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Jamie is crying again. Barbara is at her wit’s end too. Two weeks since James… Well, thank god that at least the clinic was able to give her time off. Overnight she’s become a single mother to a grieving child with a mortgage, Uni debt and half the contents of the bank account. Game face on for sixteen hours out of ever twenty-four and no idea how they’re making it from one day to the next.
Her only consolation is that Jamie is young enough that these memories will fade in the next few years. Oh, he’ll never forget entirely – trauma doesn’t work that way – but things will get easier for him.
The sound of crying fades away, and Barbara drops her head into her hands and sighs. He’s asleep, most likely. Finally. But she aches somewhere near her heart that there will be so many more nights he son spends sobbing for a father that’s not there anymore until he exhausts himself enough to sleep.
Barbara stands to turn down her own covers when Jamie lets out the angriest, most agonising scream she’s ever heard him give, and she’s already up and running when something crashes in his room.
Jamie doesn’t shut his bedroom door all the way yet, so all Barbara has to do is push it. Her hand slams against the wall where the light switch is, and she very nearly falls flat on her face when she registers broken mirror glass strewn across the floor before her bare feet, and arrests her momentum with white-knuckled fingers clamping onto the door frame.
“Jamie!”
He’s not visible, so either he’s run into his wardrobe or crawled under his bed. Barbara is careful picking her way over the carpet, and yes, there is soft shuffling from under the bed and a little thump of a tiny body hitting the wall. She bends down to look, and, huddled as far into the corner as he can be, is her baby.
“Jamie, sweetheart, what happened? Come on out darling, mummy’s here now.”
It’s darker with her body blocking the light from the celling lamp, but she can make out her son shaking his head and curling up into an even tighter human ball.
“I know you’re sad and angry, but –”
“It’s my fault.”
“What’s your fault Sweetie?”
“Dad. He left, and it’s my fault.”
Oh boy. This was not a conversation that Barbara had been looking forward too.
“No, no Honey. Nothing about this is your fault.”
“Is to.”
“Whatever reason your dad had to leave, I promise it had nothing to do with you. Come out, Jamie, please. We’ll … we’ll go downstairs and have some coco and – “
“I can prove it.”
Jamie moves out from the corner, and Barbara sits back on her knees, arm out to pull her little boy into a hug, but the child that crawles out from under her son’s bed … wasn’t.
He wears her son’s pyjamas, has his dark hair and his blue eyes, but – he isn’t Jamie.
“See? Not normal. My fault.”
Has her son’s voice.
“Jamie?”
The little creature curls inwards, and swipes at weeping eyes.
“Not Jamie.”
Barbara is sure that she’s beginning to hyperventilate. Her husband gone and her son suddenly … missing? Kidnapped? But she has to pull herself together, just long enough to get some answers.
“Where is Jamie? What’s your name?”
The little blue boy shrugs,
“Don’t know. Gone – replaced with me.”
“Replaced how?”
He tugs on his sleeve, and little blue fairy lights spark over his skin, and then Barbara is looking at a perfectly ordinary little boy again. Her little boy.
“Don’t remember. Was cold, and dark, and scary. Then hurt – woke up here. Jamie there, but safe, protected.”
“Where is ‘there’? How do you know he’s safe? How do I get him back?”
“Darklands - No coming back. Can always tell. Connected – I can show you.”
Jaimie-not-Jamie picks up a piece of the broken mirror and … licks it, and with furrowed brow and crinkled nose concentrates hard on his refection until it sparks with white light.”
“There, see? Jamie is safe.”
Barbara takes the mirror from the magic-creature-child and looks.
“That’s Jamie? This baby is my little boy. Why is he a baby?”
“Changelings always swapped with babies.”
“Is that what you are? A … ‘changeling’?”
The child nods, tucks his feet in and wraps his arm around his knees.
“And how long have you … been Jamie?”
“Don’t remember. Was very small. Couldn’t walk, couldn’t talk.”
