The Toll by Jeanette Lynn Read Free Book Online Page B

from my lap, I shook the bag Mamma had handed me.
“The jewels in here are surely tempting, I’d wager.”
    “ I’m… I’m sure they are,
sweet. I’m sure they are.”
     
     
    ****
     
     
    As we got closer, only a few more minutes ,
Papa had promised, I had a moment of panic. What if he says no? What if it’s not enough? Would anything
ever be, considering what he wants?
    “ Will he be agreeable to
the trade, do you think?” I wondered aloud.
    Papa took a long time in answering.
“If it can see the gem within, I’m sure it will,” he offered
cryptically.
    “ Gems,” I corrected,
cradling the sack of priceless family heirlooms, the only ones we
possessed, to my chest.
     
     
    Flesh Of My Flesh

     
    Papa stopped suddenly, and I glanced
around, wide-eyed.
    “ Are we here?” I couldn’t
help the quiver in my voice. Having a good look around, I had to
question it, wondering if maybe Papa had just stopped for a spell,
or maybe we were lost. All I could see was a rickety old bridge and
a river below it. A muddy embankment, covered with small bits of
grass, dotted with tall reeds, was spread out along before us in
either direction.
    It was gloomy and muddy, muddier than
the stuff I’d traipsed through to get to Papa the other night, and
the air had an eerie quality to it, like the thick mist surrounding
us, enveloping us like a dampened sheet, warning us to go
back.
    Oh, how I wanted nothing more than to
turn around and run, but I wouldn’t.
    I glanced at the river again, the rise
and fall as the water went from a steady trickle, babbling quietly,
to thunderous, crashing thwacks and splashes down towards the
opposite end, as if it couldn’t get itself moving fast enough past
that crumbling, creaking structure. My eyes strayed down the
stretch of it, idly wondering if it kept raging on and on, or
settled down to a steady trickle, like the opposite end had started
out. I couldn’t tell, but it looked as if it went on forever, never
ending.
    Papa grunted in answer, “This is it.”
Dismounting, he hopped down on wobbly legs, and once again gave me
his hand, of which I took, and he helped me down.
    Shifting awkwardly from foot to foot,
Papa pointed towards the bridge. “It’s just under there,
Daphedaenya, just beyond that thicket of weeds
underneath.”
    I followed his finger and my lips
parted in astonishment.
    “ Underneath the bridge?” I mumbled through thick lips. I had
to swallow past the catch in my throat. I
have to go under there?
    Stupid to think a bridge
troll would live any place else, but still, silly me, the idea
that I’d have to
do it was boggling me.
    My eyes widened and I turned to Papa,
but he’d already mounted and was turning his horse
around.
    “ Wait!” Picking up my
skirts, the bag clutched in my hand, I ran towards him, tempted to
try and hop back on. “But… Papa, wait! You’re leaving?”
    “ I’m not allowed to
return,” he explained without explaining. “He threatened to
disembowel me if I did. Take care, my Daphie.” His voice was hoarse
as he called out my name, and that was all he offered before he
took off.
    Watching him go, I stood
there, dumbfounded, until I couldn’t see him hurrying off into the
distance any more, his coat flapping in the cold breeze. He threatened to disembowel my papa? And they
want me to go have a little chat with him? Not for the first time since reaching adulthood, I had to
question my parents’ sanity, and my own for that matter, knowing I
was still going to do it.
    Terrified, but willing to see this
through, I slowly made my way to the bridge, my feet squishing
wetly through a wealth of mud and rocks that seemed to sprout up
out of nowhere, my sinking boots sucking wetly as I yanked them up,
one foot at a time, trudging towards the bottom of the lone,
rickety bridge, catching them on small rocks and pebbles mixed
within.
    I had to question my father’s sanity
once more as I went ‘round to the right, peering underneath the
bottom