Trollhunters

  Her disappointment was evident. I appreciated it. If I was bailing on RoJu that night, there was no hope of my salvaging the role. She’d have to act opposite Steve, the guy she just humiliated in front of the entire school. For a moment I wondered if she might walk away from the whole deal. But then her expression sharpened. That’s the kind of girl she was—she’d decided to relish acting opposite Steve. It was a challenge, and if she delivered her lines just right, maybe she could show him who was boss more than once.

  “All righty,” she said. “Six o’clock. Sturges household. What do you say?”

  The simple question was riddled with risk. Nobody but Tub had ever visited the steel-plated, camera-protected stronghold of my home. An eight-eyed creature was hiding in my bedroom closet. My dad was on the precipice of total breakdown upon the arrival of a supposedly dead older brother who’d not aged a single day. And once it was dark enough, a band of sword-wielding weirdoes would come together in my living room to track down the infamous villain who’d taken at least a dozen kids in the past week, who knew my name and wanted me as well.

  There were a million reasons to say no to Claire except one:

  I’d been waiting all my life to say yes.

  Claire Fontaine knocked at my door twenty minutes late, rosy-cheeked and complaining about all the “festival rubbish” that was making the whole town look like a little kid’s birthday party. I went “heh-heh-heh,” a laugh so forced that I creeped myself out. Thankfully, she came inside anyway. I closed the door behind her and reached for the first of the ten locks, ready to whip through the repertoire of click, rattle, zing, rattle, clack-clack-clack, thunk, crunch, whisk, rattle-rattle, thud before stopping myself. Not with her watching I wouldn’t. I was braver than that now.

  I left the door unlocked.

  Claire missed nothing. Within seconds, she’d zeroed in on the metal shutters, the three security consoles, and the dangling wires of the kitchen ceiling fan, which still hadn’t been replaced. She asked after Dad and I had to plead ignorance. He was gone and this was not normal. Dad spent no more time at San Bernardino Electronics than was required. Again I offered my “heh-heh-heh” and again she overlooked it. She bounded through the kitchen and flung her pink backpack upon the dining room table, and moments later we were pulling out textbooks and strategically arranging pencils and paper.

  The first hour was useless. I kept smelling her and feeling the heat from her body and repeating in my head that I had a girl at my house. Not just a girl, but the girl. So it came as a surprise when numbers, correct ones, started imprinting themselves on paper as if my pencil were possessed. After another hour of Claire’s arithmetical trickery, insight was slashing through my brain as swiftly as the first blades of morning light through Troll City. Maybe I’d surprise Pinkton after all.

  “Your da’s going to be upset? Is that it?”

  My face was so close to the page I could smell the pencil lead. I looked up into a bag of chips, which Claire pushed aside so she could see me.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “You’ve been checking the front door all night.”

  “Have I?”

  “Like you’re expecting him to come busting in with a tire iron and bash in our heads.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “He wouldn’t use a tire iron.”

  Her eyes widened. “Oh? What would he use, then? A cricket bat?”

  “No, no, no. He’s not going to use anything, period. He’s not going to attack us. I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation. Dad works in electronics. He mows lawns. No one’s getting their head bashed in. I’m just—it’s weird, because he normally doesn’t work late. He’ll probably just be surprised to see you when he gets here, that’s all, because I don’t, you know, have a lot of people over.”

  “Yes, I noticed the defenses. Terrifically imposing. Are we expecting an invasion?”

  I shrugged. “There’s always something. That’s what Dad would say.”

  “Is there? Always something, I mean? Is America all that dangerous?”

  “Depends on where you go.” I pictured the space beneath my bed. “There are bad areas.”

  “This street didn’t look like a bad area. Unless the gang members here wear sweater vests.”

  “It’s not a bad area. Dad’s just…excitable.”

  “And how does your mum feel about this? Most women I know aren’t in love with the steel-shutters-and-barred-windows look. To each her own, of course.”

  “Yeah, she didn’t like it either.”

  “She’s gone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Dead?”

