The Troll Heart Page 5

  The dancing spots had dispersed. An old-fashioned lantern spluttered to life as Anna swung her torch around, desperately trying to work out where she had been taken.

  She was lying in a long, thin room with small round windows facing out towards the night. The space was packed tightly with boxes of old junk, with some of the stacks reaching all the way to the ceiling, although the ceiling itself was oddly low. At one end of the room was a bed, upon which Anna had been dropped. At the other end of the room was a door – and beside the door, there was a woman.

  Anna shivered. The woman was old and unkempt, wearing a tattered grey dress that might not have been washed for many years. Her long hair was knotty and wild, streaked with grey lines that shone like silver twine. She was breathing heavily, and her ear was pressed up against the door. For now, exiting was impossible.

  Anna slowly slipped a hand down to her side. She pressed her fingers against the top of the knife’s hilt, hoping that whatever magic it contained would help straighten out her thoughts. Where was she? What had happened beside the river? And – she trembled as she remembered – what had been standing there in the mist, so stony and so frightening?

  She needed more information – but first, she needed to get out. Anna turned to look at the wall behind her, searching for something that might help her escape. Would she have to fight her way past the old woman?

  The wall was plastered with cut-out newspaper articles. There were papers old and new, like flakes of dry skin pinned up in some macabre collection. Anna read the headline of the closest article. Her eyes widened.

  LOCAL BOY MISSING NEAR RIVER.

  But the article wasn’t about Jamie Sparrow. It was about a boy named Alexander, a boy whose face Anna had never seen before. She checked the date in the corner, confused. The article was a year old.

  What did it mean? Anna scanned the next row of articles.

  BROTHER AND SISTER DISAPPEAR NEAR LOCAL SWIMMING SPOT.

  GIRL VANISHES FROM CAMPSITE, FEARED DROWNED.

  HAVE YOU SEEN THIS BOY? STILL MISSING.

  Each article was from a different time, or from a different newspaper, but here they all hung together, crisped in various shades of yellow. Children smiled out from faded photographs, bright-eyed and gap-toothed, some of them clutching teddy bears or other toys. At the very top of the wall was the photo of Jamie that Anna had seen on the poster, stuck next to a photo of a boy holding a stuffed blue rabbit. In fact, now that she noticed it, Anna saw that the boy with the rabbit appeared on the wall again and again, more times than any of the other missing children.

  ‘You’d do well to remember all of that,’ said a voice by her ear.

  The old woman was standing right beside her. Anna jumped, pressing herself close to the wall. Now she could see the woman’s face for the first time. Her skin was wrinkled and pale, and her eyes were a deep, dark black.

  ‘Who are you?’ asked Anna. ‘Why did you bring me here?’

  The woman stared down at her.

  ‘Foolish girl you are, to be out so late,’ she whispered. ‘Foolish to walk by the river at night, when there’s a monster lurking in the dark.’

  ‘I’m not foolish,’ said Anna. She pointed to the wall. If something terrible was about to happen to her, she at least wanted to know why. ‘What do you know about the missing boy?’

  ‘Boys, girl,’ said the old woman. ‘Boys.’

  The woman shot out her hand and tore a photo from the wall, staring at the little boy and the blue rabbit clutched in his arms. Her eyes began to fill up with tears. Anna glanced at the door, wondering if this was her chance to dart past. But what if the woman had something else to tell her?

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Anna gently. ‘Don’t cry. I only wanted to know why you brought me here. And to ask – to ask what you know about the monster.’

  But she had said the wrong thing. The woman’s head shot up, and now there was terror in her eyes, a wild fury that spread across her entire face.

  ‘You have been warned,’ she said. ‘All of you warned, but none of you listening. Heed this, girl. Stay away from this place, and do not return!’

  Anna decided she had better run for it. She rolled off the bed and under the old woman’s flailing arms, wincing as she hit the floor: the tumble down the hill had left her badly bruised. The woman continued to yell warnings as Anna darted away, heading towards the small doorway at the end of the room. The space seemed to rock back and forth as she ran over the floorboards. Where was she?

