard for this, and now it’s all just falling apart.”

“What’s that music you wanted to dance to?” Irene asks. “Something by…Stradivarius?”

I blush.

“Stravinsky. ‘Rite of Spring.’ Marie thought it was too avant-garde. Meaning she thinks I can’t do it.”

“She’s wrong,” Grandma mutters.

“I even have a whole routine worked out.” I sigh, nibbling on some of pickled earthworms from a bowl on the table. “But I’ll save it for another time.”

Irene pounds the table with her fists.

“Come on, Tilda. Show me!”

“What? I can’t dance in here.”

“Please?”

Finally, I give in. I dance just a few steps while I hum the music, and even with nothing more than that, my body stirs with an effervescent joy I know I’ll never feel dancing to Grieg and wearing a tail.

“It’s a shame,” Grandma says holding the door open when we leave, and Irene is rolling down the ramp, “that you won’t get a chance to show them some real troll-magic.”

“Irene,” I ask as I walk beside her up the path toward our house. “Grandma… she hasn’t tried to…you know, eat you or anything?”

Irene guffaws.

“Of course not!”

“And she’s not doing anything… magic with you, is she? That’s not why you’re spending so much time with her lately? I mean, trolls aren’t supposed to use their magic on people, but Grandma is getting old and…”

“No!”

“Then why are you cooped up with her so much? I thought you had basketball practice this afternoon.”

“I did. I was sent home for telling some little kid a bear tore off my legs.” I give her a look. She grins. “OK, maybe I added some unnecessarily graphic details. But I didn’t want to go home, so I told the lady who drove me to bring me here.”

I sigh. Irene always makes up stories about how she lost her legs. Gruesome stories, usually. Once, she even told a gawking first-grader that I ate her legs. She never tells anyone what really happened, though, not even me. She claims the stories she makes up are way more interesting than the truth, and it doesn’t even bother me anymore, not knowing.

“Don’t worry, Tilda,” Irene grins. “I hang out with your Grandma because I like her. And she’s right. You shouldn’t dance to that stupid fake troll music.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“Sure, tell the legless girl she’s got it easy,” Irene says, winking at me before she motors down the street to her house on the corner.

That night, I dance in my room. I clear a space in front of the mirror and play ‘Rite of Spring’ on my tablet, so quiet it’s barely audible, and just like in Grandma’s cave, I feel the trollish thrill of Stravinsky, of this music, this dance, these steps.

When I finally go to bed it’s after midnight and I hear Grandma shuffling around outside in the garden, humming an old lullaby while the trees whisper all around us.

I fall asleep with Grandma’s voice, and the voices of the trees, singing in my ears.

At school the next day, I finally realize what Grandma was doing with the flint knife, and why Irene kept her hood up the night before. Irene’s long, glossy black hair is gone, and the jagged ends of what remains stick out around her ears. I’m horrified.

“Why would you let her do that?”

Irene shrugs.

“It always got in the way. This is better.”

“Did she keep the hair?” I ask, heart sinking.

“She might have.”

“What’s she doing with it? Something magic?”

Irene looks suddenly serious.

“Magic isn’t bad, you know. I realize you can do bad things with it, but it isn’t automatically evil or wrong.”

“You sound like Grandma. What is she doing with it?”

But no matter how I try, Irene won’t tell me.

My next dance practice is worse than the last one. I sneak out of the house before dad gets home, and I have this idea that I should talk to Marie about the tail and the music, but once I’m there, I can’t get a word out.

The house is empty when I get back, and Grandma’s door is locked. There are fresh wheel-tracks along the path and down the ramp, and I bang on the door, calling for Grandma and Irene. I even use the badger skull knocker, but the door won’t budge.

“You better not be eating my friend!” I shout before giving the door a kick.

All evening and into the night, I keep a watch from my window, but no one goes in or out of Grandma’s place, at least not while I’m awake.

Irene is not at school the next day, or the day after that, and no one answers when I text or call. Her dad works shifts at the docks, and her mom is a teacher-on-call, so you never really know when they’ll be home, but Irene usually answers even if she’s sick.

At school, I walk around in a daze, so out of it that I don’t even snap at the kids making fun of my big feet in the gym. That afternoon, Grandma’s door still won’t open. She’s even magicked it to look like a boulder, as if that would fool me. I kick and bang on it some more, but nothing happens.

“Irene! Are you in there?”

No reply.

“Did you see Grandma today?” I ask mom when she wakes up from her afternoon nap.