  The frankness with which she asked this caught me off guard. I dared to look at her for several consecutive seconds and detected nothing besides an earnest desire to know. Her lack of shyness inspired me to behave likewise.

  “She left us when I was a kid.”

  “Why did she do that? Nice boy like you. Husband who wouldn’t use a tire iron on anyone.”

  I grinned. “It was just…this.” I gestured at the barricades. “That’s my theory, anyway. She and Dad were having some issues, I was old enough to know that, but I never knew it was that bad. One day she was here and things were pretty normal and the next day she left.”

  “You don’t hear from her?”

  “Nope. After she left, my dad said a few things, not a whole lot, but I got the impression she had a strange past, you know? Like she was maybe in jail or something? I’d believe it. She was smart but kind of devious, too. She probably married Dad because he was safe, different than the rest of her life. But she can take care of herself. I bet she went and got herself a new name and a new ID, and is off getting sick of a whole new husband and little kid. Mexico, maybe. Or Hawaii. Or just some small tropical island somewhere.”

  “That’s sweet of you.”

  “What’s sweet of me?”

  “To imagine her somewhere beautiful like that.”

  This made me stop and think. I did, in fact, picture my mom walking barefoot along a beachfront, dodging sand dollars and starfish, inhaling the salt smell and trying to find glimpses of her old life in the red sun setting behind a lush green mountain. These fantasies were dry of emotion, and for the first time I wondered if I had drained them to protect myself.

  “I was home sick the day she left,” I said. “I was there when she walked out. She didn’t say a thing. She just undid all the locks and walked out. After a while, I got up and locked the door behind her. I was just a kid; I thought that’s what I was supposed to do. So I don’t feel sweet, you know? I locked the door behind her. It was the day before my birthday, the first of May, and I was like, well, if she’s not going to at least stay for my birthday, then screw her.”

  “May second is my birthday, too,” Claire said.

  “Seriously?”

  “Inverness, Scotland, May second.”

  “Scotland? I thought you were from, like, London.”

  “London! Good god! Don’t you know a Scottish accent when you hear one?”

  “Well, they’re similar, right?”

  “Similar? You say that in the Highlands, mister, and you’ll be spouting a bleeder.”

  “Sorry! I didn’t—I guess I don’t know my accents as well as—”

  “Hey, we ought to have a party together in May.”

  “A party? Two seconds ago you were going to punch me.”

  “Though I’m a full year older than you. My guests might be a little more mature.”

  “At least you’d have guests.”

  “What about Tobias? He’s worth three or four guests, I’d wager.”

  “Tub and I aren’t really talking at the moment.”

  “Mr. Sturges,” she sighed. “So much gloom!”

  I set down my pencil atop my math and turned to her.

  “I honestly don’t see how you do it. I’ve been here all my life and I’m like a disease. You’ve been at our school for like two minutes and you’ve got friends fal
ling out of your ears. You yell at cool kids in the hall and you’re a hero instead of getting stomped? You’ve got two parents who sign you up for cool things like fencing lessons? It blows my mind. What is that like? Seriously, what in the world is that like, to have a life so…nice?”

  Claire had been twisting a lock of deviant hair around a finger. She let it go and it sprung back to her cheek like the staysail of a boat after being severed. Her expression was not one of offense or anger but rather of darkened curiosity, as if weighing whether I was prepared for a truthful response. I judged that I wasn’t, but it was too late: she removed her beret and shook out her hair, which leapt in all directions, a regiment of serpents to back her up. Then she lifted that pink backpack from the chair, set it upon the table, unzipped it, and withdrew the last things I’d expected to see.

  Clothes, pretty ones, the kind of ensemble that would vault a girl like her into the popular crowd the instant she walked through school doors. A svelte pink dress with teal trim and matching hair ribbon. A pair of heeled shoes, two sparkly earrings, a tangled strand of pearls. And loads of cosmetics: eye shadow, lipstick, blush, nail polish, and several other containers I wasn’t qualified to identify. The last item she removed was a well-used jar of makeup remover. She held this for a moment longer as if it carried the most significance.