  Anna charged through the doorway – and immediately found herself facing the river. She skidded to a standstill, teetering on the edge of a tiny platform, arms spinning as she tried to regain her balance. Suddenly everything made sense: the narrow room; the round windows; the rocking floor. She had been lying inside the cabin of a river boat.

  A wooden gangplank stretched from the door to the riverbank. Anna scampered down it, frightened that the woman might be coming after her. She ran away from the river, back into the trees, concealing herself in a thick copse before she dared to look behind her.

  The old woman was standing in the cabin doorway, a silhouette framed with fiery light. She might have still been speaking, or crying, or perhaps saying nothing at all. Whatever she was doing, Anna was too far away to hear it.

  But now there were other sounds coming through the trees. Anna slunk lower, afraid that Mr Candle might have returned – but as the calls became clearer, Anna realised it was a voice she knew very well.

  ‘Anna!’ called Max. He sounded a little teary. ‘Anna! Say something! Come on, Billy. We have to find her!’

  Relief swept through Anna’s body. Max was safe. For now, everything would be okay.

  ‘I’m here,’ she croaked. She had not spoken very loudly, so she tried again. ‘I’m here!’

  A light flashed between the trees. Anna could see shadowy figures running through the mist, getting closer and closer – and then Billy the goat erupted through the undergrowth before her, almost crashing into her horn-first. He stopped himself just in time, bleating triumphantly, licking her on the cheek with a wet pink tongue. Despite everything that had happened, Anna couldn’t help laughing.

  ‘Good dog,’ she said. ‘Good Billy!’

  Now it was Max’s turn to come hurtling through the bushes. His face lit up as he saw her, stretching into a very relieved smile.

  ‘What happened?’ he gasped. ‘We couldn’t find you!’

  ‘I fell over –’ began Anna, but then she had to stop. Max had hugged her so tightly that all her breath had been squeezed out.

  ‘Did you hear the voice?’ he asked. ‘Billy and I could hear people talking in the fog. They were making some sort of a deal, I think. I couldn’t really understand it. I wish we’d been able to see who they were.’

  ‘I know who one of them was,’ said Anna, extracting herself from Max’s arms. ‘It was Mr Candle. He walked right past me.’

  Max gaped at her.

  ‘I just got lucky,’ said Anna. ‘Or unlucky. Because then I fell and hit my head, and then I met an old woman on a boat.’

  Max was lost for words. Anna got to her feet.

  ‘We should get out of here,’ she said. ‘It’s really not safe. I found another clue on the boat – actually, I found a whole wall of clues. Jamie Sparrow isn’t the first kid who’s gone missing near the river. There have been lots – lots and lots, year after year. Something really terrible is happening here. The mystery is far bigger than we thought.’

  As was to be expected, Max had many questions about Anna’s adventure that night. Anna answered them as best she could as they walked back to the hotel, feeling utterly exhausted as they started to climb up the hillside. The sky in the east was beginning to lighten with morning glow; the children had been out and about for most of the night.

  ‘I can’t concentrate on this anymore,’ said Anna at last. ‘I won’t be able to work any of it out until I’ve had a nap.’

  It was still so early tha
t nobody else in the hotel was awake. The children didn’t even bother creeping up the stairs. They stumbled along like sleepwalkers, their eyes already starting to close. For the next few hours they slept peacefully in their beds.

  It was the last good sleep they were going to get for quite some time.

  8

  WARNING SIGNS

  THE SUN WAS HIGH IN THE SKY WHEN ANNA and Max finally managed to rouse themselves from slumber. Each sibling was delighted to see the other, for the very same reason: they had both managed to spend a night in the Goat’s Beard Hotel without disappearing.

  The Professor’s bed had not been slept in. Anna imagined him napping happily in the town library, his head resting on a pillow of old books. But how long would it be until his research was complete? Anna got dressed quickly, not wanting to waste any time that could be spent investigating.

  ‘This is all getting a bit complicated,’ said Max, pulling on a clean shirt. ‘There was a boy who went missing, and the police can’t find him. But really there have been lots and lots of children who went missing, all down by the river, and none of them have ever been found. So where have they all gone?’

