Vesper was not alone on the forest paths that led from the city. Many Noominians who had gathered for the festival were now navigating their way through the forest in small bands. Everything was chaotic. Vesper saw dwarfs, gnomes, halflings, animals, and even some trees, retreating from the destructive power of the shadow dragon. The festival at Nnoom burned, but at the city border, everyone slowed to a walk, knowing well that if they sped through the protective barrier created with dwarf magic, they’d suffer. The dragon, many assumed, could not pass through, on the ground at least, which gave them a chance of escaping.

     With little hope of finding the Keep on her own, Vesper decided she would need someone’s help. The next band of fairies she passed seemed like a friendly enough group. Vesper forced a smile as she got closer.

     “Excuse me, sorry to bother you . . .” The fairies looked warily toward her and whispered to one another. “I need to find the tower of the Silence Keepers—the Keep. Is it nearby?” The fairies withdrew, so she added, “I won’t hurt you. My name’s Vesper . . .”

     “The dragon follows. The dragon comes soon,” one fairy said.

     “Yes,” said Vesper, “the shadow dragon follows your glow and the light of the fairy moon, and wants to stop. . .”

     “No,” said a second fairy, “the dragon follows you.” The group flew off into the safety of the trees.

     “It follows me? . . .” Vesper repeated to herself as she turned away from the fairies. She searched for a suitable tree to climb for a better view. She tried to remember the map Froke had shown them, but she couldn’t focus.

     “Figures!” said a rough voice. Vesper saw no one.

     “Excuse me?” said Vesper, startled.

     “Thems fairies just float ‘round, good for nothin’,” it said, “Humph! Better thems leave this forest. Fly away, would’ya! This is my forest. Y’can leave too, for all the who-what! No one needs unicorns these days, no, too much fuss over nothing, and especially not in my forest!”

     Vesper followed the voice and scanned the brush near her. She saw a form emerge from the surrounding green—a short figure with long pointy ears and nose, and roughly hewn features leaning against a nearby tree. The pattern of his skin was just like the bark of the tree. Then she saw, carved into the tree, a small door frame which led into the base of the trunk. He scavenged the ground around his tree home looking for a stone. He picked one up and threw it toward the fairies.

     “Be gone, ya pests! I’d prefers the kobalins to those good-for-nothin’s. I must admits, I don’t minds an illumee now and again, b-b-but that’s besides the point,” the creature grumbled.

     “Hello, I’m Vesper.”

     “Hello y’rself,” said the creature. “Time to skeedaddle, unicorn. Go sing a tune, dance in a circle, whatever y’do in that fest’val a y’rs. Better get festavatin’, quick!”

     “I need to get to the Keep. Do you know where it is?” Vesper asked delicately.

     “Why would y’wants to go there? Nothin good’s there—no one worth their salt’s there. Just a tower filled with silver-topped gray-beards doing nothin’,” he said. “But if you’re lookin’ for terrible advice, they’d prob’ly give y’some! For free! They’d send y’off to the mountains, or worse to the misties—can’t see for nothin’ in the misties, and that’s the crisp of it! Maybe you should be runnin’ off like all thems else. Leave me in some peace. Then maybe I’ll finally have my forest back,” said the creature.

     Vesper turned to go, then stopped. “I think I’ll stay, actually.”

     “Stay? You can’t stay! Run along! Prance away! Pony-abouts—whatever unicorns do these days—but go!”

     “Well, you’re a strange creature,” replied Vesper.

     “I’m no mere creature. I’m a trool,” he said. “My family lived in these woods long befores thems gnomes and dwarves moved in and built that ugly city. Bang-bang-bang! Building all the time. Diggin’ tunnels, makin’ a racket!”

     Her face still streaked with tears, Vesper managed a smile. “What’s your name?” she asked.

     “I can’t tell y’that,” he said. “Not unless y’d mind loosenin’ an illumee from y’r satchel, that is,” he added.