  “We do have a nice life.” She spoke carefully. “We have a nice house. Mum keeps it nice because that’s how Da likes it. We have nice hobbies. It’s not just fencing lessons I’ve been instructed to take, it’s piano, voice—all the best diversions for some Scots out to be an upstanding American family. We have nice food—turkey, potatoes, greens. Da likes us to have nice food, he makes sure that’s understood. And we dress very nicely. Very nicely indeed. I’d say if you were to stop by our place and peek in our window around dinnertime, you might nominate us for the nicest family in all of San Bernardino. Perfect for postcards and TV sitcoms—all we’re missing are the spunky little dog and wacky neighbor.”

  The pink backpack sat between us on the table like an engorged insect on a dissection slab, cut open and spilling its ugly secrets.

  “Monsters don’t always look like monsters,” she said.

  Who knew this better than me? Blinky and ARRRGH!!! had been walking nightmares just days before and now were my most trusted friends. Meanwhile, other beings who looked perfectly normal moved through life in simulated benevolence: the Steve Jorgensen-Warners of the world, the Professor Lempkes, the Nullhuller changelings that, according to Blinky, ran most of Washington. Perhaps Mr. or Mrs. Fontaine fit into the same category, demanding a personality from their daughter that she’d been forced to invent.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Don’t be. You didn’t say it out of meanness. You said it because you think of me living in a make-believe place as wonderful as that of your mum, even though neither of us deserves it. You’re a good person, Mr. Sturges. A bit gloomy, but good.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I like when you say it, anyway.”

  If I am lucky, I will live to be an old man, and when I’m lying there on my last pillow with bleeping electronic equipment hooked up to measure the exact distance to my death, there will be a few choice memories that run on repeat in my brain, because I won’t want to leave life with any other thoughts but the sweetest. What happened next will be one of those memories.

  Claire Fontaine, the sort of girl confident enough to one day take on the world and be the equal of those of the highest rank, thought enough of me in that moment to reach out with both hands and encircle my wrists. The raw ends of her electrical-wire bracelets poked into my skin. The adamant tips of her fingers crawled up my forearms and then pulled me closer. Her hair, as wild as ever, touched me long before anything else, and I remember the spider-web tickle of each follicle against my cheek. Then she was too close for me to keep in focus and she became the world’s most beautiful blur.

  For all my fantasies, I’d never really thought about how soft lips feel when pressed against other lips.

  My phone made sure we didn’t enjoy it for too long. Claire sat back with an eyebrow raised as if judging my performance as unconventional but precocious, and I blinked at her for a few seconds before rustling through the pocket of my coat for the stupid ringing piece of junk that so badly needed to be destroyed. My stomach lurched a bit. It was Dad, so I held up a wait-a-second finger to Claire, stood up, and answered the phone while heading into the dim light of the kitchen.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  He sounded depleted. “I can’t answer that, Jimmy. But I’ll be home later. I didn’t want you to worry. There’s some meals in the freezer you can heat up. I think there’s a cheesy garlic lasagna. Maybe a broccoli and beef. You like those. Go ahead and eat. It’s just been a challenging day and there’s still a few things I need to think about before I come home and…I don’t even know what happens then.”

  “Things are weird right now,” I said. “I know that. But we can deal with it. You haven’t even met the others yet. All right, I admit, that’s going to be pretty weird, too. But if we just all get in the same room, we can explain the whole thing to you, okay? Just as soon as the sun goes down.”

  “Sun’s already down,” Dad said. “I’ll be home eventually. Take care.”

  The call went dead. For a moment I was unsettled by his detachment, but that was replaced by the information he’d passed along: it was indeed dark out. I leaned over the kitchen sink and ducked beneath the steel shutters. The floodlights were flickering with moths, a sure sign that they’d been on for some time. The hours had slipped away. I laughed to myself. Math had never been so diverting.

  Claire screamed.

