The Trowler, Troll and Trouble

By Christos Polydorou

Mary, a twelve-year old scavenger of the mucky Dens, has long tried to deny that some sort of 'power' lurks within her - until she unwittingly, and quite uncannily, sets her owner, Mr Snatch, on fire. As chance would have it though, instead of being binned into yet another Workhouse, a twist of fate lands Mary at Grimshaw Manor instead, home of the prolific Professor Wilrick. There she must learn how to be a child again, but that is easier said than done, especially when the discovery of a terrible secret weighs heavy in her soul.

Mary must now solve a mystery spanning thirty years back and rid Grimshaw of the evil that plagues it, threatening the life of every child that lives there. To do so though, she must first come to terms with who she really is, but most importantly, who she chooses to become.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christos Polydorou
• Release date: Feb 11, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301825264

Christos Polydorou

Much about Christos' life story remains unknown, his poor imprint in this world shrouded in mystery. He is said to have studied at QC Queens College - CUNY in New York, where he graduated with a BA in English Literature. He was seen attending regular classes at UCL university in London thereon, and is believed to have acquired an MA in Linguistics. He is an avid fan of reading, and writing, and watching,and drawing, and daydreaming, and has been regularly spotted trying, against hope, for long hours, to do all of those at the same time. He was last seen at a wildlife park enjoying a leisurely walk near the owl cages, before disappearing from public view. An undisclosed source (it was a drunk goblin to be honest) has revealed that he may or may not currently be living with a herd of centaurs in Cornucopia, where he does his writing.

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The Trowler, Troll and Trouble

by Christos Polydorou

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 Christos Polydorou

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. Thank you for your support.

Cover Illustration Copyright © 2013 by Christos Polydorou

All rights reserved.

Cover design by Christos Polydorou

To

my incredible fiancé:

for seeing in me what I still cannot; I owe you much, I owe you all…

my amazing nephews and nieces:

because your giggles have inspired me.

Along came a child, meagre and volatile and full of want, hanging on the brink of Death…

– As inscribed on the Entryway of the Great Chasm –

Chapter 1

Prologue: The Man of Many Faces

The sun rose as bright as hope over the quiet surroundings of Hoary Street – but too soon hid into obscurity behind shapeless grey clouds.

August could not disperse the unending, bitter cold in the city of Garth, and the frost of the night before still lingered on the shrunken trees and flowers, the untrimmed hedgerows and the shabby windows of the Harping house.

Not a soul stirred in the neighborhood, especially this early in the morning. It seemed almost centuries ago that the soft rumble of a car heading to work could be heard. After all, it’s not as if anyone in Hoary Street had a job to rush off to, or a reason to be awake before high noon.

Well…nearly anyone.

Cornelia Harping was known for her privateness. She kept hers to hers alone and avoided mingling with any of the chattering folk of the neighborhood, the ‘meddlesome malingerers’ as she would more often than not call them.

Miss Cornelia lived in the only two-story house in the far edge of the road, a relic of a long line of Harpings, carefully preserved throughout the years. It stood out like the proverbial ‘black sheep’ amid the rest of the housing community’s white houses, maddeningly white. It had long survived the test of time and would most likely be standing still in years yet to come, though Cornelia cared little for it. Worn-out hip roof; rusting wrought-iron railings outlining a garden that looked more like a cemetery for spring; a sky-blue wallpaper steadily mutating, in time, into something that resembled a decayed tooth; it all achieved the desired effect: Cornelia was to be left well enough alone.

The only surviving Harping, Cornelia was a stern woman, thin as a needle and just as prickly when provoked. She had big green eyes – a very distinguishing feature on her long, pale face – full of unnerving intensity, while her thin mouth was usually arched in an expression of sour revulsion that would, at least, have been reasonably justifiable had she just discovered a dead fish under her pillow. There was no other woman quite like her, ever, and at no other place, no matter how far of a corner of the wretched universe you looked, and this was truly a blessing, for two of her would have been one too many than the world could have ever bargained for.

When Cornelia opened her front door that morning, she found herself looking into the unexpected faces of two middle-aged women standing on her weather-worn welcome mat. One was tall and hefty with square shoulders, the other stumpy and full of warts; and both wore bright, cloying smiles, as sweet as a bucketload of chocolate-coated marshmallows – and just as sickening so early in the morning.

Cornelia hated many things, to say the least, and jolly do-gooders, fraudulent in her eyes, pestering her in the morning were at the top of her list. The overlarge badge pinned on their cardigans read B.G.C which, as one of the women explained, meant the Blooming Garden Club. They were collecting, they said, gossip from caring and devoted citizens in hopes to finally build up a decent cache of conversation for the club’s weekly meetings, where carefree individuals could unwind and drink to their heart’s delight, said one of them.

