by Carrie Jones
“Not kind of,” Bloom corrected Annie. “It’s a really big deal.”
“We should probably have a plan before we go back in there,” Jamie said as they stared at the front door. All the shades in the restaurant had been pulled down.
“They had my books,” Annie said, thumping to the ground next to a cow. “They had them all lined up on the mantel in between the buzzards. They were like prized possessions or something.”
Jamie hopped forward. “SalGoud, can you check on the MagicalVacationAdviser website and see if it says anything about the bed-and-breakfast owners being writers?”
SalGoud whisked out his phone.
Annie wandered over to the manor house and began peering into the windows, trying not to stomp on any bushes or plants.
“What are you doing, Annie?” Jamie asked.
“Trying to see in. Can someone give me a boost? This window over here is … Annie grabbed the edge of the window and was sucked right inside.
“What the heck!” Eva bellowed.
Bloom was the first one over, and the moment he grabbed the windowsill he, too, was sucked inside with a great squelching noise.
Eva rushed right after him even as Jamie hollered for her not to get too close, that it wasn’t safe. SQUELCHING SQUASH. Eva’s feet flapped for a moment as if she were struggling. The wall seemed to open up somehow and suck them right through, headfirst. No, Jamie realized that wasn’t how it seemed at all. It was more like the wall of the manor house stayed solid, but all the molecules moved and blurred somehow just as they were sucked through—like they were being zoomed up by a giant invisible vacuum nozzle.
SalGoud stepped softly toward the area, investigating even as Johann charged ahead, sword in front of him. The dwarf took a wild whack at the side of the building, and his sword flew out of his hand and vanished—floop—right into the wall.
“Hey! My sword! Nobody takes a Broadsword’s sword, you trolls!” And he hit the wall with his fist.
A moment later he was gone. SalGoud turned to say something to Jamie, and then it was as if his left foot was getting sucked up behind him. He staggered, left leg now straight and backward. Jamie lurched forward and grabbed SalGoud’s hand. “Hold on!” he commanded.
SalGoud’s face twisted with concentration. “I’m trying. As Yoda says in the original Star Wars trilogy, ‘Do. Or do not. There is no try.’ Or something? Right?”
In the next instant, SalGoud was gone. His hand ripped out of Jamie’s clutches. Jamie staggered backward, giving himself some distance between the house and his own body, which he definitely did not want to get sucked up and transported somewhere.
Because that was what had happened, wasn’t it? One after another, the children had been sucked away. Jamie ran back down to the car and opened the trunk. He had to be prepared. He had to save them from—from whatever or whomever—Annie’s grandparents? He had to hurry, but he had to be ready.
But for exactly what? A giant invisible vacuum?
No, he decided. He wouldn’t even go that way. He’d try a direct approach to the front door. He wasn’t magic. They wouldn’t smell it on him or whatever. The Snatchers hadn’t even thought he was a threat or worth snatching. So … he would use that lack of magicalness and take them by surprise.
He scooped up some loose money that had fallen out of Eva’s pockets. He patted his hair into shape as best as he could, and tried to straighten his shirt and jacket and get dust off them.
“There,” he said, trying to give himself a pep talk, “so human. I am so completely human. No troll blood. No magic. Just human.”
He headed off toward the house, carrying Eva’s suitcase with him and his own knapsack. He had decided that a suitcase seemed the most normal, plus Eva had packed a lot of weapons. He was hoping he wouldn’t need them, but you never know.
The front door was still shut and a sign had been flipped around to read CLOSED. He rang the bell anyway. It buzzed like a swarm of angry bees. He was sure it wasn’t an actual swarm of angry bees … was it? No … no … of course not, he told himself.
A moment later, a man’s lilting voice sang through a speaker. “Why, hello and welcome to Ballinalacken Castle Hotel and the Clover Inn. How may I help you?”
“I’m—I am looking for a room.” Jamie cleared his throat, deciding to keep it simple.
“You are, are you?” the man’s voice said slowly. “May I ask you a series of questions?”
“Of course.” Jamie shifted Eva’s suitcase to his right hand.
