A Bridge Too Few Read online

  Epiphany wasn’t sure what to expect. Part of her had imagined that all of the construction materials would have been vanished, utterly magicked away by the near-omnipotent Carabosse. Alternatively, Carabosse might have conjured a solution that allowed the bridge-strengthening works to continue while maintaining the troll holes.

  “Bravo, my dear,” said Smutcombe and inclined his body to give Epiphany a congratulatory kiss, a gesture she utterly sidestepped, pressing on towards the building site. She squeezed through the barriers to see what enchantments had been worked on the troll family’s home. She was stunned to see it was entirely as it had been yesterday, sealed off and filled with cement.

  “But…”

  Smutcombe struggled through the barriers behind her, getting his jacket buttons caught in the gap.

  “She said…” Epiphany whispered.

  “All good?” said Smutcombe, oblivious. “All done? Then let’s break our fast. I know a charming place not far from the university.”

  Carabosse had promised. She had said the trolls home would be safe.

  “Now, I should warn you,” said Smutcombe. “I breakfast like a hobbit. As one should. You need the right combination of nutrients, proteins and fatty acids to set up for the day.”

  Carabosse had said that the trolls would have their home. That it would become her property. That they would be safe and free from threats of eviction. This was not what they had agreed…

  “So, I will be ordering a platter of sausages, bacon, puddings — both black and white — and at least three eggs,” said Smutcombe. “I have mixed feelings about the baked bean.”

  Epiphany whirled, bewildered and more than a little angry.

  “Pak Choi!”

  “There’s no place for greenery on the breakfast plate,” said Smutcombe before realising she was not talking about the foodstuff.

  “Pak Choi!” Epiphany yelled.

  Without noise or fuss, without a little puff of smoke, Pak Choi was standing beside her.

  “What’s this nonsense?” Epiphany demanded.

  Pak Choi looked about as though he was surprised by his surroundings. “It’s a bridge,” he said, pointing.

  “And that’s their home!” Epiphany snapped, pointing at the sealed up hole.

  Pak Choi gave her a reproachfully contradictory look and presented her with a folded document.

  Epiphany opened it. It was the ownership deeds for a truck.

  “The trolls home will become your property,” said Pak Choi.

  Epiphany looked back at the vehicle parked on the roadside. She opened her mouth to say that was not what she had meant when she’d made the deal but fairies cared nothing for what people meant; the wording of the contract was all that mattered and if that was open to interpretation then caveat emptor…

  “That cheating, swindling, no-good…”

  Epiphany did not finish the sentence. Contract or not, it did not do to insult powerful fey creatures. Besides, Epiphany’s anger was such that words were utterly failing her.

  “I take it that matters are not all hunky-dory?” said Smutcombe.

  “They are not,” Epiphany growled.

  “Then breakfast is postponed?”

  “Momentarily.” She turned on Pak Choi. “I suppose you think this is very clever?”

  He grinned broadly. It would not be true to say there was cruelty in that smile but Pak Choi’s pleasure was so naked that it was difficult not to be offended by it.

  “Now, let us discuss payment for Carabosse’s assistance…” he began.

  “We are not finished,” she said. She looked to Smutcombe. “I’m sorry. It appears I now have houseguests to deal with.”

  Chapter 8

  “It is said that a verbal contract is not worth the paper it’s written on. The same can be said of anything transmitted in paper form. Just because it’s there in black and white, doesn’t mean it means what you think it means.”

  One Day My Prints Will Come: How Early Printers Hindered the Spread of Fairy Tales

  Epiphany Alexander, Sheffield Academic Press

  Epiphany drove the truck back to her end-terrace home with Smutcombe at her side.

  “You are to stay in my house,” she said to the trolls, once they had arrived.

  “You said we was goin’ back to the bridge,” said Skakky.

  “A brief change of plans,” she said. “And I’m not sure my neighbours will tolerate you living in the back of this vehicle.”

  “Dead homey it is,” said Ek Midek.