While surrounded by a marvellous collection of daffodils, violets and roses, of course, added the other.

Of course, of course, the garden is our outmost priority. The drinking part is just a…added bonus, said the tall woman with a childlike giggle. "You’re more than welcome to join us, dear. Here, I’ve got an application form right here. You can fill it in while I tell you a bit of our history. O, and do try to be detailed where it says Neighbourhood Watch – household quarrels, someone having people over for cheese and crackers, illicit affairs, anyone displeased with the city’s current administration and their unique membership in this heavenly metropolis of harmony and prosperity – anything is worth mentioning."

I’m rather in a hurry right now. Some other time, perhaps, you could tell me all about it, said Cornelia, looking at a black crow that had landed on the railing of her front porch and was carefully measuring the scene.

O, but it will only take a minute, dear, persisted the stumpy woman, and went on to explain all the reasons why the old carpet factory at the edge of town was the perfect locale for their club’s establishment. You should pay a bit more attention to your garden as well, dear, it’s looking a tad uncared for, she finished.

Cornelia had heard enough. Before they had a chance to continue again with their meandering babble, she abruptly shooed them off her front door, their previously sweet smiles warped now in grimaces of astonishment and incredulity. She waited a moment, making sure that they were completely gone, and backtracked slowly towards the strange crow that was sitting still on the railing.

I’m assuming it is something highly important, said Cornelia, as though expecting the bird to croak back a reply. Otherwise, you should know better than risk being seen here in broad day light.

The crow, which had the deepest, most intelligent dark eyes you had ever seen, hopped off the railing, and a thick cloud of shadows covered it, twisting and turning around it like a small tornado. In a twinkling of an eye the shadows dissolved, and a young man, wearing a shabby black trench coat, stood on the Harping doorstep.

Quite the cosy nest you have here, said the young man with a sly smile, his dark eyes scanning the neglected garden and household.

It serves its purpose, said Cornelia. What news have you then? I thought you would already be on your way south by now. Or have you been distracted by something shiny again?

"So there’s some hint of humour buried deep down there after all? Actually, I was requested to have a look round ol’ grouch’s shop before I left. You know, check that the dust hasn’t been miraculously dusted off from all his jumble; make sure that poor creature he keeps locked up is still starving to death all alone; that sort of stuff."

The antique shop serves its purpose too, much like every one of us, Drake. Now, I don’t suppose you flew here just to express your concern about a caged Banshee?

No, said Drake, reaching inside his trench coat and pulling out a small note. I came to deliver the news to you. Sort of a last minute arrival.

Cornelia examined the note. There was only a name and an address on it, but that seemed to be all that was needed to colour shades of alarm on her stern face.

I thought that would suffice, said Drake. I tried reaching the Professor, but I haven’t had a reply. I assumed he’d want you to personally handle the matter.

You’ve found her? How?

At the shop, last night. She was there.

The shop?

Scavengers. They broke in.

And you let them?

Got there too late, they were already inside.

But how can you be certain that it was her? inquired Cornelia, getting all the more impatient.

There was an incident, Drake said, picking a withered rose bud from the garden. An unfortunate scene, I must admit, but the girl demonstrated some extraordinary abilities, mostly out of instinct. Probably the first time they manifested, she was completely drained after that.

And – You witnessed all of this? You’re absolutely sure this wasn’t–

I saw it all, as clearly as I’m seeing you right now. It’s her, there’s no doubt in my mind about it.

Cornelia looked at the name and address on the note over and over again, her eyes transfixed in concentration as though it needed to be memorized by heart.

Where is the girl now? she asked.

Back at the scavenger’s home. Local bloke, nothing but a petty thief, really… I returned her there myself.

Cornelia was stunned.

You – You got involved?!

Had to.

You’ve been tasked to simply observe and report, Drake, said Cornelia, her voice suddenly risen in anger, not draw attention to us all, just because you can’t control your impulses. Did you ever consider the consequences? Everything we’ve worked for could come to ruin if we’re not careful. None of us can afford to make mistakes!

It wasn’t out of impulse! Drake barked back, crashing the wilted rose in his clenched fist. There was something else there – A presence – A gloom.

"A ‘presence’? The Council?"

"No – I don’t know – I couldn’t see it but – I could feel it… The scavenger left her there unconscious, so I decided to intervene before it was too late, before we lost her again. I couldn’t risk compromising any more of our locations, so I carried her back to the scavenger’s house and made sure he kept her there safe, just until we were ready to take action. I told him it’d be made worth his trouble."

Cornelia’s piqued expression eased to that of deep contemplation. She looked at the note once more, folded it up and then tore it to tiny shreds, scattering the remains all over the lifeless garden.