“Are you fond of pigs?”
“I—I’m fond of all animals really.”
“Where did you hear of our fine establishment?”
“The Internet,” Jamie lied.
“What’s your reason for visiting Ireland?”
“I’m—ah—” Jamie stumbled for a bit. “I am hoping to do some sightseeing. I’ve always heard how beautiful it is. I thought I might hike to the cliffs …” He couldn’t remember the cliffs’ name, and faltered for a moment, but it didn’t matter. The door swung open and a smallish-size man met him. The man’s face was finely chiseled with thick brows low over piercing, dark-brown eyes that somehow managed to be both intimidating and kind all at once. He had a widow’s peak in the middle of his forehead, just as Annie did, and the uniformity of his features reminded Jamie so much of Annie that he must have gasped.
The man lunged forward, grabbing Jamie by the shirt, whisking him inside and slamming the door behind him. “What is it?”
Jamie couldn’t exactly say, You look just like Annie, but he didn’t want to lie. He decided on, and said, “I thought I heard something.”
The man launched himself back on the front steps, looking to the left and right while taking the suitcase that Jamie had dropped. He hurried inside again, and stood a mere inch or two away from Jamie. “What sort of something?”
“A vacuum sort of sound.” Jamie decided to be as close to the truth as possible. “Like a swooshing, squelching kind of noise. Sorry. I am sure it was nothing.”
The man petted Jamie’s back and said, “Of course it is. Of course, probably just a housekeeper vacuuming up the rubbish from unwanted guests. I mean unruly guests. I mean messy guests. You know what I mean …”
He led Jamie over to the big front desk. Jamie eyed the buzzards on the mantel. You couldn’t tell they had whisked Annie off less than an hour ago. They were motionless, still, and very stuffed looking.
“Ah! You’re admiring Odin and Thor, are you?” The man smiled at Jamie and his smile was dazzling—full of charm, lightening his face the same way Annie’s always did. “They’re my wife’s favorites. Beautiful boys, they are.”
Jamie agreed, frantic inside about where the others might be, but he managed to remain composed as he paid for his room and asked about the cliffs and other things he thought real American tourists would ask about. To his relief, the innkeeper didn’t say one thing about Jamie traveling alone. Just as he was being handed the key, an older woman with an upright braid began escorting some diners out of the restaurant.
“I’ll just be taking you to your car,” she said, shooting the innkeeper a knowing look, “while my husband helps the young lad here. It gets dark out there, and I wouldn’t want you to twist an ankle or stumble about.” She held the door open. The innkeeper mouthed the words “be careful” as she went out the door, and she gave him an “okay” sign.
The innkeeper man coughed awkwardly. “Did you see that, did you?”
“Is that your wife?” Jamie asked.
“It is! It is! A lovely woman. Lovely.” He stepped out from behind the desk. “Very cautious, she is. Very considerate of her guests.”
Unless she’s having them escorted away by buzzards, Jamie thought.
“What was that?” The innkeeper turned around. “Did you say something?”
“No!” Jamie’s heart froze. Could Annie’s grandfather read minds? He pointed at the books on the mantel between the buzzards. “That’s a lot of books!�
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The man’s smile came right back and Jamie’s heart beat again. He resembled Annie so much when he smiled. Only Annie didn’t have wrinkles or gray hair or such thick eyebrows … But still … Annie’s grandfather skipped over to the books. Actually, it was more of a hopping step.
He pulled out the first one. “I wrote these books.”
Jamie’s mouth dropped open.
Mr. Tullgren laughed. “I see you’re surprised, aren’t you, that an innkeeper such as myself could also be a graphic novelist? But it’s true. I love to draw, I do. And stories? Well, every Irishman loves stories,” he teased, winking at Jamie. He handed him a book. “Would you like to be borrowing it?”