Swapped as a baby, too young to remember more that the vaguest impressions of his past home? Barbara looks back down at the reflection of the tiny baby that was the son she gave birth to. How old was he? A few months? And then this little creature that has crawled out from under her son’s bed with blue skin and only three fingers that could change its shape. Was this the Jamie she had been raising for five years?
With a little spark, the reflection disappears and Barbara is left holding only a piece of glass. There is a little boy in this room with her that has cried himself to sleep for days, and blames himself that his father left him.
What else could she do, except pull him into her arms and hold him tight?
“Come here kiddo, let mummy give you a hug.”
“But … But I’m not! Not Jamie!”
“How long have you been living here, huh? So long that you don’t even remember, right? That means that all these years you’ve been my little boy and I’ve been your mother. You might not be the Jamie that I brought into this world, but you are still my son.”
And there was that wobbly lip and those big blue eyes that Barbara knew better than her own face, and the boy in her arms melts into her hug with big gasping sobs.
“It’s not your fault that Dad left us, and you can’t help what happened that brought you here. And maybe one day we’ll find out more about what you are, but until then we’re just have take care of each other, okay?”
Carefully Barbara stands up with her son in her arms and settles herself on the bed.
“Now, my Jamie; how about that coco?”
“Not ‘Jamie’.” Comes the muffled, sniffled reply.
Barbara takes a moment, gently runs her fingers through his dark hair, and thinks.
“Well,” she says eventually “how about ‘Jim’?”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
So far it’s been an ordinary morning. He got up early, made sure he and his mother are fed, and that the house looked perfect. It’s the same thing he does every morning, and something inside him always settles back in contentment when he does it. And, despite school today, and that he might be just a little bit late, there is nothing that can spoil his good mood. Except maybe the racoons. But the sun is shining, and this morning he just feels that today is going to be a good day. Then he hears … something. Whatever it is, it’s definitely calling for Jim Lake, so there’s no mix-up there. The pile of rocks, he will admit, is … bizarre, but it’s not until he has the amulet in his hands that he gets a weird foreboding tug at that part of him that he’s not felt the need to reach for since he was five. At the same time, glowing amulet calling his name? Awesome! They’re still late for school though.---Mr. Strickler’s conversation is both worrying, in that the last thing he wants is more adult oversight, and heart-warming. Jim can be mature enough to admit it feels nice to have a male mentor-figure in his life occasionally, and he likes Mr. Strickler. He’s not so much a fan of Coach though; he finds it hard enough to downplay his capabilities on any day ending with ‘Y’. Having a teacher so keen on pushing his students is not helpful. But it’s also their last class of the day, and he’s itching to get home and take another look at the amulet. The confrontation with Steve could have gone better. And listening to Eli say ‘stone for skin’ raised the hairs on the back of Jim’s neck, but he had more important things to think about. Like telling his mother that Mr. Strickler wanted to talk to her. Jim was at least glad that he and mother had the chance to at least see each other today – the weeks she had the night shift mostly felt like they lived as two ships passing. Jim loved her more than anything in the world.---Which is probably why he should have called her, rather than Toby, after the … excitement of last night, and his two surprise visitors. And he really should have gotten her to check his head, because fainting and landing on the floor can’t be healthy. But Toby was the one who had found the amulet with him, and he could wait until the next family dinner to tell his mother. Maybe. Okay, so he’ll text her later. But seriously. He needed to talk to someone, and … and he completely chickened out. But he still felt better for trying. And he got some idea of what to say, so maybe he wouldn’t freak out his mother too much when he told her. At home, much later, having calmed himself down and sorted his thoughts with the help of repetitive slicing and dicing, Jim decided to give the amulet another look. And strange as it was, he had the feeling that whatever the runes engraved on the rim were, he almost knew what they said. Like having a forgotten word sitting on the tip of his tongue. But before he could make it out, they switched through languages he didn’t know, didn’t recognise, but finally settling on English. With a strange twisting feeling in his middle, Jim read the inscription. The words made his mouth feel numb, and those will-o-whisp lights made him feel cold in his own skin as they sank into his body. But only for a breath, and then it felt like Jim was standing under the sun on a perfect day. Warm and elated. Nothing was impossible and the world lay at his feet. And once the feeling and the light show faded, Jim was left standing in his backyard, with a suit of armour and a sword, and he was pretty sure that there was nothing cooler in the world than this.