A Bridge Too Few Page 5

  “A pleasure to meet you,” said Epiphany cordially. “Now, we wanted to pass through the Underhill. We seek someone on the other side.”

  “And you know my price?” said the ogre.

  “A sacrifice of a hundred lives.”

  The ogre rumbled. “I see you have brought a fairy with you. Perhaps you have another ninety-nine hidden about you.”

  “More than that,” said Epiphany and held up the tiny sack.

  “Oh?” said the ogre, intrigued not disappointed. “A hundred ants?”

  “No.”

  “Fleas?”

  “No.”

  “I have rarely been paid the full price for passage,” said the ogre conversationally. “Twice I have been paid in fairy lives, a nasty business. Once I was paid with the lives of children by a wicked man with a penny whistle.” He shuddered audibly. “But I have also been paid by travellers with more wits and more morals. I have been paid in frogspawn.”

  “Clever,” agreed Epiphany.

  “A human once shaved off his eyebrows and paid me with the mites that lived within. The average eyebrow holds several hundred.”

  “I did not know that,” said Epiphany.

  “But what have you brought me?” The deep cordial tone remained but there was slight undercurrent, a suggestion that Epiphany’s offering might not meet the ogre’s standards.

  “Yeast,” she said.

  Epiphany felt the suggestion of giant fingertips brushing the palm of her hand and the little sack was gone.

  “Yeast,” echoed the ogre.

  “Single-celled fungi,” said Epiphany. “I’m sure that’s more than plenty in there.”

  “If I could find my glasses I would count them,” rumbled the ogre jovially.

  “So, it suffices?” she asked.

  “It certainly does.” The ogre sounded pleased, rather than cheated. “You are a clever woman.”

  “I have letters after my name to prove it,” she said.

  The ogre made a thoughtful noise. “Most people keep the letters inside their names. They’re more useful there. But each to their own I suppose. You may pass.”

  Epiphany made to carry on but Pak Choi seemed reluctant to move.

  “Your companion has fainted,” said the ogre.

  Epiphany tutted and bent to scoop the fairy up. As she suspected, he weighed little more than a heavy coat. He must be nothing but air and fancy inside.

  “Thank you,” she said to the ogre and walked on.

  In good time, the light at the end of the tunnel became visible. Epiphany walked towards the rosy glow and, eventually, out into a flower garden. Bluebells, foxgloves, daffodils and orchids crowded at the edges of the path, a riot of violent colour. There was something unwholesome about the flowers here, as if the colour contrast had been turned up beyond what was natural, as if they weren’t exactly flowers but the concepts of flowers, designed by a committee of marketing executives who did too many drugs. The reds seared Epiphany’s vision. The blue-blacks were sunken holes in reality, cut-outs in the scenery of this world. The yellows were flames.

  From somewhere down the path came the sound of singing, the wordless trilling of a woman’s voice.

  Epiphany laid the unconscious Pak Choi down on the path and, more nervous than she had been in the presence of the ogre, made her way along the path.

  Epiphany found the singer in a mossy dell.

  This creature wore the body of a human woman but that was only a costume, a disguise, albeit a convincing one the fairy had invested with a lot of detail. She had put a lot of thought into the dress. It was a ballgown. Epiphany, never a follower of fashion, was unsure whether it traced its origins to the modest curves of fifties ladies’ fashion or more properly belonged to the ages when women wore posterior enhancing bustles. Similarly she was entirely unsure what combination of silk, taffeta or chiffon it was constructed from. Whatever the case, the yellow dress spoke equally of pantomime costumes, Disney princesses and a shapely if sexless attitude towards the female form.

  The entire ensemble, from the glossy red heels up to the perfect chignon, was a construct and it sent a message. It was a message about purity and perfection and a very specific view of female beauty.

  Without giving any indication that she had noticed Epiphany’s arrival, the creature stopped singing, vanished away the dainty watering can she had been holding and smiled at Epiphany.

  “Hello, dearie.”

  “Carabosse?”

  “You are Epiphany Alexander,” said Carabosse.