Very well; I will take care of this before we’re too late, she said determinedly. Hopefully your little intervention in the matter hasn’t made things even worse. I would hate to have to pry around a scavenger’s filthy mind to erase any memories of you in heaven knows which shape or form. Now, I would appreciate it if you could fly off my front yard. The neighbours are beginning to stir, she ended, already taking slow steps back to her front door, but Drake, the man of many faces, the man of crow, had already vanished.

Chapter 2

Banshee in a cage

Mary was startled out of her sleep by a booming ringing sound.

Her heart was racing, beating loud, and she was soaked in her own cold sweat. The ringing ceased before her mind could even fully register it, but she could not move, not yet, paralyzed by the nightmare she had had: always walking on that same winding, narrow road, overwhelmed by darkness, scared and alone.

She lay under her moth-eaten cover, eyes open wide, and wondering how she had even made her way back to her small box of a bedroom. It was early dawn now, she knew, though it was still dark in the basement; dark, like her deepest and truest fears, and hardly ever had it not been like so.

The piercing sound, coming from a rusty electric buzzer placed just inches above the bed, rang hard again in Mary’s ears, freeing her from paralysis. She quickly jumped to her feet, searching blindly in total darkness for the pull-chain, and just a click later, a faint light illuminated the room.

Her mousy hair was a messy confusion that looked like tangled streamers after a confetti explosion, so she tried forcing them straight with her fingers. The ground felt cold under her bare feet, so she put on her socks, blew the dust and cobwebs off her clothes and galoshes and quickly got dressed.

On the opposite side, next to the huge pile of storage boxes and wooden crates, a clanking sound echoed down a long brass drainage pipe with a bell-shaped trumpet attached on its end. The clattering echo became louder and clearer, and ended with the dull thud of tin can landing on a metallic plate that was lying on the floor. Breakfast was served.

The can was bare of any labels, its contents homemade and smelling rottenly pungent. Mary knew perfectly well what was in it: a muddle of seven-day-old moist oat porridge laced with mashed up tuna bits and sprinkled on top with a few water-boiled beans.

Hard as it was to restrain herself from gobbling down such a tastelessly uninviting breakfast, Mary sat stock-still, staring absentmindedly at the tin can, looking at it, but not really seeing it. She had no appetite this morning, her stomach tied up in knots with the increasing anxiety of what was approaching, of what was soon to come. No other scavenger rat had showed such disobedience before. There was no telling what kind of trouble and unimaginable horror she was in for.

There were of course certain unfortunates in the past that were made an example of the type of ‘fun’ you would have, if you displeased Mr Snatch: on the occasion that Marty Belch was caught red-handed – in a nauseating act of betrayal – sneaking in a slice of bread and a handful of raisins, Mr Snatch force-fed him a bucketload of moldy bread till his face had turned a sickly green and he was ready to burst. Another time, Jonah Gerrypuff’s gathering sack got caught on the sharp end of a nail and ripped, so Jonah returned to the house empty-handed. Mr Snatch tore all of Jonah’s clothes to pieces and had him wear nothing but the sack till this very day. Poor scrawny Jonah looks like a scarecrow dressed in a straw nightgown. But if everyone had thought those had been severe punishments, then just you wait till Snatch was through with Mary.

Her heart felt ever so heavy now. She could not sit anymore, nor lie, nor sleep, and the anticipation was making the underground room seem even tinier than it already was. Her young mind jolted back into memory, racing to find a solution out of the mess she had got herself into.

No, not got, the mess she found herself to be in, because, after all, no matter how many times she thought about it, or tried to make sense out of the whole situation, there was no way that she could have been the one at fault. Really, now, who could be foolish enough to believe that a little girl like her – a skinny girl like her – could ever be capable of causing such pandemonium? It was absurd, silly even, and she was quite certain that Mr Snatch would see the ridiculousness of it all and simply forget all about it…

It was all still a bit hazy in Mary’s mind. She could remember the cataclysmic day’s morning having surely started abysmally normal, much like any gloomy, grey day in the Dens. After the daily canned breakfast at the break of dawn, Snatch’s young scavenger rats were sent to sorting duty till noon, where they had to sort out great heaps of scavenged metal and junk and divide them into two other great piles: the ones that could be made to look useful and be sold at a high price, and the hopelessly useless ones, which Mr Snatch could sell at an even higher price as ‘collector’s items’. Mary hated sorting duty because the storage room was stuffy and small, and carrying the weighty metal and junk around made her hands feel heavy and tired.

