“Great,” he said after a while. “This is great fun. Kid, get up and climb this cliff. It’s not too steep over to the left. Just climb on up to the base of the castle’s foundation over there and let’s see where that takes us. The ground’s bound to level off somewhere up near the base of the castle.”
Julianna looked at the castle towering above her, seeing for the first time the home she’d lived in her whole life. There was quite a bit of cliff to scramble up before she got to the foundation of the building, but she knew from studying maps of the grounds that, once she did manage to get to the top of the cliff, she could make her way to the left and end up in the gardens, where there were hopefully lots of hiding places amongst the shrubberies.
It was lucky that one of the moons was almost full, otherwise she’d never have been able to manage the climb. But after many a stumble and a few very close calls, she and Dexter finally emerged victorious from the edge of the cliff and stepped into the garden.
The Royal Gardener was, of course, awesome at his trade—the most awesome in all the land!—so Julianna’s first glimpse of real live plants that weren’t the sickly, sun-deprived potted ones in her dungeon was almost more beauty than she could process. She stared and stared and stared. Huge, colorful flowers, tiny colorful flowers, medium colorful flowers. Shrubs trained to grow in all sorts of wacky shapes. Trees everywhere. She went up to one little gnarly one with big, rounded leaves and touched its bark, staring up into its leafy shades with awe.
“Geez, you’re seriously going to spend your first night out of the dungeon staring at the sky and petting plants?” Dexter moaned from beside her. “This whole kingdom is chock full of trees. No matter where we go tonight, one thing you can count on is that there will be trees.”
“Simmer down, grouch. This tree is so pretty!” she said as she felt the rough, bumpy bark beneath her fingers. “Don’t worry, I’ll get moving soon, but do give me a few minutes of quiet. Or I’ll drop your brick right here at the base of this lovely little tree and leave you to get to know it for a few weeks.”
“You wouldn’t,” he said, but gave her the quiet she requested all the same, watching her as she left the tree behind and meandered down a dirt path. He had to keep reminding himself that, as much as he would have liked to just leave the castle forever and go exploring the city and the villages beyond, that was out of the question; the farthest they would be going was to the orchards on the outskirts of the ornamental garden—any further was too much of a risk because of that accursed curse. No matter how uneventful this night seemed to him though, he knew at least she’d be thrilled no matter how little they did, since however small it was, it was all new to her.
Dexter sighed a resigned sigh as he saw Julianna bend down in the path with a look of delight on her face, reach down, and pop up holding a worm. Meeting his eyes, she pointed at the worm with an enthusiastic grin. It was a very good thing no one was around, because she looked insane, especially since she was the only one who could see him.
“Simmer down, princess,” he said and floated over to where she stood letting the worm slide around her fingers. “You look like a lunatic. Don’t assume no one will be in the gardens at night.”
As if on cue, they heard footsteps from the other side of a big bush. She dropped the worm and dove into a shrub on the side of the path. It was two guards, and as they walked by her hiding spot she heard, “—they don’t understand the conditions the people really are living in! They’re so out-of-touch!” The guard spoke with all the conviction of a ranting revolutionary.
“Keep it down, Larry. Geez Louise, you want to get overheard talking like that on the castle grounds?”
“I’m just so fed up with it!” Larry said, but more quietly. “I mean, I go visit my parents on days off, and I see how—” and they walked out of earshot. But Julianna got the gist of the conversation. She had already gathered long ago that the populace was getting pretty unhappy with how her dad was running things, but it was still especially disconcerting to find that the very men who were hired to guard the castle were talking about what a bad job he was doing.
She emerged from her shrub, feeling significantly less jolly than she had when she’d dived into it moments earlier. She looked at Dexter with unease but didn’t say anything. For one thing, there was nothing to say anyway since he was every bit as in the dark about current events as she was. But also, even though Dexter liked her personally, he did not like royalty generally. Not at all. She had heard him ranting to Curtis so often about The Man that she knew he would side with that guard if she tried to talk about what they’d overheard. So, she kept her worries to herself and walked on silently, picking leaves out of her hair.