---Having this … Blinky and … Aaarrrgghh show up again when he finally got around to telling Toby was not how Jim had planned his evening, but at least with Toby asking the questions he got the chance to take five and just process. Until his mum came home. And while Jim wasn’t too worried about how his mother would react to their unexpected guests, it was that precise lack of reaction that Jim was worried about. Also, he’d forgotten to text her yesterday.And then Toby had to ask about the previous … ’Trollhunters’. By the time the trolls had left, Jim had more than enough to think about to prevent a good night’s sleep, which was the likeliest explanation for the absolute nightmare that was his afternoon. The armour showing up at school? Mr. Strickler seeing him? The auditions? Almost getting killed?! Screw Blinky and his ‘life of almost’ nonsense. Jim was this close to throwing in the towel anyway, and so far nothing was convincing him otherwise. And it didn’t help his state of mind any that seeing Bular for the first time terrified him beyond anything he’d ever felt. That deep down he reminded Jim of something that scared him to his bones. But once the adrenaline wore off, the sight of Heartstone Trollmarket was one of the most amazing things Jim had ever seen. And the Heartstone itself … Jim could feel it all the way from the stairs; deep in his chest like a second heartbeat.The populace though? Bunch of assholes. Although he could empathise with Draal; troll had just lost his father. Jim knew what that was like. Vendal, on the other hand, is someone Jim could do without, and after the weirdness with the Soothscryer, Jim had the feeling they had way outstayed their welcome.---Watching Toby panic about Jim’s mother being home was cute, but after everything from the last three days, Jim was glad that she had an early night. They really needed to have a talk. But first he wanted to get his things put away upstairs and get changed. This was probably going to be a long night. Of course it was just his luck that they had a guest. And okay, being in the play might be cool, if he didn’t already have an … extracurricular. And while he knew the ‘chess club’ was bogus, he hadn’t managed to tell his mother that yet. “… It’s like you have this entire secret life I know nothing about.”And that hit like a bullet train through the heart.“You have no idea … but you know I can’t ever keep anything secret from you, mum. Do you … have time to talk about it?” Jim watched his mother still. The way her forehead creased in concern, and her mouth tilted down. The way she placed the kettle slowly on the counter. Jim held his breath.“Atlas too carried the weight of the world on his shoulders,” Mr. Strickler commented from over the top of his teacup, seemingly ignorant of just what, exactly, was going on between mother and son, “And I’m glad to see that unlike him you see the benefits of sharing the burden. I’d best be going; my phone, Mrs. Lake.” Jim and Barbara watched Mr. Strickler show himself out.“He really likes you. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a teacher take such an interest before. But he has a point; if your grades slip – ”“Mum? There’s stuff we need to talk about. Stuff that has nothing to do with school.” It was the look on Jim’s face that stopped Barbara short. Nervous, a little fearful, mostly unsure.“Do you remember that night when I was five? The one where I … broke my bedroom mirror?”And if that didn’t almost give Barbara a heart attack.“Jim … did something happen?”Jim reached into his school bag and grabbed the amulet, holding it up where his mother could see.“Mum, I think you might want to sit down for this one.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“You might want to sit down for this.”
“I think I might have found something that’s gotten me in a little over my head. There’s this amulet, it’s kind of magic. It belongs to these creatures. Trolls. It chose me. I think I’m supposed to be some kind of protector? But also they might be out to kill me? Or something.”
“Trolls?”
“They’re like people, but made out of stone.”
“You mean like –“
“I think so? Maybe? I’m kind of terrified to be honest.”
“Whatever it is, if it’s too much, then you can say no. You already take on too much as it is”
“I like doing things for you.”