     Vesper reached into her bag and pulled out an illumee. “Here, catch!” she said, and threw the glowing sphere to him.

     The trool gobbled it up with a few chomps and a gulp. “Ahh! Muckworm pie! My favourite, y’know,” the trool was smiling now. “The name’s Gren, pleased to meet y’r acquaintance. Vesper, is it?”

     “Yes, pleased to meet you, Gren. Now, I wonder, and it’s very important,” Vesper reached toward her bag of illumees, “if you could help me. I need to know where the tower is—the Keep.”

     Gren licked his lips and rubbed his hands together, “Of course I know where thems be.” Gren paused in anticipation, watching Vesper’s hands closely. “But, that’s no place for a unicorn, if that’s whatchy’re, anyways.”

     “Why would you say that? You don’t think I’m a unicorn?”

     “If y’re a unicorn, y’re an endling, just like me,” said Gren, and as he reached out to touch the giant red and white toadstool next to him, his skin suddenly changed from the rough grey bark of his tree home, to the bright red with white spots of the mushroom’s cap.

     Vesper smiled at the timing of Gren’s change of camouflage. The stripes of salty tear streaks on Vesper’s face cracked. “What’s an endling?” asked Vesper.

    “Last of our kind,” replied Gren.

     “I’m not actually a unicorn,” she said.

     “Unicorn ‘r not, y’re unicorn enough f’r these parts. Ya look more like a fairy to me—the olden bloods, thems is,” said Gren. “That’s not a mask for celebratin’, is it? That mask has the mark of the old magic, that does,” said Gren as he inspected her.

     “You’re one of a few people here who see my mask. I can’t take it off, though. My friend George knew,” said Vesper.

     “I’d stick with George then. That’s the crisp.”

     “George is . . . dead. The shadow dragon crushed the whole festival, and George got in its way, trying to help the little ones,” Vesper trailed off.

     “Dragon? So that’s where ev’ryone’s runnin’. Well, sorry t’hear that y’r friend’s dead. Ne’er mind that, then,” Gren said. He leaned back toward his tree and his skin changed back. “If you’re not really a unicorn, how d’ya think you can help the Keepers, anyway? Many of my kind have disappeared into that tower, ne’er to return.”

     “I don’t know if I can help. I want to help Noominia and get rid of the shadow dragon, but I’m not sure I’m the one to kill it. I thought I was once. But now it’s killed my friend, and this has gotten all too real.”

     “That’ll happen when y’r dragon huntin’. Only a unicorn’s horn can kill a dragon, y’know” Gren poked at the air toward her, “so I suggest you run away. The dragon’ll hunt y’down f’r that thing, ‘til it’s lights out for you, too. If it gets to ya, y’might as well give up the ghost!” Gren said.

     “I see. If I may ask, what happened to all the other trools? The ones that disappeared in the Keep?” Vesper said, changing the subject.

     “Sper’ments,” Gren said mysteriously, with the wave of an arm.

     “Spearmints?” asked Vesper.

     “No, hex-peri-ments,” said Gren, slightly annoyed. “If ya e’er want to feel y’r destiny bent and broken, with not a way out, and no matter whatchya do, you’re a teeny tiny pawn in th’r game, now y’know where to go!”

     “Do you think they will help me, or spearmint me?” Vesper asked.

     “Well, that’s another question, aren’t it?” Gren reached out his hand and Vesper tossed another illumee in. It went down with a chomp.

     “I think you’re confusing the Keepers with the kobalins . . .”

     “Oh, yum! Lizard eyeballs sprinkled with crushed dung beetles! Just like my mama used to make it,” he said. “No, not the kobalins, the Keepers. You needa beware of that tower, the Keep, and that’s for sure, they’ll keep you and you’ll ne’er escape. I heard there’s a danger beast at the Keep, an Umblood—the one who seeks the unicorn, maybe like you, maybe t’eat, maybe t’help, maybe t’use y’r horn f’r shadow magics. Who knows?” Gren cackled.

