I found an old gate and decided to sit nearby for a while.

Sometimes, when I do this, I wait to see who might visit.

Perhaps a bird. A rabbit. A chipmunk. Maybe even an insect with an important errand.

Instead, a tiny troll appeared.

He was only about four inches tall, though he looked remarkably like the giant trolls from Harry Potter—same broad nose, same rough skin, same sturdy build. His tinyness canceled out his ugliness and made him adorable instead.

Fortunately, being only four inches tall, his footsteps were much quieter and his club considerably less threatening. He could stomp and swing as frivolously as he liked without any concern for the potential destruction.

I invited him to sit with me on the bench.

He climbed up one of the wooden legs, marched across the plank, and sat down beside me. After a moment, he shaded his eyes with his hand, grumbled about the sun, climbed across my lap, and settled on the other side.

"Much better," he said.

"What is your name?" I asked.

"Trevor," he replied.

"Well, Trevor, thank you for visiting. May I ask what species you are?"

He thought about it for a moment.

"I don't know that we've ever been named."

I told him about the trolls in Harry Potter and how they looked remarkably like they could be his larger cousins.

"I've heard rumors about them," he said. "Though most of my community doesn't believe they exist."

"Really? They were in the movies and have been described in books. It is easy to assume they exist.”

"Well, if that's the case, I suppose there's no difference in minds eye versus the faces eye… so real they probably are."

We sat quietly for a moment, considering this.

Eventually I asked, "What are you like, Trevor?"

"Oh, I'm a bit grumpy," he said. "But I do love beautiful things."

He waved a hand toward the garden on the inside of the wooden door on the other side of the gate.

"I created all of that."

"The whole garden?” I wondered when the door had swung open and how I hadn't seen anyone open it.

"Yes."

I must have looked skeptical because he continued.

"I had my humans help me."

"Your humans?"

"Certainly. The ones who live in the house. Whenever I wanted something planted, moved, watered, or tended, I'd whisper the idea into the air. The words would drift along like dandelion fluff, float into my human's ear, and suddenly they'd change their mind about whatever they had been planning to do."

He nodded proudly.

"Humans are remarkably useful that way."

I paused and thought about all the times I changed my mind spontaneously. It kind of weirded me out but felt reassuring too.

"So how did you come to live here?" I asked.

"I floated in."

"Floated in?"

"On a dandelion seed. I was hardly bigger than a mustard seed myself when I arrived."

He smiled at the memory.

"This place needed a bit of love. As I grew, I found what I needed."

My mind was racing with questions but I decided to ask, "What do little trolls eat?"

"Flower nectar, mostly. That's where my round belly comes from."

He patted his belted waist affectionately.

"I also enjoy seeds that crack open but don't quite sprout. Delicious things. Sometimes I grind two or three together, mix them with dew water, leave the mixture in the sun, and make myself a cracker."

"A cracker?"

"The finest cracker you've never tasted."

He picked up on my fascination and leaned in.

"I also enjoy roots. And grass. But my favorite thing in the whole world are dill fronds."

"Dill?"

"Oh yes. Magnificent."

We sat together for a while. A dragonfly zipped and zagged in front of us.

Trevor greeted her with a wave and howdy do, casually saying, “Ready for the aerial show this weekend?”

She did a barrel roll and zoomed away.

Feeling oddly like I was in the presence of genius I decided to reach for enlightenment.

I asked, "If you had a message for me today, what would it be?”

I noticed it didn't phase him; like he commonly gets asked questions like that.

Trevor thought carefully.

"Don't be afraid to grow where you're planted."

"That's on point.”

"I read it in a book."

I laughed. First I wondered how he learned to read then I wondered where he found books. Then I imagined him turning the pages of human books.

"You read books?"

"There used to be quite a lot of them in the house, it used to be a church, a church with a library. I would sneak in and read whenever I could."

He folded his hands in his lap.

"That particular sentence stayed with me. I often wanted to leave this place where I was dropped off. I was convinced there had to be a better place somewhere else. Wanderlust does that.”

"What changed?"

"Instead of looking for a better place, I decided to make this place better."

He gestured proudly toward the garden.

"That worked out rather nicely."

I asked, "Was it ever difficult?"

"Oh, certainly. Sometimes I was lonely. Sometimes I wondered where all the others like me were."

"You mean your people?"

"We usually say kin."

He smiled.

"The strangest thing happened. The harder I searched for my kin, the less I found them."

"What happened?"

"One morning I stopped beside a rose growing near the fence. I wasn't looking for anything at all. I was simply enjoying the fragrance."

He looked out into the distance.

"And there, just down the road, I spotted one of my kin."

"What did he say?"

"He told me there were many more of us. Entire communities scattered throughout the area."

"You're kidding."

"I thought so too,” he laughed.

"It seems that once I stopped searching, I finally found them.”

A blue Jay called right at that moment, as if to punctuate the observation.

"How did you get the name Trevor?"

His eyes brightened.

"When I first met my kin, they asked where I lived. I told them I lived in the big village."

"The big village?” I giggled.

"They laughed exactly the way you just did."

He crossed his arms.

"So I marched them all here so they could see for themselves."

I imagined a procession of tiny trolls following him down the road.

"When they arrived, they saw the squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks, birds, flowers, and gardens. They looked around in amazement."

He smiled.

"Then they agreed. This was indeed a big village."

"And this leads to your name?"

“Yes. In their dialect, Trevor means big village. Though I think they first called me Treville."

He considered this and added, "I like Trevor better."

The afternoon had grown long. Trevor held a thumb up to the sun and seemed to conclude it was time to wrap up our visit. I took the hint and stood up.

"Well, Trevor," I said, "it was wonderful meeting you. If there's ever anything I can do to help, you'll let me know?"

"Certainly. And likewise.”

He stood up, reached into a pocket I hadn't noticed before, and pulled out a very tiny phone.

"Let me just get your number."