When you cross the Twisty Bridge, you reach the Old Town of Horsmarlonerpool.
This is where the streets are windy and muddled, and where the ancient houses creak and hang off their old wooden beams. There are houses here that are older than Sprivers Wood, or Bluebell Wood, with their little doorways, and little windows and little attic rooms where people have sat and looked at the moon for hundreds of years.
And if you wind your way through the streets of the Old Town, you come across Earnose Castle. Big and bold and grey, it used to be a very scary place where you could be locked up - but now it was a friendly home, a home that everyone is welcome to visit, because it’s the home of Lord and Lady Devonroe.
Lord and Lady Devonroe aren’t like some Lords and Ladies who only like other Lords and Ladies, they like everyone; as long as they were nice, and they often welcome strangers into the castle to share their favorite lunch: Soft bread and blackcurrant jam.
You see, soft bread and blackcurrant jam! Lord and Lady Devonroe like simple, tasty things. Just like you and me. And not that many people are strangers to Lord and Lady ‘D’, they know almost everyone in town, and they especially knew Helen and Jensen.
Helen and Jensen come from a new house in the newer part of town, and so they love playing inside Castle Earnose.
“Why is it called Castle Earnose?’ Jensen asked Lady Devonroe on time.
“Well,” said her Ladyship, “because there was a time when in this place you heard terrible sounds, and smelt terrible smells! But no longer, I hope!”
Well that was true. Helen and Jensen always thought the castle smelt fine, if a little bit stuffy, but that was until the day they found the trapdoor.
It was along a corridor that they hadn’t explored before, well out of the way of the normal hustle and bustle of castle life. It has half hidden by a dusty old carpet, but together Helen and Jensen lifted it up and flipped it back.
Crash…
There was nothing but a dark stairway underneath the trapdoor, and a very pongy smell. But Jensen and Helen were brave, and borrowing a candle from a nearby table, they descended…
The small flame made the sticky walls glow a dark orange. They felt something scuttle beneath their feet, but when they put the candle down to look… it had gone. As they made their way down the mysterious passage, it got darker and darker still, and then something flapped past their heads! Was it a bat?
They realized where they were, and for the first time they were scared. They were in the castle dungeons! Legend was that once you were down here, you never found your way back up, and just as they realized that - the candle flame caught a cold gust of wind, and went out!
“Okay,” said Helen. “The first and most important thing is not to panic.”
“Arrrggh!” said Jensen, running as fast as he could into the darkness, “Let me out!”
Helen ran after him, listening for the sound of his footsteps, and keeping her arms outstretched so she didn’t bump into a wall.
“Jensen, come back!”
Soon, she heard his voice. “Helen?” it echoed. “I can see some light.”
She followed his voice and then felt his arm I the dark. He was right, there was some dim, dim light up ahead. As they got closer to it, they heard water, and as they approached the small, slimy brick doorway, they realized where they were. They were by the river Gurgleglug, under the Twisty Bridge. Their run through the dungeons had taken them right under the Old Town!
They stepped through the mucky doorway, and stood on the rocky bank.
“Hello.”
They jumped in surprise. It was Lionel, the friendly troll.
“I’ve never seen anyone come out of there before…”
Lionel the troll, who looked a bit like a huge teddy bear and a bit like a lion and a bit like an ogre, was old friends with Helen and Jensen. You see, they’d been on adventure before.
“We’ve been in the dungeons!” said Jensen. “Do you know them?”
“I never go in there,” mumbled Lionel. “Not a place for Trolls. Leads to the big house.”
“To the castle, yes,” said Helen. “Come back with us, Lionel! We need to collect our bikes.”
“Me in the big house?” said Lionel. “They won’t be wanting trolls in there I wouldn’t wager.”
“Oh that’s silly!” said Jensen. “Lord and Lady Devonroe like everyone! Come back for lunch!”
“Me? Lunch? Lord and Lady? I don’t think so!” said Lionel.
Helen was tired of this. “Come on,” she said, taking his hand. “Come with us.”
Jensen and Helen led Lionel back through the small doorway and into the dungeons.
“Oh,” said Jensen. “Which is the way back?”
“Well don’t look at me,” said Lionel. “Not a place for trolls, this.”
“I have it!” said Helen. “We ran in a wild panic to get here. So let’s just run in a wild panic backwards.”
Lionel, Helen and Jensen did just that, running backwards from the slime and darkness and muck, until - just as she predicted - they were back under the trapdoor.
Coming up into the corridor, Lionel had never seen anything like it. And imagine what he thought of the dining room!
“You must come again one day, Lionel” said Lady Devonroe, passing him another blackcurrant sandwich made from the softest bread. “Isn’t that so, my dear?”
Lord Devonroe looked up from his sandwich that he was enjoying very much.
“What? Oh, quite so!! Good to hear about life outside of this old place, what?”
Lionel felt very welcome, and so he was. The first troll to sit at the golden table in Earnose Castle.
And from that day forth, whenever Helen and Jensen were on their way to play at the castle, they’d stop off by the Twisty Bridge and pick up their friend Lionel the troll.
But then, they made their way to the castle by road. The dungeons were… Well. They were for another time.