“Except I’m the one who should be taking care of you”
* You: Hi mum. Found strange footprints outside the kitchen window this morning
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Don’t know who they come from. Please be careful when you’re out late. * Becoming the Trollhunter was not at all what it was cracked up to be. Blinky’s three rules sounded, well, a bit like a joke. Jim, honestly, felt a bit like a joke. And don’t get him started on Draal. Jim is just going to assume Draal’s no older than Jim is. How else to explain his behaviour. It’s like Jim has two Palchuks in his like all of a sudden. Jim would be perfectly happy to give this all up. He did give it up. If only this stupid Amulet would get with the program. And speaking of programs – the rehearsal went really well today. He really likes working with Claire. Or, well, he really just likes Claire. * You: If the school calls it wasn’t meMum: Why is the school calling?You: Nvm * Draal is an arse. Jim can take him. * Before that, though, there is this exam he has to worry about, despite what Blinky has to say about it. Jim has far more important things to worry about than how Trolls made it onto the continent. That being said, these books might eventually be able to answer certain other questions … after he’s dealt with the more pressing issues first. Of course it’s just his luck that he ends up having to deal with this gnome issue. Answer evey call indeed. Like being shrunk is a walk in the park. Something, somewhere is laughing at him. * Jim has words for goblins that his mum won’t let him say. *
“She was a troll, but like us. Some kind of half breed”
Wait, what? She what? There are others? Creatures like him? If he wasn’t fighting for his life right know, Jim would have so many questions. But he hasn’t – changed – since he was five years old, so whatever he and his mother might know, no one else knows about it. Or can scent it, judging by Ms. Nomura’s reactions. She didn’t notice anything strange at all. Jim always thought that he’d be somewhat obvious to others that were like him. He has a regular diet of home-cooked meals and recycling goods. His mother buys him high quality bone china tea cups as deserts on special occasions. Sure he’s spent the last ten years only in human form, but he never assumed that he’d be so … unnoticeable. Admittedly, the trolls he’s encountered never noticed either, but Jim has always assumed it’s because they’re, well, trolls. Yes, changelings were once trolls. Jim knows that. Somehow. But he’s also figured out that whatever it means to be a changeling, it’s different enough from being troll that it seems to fly under the radar in Trollmarket. He jokes with Toby about it after, but he has a weird feeling. Thinking back, he can’t remember a time without Ms. Nomura or Mr. Strickler. His mum has mentioned both of them occasionally in instances that happened long before his time. Also, he has a good nose. Always has had – blames it on Changeling physiology (not that he really knows what that means. He never has). Mr. Strickler has always registered as not quite normal. Jim just chalked it up to old books, but what if there is something to it? And there were those strange footprints outside the house after the evening Mr. Strickler had come by to visit. * You: Need to check with Blinky about something. Going out tonightMum: You are grounded young man!You: Mum! Ms. Nomura turned into a Troll! Right in front of us!You: I need to find out more about thisYou: This could be exactly what I’m looking for!Mum: Jim, you are my sonMum: I love you exactly as you are. I never want you to forget thatYou: I know. I love you too.You: But I still need to know more about this. AboutYou: About what I amMum: I don’t agree with you doing this. But I know you won’t just drop this. Stay safe. Text me as soon as you get homeMum: And don’t forget to thank Mr. Strickler for his helpYou: I will. See you laterYou: There is Stroganoff in the freezer * Most of what Blinky tells him about changelings is both new information and not. There are things that Jim has always known – call it instinct or memory. That changelings are the creations of Gumm-Gumms – that’s new. And terrifying. Yes, he has vague recollections of a place that his hindbrain has always called ‘the Darklands’, but he had never really made the connection that his Darklands were also Gunmar’s Darklands. He feels cold to his bones when he comes to that