Following sorting came cleaning time. Mary often wondered how anyone could find anything amusing about five children silently slaving around a dilapidated house, scrubbing the floors and walls and the mountains of unwashed dishes and pans that had been soaking for days in a pool of foul-smelling water, yet Mr Snatch seemed to enjoy himself each and every time. He sat on his armchair like a kingly lord, using little Jonah Gerrypuff as a foot stool, chomping away at a big bowl of crisps and candy topped with oodles of chocolate syrup and cackling malevolently at the sight of the children toiling hopelessly to clean the house.

The children were then locked away in their basement rooms, until Snatch returned home, hours later, to take his scavenging rats out into the world to pillage and pilfer even more junk.

What stood out in Mary’s mind, even now, was the ethereal appearance of Loafer Street under the dwindling light of day. Sure, it was a derelict area – an absolute dive – an obscure and narrow street, long neglected and left to rot in its own grime and foul smells, just like the rest of the Dens. Yes, for the most part, it had been unused and uninhabited for years, apart from the occasional strollers taking a shortcut to the livelier Finchley Road, or, perhaps, a stray dog or a drunkard stumbling along in the dead of the night, humming to a tuneless melody. And true, there was the small fact that ever since the railway had closed down, the area gradually and silently fell to its eerie decay and, in time, rumor spread that Loafer Street was, in fact, haunted.

Yet, under sweet, soft moonlight, Loafer Street captivated Mary’s imagination at once, as though it had leaped straight out of a ghost story she had once heard. So what if there were often banging sounds reverberating from the abandoned station and horrific growls and screams scaring people away?

Leading the young scavengers that night was the infamous Bartholomew Snatch himself, a blubbery man with lifeless blonde hair and a false porcelain smile. He was typically dressed in his check-patterned waistcoat, overlarge trousers that rode up over his ankles and an earth-brown overcoat, while a short cravat hang loosely from his thick and flabby neck. To complete his supposed gentleman-like mystique, Snatch never went about without his two most prized possessions: a crusty top-hat, which made him look even shorter than he already was, and a knobbly walking stick that Snatch referred to as his beloved Esmerta (and which he had lifted off a hound breeder with not much of a keen scent for business).

An exotic queen, Esmerta was made of fine Ironwood, her delicate ebony handle shaped in the image of a gorgon queen. And just like a despotic monarch, she made sure she was respected and feared by all her subjects, frequently gracing their youthful backs with her stinging touch.

Snatch was not thrilled at all to be walking through such a squalid place, and that was saying something, so he kept his lovely Esmerta tucked safely under his sweaty armpit, lest she be made dirty by the grime of the sidewalk. He shared his discontent with the children, barking without reason or warning, in his forced blue-blood accent, things like, pick your bleedin’ feet up and move faster, if you want to be moving at all by morning tha’ is.

A short walk later, the party found themselves standing at the doorstep of an abandoned antique shop, hidden in obscurity in Fiddler Alley. The shop’s tattered signboard read ‘Grave Antiques’ and, on top of it, sat a cat, quietly sizing up everyone like a sentry assigned to guard the entrance. Its deep, dark eyes looked cunning and alert, and for a moment, Mary could have sworn that the cat looked straight into her grey eyes and–

It just gave me an angry frown!

The sight of the store instantly brought a toothy grin to Snatch’s face, but it quickly evaporated in another fit of anger.

Blisterin’ curses! There’s always got to be something, he yelled, swinging his walking stick savagely at the air, narrowing missing the cat. Why is it, hardworking people like meself can never catch the break they duly deserve! Bleedin’ doors an’ windows are locked away behind an iron curtain, he continued, as though the children needed being told the obvious. How in blazes am I meant to break in now? he grumbled, outraged with the inconsiderate shop owner that had protected his shop from potential robbers.

We could climb up to the fire escape using the drainage pipe, said a young boy named Timothy Wheeler, who had been standing next to Mary. And we can lower the ladder for everyone, Sir.

Timothy was a tall, stout boy, agile and fast and as good a climber as any in the Dens, almost as good as Mary herself. He was the eldest child in the house, along with Mary, and though he had lived there for a few years, he grew to be more rebellious in spirit with the passing of each year, disregarding most of Snatch’s long list of House Rules and Regulations (which Snatch would repeat to them daily and for hours on end) and breaking quite a few of them on frequent occasion. Gifted with a sharp tongue and restless wit, Timothy particularly despised Rule and Regulation #613:

Children residing in Snatch Mansion are to keep their gob shut and not talk to others unless told or given permission to do so. In the unfortunate situation that any are presumed to have taken part in such speaking exchanges, they will most likely have their tongue branded with a hot poker. Whisperers will have their mouth taped closed for the remainder of their stay in château Snatch. Sleep-talkers – not to be confused with sleep-walkers of Rule #117 – will simply be kept awake at ALL times, as leniency will be shown due to the uncontrollable nature of their crime.

As an act of rebellion, Timothy had used a sharp stone