it. She had seen the shorter one carrying it when she shoved them into the elevator. She had simply thought it part of his outfit.
Burly reached inside the sack and, to Virginia’s surprise, pulled out a small boombox. He carried it to the area rug— which looked like a cheap thing made from fur—and dropped it upside down.
The other Trolls stared at it as if they expected something to happen. Burly pushed on it, and Virginia recognized the pretape hiss. The Troll King frowned as if that were what they wanted him to hear.
Then, suddenly, “Saturday Night Fever” blared out of the player. The younger Trolls bobbed up and down to the music as if they couldn’t resist its charm, but their father stared at the cassette player as if it were going to bite him.
“They are called the brothers Gibb,” Bluebell said excitedly.
“The song concerns a deadly fever that only strikes on Saturdays.” Blabberwort’s fingers did a small dance to the chorus.
The Troll King’s frown grew. “There is more to all this than the Queen is telling me.”
The Queen. Virginia froze. They were working with that awful Queen Prince was telling them about? The one who had been imprisoned? The one who had tried to murder his family? The one who had changed him into a dog?
The Troll King must have seen the recognition in Virginia’s eyes, for he crossed the room and stopped in front of her. “You will dance for me,” he said. “And when you finish dancing, you will tell me how to invade your kingdom.”
Virginia swallowed. Hard. “I’m not much of a dancer, really.”
The Troll King walked to the wall of shoes. He studied it for a moment, passing up large platforms, tiny heels, and an oversized pair of boots. Then he grabbed the ugliest shoes on the wall, an iron pair that looked as if they weighed a ton.
“You’ll dance when you wear these,” he said.
Then he walked to the fireplace and carefully placed the shoes in the middle of the blazing flame.
“Wake me,” he said, watching her reaction, “when they turn red.”
She blanched. She had to have. It felt as if all the blood had left her face at once. He smiled just a little, and left the room. His children went to the fireplace and watched the shoes heat up.
The warders opened the door to a cell and tossed Tony inside. He rubbed his wrists. They had marks on them from the handcuffs. The door clanged behind him and he stood for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the semidarkness.
The warder said, ‘ ‘Middle bunk,’ ’ and it took Tony a second to realize that was a command. There was a triple-bunk bed pushed against one wall. His cellmates were already in their bunks, their backs to him. He couldn’t see their faces.
In fact, the only face he could see was that of Prince Wendell—his human face, which had been a mystery to Tony before now. The prince looked nothing like the dog, except that they both had brown hair and intelligent eyes. In human form, the prince was good-looking in a bland sort of way and had enough of a receding jawline to make him look vaguely goofy.
Beneath the prince’s picture were the words: Work Hard and Honestly. Apparently that was supposed to be inspiring, but Tony found it laughable. Put anything like that in New York and it would be covered in graffiti in an instant.
He climbed the ladder to his bunk as quietly as possible and hesitated for a moment before getting on the mattress. It smelled faintly of sweat and urine and straw. He had a hunch it was crawling with bugs. But he was very tired and uncertain what to do, and there really was nowhere else for him to go. So he hoisted himself onto it and tried to ignore the cloud of dust that surrounded him as he flopped down.
“So,” said the guy on the lower bunk, “what are you in for?”
Tony’s heart was pounding. “Quite a serious bank job actually. A few people got hurt but, you know, that’s the way it is. What about you?”
“Aggravated assault,” said Lower Bunk. “I’m very easily aggravated.”
The entire bed rocked, and then a man’s face peered up at Tony. It was a small but very hard face with squinty eyes and thin lips.
“I’m Acom,” he said. “Got any metal on you? Knives, forks, coat hangers?’ ’
“Sorry,” Tony lied.
“They won’t let me have metal,” Acom said. “If you get stabbed, you’ll save me the knife, won’t you?”
“Of course,” Tony said.
Acom grinned and then settled on his lower bunk. Tony leaned back cautiously, wondering if his mattress felt just the tiniest bit damp and if it did, whether or not he should worry about that.
