by Chloe Mayer
For my parents
Contents
Dedication
Title Page
Kent, 1944
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Kent, 1945–7
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Acknowledgements
About the Author
More on W&N
Copyright
Once upon a time there was a troll, the most evil troll of them all; he was called the Devil.
One day he was particularly pleased with himself, for he had invented a mirror which had the strange power of being able to make anything good or beautiful that it reflected appear horrid; and all that was evil and worthless seem attractive and worthwhile …
‘It is a very amusing mirror,’ said the Devil …
It was so entertaining that the Devil himself laughed out loud. All the little trolls who went to troll school, where the Devil was headmaster, said that a miracle had taken place …
At last they decided to fly up to Heaven to poke fun of the angels and God Himself.
The nearer they came to Heaven, the harder the mirror laughed, so that the trolls could hardly hold onto it; still, they flew higher and higher: upward toward God and the angels, then the mirror shook so violently from laughter that they lost their grasp; it fell and broke into hundreds of millions of billions and some odd pieces. It was then that it really caused trouble, much more than it ever had before.
Some of the splinters were as tiny as grains of sand and just as light, so that they were spread by the winds all over the world. When a sliver like that entered someone’s eye it stayed there; and the person, forever after, would see the world distorted, and only be able to see the faults, and not the virtues, of everyone around him, since even the tiniest fragment contained all the evil qualities of the whole mirror.
If a splinter should enter someone’s heart – oh, that was the most terrible of all! – that heart would turn to ice.
From The Snow Queen, by Hans Christian Andersen
Kent, 1944
1
All right, we will start the story; when we come to the end we shall know more than we do now … There once lived a poor little girl and a poor little boy …
From The Snow Queen
When she was twelve years old, the enchantress shut her into a tower, which lay in a forest and had no stairs or door. There was only a little window, right at the top …
From Rapunzel
Annabel was gathering magnolia petals from the front lawn when she first saw the strange procession making its way down the lane.
She couldn’t abide the sight of the stray blossoms; they were beached on the grass in the watery spring sunshine like a school of dead white fish. So she had come outside as usual – as she did every day of the tree’s brief season – to tidy away the fallen flowers.
And it was then, while she was clutching fistfuls of the tough fabric-like petals outside her cottage, that she glanced up to see the gang of men heading down the street towards her.
She stared for a moment or two but quickly regained her composure and hurried towards the house so she could watch properly – unobserved – through the bay window.
As she crossed the lawn, she kept her gaze fixed on the approaching men. There were seven of them and they were still in their uniforms. Nazi soldiers, just walking down the lane.
They were being escorted by two British officers, so she assured herself this wasn’t an invasion. She knew from the wireless that most towns had a Prisoner of War camp on their outskirts now, and she’d heard that the village, or rather old Mr Dawson’s farm, had been selected as such a site. But Annabel wondered why this first batch of Germans was arriving on foot.
She rushed through the open front door and into the sitting room where she positioned her body flat against the wall by the window. Then she leaned over, partly hidden by the wall and partly obscured by her net curtains, to peek out into the lane.
The soldiers were still a little too far away for her to scan their faces, but she squinted against the sunshine to make them out. An intoxicating mix of fear and excitement made her heart thump painfully in her chest. She felt furtive, as though she were doing something wrong, but she was desperate to catch a glimpse of the captured prisoners as they passed by.
The war seemed to have made government officials suddenly aware of the existence of the village. First a steady stream of evacuated children were sent to Bambury and now Jerries were being transported here. Should she be afraid of them? With Reggie away fighting, she was alone in the house with their nine-year-old son. And Dawson’s farm wasn’t far from her cottage. She wondered if the old man was worried about having a load of Krauts just a short distance from his farmhouse, where he too lived alone since his wife had died of the cancer.
There were some rumblings in the village, of course. Fears of Germans escaping, biding their time until they were free to slit dozens of throats in the dead of night as the villagers slept. But there was surprisingly little opposition as the first few Nissen huts were erected a couple of weeks ago. Perhaps people were being patriotic; just another sacrifice that had to be made.
Annabel hadn’t paid much attention to the chatter, but now she was transfixed.
They were approaching … yes … any second now …
She realised she was holding her breath; they were going to walk right past her front window!
Straining to get a better look, she watched as the blur of their faces gradually hardened into distinct features.
They were passing by now, just feet away from where she hid. The two British officers seemed relaxed, arms swinging at their sides. She wasn’t sure what she thought she would find written in the Jerries’ expressions, but their faces betrayed no emotion and a couple of them were even chatting nonchalantly. None of them wore handcuffs.
