Troll Or Derby, A Fairy Wicked Tale by Red Tash Read Free Book Online

Dave or Jag—they may command armies, but they’re tied down to their lairs in a way that the Coach and I would never be.
    I approached him across the parking lot, as the girl strode away on her new skates. Coach smiled as he watched her go, then dropped his glamour completely to turn and embrace me.
    “The time has come, Harlow. And here you are, to bring in the new era.”
    “You’ve been breathing in too many fumes from this fire, Old Man,” I said. “Is there faeth burning in there or something?”
    He laughed, but he put his arm around my shoulders and guided me inside the rink—a tricky feat, considering I was at least two feet taller than him.
    “At least they didn’t burn the whole place,” he said.
    “Yet,” I answered.
    The Coach walked behind the bar of the snack counter, opened up the ice maker, and pulled out two Little Kings. The tiny bottles were smaller than either of our pinky fingers, but it was a good laugh, so I thanked him and tossed mine down the hatch, bottle and all.
    “McJagger’s not coming anywhere near this rink, or this town again, if everything goes the way Zelda sees it,” Coach said.
    “Zelda?” I asked. Another godmother figure to me, the old fortune teller wasn’t particularly renowned for her dependability—not since she’d foreseen that my parents and their friends the Wheelers would overthrow Jag in the early 1990s. Jag had taken her at her word, and killed all four of the adults in my life, along with the baby girl—what was her name? I couldn’t remember. Sometimes I thought I had it, then poof.
    The Coach seemed to see the wheels turning in my head, and when I opened my mouth to ask him what he meant, he held up a palm to me.
    “No, no, go ask Zelda yourself,” he said. “And don’t waste any time.”
    “I’ll go right now,” I said. “But, I feel like I should be following that skater girl.”
    “Oh, you do, do you?” the Coach said, laughing. “Well, take her with you, then. I’m sure Zelda’s dying to meet her. Get a move on, though. She’s got a twenty minute head-start, and considering how close she is to fledging out, not to mention she’s on enchanted skates—well, she’s gonna be a tough one to catch.”
    “Fledging out?” I asked. I had no idea what he meant.
    “Just go and get her, Harlow. You’ll figure it out, son. You always do.”

Chapter Six
    How You Gonna Keep ‘Em Down on the Farm?
    Deb

    Coach might not have wanted me to look back, but I was quickly running out of places I could look. There was no way I was going back to my Mom for help, and Derek lived too close to her to consider stopping by his house. Pretty sad that Derek was my most viable option for assistance at that point, but the fact was, I needed someone to talk to—someone to help me make a plan.
    Even if I did have someone to talk to, how exactly was I supposed to find my sister? Pretty much all roads were pointing to Dave and his band of nasties, and I wasn’t in a hurry to face him. Prophecy or no lousy prophecy, I had no idea how to tackle the Midwest Crank Mafia all by myself.
    I skated to the square downtown, and stopped for a Coke on the front steps of the old Endris Drugstore. Where I’m from, all sodas are “Cokes.” My favorite kind of Coke just happens to be Mr. Pibb.
    I was considering whether or not to try skating into their tiny public restroom for a break, when the bright red Mustang from earlier pulled in. Laurence Yoder again.
    He leaned his head out the window, revving the engine and laughing, before killing it. “C’mere,” he called.
    “As if,” I said.
    I was afraid of him, to be honest—bigger than me, dumber than all, he relied on brute strength to make his way in the world. I knew I didn’t have to answer him—I could have gone into Endris’s—but for some reason I felt compelled to take it there.
    “Why’d you throw the beer cans at me, Yoder?”
    “Why do you skate across town like a fag?” he countered, smirking at