The Troll Heart Read online

  ‘Welcome,’ said a voice.

  Anna whipped her head around. A little old man had appeared silently behind the front desk, flipping through the pages of a thick ledger book. He was neatly dressed, with thin grey hair and glasses, although Anna thought his hair was rather poorly brushed. Around the man’s neck hung a scarlet cravat, which was almost as red as his bloodshot eyes. He looked like he might have just been crying.

  ‘My name is Mr Collins,’ said the man. He sounded very tired. ‘You must be the professor we’ve been expecting, yes?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said the Professor.

  The man tried to smile, but he still didn’t look very happy.

  ‘We don’t get a lot of professors here,’ he said. ‘What is it that you study?’

  ‘Well, it’s a bit complicated,’ said the Professor. ‘But I’m currently interested in the preservation and evolution of anonymous ethnographic communication.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Mr Collins. He blinked. ‘I see.’

  Max tugged on the edge of Anna’s sleeve. Anna turned away from the desk, glad to be part of a different conversation.

  ‘He looks really upset,’ she said quietly. ‘What do you think’s wrong?’

  But Max wasn’t listening to Mr Collins. His attention was fixed on the wide staircase at the far end of the foyer, where a painting of a panther hung high above the shabby green carpet. He caught Anna’s eye, pointing slyly with one of his dead fingers.

  ‘Someone’s watching us,’ he whispered. ‘On the stairs.’

  Anna turned around. The staircase was bordered by a curving balustrade that cast long shadows onto the walls. From where the children were standing it was difficult to see past the railing, so that if anything had been sitting on the steps it would have been very well hidden. But Max had seen something, and now Anna saw it too. Two eyes were peeping out between the balusters, unblinking and bright.

  The eyes were yellow.

  Anna shivered. She tried to pretend that she was looking at something else.

  ‘Now, here are your keys,’ Mr Collins was saying. His voice sounded shaky. ‘You’ll be in room 301. All the way up the stairs and down the right-hand corridor. It’s the first room on the left.’

  ‘Thank you very much,’ said the Professor.

  Mr Collins sighed, his shoulders drooping. ‘You’ll have the whole floor to yourselves tonight,’ he said. ‘The second floor, too. Dinner can be whenever you like. Just call down and we’ll cook something up. Elizabeth will see to it. Just call down…’

  Mr Collins was still talking, but he had already started shuffling away. Anna and the Professor watched in confusion as the old man disappeared through a side door.

  ‘It’s gone,’ said Max.

  Anna turned around. The eyes on the stairs had vanished.

  Room 301 was on the very top floor of the hotel. The Professor fiddled with the key for a moment before managing to unlock the door, pushing it open to reveal the usual assortment of beds, tables and wardrobes, as well as some faded paisley wallpaper. Anna threw her suitcase onto the bed that was closest to the window.

  ‘Mine!’ she said.

  She knew Max wouldn’t really mind – he’d had a bad experience sleeping by a window before. This window was triangular, and was opened by turning a tiny crank in the centre of the frame. It didn’t look as if it could be opened far enough for anyone to reach inside.

  Anna looked out at the field behind the hotel. A silver sea of mist lay across the hillside, broken up by more hedge plants and a rickety old fence that ran beside a ruined shed. A leafy belt of willow trees stood at the bottom end, marking the course where the river flowed. Anna wondered whether they would be allowed to explore it.

  ‘I’ll have to go soon,’ said the Professor, knotting his tie. ‘I might not even have time to unpack. I have a meeting with the library curator that can only happen today.’

  ‘Who’s going to look after us?’ asked Max.

  ‘I’m not completely sure,’ said the Professor. ‘I mentioned it to Mr Collins on the phone, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone else here. I’ll ask if you can have your dinner brought upstairs.’

  ‘You mean we can’t leave the room?’ said Anna indignantly.

  ‘I can’t have you running around the hotel on your own,’ said the Professor. ‘You were only allowed outside the room in Romania because you were being supervised, so I knew that you were safe.’

  Anna managed to turn her laugh into a very convincing cough.

  ‘The man said there’s nobody else up here,’ said Max. ‘So we won’t be annoying anyone if we just explore a little bit.’