She fancied she would have been able to tell they were European, even if they weren’t in uniform. Something about the slant of their jaws, their eyes, their manner, seemed foreign, exotic somehow. Men with strange names from faraway places. Their grey tunic jackets could almost have passed for normal blazers, were it not for the bottle-green shoulder epaulettes, and they wore them open as though they were simply out for a pleasant stroll.
One of the PoWs – taller than the others and with dusky blond hair – happened to glance casually about him, and Annabel darted back behind the wall and flipped around to face the room.
She’d wait for a second or two before resuming her observation. Were the other women watching this, hidden behind their own net curtains?
Her heart was still hammering. She felt strangely unmoored and tried to anchor herself by looking at her very ordinary surroundings, as thou
gh her nice sitting room – the sofas, the bureau, the drinks cabinet – could serve as docks that would safely tie her down.
Unable to wait any longer, she turned back to the window. The Germans had passed by. She stared with a sort of repulsed fascination as the men continued to the end of the road, turned the corner, and disappeared from view.
Daniel must have come into the room behind her at some point, and when he spoke he made her jump: ‘What are you doing?’
She glanced at him then turned back to the street. The boy was always creeping up on her.
‘Nothing. Some PoWs arrived and just walked by. They’ve gone now.’
He ran to the window with a cry and pulled a net curtain wide. But he could see as well as she could; the street was empty, no sign at all that anything extraordinary had just happened in Bambury. Just innocent little cottages dotting the country lane, pretty and bland as the drawing on a box of fudge.
‘There’s no one there,’ he said, disgusted, dropping the net.
She looked down at the child, his face pale beneath his brown hair, his wide blue eyes staring up at her with accusation in them.
Annabel leaned back against the wall – as shaky as if she’d been running. She realised she was still clutching the magnolia petals, now crushed and sweaty in the palms of her hands.
2
She was beautiful but made of ice … neither rest nor peace was to be found in her gaze.
From The Snow Queen
I followed her as she left the sitting room and headed outside to the dustbin. These were the questions that were bouncing around in my head like rubber balls in a box:
What does PoW stand for again? Are they really Nazis? How were they caught? Have they killed people? How long will they stay? Do they know Hitler? Can they speak English? What will they do here? Are they dangerous? Where will they live? When will they be sent back?
‘Mother?’
But she snapped, ‘Not now, Daniel,’ as she scraped a white pulpy mess from her fingers into the bin. Then she went into the kitchen to wash her hands at the sink. So I was left staring at the back of her pretty flowery dress and the brown curls of her hair about her shoulders when she said I had to either (a) go outside into the garden or (b) go upstairs to read a book, but either way I mustn’t be (c) getting under her feet.
Normally I’d read a story, but today I went into the back garden so I could climb the big tree in the hope being higher up might let me spot a gang of Jerries heading who knows where. It didn’t. I wasn’t really all that high to be honest.
She came out after a while and looked up at me and said, ‘Don’t worry about those PoWs. Because, well, there’s nothing to be afraid of. All right? So then, let’s hear no more about it.’
I was just going to reply that I was nine so was most certainly NOT afraid, when she turned around and went back inside, pulling the door shut behind her.
So I sat there trying to think up a plan for quite a long time until eventually I went inside to tell her I was going to play out. She was sitting on the sofa with a glazed look on her face. The wireless was playing a Tommy Dorsey song and a magazine lay open across her lap. There was a cigarette burning in her hand and a glass with soda water turning oily from one of her special drinks sat on the side table. And enough time must have passed – or she’d completely forgotten about the PoWs – because she didn’t even reply.
It was good because, even though it was after school, there was still quite a lot of afternoon and evening daylight left. And we didn’t really have mealtimes in my house any more.
I walked in the direction she’d been looking, which must have been the way they’d gone. But the lane was empty so I circled back and headed up to the hill, where I might be able to see more.
On the way, I didn’t see anything interesting apart from a soldier trying to fix a broken-down army jeep that must have brought the PoWs to the village. I thought about stopping to ask him where I could find the prisoners, but decided it’d be more fun to find out for myself.
It was cloudier than it had been and a quick spring shower sprinkled some light raindrops down on me, but it wasn’t chilly. I just had little pinprick-sized dots of water showing up as dark blue on my light-blue school shirt.
When I was at the top of the hill, I thought I could hunt dragons at the same time as looking for PoWs. So I found a branch that would make a perfect sword. I picked it up from the grass and watched as the wood turned into a sharp piece of silver with a golden handle studded with rubies. No dragons seemed to be around today though, and before long I could tell that my sword had turned back into a stick again. Then I used it to swipe at the long grass growing by the side of the path that led over the little hill above the railway.
It really was rotten luck to have missed the PoWs.
