Helen was frowning at the lopsided ruin of her mailbox when fell footsteps came behind her. A subtle rhythm, detectable only to a dedicated student of the village.
“Hi, Louise,” she said without turning around.
“Oh hello yourself Helen how are you doing oh NO what’s happened to your mailbox was it the kids again?”
Who did she think she was kidding? Might as well ask if the sky was blue or green. “Someone’s kids did it, yeah. Clumsy job too – they probably just stuck the bat out the window as they drove by, didn’t even swing or anything. Won’t be hard to fix.”
“Oh yes that’s right that’s right and your daughter how’s she doing?”
You live next door, Louise, why don’t you tell me. “Agnes? Oh she’s fine, fine, fine. Lazy though. Typical teenager.”
“Yes indeedy mostly truly you tell no lie there I tell you what and by the way heard anything about that new neighbour yet?”
And there we go.
“Yeah. He’s a troll. He works with a coal-dark hammer and a red-hot anvil and a set of barbed tongs that could pin a raging bull or pluck the left eyelash from a gnat and he smiths ores and metals into hopes and dreams. I checked his website.”
“Oh my my goodness that’s very impressive very unique very interesting. Is he single?”
“He said he’s married to his forge.”
“Shoot. Well you can’t have everything can you I guess it’s true or at least you can’t always get what you want but then again if you try sometimes you might get what you need are you SURE he isn’t single?”
“Look, you can ask him yourself. I’m going to see him about my lawnmower when I’m done here and I don’t want to give him an excuse to make it run backwards or something. You know how fables go if you piss off the magical folk.”
***
The troll’s home was a hill, hollowed into a hull and shaped into a hall. Windows frowned from under the grass; ventilation ducts and chimneys and exhaust pipes shrugged loose from the loam; a gigantic ironwood door twice the height of a human stood proud in a somber cliff face. It had two doorknobs: one you could barely just reach if you stood on your tippy-toes and jumped, and a second, much smaller one at a more typical height.
A little sign was hanging from the second doorknob. It read “NO SOLICITORS, PRIESTS, REALTORS, OR MARRIAGE PROPOSALS” in firm, mathematically exacting print that looked to have been embossed with considerable force.
Helen knocked, making a sound like slabs rolling loose from sarcophaguses in the most lightless reaches of the deepest tombs.
Then she knocked again.
Then she tried the handle, which was unlocked, and poked her head through and asked “hello?”
“No solicitors,” said the troll. His voice sounded like raw unworked stone with a hint of smouldering cinder, and he had his back to her, hands busy on his work-table with two tools made of iron and glass and a jeweler’s loupe the size of a human head jammed into his left eyesocket.
“I’m not soliciting, I’m here to ask for a commission.”
“Good. One moment.”
Helen waited one moment. While she did that the troll did something unspeakably complex with his fingers – like forming a sushi roll crossed with rolling a coin between his knuckles crossed with some sort of guitar picking – and then put down what he was working on.
It was a very small duckling, made entirely of wire. As Helen watched, it stretched its little wings, flapped twice, took three steps and fell over.
“Done,” said the troll. He picked the duckling up in one hand and deposited it in his apron pocket – where it began to squeak most incessantly – then turned to Helen.
“I need some work done,” she said, deciding that professional was the way to go here.
The troll’s eyes were deep-set caves with a hint of batwing in them. “Yup,” he agreed.
“It’s my lawnmower.”
“Yup.”
“The blades are dull.”
“Yup.”
Helen waited. The troll, too, waited.
She caved first. “And maybe it’s nothing, but my daughter says it’s slow to start.”
“Yup. I’ll get on it right now. Come back tomorrow.” And the troll scooped up the lawnmower in his hands, tucking it under his arm where the duckling began poking at it in hopes it was watercress.
A thought struck Helen as she passed through the door, one hand still on the knob. “How much will this cost?”
The troll looked up from where he was (carefully, discreetly) fussing over the mower like a child with a cranky cat. “You tell me,” he said. And then he refused to say more, and she left to worry a little bit about that and tell herself that she didn’t need to do that and maybe even believe it, if she could.
***
The sun was bright if thin on the morrow’s morning when Helen returned. Outside the door of the troll’s home was a lawnmower fashioned of what appeared to be purest gold and silver, with a pull cord of spun platinum wire and a diamond-carved grip. And on its handle was a small note of plain paper with familiar firm handwriting, reading: Take It.
Helen tried the doorknob first. Locked. Then she tried what the card said.
It was surprisingly light for a piece of landscaping equipment now made entirely of precious metals. Almost lighter than it had been when she towed it over in the first place. And it didn’t rattle, and it didn’t bump as she lugged it across the street, which she discovered as she lugged it over the curb was because it was smoothly and frictionlessly slicing apart every single object that intersected the softly-gleaming blades nestled in its underside.