realisation. Jim doesn’t really have such a clear picture of what, exactly, Gumm-Gumms are, but his encounters with Bular, so far, are not reassuring. * For the first time in his life, Jim is faced with his own mortality. And it’s all thanks to a Troll with the maturity of one of his classmates. * Jim is sure that his mum suspects something. There is no one in the world he loves more. This is the woman who accepts him regardless of who he is. There is nothing he wouldn’t do for her. And he knows he’s worried her. It hurts him is a way he’s never experienced before. So he cooks her her favourites. Tries to write her a letter. Can’t find the words to express how much he loves her. Sure, he wrote to Toby and to Clair too, but it’s nowhere near the same. He’d do anything to back down from this fight, now that he knows what’s in store. But he can’t. He’s the one who called the rematch. He’s on thin ice as it is as the ‘human’ Trollhunter. * But, hey, who knew that Amulet could work as a replacement for Google Translate? * Jim will never feel comfortable taking a life. Unless that life threatens his mother. Damn Nomura. Although, she’s an amazing fighter. Jim’ll give her that. Having Draal hanging around might make things a bit complicated, though.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
You: We have a new permanent guest. SorryYou: Don’t go into the basement. I’ll tell you the story when you’re home nextMum: Are they safe?Mum: For you?You: Yeah. All good * Jim is on his way to the museum with Toby when he considers how thankful he is that trolls have no idea how humans actually work and what their limits are. His training sessions with Blinky have always been short bursts of action dispersed with breaks where said trainer takes a more theoretical approach to Jim’s studies. Breaks where a regular human would take a breather. Training with Draal essentially non-stop until Toby’s alarm went off was probably not entirely within normal parameters for someone at Jim’s current fitness level. Jim had thought that having Draal living in his house would be problematic, but so far it’s been pretty cool. He stays out of sight what Jim’s mum is home, and seems pretty committed to letting bygones be bygones. Sure, Jim has to be careful when he goes hunting for midnight snacks these days – because as much as trolls are clueless about the human world, being caught eating his coke cans would probably raise an eyebrow or two. * The disappointment of both not finding the Bridge, and having Vendel completely dismiss him cuts Jim deep. But he guesses it only makes sense that the changelings moved the Bridge. They were trying to keep it a secret, after all. You don’t go to all that effort to bring back your evil overlord only to have a couple of kids accidentally expose you. Jim thinks he might have caught a scent or two that he could follow, but he really can’t be certain. Since he became the Trollhunter, he’s been trying to tap into his own changeling side a bit more, but without the support of someone who is a changeling, he can’t be sure that what he’s doing is right, so it all feels very hit and miss. * Blinky tells them there is a way to unmask someone who is a changeling, and Jim genuinely starts to worry. He knows that trolls have a very negative image of changelings, and he’s kept this secret for so long now … who knows what the citizens of Trollmarket would do to him. Then Jim learns this Gaggletack is made of iron. And he calms down significantly. After all, he’s been there and done that. Sure, it burns like hell and he still got the scars on his hands, but he was a curious, idiot ten-year-old who had no idea that the stuff could even hurt him in the first place. His mum went through the whole house and all but banished anything with iron in it from their presence. He’s been immune to the stuff for years though. Mostly. But he hides how his fingers blister when he picks up the Gaggletack for the first time in front of RotGut’s. * The following day is terrible. Terrible, with a light at the end of the homework tunnel. And, yes, he’ll admit to being suspicious of Stricker too, but he actually likes his history teacher. Jim doesn’t want him to be the bad guy here. So he plays off Toby’s own suspicions, and avoids touching the Gaggletack as much as he can. He’s been thinking about it almost all day. What is it about iron that causes a normal changeling to change forms? Well, he could