by Chloe Mayer
‘Now the story,’ the boy said, jolting her out of her reverie.
Annabel returned to her seat and picked up the book lying on the cushion. She sat down and resumed Sleeping Beauty where she’d left off. And the story went on.
4
Poor Kai, soon his heart would turn to ice and his eyes would see nothing but faults in everything.
From The Snow Queen
When Mother left after my story, I lay awake in bed for a long time. But eventually I got up to change into my pyjamas.
Every now and then, I’d hear the clink of glass bottles as she fumbled around downstairs. I just couldn’t sleep. I think it was because I was still quite shaken up about finding a Troll’s lair in Bambury. But I had been soothed a little bit, because Mother had told me about her Darlings, who I always liked to hear about. My favourite part was the bit where she loved them so much because she wanted a baby. Because she wanted me.
That sort of thing was nice to know. There were some secret letters kept in the bureau in the sitting room that I took out to read sometimes. Even though one had something written in it that was so upsetting that it made my breath stop so that I thought I might die the first time I read it. Probably I was silly to worry – I’m sure what the letter said was just a mistake. But if those words were a poison to me, then the story about her Darlings was the antidote. In fairy tales, there’s always an antidote – it’s just a matter of finding it; like the prince searching for the Water of Life for his father the king, or the kiss that saved Snow White after she ate the poisoned apple. The story about the longed-for baby was like a kiss; a kiss from my mother to me.
But still, I couldn’t sleep and I couldn’t sleep and I couldn’t sleep. My eyes stayed wide open in the dark even though it must have been after midnight. The Troll’s stink was still up my nose. And that rock! Hitting me! It could have smashed my head open and killed me.
I got up and crept to the bathroom so Mother wouldn’t know I was still up. Slowly, slowly, I shut the bathroom door and turned on the light. I wanted to look at the back of my shoulder in the little mirror above the basin. I unbuttoned my pyjama jacket and climbed up to perch on the pale pink rim so I could see the mark the rock had made when the Troll hurled it at my back.
I was very pleased to see a red mark there, and I knew it would be purple, or maybe even black, tomorrow. My war injury. My badge of honour from my fight with the monster. I wished for the thousandth time I had a best friend in Bambury I could show it to – how impressed he would be at my daring! Of course, I was friends with Harry who lived next door to my grandparents in Great Yarmouth, but I didn’t know when we’d next visit. I hadn’t even thought of telling Mother earlier; she’d only be frightened of the Troll or angry at me for going down by the tracks. No, she didn’t need to know anything about this until I’d figured out a way to make sure she and the village were safe. She’d be happy then. And very proud of me, most likely.
In fact, now that I thought about it, saving Mother from the Troll would basically be just like saving a damsel in distress. That was the best way there was to earn love in stories – a dangerous task like, say, slaying a dragon or something. That made the love even stronger. Love always has to be earned. Everyone knows that.
Poor Mother. She had no idea of the danger she was in, but I’d make sure she didn’t come to any harm. Trolls like to eat children best, but they’ll snatch and eat anybody if they get the chance. I shuddered to think what I’d do if the Troll snatched Mother away from me. I’d be here completely alone then.
I wondered if I should write to Daddy to tell him about what was going on. But somehow it seemed best to keep this secret even from him; he had his own monsters to fight.
Once again, I thought about the lair hidden in the dark and remembered how the Troll had pounced to attack. I turned those moments in the tunnel over and over in my mind. How it had reared up, and that sick feeling of fear as I ran for my life away from the sharp claws and teeth; its screaming threats. How dare a monster attack me!
It was hard to make that picture of the monster lying in wait in the dark match up with the other time I’d seen it; that time it was pretending to be a beggar, holding out a tin for coins outside the Post Office. But that just made me angrier. How dare it pretend to be something it wasn’t? My thoughts turned to vengeance. As I awkwardly craned round to look at my bare back in the mirror, I decided to stalk the beast; like a hunter stalking prey. When I left the bathroom, I found Mother slumped on the floor outside on the landing. I helped her stand up and get to the toilet and closed the door. After a while she came out and I let her lean on me as I led her stumbling to bed.