  “Dr Epiphany Alexander.”

  “Only certain titles are important,” said Carabosse. “Kings, queen, princesses. I’m a fairy godmother but I don’t go around telling everyone.”

  This was an outright lie. Epiphany’s understanding was that Carabosse made sure everyone knew that she was a fairy godmother and reserved a particular vengeance for those people who forgot it.

  Epiphany had learned much that she knew of fairy godmothers from her grandfather, Makepeace Alexander. They had featured in the stories she had learned at the old man’s knee and what she had quickly learned was what fairy godmothers were among the most dangerous of creatures in existence. They had the power to grant wishes but, unlike genies and other wish-granting agents, fairy godmothers weren’t limited to magically granting people what they wished for but gave people what they thought they needed. Pumpkin coaches for lowly serving girls. Transformation into hideous beasts for ungrateful princes. A hundred years of beauty sleep for innocent princesses. Fairy godmothers were powerful, capricious and not a little mad.

  “I think I need your help,” said Epiphany.

  “You think, dearie?” said Carabosse.

  Epiphany rephrased. “I know I need your help but I also know I’ll regret asking for it.”

  Carabosse did a slow and dainty pirouette, swishing her wide skirts.

  “I’m surprised you think I will help you. The grand-daughter of Dr Makepeace Alexander. After what he did to me.”

  What Granddad Makepeace had done had pretty much cemented his future career in the study and control of fairytale creatures. As a lad, growing up in West Yorkshire, he heard of a couple of girls, two villages over, who had made friends with some fairy creatures in their garden. They’d even been able to produce a number of photographs of the fairyfolk. Armed only with scraps of spells he had found from God knows where, the young Makepeace Alexander successfully trapped the most dangerous of the fairies in an enchanted bottle. That fairy was Carabosse.

  “You escaped again,” said Epiphany simply. “And my grandfather is dead.”

  “You try spending thirty years sealed in a glass jar,” said Carabosse tartly. “See how you like it. If little Rosie Thorn hadn’t let me out, I don’t know what would have become of me.”

  Yes, poor Rose Thorn. Epiphany had also learned of her from her grandfather. The bottle prison had become lost during the Second World War and then found by a girl, Rose, not many years after the war’s end. Carabosse’s treatment of Rose Thorn was a perfect example of how dangerous fairy godmothers could be. As a reward for accidentally freeing her, Carabosse elected to give Rose the fairytale life she believed every girl deserved. Rose spent the following decades fending off frog princes, handsome woodcutters and any number of eligible bachelors. The last Epiphany had heard, Rose and her family had fled to the countryside and lived in hiding.

  “I am not my grandfather,” said Epiphany, “and I’m sure you’ll be willing to strike a deal with me.”

  “What do you desire?” said Carabosse. “The gift of song? The power to ensnare your one true love? Eternal beauty?”

  “No, none of that.”

  “Really, dearie? Because you are something of a plain Jane and, I’m sure that, with a lift and a tuck and a bucket of rouge, I could make you into a passably attractive sort.”

  “Oh, you flatter me,” said Epiphany. Carabosse was immune to sarcasm and curtseyed in reply. “I have a problem with trolls,” said Ep
iphany.

  “Do you need a champion?” said Carabosse. “Or would you simply like a sword of troll-slaying?”

  “I don’t wish to kill them.”

  Epiphany outlined her problem: the troll homes beneath the Wicker Arches, the works being carried out by McVitie Dainty, the threat presented by more than a dozen suddenly homeless trolls.

  “Your pet trolls need a home,” said Carabosse.

  “Essentially.”

  “And their current home belongs to someone else.”

  “Technically.”

  “But you need to know that their home is safe and ready for occupation.”

  “Precisely.”

  Carbosse’s face was perfectly composed, a porcelain mask.

  “I can resolve your problem, Epiphany. The trolls’ home will become your property.”

  “Mine.”

  “You will own their home. And thus no one will be able to evict them without your say-so.”

  “You can do that?”

  “With ease.”

  “All the trolls in the city. Their home safe.”