“No. But you know how Grandma is, sometimes she just sleeps for a couple of days or goes off into the woods, wandering.”

“Did you see Irene today, or yesterday?”

“No.”

I think of Irene, of her hair cut short, of Grandma spinning that knife of flint on the table between them.

“Grandma wouldn’t hurt Irene, would she?”

“Of course not! Whatever are you thinking?”

“I don’t mean that she’d do it on purpose, but she’s really old and sometimes… I mean, if she was really hungry…”

“Tilda! I know Grandma likes to pretend she’s a scary old troll-madam, but you know she’s not like that. Besides, I’m sure Irene is just at basketball practice or something. “

I nod, but I know better. I know a lot of troll magic involves using someone’s hair, and Grandma has a whole braid of Irene’s locks.

I know everything is wrong, and I know I can’t fix it.

It’s mom’s day off, and she’s giving me a ride to the last practice before the recital. On my way out, I run into dad. He takes one look at me, dressed in my dance gear, and glowers.

“We talked about this. No more dancing.”

I fumble with my backpack, fumble with my words, finding none that are fit to say out loud.

Dad sighs, or maybe he growls, it’s hard to tell the difference.

“Tilda… Those people in the dance business, this Marie and the dance academy… they’ll never see you as anything other than a big troll, fit only for clumsy footwork and maybe a laugh. I know what it’s like to be around people like that, and I don’t want that for you.”

I know dad’s trying to be sensible, kind, even, but each word stabs through my tough, grey skin, sharper than Grandma’s blade of flint, more painful than anything else he’s ever said to me. And maybe it’s because of the pain, or maybe it’s because of Grandma and Irene and the tail I’ve carried around in my backpack all week, but a sudden troll-rage overwhelms me, flaring up like an all-consuming, grease-fed flame. It burns through me, more powerful than ever before. I don’t know what I look like, but dad’s jaw goes slack, and I feel twice as big and ten times as strong, and when I open my mouth, not a word comes out, just a deafening roar. It’s so loud it sets off the neighbour’s car alarm.

I don’t wait around to see what dad will do, I just run outside, the magic fading as quickly as it flared up. By the time mom sits down in the driver’s seat, I’ve doused the last embers inside me.

Mom drives the whole way in silence.

“Dad’s just worried about you,” she says when we arrive. “You know that, right?”

“I’m a good dancer, mom. I’m not a joke.”

“I know. I’ve seen you dance, and you have a gift. You probably get that from Grandma, because it certainly doesn’t come from me or your dad.”

Right now it’s hard to think I’m anything at all like Grandma.

“Was she really good?”

“Sweetums, she was the best. When she danced, she could spellbind a mountain-full of trolls.”

I get out of the car, and mom leans over, giving me a wink.

“Go do your thing. Make the best of it.”

For a few minutes, I almost think it’ll be OK. I almost think I can do it, that it won’t be so bad after all. Until I get inside.

Two people, a man and a woman I’ve never seen before, are talking to Marie, and everyone else is in a tizzy.

They’re from the dance academy. That’s what Marie tells us. And they’re here, unofficially, to watch us practice.

“I love Grieg,” the man says, shaking my hand enthusiastically. He’s trying not to stare, but I guess he’s never seen a troll in tights before. “Can’t wait to see what real troll will do with that wonderful music and Marie’s famous choreography!”

“I didn’t even think trolls really existed,” the lady confides to me, smiling at me as if that’s supposed to be a compliment.

Maybe I smile too. I’m not sure. I only know I cannot speak, because all my words have shriveled into nothing. There’s only one thing I know for certain: I’m trapped, wearing a tail in the hall of the Mountain King.

Make the best of it, I think, but tonight, those words seem like a bad joke.

Marie wants us to dance in costume. Of course. I put mine on in the bathroom. It fits. The tail dangles behind me and I try to see it as playful, fun, and trollish, but I can’t.

I dance last. Before me there’s a swan, a princess, a prince, a tin soldier, a fairy with wings. And then there’s me. A troll dressed in a troll costume.

I dance, I play the troll, I wag my tail, I do everything as trollishly as possible, and everyone loves it. The two visitors even clap when I’m done.

I bow, and walk out. I don’t even bother taking off the costume, I just put on my jacket and go. Maybe Marie calls my name, but I don’t stop. I keep walking until I’m in the parking lot where mom is waiting for me.

“Tilda?”

