By Lynne Lumsden Green

“Why can’t I be allowed to live my life the way I want to!” screamed Opal at her mother.

“Because what you want is lunacy.” 

Opal went all cold and hard, “No, Mother. Lunacy is exactly what I am trying to avoid. I am sick of moonlight and shadows. I’m sick of starlight and the stifling cloak of the night. I want to see the sunshine, just for one time.”

And with that, she ran out of room, slamming the door on her way. It was no mean feat of strength to slam half a tonne of oak, iron, and stone.

Her mother sighed. Opal had been so sweet and placid as a child…so, so normal. Now, as a teenager, all she wanted to do was listen to birdsong and paint her bedroom in bright shades of green and blue and yellow. She had even gone as far as to collect flowers and put them in a vase beside her desk, where the weird, organic things smelt up the cave.

It just wasn’t right. Why, oh why, couldn’t Opal act like any other troll her age? She knew that exposure to the sun would turn her to stone. She was worrying her poor parents to an early grave.

Sobbing on her bed, Opal wished she were dead. No one understood! Her mother had forgotten what it was like to be young, to want to do something different with her life. But Opal wanted something new and exciting…and her boring old mum had forbidden it.

All she wanted to do was go for a walk in the sunlight. Just once! Surely a little extra ultraviolet radiation wasn’t that dangerous. The oldies were too cautious and exaggerating the danger. Why, even snails could take a little sun.

Opal felt trapped by her existence. Stretching before her were several centuries of guarding bridges, clubbing travellers, and stealing princesses; a dull life of dreary work with no respite in sight. It was just too, too unfair. She didn’t want to spend her entire life underground during daylight, skulking away from the rest of the world.

She wanted to party! She wanted to taste life to the fullest. She wanted to squeeze the juice out of every day and have the sweetness run down her chin. That wasn’t going to happen while her parents kept her locked away in their cave.

She would have to run away.

***

Early next morning, after her parents had retired for the day, Opal crept out of the home cave. It wasn’t easy. Trolls are not designed to sneak — they are meant to crash around and create a lot of noise and destruction. She had to move more slowly and quietly than she had ever tried before in her life; she imagined herself as a glacier.

Once out into the labyrinth of tunnels that lead to the surface, she picked up her pace. She had to get out before her parents woke up. She just knew her Daddy would be furious when he found her gone, and he would make her life miserable by hunting her down and forcing her home.

***

It was just after sunset when Opal’s parents discovered she was gone. Her mother peeked into her room, thinking Opal was sleeping in or still sulking.

“Time to get up, shiny girl,” her mother called out. 

She got no answer and investigated further. It was obvious her daughter’s comfortable pile of stones hadn’t been slept in. She hurried to her husband, and gasped, “Opal isn’t in her room! You don’t really think she would have tried to go outside, do you?” 

Her father looked grim. “I would like to think she would obey us, or at least respect the danger. But lately, I don’t know…”

Opal’s mother started to wail. It was a terrible sound, like a rock being torn apart by pressure; it was a grating, straining scream of pain. It advertised her despair to the entire mountain.

“There, there, mother. She’ll be all right,” said Opal’s father, patting his grieving wife. “I’ll go and bring her back right now.”

“I’ll come too,” sobbed his wife, “I have to know.”

The troll girl wasn’t in any of the tunnels, or the little caves that pocketed the troll’s mountain. It was getting late, with only an hour to sunrise, when the couple finally had to face the fact that their daughter wasn’t anywhere to be found underground.

Opal’s mother hadn’t stopped crying the whole night. “We have to look outside, Poppa. And we will have to do it now, before the dawn starts to break.”

Opal’s father looked as bleak as a storm-beaten spar. “Yes, we’d better go now.”

The troll wife usually let her husband do all the venturing into the outside, though Opal had joined him on many an excursion. He knew the cave mouth as thoroughly as anyone could. He led the way.

The mouth of the cave was lit up by a half-moon. The moon was bright enough for a human to see by. Trolls are well known to have supernaturally good night sight, though they would be completely blinded by daylight.

The male troll groaned. His wife felt her heart stop and followed his gaze.

Her sorrowing cries began to increase in speed and intensity.

For there, out of the shelter of the rocks, was a new stone; a pretty, standing stone that was the exact shape and size of their daughter Opal.

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