“Agnes!” she called into the house in general. “Lawnmower’s fixed. Time to go to work”
“Ugh,” said Agnes concisely.
“Go on, it has to get done. You need this more than I do.”
“Fine.”
“And mind the new pull handle; it’s a little stiff. Probably because it’s made of spun platinum wire.”
“Whatever.”
And so Helen went inside, put some tea on, and was just finishing steeping the bag when the door slammed.
“The gas is in the shed, behind the bike rack,” she told Agnes.
“I’m done.”
“No you aren’t. You promised you were going to do the lawn, and you already got a few days abeyance from the mower breaking. You can’t just quit on your commitments like this, people will talk about it and you’ll get a reputation.”
“I finished the lawn.”
“No way you did a good job that fast. You can’t halfass things like this Agnes! It’s how you get fired!”
“Mom. Relax. The mower runs itself. Watch.”
So they went out into the backyard – which was immaculately cut and smelled faintly of grass and vanilla – and Agnes showed her mother how if you pulled the cord like THIS and then turned the knob like THAT and pet the mower gently on its back it would wriggle itself like an excited kitten preparing to pounce and zoom all over the lawn in thirty seconds.
“So yeah,” she concluded. “You’re welcome. Don’t mention it.”
“This was meant to give you a work ethic,” said Helen. Her left arm wouldn’t stop shaking. “So you won’t end up penniless and on the street when I’m too old to do anything to help you because that almost happened to me when your grandmother fucked up when I was little and I dream about you running out of money every month, at least twice, and I feel helpless and terrified that I’m not being a good mother.”
“Mom,” said Agnes. “You’re freaking yourself out. It’s okay; I don’t treat chores my family ask me to do like I would my own professional commitments. My life isn’t going to be financially ruined because I mowed the lawn too fast and didn’t enjoy it. Besides, I do all the coding for cousin Betsy’s streaming setup and she’s already paying me for it. I just never found a good time to tell you.”
They both burst into tears and hugged each other, crying so loudly that across the breadth of their house, lawn, and the road itself the troll had to close his windows and turn up the fans a little so he could focus on carving a living lily out of granite.
***
Louise had her brother Kevin over for coffee the next day.
“And you wouldn’t believe it but Helen said her lawn’s never been cleaner and her and that daughter of hers are actually talking properly again and it’s just amazing really amazing so I’m thinking of maybe looking into visiting and getting something commissioned it’s a real opportunity do you have anything you need done?”
Kevin thought about it. “Yeah,” he said. Then he finished his coffee and walked across the road and knocked on the troll’s door.
Then he knocked again.
Then he opened the door a crack and peered inside and said “hey.”
“No solicitors,” said the troll. He was elbow-deep inside a golden goose’s chest cavity, performing open-heart surgery with a selection of burrs, pliers, and files.
“Got a job.”
“One moment,” said the troll. His hands blurred through something sort of like juggling sort of like polishing a counter and sort of like playing the violin and the goose was sitting up and blinking groggily and honking softly to itself. The troll pet its head gently and slipped it into his apron pocket, where it stared at Kevin with only a lazy echo of the eager animus typical of geese.
“I need a spam blocker,” said Kevin. “Inbox’s overflowing.”
The troll stared at him. “Yup,” he concluded.
“Too many contacts.”
“Yup.”
“Too many promotional offers.”
“Yup.”
“Too many subscriptions to crap.”
“Yup.”
“Staying on top of it sucks.”
“Yup,” said the troll. “I can fix that. Come back tomorrow.” And he walked to his forge and began to pump the bellows with such tremendous force that Kevin had to leave immediately or be scalded hairless.
“Price?” he called back through the door as he hurried out.
“You tell me,” said the troll. And then the handle was too hot to hold and the door slipped shut.
***
It was a misty mild morning when Kevin drove down again to his sister’s place, where he left his car and walked across the road to the shrouded haze of the troll’s hall.
The door was shut fast and locked. But hanging from the doorknob was a sturdy scabbard of dragonhide, descaled but still impervious to harm, and inside the scabbard was a blade so impossibly exact in its proportions that it hurt Kevin’s eyes to look at it even through his contacts. It felt like a little piece of mathematics had fallen from the heavens and intruded onto the messy disproportionate and unmeasured bounds of reality.
A note on the hilt was printed in firm and decisive handwriting: Hold Me And Speak This Word: Defenestrate.
So, feeling somewhat foolish, Kevin drove home with his sword (obeying all the speed limits very carefully, in case he had to explain to a police officer what the hell he was doing), went home, stood in front of his computer, unsheathed the blade, held it aloft, and spoke the word: “Defenestrate.”
The sword leapt from his hand like a salmon through rapids, spun once with dazzling speed, and, with the precision of a cat falling upon a chipmunk, cut his computer into six pieces with a single slice.
Kevin stared at several thousand dollars’ worth of damage. “Huh,” he managed.