I just shake my head, unable to speak, staring through the windshield at the lights inside the building, the lights where everybody else is, while I’m out here in the dark. Mom drives away, and I grab hold of the top of my costume, digging my fingers into the coarse, ugly fabric and with one tug I rip the whole thing in half.

That night I head into the woods. Mom and dad both tried to talk to me, but what I feel has no words, it’s like a troll-rage roar, but silent: it only reverberates inside me where no one else can hear.

It’s dark, and I’m barefoot, dressed only in my flannel pajamas. I haven’t run into the woods like this since I was five or six, back when Grandma would come and collect me by suppertime if I’d given her the slip. Of course, I’m not really running away; I just don’t know what to do.

I head into forest beyond our house, in between the trees, until the sounds of the backyards and the streets fade away.

I know the trees here are not the same as in the Swedish forests where Grandma and my parents lived for centuries before coming here. Grandma says everything about the trees here is different, their bark and roots, their sap and smell, even the way they speak in the wind. She says the rocks are different too, that they hum a different song than she’s used to. But these are the only trees and rocks I’ve ever known. They are my trees, my rocks, and this is my forest: red cedars and red alders towering above me, branches shaggy with moss; swaying western hemlocks with waxy, scaly needles whispering in the canopy; maples with splayed-fingered leaves waving in welcome; soft ferns tickling my legs.

I sit down in a hollow between the roots of a storm-felled tree, leaning back in the soft dirt, thinking I might never move again.

If a troll sits still enough for long enough, they turn into rock. That’s how most trolls die, according to Grandma. They get old and tired, they sit down in the woods and they don’t bother getting up again.

I sit. I’m not cold. I’m not even angry anymore. I just sit, and I imagine that I’m turning heavy and solid and grey, inside and out. I’m not sure how long I sit like that before Grandma finds me.

“It takes quite a while to turn to stone, you know. Especially when you’re still so young and soft.”

She sits down next to me, knees pulled up until they creak, arms linked around them, and her white hair a frizzy halo in the moonlight.

“Can’t say as I’ll ever get used to these woods,” she sniffs. “Where I grew up everything grew slow and deliberate, and in winter, it all froze and slept till spring. Almost makes me tired, just feeling all these trees, so busy growing all the time.”

We sit together for a while after that, neither of us speaking.

“Your performance is tomorrow, I guess,” Grandma remarks finally.

I dig my fingers into the dirt, curling them like roots.

“I can’t do it. I can’t dance with a tail. I can’t dance to Grieg. And I can’t give up dancing, no matter what dad thinks. It’s all wrong and it’s too late to fix any of it now. I’ve been trying to make the best of it,” I whisper, feeling small, “but I don’t know how.”

“Can’t you just dance what you want to dance?”

“No. I want to get into the Dance Academy, and Marie says…”

Grandma blows a raspberry.

“No doubt you’d get applause for dancing to that rubbish by Grieg. Might even get you into that Academy. But no matter how good this Marie is, it doesn’t mean she knows how you should dance. And this Dance Academy, why wouldn’t they let you in if you dance as good as you can do?”

“Because…” I start, before I realize I don’t know what to answer.

Grandma nudges me with a calloused elbow.

“Bet they’ve never seen a troll dance, really dance. Have they?”

“Maybe not, but…”

“But nothing. There’s magic in the right dance. And yes, I know your parents think trolls shouldn’t wield magic around humans.” She peers at me underneath her bushy eyebrows. “Truth is, humans have magic too, and they wield it all the time.”

“No, they don’t.”

“They do. Take your friend Irene, she’s got a strong magic in her. My, my. That girl can spellbind even me when she starts talking about science and space and basketball and what-not!”

“That’s not the same. Troll magic is scary. That’s why we don’t use it anymore.”

“Not all troll magic is scary. A troll-rage is frightful, for sure. But trolls have other kinds of magic, and a troll dance is the best kind of magic. I’ll tell you this, if that Grieg had ever seen me dance, he’d have written another kind of music entirely.”

I think of the flutter beneath my skin when I dance, the zing and zap of something fizzy-light and sparkling inside my bones.

“We’re not supposed to use our magic around humans,” I repeat, stubbornly.

“Pish posh. The magic is a part of you and I don’t see why you should withhold it from the world.”

“Marie says all great artists have to sacrifice for their art.” I dig my fingers even deeper into the soil. You can click here and see the artist related information.

“Maybe that’s true, but is it really worth it if what you have to sacrifice is yourself?”