The next day, which was Saturday, I returned to the railway tracks to set up my official observation of the Troll. On the way, I pulled up a few carrots from a field to munch for breakfast and I watched the monster coming and going all day as I hid up on the hill. And I learned a lot.
I learned that the Troll did look a bit like a man. It looked like a man in as much as it had two eyes, two arms, two legs. But it was hideous and very, very clearly, it wasn’t human. Coarse black hair sprouted from its terrible face, and thick, wild hair grew in tufts from its head. The hair was shot through with grey. When I’d walked past it in the village that time, I’d seen tiny red broken veins spreading like worms across its cheeks from its turnip-shaped nose. I vaguely wondered why it needed money, but I supposed Trolls were greedy like ogres.
I strained to see its face now as it walked by the side of the tracks towards the ladder on the other side from where I hid. Its eyes were red-rimmed and blackly bottomless – this was something I wasn’t really able to see from a distance, so it was part guesswork, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t true. I don’t know how I hadn’t noticed those terrifying eyes when I saw it begging. It wore tattered clothes, and they were a dirty browny-green colour. Its filthy great claws were huge, with long, blackened fingernails.
And it was big. It was big like a bear.
Over the next couple of weeks, after school each day, I carried on with my observations of the Troll. I went back again and again.
It often wore a woollen hat pulled down over its large ears, despite the coming heat as spring moved towards summer. Once I saw it wearing a ratty tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows. It must have stolen it from somewhere. It looked ridiculous, like an animal pretending to be a civilised and cultured man.
I watched from behind a tree high up on the hill banking the tracks. Sometimes I stood on the bridge, running back and forth across the road, looking down to see if it was coming into the tunnel or leaving it. I kept a notebook with me at all times, in the pocket of my short trousers. I had a stubby little pencil in there too, and I made careful notes about my sightings.
One day it was gone from the nest and I tasted sweet victory; my stalking must have somehow driven it away from the village. But a couple of days later, I saw it again; it had come back. I didn’t know where it had been, but I felt a hot mix of anger and disappointment at its return. I arrived at the hill just in time to see it heading into the tunnel. I leaned back against my tree and looked down over the verge to keep an eye on its lair. I’d have to do better.
The notes in my pocket might contain a clue so I pulled out my book to flick through the pages; perhaps there was something I’d missed. When it first tried to catch me, I’d thought for a moment that it couldn’t come out of the tunnel in the daylight, but of course that wasn’t true. One of my early entries noted how it had thrown a weapon at me rather than chasing me in the tunnel, which I believed meant it couldn’t run very fast. But perhaps I was wrong about that as well.
Although I had managed to get away from it that time in its lair, and it stopped chasing me once I was out of the tunnel, I guessed – despite its shambling, stumbling movements – that it could actually run faster than a leopard if it wanted to. I could imagine its huge, hairy bulk streaming through the forest like an animal, while its dead eyes searched for li
ttle children to eat. Now I’d seen that image of supernatural speed in my mind’s eye, I knew it was true.
I shuddered. It could run, then. I’d have to be cunning.
I wrote down a note in my little book to record what I’d just discovered.
7th May, 1944: 3.45 p.m. (approx., no watch): Can run as fast (or faster) than a leopard. BE CAREFUL.
I tapped the pencil against my front teeth. Interesting. I’d have to make sure I always kept my distance from it. So I could never go into the tunnel again without being absolutely sure it wouldn’t return for a long time. I returned my notebook and pencil to my pocket and leaned forward so I could bring my hand up to feel the area on my shoulder where its rock had struck me. There was nothing there now – the bruise was long gone and it wasn’t even sore any more – but we both knew it had injured me. An injury I would nurse for life if I didn’t avenge the wrong.
