A Most Magical Girl - Karen Foxlee Page 0,60

Sometimes it goes up and eats some humanlings.”

“A worm?” said Annabel. “It must be a very big one to eat people.”

Kitty looked at Annabel as though she were the stupidest person she’d ever met. “A mad troll and pretty girl with not much brains,” she said. “We’ll never get out of here. A wyrm, Annabel Grey, is a dragon.”

She continued the path with her finger, from Annabel’s cheek into the center of her forehead.

“And it appears that the only way to the Morever Wand is through the dragon’s lair,” she said.

Annabel didn’t like to think of dragons. She tried not to as they trudged up and down troll passageways. She thought instead of her mother, who had been magical but never showed it, when all the time she could have been teaching Annabel. That made her think of why. And how. And what terrible thing could have happened in Mr. Angel’s house that her mother had turned her back on magic for good. That in turn made her think of her father, the Great Geraldo Grey, which made her feel the breathless, falling type of sadness, which was almost as bad, she decided, as thinking of dragons that breathed fire and were monstrously big.

Sometimes they heard troll voices in the distance and Hafwen led them quickly in another direction. Annabel hoped she was leading them in the right direction. She hoped there was a way out of the maze of tunnels. She thought of what she had seen in the water of the stream. She knew they had to move quickly.

Be brave. Be good.

“I’m hungry,” said Kitty.

Hafwen stopped and pulled a worm from the earth wall and held it out to her.

“Leave off, you dirty lump,” said Kitty.

“What was that light that came out your wormhole and blinded Aunty?” asked Hafwen.

“It’s Kitty’s heart light,” said Annabel.

“I don’t like it,” said Hafwen. “It unnatural.”

She put the worm in her own mouth and sucked loudly.

She led them up and down tunnels, in and out of caverns. Sometimes she stopped and scratched her troll head and started again.

“Do you even know where we are going?” asked Kitty.

“I take you to the Lake of Tears,” said the troll.

“You are very kind, Hafwen,” said Annabel.

Kitty sighed.

“I want my star,” said the troll.

“You’ll get your star, dear Hafwen,” said Annabel.

Annabel had felt the expanse of the Lake of Tears on her arm, but nothing could prepare her for the sight of it.

They stumbled, very suddenly, out of a passage and onto its shore. Hafwen held her flame up, and they saw the dark stretch of water. They could not see its edges. It felt endless to Annabel.

“So, how do you get across the Lake of Tears?” Kitty asked.

“No one crosses the Lake of Tears, skinny,” said Hafwen.

“But you said the dead ’uns are sent across the Lake.”

“They are dead ’uns in funeral boats,” said Hafwen.

“And where would we find a funeral boat?” asked Kitty.

“You would find a boat where the funeral boats are built,” said Hafwen.

“And I am sure you don’t know where that is,” said Kitty.

“Of course I do,” said Hafwen, and she puffed out her little troll chest. “I will show you.”

She led them along the shore, and the dark water sucked and slapped against the rocks. It was a lonely sound. A hungry sound. An unsettled sound.

“I don’t like this place,” said Annabel.

“Hush,” said Hafwen. “All you humanlings do is talk. We must be quiet or the boat builders will hear us.”

There was no sign of boat builders. There were only rocks by the light of Hafwen’s little flame. Large rocks, small rocks, slimy rocks. The three of them slipped, clambered, climbed. Sometimes the dark water rushed through spaces and touched their toes. They walked and walked until their legs ached.

“She’s tricking us,” said Kitty.

But then Hafwen took her flame and extinguished it in the water, and they were in darkness.

“We are close now,” she said, and they heard suddenly the sound of hammering from a long way off and the faint murmuring of voices.

They climbed in the blackness then, tripped and tumbled, and Kitty swore so loudly once that Annabel was sure they would be heard, but the hammering only paused and then continued.

It grew louder, the voices clearer.

“You must build it well, and well it must be built,” said one voice. “Pay attention, young Calder.”

There was a flurry of banging and sawing.

“Has the wyrm ever come our way?” asked a younger voice.

“Why, yes,” said the older. “It has come across this