“Let’s go to the orchard,” he suggested mildly, watching her with concern. It was a shame she’d had to hear that and have her first night out clouded with apprehension. Maybe he could find some sort of little adventure for her to take her mind off of things.
In his flesh-and-blood life as a ruffian, Dexter had known of a hidden tunnel under the wall behind the orchard where people working in the castle had smuggled things in and out. Granted, it had been 83 years ago and the tunnel could have been found and filled in long ago, but it was worth a try.
Getting out and exploring the city was just the thing Julianna needed; all this quiet and moonlight and nature were too conducive to deep thought and the pondering of life.
Right about the time Julianna had been sitting down for dinner, Farland had at long last been stepping into the presence of the boy who could break the curse. Bernard, Corrine, and Farland had paddled out to the pirate ship and boarded, then Corrine had rushed off to update Warren.
Meanwhile, Bernard and Farland walked through the swarms of industrious pirates doing repair work to the ship and made their way to the harpsichord in the Captain’s quarters. Farland had looked at it for a few moments and then said to Bernard, “What I really need to do in order to understand this instrument better is to talk to your son.”
“Why?” Bernard asked. “I mean, the lid is bashed in and a few keys are knocked off. Isn’t that all kinda straightforward?”
Farland looked at Bernard witheringly. “You, sir, are no musician?” Of course, the real reason Farland wanted to talk to Warren was not to gain greater insights into the harpsichord/player bond, but to make completely certain that Warren was the boy he was seeking out to kidnap and eliminate.
“No,” Bernard said sheepishly. “No, I am not a musician.”
“Then there is no point trying to explain.”
“Right,” Bernard mumbled. “This way.”
As they walked, Farland reached into his satchel and felt around to make sure he had what he needed. There was the vial which he knew without looking held an orange liquid which, when combined with powdered asparagus tips, would create a gas that would knock unconscious anyone within a twenty-foot radius who wasn’t holding their breath. It was Farland’s plan to simply go into the room Warren was in, ask a few questions of the lad, and then hold his breath and mix the contents of the vial with the little packet of powdered asparagus tips he’d brought; everyone else would collapse to the floor and he’d disappear in a puff of smoke with this Warren.
But there was a problem. His hand searched around his satchel, but he couldn’t feel the pouch of powdered asparagus tips. “Confound it!” he breathed and stopped in his tracks, peering into the satchel but not seeing the asparagus. He did, however, see a little hole in the satchel’s corner. “Con-dratted-found it!” he roared.
Bernard turned and asked, “Is something wrong?”
“Yes, something is wrong!” Farland said. “Something very important has fallen out of my satchel!”
“Oh?” Bernard asked, backtracking and scanning the ground they’d just walked across. “What is it?”
“It’s a very important constituent element for my—er—harpsichord, um… cream. Yes, m
y harpsichord cream.” Farland winced inwardly at his clumsy save; he really should have done a bit of harpsichord research before getting into this.
But to Farland’s relief, Bernard didn’t find the idea of harpsichord cream suspicious, apparently, for he just said, “Well, you are going to have to go back to the mainland for your tools anyway, so you can just bring some of this cream when you return, right?”
Farland heaved a sigh. This plan was going to take all stinking day to carry out at the rate it was going. “Do you have a doctor on this ship?” he asked. “A doctor might have the ingredient I need.” In the Land of Fritillary, the line between doctors and magicians was quite blurred. There were a few things doctors did that magicians didn’t (surgery, for instance), and a few things magicians did that doctors didn’t (like disappearing and reappearing somewhere else), but most of what they both did was actually more chemistry than anything—taking the same ingredients and mixing them up, just sometimes mixing in different ways for different end goals. Also, doctors were more progressive and tended toward science and reason, whereas magicians were more traditional, believing in the old ways and in supernatural explanations.
