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Sophie could vaguely hear someone calling to her. Slowly the voice got clearer, as if someone were getting closer and closer.
"Sophie," the voice said. "Sophie," it called again. Now she recognized it. It was Fiff's voice. "SOPHIE!"
Sophie opened her eyes and looked around, disoriented. She was no longer out in the snow, but in a wooden cabin with a fire burning in the fireplace. Fiff was floating right in front of her face, and behind the small fairy were the rest of the class and Nimum, all looking at Sophie.
Fiff was floating right in front of her face, and behind the small fairy were the rest of the class and Nimum, all looking at Sophie [https://img.wattpad.com/2bdc57f9bc0218665219b2005dec1d84b96f22e1/68747470733a2f2f73332e616d617a6f6e6177732e636f6d2f776174747061642d6d656469612d736572766963652f53746f7279496d6167652f68716838367745696478775851413d3d2d313332383533393933332e313735303465613337303064376131353331363639303934373739352e6a7067?s=fit&w=1280&h=1280]
Sophie was feeling completely out of it – and then the questions came bursting out of her. "What happened? Where are we? Did you stop the Kiss of Frost? Did I get turned to stone?"
Mek stared into the ground, looking very guilty. The snakes in her hair were drooping sadly. "I wasn't able to control my eyes well enough, so I petrified you by accident."
Beto gathered some courage and stepped forward. His blushing cheeks were particularly obvious due to his pale vampire skin, so you could always tell when he had been gazing longingly at Mek.
"You shouldn't blame yourself for that, Mek! It's like Nimum said, Sophie being petrified was a much better result than her being frozen, right, Nimum?"
"Right as rain, Beto."
"Frozen or petrified, we still got slowed down a bunch 'cause we had to carry Sophie the rest of the way, though," Trom said.
"Trom!" Fiff and Elva snapped at the same time.
Sophie scowled at Trom. Was he going to start ragging on her again now? She had kind of expected him to stop after he'd apologized to her. But now he was at it again, just like with the key.
"What? It did make things a lot harder. And if Sophie had just stuck with the rest of us, it never would have happened!"
"But you're not even the one who carried Sophie. Nimum did that!" Elva protested.
"All right, simmer down, Elva and Trom," Nimum said peaceably. "You can't really deny that carrying around a petrified Sophie is more work than not doing that."
Trom sent Elva a gloating look, but Nimum wasn't finished. "But on the other hand, we wouldn't be here at all if it wasn't for Sophie's curiosity. So you gotta take the good with the bad, Trom. Luckily you've got me, and I'll handle all the bad for all of you until you're ready to tackle it on your own!"
Trom opened his mouth to say something back, but then it was like something stopped him and he drew back, moping.
"How long was I made of stone for?" Sophie asked. At her feet she noticed rock pieces no thicker than egg shells. Some of the pieces were big enough that she could recognize the shapes of her own body parts. She thought back to her first day of school, when Vix had been accidentally turned to stone by Mek. That time it had only lasted about 10 minutes.
"About two hours," Fiff answered.
"That long!?" Sophie exclaimed.
"That's my fault too," Mek said apologetically, pushing her sunglasses closer to her brow. "I put too much power into it, so it ended up lasting longer."
"You did your best, Mek, and that's what matters!" Beto said, speaking loud and clearly to make sure everyone heard him, but Mek just shrugged sadly.
Sophie took another look around the wooden cabin. It looked like a huge viking house. The doors, the windows, walls and furniture, heck, everything seemed twice as big as it would have been in the human world. Thick wooden columns rose from the floor to the ceiling, and on the walls hung paintings and carved wooden figures.
"So, is the small human done being made of stone now?" asked a deep, calm voice.
A large, heavy-set troll stepped forward. Compared to Trom, who was a troll as well, this one looked pretty different. His entire body was covered in a thin layer of light brown fur, the tips of his ears were adorned with tufts of thick hair, and he had a powerful, braided beard that reached his stomach. Based on his size, Sophie assumed that the cabin was his home.
"Sophie, this is Mr. Skrymir," Nimum said.
Skrymir reached out a large hand to Sophie, smiling pleasantly.
Sophie shook his hand. She felt like she recognized the name, but she couldn't remember from where. And as usual, when Sophie's thoughts got going, so did her mouth.
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"Skrymir? I think I've heard that name before! Are you a famous troll? Are there stories about you? What kind of troll are you? Trolls don't usually have fur – do they?"
Skrymir looked over at Nimum. "That's one energetic half-pint you've got yourself there, Nimum."
"Yep! She's got a massive case of insatiable curiosity, just like her parents," Nimum said proudly.
Skrymir turned back towards Sophie. "It's probably some other Skrymir you've heard of, because not many people know of me. In fact, they have a tendency to forget me. But I have met a famous human you've probably heard of. Do you know Odin?"
"Odin!" Sophie cried out. In Norse mythology, Odin was the ruler of all the gods, known for his wisdom and magical powers. "You mean Odin's really real?!" Sophie was all riled up now. "And did you say he was human? I didn't know humans could have magical powers!"
"Well, he was part human, at least," Skrymir explained. "His mother was a Jotun like me – not a troll, mind you, a Jotun – and his father was a human. But what probably made the big difference for him was that he was born in the magical world."
"Why would that make a big difference?"
"Only beings born in the magical world can do magic. There were a few humans like that in the time before the border between worlds was closed, though their names escape me..." Skrymir glanced over at Nimum for help.