  “I promise.”

  It seemed ideal.

  “But there’s a price,” said Epiphany.

  “Always.” There was suddenly a wand in the fairy godmother’s hand. Carabosse waved her wand and a map of the world constructed in points of twinkling yellow light appeared at her side. “I have brothers and sisters. Caged. Imprisoned. Across the world.”

  “Yes?”

  “You will free them for me. There are seven in all.”

  Epiphany looked at the dots — each a separate colour on the global map. “I assume they are dangerous.”

  “They are my siblings,” said Carabosse as though that explained everything.

  “But that would take months to complete. I need to fix the problem with the trolls by tomorrow morning.”

  Carabosse waved her wand and the map vanished.

  “I shall make good on the deal in an instant if you agree to my terms.”

  “And then I must go freeing these dangerous, evil —”

  “Careful now, dearie,” said Carabosse and the air around the flowery dell darkened, the vivid flowers taking on a poisonous neon hue. “Think before you speak. I will fix your troll homing problem in a trice and then, immediately, you must set about freeing my siblings. I will give you a year to complete the task. After that, you will be in breach of contract and your life forfeit.”

  Epiphany thought on it, long and hard. The right thing to do, the obvious thing to do, in the face of a Faerie pact was to say ‘no’. But she had come here with the explicit aim of seeking help.

  “I have a garden of my own,” she said.

  “How nice,” said Carabosse.

  “There are things I have planted and produce to harvest.”

  “Yes?”

  “I will undertake your task once I have made my harvest.”

  Carabosse looked at her and then looked past her.

  “Plums,” said Pak Choi.

  “How long have you been standing there?” said Epiphany.

  “She has a plum tree,” said Pak Choi. “Some blackberries. A crop of rhubarb.”

  Carabosse nodded, calculating. “Very well. You have as long as is needed to gather the next crop from the plants growing in your garden. And you will harvest them. Nothing to be left withering on the bough.”

  “And then my debt to you is due,” said Epiphany. “Agreed.”

  Carabosse swished closer to her. “It is a deal?”

  Epiphany slowly held out her hand to shake. Carabosse took hold of her fingertips as though Epiphany’s hand was unpleasant to touch and gave it the smallest of shakes.

  “It is done,” said Carabosse. “I will send Pak Choi with you to ensure you uphold your end of the bargain.”

  Epiphany wasn’t impressed. “I’m going to have this creature hanging around with me all year?”

  “He will be the most delightful and obedient fairy servant for you until my fairykin are freed.” Pak Choi didn’t seemed at all pleased by this new turn of events. “But he will keep me fully abreast of the situation,” said Carabosse.

  The fairy godmother gave another wave of her wand but there was no magic this time. It was a simple dismissal. Epiphany turned and followed the path, out of the flower garden, through a break in the trees and up a long but gently sloping hill where a familiar trellis archway stood.

  Oaknut waited next to the archway, clipboard and thistle quill in hand.

  “And how has madam’s visit been today?” he asked. “All satisfactory?”

  “My business is my own,” said Epiphany.

  “I was only asking.”

  Epiphany nodded at the exit from fairyland. “I think I’ll go home now.”

  “Of course,” said Oaknut obsequiously and scoured his clipboard. “Now, if I could just take your name…”

  Epiphany opened her mouth to answer and then stopped.

  “Do you want to take a note of my name? Or do you want to take my name?”

  Oaknut smiled. “We did agree before setting out. When we have taken your name, you’ll be free to go.”

  Epiphany huffed.

  “My name is valuable to me.”

  “And don’t we know it.”

  Epiphany found herself suddenly and thoroughly annoyed. Her annoyance stretched to Oaknut and Pak Choi and all of Faerie but it was mostly reserved for herself. The business with the yeast and the hat and the deed pole and, even in her dealings with Carabosse, she had thought herself very clever but this… The deed pole!

  She went to her satchel, drew out a scrap of paper and passed it to Oaknut.

  “‘Chunky Humous’?” he read.

  “It’s my name,” she said.

  “It’s not your name.”

