How to Break an Evil Curse

by Laura Morrison

  “Let go of me!” he roared.

  “No way, man,” Bernard said. “There is something very off about you.”

  Corrine shot her dad a glare; if only he had listened to her back in the city, none of this would have ever happened.

  “I think it’s time we took you back to shore, Mr. Phelps,” said Bernard.

  “I think not,” Farland said, switching from Harpsichord Repairman Voice to his fancy Wizard Voice.

  Then, he disappeared in a big, smelly puff of smoke.

  In the following pandemonium, there was much cursing and stumbling, and a few cries of pain from Warren as people stepped on him. Farland, from where he’d reappeared on the opposite side of the door, listened to the chaos for a few moments with a smile. Then, he rummaged in his satchel. He opened the vial and the pouch, poured the asparagus powder into the spare vial, poured some orange liquid into the vial too, and then covered the vial with his thumb so the reaction wouldn’t start until he was ready for it. Once he heard things simmer down a bit inside, he opened the door and strode smirking into their baffled midst. “At last,” he said with glee. “After years of searching, I’ve found you.” He looked at a still coughing Warren, who was, of course, thoroughly confused.

  “Me? You’ve been looking for me for years?” Cough, cough. “You’ve made some sort of,” cough, “mistake,” cough, “fella.”

  “Nope, my boy. You meet every single one of the criteria I set out when planning the counter-curse. That means you are the counter-curse for the King’s firstborn child. And, further, that means you are coming with me!”

  Blank stares and coughs all around.

  “Um… No, I’m not… What?...” Warren stuttered as his parents both stepped in front of their son. Corrine began to ungracefully disentangle herself from the hammock in case she was needed.

  From where she hovered in the doorway, Jane got ready to pounce should she see an opportunity to grab the orange vial. All was still and silent for a few moments, except for a few scattered coughs.

  “You’re a dead man, my boy,” Farland cackled evilly.

  “!!!?” said Warren.

  His parents closed ranks tighter in front of their son.

  Farland laughed at their pathetic, common attempts to bar the way of one of the greatest wizards in the land. Then he gave the orange vial a quick shake, took a deep breath, and removed his finger from the top.

  A pop, a fizzle, and a little waft of lazy, purple smoke.

  When he had laughed maniacally and begun to shake the vial, everyone but Jane had instinctively shielded themselves from whatever it was that was about to happen. Then, they heard the telltale fizzle of a spell gone wrong, and slowly all turned to look at him with varying degrees of fear, anger, and confusion.

  “What in blazes is going on!?” Bernard roared, stepping forward with fists balled up.

  Farland was about to disappear when Jane knocked him over the head with Warren’s banjo case, which had been propped against the door frame.

  The wizard collapsed into a heap, but not before Jane swiped the vial out of his hand.

  Bernard walked over and gave him a shove with his toe.

  “Dad, I told you there was something weird about that guy!” Corrine said, pointing down at the unconscious Farland.

  “Honey, I know, I know…” he said, still looking down at Farland. “I’m sorry.” A long pause followed. “I don’t suppose there would be any use in tying him up? He can disappear.”

  “He’s some kind of wizard, right?” Warren asked, not really needing to hear the answer. Then he asked a very important and obvious question, and one which he was insulted that a family member hadn’t thought to ask first: “Why does he think he’s looking for me?”

  “That,” Emily said shakily, “is an excellent question.”

  “And he called me a dead man. Is there any other way to interpret that, or does he want to kill me?”

  “I think he wants to kill you,” Corrine agreed.

  “But—?” said Emily.

  “We have to get off this ship,” Bernard stated. “Fast. That guy is going to wake up and try to get Warren again, right?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “If he knows where to find Warren, he is going to just be able to appear any time he likes and get him,” Bernard said, not finding himself able to say the word “kill” in reference to his only son.

  Warren made to get to his feet, but Jane said, “Don’t. Your legs will be wobbly from your medicine.” She looked at this strange but somehow endearing family of traveling performers. “Okay. I have a plan.” She then explained to them what she thought Farland’s plans had been with the asparagus, and how they had only been foiled by her switching the asparagus powder for the clay powder. “We doctors use this orange stuff in conjunction with asparagus powder to keep patients unconscious during surgery. Judging by the amount I have here in this vial, I could probably keep him unconscious for about two days. That is plenty of time for you all to disappear into the city. How about I just keep him here until the medicine runs out? He can’t disappear if he’s unconscious.”

  “You would do that for us?” Emily whispered.

  “Sure,” said Jane. “You seem like really nice people, and you’ve gone to so much trouble to keep your son alive—I couldn’t possibly just stand by and watch this Farland guy carry out his plan.”

  “Well then, just drug him quick and come with us. That way by the time he figures out it was you who kept him on the ship, you’ll be long gone,” Corrine said.

  “I can’t go. The drug needs to be administered every three hours. And besides—” She had been about to mention that McManlyman wouldn’t let her go, but Bernard began to violently shake his head and then do a zipping motion across his lips.

