Chapter Text
Trolberg, 1996...
It had been a full year since Hilda and Johanna had returned from the realm of the fairies—a world hidden beneath roots and stone, where time flowed like a quiet stream and the air shimmered with ancient magic.
There, they had uncovered a truth buried by generations: their family’s blood ran not just with the warmth of humans, but also with the ethereal flicker of fairies.
It was a discovery that forever altered how they saw themselves—and yet, the return to their familiar flat in Trolberg had brought with it a strange kind of peace.
The city hadn’t changed. The bells in the Bell Tower still tolled every hour. The Woff migrations still soar above the city at dusk. The shelves in Edda’s Bookstore still creaked under the weight of tomes on giants and ghosts and spells long forgotten. And in the quiet morning hours, Johanna still sipped her tea at the kitchen window, watching ravens pass over the rooftops.
But Hilda had changed.
She hadn’t spoken of Fairy Country much since their return. Not even to Frida or David, who had always been her partners in every wild journey.
Even Alfur, ever inquisitive, had learned not to press too hard. Louise, newly introduced to their circle of friends, could sense it too—there was something just under the surface. A distance, a weight Hilda carried that no one else could quite name.
And yet, it wasn’t grief. Nor was it sorrow in the traditional sense. Hilda still smiled. She still sketched trolls on crumpled napkins and collected pinecones shaped like stars. She still wandered into the forest when the wind called her name. But something inside her had dulled, like a lantern burning low even though the oil had not run out.
Summer was slipping away. And so was her childhood.
Soon, Sparrow Scout sashes would be folded into drawers for the last time. The weekly meetings—badge-earning, skill-building, fauna-tracking—would be over. Graduation loomed, and with it came the corridors of Trolberg High School, where uniforms replaced capes, and schedules replaced spontaneity.
For most, it was a natural step. For Hilda, it felt like the edge of a cliff.
She couldn’t explain it to them. How could she? How could she say aloud that she feared growing up not because of what it meant to gain—but because of what it meant to lose?
The city still pulsed with magic if you knew where to look. But Hilda had started to wonder—what if she was forgetting how to look?
What if the world was still wild and wonderful, but she no longer belonged to it?
That was the secret she carried: not fear of monsters, or magic, or even loss. Her fear was of fading.
And as the last weeks of summer passed her by, one by one, Hilda began to wonder if the girl who once rode on the backs of thunderbirds, danced with fairies, and debated ethics with elves—was slipping away.
And worse still—what if no one noticed?
Johanna had always known when her daughter’s silence meant something deeper. She knew the difference between the quiet of concentration—when Hilda hunched over her sketchbook, tongue pressed to her lip, trying to capture the curve of a mossy antler—and the quiet of sorrow, when even Twig’s gentle nudges couldn’t pull her back into the room.
So, on a Sunday afternoon painted in late-summer light, she did something she hadn’t tried in a long time. She invited Anders for dinner.
She didn’t expect it to fix anything. But perhaps it might warm the air in the flat, even for a little while.
Anders arrived just before sundown. He still knocked, even though he had a key. Something about asking permission helped him feel like he was doing things right. That he was showing them—showing Hilda—that he wasn’t here to take up space he hadn’t earned.
His coat smelled faintly of woodsmoke and forest, and his hands carried a paper bag from the bakery down the street. Inside were three honeycakes, soft with powdered sugar, still warm from the oven.
“It’s not much,” he said, holding it out awkwardly. “But, um… I remember you liked these.”
Hilda looked up from the floor, where she was sorting through old pins from her Sparrow Scout sash. For a moment, she said nothing. Then, with a polite but distant smile, she stood and took the bag.
“Thanks,” she said, before retreating to the kitchen without another word.
Anders looked at Johanna, but she gave him a small shake of her head.
Not yet.
He understood. It had been a year since he’d returned. A year since Hilda had freed him from the fairy realm, after believing he’d abandoned her a second time.
That moment—when their eyes met through the shimmer of the portal, when she reached for him—should have been healing. But the scar had already formed.
