Elise’s brows knitted into a frown. Her eyes lost focus. What was the giant troll saying all of a sudden?

It sounded like a merry song with a merry tune, yet something about the giant troll’s arched-down eyes told her it was anything but merry.

Then she recalled something that sent chills down her spine. Wait a second, she thought to herself, could it really be what she was thinking?

But why? After luring her to her death, why was the giant troll helping her?

“Up and down like a bouncing tree,

In the sky and down on land you see,

I’ll eat it all, without blinking an eye,

Trust me and I’ll show you,

So let me go.”

The giant troll nodded to confirm her as if it could read her mind. She was right. All those books and scripts her father made her read growing up paid off.

Funny, she thought, to think a day would come when the rules set by the Council would actually come in handy and save her doomed life.

“This deal will cost you your life, Ode…”

Elise turned to face the tiny troll, who came over with a dejected look on its ugly face.

“I know, brother. Don’t worry too much about me. I’m sure your days here will be much merrier without a failure like me…”

With these words, the giant troll faded into the shadows and vanished from view. His steps were heavy and slow, his gait that of a dead person walking.

The small troll lingered behind with trembling lips, on the verge of wailing its eyes and heart out, as it watched the other troll. When they were finally alone, he leaned in and whispered.

“Don’t even think about messing this up! Remember each word like you mean it or I will prepare your flesh and bones myself! My little brother’s life must not perish in vain! Do you understand? Nod if you do.”

Elise nodded. There was no room for mistakes. A deal worth the life of the giant troll now laid in her hands.

And soon enough, the smell of cadavers and rotting flesh wafted all around her and overwhelmed her senses.

Despite the nauseous odour, however, her stomach rumbled instead of churning with disgust. She hadn’t eaten anything for a great while, after all.

She couldn’t feel her legs anymore, and the only thing she could think of was the rhyme she repeated in her mind for the umpteenth time.

The prevailing silence let up. Tapping, followed by chants, filled the void. In an eerie harmony.

Elise looked from one corner to another. Soon enough, yellow eyes appeared from within the darkness one after the other.

The tapping and stomping grew louder and louder until the trolls gathered all around the dead tree.

When the tapping stopped, the crowd of trolls split in the middle. Elise squinted. Each of them held forks and knives in their tiny hands, ready to cut into her flesh and eat her alive. Their salivating mouth irked her to the core.

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Trollemor emerged from the dark, smirking as it approached with a pot in its filthy hands. A wide grin was glued on its hideous face.

“Let’s see if it fits, shall we, my children?”

The trolls cheered and smacked their lips like they were one single entity. Their cheers grew louder as their mother tried to fit her head inside the pot to no avail. Her head was too big.

“Hmm, looks like we must break it in half… Oh, well! Half a head is tasty still! What do you say, children?”

The trolls broke into a chatter before they united and chanted the same words over and over again in a trance, tapping and stomping their hands and feet in rhythm.

“Crack it! Crack it! Crack it!”

Trollemor raised the pot, ready to strike and crack her head in half and fit it into the pot. Elise shut her eyes and grimaced. It was now or never! The rhyme she memorised for hours escaped her lips.

“Up and down… like a bouncing tree,

In the sky and down on land you see,

I’ll eat it all, without blinking an eye,

Trust me and I’ll show you,

So… let me go.”

Trollemor came to a halt mid-air. Her cheeks flushed and turned as dark as blood. Her hands shook and so did her raging eyes.

Throwing the pot in a fit of rage, she roared so loud that the entire cave shook and cracked all over. The pot hit an unsuspecting troll, whose purple brain rolled out of its cracked skull and smeared the lair of trolls.

The wicked trolls, in an attempt to avoid the rocks that fell over their heads and escape their mother’s wrath, retreated to their hideouts in the dark and shivered from fear.

Their bottoms were up in the air, trembling, as they watched their mother hold the girl in a chokehold and squeeze the life out of her for trying to make a deal with her.

Elise tried to break free from the female troll with all her might, but nothing she ever did was enough. Her divine essence slowly seeped out of her, and there was nothing she could do to hinder it.

She turned red, then blue and purple in the blink of an eye. Trollemor tightened its grip around her throat and lifted her. The rope that tethered her to the rotting tree broke.

“AREN’T YOU CLEVER, MY PRETTY! TRYING TO MAKE A DEAL WITH ME!”

No longer able to stay idle and watch, Ode pushed his big brother away and leapt forwards. A deal was a deal.

Every creature living under the rule of the Council had to follow through with it because a great peril awaited those who failed to honour the rules.

The already quivering cave shook all the more as Ode advanced and yanked Trollemor to the ground without batting an eye. His hiding brothers all gasped at the same time as their mother hit the ground.

They covered their eyes and shivered like mice, retreating further into the shadows, afraid of witnessing the demise of one of their own.

No living thing escaped their mother’s claws – not even her own children. They knew this better than anyone.

Elise gasped after air as the grip on her throat let up and she fell on both knees, doubling over and retching in place from the lack of air in her lungs.

What just happened? She glanced up as her nerves calmed down and the beat of her heart slowed. The female troll was on the cold ground, fuming, but her anger wasn’t directed at her.

She followed its bulging eyes to the giant troll and gulped hard as the poor thing voiced his mind.

“I… I told her, Mama, I—”

Trollemor burst out into a peal of wicked laughter. “Why am I not surprised? You stupid coward!”

She stood up in a jiffy and was about to lurch forwards and slay the giant troll when it mustered up the courage to defy its mother for a second time.

“A- a deal is a deal, Mama! You shouldn’t break the rules set by Salwodor…”

“Oh, so you’re threatening me now? Is that it? Ode… you! Of all my children, you, the coward that can’t eat human flesh, dare to threaten me!”

The giant troll peeked up hearing this, hesitating, before dropping its huge head again.

“You- you can’t break a deal that- that’s sealed with- with words, Mama.”

A sinister smile curled up on Trollemor’s bulging lips as she approached him. “You stupid fool…”

Ode hardly lifted his head when his mother charged at him. Without warning, she thrust her fist into Ode’s throat, so that her bloody hand came out on the other side.

Blood splashed on her hideous face as she lifted the poor troll higher and higher until her fist was no longer visible from the blood that gushed out.

Elise gasped and stifled an escaping scream. The giant troll’s neck cracked and his head fell backwards. Its bulging eyes were wide open and… sad.

A single tear trickled down its cheek. How could anyone do such a cruel thing! Not to mention a mother…

Trollemor pulled out her bloody fist and tossed the lifeless troll on the ground.

It licked the purple blood off her hand and turned to face her hiding children in the shadows. Her voice was controlled. There was no hint of emotion in it.

“As your dear brother said, a deal is a deal. So prepare well, my children, and make a savoury broth out of this fool.”