  ‘Well, maybe that’s true,’ said the Professor absentmindedly. Anna could tell he was already thinking about musty old papers. ‘I’ll have to try to ask someone about it on the way out. But whatever happens, I’m sure the two of you will be very good and cause no trouble whatsoever for anyone. Agreed?’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Anna.

  ‘Agreed,’ said Max.

  The Professor hugged them goodbye. Then he picked up his briefcase and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.

  Anna did a belly flop onto her bed. Max unzipped one of the side pockets on his suitcase and retrieved a brown paper bag. He plucked out a red jelly baby and popped it into his mouth, chewing happily.

  ‘A whole floor to ourselves,’ he said. ‘We definitely won’t have to leave the hotel this time. We can be nice and safe up here, and we’ll have all the room we need to play whatever games we like!’

  Anna tried to smile, but her head was full of thoughts. What had made Mr Collins so miserable? Why had the bridge woman mentioned a search party? And now – most alarmingly – who had been watching them from the stairs?

  There was a knock at the door.

  ‘The Professor must have forgotten something,’ said Anna, jumping up. She walked over to the door and opened it, secretly feeling glad that her father was still nearby.

  It wasn’t the Professor.

  A girl in a blue dress and an apron was standing in the doorway, her hands on her hips. Anna thought that the girl might have been fifteen or sixteen years old. She had a long brown ponytail and a freckly face, and seemed rather out of breath.

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘Fancy leaving the two of you up here alone. I rushed up the moment I heard!’

  ‘Who are you?’ said Anna, taken aback. ‘Where’s the Professor?’

  ‘He’s gone,’ said the girl. ‘Only just managed to tell me where you were before he dashed out the door. Can you believe it! Anything could have happened!’

  ‘But there’s no-one else up here,’ said Anna.

  ‘Yes,’ said Max. ‘There’s nothing scary going on.’

  The girl frowned. She glanced left and right along the corridor, as if to make sure nobody was listening. There was a worried look in her eyes.

  ‘I really shouldn’t be telling you this,’ she said. ‘I could get in awful trouble. But I think you should both be on the lookout.’

  Max blinked. Anna stared up at the girl, confused. ‘Why do we need to be on the lookout?’

  The girl in the blue dress took a deep breath.

  ‘Because the last boy who visited this hotel disappeared,’ she said.

  3

  GINGERBREAD BOY

  MAX DROPPED HIS LOLLY BAG. A CASCADE of peppermint humbugs spilled out onto the carpet.

  ‘What do you mean, disappeared?’ he said.

  Anna didn’t know what to say. Who was this girl? Where had she come from?

  Max was looking around the room uncertainly, as if suddenly expecting to spot a deadly peril that he had failed to notice before. Anna felt a bit annoyed that the new girl had been able to scare her little brother so effectively. After all, that was her job.

  ‘Oh, I am sorry,’ said the girl. ‘I didn’t mean to frighten you so.’ She held out a hand to Anna. ‘My name is Lizzie. I’m the maid here – and the cook too, for now. Your father said I’m to ke
ep an eye on you until he gets back from town.’

  Anna shook the girl’s hand, although her mind was still racing. Questions were queuing up at her lips, each one more pressing than the last. Which one should she ask first?

  ‘I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about,’ continued Lizzie. ‘Just forget I said anything. You’ll be perfectly safe with me, I promise.’

  Lizzie spoke each sentence quickly, in an English accent that made it sound as if she was always being very polite. Anna thought that she and Max would never get in trouble at school, if only they could speak with an accent like that. But it also seemed as if Lizzie liked to talk. Anna stared up at the girl’s freckled face, wondering if she could convince her to give up her secret. She chose her next words carefully.

  ‘Don’t be sorry,’ she said. ‘We’ve only just arrived, so we’ve got no idea what’s going on. I do wish someone would fill us in.’

  Max nodded. Lizzie cast another furtive look down the corridor, wiping her hands nervously on her apron.

  ‘If I tell you what happened, you won’t get me in trouble, will you?’ she said. ‘I don’t want Mr Collins coming after me for telling tales.’

  ‘We won’t,’ said Anna. ‘Promise.’