  ‘You forgot about the conversation we heard last night,’ said Anna. ‘And the sack. Maybe we’re dealing with a gang of kidnappers.’

  ‘But they weren’t talking about kids,’ said Max. ‘It doesn’t make any sense.’

  Max was right. The mystery really was becoming confusing.

  There was a knock at the door. Before either of the children could answer it, Lizzie had popped her head in.

  ‘Oh – you’re up,’ she said brightly. ‘I came by earlier, but you were both still asleep. Here, I’ve fixed you some breakfast.’

  Lizzie came into the room, carrying a mighty tray of food. There was a plate for each of the children, piled high with bacon and sausages, eggs and tomatoes, baked beans and hash browns. Anna wasn’t used to having so much meat for breakfast, but the smell coming from the tray was irresistible.

  ‘I’m afraid I’ll be leaving soon,’ said Lizzie, as Anna and Max tucked in. ‘My parents have agreed to let me join the search party in the woods this afternoon, and we might be looking all through the night. There’ll be no-one else to watch you, so unless your father comes back, you’ll have to stay in your room.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ said Anna. She tried to look sad as she cut up her tomato – but inside, she was thrilled. Lizzie was a wonderful friend, but it was difficult to investigate properly while she was watching them. Now they would be able to go wherever they liked! ‘Your dinners are down in the kitchen,’ continued Lizzie. ‘I’ve asked Mr Collins to bring them up to you at half-six. I do hope he’ll remember – he’s still a bit rattled, poor thing.’

  She looked at her watch. Anna saw that Lizzie was tapping her foot quite quickly against the side of the bed.

  ‘You can go if you like,’ she said. ‘It’s okay, really. We promise we’ll be good.’

  Max didn’t look so sure, but he nodded in agreement, his mouth full of bacon. Lizzie smiled.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘You really are very nice children. I’ll see you soon, I’m sure.’

  She gave each of them a quick squeeze on the shoulder before hurrying out the door. Anna chewed up the last of her eggs, lost in thought.

  ‘That’s a shame, isn’t it?’ said Max glumly. ‘I suppose we’ll have to stay here all day. I was hoping we could see the animals again.’

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ said Anna. She stood up. ‘We’ve got a mystery to solve.’

  Max frowned. ‘But there’s no-one here. If anything goes wrong, we’ll be all by ourselves.’

  ‘I know,’ said Anna. She took a deep breath. ‘But nobody else knows that fairies are real. If there’s something magical going on, we might be the only ones who can help.’

  They didn’t know for sure if there was a fairy living by the river. Anna didn’t know if she had imagined the thing she had seen in the mist; she didn’t know if the old woman on the boat was just a bit mad. They didn’t know if Jamie Sparrow had ever been down to the river at all.

  But it was hard to forget how the strange voice from last night had sent shivers down their spines. Max screwed up his face, thinking hard. Anna knew he was remembering the same thing as she was. Perhaps he was even remembering the last time something had made the two children feel that way – the burning stare of a vampire on a stormy night, its mouth twisted open in a horrific smile.

  ‘Okay,’ said Max at last. ‘Maybe we could just have one more little look on our own. But we won’t do anything silly, all right? Nothing risky.’

  ‘All right,’ said Anna. ‘Nothing risky. I promise.’

  The walk across the field was easier in the light of the early afternoon. The path that had been so difficult to follow in the darkness turned out to be quite well-trodden, the perfect size for a child of eight or eleven to follow. Anna saw that the brambles were richly hung with fruit. She hoped they might be able to have a snack of wild blackberries on the walk back to the hotel.

  Billy the goat found them without being called, gambolling sure-footedly beside them as they marched down the hill. Anna noticed that none of the other animals seemed to be grazing down at the lower end of the paddock.

  ‘Why don’t you ever run away?’ she said lightly to the goat. ‘There’s no fence down here. You could just leave.’

  ‘Mr Candle must be a terrible gardener,’ said Max. ‘He doesn’t fix anything.’

