ERIKA ALIN

In late July, Anna and her grandmother drove inland to pick blueberries. “What a troll forest!” her grandmother exclaimed as they wandered between the tall spruces. 

Anna thought of the trolls in her Swedish storybooks. She considered herself too old to believe in magical creatures. But as soon as her grandmother wandered off to a new berry patch, she put down her basket and peered between a few boulders. A small pile of berries lay in a mossy cup and, on the sheltered ground below, was a bed-like patch of moss. 

Anna looked at the bed and berries and wondered: What kind of creature had placed them there?