Page 58 of Sky and the Grumpy Troll

He grinned. “I talk to a picture of my grandfather, and I agree. It’s completely ridiculous. But I hear his answers in my head every time.”

I surveyed the clearing. It was high ground, well above the waterline, above the reach of any flood the mountains could throw in a wet spring. I knew exactly how high the water had come the day it took Bryndala, and Sky had walked our camp up out of the reach of it.

I did not know whether he had chosen it on purpose. He knew how she had died, and he was capable of a tenderness he would rather die than have named aloud, but he was also impulsive, and it was sometimes difficult to tell if he was being kind or following some random whim.

“It will do,” I said.

“It will do. Listen to him. It’s the best campsite in the kingdom and he says it’ll do.” He was already dragging the bedrolls off the wagon.

We made camp without discussion, each of us moving into the gaps the other left. I saw to Clover and the fire. He arranged the bedrolls into one big comfy cushion for both of us. He liberated Poppy from her habitat, and she conducted an inspection of the perimeter and chewed on some grass. By the time the light went amber and thick, Poppy was tucked in for the night, eating the last of her dried fish, and we had bread, hard cheese, and a packet of nuts and dried fruit Sky had picked up from a vendor in Highmark. The canyon below had filled with shadow, and the first stars had come out over the place where the bridge stood pale against the dark.

I had been quiet a long while when I said the thing I had been turning over since the statue.

“How do you do it?”

Sky looked up. “Do what?”

“Stay as you are.” I gestured, inadequately, at the whole of him. “You fell out of your world into mine with nothing. And even after several weeks in the company of a troll who isn’t very good company, you are—” I searched for the word and found only the imprecise ones. “Buoyant. You float.”

He was quiet for a moment, which was rare enough that I marked it. Then he stood and brushed the crumbs from his hands.

“Okay,” he said. “Don’t laugh.”

“I almost never laugh. It is one of my better-known features.”

This made him laugh, lean down, and kiss me right on the lips. “I think I’ll try and change that feature, if you don’t mind. You’re sexy as fuck when you laugh.”

Then he walked out to the open center of the clearing, where the grass was cropped and level. He settled his weight, and the restless animal in him went quiet.

“This is how I find my calm. The way my grandfather taught me.”

He went still first, not the restless, vibrating stillness of Sky waiting for his turn to speak, but a stillness with foundation under it, a quiet that started at the soles of his feet and rose. He let his eyes half close. He raised his hands in front of him as though lifting something that had no weight, and he began to move.

It was slow. That was the first surprise. Everything about Sky was fast, and this was, mostly, the opposite of fast. His arms turned through the air in long, unhurried arcs, one hand pushing while the other yielded, his weight pouring from leg to leg in a continuous unbroken line, one foot lifting high, above the height of his shoulder, while he maintained perfect balance, then sliding out and wide into a low, stable stance. One shape became the next without any visible decision to end the first. Then a long stretch of slowness broke into a sudden burst of pure speed and power, a strike, a snap of a kick, and the calm rolled back in as though the burst had never happened. His breath went long and even.

“It’s beautiful. What is it?”

“Tai chi,” he said, not breaking the motion. “It’s a martial art, kind of, combines movement and meditation. It’s popular with old people where I’m from, but my grandfather made me learn it when I was a kid.”

“It’s quite lovely.”

“I used to hate it, I thought it was slow and boring, but my grandfather would say, if you can find the calm while you’re moving, you can find it anywhere. Nothing is perfect, but it helps.”

As he spoke, he continued to move. His weight sank and rose, the movements deceptively simple, made more difficult by the grace and balance with which he executed them.

“He died last winter.” The arc of his arm completed itself. “Anyway. This is the thing I do. When the floor falls out. I imagine my grandfather telling me to breathe, even though he’s not—” He breathed, movements shifting from fast to slow, then fast again.

I did not fill the silence. Some silences are a kind of company and should not be interrupted with comfort. The calm he was describing filled the clearing, and though his hands were nowhere near my horns, his calm reached me anyway, the way one steady person steadies another.

He brought the form to rest. He stood a moment with his eyes closed. And then he opened them and grinned, a grin with teeth in it, and the stillness broke like a held note resolving.

“Is that what you do for work? That’s the dance?”

He rolled his eyes. “No, the dance I do for work, well. That’s not for a place like this. But if you want, I can show you wushu?”

“Why couldn’t you do your dance here?”

He looked around, like he was afraid someone might overhear, then leaned in close. “Can I tell you a secret?”