"Well, you've got Zeus, Hades, Poseidon, Amaterasu, Lakshmi – they were all humans born in the magical world. Oooh, and Merlin, of course," Nimum said. "Most of the humans that could do magic ended up being remembered as gods or demigods in the human world. Some of them probably claimed they were – serious ego trip! But with others, it just sort of happened, 'cause of how they'd help people who needed them."
This was all new information to Sophie, and very exciting – because it meant there were actually humans who had magical powers.
I wonder what other people were born in the magical world, she thought. Now she knew which books she was going to borrow from the library next.
"Seems like Sophie's back to full power!" Nimum said cheerfully. "What about the rest of you? Still feeling spry?"
She glanced out at the other students, who all seemed to have made themselves comfortable in the cabin. Trom had picked out a soft chair and was staring out the window. Fiff was flying from room to room, exploring the space. Rok was moving around too, enjoying being able to easily fit everywhere as he walked throughout the massive doorways. Vix was struggling to climb into one of the chairs, his bones scraping against the wood. Elva was walking along the walls, feeling the wood and stone that the cabin was made of. Varis was jumping from one piece of furniture to the next, looking like a dog who'd just learned to move like a cat, while Mek ran all over, catching the things that Varis would accidentally push off the shelves and tables. Beto was poring over Skrymir's book collection.
"Well, you've certainly made yourself at home, you gaggle of baboons!" Nimum laughed.
"What's a baboon?" Fiff asked.
"An animal from the human world. It's a kind of monkey with a red face and a huuuge butt," Nimum explained cheerfully.
"I'd love to see one of those! Have you seen one, Sophie?" Fiff asked.
"Only at the zoo."
"I don't know how I feel about being compared to a monkey with a huge butt," Trom said.
"Fits you better than the rest of us, though," Elva sniped.
"All right, no more chit-chat. If you'll all get off your butts of various sizes, I've got something I wanna show you outside," Nimum said.
The students slowly got to their feet and followed Nimum outside. Skrymir went with them as well. It was late afternoon, and the wind had gotten stronger and was blowing snow into the air.
It was late afternoon, and the wind had gotten stronger and was blowing snow into the air [https://img.wattpad.com/1b544bcc3fff6d1ea6ddd2ec53f3ec6a2c7f77ba/68747470733a2f2f73332e616d617a6f6e6177732e636f6d2f776174747061642d6d656469612d736572766963652f53746f7279496d6167652f5a333133316431324f5f2d3858773d3d2d313332383533393933332e313735303466623136346137663365613334313637373037373139382e6a7067?s=fit&w=1280&h=1280]
Sophie looked around. The wooden cabin was the only house she could see in any direction, and it didn't take her long to understand why. The cabin was on the top of a large rock pillar that shot up hundreds of feet from the ground. The top of the pillar was shaped like a flat circle, roughly the size of a marketplace. There were other pillars like it too. Up ahead she could see several others shooting up from the ground, all of them connected by suspension bridges that were worn down by snow and frost and time.
"Why do you live up here?" Sophie asked Skrymir, puzzled by the remoteness.
"Oh, there' a very important reason why I'm living here," he explained. "Now, remembering what that is, though..."
"You forgot!?"
"Yes, unfortunately. That's always a risk when you're supposed to remember something for hundreds and hundreds of years. I probably should have written it down, but I guess I never managed to remember to do that either. So now I just live here, hoping that it'll come back to me – because I do remember that it was important."
"Everybody! Face North and look up!" Nimum pointed up into the air.
Sophie turned in the direction Nimum was pointing and saw even more rock pillars. Those were connected by suspension bridges as well, but they reached even higher into the sky than the others. She followed the connecting bridges with her eyes until they settled on the tallest pillar of all. It was tall enough that they couldn't see what was on the top of it at all.
"That's where we'll find the Dimension Door!"
"We're not going up there now, are we?" Trom asked worriedly, looking up at the dark clouds in the sky.
"Not today," Nimum said. "But first thing tomorrow, we're off! Mr. Skrymir has been kind enough to let us stay the night here."
"Having guests is always nice," Skrymir said agreeably. "Now tell me: Would anyone care for a cup of hot chocolate?"
"I-is it d-dangerous?" Vix asked. He was always full of worry when it came to things he hadn't tried before.
Skrymir laughed. "No, certainly not. In fact, it's a quite lovely beverage that I learned to make while visiting the human world. It's one of the many great things humans have invented."
Skrymir and the class started to move back into the cabin, but Sophie stayed, looking up at the tallest pillar.
"Aren't you coming, Sophie?"
"Elva, do you think anyone's outside in this weather?"
"I don't see why anyone would be that stupid," Elva said, clearly not giving the possibility much thought.
"I just thought..." Sophie said, narrowing her eyes and staring up at the suspension bridges swaying in the wind.
"You just thought... what?"
"That I saw someone."
- Next chapter will be out on Monday the 3th of April [https://img.wattpad.com/78d73d2f8100ac7d47a1f18db921316e7fa9ff50/68747470733a2f2f73332e616d617a6f6e6177732e636f6d2f776174747061642d6d656469612d736572766963652f53746f7279496d6167652f4574525657654f386f5f744f55513d3d2d313332383533393933332e313735303465353937636465663565343733373636343935363838342e706e67?s=fit&w=1280&h=1280]