Kevin stared at the sword, now returned soundlessly to its scabbard. “Huh,” he repeated.
Kevin stared out the window, at the nice day. “Huh,” he concluded.
Then he went outside and stayed outside for about a week straight before he ran out of groceries.
***
“And I really was impressed at the sword you made my brother I saw it when I went over of course he wasn’t bragging about it or anything but it was sitting there when I came in and took a nice look and of COURSE I’ve seen Helen’s lawnmower and what I’m getting at here is I’m very interested in seeing if you can do something for me if that’s alright I’m sure you’re very busy since you’re so skilled but it’s just a little thing a small problem I’m sure you can handle it super easily no trouble at all if that’s okay.”
The troll’s door squeaked open a crack in front of Louise.
“Everyone else knocked and then went in,” he told Louise.
“Oh I’m sorry I just didn’t want to impose is all and then I started explaining myself and I got a bit carried away you know how I get carried away I’m sure Helen mentioned it ahahahaha why I mean you know how it is when you’re worried about filling up a bit of awkward silence the worst thing in the world isn’t that so?”
“Mm,” said the troll. He raised his hand and gently flicked a small tin woodpecker into the air, where it fluttered free before landing on one of his chimneys, which it began to enthusiastic hammer on.
“Anyways it’s just a small thing just a little project I’m sure it’ll cost nothing at all it’s so tiny teeny eensy-weensy of a chore it’s dead simply why I’m sure you churn out things like this between breakfast lunch and dinner as easy as blinking as simple as pie as straightforward as one to three like falling up a log you can do it under your sleep just like that, surely.”
“What is it.”
“I need you to make my car cool and convenient and spacious and good for the environment and healthy for me,” said Louise.
The troll peered over her shoulder into her driveway. “Yup. Leave it. Come back tomorrow.”
“Oh okay do you need me to leave the keys too or-” but the troll had already gently hooked one finger under the bumper and began to tow Louise’s SUV into his hall, slowly but inevitably, and by the time she’d scurried out of his way and brushed the dust off herself the door was beginning to shut again.
“Oh dear I didn’t ask the price is it free?”
“You tell me,” said the troll.
“Oh well would two hundred be alright or-”
The door shut.
Louise spitballed numbers for another half-hour before she gave up and went home. Her sleep was restless.
***
The morning was bright and cloudlessly bluer than the fiercest robin’s egg when Louise crossed the road and stood before the troll’s hall. She didn’t notice it.
She noticed only the car.
It was… different. The same, but different.
Every angle was just so. Every bit of bodywork precisely adjusted. It was obviously the same car, but it was somehow, inconceivably, incomprehensibly, impossibly slightly tweaked so that it looked perfect. Also it was trimmed with silver, including its new and incredibly stylish hood ornament (a finch?).
The finch cheeped at her.
She opened the door. Again, it was the same. The same in every way. It just somehow had gained an extra row of seats and had more cargo space. Louise’s eyes informed her that this was totally reasonable no matter how hard she looked for the seams. The surfaces were of identical plastic and pleather, but they made it look better. Made it look good. Made it look flawless. It was ideal in every way.
Louise sat behind the steering wheel and gently gripped it, feeling warm and comforted and at peace with the world. Then her eyes alit on the little message sitting at precisely twelve o’clock between her hands, printed very firmly on a sturdy square piece of paper.
It Costs 5 Cents More Per Litre Than The Pump Reads.
Louise considered this for a while. Then she drove it across the road and parked it and considered it a bit more.
“Well if you price it out considering the work was free it’s quite good quite good indeed I can drive it quite a lot before it starts costing me more than the renovation would’ve otherwise I’ll just have to plan around it yes maybe ratio my kilometers I can make a chart and in the meantime I can walk more and get that old bike Helen kept offering me yes I can use those for getting around town and just break this beauty out for when I’m off to visit Kevin and actually I can ask HIM to visit ME more often since he’s spending so much more time offline good for him really and you know I think I can make this work and-” so on and so forth on and on and on.
***
Saturday evening, Agnes came by the troll’s home. No job needed doing, just a little tin of cookies from her mother to say thanks. And hey, it was just across the road, so it was no trouble at all.
The chimneys sat silent and empty of smoke. The windows were shuttered. The door was locked tight. And a big sturdy piece of card was fixed over the smaller, lower doorknob, on which was printed in very firm and large handwriting: Gone Fishing.
And below that, slightly less firmly – as if the author had added it on spur of the moment: Make What You Need Yourselves.
Agnes laughed at that for a good long while.
“Please,” she said. “Like that wasn’t already happening. They didn’t notice?”
Then she wedged the cookie tin against the door with a rock, spread some seed for the little brass chickadees that chirped at her from under the grassy eaves, and went home still chuckling.
Soon after that, the sun went down. But that just meant it was already morning somewhere.