  Jane gathered quickly that for some reason Bernard didn’t want her to mention that she was a captive on the ship. She shrugged and let her sentence die off awkwardly.

  “Besides what?” Warren asked, looking from his dad to Jane while he processed his confusion about their sudden weirdness. “Hey wait, what are you doing on this ship anyway, Doctor? My dad said he returned you to shore…”

  Bernard muttered, “Er, actually she is sort of–uh–a doctor on the ship now. Um, against her will.”

  “WHAT?” Warren exploded. “McManlyman is keeping you on this ship against your will?” He rocketed to his feet and flew to the door to do something well-intentioned but sure to end badly, but then the effects of the medicine he was taking for the pain made his legs go weak, and he crashed to the floor.

  Jane hurried to his side and carefully examined his arm, saying as she made sure he hadn’t damaged things again, “Look, don’t worry about it. Seriously, in a lot of ways things are better for me here than in the city.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Warren asked. “Like how?”

  “For one, I get regular meals. And the pirates appreciate what I do for them,” she said, intending to add more to the list, but those two things were all she could think of. She smiled weakly.

  “McManlyman is a big jerk,” Warren grumbled as Jane and Bernard helped him up and guided him back to where he had been resting. He settled down again amongst the pillows and quilts and sighed. “We’ve got to help her.”

  “Warren,” Corrine said hesitantly, “she’s in no immediate danger. You, on the other hand, are. The pirates need her. They’re not going to do anything to her.”

  “But it’s wrong! They can’t just take a lady captive!”

  “They didn’t take me captive because I’m a lady. They took me captive because I am a doctor. Don’t worry about me. You only have two days in which to get as far from this guy as you can,” she said, shoving the still-unconscious Farland with her foot. At her touch, he started to stir. She quickly crouched by him, took her real asparagus powder, knelt down, poured a bit of the liquid f
rom the vial into his mouth, and then shook some powder in. Farland relaxed and stilled.

  “But–but–you’re on this ship because of me!” Warren cried.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Jane insisted. “Seriously. This guy wants to kill you. Look, your family agrees with me, right?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “Okay, so if you don’t leave, and leave stat,” she said, throwing in some doctor lingo to sound more official, “I will drug you with enough of this stuff to keep you unconscious until you’re safely to shore,” she said, shaking the vial menacingly at him.

  He set his jaw angrily. “Fine. But once we’ve figured out what’s up with this fake harpsichord repairman, and once my arm is healed, we are coming back to rescue you.”

  Jane knew that, by the time those things had been accomplished, the ship would likely be back out on the open sea, but she said, “Whatever. Just grab your stuff and go. The clock is ticking.”

  Bernard, Emily, and Corrine set to work packing. Emily said as she worked, “What are you going to do when he wakes up here? He’ll be really mad at you, dear.”

  “Oh, right after I give him the last dose, I’ll just put him in a barrel or something and toss it in the sea. That’ll give him about three hours to drift away from the ship. Once he wakes up, he can just disappear out of the barrel and reappear somewhere safe.”

  That settled it. The plan sufficiently ironed out for the family who was now on the run from a vindictive wizard, they finished their packing and fled.

  At the last minute, Warren grabbed his banjo even though everyone pointed out it was silly because his arm was broken.

  * * *

  6In case you don’t recall, dear reader, in order for Warren to be the one who could break the curse, he needed (1) to have spent his whole life at sea, (2) to be part of a traveling theater troupe, (3) to play banjo, accordion, and harpsichord, and (4) to be allergic to asparagus. Farland knew he had (2) and (3), and he was pretty sure about (1). That left (4).

  Chapter Eleven

  Julianna and Dexter found their way to the edge of the castle grounds.

  “Right about here is where the passage used to be,” said Dexter as he scanned the tall stone wall. “See that orange star painted on the wall there? That star was a mark used by the resistance.”

  Julianna shuddered at the phrase “the resistance”, since, after all, it was her family who they were resisting. She looked where Dexter was pointing and, sure enough, there was a star about as big as her hand, the paint faded, peeling, and barely discernible through the gloom of the orchard. An orange circle was painted around the star.

  “So, where’s the tunnel then?” she asked, looking around eagerly. She’d never even considered the option of venturing out into the city until Dexter had mentioned it, but the more she thought about it, the more she liked the plan. She could use the opportunity to talk to come real live commoners, maybe! See how real people lived! And perhaps she could get a feel for what exactly it was that the populace was so unhappy about, so she could mention it to her dad and maybe he could try to fix things.

  “I don’t know, kid. Somewhere around the base of one of those trees over there,” he said, nodding straight out from the orange star. “Go stomp around and see what you can find.”

  “Okey dokey.” She walked over to one of the big, gnarled trees and gave the ground a good stomp. “I wish I’d been able to get some outdoorsy shoes,” she grumbled as a twig poked through her flimsy slipper. She tried the ground by another tree, then a third. At the base of the fourth tree, she stomped down and felt a hollow thunk. Julianna darted backward a few paces and started pushing leaves and dirt out of the way, soon revealing a small wooden door in the ground.

  “Looks like fairly new wood,” Dexter noted. “Must still be in use.”