just hand-wave it with magic, but then he wouldn’t have found a way to be the, possibly only, exception. He finally works up a theory about intolerances, subconscious reactions to pain and adaptive immunity, but once again, he has no one to talk about this with. * He never meant to kill anyone. * When Barbara comes home from her shift, she finds Jim awake, sitting against the headboard of her bed, cocooned in every blanket he could find. She unburies him just enough to look him in the eyes. He’s been crying. He wiggles a hand out from under his blanket burrito and reaches out to take hers. “Mum? Can I have a hug?” Jim’s … never actually babysat in his life. He also never expected it to get this out of hand. Why is it that every time he meets a changeling something goes wrong? All he wants to do is get proof that’s not, well, him, that there are changelings in Arcadia, so that Vendel finally believes him about the Bridge. (Also, he’d like some answers to a few personal questions. But at this point that comes secondary.) The only thing they ended up learning is that Bular wasn’t the only one in charge. Yay. * Claire hates him. Yes, Toby. Aaarrrgghh is a troll. He probably does like the taste of paper. And he also likes balloons, apparently. Jim, on the other hand, hates surprises. Especially birthday surprises. Enough that he’s almost glad Vendel showed up and got everyone onto clean-up duty. * You: Mum, I have a huge problemYou: There’s this giant vulture-troll thing that’s trying to kill meYou: I need you to come and get me from school todayYou: Mum? You there? * Jim wonders what happens to changelings when they die. Do they turn to stone like trolls do? Or will splat instead of shatter when this thing drops him? Or maybe it’ll just carry him off and he’ll be forever listed as missing. He‘s blaming the thin air for this morbidity. The lightning is almost pretty from up here. Pretty. And, Jim realises, deadly. He’s dead anyway if he can’t get away from this Stalkling, so what does he really have to lose? It hurts. He’s being melted from the inside, and it hurts. He comes back around in Aaarrrgghh’s arms with Toby looking on anxiously, and moments later watches the dead Stalkling fall to the ground. Jim’s not entirely sure what killed it in the end. Is electricity this thing’s weakness? If so, it’s worth remembering. Once he’s home, after spending the rest of the evening in Trollmarket, after getting to perfect present from Blinky (and how did he even know?), after stripping down to get ready for bed, he sees the scars. From his fingertips, along his right arm, up over his shoulder, twisted like branches or frost flowers. For a second, he wonders what they’ll look like on his other skin.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Between gaining the Grit-Shaka, and losing the Grit-Shaka, Jim remembers pretty much nothing at all. And he’s not sure he wants to. By the time Toby gets him home after his very ill-planned fight with Bular, he’s worked himself into such a state over Strickler that he mostly doesn’t even care what went down at school today. That traitor. Jim had at least thought, hoped, that if push came to shove, Strickler would be on Jim’s side. He’d always thought his teacher had liked him. He certainly likes his mother, if the way they flirt has been any indication. Jim is so mad right now. Draal comes up from the basement while Jim is in the kitchen. Jim cooks when he’s angry. All the fiddly recipes he keeps for just these occasions. The ones that require lots of dicing, kneading and very high temperatures.“So, how’d it go?”Draal might be a troll, but anger looks the same across species, so he’s very tentative about asking.“Oh, you know. Went to school. Almost got a tattoo. Battled evil. Found out my teacher is a two faced changeling spy bent on world domination. Perfectly average day.”Jim had been progressively chopping this onion faster and harder the longer he speaks, and, finally reaching boiling point, draws his arm back, performs a half-turn and throws the knife with chilling accuracy, to embed in the wall under the stairs inches from Draal’s face. His breathing is heavy and he’s trembling.Draal raises a brow.“Feel better?”“Maybe a little.”Jim slumps, tension leaking out and leaving him limp and wobbly.“What am I going to do?” “Do about what?”Comes Barbara’s voice from the front door. How did they miss her coming in?