Second Interlude Gwen, Under Arrest #3
The lacrosse squad was just leaving the liquor store, two of them carrying big brown paper bags that likely contained cases
of beer.
4.
The rink was a couple of acres of mirror-glossy concrete, pitted and scratched with age.
There was a geometric arrangement of pulsing neon bars arranged across the black ceiling, and skaters whirled through a haze of color.
This late in the evening, the kids out on the rink weren’t really kids anymore, and Gwen wondered why they came here. Didn’t they know it was for children?
She took her time tying on her rented skates. Arthur sat next to her, tying on a pair of his own. He wore a burly gray turtleneck
and crisp jeans and a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles. He was as bald as Colin now, had shaved it all off, and wore a Nepalese
smoking hat clapped onto his dome. She had never seen a hat like that before and wouldn’t see one like it again until she
saw one on Dumbledore in the Harry Potter films.
They didn’t speak at first, had not been alone together the whole wedding weekend. They watched the floor instead.
Donna was too drunk to stand. She had sat down in one corner of the rink. Gregg had her by the hands and was jogging in place
in his skates, trying to pull her back up. Sometimes he could get her ass off the floor and take them both on a laughing little
pirouette before she sat down again.
Van skated with his unicorn, the two of them gliding as if gravity and friction didn’t apply to them. He really was a hell
of a skater, Gwen thought. He soared along without fear, raising his arms like a ballet dancer, then dropping to a squat to
roar along like a bowling ball. Allie wobbled and scampered after him and once jumped on his back and let him carry her.
Gregg’s sisters tottered along awkwardly, hand in hand, looking hopefully at Colin every time he skated past them. He skated
alone, his hands behind his back and his upper body leaning forward, like a ship’s figurehead. He seemed completely content,
drawing great looping circles around the outer edge of the rink by himself—pleased by his own sure, unrelenting momentum.
It was funny how even the way a person skated told you something about who they were.
He was dressed as Venger from the Dungeons Colin had special-ordered the costume, but
it was too small, so at the last minute Arthur had bought a Gandalf robe with the texture of burlap at Spencer Gifts. Only
it didn’t make him look like a wizard. With his shaved head and beard and dark eyes he looked like a monk, up past his bedtime
to ink an illuminated manuscript.
“I like your beard,” Gwen said at last, and then wished she hadn’t, it was such a dumb remark. I miss you, was what she meant to say. I’m not allowed to say I love you, was what she wanted to tell him. To say that I will always love you.
“I’m trying to become the person everyone hoped I’d be. The kind of professor people adore because you can sneak a nap in
his class.”
“I don’t believe it, old buddy,” she said. “Your mom says your classes are standing room only.”
“You talk to my mother?”
“She was down to the coast just this summer. They had her over at St. Anne’s in Kennebunkport as a guest pastor. We had tea
and caught up.”
She was too polite to ask why we aren’t together anymore, Gwen didn’t say. When everyone knew we were supposed to be together.
“Be good to see her again. This’ll be the second McBride she’s married in two years,” Gwen said, nodding at Donna and Gregg.
Gregg was sprawled on the rink with Donna spraddled on top of him, legs to either side of his chest. He wasn’t trying too
hard to get up. “I like Gregg. He seems like a sweetheart—openhearted and innocent and corn-fed. The kind of guy who never
forgets an anniversary and scatters rose petals on the bed on Valentine’s Day.”
“And yet we’re just letting him march off to his doom,” Arthur said. Gwen laughed. Arthur smiled—but it wasn’t much of a smile.
“It might be good for her,” Gwen said. “To be with someone so trusting, someone who believes people are basically good.”
“I think that might be part of the appeal,” Arthur said, staring out across the rink. “She crept out of Colin’s bedroom at
five a.m. two days ago.”
Gwen’s insides went a little sick. Oh, Donna, she thought, and exhaled a deep breath to dispel the bad feeling in her tummy. “Well. Maybe it was one last time for old
times’ sake. Get it out of their system and be done? Something like that?”
Arthur didn’t reply.
“At least Van and Allie are happy,” Gwen said.
“They’d have the perfect marriage if she wasn’t gay and he wasn’t a drug addict,” Arthur said.
