Once the lilies were gathered, Laelia searched for a fen and its fresh water. Familiar with the bog’s melodies and whispers, Laelia soon recognized the tranquil music of flowing water. Just ahead, she saw the sun sparkling on a fen’s surface. High in dissolved minerals, the healing water would help relieve Zote’s ailments.
She led him to its grassy edge and they stopped to drink. Laelia saw the wild violets growing along the fen’s bank. The lavender of the petite flower was the same color as her eyes. She thought of her mother as she picked the humble violets and laced them into her upswept hair. As a little troll, her mother often adorned her black hair with the violet’s beauty.
Sitting for some time on a soft mound of moss, her nimble fingers working with the small flowers, she secretly searched Zote’s face. Fear of this smelly troll sitting next to her diminished just a little.
Revived by the cold water, Zote insisted that they return to his catacombs. Laelia searched the woods for a familiar path. The bog’s spongy moss had gobbled up their footprints; now it was impossible to retrace their path. Fear settled in her chest like a heavy rock—they were lost!
As the day lingered on, Laelia and Zote found themselves in a quagmire pitted with black ponds. Stagnant water, blended with the scent of carnivorous orchids, awakened an instinctual fear in Laelia. The little troll was well aware that the bog had a sinister spirit; its slimy soils were capable of giving birth to unnatural forces. A sense of dread sent a shudder throughout her body.
Laelia was afraid they had wandered into the domain of the water bogie, one of nature’s ugly mistakes. She recalled legends about the polluted ponds that lay like open graves within the bog. The pools of stagnant water created mutations in the creatures that swam and crawled within the water. Over time, the polluted water transformed the bogie into a flesh-eating monster that thrived on trolls. She warned Zote that the bogie had a cold-blooded passion for meat and was capable of pulling even his body into a watery grave. The water bogie swam through tunnels that ran between underground aquifers connecting many of the deep-water ponds. She could be anywhere in the swampy morass.
As they trotted amid the pools of black water scattered across the bog’s carpet of peat, Laelia saw that they cradled mirror-like surfaces. The mirror beckoned Laelia, tempting her vanity. How long had it been since she last saw her reflection and admired her hair framed with fen violets. Laelia caught the image of her face on its surface. Was she still pretty?
For a moment forgetful of her warning to Zote, she lowered her small body and sat down on a flat stone next to the pond. On realizing what she was doing, Zote released the tension on the vine around her waist. She leaned over to catch a fleeting glance of her face in the watery mirror. Not a sound or a ripple warned her.
Hidden in a clump of rotten roots along the rim of the pond, the water bogie watched Laelia. Wart-like air bladders covered the bogie’s slimy body and allowed her to lie in wait underwater for some length of time. Her round, fish-like eyes followed the movements of the little troll.
Suddenly, green, webbed fingers sprouting long nails reached out of the black mirror and pulled Laelia into its darkness. As the water swirled over Laelia’s head, mind- riveting panic welled up; these hideous hands, so strong, were going to hold her until she drowned. Her heart beat so fast it robbed her of oxygen. As she fought, her weak arms and legs moved in slow motion. Pulling Laelia deeper into the water, the bogie wrapped her long strands of snakeweed hair tightly around the little troll and rendered Laelia’s strong tail useless. Scaly arms held and rolled the small troll violently through the water. All the while, the bogie’s lifeless glass eyes watched Laelia struggle for her life. With the excitement of killing, the water bogie’s spiritless eyes came alive, dilating and pulsating into kaleidoscopic waves of orange, yellow and brown.
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Face-to-face with the bogie, the sight of her eyes horrified Laelia. Flashes of sharp teeth and a smile on bloated, mucus-coated lips whirled before her eyes. The bogie’s hair of snake-like tentacles grasped ever tighter, pulling the little troll deeper into the pond’s age-old slime.
Laelia’s mind was racing. She knew the water bogie’s deadly plan was to pull her to the depths of the pond by wildly spinning her body. Once drowned, the bogie would push her under a stone or log to rot. Weeks later, the bogie would return and eat her. Laelia’s mind was now screaming, I am going to die the worst of deaths!
The lightning-quick movements of the water bogie had stunned Zote, but then instant rage overtook him. The bogie was trying to steal his captive and foil his plan. The giant troll began jumping up and down, his tail beating the ground as he watched Laelia disappear below the churning water.
Zote saw the strong vine he had tightly woven around Laelia’s waist floating on the pond’s edge. He reached down and grabbed the long vine. Using all of his anger- fueled strength, he pulled, trying desperately to free Laelia from the bogie’s grasp. As Laelia’s life started to fade, she felt a strong tug on the vine wrapped around her waist. The powerful tug caught the water bogie by complete surprise, and she loosened her grip on Laelia.
This moment held her chance for freedom and lit the fire Laelia carried within her very being. She fought with all her strength to free her tail from the bogie’s web of hair. Shaken, but now free from the water bogie’s deadly squeeze, Laelia thrashed her powerful tail and swam to the pond’s muddy edge.
Zote had no sooner pulled Laelia safely ashore than the bogie popped her head above the water. Confused, the bogie looked about with glazed eyes, not realizing she was close to the water’s edge. Zote, still enraged at the near loss of Laelia, reached down and wrapped his strong fingers around the bogie’s snake-like hair. Repulsed by touching her, he tossed the water bogie into an adjacent pond.
Zote watched as the bogie slithered across the murky water, then turned, and reared up her gruesome head. When she caught sight of Zote, the water bogie stuck her long, scruffy tongue out at him, circled, and slid like an eel under a cluster of reeds.
Before Zote led a quivering Laelia away from the dreadful pool, she stooped down and gathered up the wolfberries and lilies she had carefully selected for Zote. After traveling for some time, Laelia begged to stop and rest. An opening in the bog’s spruce- tree canopy revealed a moon rising in the evening sky. Zote, a creature of the night, used the moon to steer his way through the bog’s dark understory.
Laelia shivered in the night air as she thought about her horrifying encounter with the water bogie. While trotting back to Zote’s cave and her prison, Laelia looked up into the sky and saw the full moon had transformed into an exhilarating green, the color of life itself! As Zote came closer to the cavern, he took out the blindfold to place over Laelia’s eyes. Before the blindfold left her in darkness, she glanced up to see the moon one more time—her green glow lit up the night’s north sky.
That evening, in the cavern’s dim light, Laelia ground the wolfberries and mixed them with clean water to make a paste. She approached Zote, who was sulking in his dark corner, and explained how the poultice would ease his pain. He watched her closely as she placed the healing mixture in his huge hands; his eyes flickered with gratitude. He slowly spread the potion over the inflamed skin that surrounded the wormhole on his stomach. In time the pain subsided.
Lying in a corner of her cage, with the veil of sleep hovering over her, Laelia abruptly sat up. She remembered witnessing Zote’s weakness; he was terrified of deep water because he could not swim! If only she could persuade him to take her back into the bog. In her sleepy state of mind, she began to devise her plan for escape. Then it occurred to her that Zote had another weakness—the taste of sweetness. Before falling asleep, there was one more important task. Keeping herself awake, Laelia hummed an old song her mother sang about the sweetness of the red water lily while she prepared a potion. Once her task was complete and feeling the chill of the damp cave, Laelia pulled the dirty animal skins over her tired body, escaping into tranquil sleep.