“I’d love it,” Jamie said, clutching the book in his hands even as Mr. Tullgren hauled Eva’s suitcase up the three red-carpeted steps to the hallway behind the entry room. The hallway didn’t lead straight back, but went to the right and the left. The left way, Mr. Tullgren explained, was to the bar and a back way to the restaurant. The right turned a corner and led to the guests’ rooms. Jamie searched for signs of Annie or the others as they walked, even hoping for a glance of the Golden Arrow, but all he saw were carpets and big, white-painted wooden doors with ancient locks, gilded mirrors, antique settees and desks in alcoves, and overstuffed chairs. He didn’t know how he would ever find anything here.
Behind one door, it sounded like a group of dwarfs was playing ring-around-the-rosy.
“That lot had a bit too much at the bar,” Mr. Tullgren said knowingly as they passed, giving Jamie another happy wink.
A few doors away came the sound of a woman crying. “Our resident ghost, Colina Farrela O’Brien, a woman in white. She was married here, but her groom ran away. Killed herself on the spot. She’s up at the castle sometimes, but at night she tends to go back to what would have been the honeymoon suite, crying away and waiting for him. Poor thing. We’d exorcise her and send her off to another realm, but she refuses. Plus, she likes to do the dishes.”
Jamie’s cheeks sort of sucked in, and Mr. Tullgren laughed.
“Just kidding. Just kidding.”
They turned a corner and passed a couple of doors before he announced, “Well, then, here’s your room, young James. I hope you’ll find it to your liking.”
The door opened to a poshly carpeted room with two giant beds. Huge drapes covered a window. Striped wallpaper in varying hues of yellow covered the walls.
“There you go, then!” Mr. Tullgren said, turning to leave.
Jamie’s hand shot out before he could stop it. “Sir …”
Mr. Tullgren’s face retained its pleasant aspect. “Yes?”
“I’ve—I’ve always wondered where authors get their ideas for their stories,” Jamie sputtered out.
“Oh!” Mr. Tullgren said brightly. “People do! People do. That’s quite normal. Nothing to feel odd asking about.”
“Thank you for lending the book to me. It looks amazing.” Jamie pretended to study the cover, but felt totally fake doing it. He asked again, “Where did you get the idea for it? I mean, it seems so incredibly imaginative.”
“There are all sorts of things in this world that spark the imagination.” Mr. Tullgren sat on the edge of the bed, crossing his legs politely at the knee. “But this book was inspired by my own granddaughter.”
“Really?” Jamie perked up. “Is she here? Can I meet her?”
“Oh … no … She is long lost.” Mr. Tullgren sighed, staring straight at Jamie.
“I’m sorry.”
“As am I … These books … They are …” His hand fluttered about as if the words he was looking for were floating in the air somewhere. “They are my imaginings of her life, if her life could have continued. With magic thrown in, of course. Not that magic exists … Obviously.”
“Obviously,” Jamie repeated.
The man stared at him, long and intense, as if he were indeed trying to see inside Jamie’s brain. Jamie thought about ice cream. Mint chocolate chip ice cream.
Mr. Tullgren sighed, smiling, and stood back up. “You seem like a good lad, Jamie. I hope you’ll enjoy the first book and your stay here. You have big plans for tomorrow?”
“I was—um—thinking of doing some exploring … Maybe seeing the cliffs.” Jamie flustered about, moving Eva’s suitcase a bit closer to the wall so it wouldn’t block Mr. Tullgren’s path to the door. There had to be a way to get some more information out of him. Somehow … He just had to think of it. “This is an amazing place. And that castle. Wow!” He cringed inside. He sounded so fake. “It’s so cool. Do you own that, too?”
“It’s been in the family for centuries. As has the house. The castle is in disrepair, you know. We’re trying to raise some funds to renovate it, put the floors back in at least, and a roof.” Mr. Tullgren helped Jamie remove his backpack. “It’s locked, but I bring tours up every afternoon around five if you’ll be liking to join us tomorrow after your adventuring.”
“I’d love to.” Jamie walked behind Mr. Tullgren, setting his pack on the bed. “Does it have a dungeon or anything?”
Mr. Tullgren laughed. “Not like you’d be imagining, I’d say. The house has some secret rooms, though, corridors that lead to nowhere. It’s a bit like life, this house.”
“How so?”