I leaned back against my tree. I was learning its habits. And I would plot its destruction. It was a powerful enemy, but Jack chopped down his beanstalk and slayed the giant, and little Gerda went to war with the Snow Queen and won back Kai.
So yes, it was a tall order, but with Daddy and all the other men away, I was the only one left to do the job; I would be the hero who would rid the village of the Troll.
Imagine how Mother would feel if I saved her! Well, I’d save everybody in the village obviously, but especially her. Think how she would feel then. She would realise that I was brave and strong. She’d hold my hand like Gerda held Kai’s hand. She would call me her Darling, over and over again.
5
She laid her hand in his, and said: ‘I’ll willingly go away with you, but I don’t know how to get down from here.’
From Rapunzel
Mr Dawson wasn’t in his farmhouse when Annabel knocked, so she and Daniel wandered around the grounds for a couple of minutes until they spotted him in a concrete paved area surrounded by outbuildings and storage sheds. It had rained that morning and muddy puddles with strands of hay pocked the surface of the cement.
Annabel waved a hand in greeting as she hurried across the little courtyard towards the farmer, pulling her trolley behind her while the boy scuttled to keep up.
Dawson was a ruddy man with a nose that had been broken long ago. He was either a very old-looking sixty-something or a very spry-looking eighty-something. The elements had not been kind to his complexion, and his profession had not been kind to his body. Various farmyard accidents, with either beasts or machinery, had claimed, over the years, various lumps of flesh, and his right index finger. His body looked so battered from years of work and injuries it was no wonder that he was finally slowing down, she thought.
‘Hello there,’ he called out as she drew closer.
‘Good morning.’ She gave him a polite little smile as she came to a stop. ‘I saw your sign about firewood. Out in the lane.’
She glanced around, hoping to catch sight of some of his PoWs. But the tatty-looking courtyard was deserted.
The place looked shabby and forlorn. The farm he once easily controlled now seemed to overwhelm him – and had, Annabel thought, ever since his wife’s death a few years before.
Without Mrs Dawson helping run things, he could no longer afford to employ youths from the village – who had all been sucked up by the war now in any case – and the farm’s deterioration accelerated. Most of the fields went untended and the cows had been sold off at auction.
But Annabel thought he looked healthier, somehow, than he had the last time she’d seen him when she came to buy eggs a few weeks ago. The influx of young Germans from the PoW camp down the road seemed to have revitalised him. She hoped she’d pick up some gossip about his new ‘employees’.
‘Ah, yes, firewood!’ The farmer looked almost excited. ‘Quite a good idea, that, what with the coal shortages. I thought it was a disaster when the apple trees all got diseased and died. But now we can chop them all down for firewood and the trees will be cleared, leaving me a nice new field to do something with. Just shows you everything happens for a reason.’
‘Yes, I suppose it does,’ she said, looking into his broken old face.
‘Don’t worry – I’ll make sure you get a good deal on your firewood, love.’
He glanced down at the child standing next to her. ‘What with Mr Patterson being away and all that. Can’t be easy bringing up a boy without his father.’
Annabel thanked him, but she knew he was lying about a good price on the wood. Nearly all the men of the village were away fighting now. Women and children and old folks were practically the only ones left. There was nothing special about her and the price would be no different simply because she was the one buying it. But summer was coming, and the evenings weren’t as cool as they used to be, so hopefully she wouldn’t need much wood until the onset of autumn.
‘You helping your mother around the house, son?’ the farmer asked.
‘Yes sir.’
‘Good man!’
A fat tabby sauntered over to rub against the farmer’s calves and the boy squealed and bent down to pet the animal.
‘About the wood …’ Annabel said.
‘Sorry, love! Just go past the house, then walk towards that big barn on your right-hand side. There’s a path there you can follow round and that’ll take you to the old orchard. There’ll be a Jerry there chopping the wood – or he should be at any rate! – and you can get a bundle from him. His English isn’t bad, and he knows to keep a record of whatever you take. We can settle up the bill at the end of each week.’