  ‘No,’ said Anna. ‘I wonder what he does with all his time?’

  The trees twisted towards them as they came to the end of the field, the boughs curving over their heads like fishhooks. Anna suddenly felt wary about approaching the river again. What, exactly, were they hoping to find?

  Max was looking at her expectantly. Anna shook her head and pulled herself up to her full height, facing the trees with a confidence she did not entirely feel.

  ‘Let’s go,’ she said.

  And so they began to climb down the riverbank once more.

  ‘What are we looking for?’ grumbled Max, voicing Anna’s thoughts. ‘Where are we even going?’

  Anna wasn’t sure what to say. Magic, she thought, wasn’t always something that you saw. It could be a feeling – the feeling that someone was watching you, perhaps, except that they were watching you from an impossible place, or from a forgotten time. It was the feeling that everything might be about to change, with safety turning to danger in the blink of an eye.

  It was the feeling Anna felt when they arrived at the river.

  The scene didn’t look quite so eerie in the light of day. The water was flowing sluggishly, the colour of dark-coloured slime, or light-coloured mud. Unruly willows reached over from the opposite bank, as if conspiring to trap the stream beneath a canopy of leaves.

  There was no sign of the boat from the night before. Something else was sitting above the water – something that made Anna stop dead when she saw it, and made Max take a step backwards in wonder.

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘We’re looking for that, aren’t we?’ Before the children stood a bridge. It was an old, rugged thing, built out of stone that was craggy and grey. Moss grew between the stones like mortar, sealing the structure together with a sticky greenness, although some of the rocks had long since fallen into the river. It looked like the sort of bridge that might have formed by itself in the deepest depths of a waterlogged cave.

  Looking at the structure for too long made Anna’s eyes itch.

  At the beginning of the bridge stood a metal barricade, completely plastered with warning signs. There were some signs that said KEEP OUT, and others that read DANGER, and others still that simply showed pictures of skulls and crossbones. The biggest sign of all had been carved into a wooden bar in enormous letters, stretching all the way from one side of the barricade to the other:

  DO NOT CROSS.

  ‘You didn’t say anything about seeing a bridge,’ said Max.

  ‘I didn’t see it la
st night,’ said Anna. ‘I didn’t know it was here.’

  Max scratched his head. ‘Maybe nobody does,’ he said.

  Something brushed against Anna’s arm, making her jump. Billy the goat was pushing his head against her side, his horns gently poking into her elbow. Anna scratched his head absentmindedly, slowly walking closer to the warning signs. There was a yellowing piece of paper nailed to the wooden bar that looked fairly new compared to the rest of the collage. She took another step forward, squinting to better see the small print.

  Danger!

  This Structure is Declared Unsafe for Human Occupancy or Use. The Removal of This Notice is an Offence. This Structure Will Be Demolished On or After …

  But the date that had once been written on the paper was now too damp to make out.

  ‘Don’t go so close,’ said Max. ‘Can’t you read?’

  Anna blinked. She realised that she had moved far closer to the bridge than she had meant to. Billy was now butting into her side so forcefully that she thought her skin might bruise. She quickly walked back to where Max was standing, shaking her head to clear her thoughts.

  ‘I feel a bit sick,’ said Max. He looked nervously behind them. ‘Can we go back now?’

  Anna felt ill as well. Her insides felt cold and jumpy, as if the meat she had eaten at breakfast was coming back to life.

  Suddenly everything about the scene seemed wrong. The trees were making sounds that trees shouldn’t make. The mist was too thick, and the water wasn’t the right colour. The horrible stone bridge was too long – or too short – or too something, like an optical illusion that wouldn’t resolve.

  The air felt dark.

  The lapping of the river against the bank was starting to sound weirder and weirder. Anna was sure she could hear a rattling sound that had not been there before. Strange, salty notes were beginning to play in her ears – and they were playing a song she knew.

  Here comes Mister Shellycoat,

  Bells that make his belly bloat,

  Rattling from his shelly throat…

  What was the last line again? She couldn’t seem to remember.