“Yup, we’ve got a doctor. I’ll take you right over to the infirmary. Hopefully they’ve got what you need.”
Bernard led Farland to visit Doc Brock and Jane.
Chapter Ten
Jane and Doc Brock were both in the infirmary when Bernard and Farland came in to ask for some powdered asparagus tips. Very soon after Jane had been thrown in the brig, she had begun to see her situation from a different perspective; resisting her capture had seemed like the appropriate decision at the time, but once the heat of the moment had cooled down a bit and she’d found herself stuck down in the bowels of the ship with three wounded pirates writhing around in agony on the filthy floor at her feet, with horrible lighting and no one to lend her a hand, she decided pretty quickly that it was time to set aside her righteous indignation about her treatment. Just because one doesn’t like the facts, doesn’t make the facts go away, and the fact was that she was stuck on this pirate ship whether she wanted to be or not.
If she just accepted it and got on with things, then at least she could be a captive in nicer surroundings. She could also have a better chance of patching up the pirates without them getting any number of disgusting infections one would expect to contract when lying with open wounds on a floor coated in rat droppings.
Not that the pirates deserved patching up.
She’d sent word to McManlyman that she was ready to accept her situation if he’d let her go up and work in the infirmary. He’d agreed and let her leave the brig, but not before throwing in an irritating jab about how he’d known the whole time that this was exactly how things were going to shake out in the end.
Into the infirmary traipsed Farland. He sleazed without preamble, “Asparagus tips! Have you any powdered asparagus tips?”
Jane looked up with surprise from the salty sea dog she was tending to. “Excuse me?” she asked. “What do you need powdered asparagus tips for?” Who was this stranger to come barging in here demanding she hand over one of the most potent ingredients in her cupboards? She wasn’t about to start doling out asparagus without having a good reason.
“Sure. It’s in the cupboard somewhere,” Doc Brock said from where he was sitting in the corner, doing a very sloppy job of wrapping bandages—a task Jane had assigned him shortly after joining him to work in the infirmary. It hadn’t taken her long to discover that he was not a real doctor at all. He had taken his demotion quite happily since he had never wanted to be a doctor in the first place.
Farland, who was absentmindedly fiddling around with the orange vial that was so important to his plan, gave her a contemptuous look. “Don’t trouble your head with why I need it, little lady,” he said dismissively. Then to the Doc Brock he said, “Many thanks, sir” and made his way toward the cupboard.
“Here, let me get it for you,” Jane said quickly and darted to the cupboard before Farland had taken two steps. She had seen that vial in his hand. She had seen the thick, orange liquid within it. In medical circles, that orange substance was mixed in very small quantities with powdered asparagus tips to knock patients out for surgery; she had no idea what this guy could possibly be planning to do with such a large amount of the liquid, but one thing she did know was that he was not going to get his hands on any asparagus if she could help it.
However, if she could just get her hands on that vial of his, then she could use it herself to escape! Jane was somewhat alarmed at how quickly her brain had made this leap, but if she could just get that vial, then she herself could mix it with powdered asparagus tips when she was in close proximity to the pirates (maybe when they were all gathered in the dining room for brunch the following morning) and then she could hold her breath, mix the two ingredients, and there would certainly be enough gas released from the reaction to render them all unconscious. Freedom!
Jane looked suspiciously over her shoulder at Farland. That must be what he was planning—to knock out a room full of people! But why?
“What brings you to the ship?” she asked Farland, trying for mild curiosity.
“I’m here to meet with this man’s son,” the wizard disguised as a harpsichord repairman said irritably, then added, “Oh, and to fix a harpsichord, too. Now get on with it, nurse. The asparagus!”
If she had thought Farland’s intended victims were the pirates, she probably would have just handed over a pouch of asparagus and stood back to watch what unfolded, ready to jump ship at a moment’s notice. But it looked as though his target was not the pirates but Warren. Which made no sense at all.
