Troll Soup
Even with my glasses I had poor eyesight, and problems breathing in the spring and fall when the world was blooming or dying. Grandma said I was an old soul. I wondered if that meant when you got up in the morning, you already felt old. Grandma didn’t explain the phrase, just said our bodies were sympathetic to changes in nature. She made nettle soup for us, which was supposed to cure everything.
“It helps with my arthritis,” she said. It was also good for my vision, and breathing the steam would clear my sinuses.
Gathering nettles was an adventure in the spring and early summer. Grandma and I put on heavy gloves and long-sleeved jackets and pants to protect us from the stingers, then trudged into the ditches. At home we didn’t take off the gloves until the nettles were in a pot of boiling water. Soup days were exhausting, but the soup was delicious. Grandma sold it from the front porch on Wednesdays. At school I was the teased kid who held books too closely when she read, the granddaughter of the weird soup lady, but when I collected money on the front porch I was a celebrity, even if my classmates said the soup smelled weird. I saw the soup’s power to be powerful when neighbors gathered with their bowls, saying the soup was good for everything from toothaches to migraines to gout.
After Grandma passed on and I got the job in the café kitchen, I still made soup every Wednesday in the café kitchen when nettles were in season. Without Grandma I crept up and down the ditches slowly, and asked my friend Mik to come along since they had a better eye for nettle patches. Mik had a club foot, walked with a cane, and worked in their aunt and uncle’s flower shop. On Tuesdays they helped me pick nettles. We filled our burlap bags while joking how miserable it was to wear long sleeves in the middle of June.
Mik and I were coming home from nettle picking—they’d convinced me to wait until after dinner when it was cool—when we found the trolls, or the little one found us. It wandered from under the wooden bridge that stretched over the creek by Grandma’s property line. I thought it was a raccoon and padded over while Mik yelled at me to be careful. I had a weakness for injured animals, and got real close before I saw it was a pudgy gray-skinned infant, all roly-poly and cute in the way that small boulders could be adorable. The poor thing was crying so I didn’t think twice but to pick her up. The baby quieted and peered up at me.
I realized holding a troll might not be a good idea.
“Keep trolls around,” Grandma said. “Nobody thinks they exist anymore, or if they do think trolls exist, they don’t think they matter. But we need trolls. Plants grow better with them around, and they care for bridges and streams. If you see a troll in the daylight something is wrong, so offer help and be careful. They get cranky, like anyone else who’s overworked, and last thing you want to do is upset a troll and scare it off.”
Mik huffed over to me, cane in hand, lugging our bags of nettles.
“What are you doing?” they said.
“She was afraid,” I said. “She’s not crying anymore.”
“So put her back down and let’s go,” said Mik. That’s when I saw the mother troll lumbering out from underneath the bridge. I froze in place, arms locked and trembling, but she was gruffly apologetic.
“The little one gets away from me after a long day,” the mother grumbled, holding out her arms. I deposited her weighty and cooing infant, and she raised her gray eyebrows at me and Mik in our long sleeves.
“We’re gathering nettles for soup,” I said, not sure why I felt the urge to explain my ridiculous costume.
“Nettle soup,” she said slowly. “May we try some?”
I paused. Grandma said that in the past trolls had asked for goats and gold coins in exchange for tending bridges and keeping the streams healthy. Now that goats and gold coins were in short supply, nettle soup would have to do. This troll looked as tired as other mothers who’d often bought soup from Grandma and me.
“Yes,” I said. “Come by the house in a couple hours.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Mik hissed as we dragged our nettles toward the house.
“Probably,” I said. I was surprised when the troll mother came with two other trolls and five little ones. The trolls sniffed around the porch while the little ones played in the yard.
“No children?” asked the first mother troll, who’d introduced herself as Hridya.
“No,” I said rather sharply. I shouldn’t have been so curt, but I was tired of neighbor ladies who eyed me sideways as if wanting to ask why I hadn’t become a mother yet.
“I see,” she said, her voice softer. “Thank you for the soup. It’s good.” I noticed the slight rasp and wheeze in her voice. Could trolls get allergies, and would breathing the steam from nettle soup help them as it helped me?