The trains weren’t running properly any more, but I’d heard my teacher Mr Finlay say there was a Skeleton Service. I hoped I’d see the skeleton driver and the skeleton conductor through the windows if a train whizzed by.
It would be fun to watch my stick being crushed by the wheels. Maybe I could conduct experiments by placing other objects along the tracks too. A penny, a pebble, a worm. A worm! A worm!
These thoughts cheered me right up.
The grassy verge was steep in places and I had to sort of slide down. I clamped the stick between my teeth and tried to raise myself up on my hands a bit to protect the bottom of my short trousers. Although mealtimes had stopped, and upstairs housework, Mother did still do the laundry – since other people would notice if our clothes were dirty – and she would box my ears if she found grass stains smeared into the fabric.
My stick was now a worm-finder, and I used it to turn over rocks, and leaves, and prod through the grass. I had expected to find dozens of them – rain equals worms – but I couldn’t find a single one. Jumping over the metal lines, I walked down the middle of the tracks to continue searching.
I could see the red brick tunnel cutting through the hill up ahead. It was actually also a bridge because a road ran along the top of it. But the street was one of the quieter roads out of the village and didn’t lead to London or anywhere exciting like that. Sometimes I liked to look down from there like a king surveying his kingdom.
Perhaps there would be worms on the other side? I would run through it; I’d never done that before.
The ground was gravelly with small pale rocks beneath my shoes and I watched where I put my feet because it would be bad luck to step on a patch of pebbly ground instead of the wooden sleepers. One foot per sleeper, that was the rule.
Step, sleeper.
Step, sleeper.
When I looked up, the gaping mouth was suddenly in front of me and I noticed how dark it was in there. Maybe I should climb back up the verge, cross the bridge, and scramble down the other side to avoid the tunnel? Wooden stairs had been built into the hill nearby so railway crews could get up to the road, so it would be easy to climb up and over.
But I was right at the entrance now and I didn’t want to be a scaredy cat.
‘I’m no sissy!’ (But I whispered it, so the echo wouldn’t steal my words and throw them back at me as if a ghost were repeating what I’d just said.)
Another step, another sleeper.
And I was inside.
I thought the tunnel would suddenly turn pitch black. But it didn’t, not yet anyway. I had only just stepped inside, and the day was still strong and bright behind me. Also, I could just about see the hole further down at the other end, opening up to the sunshine outside.
Still, as I took that first step, I knew that I’d crossed over into a different sort of world. It felt a bit colder as I moved into the tunnel, and even the sound changed somehow.
But I’d said aloud that I wasn’t a sissy, so what else could I do? I kept walking, forgetting to check my feet only touched the sleepers; forgetting about the bad luck.
I didn’t like the sound my footsteps made, and I didn’t like the feeling of dark dampness
on my skin. I sped up, hurrying to get to the tunnel’s exit. It was strange, but I was too nervous to run. It felt like admitting I was frightened would be a big mistake. If I started to run, then something would chase me. That was the reason I couldn’t go back the way I’d come in, because if I turned around I’d see what was waiting for me in the dark. I was just approaching the halfway bit of the tunnel now; I was as far as I could be from both ways out.
That was when I saw the nest.
I was so shocked that I actually stopped walking. It was beside the tracks, right up against the curved brick wall. It was dark, but I could see it well enough.
That nest was like the darkest horror from the darkest nightmare. Part of it was made up of human things – a dirty tattered eiderdown, some blankets and pieces of wood, empty bottles, a few scraps of clothes, and greasy newspapers that reeked of food going bad. But the rest of it was all animal. The dirt … the smell. Toilet smells. Vomit smells. Rotting smells.
A nest. Half human, half animal. Under a bridge.
Oh! I knew what it was that lived there.
I was standing in a Troll’s lair.
The autumn before, not long before I turned nine, I’d come across a dead baby bird. The pink, featherless chick was naked on the cold concrete walkway underneath the church hall’s roof, round at the back of the building. It must have fallen from its home in the rafters. It had huge black bulging eyes, this chick, and its tiny yellow beak was open, open, open. Its skin was so thin it was almost see-through and I could see the darker red of its tiny veins and organs packed beneath it. I stared at that little baby bird for a long time. In fact, I squatted down to get a better look at it. I was so disgusted by the sight of it, its obvious deadness, but I couldn’t tear myself away.
That was how I felt when I found the Troll’s nest. The fear I’d felt since walking into the dark turned solid in my belly as I suddenly realised what it was that lived in there. But I’d stopped walking to study the nest the same way I’d studied every horrid detail of that dead little bird.
My heart thumped faster and my breathing became ragged and uneven. I tried to hold my breath; I didn’t want to break any sort of spell, and I didn’t want that smell up my nose and in my head. I just wanted to have a look.