Suddenly, a massive hairy arm lolled down from the top bunk and Tony had to bite his hand to suppress a scream.
“Do you like carving?” said the guy in the upper bunk who had to be, by process of elimination, Clay Face.
Tony had to swallow three times before he could reply. “Uh, well, not flesh or anything like that, no.”
‘ ‘Look what I’m doing. ’ ’ The massive hand opened to reveal a piece of soap which had been carved into a sculpture. On closer examination, sculpture proved to be too erudite a word for the thing which, if Tony put it in a museum, would have to be called Four Blobs on A Pedestal.
“You have real talent,” Tony said.
The whole bunk rocked violently, and Clay Face leaned over the edge. Upside down, he seemed massive, and Tony realized he probably wouldn’t be much better viewed right-side up.
“My name is Clay Face the Goblin.”
Tony didn’t want to say that he’d already figured that out. “Tony Lewis. What are you in for?”
Clay Face smiled. Somehow it made his entire face even more hideous. “Carving.”
He said the word the way most men would say their lover’s name. Then he leaned in closer.
“Will you be my friend?”
“What exactly does that involve?” Tony asked and then wished he hadn’t.
As they got closer to the palace, the Queen felt herself relax just a little. She no longer wanted to cuff the Dog Prince, who still had his face outside the window, tongue lolling. At least he had stopped that hideous barking.
The palace looked worse than she remembered. Neglected, abandoned. She’d have to have her servants fix that.
The coach pulled up behind the massive stone wall, and she descended, followed by the Dog Prince, who looked tempted, for a very short moment, to walk on all fours.
The windows were gone and the wind rustled the curtains. The Queen picked up her skirts and walked up the dusty steps to the main door. As she let herself in, a servant she vaguely recognized hurried toward her and bowed.
“Conceal the coach,” the Queen ordered. “Then prepare a room for the Prince.”
“Welcome home,” the servant said. “We have missed you, Your Majesty.”
She ignored the niceties. He should have known better. But she had been gone for years. He could have forgotten. Still, she’d keep an eye on him. No sense having servants who didn’t understand her wishes.
The Dog Prince was already inside, his thin body shuddering, his hands still curved like dog’s paws in front of him. He was standing at the base of the curved staircase. It had been so grand once, and now it looked even worse than it had when she left, the mighty wood rotting and bits of the banister falling away.
“Who’s that then?” the Dog Prince asked.
She followed his gaze. The portrait was still there. It was a full-length portrait of a beautiful woman, her face improved by her cruel cunning.
The Queen smiled. “She was the stepmother who poisoned Snow White with the apple all those years ago. She was once the most powerful woman in the whole of the Nine Kingdoms, and this was but one of her five castles.”
“W-W-What happened to her?” the Dog Prince asked. “When she was finally caught,” the Queen said, “they heated a pair of iron slippers over red hot coals and made her dance at Snow White’s wedding.”
The Dog Prince winced. For once, she had caught his sympathy. She resisted the urge to p
et him on the top of his head as she used to do when he was in his dog form.
“Exactly,” she said. “Isn’t it amazing how cruel good people can be when they put their minds to it? She crawled out into the snow, dragging her raw, blistered, useless feet into a swamp nearby, this crippled woman who was once the fairest of them all. But she kept her magic mirrors and searched for her successor. And that, of course, was me.”
The Dog Prince looked at the Queen. She resisted the urge to wipe at her eyes. She was showing a bit more emotion than she should have.
So she clenched her fist and took strength from her plan. “I will finish her work and destroy the House of White forever.” Her voice was low and menacing. “And pity the fool who tries to stand up to me.”
Chapter Thirteen
The iron shoes were now bright red. Virginia tried not to look at them and failed. She didn’t really want to draw attention to them, but she couldn’t help it. Her mind was focused on the shoes and how they would feel on her cold, bare feet.