I did not inquire about the trolls’ health or invite them in for tea—Grandma said trolls didn’t enjoy warm inside temperatures–but Mik and I lingered on the porch with our soup and the trolls as we listened to cicada song.
#
Four days a week I was at the café by five-thirty in the morning to make breads, pies, and cakes, and have muffins ready for the breakfast crowd. I still made nettle soup on Wednesdays, and during peak season Mik and I gather nettles twice a week so I’d have extra to blanch and freeze for winter. We laughed at how the soup that was supposed to make us feel better also wiped us out.
The trolls continued to meander into the yard twice a week. They looked so drained I couldn’t refuse them soup, which was still easier than goats. Hridya said the soup helped her persistent headaches. She explained that foraging was more difficult than it had been before.
“For a while I moved to the city,” she said. “We ate cheeseburgers, French fries, and pizza from trash cans. Too many nights we gave ourselves stomachaches, but we were young and stupid and tired of roots and berries. But that life is dangerous for little ones, and I didn’t want to maintain eight-lane bridges.” She peered into her empty bowl. “The soup reminds me of the old days. Some of us wonder if we should have little ones if they’ll be bridge and stream-tending with so little thanks. I’m thinking of moving on.” She waved a gray hand. “No one will care until the water is green and sour.”
I closed my eyes. If the trolls left, most people would only know it when the plants died and the streams smelled of dead fish. Without thinking I patted her gray hand. It felt like a sun-warmed rock. Hridya didn’t move. When you’re exhausted, it’s easier to identify with others who equally tired in body and spirit. You notice it in their eyes, feel in the slump of their shoulders, lean against each other for support so you don’t fall over.
#
I couldn’t understand the trolls’ language, one built on gestures and guttural hums that sounded like whale song. Maybe those tones helped cleanse the water, an earthy vibration. Other times the trolls joked in our language, saying they should take the solar-powered lanterns from someone’s front yard in exchange for their labor.
“We’re joking, of course,” Hridya told me. “I’d much rather have a pizza.” It was curious to be included in these conversations like we were friends as we hobbled around the backyard after the little ones. All three trolls favored one knee, but I figured bridge tending was a slippery business and one might not avoid injury. As we chatted I glanced sideways at the trolls’ smiles, their teeth yellowed and worn. They couldn’t have handled the tough meat of goat, explaining why they preferred nettle soup and the muffins I brought home from the café. After while, even Mik volunteered to watch the little ones while their mothers tended to troll business. The little ones loved playing in the dirt at the edge of my garden, building mounds and knocking them down as small children do.
“They’re not looking well,” I said to Mik when the mothers were gone. “Were they shivering?”
“If they’re coming down with a virus we shouldn’t invite them inside,” said Mik.
“I wasn’t going to,” I said, though the idea had meandered through my mind. Grandma said trolls didn’t care for indoor spaces when there was no breeze. Had she asked them in for tea on occasion? I made a ginger brew and we sipped it in the backyard as we watched fireflies dance.
“You could set extra jars of tea for them on the back step,” Mik said as we readied for bed. They’d been spending the night when they didn’t have deliveries in the morning. I liked the company since I’d had more eyestrain headaches, days when my vision felt tired and hazy. It was nice to have someone else around if I needed to read something, comforting to huddle together on the couch, have another toothbrush in the bathroom, and someone to share my morning coffee.
#
Hridya and her friend didn’t tell us what happened to the third mother troll, just that she wouldn’t be coming with her little one anymore.
“Everyone is having troubles,” she sighed as we sipped our soup. Mik and I glanced sideways at each other.
“Do you think they left?” I asked Mik later. I didn’t want to speak my darker fears.
Mik squeezed my shoulder. I was dwelling in worry the next morning when I overheard folks at the café say they’d set out coyote traps and poisoned pieces of beef to combat chicken coop thieves. I thought of my backyard trolls.
“You’ll sure kill something, a poor stray dog or fox hunting voles,” I said from behind the counter where I was arranging muffins in the glass display case. “We don’t even know if there are coyotes around. Better be certain you’re locking the coop tight at night. Any chickens you lose could be your own damn fault.”