  She swung it open without a word and jumped right in, down a well-worn slope that led to a tunnel much taller and wider than her escape tunnel, by the feel of it. She couldn’t see a thing. “How far does this go?” she asked as she inched forward, arms outstretched. This tunnel was so big she could stand up straight. Over the years, the people who had used it must have had ample time to make improvements.

  “Not too far. It ends in an alley just on the opposite side of the road that runs along the wall.”

  She walked cautiously on. “Did you use this tunnel when you were alive?”

  “Yep. I worked with some people on the inside who smuggled things out for me. Food, medicines, potions, some big-ticket items.”

  She found herself suddenly wondering why it was that they had never spoken about the specifics of all the shenanigans that Dexter had gotten up to before he had been imprisoned. “You did some pretty crazy stuff when you were alive, huh?”

  “Yeah,” he said with a reminiscent smile. “I was probably one of the few prisoners in the dungeon who actually deserved to be there.”

  “Did you ever—oh!” she broke off and said, “The tunnel’s going up!”

  “Don’t bump your head.”

  She proceeded carefully for a few more steps with her hands held above her head, then suddenly felt the rough wood of another trapdoor against her fingertips. “This is so cool!” she whispered over her shoulder to Dexter. Then, heart pounding, she took a deep breath and pushed the trapdoor up a crack, peeking out into a little slice of the real world for the first time in her life. She gasped and let the door drop again. “Dexter!”

  “What?” he asked with alarm at the tone of her voice.

  “Dexter! That is not an alley! That is a room! And I think I saw someone’s feet!” she whispered in a panicky voice as she began to back down the slope away from the door.

  “Did anyone see you?”

  “I don’t know!” she hissed.

  They heard muffled voices from above, and she began to scamper backwards with her eyes still on the trapdoor. “Why did you tell me that was an alley?” she said frantically.

  “Hey! Don’t blame me! Eighty-three years ago, it was an alley! How was I supposed to know someone had stuck a house or whatever up there? If you’ll recall, I was too busy being imprisoned by your ancestors, then tortured for years, then killed, to be keeping up with new construction projects in the city.”

  She had stopped listening to him, knowing that once he started ranting about injustice it could take a while. Instead, she was trying to make her way as fast as possible through the tunnel back the way she had come without running into anything or tripping. She was about halfway there when the trapdoor she was running from swung open and faint light shone down.

  “Who goes there?” barked a man’s voice.

  Julianna froze and said quietly, “Oh no, oh no, oh no,” as she hopped nervously in place.

  “Don’t panic,” Dexter said with a calm that only a dead, invisible person could have in such a situation. “Just tell them you’re a maid from the castle.”

  “Who goes there?” the guy asked again, this time with some annoyance. Legs appeared in the tunnel, then the torso and head of the legs’ owner. He was maybe sixty, with a long white beard and no hair at all on his head. Julianna noted that though he was pretty old7 he looked very tough. Julianna swallowed heavily. She glanced around the tunnel now that there was light and saw that it was lined with tidy rows of barrels, crates, and bags.

  Light fell on Julianna from the guy’s lantern. “Hi!” she said weakly and gave an awkward little wave.

  “Who in blazes are you?” he asked as he stomped over to her. “I’ve never seen you before.”

  ”J—J—Jennifer,” Julianna improvised. “I’m a maid,” she added, though it came out more as a question than as a statement of fact.

  The guy gave her a long, suspicious look, stepped a bit closer, and said, “Why so nervous, girlie?”

  “Umm.”

  Dexter said, “Tell him you want to help
them, but you’re just nervous because you’ve never done anything illegal before.”

  “I—er—I’ve never done anything illegal before, you see. I want to help though. I want to help you smuggle stuff.”

  “Who told you about this tunnel?”

  She toyed for a moment with giving the name of the guard she had heard complaining about her dad; but for one thing, this guy could easily check with the guard, who would deny any knowledge of Jennifer the maid, and for another thing, it was too big a leap to assume that just because the guard was complaining about the king that meant he was part of this smuggling thing. She was quiet long enough that Dexter opened his mouth to supply her with a story. But she cut him off with, “I was out a few nights ago and I saw someone sneaking into the orchard. I was curious, so I followed.”

  “Who? Who did you follow?” the guy snapped.

  “I don’t know. Whoever it was, he or she wore a hood. And I stayed far back.”

  “And why do you assume that we are a smuggling operation?” he grilled her.

  “Well… I’ve heard rumors around the castle about the smuggling,” she said, feeling her explanation was kind of weak, but trying not to let that feeling affect her delivery. “I guess I assumed. Because the person I saw was sneaking out in the middle of the night, and because this is a hidden tunnel.”

  He gave her a long, appraising look, and said at last, “I can’t let you through. Come back tomorrow night with something valuable. Prove yourself. Show me you’re brave enough to actually steal from the royal family. Because my first impression of you is that you are pretty wimpy.”

  She gave him a startled look. No flesh-and-blood person had ever been rude to her before. “Look here, sir, I am every bit as brave as any one of your other smugglers!”