Under the Bridge

by Hannah Wolf Bowen

Who's that tripping across my bridge?

I can hear you. In this snow, in this silence, I can hear you best of all. The wood goes still in the winter, birds gone south, squirrels sleeping tail-to-nose. February was warm and branches shed their loads of snow with wet splashes onto wetter ground. Overnight, the air turns chill again. By morning the world has a crystal glaze.

The bridge stays clear. The bridge is always clear, but for a thin sheen of ice that freezes fingers to the rail and shatters underfoot. Your footsteps sound like drums or beating hearts. I'm huddled on my rock, under my bridge, and I can hear you pass.

* * *

It didn't have to be this way. I have that much, at least. It didn't have to come to this. Mine is a toll bridge, a troll bridge. No one made me cross it.

Truth: I wouldn't know how to leave. I don't know how long I've been under the bridge. I lost count when I ran out of fingers and toes. I'm cold here in the winters, huddled on my rock. My back used to ache and then it grew twisted, too stiff for any other stance. I can see my ribs beneath leathered skin and this letter jacket the black dog brought doesn't keep the chill from my bones.

I hear you cross from the schoolyard side, sneakered foot on snowy wood. You set one foot before the other, evenly weighted, no hand on the rail. Your step is more careful than that of the children and for a moment I can't remember my lines. But I've used them enough for the last many years. I call, "Who's that tripping across my bridge?"

I hear you pause above my head, and then set your right foot firm. "I'm not tripping. Just walking is all." Then you kneel and lean over the edge.

If I'd known, I would have run run run into my hollow. You moved so quick, and there you are.

Once I was more human than this. These lantern eyes and grasping hands are stranger than what used to be. A troll's bargain changes those who take it—but I wasn't handsome, even in the sun. And you're lovely. I hope you know.

"Hello," you say to me at last. "What are you doing there?"

I touch my face, blink lantern eyes. Why don't you seem afraid? All my features seem to be in order and I touch the lucky tooth in my pocket, bumpy-smooth to calm my nerves.

"It's a troll bridge," I tell you. "A toll bridge. You have to pay the toll to cross. You have to give me a bit of your life." And because you don't seem properly scared, "Or I can take it, if I want."

"You're the troll?"

I nod. I wait. The wind isn't letting up and you must be cold, belly-flat on the bridge. I'm cold beneath it, for all that I'm sheltered by the banks of the stream. My grasping toes brush the ice and my knobby knees might freeze to the rock; I don't move for fear that I won't be able.

"Do you have a name?" you ask. Do I have a name? I shrug.

"I'm the troll-beneath," I say. "That's all the name I need." Surely you've heard the stories. For all that my forest has gone to a scrubby strip between the schools and the rest of the town. For all that my stream can be easily cleared in a single running leap. Most people go the long way around. They still know me in their bones, and those that don't come to know instead the bones that scatter the ground by my stream.

But if you know, you don't let on. "I'm Missy," you say. "And I need all my life. Can I pay the toll tomorrow? My car broke down. I'll have to come this way 'til it's fixed."

You should know better than to ask for credit; these things always end in tears. Most of your people run run run when they hear my bargain. Most of the rest give as little as they can and never come back again. A few have asked for one more day. I did, before I came beneath.

"You may," I say, and you thank me—you thank me!—and pull your head up out of sight. I can hear you as you leave, each foot until you're off the planks. Your call goodbye is all but lost in the crying wind.

* * *

The black dog has caught a rabbit and carries it down to the stream that night. I sit on my rock and he sits on the bank and we eat in silence with only the crunching of bones. He's like me and the white stag, a stranger to this civilized place. The black dog was never human, but he howls in the forest when one of your kind is to die and he's twice been shot at for his trouble. His eyes gleam red and his fangs are white and your people whisper of rabies when he is seen.

Still, he's the only one of us who leaves the forest, and so he knows who you are. He tells me that you stop for the world, that he's seen you strike up conversations with strangers, that you leave out food for strays and once called to him and rubbed his ears. He licks the corner of his mouth and asks me how you paid the toll.

"She didn't," I tell him. "She hasn't, yet."