  Lizzie sighed. She came into the room and sat down on the bed, looking rather glum.

  ‘It’s been awful, really,’ she said. ‘It all started two days ago. Mrs Sparrow had come in from town to make breakfast for all the guests – she’s the usual cook, you see. Her son Jamie was out in the garden with his notebook, doing his birdwatching. He has a real ear for birdcalls, does young Jamie.’

  ‘How old is he?’ asked Anna.

  ‘Eight,’ said Lizzie sadly. ‘He’d just turned eight a month ago.’

  Max paled.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Anna whispered. ‘You’re almost nine.’

  ‘But when Mrs Sparrow called Jamie in for breakfast, he didn’t come,’ continued Lizzie. ‘And when she went looking for him, he was nowhere to be found. The police say he must have wandered off along the river and got himself lost – which is strange, because none of the local children ever go near the water. They’ve had search parties out looking for him the last two days, combing the entire area, but nobody’s found a thing.’

  Lizzie sniffed. Anna tried to look sympathetic, but her mind was still churning through everything that had been said. The woman on the bridge had also mentioned a search party, which suggested that Lizzie was telling the truth. So what had happened to Jamie Sparrow?

  Max was looking rather nervous, but he managed to offer Lizzie a humbug from his bag. Lizzie took it with a small smile, sucking on the sweet in silence.

  ‘Oh, blow,’ she said suddenly, wiping her eyes. ‘I forgot about my gingerbread. Would you mind coming down to the kitchen with me? It’d be a terrible shame if the whole tray got burnt.’

  Max’s eyes lit up. Anna almost laughed. No matter how spooky things got, she could always count on Max’s hunger for sweets. Lizzie smiled too.

  ‘Come on, then,’ she said. ‘Grab a scarf if you’ve got one – it can get a bit chilly on the ground floor.’

  She stood up and walked to the door as Max pulled on a beanie. Anna quickly opened her suitcase and pulled out her scarf – a scarf so soft and black that it looked as if it had been woven from shadows. It had been made for her by her friend Isabella’s grandmother, to keep her warm on the coldest nights.

  Anna just hoped it would be strong enough to protect her from England.

  The hotel seemed more confusing on the way down than it had on the way up. The corridors twisted and turned unexpectedly, and the carpet changed colour at regular intervals. Anna paid careful attention at every turn so that she would be able to find her way back to their room. She remembered a framed portrait of an old woman as a sign that their room was nearby. A vase of yellow flowers with pointy petals marked the corridor that led to the portrait.

  ‘I can’t remember the hotel ever feeling so creepy,’ said Lizzie as she led them down the stairs. ‘Nobody wants to stay here while the police are sniffing around. Poor old Mr Collins would have closed the place down if it wasn’t for you and your dad coming to stay. I don’t think he’s slept since it happened.’

  ‘Have the police been here, then?’ said Max.

  ‘Oh yes, they’ve been looking everywhere,’ said Lizzie. ‘They searched every room in the hotel. Didn’t find a thing, mind, so now they’ve spread out all around the district.’

  Anna frowned. She had been hoping that there might be another magic fairy weapon hidden under the floorboards, but if the police hadn’t found anything she supposed this wasn’t the case. But what about the yellow eyes Max had spotted on the stairs? Anna tried to think of a way she could ask Lizzie about them without giving too much away.

  ‘Here we are, then,’ said Lizzie. ‘Goodness, can you smell something burning? Hurry!’

  They had arrived back in the empty foyer. Lizzie quickly swept them past an old piano and through another door, leading the siblings into the hotel kitchen.

  ‘Where are the oven gloves?’ said Lizzie frantically. ‘Oh, why must this room always be in such a mess?’

  It was indeed a very messy kitchen. Mixing bowls and cookbooks were spread across every surface, each one sporting its own wooden spoon. A lone oven glove was dangling from the spout of a broken teapot.

  ‘There it is!’ said Max.

  Lizzie plucked the glove from its perch and whipped open the oven door. A rush of smoke billowed out into the kitchen – but the smell that came with it was absolutely delicious. Max licked his lips as Lizzie pulled a tray from the oven and set it down upon the windowsill.

  ‘Thank goodness for that,’ she said. ‘Only a little brown. They’ll be ready to eat in just a minute.’

