He fell asleep for a time, and it was after midnight when he came awake again. He had been dreaming, but he couldn’t remember what the dreams were about. As he lay there, he thought he heard someone calling for him. He propped himself up on one arm and listened to the silence. He stayed that way for a long time, thinking.
Then he rose; dressed in jeans, pullover, and sneakers; and crept downstairs, trying hard not to make any noise. He got as far as the back porch. Sam was asleep on the threshold, and Jack didn’t see him. He tripped over the dog and went down hard, striking his head on the edge of a table. He blacked out momentarily, then his eyes blinked open. Sam was cowering in one corner, frightened half to death. Jack was surprised and grateful that the old dog wasn’t barking like crazy. That would have brought his parents awake in a minute. He patted Sam’s head reassuringly, pulled on his windbreaker, and slipped out through the screen door.
Silence enveloped him. Jack crossed the damp green carpet of the backyard on cat’s feet, pushed through the bushes at its end, and went into the park. It was a warm, windless night, and the moon shone full and white out of a cloudless sky, its silver light streaming down through breaks in the leafy trees to chase the shadows. Jack breathed the air and smelled pine needles and lilacs. He didn’t know what he would tell his parents if they found him out there. He just knew he had to find Pick. Something inside whispered that he must.
He reached the old pine and peered beneath its spiky boughs. There was no sign of Pick. He backed out and looked about the park. Crickets chirped in the distance. The baseball diamonds stretched away before him east to the wall of the trees where the deep woods began. He could see the edge of the river bluff south, a ragged tear across the night sky. The cemetery was invisible beyond the rise of the park west. Nothing moved anywhere.
Jack came forward to the edge of the nearest ball diamond, anxious now, vaguely uneasy. Maybe this was a mistake.
Then a screech shattered the silence, and Jack caught sight of a shadow wheeling across the moonlight overhead.
“Daniel!” he shouted.
Excitement coursed through him. He began to run. Daniel was circling ahead, somewhere over the edge of the bluff. Jack watched him dive and soar skyward again. Daniel was directly over the old stone bridge where Wartag lived.
As he came up to the bridge he slowed warily, remembering anew the Troll’s mean-looking eyes. Then he heard his name called, and he charged recklessly ahead. He skidded down the dampened slope by the bridge’s west support and peered into the shadows.
“Jack Andrew McCall, where have you been, Boy?” he heard Pick demand without so much as a perfunctory hello. “I have been waiting for you for hours!”
Jack couldn’t see him at first and groped his way through the blackness.
“Over here, Boy!”
His eyes began to adjust, and he caught sight of something hanging from the underside of the bridge on a hook, close against the support. It was a cage made out of stone. He reached for it and tilted it slightly so he could look inside.
There was Pick. He looked exactly the same as he had those seven years past—a tiny man with a reddish beard, green trousers and shirt, black belt and boots, and the peculiar hat of woven pine needles. It was too dark to be certain whether or not his face was flushed, but he was so excited that Jack was certain that it must be. He was dancing about on first one foot and then the other, hopping up and down as if his boots were on fire.
“What are you doing in there?” Jack asked him.
“What does it look like I’m doing in here—taking a bath?” Pick’s temper hadn’t improved any. “Now listen to me, Jack Andrew, and listen carefully because I haven’t the time to say this more than once!” Pick was animated, his tiny voice shrill. “Wartag set a snare for me and I blundered into it. He sets such snares constantly, but I am usually too clever to get trapped in them. This time he caught me napping. He locked me in this cage earlier tonight and abandoned me to my fate. He has gone into the deep woods to unbalance the magic. He intends to set Desperado free!”
He jabbed at Jack with his finger. “You have to stop him!”
Jack started. “Me?”
“Yes, you! I don’t have the means, locked away in here!”
“Well, I’ll set you free then!”
Pick shook his head. “I’m afraid not. There’s no locks or keys to a Troll cage. You just have to wait until it falls apart. Doesn’t take long. Day or two at most. Wouldn’t matter if you did free me, anyway. An Elf locked in a stone cage loses his magic for a moonrise. Everyone knows that!”
Jack gulped. “But, Pick, I can’t…”
“Quit arguing with me!” the Elf stormed. “Take this!” He thrust something through the bars of the cage. It was a tiny silver pin. “Fasten it to your jacket. As long as you wear it, I can see what you see and tell you what to do. It will be the same as if I were with you. Now, hurry! Get after that confounded Troll!”
“But what about you?” Jack asked anxiously.
“Don’t bother yourself about me! I’ll be fine!”
“But…”