Part 2 of Anna Lee, the 1st part can be found here.
Anna Lee and Maggles traveled for three days to reach the the most eastern side of the isle. They only stopped to let Maggles rest and eat, Anna Lee didn’t get much rest at all, she was so worried for her father.
They arrived at the cave towards the end of the third day. She was very tired. Now she looked up to see the cave she needed to enter and sighed because she’d have to climb a bit to get there.
“Well Maggles, it looks like we’ll need to part for a while but you’ll be safe down here, okay girl?” and she tied her to a nearby tree that had lovely grass and clover in large amounts underneath.
It got dark before she made it halfway up but Anna Lee didn’t mind it. The dark had never bothered her, she just took care to not fall and slowed her pace.
But then she reached the top. “Oh bother.” she huffed as she tried to look about her. It would be hard to know where to go if she could’nt see anything. She took her satchel off her back and rummaged through it. She had a couple flint stones and a torch and she quickly set to work.
A lit torch lead the way and she was able to see that someone had camped in front of the cave before; there was a gathering of stones in a circle and the remains of burnt tree limbs inside it. She cleared out the limbs and was happy to see what she’d need for a new fire not too far from there.
“I wonder who camped here before and left this stuff behind?” she wondered but she was too tired to think about it for too long.
Once a fire was going she put out her torch and spread her traveling cloak out on the ground for a makeshift bed. She didn’t think she could keep her eyes open any longer.
Sometime in the middle of the night a noise woke her. It was a shuffle- shuffle noise and she listened for a minute before opening her eyelids, her heart stopped inside her.
When she opened her eyes she saw a large figure shuffling away from her on bandaged legs, it looked like a very tall women. It took her a minute to realize that she was now covered in a rough blanket, it looked like it had been woven from moss and grasses with little threads of fabric here and there.
“Stop,please won’t you?” she called out into the dark after the shuffling figure, and the figure stopped but did not turn around.
” Can’t you come back? Thank you for the blanket very much.” and the figure slowly turned around. The closer she got to Anna Lee the easier it was to see that this woman was not a woman but female troll.
Anna Lee was startled, she had never seen a troll before and she had never heard good things about them. This troll was tall and had curly red hair that reached the middle of her back. Her skin was not only green but bumpy. A large amount of bumps covered the tip of her large nose and heavy eyebrows covered her eyes. But the eyes were kind and the troll was smiling she thought, the pointy teeth made it hard to tell. She wore a long dress in purple that was torn at the bottom and covered in patches.A rope was tied at her waist, her feet were wrapped in cloth strips that looked to be unraveling.
Anna Lee gulped but tried to stay brave,”Hello, I’m Anna Lee. I’m sorry am I in your spot? It was rude of me to stop here but I was so tired you see. I’ve been traveling for a long time and I needed to rest before I go into the cave tomorrow.”
The troll nodded but didn’t say anything.
“That was silly, I don’t even know what language you speak and I keep going on and on anyway. Oh, I miss home and I miss my father I wish it would hurry and be light already.”
The troll cleared her throat. ” It’s okay I can speak and just haven’t had to for so long.”