  “Well, I think we might have to move you indoors. I hope that will be acceptable?” she said, knowing that this situation definitely didn’t have a long term future, but hoping that she could make it work while she found them something suitable.

  “Oh that would be delightful, wouldn’t it?” Penelope clapped her hands together and smiled round at Ek Midek and Skakky. They both shrugged.

  Smutcombe opened the ramp at the back of the truck and invited the trolls to step out. They looked around.

  “’S nice here, but where’s the bridge?” Ek Midek asked. Penelope nudged him sharply in the side, which made a noise like bowling balls crashing together.

  “If you come inside you will find that this structure here is a double level bridge complex,” said Epiphany, indicating the front door.

  She went first and Penelope followed. Ek Midek came next and crashed messily through the doorway, his broad shoulders knocking chunks out of the masonry and dislodging the door post.

  Epiphany raised an eyebrow. “Could you step a little more carefully?”

  “I can fix it good,” said Ek Midek, and he turned to the door. He wrenched off the door post that was leaning wonkily and threw it outside. He regarded the ragged edge of the wall that remained, and hammered chunks away with his fists to even it up.

  “Please don’t,” said Epiphany.

  Penelope went over and pulled Ek Midek away. She ran her huge hands over the exposed bricks of the wall and fussily dusted off some of the broken plaster, as if she were flicking crumbs off a napkin.

  Smutcombe stepped in delicately over the wreckage.

  “Come through this way please,” said Epiphany. “Try not to touch anything.” She ushered them into her lounge area. She looked to see where Skakky had got to. He entered through the remains of the front door, carrying a pile of paving slabs over his head.

  “Hey mom!” he shouted as he ran to catch up. “Look at my toy bridge! Can I keep it?”

  Epiphany tried to intercept him as he clattered around the room with what looked like a good proportion of the pavement from outside her house.

  “I think it might be time to put that down Skakky,” said Penelope.

  “Ohhh, all right, mom,” said Skakky. He threw them aside onto Epiphany’s television, which crumpled in a shower of sparks and glass.

  Penelope gave a small cough and then lifted the corner of a nearby rug, with the clear intention of shoving the remains of the television underneath it.

  “Not to worry,” said Epiphany, holding up a hand to stop this bizarre effort at tidying.

  “You never watch television anyway,” offered Smutcombe.

  “Let me think carefully for a moment,” said Epiphany. “I think that perhaps it might be a little challenging for you to be inside here, so perhaps —”

  “— We can be more careful!” said Penelope, with a small, anxious wave of her hand, which unfortunately sent a standard lamp crashing through a window.

  Epiphany held up a hand. “Stop moving. Now. All of you.” The three trolls all stood still. Even Smutcombe froze. “I think it’s clear that you need a larger space than this, yes? I can think of a couple of options for the short term, so let’s explore those. We’re going to move outside into the back garden, and I want you to be really careful as you go out. Please don’t break the rest of my house. Can you try and do that?”

  Skakky went first. He dropped to his belly and wriggled along. He gouged a trail in the flo
orboards with his elbows and knees, but there was no further damage. Penelope went next and she crept, with exaggerated care through the patio door that Epiphany held open. Ek Midek was last. He looked slightly panicked, as if he had no idea where to start. Epiphany beckoned to him, her voice encouraging.

  “Come on now, just move slowly and carefully. You’ll be fine.”

  He crept forward at a snail’s pace, placing his feet on the floor as carefully as he could, and edging his giant body forwards.

  “You’re doing really well,” said Epiphany. Too late, she saw the panic on his face. He bolted for the door, but missed by a few feet. He blasted a hole through the wall and didn’t slow down until he was at the far side of the lawn, panting. Penelope went to his side and gave him a conciliatory pat on the arm.

  “You might be able to claim on the house insurance,” said Smutcombe doubtfully.

  “You’ll need a bridge to live under,” Epiphany told the trolls.

  “Nat’rally,” said Ek Midek.

  “Would you be able to build your own?”