She’d been struggling with her bonds, but she hadn’t even been able to loosen them. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do. She had a hunch she’d end up dancing for the Troll King and that wouldn’t be a pretty sight.
It would also be extremely painful.
The three Trolls who had captured her were studying the shoes too. Virginia wished she knew a way to make them stop, but she didn’t. Nothing she had tried had worked.
Blabberwort grabbed a large pair of tongs and walked to the blazing fireplace. Virginia bit her lower lip. They were actually going to go through with this.
She didn’t remember fairy tales being so nasty. Then she frowned. Yes, she did. In the original Cinderella, the evil stepsisters carved up their own feet so that they could wear the glass slippers. And didn’t that end with birds stealing the stepsisters’ eyes? And what about all that blood in the original Little Mermaid? Children’s movies hadn’t done anyone a favor by cleaning up the gore in fairy tales. If they hadn’t done that, she would have been better prepared.
Blabberwort stuck the tongs into the shoes and pulled them out of the fire. “Frying tonight,” she said. “Frying tonight.”
“Keep away from me,” Virginia said, as if that would do any good. Still, she curled her toes under and tried to steel herself against the chair.
Suddenly there was a bang on the other side of her. She turned. A beautifully wrapped gift box had landed on the balcony. Blabberwort set down the red-hot shoes. They burned the dust on the floor, sending little wisps of smoke into the air. She walked toward the package, followed by her brothers.
They circled the box as if it might be a bomb.
“It’s a present,” Burly said.
Bluebell peered at it. “Does it say, ‘To Bluebell’?”
The Trolls weren’t looking at Virginia for the first time since she had arrived. She struggled as hard as she could, trying to break the ropes that held her. They burned against her skin, but that was better than those still-red shoes.
Burly bent down and grabbed the gift tag on the side of the box. “It’s for me,” he said. “Listen to this. ‘A present for the strongest, bravest Troll.’ ”
Blabberwort snatched the note. “You the strongest?” She laughed. “Butter boy. It must be for me.”
Virginia struggled even harder. There had to be some way out of these ropes.
“I saw it first,” Bluebell said.
“Finders keepers,” Burly said.
They both reached for the box, but Blabberwort pulled them back.
“Wait,” she said. “It could be a trap. Who knows we’re here?”
All three of them backed away from the box. Virginia cursed silently. She wanted them to focus on it so that she could escape.
“Suck an elf,” Burly said. “You’re right.”
“I wonder what it is, though,” Bluebell said.
They looked at the box. Virginia could see the temptation on their faces.
“You know what it smells like?” Burly asked.
They crouched and sniffed, getting dreamy smiles on their faces.
“Leather!” they said in unison.
Virginia was struggling so hard that the chair was wobbling. If the Trolls had been paying attention, they would have heard the thuds. She tried to tell herself to keep quiet, but she knew this might be her last chance.
She glanced at the iron shoes. Still red. They were making scorch marks on the floor.
“Shoes,” Bluebell said, waving his hands over the still-closed box.
“It could be boots,” Blabberwort said. “Look at the height of the box.”
“Boots,” Burly said. “And my size by the looks of things.”
He bent to open the box. Virginia looked away, concentrating on those pesky ropes. Then she heard a whack, followed by a thud. When she turned back, she saw Burly unconscious on the floor, Blabberwort holding a poker over him, and Bluebell looking at her as if she were trouble.
“Had to do it,” Blabberwort said.
“Of course you did, of course you did,” Bluebell said. “I would have done the same.”
“They’re clearly not his, are they?” Blabberwort said. “They’re not addressed to him.”
“You did the right thing,” Bluebell said. “It’s mob rule otherwise, isn’t it?”
“Exactly,” Blabberwort said. “A box like that can contain only one thing. Ladies’ boots.”
The two remaining Trolls looked at each other. Virginia held her breath. Who’d have thought that she might get free because of infighting?
“They’re mine,” Bluebell said. “You know they are. They’re a present for me.”