“I was going to call when they let me go early, but I figured, what could a little surprise hurt?”“Hey mum. Uh … why don’t you go upstairs and get changed? Dinner will be ready when you get down.”“Really Jim. I just get home and you’re already trying to get rid of m-“Barbara walks into the kitchen and freezes. Jim is half pushing, half pulling Draal back to the basement door. He supposes he looks just a little bit ridiculous.“I, um, didn’t realise you had a guest.”“No, no. Um, he was just heading back out.”“Well, okay … But it would be polite for him to introduce himself before he leaves. Don’t you think?” Jim lets Draal go and moves out of the way. There is a long silence, then Barbara sighs,“Hello, my name’s Barbara Lake, and I’m Jim’s mother.”Draal’s eyes flick from Jim to Barbara, to Jim. Jim give his a little ‘go on’ gesture.“Drall. Son of Kanjigar.”“Draal? You must be the one Jim told me was keeping an eye on the house for him. Welcome, I guess. If you ever need anything, you let us know, okay.”Draal is taken aback, and turns to stare, apprehensive and surprised, at Jim.“She knows?”“Yes?”“About us?”“Yeah.”“How?”“Dude. I tell my mother everything.” The fire alarm goes off. Strickler is coming for dinner. Jim doesn’t know if this is the best thing that could have happened, or the absolute worst. He convinces Toby that it’s a good thing, and sends him on a mission to gather information about the Bridge, but if they happen to find anything else, Jim wouldn’t mind. He even manages to convince Draal to stay out of it unless there is an emergency. They’re halfway through dinner when Barbara gets a call from the hospital, leaving Jim and Strickler on their own at the table. Jim has been spending the whole meal tossing up between confronting Strickler about the bridge, and confronting Strickler with questions about changelings. Sure, Jim knows he can’t really trust Strickler, but this might be an opportunity he can’t let slip past him. His mum heads into the kitchen, apologising, and Strickler’s focus cuts to Jim the moment she’s out of the room. Jim fiddles with his knife, then decides to just go for it.“What’s a changeling? No, that’s not right. I know what a changeling is, but not, what a changeling is. How does it work? Is it two separate things in your head? Like, one distinctively human bit and one troll bit, or is it some kind of perfect storm type thing, where the only difference is what you look like? Because NotEnrique acts like two different people, depending, but is that only because he’s still so young in human form? And I’ve been trying to figure it out, but there’s no one to talk to about this stuff, and I don’t even know why I’m asking you about it, other than I can’t think of anyone else who’d be able to give me proper answers, because Blinky is a troll, so he can only really talk about what his books talk about, you know? How do you even become a changeling? The only thing anyone will tell me is that it’s unnatural and painful. And how do you even know you are a changeling? How old were you when you switched places with your human? Oh, no, forget all that. I just have one question.” Jim stands, shoves his chair back, places both hands on the table and leans over to look the very bemused, and a little scared, Strickler right in the face. “Where do you keep the babies?” * Barbara returns from her phone call, and Strickler looks a little bit like a bus hit him. Its takes a while for the conversation to pick up again, and Jim knows his mother is suspect about what was said when she was out of the room to leave Strickler in such a state. They finish eating, and Barbara offers to get desert. Jim knows that that is both going to take far longer than necessary, and not turn out well, but he doesn’t say anything. He’s focused solely on Strickler. “You know, I came here tonight with orders to get the Amulet, whether you’re willing to part with it or not. But I am far more curious right now about whatever reason you have to be asking such a lot of very specific questions.”“Well, there is no way I’m giving up the Amulet. And as for the rest – how do I know that you’ll be able to keep my secrets from your evil overlord?”“You don’t.”“Then I guess we’re at a stalemate.” And then Jim’s evening descends into chaos. * Strickler’s going to have to get up earlier that that to trick Jim’s nose. He’s had the Amulet long enough for it to have his scent. But Jim will be seeing Mr. Strickler again soon enough. He can wait.
