"I asked him, but he didn't know."
Charlie watched the boa slide back to his home inside the big iron kettle. He felt uneasy.
The boa had no reason to lie. It was a wise and gentle snake, not a trickster.
Something made Charlie ask, "You've got the stone troll here, Mrs. Kettle, haven't you?"
"You bet I have, Charlie," Mrs. Kettle assured him. "It's been chained up in my workshop ever since it attacked that poor little girl and her father. That troll had a venom all its own, once Eric had brought it to life."172The stone troll used to stand outside Charlie's great-aunt Venetia's house. On a day Charlie would never forget, the troll had attacked Venetia's new husband and his daughter, Miranda. The poor man had been bewitched into marriage, but once he'd come to his senses, he'd left the city and taken his daughter with him. Eric had remained with his stepmother. Venetia had her own unpleasant endowment - she could bewitch her victims by treating their clothes with a magic poison.
But she dreamed of using Eric's talent to further her craving for power.
"I think I met it," Charlie said slowly, "when it was real. It was named Oddthumb."
"Met it, Charlie? The troll?" Mrs. Kettle stopped stirring her tea and fixed her amber-colored eyes on Charlie. "Would you mean - on your travels?"
"Yes," Charlie replied, and he recounted his adventure in Badlock.
The blacksmith sat in rapt attention. Only once did she lift her teacup, very slowly, to take a sip of173her rapidly cooling tea. And when Charlie had finished, she could only shake her head for a while, in mute dismay.
In the unfamiliar silence, Charlie felt a coldness pervade the shop. Was it his imagination or did the bright kettles suddenly lose some of their luster?
"The shadow's trying to come back again," Mrs. Kettle spoke almost to herself. "Lock your cellar door, Charlie, and throw away the key, before that painting captures you again."
"But Runner Bean!" Billy protested.
"You'll forget him, Billy, if you're wise," said Mrs. Kettle.
She must know that we can't do that, thought Charlie. But Mrs. Kettle looked so solemn, so weighed down with some secret trouble, he realized that her warning was in deadly earnest.
"The Stone Shop is occupied again," Mrs. Kettle said at last. "For years it has been vacant
- half-finished carvings in the yard, the statues in the store covered in cobwebs. But two days ago I heard a174hammering. Chink! Chink! Chink! Metal on stone. I left my workshop and walked down the alley behind the stores. I looked into the stonemason's yard and there he was: a fierce-looking man with a yellow mustache and a cowboy hat.
Melmott, he said his name was. But that was all he'd tell me. I fear he's the first of many."
"The first of many what?" asked Charlie.
"Magicians, my dear, for want of a better word. Once the whole street was full of them, but by the time I'd inherited this place from my grandpa, they were all gone. And now ..."
Mrs. Kettle collected the cups and took them to the sink beside the stove.
"And now what?" prompted Billy.
"And now the wickedness is coming back," said Mrs. Kettle. "It's not just Eric, it's those children at Bloor's: the drowner, the magnet, the poisoner, the hypnotist, and then there's
that witch, Mrs. Tilpin. They're all getting stronger, my dears. And people like us have got to watch out for one another. I'm the only one left on this street, boys.175The only one who can stop them, that is. And I have a strong feeling they're going to do something about it. Don't know what. But I'm on my guard."
"Mrs. Kettle, can I have a look at the troll?" asked Charlie.
"Now, do you really want to?" Mrs. Kettle glanced at the metal door, reluctant to let Charlie into her workshop.
"I just want to make sure that Oddthumb's still in there." Charlie's anxiety was growing.
Mrs. Kettle sighed, wiped her wet hands on her coveralls, and opened the metal door.
Charlie stepped in. It looked very much the same as the last time he'd been there. Bare brick walls, a dusty stone floor, and an assortment of tools hanging from a beam. The anvil stood in the center of the room, and the hum of flames could be heard behind a small iron door at the base of the chimney.
In a dark corner stood a squat stone figure. A double chain encircled its thick waist, the two ends fixed to large iron hoops fastened to the wall. Charlie176stared at the troll, his eyes gradually adjusting to the dark. Now he could see the wide fleshy nose, the thin scribble mouth, and the small gimlet eyes.
"Satisfied, Charlie?" called Mrs. Kettle.
"Yes." Charlie was about to step back when he saw a glint in the troll's left eye. Was that a blink? Mesmerized by the blink, and terrified of what it might mean, Charlie felt behind him for the door.
He was too late. There was an earsplitting crack as the troll broke free of the wall and came flying at Charlie. He ducked, with a scream, and Oddthumb sailed through the open door and into the shop.
His whole body shaking with terror, Charlie forced himself to follow the troll. He saw it making straight for Mrs. Kettle. The blacksmith didn't stand a chance. Oddthumb slammed into her head, and she sank to the floor with a groan.
Not satisfied with this, the troll began to crash against the furniture, sending kettles tumbling to the floor. Billy crawled under a table, his arms folded tight over his bent head. "No, no, no," he moaned.177"Shhh!" whispered Charlie, creeping toward Billy.
The silence that followed his whisper was so complete Charlie could almost feel the troll thinking. What would he do next? Could he see them? Could a stone troll hear or smell?
And where was he now? Charlie held his breath.
A violent crash gave away the troll's whereabouts. He had gone through the doorway into the store, and now he proceeded to crush, dent, break, and shatter every kettle in the place. The sound of iron and copper, steel, enamel, and even clay breaking apart was like nothing Charlie could ever have imagined. He wondered if the wounded blacksmith could hear the terrible destruction of her beloved kettles, and if her breaking heart might be part of the dreadful and tragic noise.
When he's broken everything he can see, he'll come hack forus, thought Charlie. He quickly crawled beneath the table where Billy was hiding. "Our only chance is to get to the workshop and lock ourselves in," he whispered. "But we'll have to take Mrs. Kettle with us.178Quick, Billy! We'd better move now while he's still busy in the store."
But Billy wouldn't move. He remained in his tightly curled huddle. Not a sound escaped him.
"Billy!" Charlie shook a clenched arm.
"Mmmm!" moaned Billy.
"Billy, we must..."
But Charlie never finished his sentence. Above the troll's noise, he distinctly heard the loud squeak of the store door. Someone was coming in.
There was a heavy thump, as though the troll had landed from a great height. And then silence.179CHAPTER 9
PURR SPELLS
T he noise made by the troll could be heard from one end of Piminy Street to the other.
Yet none of the residents had appeared at their doors. Aren't they curious? Tancred wondered. As he approached the Kettle Shop, the noise increased. He looked through the window and saw a gray lumpen thing slamming ferociously into piles of ancient kettles.
The speed of the creature's lethal work filled Tancred with an overpowering rage. He marched into the store and the troll whizzed around to face him.
From the corner of his eye Tancred saw a movement in the room beyond the door, but his gaze remained fixed on the troll. A burst of fury from the creature almost took Tancred's breath away. Using his own rage, he summoned up the wind that was always at his fingertips. Thunder rolled across the roof and a streak of lightning lit the troll's ugly features. And then came the wind. The strength of his180own power surprised Tancred. It seemed to come from a deeper place within him, a power that coursed through his body, almost as though it were drawn toward the vile creature before him. The troll's hatred was palpable, its desire for his destruction intense, for it knew that it had met a strength equal to its own.