Read Online Trolls in the Hamptons by Celia Jerome - Free Book Online Page B

at all those places, also. Why aren’t you talking to him?”
    â€œI did. He’s one of us.”
    â€œOne of you? You who?”
    â€œLou is DUE, too.”
    I just had to laugh at the absurdity of the whole thing. Trolls, silly acronyms, threats to the universe, 007 sitting on a threadbare quilt accusing me of being a WMD. What was next, He Who Shall Not Be Named?
    This time Grant laughed, too. A nice deep laugh. “I know, I know. It’s pure nonsense. Utter drivel. Folderol. But you’ve seen the damage, and you understand this is no laughing matter.”
    â€œYou are wrong. I do not understand any of it.”
    He came to sit beside me on the couch, and took my hand. He held it between both of his, and I forgot the anger, the distress, and the confusion. He looked me in the eyes, with that gorgeous blue gaze and said, “Let me help. Trust me.”
    The last man who’d said that stole my credit cards. I took my hand back.
    Grant stayed beside me on the couch. “Very well, let me tell you a story, a fairy tale, if you will.”
    I reached over for the quilt to throw over my lap after I folded my legs under me, in the sofa corner farthest away from him. “Very well, I am ready for a bedtime story.” I realized what I’d said, and added, “Not that I am going to bed, or suggesting anything.”
    One corner of his mouth lifted. “Of course not, although . . . ”
    â€œAlthough . . . ?” He’d be interested? He’d run in the other direction?
    He did not answer those questions, either, but I thought I saw a certain gleam in his eye. He cleared his throat and began with: “Once upon a time.” But I could tell what he was going to relate meant more to him. He believed it.
    According to Agent Grant, the world, our world, Earth, was once populated by all kinds of magical creatures. Fairies, centaurs, mermaids, leprechauns, selkies, all the enchanted beings of folklore and myth.
    â€œVampires?”
    â€œThey are not real. Please do not interrupt.”
    I hid my smile. Vampires weren’t real, but fairies were? “Go on.”
    According to him, all the various factions got along, more or less, with little in conflict and enough space between them. Then Man started to intrude. Perhaps to compensate for not having magic at their fingertips, or for not being as long-lived as the others, humans could reproduce much more quickly and prolifically. The humans also had ambition and dreams, unlike most of the other folk, who lived more in the moment. Since they couldn’t conjure up a meal out of air, or change the weather to keep warm and dry, men needed to hunt, which upset the forest creatures, and farm, clearing land from the woodland dwellers, and build houses, permanent dwellings that interfered with the Earth’s lines of power. And they claimed territories that had once been shared by all. Worse, they started to destroy the land with their inventions, their cities, their need for metals and fuels.
    â€œAh, a story with a green message. How politically correct. I bet pollution and fouled waters are next.”
    â€œHush.”
    The very worst came when the men started to fight among themselves. No amount of wizardry could get them to stop, or listen to reason. Instead they started trying to kill everyone with magical powers that could be used against men. Finally it was decided by all the long-lived ones to separate themselves from the world of men. Not move, not disappear from existence or go extinct, just shift.
    Grant picked up a pen lying on the end table and twisted the barrel so the two halves were not quite aligned, but they were still connected.
    â€œParallel universes, if you will. They called it the Day of Unity, because it required every single being, every bit of power to shift the worlds. While we cannot to this day cooperate to end famine, disease, war.” He shook his head and went on.
    One world held the