How to Break an Evil Curse

by Laura Morrison

  “But I won’t be alone; I’ll have you, Dexter!” she said with a grin, trying to lighten the mood. Then she looked silently at their worried faces for a few moments and said, more subdued, “I have always wished I could do something with my life. You know that. I want to make some sort of difference. Now that I have an opportunity, I think I would rather get into some danger trying to fix the country than sit around down here until I’m an old lady doing nothing and mattering to no one.” A bit dramatic considering that she did have friends and family, but she was nineteen, so there you go.

  “No one but us,” Montague muttered, obviously hurt. It isn’t only nineteen-year-olds who have a tendency toward the dramatic.

  “Oh, Montague,” she sighed. He had a passive-aggressive streak that drove her crazy sometimes.

  He just gave her a gloomy look and floated away, muttering something about how unappreciated he was.

  Their goal of making her feel guilty had succeeded, but she still wasn’t guilty enough to change her plans.

  “Please just think about it,” Curtis suggested. “Talk to your parents and see if there’s something you can do to make a difference from down here.”

  “What, stuff some women’s rights bulletins for my mom? Respond to some angry letters?” she scoffed. “I’ve done that before.”

  “No... Nothing like that. Can’t hurt to ask, is all I’m saying...” But Curtis knew this was not an argument he was going to win. She had that beady glint in her eyes that told him words were pointless. “Just be careful out there.” And he floated off too.

  Julianna looked at Dexter, bracing herself for another attack.

  But he just said with a grin, “So I guess this means we’re going to have some adventures!” He had done his due diligence, he felt, in getting the other ghosts to try to talk her out of her crazy plan, and, now that they had failed, he felt at liberty to get excited about the fun to come.

  Once Charles and Myrtle had gotten over the shock of finding out that their daughter was being held captive by pirates, they were able to give Warren and his family some help in pointing them in the right direction in their quest to disappear into the city. Warren’s parents’ initial idea had been to find some old theater friends and see if he could stay with them, but Jane’s parents had pointed out that exploring potential leads from their past was probably one of the first avenues Farland would travel down in his search.

  They suggested instead that the family make use of Jane’s parents’ ties with the Women’s Rights movement and the rebels; Charles and Myrtle were part of a group of citizens who had, in the old days, hidden suspected witches and moved them from house to house until they were able to sneak them out of the city and into the comparative safety of the countryside; but now that witch burnings were no longer en vogue thanks to the Queen’s involvement in the cause, the families in this network and fallen into the general sphere of the revolutionaries who desired to hide people from the King’s army for one reason or another. Jane’s parents felt sure that their connections would be able to help Warren and his family disappear.

  “But first,” Myrtle had said, “I must tell you that there is an element of danger in this. These revolutionaries, they are, well... It’s not like it used to be. There are so many people now, and they have so many causes. And we don’t know everyone in the network anymore now that it has grown. So, we don’t know, of course, whether this Farland is friendly with any of them.”

  “But,” Charles had added, “We will try to make sure that you are only put in the homes of the Women’s Rights people who we know and trust.”

  They also, after much emotion, decided that it would be best to divide up the family, Bernard and Emily going to one house, and Warren and Corrine going to another, and then after sneaking them through a series of a dozen or so households, steering them all to a farm in the north of the city that was owned by friends of Jane’s parents. The whole process would take about a month, they figured, and the family was quite upset at the thought of being separated from each other for the first time. But they did see the logic in moving in pairs instead of in one group; Farland would be asking after a mother, father, sister, and brother, not an older couple and another separate younger couple.

  So, after a bit more planning and some second guessing, they at last set out again after a nice early lunch of grilled cheese and tomato soup, to start the ball rolling.

  The house where Bernard and Emily were to begin their journey was a large, grand place in a swanky part of town near the castle. Jane’s parents led them around to the servants’ entrance and asked that the maid who answered please take them to the butler. The maid led them wordlessly through a dark maze of cold basement hallways and into the butler’s office. He was at a table, polishing the silver, how butlers do.

  His wife, Fran, was the head cook, and had grown up with Jane’s mom; they had gone to school together as kids before Conroy’s father had decided to stop girls from going to school9. Myrtle’s and Fran’s parents had promptly formed an underground homeschool co-op and kept educating the kiddos.

  The butler looked up from his reflection in the shiny spoon he was working on and said, “Charles! Myrtle! What a pleasant surprise!” And he was on his feet and rushing to them, embracing them with unbutlerly bear hugs.

  “Hello, Alonzo,” Myrtle said with a smile. “I hope Fran is well? It’s been a while since I’ve heard from her.”

