I have to introduce this week’s story prompt photo with more than my usual amount of vagueness. I took the photo on a family outing to… somewhere. I’m moderately confident that it’s somewhere in the north of England. I recall the holiday to a wee place just off the A1, and I think this was taken from within a little hermitage on the grounds of a castle we visited. I’m a even more hazy about the geography. Typically I leave navigation up to my better half, simply taking the turnings as directed. The upshot is that I have a foggy notion of where most locations in my life are. I’d make an effort to do better but I hold with the wisdom of picking one’s battles carefully. I think this is not the hill I’ll choose to die on. Of course, what would I know?
The bright morning light burned into my home, searing bright against the soothing darkness inside. My eyes blinked rapidly until they adjusted. In some ways it was an unforgiving home. But it was mine. I’d built it with my own two hands. The sweat and blood in the mortar was mine alone. Not much of a house, some might say. No door, nor glass in the windows. Nothing for a floor but hard-packed earth. As if there could be anything better than keeping that connection with the world itself. Let them say what they want. The fools.
I’ll grant you, a house like this, stone-lined and dug into the side of a hill was unusual for people like me. Most trolls live in mountain caves. There’s a few eccentrics who live under bridges. There’s a big iron bridge to a ways off to the south that I hear houses a whole community of trolls, if you can believe it.
Well, I like my house. It’s cool in the summer and cosy through the winter. Most of all it lets me see the world in peace and quiet. From here I can see the birds as they flit around on their business. The wag-tails are my favourites. Little black and white chaps that beat their tails up and down like they’re conducting an orchestra that only they can hear. In the evenings a family of foxes dart back and forth on some errands that I can only guess at. I have hedgehogs to tend my vegetable patch and even fish in the river.
But trolls don’t like ‘nice’ things like all that, surely? Well, perhaps not all of us, I suppose. It’s silly to think that an entire species thinks and acts and likes in just one way. Sure, I know what your stories are. The wicked, ugly trolls that lie in wait for unsuspecting travellers . Admittedly, there’s a few of us like that. That’s true of all folks, isn’t it?
As for me. What do I like? Well that’s the reason for my unusual house. And indeed the reason for the visitor I see now across the river. Just a speck of red reflected in the water. I know what to look for, though. I’m used to it now. It’s all about my treasure.
No, not that type. What use would a troll have for gold and jewels? My treasure is more glorious and more fragile. It’s the reason I dug into the hill. Why I lined it so well with stone and mortar. For a steady temperature. So that the air isn’t too moist and so that the sunlight doesn’t fade anything. I’ve spent years gathering it, cataloguing it, shelving it.
My treasure is books!
I must go and help my visitor cross. The greatest thing about my treasure is that it is worth so much more when shared. If I’m an especially lucky troll she might have brought something to add to it.
Brandon Lim 