Oh, he says, and, "Oh," I say, and we sit in silence for a while more. The black dog laps a blood drop from my hand.

He knows how I came under the bridge. He's heard this story before. I wasn't very much like you. I wanted to be left alone; I never wanted to be known. I triptrapped over the bridge one day and wouldn't give up anything.

"I don't have all that much to start," I told the troll-beneath. "I need it all—just one more day."

"One more day," the troll agreed. I didn't look down the way you did. I didn't want to see. I imagine he had misshapen fangs and shoulders that pressed up high against splintering planks. "You come back in one more day."

I went home that night and thought on it. What could I give away? I needed every sunny day, each stranger's smile, each purring cat. Those memories were so few to begin with. I couldn't share them or give them away.

"One more day," the troll-beneath said when I told him. "You come back again in one more day."

One more day, and one more after that. At last I stood trembling on the bridge and owed my whole life for never having given any. "Can I . . . ?" I began, and went under the bridge and the troll-beneath.

* * *

Sunrise doesn't reach into the hollow and I don't want to miss you when you next pass by. The white stag agrees to wake me early, trampling hooves across the bridge. I stretch and yawn and scramble out to sit upon my rock. The white stag has pounded a hole in the ice; he dips his muzzle to drink.

"Did you see her?" I ask and he flicks an ear.

No, he says but then raises his head, ice water dripping from his chin. For a moment he's frozen, white stag against whiter snow. He spins and leaps and goes.

I hear you from my rock beneath the bridge. Today is more winter than yesterday and you've traded your sneakers for snow boots. You pause and bend to see me, hands on the planks wearing wooly red mittens to block out the chill. "Good morning," you say.

"Good morning, Missy."

"I brought you something." You stretch down a plastic bag and I shake out a hat, bright and fuzzy like your mittens. A thermos heavy with warmth, a plastic container with a couple of sandwiches. "I thought you looked cold," you explain. "I thought you might be hungry."

I ponder the hat and tug it onto my head. My pointy ears stick from beneath its edges and of course you laugh—but not unkindly, so I leave it on.

"Hot chocolate," you say. "Peanut butter and jelly. I didn't know what you liked—is there anything else?"

That's an easy one to answer. "The meaty bone from a good cut of steak. Oats. And a book?" You're smiling and I hesitate, but rules are rules. "And a bit of your life." You're supposed to pay the toll to cross. A pound of flesh, a pint of blood—the first time someone told you he loved you.

You frown. I have to look away. I close my lantern eyes so that I'll fade into the shadows under the bridge. You shift up on the planks above me, shiver in the cold.

"I thought maybe my first day of school, but my parents like to talk about that. Or my first kiss, but that might hurt his feelings. And I'd miss my old dog if I forgot her. Can I cross now and come back to pay you tonight, when I bring the bone? And the oats? And the book?"

I open my lantern eyes and nod. "You may," I say, and you thank me—you thank me!—and as you leave I stretch one hand up and peer over top the bridge. You pause at the bank and look back, over your shoulder. When you see me you grin; your whole face lightens; you lift a hand to wave before going.

I duck back down below the bridge. "She's beautiful," I tell the stream.

* * *

I drink my chocolate while it's hot and save the sandwiches for night, when the black dog chews on his bone and the white stag bends his head to lip oats from the bucket. The bread is soft and the jelly is sweet and the peanut butter sticks my tongue to the roof of my mouth.

What happens, the white stag asks, if she won't give you anything?

"I'm supposed to stay here longer," I say. "Colder and thinner and lonelier. It's a troll bridge—a toll bridge. Someone has to pay."

The bone cracks between the black dog's jaws and he licks out the marrow with sweeps of his tongue. Why don't you just jump out and grab her?

"I don't like to do that," I say. "I don't like to go overground."

Good, he says. I like her. She brings me bones.

The white stag echoes, I like her, too.

"I know," I tell them. "So do I."

The black dog grinds the bone with his teeth, slurping off the meaty bits. The white stag finishes his oats and digs at the snow with one sharp hoof. I open the book you brought and read carefully, one page at a time, and when I finish each I tear it free and feed it to my little fire that warms my grasping toes.