He still remembered her voice when she found him. Not the usual one that sparkled with questions and wonder. It had been strained, brittle. Like someone who wanted to believe in something good, but had been burned too many times to reach out without flinching.
He hadn’t chosen to leave. Johanna’s parents—her fairy parents—had taken him to protect him from a sudden troll attack in the mountains near the borderlands. To them, it was the right thing.
To Hilda, barely old enough to remember his face, it had felt like abandonment. And though she now knew the truth, though she had been the one to bring him home, the distance between them had settled like mist between trees.
Anders didn’t try to fill it. Not with apologies—he’d already said too many of those. Not with gifts or plans or pressure. He simply came, when invited. Spoke, when spoken to. Listened more than he ever had before.
And he waited.Waited for the right time. Waited for Hilda to say anything that didn’t feel rehearsed.
He still lived alone, in a modest apartment above the city’s botanical archives. It was a quiet place, filled with pressed flowers and old field maps. He liked it that way. It reminded him of the time before everything had gone wrong, when he and Johanna had roamed the countryside together, cataloging strange plants and studying troll migration routes.
And yet, that was a different life. A different man. He wasn’t sure if he was trying to return to who he was, or become something new entirely.
Dinner was calm. Johanna made stew and set the table as if it were any other night. They spoke of simple things—Frida’s internship at the library,
David’s latest attempt to train a pigeon to deliver letters, the continued sightings of Nisse near the shipping yard.
But Hilda didn’t say much.
She laughed once. Quietly. When Anders told a story about being chased by a Vittra on one of his recent hikes.
That sound—small, but real—was enough to carry him through the silence that followed.
After the plates were cleared, and Johanna offered to make tea, Hilda stood and excused herself. She mumbled something about needing air and stepped to her room, Twig trotting after her.
Johanna watched her go, then turned to Anders.
“She’s slipping,” she said softly. “I’ve seen her come back from worse, but this is different.”
Anders nodded, hands curled around his mug. “She’s growing up.”
“She thinks growing up means leaving behind who she really is.”
He looked toward the bedroom door, his eyes following the outline of Hilda’s shadow against the curtain.
“She’s wrong,” he said. “But I don’t know how to tell her that.”
Johanna offered him a tired smile. “You don’t need to tell her. Just don’t leave again. That’s all she really needs to believe right now.”
Hilda leaned on the window, watching the stars blink to life above Trolberg. The city lights hummed below, warm and golden. She could hear her parents’ voices, soft and steady, behind the glass.
She didn’t know if she was ready to forgive everything. But maybe—just maybe—she wasn’t entirely alone.
And for now, that had to be enough.
The dishes had been washed. The kitchen was quiet, save for the ticking of the clock mounted crookedly on the wall—a relic from their old home on the edge of the Woff Wood. The sky beyond the windows had slipped fully into night, deep blue and soft with stars.
Hilda hadn’t come back in yet.
Johanna sat at the table, cradling a mug between her hands. Anders was across from her, shoulders slightly hunched, gaze unfocused.
They hadn’t spoken for a while, but the silence wasn’t uncomfortable. It was the kind of silence that settled between two people who had known both love and loss in each other’s presence.
“She’s strong,” Johanna said at last.
Anders nodded. “Always has been.”
“But she’s... tired. Not the usual kind.” Johanna’s fingers tightened around the mug. “It’s not physical. It’s something else.”
Anders leaned back, staring at the ceiling as if the answer might be there, tucked between the beams. “Do you think it’s trauma? From everything?”
“She’s had so many close calls,” Johanna murmured. “Giants. Trolls. The Draugen, the weather spirits, getting turned into a troll herself…” Her voice caught, only briefly.
“And then there was the fairy realm. Us being stuck... almost never seeing our old world again.”
Anders ran a hand through his hair. “And before that, the Spider Frog incident from that lake...”
Johanna gave a soft sigh—worn thin but genuine. “Oh dear, I forgot about that. That horrible lake creature. Swallowed us whole, thought we’d be a nice snack..."