Jane ignored his rudeness as she pretended to search through the cupboard. “Powdered asparagus tips for harpsichord repair? Well fancy that!” She figured it would be best to play the vacuous stereotype he obviously thought her, and not to inform him that she was a doctor; if he found out her true profession, he might realize she had the knowledge to be aware of what the orange liquid in that vial could do when mixed with the powder. The last thing she wanted was for him to put his guard up.
“It’s for some cream,” Bernard supplied when Farland didn’t respond.
Some cream? Suspicious… At last she found what she had been searching for: a powdery green clay that, when mixed with water, was used to cover burns. Being lighter in color than the asparagus, it was not a perfect match, but certainly passable; anyway, it would easily convince anyone who had no reason to be suspicious. She emptied a bit of it from its storage jar into a little black pouch, then pulled the drawstring tight and turned, saying, “Here you go! I hear that stuff is pretty expensive, so don’t waste it!”
“Oh, fear not, I’ll be putting it to good use,” he said with a sleazy cackle that was quite excessive for the situation. Then he snatched the pouch out of her hand and clutched it tightly in his fist.
Bernard thanked her for her help, and they left.
“Brock,” Jane said to her assistant, “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Grabbing some real powdered asparagus tips from the cupboard, she sneaked after them, not about to let that orange vial out of her sight.
Warren was curled up in his nest of blankets on the floor resting when his father, his doctor, and his maybe-kidnapper/murderer strolled in. He had been having a quality chat with his sister, who had been filling him in about what a creepy weirdo this harpsichord repairman seemed to be, so Warren was already on guard. Upon hearing footsteps approaching, Corrine had grabbed her notepad and retreated to her hammock, trying to look as though she’d been working industriously on her latest play. She gave Farland a wary glance when he sleazed into the room, and he looked suspiciously from her to her brother and back again. But he merely said, “Why hello, lad. My name is Farland Phelps, and I fix harpsichords.”
“Thank you for making the trip out to the ship,” Warren said.
“Before I get down to business with the instrument, I need to know a bit about you6. The, er, repair stuff I use has powdered asparagus tips in it,” he said, waving the packet he’d received from Jane about as proof. “I need to, um, know if you have any asparagus allergies, because you might not be able to touch the harpsichord if it has this asparagus cream on it.” This was the first time in this whole endeavor that he’d had to talk to someone who actually knew about harpsichords, and he was suddenly painfully aware of how lame his story was. Asparagus cream for a harpsichord? Why hadn’t he given any time to thinking up a believable story? Why?
He grimaced as Warren gave him a confused, disbelieving look. “Asparagus cream for a harpsichord?”
“Yes,” Farland plodded on, because what else could he do? “It’s a new thing. You may not have heard of it if you’ve been out here on the seas for a long time. Your harpsichord care tools may be out-of-date.”
“Well, we have been out on the seas for a long time. My whole life in fact—” (A-ha! That was (1) confirmed!) “—but I get Harpsichord Quarterly delivered to the ship by carrier petrel, and I’ve never heard of harpsichord cream.”
Farland was so close. So close to getting the information he needed. “Are you allergic to asparagus?!” he cried. “ARE YOU!?” And he opened the pouch, took a pinch of the powder out of the bag, and rushed at Warren in a crazy whirl of black cloak and rage.
“Arg!” Warren cried, trying to both protect his broken arm from this madman and cover himself with a quilt to keep the asparagus powder off. “Don’t get that stuff on me! It’ll make me itch like crazy!”
Bernard, Jane, and Emily had all, after a few moments of utter shock at this turn of events, leapt forward to grab and subdue Farland. Corrine would have helped too, but she was in her hammock and was no good at extricating herself from the thing in a hurry. So, she just stared with amazed confusion. They pulled Farland away from Warren, which wasn’t too difficult because he was done flipping out now that he had at last figured out that Warren was indeed allergic to asparagus.
How to Break an Evil Curse Page 10