“They’re mine!” Blabberwort shouted back.
“Mine!” Bluebell shouted.
They started to punch each other, then stopped and smiled at each other. The smiles were obviously fake. Even Virginia could see through them.
“Look,” Blabberwort said, “obviously we can’t both have them. Let’s just spin a coin to decide who gets them.”
“Fair enough,” Bluebell said. “See if you’ve got a coin in your pocket.”
“You have to look as well,” Blabberwort said.
They both pretended to reach into their pockets and then both swung fists at the same time. Virginia saw it coming, but apparently they didn’t. They knocked each other out, and fell to either side of her.
She let out a small breath. One problem solved, at least for the short term. But she still hadn’t figured a way out of these bonds. And the Troll King would be back at any moment. He was a lot more dangerous than his children. He would probably blame her for their unconscious state.
She shuddered, and then she heard a rustling behind her. As she turned, she saw the man who had attacked her at her grandmother’s house swinging in the balcony window by a rope.
“Well, hello,” he said as he swung back and forth. “Rescue is at hand.”
“Don’t come any nearer!” Virginia ordered.
He dropped off the rope and walked toward her, smiling. “Don’t worry,” he said, “I’m not who I used to be. I’ve had extensive therapy. I realize I have been using food as a substitute for love, and I have the books to prove it.”
He opened a grungy pack he’d been carrying on his back and showed her the books inside. She looked down, fascinated in spite of herself.
“How to Survive in Spite of Your Parents, The Courage to Heal, When Am I Going to be Happy?, and Help for the Bedwetting Child, which I picked up by mistake. I’ve got the lot.” She struggled against those damn ropes. “You come an inch nearer and I’ll shout my head off.”
“That is what is known as an empty threat.” He got quite close to her, his breath against her neck. She flinched. He licked his lips, sniffed her, and then sighed with pleasure.
She remembered her grandmother, trussed up like a Christmas goose, still angry because of all the spices in her hair, and shuddered. He reached for her ropes and started to untie her. Appa
rently, he hadn’t missed the shudder either.
“I hope you don’t mind me saying this,” he said, “but I get the feeling you still don’t completely trust me.”
“I don’t trust you at all,” Virginia said. “You tried to eat my grandmother.”
“Oh, no,” Wolf said. “I was just being playful. Wolfies just pretend to do naughty things. I would never have really eaten her. She was a tough old bird.”
His eyes were gleaming. He had a wicked smile. But it was charming, just the same. Virginia steeled herself so that she wouldn’t be drawn into his spell.
“I wouldn’t hurt a sausage,” he said. “Butter would not melt in my mouth. Well, it would melt, of course it would, but very slowly.”
The moment her hands were free, Virginia leapt to her feet and backed away from him, nearly tripping on a Troll. He moved toward her, hands out. It seemed as if he were trying to calm her. But if that was what he was trying to do, he was failing miserably. She looked around for a weapon, but didn’t see anything close at hand.
“Huff-puff,” he said, “I give you my solemn Wolf word that you are safe with me. You are safe as a brick-built pig house. Now, wait here a moment while I plan our escape. We are in romantically reckless danger.”
He nodded once to make sure she would stay put, and then he walked to the balcony and looked over. Wolf word? She frowned. Was that really his name? Wolf?
Stranger things did happen. She backed a little farther away from him and continued to look for something, anything, to get her out of this mess.
“How are you at climbing?” Wolf asked. “I nearly fell off three times coming up.”
She stared at the shoe closet. The magic shoes glittered. They called to her. They were beautiful. And if she put them on, she could escape him. She could escape all of them.
She walked toward the shoes. “Those incredible shoes,” she muttered. “They made him invisible.”
“Yes, I know,” Wolf said.
“But they made him invisibleVirginia said, wondering why she was speaking out loud.
“Don’t touch them,” he said, as he surveyed the room. “They’ll make you want to wear them all the time.” He frowned. “Balcony or corridor, that is the question.”
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