  It was a guttural noise, as if she were trying to break away from an unwanted embrace. Something wooden exploded, followed by the gonging of stricken metal. Then came the sound of running, way too many feet, followed by a horrible series of sounds: a musical snap like the tearing of guitar strings, the muffled ripping of several thick layers of fabric, and the splinter of lumber being chomped between teeth.

  “Claire!” I called.

  The name still reverberating from my kissed lips, I sprinted into the dining room, pausing only long enough to note each disaster: Claire gone with no trace but her beret; her chair rolling across the floor in a dozen pieces; a massive dent in the corner of the table where something huge had kneed it on its way out; and the white birds of our math problems making slow, doomed descents. Her pink backpack was missing—she’d managed to grab it, though what good it might do her was beyond me.

  In my bedroom I blundered into a snowstorm of mattress guts. A mouthlike hole had been burrowed straight through the center of my bed—the mattress, the springs, everything. I leapt to the edge of the hole and saw the last few motions of the floorboards as the secret staircase locked itself away.

  Claire’s screams echoed from below, caught in the phantom space of the hardwood floor, the concrete foundation, the clay, and on and on, deeper and deeper, world upon world and fear upon fear.

  I threw myself into the cavity of the bed and drove my heels at the floor, shouting for it to open. The chewed-off edges of the box spring scratched at my upper body as I fell to my knees and dug at individual boards with my fingernails. I might be a trollhunter, but I had no idea how to open that door, and without such knowledge right that second, I was worse than worthless.

  My screams for Blinky hammered off the flat surfaces of my room. The troll slithered from the closet with the sound of a birth of snakes, his eight red eyes blinking away curds of sleep. I kept clawing at the floor as I felt tentacles, too many to push aside, wrapping around my torso and lifting me out of the cratered bed.

  “Let me go! We have to save her!”

  I wriggled in midair before my feet touched down amid drifts of mattress foam. Blinky’s appendages had my body encircled from behind, and the more I fought to be set free, the tighter he squeezed. Slime oozed from between tentacles as he began to speak i
n a dapper, infuriating tone that I didn’t want to hear, warning me that waiting beneath these boards was an ambush—he had written all about the strategy in volume twelve of his dissertation.

  Though I didn’t want to believe it, I heard them and I felt them right through my feet, a seething swarm of Gumm-Gumms just beneath the floor, cackling and slurping in expectation of sinking their teeth into fresh teenager. Claire was gone to their unspeakable hands, taken to unimaginable places, and it was my fault. I moaned and reached for my swords to cut something, anything, just to relish in the breakage.

  Blinky’s eight eyes lowered before me like wilting flowers and shone at such wattage that I had to shield myself from the brightness. Then the ancient troll inhaled and I felt against my back the warm beats of multiple hearts and the inflation of at least four giant lungs. A sound rose from somewhere inside his guts. It began low, like the boom of a train crossing distant tracks, but then added the higher octave of whale shrieks and the shrill clanging of bicycle bells rang by boys outrunning the death of summer, the end of childhood, and all other manner of gluttonous beast.

  What it was was a call, one loud enough to be heard across the neighborhood, provided that you had the right kind of ears. My medallion began to burn and I could smell the singed skin of my chest. Beyond the pain, though, the translation was forceful and clear, and it made me catch my breath.

  “TROLLHUNTERS!!!”

  Blinky held me and howled, and I howled, too, sending a prayer out to Claire, to all of the missing: hold tight.

  Jack banged through the unlocked front door, took one whiff of acrid air, and ran to my room, where he pushed the remains of my bed to the perimeter. Blinky then spread his tentacles so that the entire floor was carpeted with his mucoid flesh. I climbed on top of my dresser to get out of the way. The tip of each tentacle crinkled as if sniffing out a varmint.

  “ARRRGH!!!’s nose is better suited for this task,” Blinky apologized. “On the upside, though, I do have seventy-four of them.”

  This gave me hope until the tentacles ripped away like tape. Blinky backpedaled to the safety of the closet, hacking up fizzing troll phlegm that began to eat away at several items of my discarded clothing.