  “It doesn’t belong to anyone else,” she retorted.

  Oaknut instinctively knew the truth of that. The paper crinkled beneath his grip but he did not screw it up.

  “Thank you, madam,” he said between gritted teeth.

  Epiphany nodded at him cordially and, with Pak Choi at her heels, walked back through the arch into the mortal world

  Chapter 7

  “There is no trust to be had in fairy tales. Do not trust the characters. Do not trust the tale. Do not trust the teller. Nothing is as it initially appears.”

  Cobblers! : The Dubious Origins of the Tale of the Elves and the Shoemaker

  Epiphany Alexander, Sheffield Academic Press

  Epiphany walked across her lawn. Smutcombe had gone. It was unclear how long she had been away. In her mind, she had been absent for a few hours, but time spent in Faerie was a slippery thing. The sky was a grey half-light but this was now the light of morning, not of evening.

  As though suddenly realising this, her stomach rumbled. She’d missed out dinner last night and her stomach was crying for breakfast. However there was work to be done first. She went quickly around to the truck that was still parked in front of her house.

  She opened it up. Three broad troll faces smiled down at her.

  “Who’s that trip-trapping across my bridge?” said Ek Midek.

  The trollop, Penelope, back-handed her husband. “It’s that Dr Epiphany. We’re not eating ‘er.”

  The trolls were all still alive and hadn’t visibly aged. In fact, the remains of their multi-bird dinner looked recent enough, so she was confident she hadn’t been away for an extended period. It was entirely possible to pop off to Faerie and come back a century later, which made things awkward to say the least.

  “You enjoyed the meal?” Epiphany asked, wondering how they had overcome the challenges of eating it.

  “Yes,” said Penelope. “It was a delightful meal once we ‘membered that we have the correct cutlery.”

  “Oh?” Epiphany asked, intrigued.

  “The bird splatterer!” chuckled Ek Midek, holding up his huge hand and demonstrating how he had squished the composite roast with a violent open-handed blow, un
leashing its meaty goodness in a wide splatter pattern across the inside of the truck.

  “’Parently, is what the French trolls do,” said Penelope, mopping her mouth daintily.

  “Now, I have some plans in place to find you a new home,” Epiphany said, “but we need to move you out of this place.”

  “We like this portable bridge,” said Penelope.

  “I know, but it needs to go back. And you can now return to your home.”

  “’Adn’t it been filled with concrete?” said Skakky.

  “It is all fixed now,” Epiphany assured him. “The fairy godmother’s fixed everything.”

  Ek Midek sucked in through his teeth.

  “You don’ts want to be makin’ deals wiv no fairy godmother’s. Them’s tricksy buggers.”

  “A deal was made and she’ll be held to it. Now buckle up and we’ll be on our way.”

  “What’s she mean, buckle up?” asked Skakky as Epiphany closed the door.

  “It means sit down and shut up,” said Ek Midek.

  Epiphany got into the cab and phoned Westerby Smutcombe. He picked up far faster than anyone ought to at that time of morning.

  “Breakfast?” she said.

  “Epiphany! Fates be praised, you’re back in the land of the living. Or have the fairy folk installed phone masts?”

  “I’m back and I’m returning the trolls to the arches.”

  “So, the trip to Faerie was a success?”

  “And I entirely failed to take you up on your dinner offer.”

  “You have no idea what a lonely professor can stoop to eat when he has been rebuffed.”

  “So, let me make it up to you.”

  “I didn’t even know chicken could be sold in buckets until last night.”

  She tutted. “Just meet me at the Wicker Arches and I will treat you to a glorious breakfast repast.”

  She started the engine and, with the care of a person who was not used to driving a twelve tonne truck and the confidence of a woman who believed the key to everything was concentration and self-belief, she drove the truck across town and down to the arches over the Wicker dual-carriageway.

  Smutcombe was already there, leaning against the bonnet of his Hillman Imp. Epiphany backed the truck up to the building site hoardings, despite Smutcombe doing his best to get himself killed by standing in her way and trying to direct her in.