Kids were always told to stay near the village, to watch their feet, to stay with the group. But they thought the adults were just telling stories when they said there was a troll out there that preyed on children. That they had lost so many to her mean spirited ways. The kids laughed when they were told the troll had magic skills. She could make the kids disoriented so they got lost, by something called green confusion. She could act like a tree stump and make them fall so they were injured and couldn’t get back home on their own. She could pull them into the water if they got too close to the edge of ponds, streams and rivers. Especially in winter when the ice was fragile and when the waters were high in flood season and storms. And hide them when their parents and other villagers tried to find them. The kids thought their parents were superstitious idiots. It was pretty hard to believe.
Till you met her for yourself…Till she rose up in front of your eyes in all her horrendous glory and grabbed you. Till you felt her evil arms surround you and drag you deep into her lair. Never to be seen by human eye again. You were hers to do with as she would. And you felt helpless. Petrified and a bit angry. You had been duped!!
Perhaps by your own arrogance? Was this a lesson on listening to your elders? Or a lesson in respecting nature? That it can and will trip you up if you trust it a bit too much? In the end, does it matter what the lesson was when you are now her prisoner?
mspeachierocks 