What if there’s something strange about you—your condition, your mother calls it—that makes you scream till your whole body shakes and you can’t make it stop?

You’re not supposed to be playing in the stonefield. Drawing shapes in the snow coating boulders till this lumpy, grey creature steps out from the stones with a hairy hunched back and a round trumpet nose, and his small, black eyes catch yours and look into you.

He says, “I know how to make it stop.”

The chill that runs through you—it’s colder than the icewinds that Skadi sends, ripping down from the tundra.

What if he tells you this necklace will help you, stone beads carved with patterns that curve and bewilder?

You’d take it, wouldn’t you?

I know you would take it.

And all you have to do is bring him your little brother. The one who’s always wailing and drooling on the tablecloth.

You take your brother’s hand and walk to the stones. Tell him it’s a game as curiosity flutters and a bright, sharp gleam leads you skipping.

Your pass your brother’s small hand to the troll’s big and calloused one.

The troll fastens the necklace behind your neck. You pull back your scarf and cold stone cuts through your shirt. You straighten, enchanting as mama dressed for the evening.

The troll leads your brother into an ink-black crevice, and as he wails, you run, hopping rocks, dodging branches. But that fast, panicky feeling that should be climbing up your heart—it’s not there. And you can’t find the willpower to miss it.

*

The house is steeped in blissful silence. You float in it till they notice him missing.

Searching parents grow frantic. Worried adults with big, rounded faces crouch beside you, ask questions. I don’t know, you say, over and over. Frowning strangers swarm like ants through the yard, the rocks. Torchbeams glare into every crevice, finding blank, dusty spaces.

You do not expect your mother’s worry to cut. That howling woman, pounding the walls is not your mother, that’s supposed to be you.

While all of them panic, you’re fine. Finer than you’ve ever been. You stroke the cold stone of the necklace.

*

That cool, steady feeling turns out perfect for solving equations. For writing neat sentences.

You excel in school.

“Such a good girl, a quiet girl,” your parents croon.

*

A boy slips you notes. With large, glassy eyes and hair like a sparrow’s feathers. Sweetheart, precious. You let him walk you home, hold your hand. His lips brush yours. Shouldn’t you feel something? His hands, his lips are only a little bit cold.

You reach inside. You have a cool, heart, a heavy heart.

*

Your friends tumble like dominoes, smitten by passions that you cannot feel. They rant about love and heartbreak and you think of the boy. Of smoothing his sparrow-feather hair because he’s a nice boy, a pleasant boy. Not someone to scream for.

Your friend raves about her happiness. “You know, when you’re so light you could float past the rooftops?”

You don’t.

In some deep place like the bottom of a well, longing stirs.

*

The necklace gets heavier. Weighing down your shoulders, pressing into your bones. You tug, but the stones remain fast. Where’s the clasp? You twist it around and can’t find one. Can’t pull it over your head because it’s too heavy. Calm thoughts, smooth thoughts. How to get it off?

You go to a boy from sculpture class.

“It’s so pretty. Are you sure?”

You’re not. That cool, calm feeling dampens everything. How did you use to feel? It’s too far away, a bright spot through smudged glass.

“Uh-huh,” you say.

He chips at the necklace, but can’t get it off.

“It’s okay,” you tell him. Because everything’s okay.

*

To break a bargain with a troll, you must return to the place it was made. Offer back what was given, three times, aloud. That’s what a woman in a fairytale did. As snow coats the boulders, you try it.

The troll emerges from a crack in the rocks, too slim for his bulbous nose.

“I can’t give back what I’ve taken, but I can take what I’ve given.”

“But—” you knew he was gone. Forever-into-the-darkness gone.

“Fine. Take it off.”

“Are you sure?”

“Well...” Your heart is so calm, you could stay like this forever.

He laughs. Enough to stir the well until a ripple of wanting rises.

“I’m sure.”

Grimy hands reach towards you, dirt-crusted fingernails curving inwards. Your skin prickles as he lifts your scarf, as his fingertips brush your neck to dance across the stones and the necklace falls with a thump to the ground.

Then, lightness. Bright as the falling snow. You breathe out relief till they hit you, rushing up from inside like a hundred manic fireflies.

Feelings.

Like lifting fingers from a wound to find blood, gushing out of you, streaming as you run.

You split the air with a shriek as your feet fly, followed by the troll’s laughter, like tapping on hollow stone.

*

Home. Your mother’s slowness irritates you, igniting your anger. Then it’s not just that dinner is late, it’s every wrong she did in your life. She breaks down.

“You were so peaceful. What’s happened to you?”

She’s crying—the burning—it corrodes you like acid. You dash outside as storms of emotion sweep through you. A sea unleashed will never stop crashing.

*

The fits return.

You run to the ridge and watch the sun plunge into a cloudmass, leaking molten orange. In that moment, all the pain and struggle is worth it.

You stay till rose fades to shadow and a pale sky deepens, colour leaching away till you’re left in the darkness.

The joy is so bright, it sears and the sorrow so heavy, it smothers. The lost necklace gapes like a hole you long to fill.