I sit quiet for a bit, listening to the trees and rocks whispering around us, their voices clearer than they’ve ever been before. It’s almost as if they’re murmuring my name, telling me I’m as tough as they are, as strong as stone and wood

I think of a mountain full of trolls, spellbound by Grandma dancing..

“Using magic is cheating, though, isn’t it?” I say, looking at Grandma, her lustrous eyes glimmering in the moonlight.

“No. You cannot cheat by being what you are.”

“But I don’t even have anything to wear,” I say, voice trembling now, thinking about the ripped costume.

Grandma laughs, her biggest, loudest guffaw.

“Well, now…I happen to have something you can wear instead.” She gets up and offers me a hand. “You’ve been looking for Irene, haven’t you?”

“What did you do to her?” I ask as I stand up, brushing the dirt off my pajamas.

Grandma looks offended.

“Do to her? What do you think I did? Nibbled on her? Turned her into soup? I didn’t do anything to her at all. But she has done something for you, and now she wants to show it to you.”

“Tilda, you’re up next.”

It’s the night of the recital, and I’m staring at myself in the mirror backstage, still trying to convince myself that what I see is real. The dress I’m wearing reaches halfway down my thighs and it’s heavy, but somehow, it’s heavy in a way that doesn’t weigh me down, and when I move, it chimes.

It’s a garment that seems part dress, part armor, part enchantment, and I feel the power of it stir against my skin.

Irene and Grandma made this dress for me, together. They worked almost without sleep or rest these last few days, locked inside Grandma’s cave. They used Grandma’s gold nuggets, each one pierced to make a bead, then sewn onto the soft silk underneath with thread spun from Irene’s black hair, each strand magicked by Grandma to be as soft as cotton, yet as strong as steel wire.

Some of the nuggets are smaller than a sunflower seed, some are as big as a dime, and the entire dress is covered with them – each one jingling softly when I move. When Marie sees me, or rather, when sees the dress for the first time, her expression is so comical it almost makes me laugh out loud. Instead, my words tumble out in a rush:

“Marie, thank you so much for all your help and the costume and the choreography, but I can’t…I can’t dance to Grieg and I can’t wear a tail either. I am doing a different dance and I brought the music and I’m doing it and if you want to kick me out of the class afterward, it’s fine, just let me do it first, OK?”

I take a breath after all that, and Marie says…nothing. She’s staring at the golden dress, reaching out to touch it, befuddled and incredulous. Finally, she nods.

When the curtain rises, and I stand in the middle of the stage, my body and my limbs perfectly positioned. I see mom and dad in the audience, seated next to Grandma and Irene. Grandma’s hair is like a white cloud around her head, while Irene’s new, short hairdo is styled to look like a spiky hedgehog. Dad is scowling, but he still waves at me, making the best of it, I guess.

Don’t worry, dad, I think, and try to smile reassuringly.

Grandma and Irene, they sort of know what’s coming, but no one else has seen this dress, and no one at all has seen this dance before.

On stage, the gold dress shivers to life, sparkling, flashing, gleaming. And when the music starts – those first raw, shivering notes of Stravinsky’s ‘The Rite of Spring’ – I begin to dance.

I dance, and just like when I danced by myself in my room, I feel the trembling power lurking beneath the surface of that dance I dance while the gold spins and flows and ripples around me, tethered to me, to my movements, by the silky strength of Irene’s magicked hair. I dance, and as the music moves within me, as I move within it, the room changes. It’s not an ordinary room in an ordinary building anymore. It’s a huge hall, carved out of a mountain, and the rounded walls glow with veins of mountain crystal, lit by magic from within. The hall falls quiet around me. There is no other sound than the music and my feet. I twirl and spin, I leap and turn, and I am gold and light and movement, but most of all I am me, utterly and completely.

There’s no tail. There’s no Grieg. There’s just me, the magic of my dance, and the magic Grandma and Irene made for me.

When the music stops, I hear only my own breath and heartbeat, and for a dizzying moment I almost think no one saw, that they all left, that I might have dreamed it. Then, the clapping starts, and does not stop. The applause thunder around me, echoing, as if we really are in a hall beneath a mountain. Grandma is on her feet; Irene is grinning, and everyone else smiling: Mom, dad, even Marie.

I take a bow, and in that moment, I feel as strong and powerful as all the rocks and roots in the forest.

Most days, I love to dance. Most days, I love being a troll. Most days, I love being me.

Today is definitely one of those days.

Copyright 2018  Maria Haskins