  Penelope looked thrilled at the idea. “Oh, yes!”

  Epiphany looked around at her garden. There were the trees of course, but no obvious building materials. “Skakky, you can fetch those slabs from the lounge, they will be useful, I am sure. If I get you some timber and some tools, do you know enough woodwork to make a bridge?”

  Ek Midek puffed his chest out in a display of bravado. “Of course! Nuffink that a troll don’t know about bridges!”

  Smutcombe and Epiphany took the truck to the local DIY superstore. If fairy tricks had left one owning a truck, there was no reason not to use it. They loaded it up with building supplies and then, on the way back, Smutcombe insisted they stop at a greasy spoon café in a lay-by and he bought them supersized breakfast baps. Despite being an oozing mess of egg yolks, meat juices and brown sauce, Epiphany could not complain at the sheer deliciousness of the oily sandwich.

  “Hunger is indeed the best seasoning,” said Smutcombe, wiping his fingers with a handkerchief.

  “Mmm mmf,” Epiphany agreed around her final mouthful.

  They returned to her house and brought the items through the side gate into the back garden.

  Once the gate was safely closed again, Epiphany showed the trolls what they had.

  Kiln-dried treated softwood two inch by six inch, fifty off

  English larch decking, twenty off

  Galvanised nails in four different sizes

  Roofing felt and adhesive

  Ek Midek, picked up a length of timber and weighed it in his hand. “Good!”

  “I have also opened the shed door. You will find a selection of tools inside,” said Epiphany. “Now, can I make a suggestion? You will see that there is a rockery over by the gate. The trolls stared blankly, so she walked over and pointed. “This pile of earth and stones can be removed. I would suggest that you build your bridge here, near to the gate, so that if you do a really good job, we can easily show other people who might want one in their own garden, as a decorative feature perhaps. Get you some work — that would be good, wouldn’t it?”

  The trolls all nodded.

  “Very well,” said Epiphany. “I would also ask you not to damage the trellis or the flowers growing on them. Nor the plums — the fairies have a particular interest in those. Nor anything else I might have planted since,” she added, pointing to the disturbed soil in the middle of the lawn.

  “No problem, Mrs doctor,” said Ek Midek. “Leave it wiv us.”

  And she did.

  “You trust them?” said Smutcombe as she came back inside.

  “Heavens, no,” she said, “but we have other matters to attend to.”

  “Lunch?” he said hopefully.

  “The other trolls,” she said. “Carabosse promised they would have a safe home. We need to check that is the case. I may have the ownership papers for that vehicle out there but I’ve not been given the deeds to the Wicker Arches yet!”

  “You cannot trust the word of a fairy,” said Smutcombe, worried.

  “You can absolutely trust the word of a fairy,” she countered. “But you can never trust its intentions.”

  They took Smutcombe’s car. Despite its rattlings and the viciousness of its nipping chair springs it was a far faster and more practical vehicle than her new truck.

  “I cannot believe you let a troll service this vehicle,” she said.

  “They can be quite ingenious at times,” said Smutcombe.

  She pointed at the crystal orb dangling from his car keys. “Is that a pixie-stone?”

  “Might be,” he said sheepishly.

  The engine rattled and clacked like there were a thousand clockwork toys behind the dashboard. The prickly chair beneath Epiphany’s bottom shifted and nipped as though it were alive.

  “Ingenious,” repeated Smutcombe.

  Smutcombe pulled into Walker Street. As much as she wished she wasn’t, Epiphany had been right to be sceptical about Carabosse’s promises. In the few scant hours since Epiphany had last been here, the workmen had come in for the day and moved onto the other arches. Diggers were pushing in doorways and wood partitions, barrier walls were going up and cement mixers were pumping the holes with concrete.

  There was no sign of any trolls.

  Epiphany jumped from Smutcombe’s Hillman Imp and stumbled towards the construction works, dumb with astonishment.

  “This can’t be,” she finally uttered. “She promised…”

  A workman with a clipboard came down to intercept her before she got to close.