Annabel hesitated. ‘I see.’
She glanced in the direction of the orchard. ‘But will the Nazi soldier and I be the only ones there?’
Dawson chuckled.
‘Oh I see what you mean! Don’t worry about him. He’s not really a Nazi. Most of them aren’t. They’re just young lads. Don’t give me any trouble.’
Annabel frowned. There was a bit of a pause.
‘Tell you what. I’ll come down there with you.’
‘Oh, thank you, Mr Dawson, I really do think that would be so much better.’
Annabel pretended she didn’t notice the farmer suppressing a sigh as he gestured to the path. He was wheezing quite heavily and she tried to work out again how old he was.
‘Come along,’ Annabel said to the child.
She wondered if Dawson would consider dropping the wood off at her house if she paid a little extra. She had brought her trolley with her, but she didn’t much fancy lugging bundles of firewood around and the boy was too small and scrawny to be much help. She envied her parents their reliable electric fires. They’d been the first of all their friends to have them installed, at great expense. She wished she had a neat row of red-hot bars that didn’t even need to be cleaned, save for a light dusting now and then.
The unexpected thoughts of her parents annoyed her; she’d had another of her mother’s telephone calls today. It was considered a luxury to have her own line – very few people in the village had a telephone – but frankly Annabel could have done without it. Every other week or so, Elizabeth would ring on the pretence of a chat. But the conversation would be a series of humiliating questions: Are you stocking the house? What will you be making for Daniel’s dinner? Are you on top of the laundry? She knew the real questions, although unspoken, were: Are you coping? Are you in control? Should you be in an asylum?
The farmer’s wheezes suddenly graduated into a coughing fit and Annabel tried to slap him on the back but he waved her off.
‘Just need one of my smokes!’
He began to roll himself a cigarette, and offered one to Annabel. But she told him she preferred her own and pulled one from a packet in the handbag perched on top of her trolley. She allowed Dawson to light it for her with a match before he lit his own.
He winked at the boy. ‘Not a young man like you any more, am I?’
Daniel smiled shyly but then Annabel saw his eyes widen as he spotted the space where the farm
er’s index finger should have been. He must have never noticed it before. She watched him staring as the old man smoked with the cigarette clamped between his middle and ring finger instead. She tried to catch the boy’s eye to warn him not to be rude, but he wasn’t looking at her.
‘You know,’ Dawson remarked to Annabel after a long, satisfying drag, ‘the old orchard is nearer to your place than you coming all the way round the front first. So – after you’ve met him you’ll realise the Kraut’s all right – in future you can just cut through the back if you like. You can deal directly with him; Johannes his name is. No need to come and get me.’
Annabel pursed her lips, but remained silent.
Dawson finished smoking and, apparently rejuvenated, began leading them once again along the dirt path. Annabel skirted the puddles, although the farmer marched through them, oblivious in his boots. She shot the boy a warning look in case he decided to splash through the dirty rainwater too. Falling back, she deliberately increased her distance from Dawson because she didn’t want mud flicked up onto her bare shins. She eyed the sky as she struggled to pull the trolley behind her, but the sun was elbowing clouds out of the way and it didn’t look like it would rain again.
‘Here we are then,’ Dawson said as they approached a wooden fence.
He unlatched the gate and gestured for Annabel and the boy to enter the dead orchard.
‘The lad should be over in the far corner chopping.’
‘A real live woodchopper!’ Daniel cried. ‘I’ve never met a real woodsman before!’
‘Well,’ Dawson said, ‘good.’ He ruffled the boy’s hair. ‘This one’s a German one.’
‘Oh they always are,’ the child replied. ‘Like the father in Hansel and Gretel. He was a German woodchopper – that was how he knew where to leave them in the woods.’