  Anna wasn’t sure Max would be able to wait that long. She looked around the kitchen for somewhere to sit, but all of the seats were piled high with dirty plates and old mugs of tea. In the end she sat down upon a large bag of flour, wondering to herself if Jamie might in fact be lost beneath a pile of unwashed crockery.

  Lizzie took a jug of lemonade from the fridge and poured out two glasses, passing one to each of the children. Anna took a long sip, enjoying the sugary tartness.

  ‘Is it always this messy?’ she asked timidly.

  Lizzie frowned. ‘No, I suppose not,’ she said. ‘I’m not usually in charge of the cooking, you see. But I’ve been baking gingerbread men every day since Jamie vanished. They used to be his favourite sweet, so I’m hoping he’ll smell them on the windowsill and find his way home.’ She turned to the table. ‘Here – there’s a picture of him around here somewhere. You might as well know what he looks like, just in case you see him around. The police started handing out these posters this morning.’

  She picked up a sheet of paper that had been tucked under a saucepan and passed it to Anna. Printed in the centre was the face of a small boy with wavy hair and a toothy smile. Anna thought that he looked a bit like some of Max’s school friends (and even a bit like Max himself, although she would never have said so). Typed below the photo were the words JAMES SPARROW: MISSING. At the very bottom of the poster was a number for people to call if they had any information.

  Holding the poster gave Anna chills. Two days ago, Jamie Sparrow had been alive and well in the Goat’s Beard Hotel. Now all that was left of him was a photograph. Anna remembered the dark and stormy night they had spent in Transylvania, when Max had been carried away up the mountainside. What would have happened if she hadn’t got him back?

  ‘You said the kids here don’t go near the water,’ said Max, interrupting her train of thought. ‘Why is that?’

  ‘Oh, there’s just a silly story that people around here tell,’ said Lizzie. ‘About a monster who lives down by the riverside. I suppose Jamie had grown too old to believe it.’

  Anna froze, her glass of lemonade raised halfway to her lips.

  ‘What sort of monster?’ she asked.

&n
bsp; ‘Well, I’m not entirely sure,’ said Lizzie. ‘It’s just a local legend. They say there’s a man who lives underneath the water, and he’ll reach out and grab you if you get too close. That’s all the story is, really – but it still used to give me the shivers when I was your age.’

  Anna did feel like shivering, although she had a very good reason to feel that way. How much more scared would Lizzie be if she knew that some monsters were real?

  ‘Is that really the whole story?’ asked Anna. ‘Can’t you think of anything else?’

  ‘Oh – yes!’ exclaimed Lizzie. ‘There’s a nursery rhyme. All of the children around here know it. Isn’t that funny! I haven’t even thought about it for years.’

  ‘How does the rhyme go?’ asked Max nervously.

  Lizzie cleared her throat.

  ‘Here comes Mister Shellycoat,

  Bells that make his belly bloat,

  Rattling from his shelly throat,

  Stay away from me!’

  4

  HEDGE MAGIC

  A HUSH DESCENDED ON THE KITCHEN AS Anna and Max silently puzzled over everything they had just learnt. It was almost too much to take in. There was a missing boy, an empty hotel, a pair of yellow eyes, and a man who lived underwater, as well as a strange nursery rhyme that neither of the children had ever heard before. Had Jamie Sparrow really just wandered off, or had something else happened to him? Could there really be another fairy-monster nearby? Anna wished they had more clues.

  To the children’s surprise, Lizzie began to laugh.

  ‘I’ve done it again, haven’t I?’ she said. ‘I need to learn to keep my big mouth shut. I’m sorry for scaring you, really I am. Just forget I said anything.’ ‘We’re not scared,’ said Anna. ‘We were just thinking.’

  ‘Never mind about that,’ said Lizzie, bustling over to the windowsill. ‘You don’t need to put on a brave face for me. Here, try some gingerbread. It’ll make you feel better.’

  She passed Anna and Max a biscuit each. The gingerbread men were big and chunky, with thick limbs and wide stomachs. Anna bit off one of the arms. It melted in her mouth, lovely and sweet, leaving a spicy aftertaste on her tongue.