“...only to puke us back out because we were, and I quote, ‘too human.'"
They both looked at each other, quietly. The memory was absurd.
“Do you remember what she said after that?” Anders asked. Johanna smirked. “She said the important thing was that we tasted terrible...Then spent half an hour drawing it and trying to name it.”
“And insisted it deserved a second chance. Even after it tried to eat us. Honestly…” Johanna concluded.
“She befriends everything,” Anders said. “Even the monsters.”
Johanna nodded, her smile fading into something more thoughtful. “She never feared the things we did. Never let herself stay scared long. She’s always had this... resilience. Like adventure was her armor.”
Anders looked toward the balcony again, his voice softer now. “But what happens when the thing she’s afraid of isn’t out there in the wild? What if it’s here—inside?”
Johanna didn’t answer right away. She just stared into her tea, letting the quiet return. Letting it settle.
“She’s growing up,” she finally said. “And that terrifies her. Not the usual things—school, friends, responsibility. It’s the idea that she’ll stop being herself once she does.”
Anders exhaled. “Losing her sense of wonder.”
“She thinks it’s slipping away. That she’s changing too fast to keep hold of who she was.” Johanna looked at him, and there was something ancient in her eyes—something that had survived forests and fairies and everything in between. “It’s not the magic she’s afraid of losing. It’s belonging to that magic. Being a part of that world.”
Anders nodded, slowly. “Because if she can’t belong to it anymore… what does that make her?”
“Exactly.”
A long pause followed. They could hear the muffled bark of Twig her room, followed by the creak of the chair. Hilda, undoubtedly, curled into the blanket she kept out there, staring up at the sky. Perhaps waiting for a shooting star. Perhaps just hoping one would fall and stir something in her heart.
“I keep thinking,” Anders said quietly, “that it’s a miracle you still care for me. After everything. After I vanished. After she had to be the one to pull me back. Even though you two were trapped in the progress..."
Johanna looked at him, the corners of her mouth gently lifting. “You didn’t choose to leave. And when you came back, you didn’t pretend everything was fine. That counts for something.”
“I don’t think she sees it that way.”
“She doesn’t yet. But she will.”
Anders exhaled, and for a moment he looked every bit the man who had once been swept into another world—lost in time, now learning to find his place again.
“She’s still part human, after all,” Johanna said, rising to her feet. He blinked up at her.
“No one’s immune to change. Or fear. Not even Hilda. That’s what makes her human.” She paused. “But that spark in her? That part that talks to trolls and rides wind spirits and sees magic in alleyways? That’s still there.”
“You really believe that?”
“I know it.”
Anders stood as well, following her gaze to the balcony. Hilda’s silhouette was still there, wrapped in stars and silence.
“She just needs time,” Johanna whispered. “We all do.”
...
...
...
Hours go by... The house was quiet.
Outside, the city of Trolberg slumbered under a veil of silver clouds, the glow of streetlamps pooling softly on the streets and sidewalks below.
It was past midnight, and the world had fallen into a rhythm of deep breaths and distant night sounds—owl calls, water lapping in the canals, the rare hum of a passing air tram.
Inside, the air was cooler now. Hilda padded softly across the wooden floorboards in a gray undershirt and red pants, the fabric worn soft from summers past. Her hair was braided, brushing her shoulders as she crept past her mother’s bedroom door, careful not to wake her.
Twig, curled up on the mat near the coat rack, cracked open one eye and watched her with a silent flick of the tail before drifting back to sleep.
The kitchen cupboard creaked as she opened it, fingers brushing past tins and crinkled packages. She finally pulled out a half-empty sleeve of blueberry muffins, biting into one without ceremony. She chewed slowly, lost in thought, eyes fixed on the shadows cast by the streetlight outside.
“Couldn’t sleep either?”
She turned.
Anders sat on the edge of the sofa in the living room, backlit faintly by the blue glow of the television. He wore a threadbare sweater, beige pants, and socks with a hole in one toe. A book lay facedown on the coffee table—something about cloud formation in mountainous regions. The television murmured quietly, a narrator finishing up a wildlife segment on migrating dusk beetles.