  “She’s well, but very busy. Poor thing’s been working night and day preparing for visitors. We’re having some lords and ladies coming in from the countryside to stay here for the start of the King’s hunting party.”

  “Hunting party?” Emily asked, more out of politeness than because she actually cared.

  The butler nodded. “In about a week, King Conroy is having a big hunting shindig to mark Prince Conroy Jr.’s first hunt. A very big deal.”

  Jane’s dad, Charles, added with a nod, “All the lords and rich folks and the best hunters across the land will be coming. I’ve heard it’s going to be quite an event!”

  Myrtle asked the butler, “You must be pretty busy as well?”

  “Indeed, indeed. So many guests and meals ahead; haven’t had so much silverware to polish since the coronation. And this is the fancy stuff with all the detaily doodads on the handles.”

  He held up a spoon for all to see.

  It did, indeed, have many detaily doodads on the handle.

  The butler elaborated, “Gotta get into all those darn little crevices.”

  “Have you tried using a toothpick with a handkerchief over the tip?” asked Myrtle.

  “Ooh that’s a good—”

  Charles cut in. “We’re not actually on a social call, Alonzo. These people are in need of some help.” He indicated Warren and his family, who were standing awkwardly in the doorway. He briefly explained their circumstances (giving as few details as possible) and said, “Perhaps you could arrange with the Harrington’s to take them in next?”

  “Yes. An excellent plan,” Alonzo said, suddenly businesslike. “Yes.”

  “All right, then I think we had better get going,” Myrtle said to Warren and Corrine.

  Bernard and Emily hugged and kissed their kids goodbye and there was a whirlwind of, “It’ll only be a few weeks,” and, “I’m sure everything will turn out fine,” and, “safe travels,” and other such phrases loved ones say when parting ways. Then they hugged a bit more and walked off, all with tearful eyes, but all trying to appear brave for the sake of everyone else.

  * * *

  9The smarter girls got, the tougher it got for guys who didn’t want to compete for jobs or do their own cleaning and cooking.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Warren trudged along behind Jane’s parents, finding, now that he was separated from his parents, that things seemed a lot more serious. He didn’t like it one bit. Yes, he was 21 a
nd plenty old enough to take care of himself, but, all the same, this was the first time he’d been away from his parents before and he was feeling apprehensive about what was to come. At least he had Corrine, and though she was likely to roll her eyes at him and call him stupid more than a few times before their adventure was through, he was still glad to have her and her level head with him.

  She looped an arm through his and said, “Mom and Dad will be fine, you know.”

  He nodded. “I know. They’re not the ones that crazy wizard dude is after.”

  “Well, we’ll be fine, too,” she added, as they walked out onto the sidewalk. “This plan makes sense, don’t you think?”

  He nodded again. “Yeah, it does... But I just can’t imagine it’ll really work out that smoothly.”

  “You’re only thinking that way because you’re always reading those adventure books.”

  “How can you say that when you write plays and poetry for a living?”

  “Making plays and reading plays are vastly different things.”

  “I doubt—”

  “Ooh! I recognize this neighborhood!” Corrine cut in. As she’d been talking, she had been studying the area they were walking through with a rising certainty that she’d been there before. “Yes, this is the weaving district.”

  Warren perked up upon hearing this. “Isn’t that where this Farland character lives?”

  Corrine nodded enthusiastically, reading her brother’s mind. “Let’s go check out that harpsichord store!”

  Charles and Myrtle turned around and stopped in their tracks. “What?” Charles asked.

  “We’ll just poke around a bit,” Warren said. “I’m not saying let’s break in or anything. Just peek through the windows and see if we can see anything that gives us a better idea of what is going on,” he said lamely. Secretly, though, he wasn’t discounting the possibility of breaking in. Where was the danger if Jane was keeping the wizard in a drugged state of unconsciousness on the pirate ship way out in the Bay of Fritillary?

  “We really, really should get you two into hiding as fast as we can,” Myrtle pointed out.

  “I have to do this,” Warren said. “We’ll just pop over and peek around for a few minutes. It can’t hurt. And it might even end up being helpful. If we can learn anything about this wizard, that is. We might find out something useful about the guy who’s hunting me down.”

  “Hmph,” Charles said, filling the sound with as much doubt as one syllable could possibly be filled with. In the end, the siblings wouldn’t be swayed, and Charles and Myrtle decided that if time was going to be wasted either way, it was better wasted casing Farland’s joint than arguing about how much time they were wasting.

  Corrine led the way to Farland’s place.