My speech was met with silence and wide eyes. I was usually quiet and quick to smile, but I had to defend the trolls.
“You could take the afternoon off,” my boss said when I skirted through the swinging doors to the kitchen. “You’ve been working real hard lately.”
I agreed it was best to have a few extra hours to cool down. And I wanted to return to my trolls. In my worst dreams they decided we were hopeless and poisoning them on purpose, so they abandoned us.
“The coyote traps aren’t your fault,” Mik said after I explained the story. “They’re not even supposed to be for the trolls.”
“It’s another stupid problem to worry about.” I flopped on the couch, sure there was no hope for the streams, the fish, the plants, the town. After I’d found out about the trolls’ aches and pains, their duties and difficulties, after I’d held their gray-eyed children in my arms and smelled their clean perfume like wet stone…I didn’t blame our legends for trying to leave.
#
Two nights later I was working late in the garden. I glanced out at the lumbering shape on the edge of the yard and realized it was her, the young mother troll who’d disappeared. She was thin, and her coloring was a cooler shade of gray. I asked if she wanted ginger tea, and she nodded and followed me to the back porch.
“I couldn’t do anything for my little one,” she said softly. “She kept getting paler and weaker. Hridya says the water, the plants, everything is dirtier, and babies are so delicate. You can make tea or crush herbs and give it to them, but sometimes we can’t…” She shook her head. “Nothing we can do?” Her voice cracked. “I haven’t heard of this happening to other mothers.”
Her shoulders trembled as she cried. I removed my gardening gloves and rested my arm around her cool shoulders. She smelled of moss and green things, and she was shivering. I said she should sit on the back porch and I’d bring tea and soup. She nodded.
No wonder trolls were migrating if this was the danger.
“Something is probably wrong with me,” she said when I returned with two mugs and a bowl on a tray. “I’m cold all the time, and restless. My stream is going to hell, but who cares. I don’t know whether I should stay, try to find another partner…”
I set my tray on the porch step and hugged the young mother troll. She was twice my size, but on the porch she felt smaller. The troll sniffled her thanks and nodded when I asked if she might like to pick nettles with me the next afternoon.
The air buzzed with mosquitoes while we waded into the ditch. I had my long sleeves and gloves, but she didn’t need protection as she stuffed nettles into my bags. Soon we had filled all three. I was still sweating as I heated water on the stove to blanch our harvest. I didn’t know what Grandma would have said about a troll in the kitchen, but she was never one to turn away someone who was hurting.
#
The young mother troll was with us when Hridya’s little one got sick. Mik and I and the three mother trolls couldn’t sleep, pacing the backyard. We took turns holding the baby. The only thing that calmed her was rocking and rocking. Her gray cheeks were too warm and I worried she’d get worse, but all three trolls were exhausted and trusted Mik and I to carry the little one. A heavy load. Yet our fretting and pacing did something. Her fever cooled and she slept and slept. By morning, so did the rest of us.
Hridya fretted that evening about what might have caused the illness. Poisoned meat for coyotes? Playing in a stream that was too warm? The occasional pizza dinner foraged from a trash can?
“I’ve been doing that too often when I’m too tired to find a salad,” she admitted as we went out to spring coyote traps. Mik and the other trolls stayed behind to care for the children. Hridya and I collected the bad beef in a plastic bag, and snitched lettuce from gardens. If there was ever a time to take sides, it was now. In the dull light of dusk Hridya’s eyes glinted yellow like a cat’s. I could imagine I was in the presence of something vital, something magic, that was not yet covered in the dust of another construction project. I could imagine we were fighting the battle for trolls, for nettles, for swampy ditches, as we hobbled from trap to trap and their sharp teeth snapped shut on nothing but humid air.
END
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About the Author
Teresa Milbrodt has published three short story collections: Instances of Head Switching, Bearded Women: Stories, and Work Opportunities. She has also published a novel, The Patron Saint of Unattractive People; a flash fiction collection, Larissa Takes Flight: Stories; and the monograph, Sexy Like Us: Disability, Humor, and Sexuality. Teresa is addicted to coffee and long walks with her MP3 player, and she writes the occasional haiku. Read more of her work at: http://teresamilbrodt.com/homepage/.