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Jim has been wracking his brain for ways to rescue Enrique. They have the Fetch – and if only his own shoulders were just a bit narrower, he’d probably fit through the thing himself. But he doesn’t, and since NotEnrique has vehemently rejected their plan, they haven’t anyone else to enter the Darklands. Personally, Jim thought that shrinking himself wasn’t all that bad of an idea, but the others have good points too. Chompski solves that problem though. Jim thinks he should probably be more appreciative of the sacrifice, but he can’t help but feel innerly delighted at how it’s worked out. Even when the rope breaks, something inside him has to tell him to be concerned. He’s always had difficulty caring for those outside his own circle. He wonders if this is a changeling thing or if there are humans who feel like this too. Trying to convince Claire that she’s not only in danger, but that there is a whole other world beneath her feet will not be easy when he has no way of proving it to her. The Amulet is still with Stricker, so that’s out of the question. And just grabbing her and running will not win him any points except the crazy kind. Wait until the goblins show up? Risky – again, he doesn’t have the amulet. But Enrique isn’t here. And if her can get Claire to follow him – What is with this girl and raccoons? They’re screwed. Utterly. So he calls. He calls with everything he has. And some part inside of him roars. And it works – the Amulet returns and Jim realises that the only reason it hadn’t come back to him before was because he didn’t believe it would. When he’d tried to reject it the first time, it’d always come back. The first time it’d been stolen, he’d had to go after it. This had been somewhere in between, Jim realises. Not stolen, but not thrown away. Just lost. Waiting to be found. And now he has Daylight at his side. Now he can fight. After, it’s a matter of keeping Claire calm. Letting her rant and get the shock and adrenaline out of her system. She asks about her brother, and Jim would love to give her an answer. He thinks of another little boy lost in the Darklands, and tells her ‘It’s complicated’. Would either of them ever see those two little Familiars again? Jim desperately hopes so. Jim learns two more things that evening; that he is still woefully unprepared, and that the Trollhunter is the only one who can open Killahead. This first thing he learns through a beating he won’t quickly forget. The second thing sends a shiver of hope down his spine. All he needs is the bridge. No trolls, no Bular, no changelings. Just him. Maybe there is a way after all. Later, he wakes up in the hospital, to a phone call. His mother comes in, and he knows it’s been a while since they had a proper conversation. He can’t imagine what she must have thought when the paramedics brought him in. A quick text here and there to say ‘Gone to Trollmarket’ or ‘Goblins about. Will be late tonight’ don’t really cut it in a situation like this.“I want you to tell me what’s going on. What were you doing in the woods?”Jim takes a deep breath,“Claire …” he sighs and deflates “Her bother is a Changeling. There was a situation with some Goblins and she got caught in the crossfire.”“Is she alright?”“She’s not hurt. Maybe a bit panicked? But physically she’s fine.”“Good.”“Yeah. Anyway – the Goblins caught up to us in the woods, but I didn’t have the Amulet with me so we were trying to fight them off with sticks and rocks while I tried to call for the Amulet. And when it came, another Changeling that works for Bular caught up to us and –““And that’s how you ended up needing the hospital?”“Pretty much. She said that they needed me to open this Bridge that’ll let Gunmar out of the Draklands.”Jim slumps in his bed dejectedly.“They have Blinky. They said that if I don’t go to them tonight, they’ll … I don’t know what they’ll do.”“Is there anything I can do?”“I don’t know mum. I really don’t know.” You: Think I’ve got something worked outYou: I’ll tell you after the play tonightMum: You’re still not fully healedYou: I don’t have much of a choice on that. Sorry Strickler and his smug face and his smug voice and Jim kind of wishes he could just rip the man’s arms off. Especially after that comment about his mother. Thankfully the plan starts working perfectly. Or maybe it doesn’t. Jim spends those few minutes in a haze of fight-or-flight. He watches Draal fight to close the bridge, has no time to think before they all leap into the icy cold water under them, spends those moments fighting Bular gasping for breath. Bular taunts that his friends arrive just in time to see him die. That the Amulet should never have chosen a human. A Human. Jim’s head seems suddenly quiet and calm. After the buzzing rush that had accompanied him for the better part of the last half hour or so the silence makes him feel floaty. He can breathe.“But I’m not a troll.” He says it out loud, but it’s not really for Bular to hear. He’s not a troll. He has nothing to fear from the daylight. He lets his armour dissipate, uses the moment to get behind Bular, and as the Gumm-Gumm turns, Jim lunges forward and runs Bular through. Pushes his will to win through the sword until it’s glowing with the light of the sun. Bular stumbles back, and Jim lets him. And suddenly he doesn’t just want to win this fight. He wants Bular to know that he’s lost. He wants the satisfaction of watching Bular turn to stone knowing that he failed. For the first time in ten years, Jim lets a little of that innate magic out. He lets his eyes glow.“But,” he tells Bular in the Gumm-Gumm’s final moments “I never said I was human, either.” He tells Claire that he will find her brother. Even if he has to go into the Darklands himself. To be honest. He’s probably the only one out of their group who can.