She reached for the apple.
I looked into the room. Was Phillip there? Yes. Through the strained moonlight from the window, I saw him. He was asleep, looking as beautiful as he had on the night we were together last.
I took the apple from my coat pocket and handed it to the troll. Then I entered the room and shut the door behind me. I ran to Phillip’s side.
“Phillip?” I whispered. “Phillip?”
He did not, would not stir.
I said his name more loudly. “Phillip!”
Nothing. Had this been the troll’s trick, the reason why she had made it so easy for me? Was Phillip sick? Even dead? But I touched his wrist, and I felt there was a pulse.
I shook him. “Phillip! Phillip! Wake up!”
But there was nothing, no reaction. I screamed and cried and shook him from side to side. I slapped him on his face, and around his body. He was like a corpse. Finally, I fell, sobbing, to sleep beside him.
When morning came, he was still asleep, and the troll princess was at the door. It was not quite light.
“You must leave now,” she said, her voice menacing.
“I must stay,” I said.
“You cannot stay during the day, but for the right payment, I will allow you to stay another night.”
What could I do? I must try again. I reached inside my pocket and pulled out the comb.
“I have this carding comb,” I said. Again, I held it high so she could not reach it.
“Very well,” she said. “Come back at moonrise, and I will allow you another night with your beloved.” Her face wore a sneer, and she sniggered a bit when she said your beloved.
“I wish to see him awake,” I said.
“I cannot help if he falls asleep,” the troll said.
I thought she could, but still, I agreed. I walked with her to the doorway. I noticed she stood back from the door when she made me leave, and when I opened it, she cringed at the light.
I tucked the comb into my pocket and went to sit in the cemetery. Since I had nothing else to do, I tended the graves as I had before with the old woman. I tended some of the older graves too. I wished there were flowers with which to decorate them, but it was January, and the ground was bare. I was so hungry, but I had nothing to eat, so I simply tried to forget. But around noon, the old woman returned, and she offered me a loaf of bread. I took it and ate, furiously.
Finally, it was dusk. When the moon rose, the castle returned, and I knocked on the door. We repeated everything the same way, and alas, Phillip was still asleep, never to wake.
I knew what had happened. I remembered when I was little and Esther had had her appendix removed. They gave her a medication that made her sleep for hours, despite the surgery, despite the pain. That’s what Phillip was like, sleeping despite my screaming, my crying, my hitting him. But for his warm flesh and his heartbeat, he might have been dead. Had the troll princess drugged Phillip to make him sleep so soundly?
After hours of begging and imploring him to rise, hours of singing our favorite songs in his ear, hours of pleading with him, I thought of the mirror in my coat pocket. I took it out and said, “Show me Kendra.”
Kendra’s face showed immediately in the mirror.
“My dear Grace,” she said. “You look awful.”
I explained the situation, that I believed the troll princess had tranquilized Phillip. “I don’t know what to do,” I said. “If only I could leave some sort of message for him, tell him not to eat or drink anything the troll gives him.”
She thought about it a moment, and then she said, “Leave the mirror under his pillow. When he wakes, he will feel its hardness, and since he has seen it before, he will know what it is. Hopefully, he will remember and ask to speak to me. If he does, I will give him your message.”
I nodded and bade her goodnight. Then I stashed the mirror under Phillip’s pillow. I slept better that night, in Phillip’s arms.
The following morning, I again begged the troll princess to allow me to stay another night. But, this time, when she asked what I had as payment, I pretended I had nothing.
“Then you cannot stay,” she said.
But just as I reached the door, I said, “Oh, oh, oh, I remember. I do have something.” I opened the door as wide as I could before reaching into my pocket. “Come see it.” I beckoned to her, remembering again how it was said that trolls lived under bridges.
She stood far away from me, cringing at the light but greedily looking anyway. “No. No! What is it?”
I pulled the spindle halfway from my pocket. “Oh, ’tis nothing but a little . . .”
“What? What?” She shrunk farther into the shadows. “Tell me quickly, or I will have to say no!”
I held up the spindle. “A spindle of pure gold! Can I come to lie with my Phillip tonight?”
“Yes.” She slunk back into the darkness. “But he is not your Phillip no matter how many nights you stay. He is mine and mine forever.”
“But I can come back?”
“Yes! Yes! But now, begone and shut the door on that infernal light!”