     “Who told you this?” asked Vesper.

     “Gren knows. The trees whisper, the birds sing. Gren knows things. Not everything here glows like those annoying fairies. Maybe them kobalins will finally chop down the tree they’ve b’n lookin’ f’r and rid the land a them pesky fairies once and for all.”

     Vesper gasped. “They want to chop down the forever tree? If they do, they’ll probably kill my mother,” she said. “I really need to meet my friend at the Keep, can you tell me which way it is?” asked Vesper, reaching for a third illumee.

     “I could point ya the way, for sure,” Gren said. “But the fastest way to get there? Fly like the byrdles, or that dragon, for all the cares! Or . . . if y’got more a them delicious delicacies, I might be able t’send y’in a blink. I still got some magic in these old bones, I do. I could even send you back to save yer friend, I could. But not both, no no no no. That’d be impossible!”

     “What do you mean back? You can send me back—like, ‘back-in-time’ back? To save George? Why didn’t you say so earlier?”

“Oh, yes, yes, I can send y’back—if ya gimme all them illumees. Show Gren what’s y’got, and I’ll send ya back. Easy for trools. You can save George, and I can eats and eats.” Gren rubbed his belly and licked his lips.

     From her cape, Vesper pulled out a small bag filled with illumees that Froke had given her, while Gren continued his humming and yumming.

“This is everything I have. Are you sure you can send me back to the unicorn festival before George died?” Vesper said, still holding on to the bag of illumees.

     “Yes, yes, yes. Just gimme thems illumees, and I’ll send ya back where y’ wanna go. Time magic is easy for trools—like a river that flows in circles an’ eddies. Just gotta catch the right current and you’re back where ya were, or where ya wills be,” Gren said as a matter of fact.

Vesper let the bag of illumees go from her grasp as Gren pulled it toward himself, opened the drawstring and popped another one in his mouth.

     “Mmmm! So good, so fresh!”

     “Please don’t tell me what it tastes like,” said Vesper, her face already wrinkled in disgust.

     “Boofaloo hairballs, with a side of curdled mermaid cheese,” said Gren.

     Vesper shook her head to banish the vision Gren had conjured in her imagination.

     “Okay, now your turn. How do we do this? What do I have to do?” Vesper said, trying to change the topic away from trool cuisine.

     “Easy,” Gren said between chews, “just walk thrice ‘round my tree, think where ya wanna go, an’ before ya make it, you’ll be gone.”

     “Gone? You mean back in time, right?”

     “Yes, yes. Back to your friend, back in time. And don’t forget to pay me again next time y’ come through these parts, too—another bag will do nicely, ‘cause I won’t remember this one, will I?”

     “That makes sense, I guess. Okay, it’s a deal,” said Vesper.

     “Fine, then. Off ya go now. Shoo, shoo, shoo. I might’ve things to do, ya know. Can’t wait around all day,” Gren said as he stepped back into his tree home clutching the bag of illumees and shut the door.

     “That’s it? Just walk? Well, here goes nothing,” said Vesper, as she started walking around the trool’s tree.

     “Not that way!” Gren exploded from the doorway.

     Vesper yelped in surprise and put her hand on her chest to calm herself. “You scared me half to death!” she said.

     Without another peep, Gren pointed with an exaggerated gesture in the direction Vesper should walk, then popped another illumee in his mouth.

     “Got it, thanks,” Vesper said.

     The door closed again, blending perfectly into the tree, and Vesper started walking again around the tree, thinking of where, and when, she wanted to travel. As she reached her second time around, the forest floated on ocean waves. Vesper held in her mind the time when her knees buckled at the border of Nnoom. And George. And Froke’s warning about the force field around the city’s border.

     Vesper stumbled forward until she lost her balance and fell to the ground, onto her hands and knees. Vesper rolled to her back, and the next moment, she fainted.