  “What happened to them?” she said.

  “You can’t be here, miss,” the workman said.

  “The tr— the occupants of these arches?” she said. “What happened to them?”

  “Cleared out,” said the workman as though that was blatantly obvious. “They were given notice.”

  “But it’s…” She fished around in her satchel and took out the vehicle registration papers and idiotically muttered something about ‘ownership documents’. Perhaps she had expected herself to magically become the owner of this bridge and all its contents. Had she envisaged the workers doffing their hard hats as she approached? Did she expect the company of McVitie Dainty to suddenly become Alexander McVitie Dainty? What had she really expected?

  “You need to step back, miss,” said the workman. “Lot of dangerous machinery round here.”

  She turned about and gazed hopelessly at the city around her.

  “Lot of dangerous trolls out there now,” she said to herself.

  Chapter 9

  “In modern retellings of fairy tales, those that owe more to Walt Disney than to the Brothers Grimm, there is an attempt to justify the choice of hero or heroine. They are deemed to be kind and fair minded and intelligent. No such traits are applied in the original versions. The only qualifications Snow White or Cinderella or Jack have are that they happened to be present at the beginning of the tale.”

  People in Glass Slippers shouldn’t own Thrones: Why Cinderella would have been a Rubbish Queen

  Epiphany Alexander, Sheffield Academic Press

  Epiphany didn’t feel like talking on the drive back to her house.

  When the springs — or whatever they were — beneath her seat nipped and poked at her behind, she punched the seat savagely and they quietened. Even Smutcombe, a man who was usually happy to fill silence with empty chatter, picked up on her sullen mood and had little to offer.

  At the house, Epiphany went straight round the side to see how the trolls had got on with their bridge construction. Something about the quality of the light in her back garden had changed. It didn’t take long to realise why. Where she’d previously had a fence, the garden was completely exposed to the street. The trolls had paid attention to her instructions and left the trellis and the flowers and the plum tree well alone but almost everything else had gone.

  She circled the mountainous mess on her lawn. The rockery had been redis
tributed to form a lumpy semi-circle, and then the timbers formed a haphazard lattice on top. With fence panels to top it off, it appeared that the trolls had created something more akin to a cave than a pergola. Actually, no. It was more like a den — the sort of thing that a gang of eight year olds would make if they happened upon a pile of abandoned wood. The tools were unused. The nails and roofing felt had been left aside. Epiphany realised with a sigh that the trolls had no idea what to do with them. Any idea that she’d nurtured about getting them some employment on a construction site was clearly unworkable.

  She heard the murmur of the trolls’ voices and approached the entrance. Penelope came out to meet her.

  “Welcome to our ‘ouse!” Penelope smiled, exposing two rows of powerful grinding teeth. She had a little half apron around the place where a human would have a waist. It was held in place with a length of rope, as the original ties were not long enough. She carried a tea tray in her hands. “Would you like something to drink?”

  Epiphany recognised various items from her own kitchen, but was very wary that whatever beverage was being offered was unlikely to be one that she would recognise or enjoy. Something brown and superficially tea-like sloshed in a mug, but it also bubbled ominously, and when some spilled over the side, it left a grainy trail that looked suspiciously like ground-up rocks or soil.

  “I’ve just had a drink,” lied Epiphany, “but I’d, er, love to see your house. Can I come inside?”

  “I don’t suppose you’d like to trip-trap over the top at all?”

  “No thank you.”

  Penelope beamed. “That’s all right. It’s only a matter of time, innit.”

  Penelope stepped aside and Epiphany entered the dark interior to find Ek Midek and Skakky lounging comfortably on their own rockery piles. Epiphany spotted a large piece of sandstone and sat down on it.

  “Good job, huh?” said Ek Midek.

  “It is a beautiful place,” said Epiphany. “It will do very nicely for a short time, but I feel that we need to work on a plan to get you settled in permanently somewhere. I don’t think anyone will be going back to the arches any time soon.”