The black dog pricks his furry ears. Why don't you just jump out and leave?

Thinking of it makes me shiver. I've been years the troll-beneath, taking lives in bits and pieces, living on them and on scraps of the black dog's prey. It's so cold here and so alone. What if you came beneath the bridge? What if you came and we both stayed? "I can't," I tell them both. "I can't."

The white stag finds no grass and so he says good night and vanishes back into the forest, back to strip bark from the trees and dream about his missing does. The black dog says good night as well and takes his bone into the dark. I curl closer to the flames and my long pointy ears lift beneath my fuzzy hat to hear the black dog when he howls.

* * *

I hear you on the bridge. I had to crawl from my hollow this morning, push up up up from the snow that fell overnight. The winter's worked itself into a storm and the air is full of spinning white, snow and sleet and frozen rain. The wind cries like the black dog warning of death. Cold bites through my letter jacket, more fierce than his jaws, and I think that only being troll-beneath kept me from freezing in the night.

I hear the sleet rattling on my bridge. I hear you, too. The black dog paces in your wake with head held low and ears laid back. His tail is tucked between his legs. He will not meet my stare.

You stumble and fall on my icy bridge, belly-down across the planks. Your mittens and hat are frosty white and ice grows in crystals across your scarf; above it, your face is pale and scared. My lantern eyes strain to see you, but I've had years learning to listen. I hear even your heart and the rattle in your chest.

"Good morning," you say, scarf-muffled and speaking through chattering teeth.

"Good morning, Missy." I could dig dig dig my hollow, make it deeper, twice as wide. I could line its floor with soft grass, build a bed with the bones that scatter the banks.

"I thought you might be cold," you say, and even I struggle to understand through the freezing of your throat. You fingers won't close to grasp the edges and I wonder if you could stand and save yourself, see your own self safely home. You say, "I thought you could come with me."

My lantern eyes are comic wide. My mouth hangs open, fills with ice.

"You could come with me," you say again and this time your voice is fainter—not because you've changed your mind. "You must be so lonely under the bridge."

I have the black dog and the white stag. How could I be lonely? But I am, I am, for hot chocolate and peanut butter and jelly, for you smiling like you did when we met, for having a choice: to go or to stay. I want to speak but don't know what to say and your eyes are closed, your arm limp and hanging off the bridge.

The black dog slinks up to the bank. He's a splotch of dark in the whirling white and I see then that the white stag is behind him, both of them downcast and sorry for me. They nuzzle your body and lick at your hat—not your skin where the saliva would freeze. I grasp the edge of the bridge again and stand carefully so I can touch your arm.

Hardly much life left at all in this cold, too cold for humans. How many times did you cross my bridge—how much do you owe? I could keep you here beneath the bridge, be noticed and not be alone, never have to walk overground where they all would point and laugh. My grasping hands close on your shoulders and turn you so your head lolls back, face-up and quickly freezing. My breath is warm against your cheek.

I leap to land atop the bridge and raise your body in my arms. I look down once, peek at my hollow, my flat rocks, my stream. The white stag stands as I drape you over his back, twine your arms about his neck. "Take her home," I tell him. "Somewhere she'll be safe and warm." He bows his head and stamps his hoof, and I watch him carry you away.

The black dog and I stand overground and he pushes his wet nose into my hand. Why? he asks, speaking under the wail of the storm.

"She'll come back," I say. "She'll come back if she—can. She'll come back to see me again."

Why didn't you just jump up and pull her down under the bridge?

I think of my hollow and my long nights alone, and longer days with no one there. I think of the town and the people you stop for, the strays that you feed. I think think think of what I've taken, and you already gave me things.

The black dog's coat is stiff with ice. I like her, he says. She brings me bones.

"I know," I say. "I like her, too."

* * *

I hear you tripping across my bridge. I hear you calling me. I'm not coming out, not yet, but I hear you when you ask. The black dog said he'd tell you that.

It's warmer now than it was that day. The ice has gone to stream again and when the white stag digs, he finds baby blades of grass. You cross in sneakers or bare feet, and I think think think—

Can you hear me?