Hilda blinked, then shrugged. “Didn’t feel tired.”
“Me neither,” he said, gesturing toward the empty spot beside him. “Want to watch some TV to pass the time?” She hesitated for a moment.
Then, slowly, she crossed the room and sat beside him, tucking her legs underneath her on the sofa and balancing the muffin box on her knees.
The wildlife program faded to black.
A new program began almost immediately, accompanied by the dramatic swell of orchestral music and the voice of a familiar figure.
“Good evening, curious minds,” said the deep, theatrical voice of Professor Hoffner. “I’m Professor Heinrich Hoffner—and tonight, we open a new door.”
The screen flashed to a starfield, with a spinning model of the cosmos floating in slow motion.
“Welcome to Keys to the Universe,” he continued, “where the boundaries of science, mystery, and theory collide.”
Hilda raised an eyebrow. “Oh great,” she muttered around a bite of her blueberry muffin. “It’s this guy.”
Anders chuckled. “Come on. It’s a little entertaining.”
The program cut to Hoffner standing in front of a chalkboard littered with equations and diagrams of mirrored galaxies. His thick mustache twitched with conviction as he spoke.
“Tonight, we discuss a very bizarre, yet interesting theory... the Twin Universe Theory—a new frontier in astrophysical speculation. Recent studies suggest that, at the moment of the Big Bang, a second universe may have been created. A mirror image. A cosmic twin, expanding alongside our own. A place where time may flow differently. Where matter obeys unfamiliar laws. Where versions of ourselves may exist… different, yet eerily similar.”
Hilda groaned softly. “That sounds like the kind of lame thing people use to sell cliche novels, pointless textbooks, and even comic books. Maybe movies as well...”
Anders smiled faintly. “He’s dramatic, sure. But isn’t it kind of interesting?”
She leaned her head back on the sofa, eyes half-lidded.
“Feels like propaganda. Like, if something like that exists, it wouldn’t be on cable at midnight with lightning sound effects and a guy who dresses like he sells old clocks.”
Anders snorted, stifling a laugh.
“But,” she admitted, licking crumbs from her fingers, “the idea’s not completely ridiculous. Just... I don’t know. Feels like something people want to believe to make the world feel more exciting.”
Anders nodded slowly. “Maybe. But remember—our world literally has trolls. Ghosts. Vittras. There’s a lake frog that nearly ate you, sorry for reminding you, and a mountain that walks. You’ve spoken to elves.
You’ve been a troll yourself. There’s a whole fairy realm outside our own. And don’t even get me started on the Thunderbird.”
Hilda looked over at him, one brow raised.
He gave her a half-smile. “So who’s to say a twin universe is less believable than that?”
She considered that for a moment. The television showed an artist’s rendering of two Earths splitting from a glowing star like soap bubbles.
“Good point,” she said softly. “It’s a big universe.”
Anders reached for the remote and lowered the volume.
“Just… don’t forget, Hilda. Not everything amazing is a story. Some of it’s real. And it’s okay to be skeptical—but don’t let that make you stop wondering.”
She looked at him again. There was something honest in his expression. Gentle. Uncertain. Still a man trying to reintroduce himself into her world—but doing it carefully, one moment at a time.
“Thanks,” she said, quieter now. “I needed that.”
They sat in silence after that, the blue light of the television washing over them. Hilda finished her last cookie. Anders leaned back, finally letting himself relax.
Onscreen, Professor Hoffner went on, diagramming gravity wells with enormous hand gestures. But Hilda was no longer paying attention.
Her eyes had drifted to the dark window behind the screen, to the stars beyond it—faint, scattered freckles across the sky.
Somewhere out there, a twin universe might or might not exist. That wasn’t what mattered.
What mattered was that, here and now, her world was still full of possibilities. Even if she didn’t always feel like she belonged to it.
Even if she was still figuring it out.