“I see why your class is so popular,” Gwen said. “Who could resist your relentlessly sunny outlook?”
“Come on,” he said, and offered her his hand. “Let’s skate.”
5.
They circled the outer edge of the rink while Kurt Cobain screamed hoarsely over a screeching guitar and sang about being
trapped in a heart-shaped box. For a while it was too loud to talk, so they just held hands. They were skating for almost
a full minute before Gwen realized she was filled to brimming with an unfamiliar sensation, a deep sensation of warmth that
had to be contentment. Arthur was better than the first cup of tea in the morning, better than a last glass of wine after
a good meal.
The song cross-faded into Oasis, “Live Forever,” Liam Gallagher making promises no one could really keep. The volume had dropped slightly and it seemed possible to speak.
“What does a professor in medieval studies do when he’s not grading papers?” Gwen asked. “Polish battle-axes?”
“Lately? Mostly I read about trolls. There’s some good writing in Elder Futhark—”
“I think I got an album by Elder Futhark,” Gwen said. “Didn’t they record ‘We’re an American Band’?”
“—from the ninth century,” Arthur went on. “Part of a broken tablet in an abbey that was rebuilt about eight times in the
last two thousand years. It documents a named troll in the southwest of England. Svangur the Sly.” They skated a full loop
before Arthur added, “I think he’s still there. Svangur. I’d like to have a word with him.”
Gwen glanced sharply at him. “Are you serious? A troll named—what’s he named?”
“Svangur. It means hunger. He was probably the real-world basis for Grendel, actually; the name’s not too dissimilar. Grendel,
Svangur, Svangdel.”
“You really believe in trolls?”
Arthur said, “You really doubt them, old buddy?”
“Why would you want to talk to a troll? You want to start a fairy tale zoo or something?”
“He’s got a weapon hoard,” Arthur said. “Collected over a couple thousand years now, usually from hapless paladins who thought they could make a name for themselves by taking him on. He has a blade, the Sword of Strange Hangings, that figures heavily in the Grail quest. It’s held in a sheath of white silk and can only be drawn by one ready to make a sacrifice of himself for the greater good—someone humble of spirit.
I think it could cut through the plating on a dragon.
I’d like to get my hands on it. It’s in Svangur’s caverns, along with his other treasures.
A vial of some saint’s blood that can make wounds vanish and suspend the aging process.
Riches beyond compare. Colin’s very interested in riches beyond compare.
He made me promise I won’t go troll-hunting without him. ”
Gwen squeezed his wrist, hard. “I wish you hadn’t told me any of this. The iguana can see us, you know. From the Long Dark. Even now.”
“If his eyes are open,” Arthur said, mildly.
“And maybe King Sorrow can see us, but he can’t hear us.
He has to come closer to hear us—close enough for us to hear him.
” Arthur thought a moment, then added, “If I had anything I absolutely had to keep secret, I’d tell you on consecrated ground.
You know how Superman can’t use his X-ray vision to see through lead?
I have an idea churches and synagogues and temples might frustrate King Sorrow the same way.”
“Do you really think there’s a living, breathing troll somewhere in England? Just going unnoticed?”
“He’ll be protected by a glam of some sort. He probably looks like a man at first. Although I doubt the glam can hold up to
any close inspection. Children almost certainly can see him as he is. Children and cats and—”
There was a commotion over by the exits. People were running to see what was going on, some of them still in their skates.
Gwen took it in—saw grins, flushed faces, heard yells—and thought there was a fight getting underway out in the parking lot.
Oh, well. It was her night off. If someone needed first aid, they could call an ambulance like anyone else. Arthur, though,
was peering speculatively across the rink. She tried to bring him back to the conversation.
“And you think . . . you might be able to find him?”
“Sure. There’s only so many bridges in the southwest of England. It shouldn’t take more than ten years to look under all of
them.”
She laughed, because she thought he was joking, but he wasn’t paying her any mind. “Live Forever” ended and there was an instant
of silence between songs. He cocked his head.
“Do you hear that?” Arthur said.
“Hear what?” Gwen said. After Oasis and Nirvana her ears were numb.
“That’s Donna,” Arthur said. “I think she’s screaming.”
6.