“You never know where it will take you. What you’ll find. That’s why books are better. You’ve got your heroes and your villains. Your story moves forever forward, never stalls out, and when you get to the end …” He let his sentence dangle and his face looked horribly sad, like he almost might cry.
“And when you get to the end?” Jamie prodded.
“That’s when you write the sequel!” Mr. Tullgren gave a Santa Claus–style laugh and shut the door behind him, calling out to Jamie that he wished him a good night, and he was gone.
Jamie decided to wait a few minutes to make sure that Mr. Tullgren wasn’t lurking about outside. He didn’t seem like the kind of man who would lurk, but he also didn’t seem like the type of man who would be okay with his wife snatching away his own long-lost granddaughter and dumping her in a field full of cow poop.
He pulled out an extra ax from Eva’s backpack and placed it on the bed and then hopped up there with the book that Mr. Tullgren had given him. The entire room smelled clean, like cinnamon and Christmas trees. The bed was soft enough that he half longed to plop down on it and go to sleep. Maybe it could all be a big dream. But it wasn’t. He knew that. So, instead, he opened the book and checked his watch. He would read for ten minutes. That was all.
The book began with character images and little bios beneath them. Jamie sucked in his breath. The likenesses weren’t perfect, but they were close enough.
AVA: The dwarf girl who passes out whenever there is danger.
TREE: The last elf who doesn’t know how to be an elf, constantly doubting his abilities.
SGGATSLEAHCIM: The stone giant with the heart of gold, love of quotes, and hatred of violence.
MISS AMELIA: The Time Stopper whose fading powers and guilt make her as much a liability as a help.
Jamie paused at that. He would never imagine Miss Cornelia a liability. Mr. Tullgren obviously didn’t like her much. He wondered why. Maybe he blamed her for the Purge and the battle with the Raiff, maybe for his son’s death. There was no Jamie in the list of characters, no boy with dark skin, nobody raised by trolls. But everyone else? They were all there, just with different names.
He wasn’t sure what to think about it. He flipped into the book and saw a section where Annie nails the Corvus Morrigan to the earth. In real life, Jamie had been there. In the book, he wasn’t. But how did Mr. Tullgren even think to write this? It was so close to being real. He flipped to see when it was printed. Three years ago.
“Wow,” Jamie murmured, flipping through the pages again. “Just, wow.”
He came across an image of a woman standing inside the walls of a castle. Her hair billowed out behind her and she was sobbing. A golden arrow with a
red feather notched at its end was on the wall above her, and archers stood at all the windows. A beheaded man lay at her feet.
An arrow.
It had to be the one they were looking for. It made sense that it would be in the castle, all locked up and protected. Wait. But then why would Mrs. Tullgren have the buzzards deposit Annie so close to it? Maybe she didn’t realize that was why Annie was here? But why wouldn’t they want Annie to be here in the first place? He stood up. He couldn’t figure it out. And he couldn’t just stay on the bed forever, looking for clues in a book that didn’t have the whole story right, could he?
“I am going to look for them,” he announced to the room. “And if I can’t find them, I’m going up to that castle and get the Golden Arrow and the bow and I’ll go save the elves and Miss Cornelia myself. You can be human or troll or whatever and still do good. I know it. Right?”
The room did not answer.
“There are no snakes in Ireland,” Johann kept repeating. He paced around in a small circle, rubbing his head with his hand.
“So then, these are not snakes.” Bloom swept his flashlight around the small dark room into which they had all been deposited.
As he did, the slithery creatures jumped back and away from the light, retreating into the shadows in the corners of the room that seemed to be made of mirrored glass.
“I think they have wings,” Annie whispered, rubbing at her head, which she’d fallen on.
“Wings on snakes! That is offensive. That’s like—that’s like—I don’t even know …” Eva snorted. “It’s just wrong!”
She smashed her ax into the floor and started to do a cranky dance, swearing the whole time and sort of, basically, stomping around in a circle. Johann joined her.
“Ancient dwarf ritual,” he said.
Annie worried about the snakes themselves and gestured toward the floor, past the dancing dwarfs. “Do you think they’ll attack us?”