  When Warren saw the building Farland was renting in, he had to admit he was a tad disappointed. He would have preferred his nemesis (for, pretentious though it was for him to fancy himself worthy of a genuine nemesis, he couldn’t help but think of Farland as his nemesis) to have a more impressive base of operations. “What a lame place for an evil wizard,” Warren muttered, eyeing the plain old nondescript building and the trio of pigeons bustling around busily in the muck at his feet. The sound of a baby crying could be heard through the open window of the upstairs rooms. The scene was downright humdrum.

  Warren sighed and followed Corrine to Farland’s door. Corrine had just noticed the harpsichord repair sign that had been hastily stuck on the door with poster putty was now lying face-down in the muck of the street. In the place where it had hung, she saw the much more official placard that it had been covering; it was made of polished wood and had swoopy gold lettering that read: “Farland Phelps. Evil Wizard for Hire.” In smaller print below that was: “No job too unethical!” Warren and Corrine exchanged looks at this. Warren tried the doorknob. Locked. He gave it a shake just to be sure. Still locked.

  “Let’s peek through the front window,” Corrine said. “It’s really dirty, but we might be able to see something.”

  Just then, the door to the tailor’s shop to the right of Farland’s door opened, and a little old lady walked out. They took her for a tailor, for she had a tape measure tied loosely around her waist. Just as she was about to lock her door, she saw the siblings standing in front of the wizard’s door and said, “Good day, children! I’m afraid the wizard is out. He hasn’t been home for a day or two now.”

  “What a shame,” Warren said with manufactured disappointment.

  “Were you hoping to buy a spell?” she asked. “I could point you in the direction of a few other wizards who might be able to help you out. No one as good as dear Farland, of course, but if it’s urgent…?” she inquired with obvious curiosity.

  “Oh no, nothing like that,” Corrine said. “You say Farland is a good wizard?”

  “Oh yes, very good. He helped me out with a spot of trouble with someone who—” she stopped short and giggled. “Oh, I am always forgetting, I’m not supposed to talk about it! Word might get around about who was responsible for the ‘accident’,” she said, doing air quotes when she said accident, “and that’s the last thing I want!”

  Warren felt a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. This seemingly nice old lady had had Farland do some sort of spell for her which had resulted in a nasty ‘accident’10.

  “Wow, he sounds great,” Corrine said, not too convincingly, but the old lady didn’t seem to notice.

  “Yes, he is. A great neighbor. Really a sweetheart. He even feeds my cat when I’m out of town, and in return I water his fern when he’s traveling. Not often these days that you find a neighbor who will help you out like that.”

  “He sounds swell,” Warren said, but he wasn’t really listening anymore. If this old lady watered Farland’s fern when he was traveling, did that mean she had a key to his apartment? He was pretty sure she hadn’t locked her front door yet, and he wanted to make sure now that she didn’t do it at all. So he could break into her house and steal the key, you see. He needed to distract her and make her forget to lock her door.

  “Listen, are you going to the market?” Warren asked, hoping he hadn’t changed subjects too fast. His guess of the market was fairly obvious, since she had an empty basket hanging over her arm.

  “Yes, I am. Why do you ask, lad?”

  “Well, since the wizard isn’t here, there are a few things I need that I might as well pick up while I wait.” He hoped Corrine would keep her mouth shut, but didn’t dare send her any significant looks, since the old lady was looking right at him. “Would you like some company?”

  “Why, thank you! That would be mighty kind, lad. The streets these past few days have been a bit crowded for one lonely old lady. And more hooligans are out than usual—everyone is so excited about the King’s big hunting party.” The old lady shifted her gaze from Warren to somewhere off down the street as she launched into a monologue about the impending hunt, and how kids these days weren’t the same as they used to be, and neither were parents, and neither was society, and the whole of Fritillary was going down the tubes. Except Fritillary didn’t have plumbing, so that expression didn’t make sense. But the siblings weren’t listening anyway, so they weren’t confused.

  “Mmm,” Warren said to the old lady, while meeting Corrine’s eyes and trying hard to give his sister a look that said, “Trust me.”

  Corrine looked confusedly at Warren, who was raising an eyebrow in a funny way and widening his eyes and obviously trying to tell her something without using words. Something that would explain why, when they were in a big hurry, he was, out of the blue, offering to walk a vaguely creepy old lady to the market. There was no way Corrine was in the mood to waste energy trying to decipher his expression, so she just waved a dismissive hand at him, and said, “You’d better get going to buy all that market stuff.”

  As Warren walked off with the tailor, Corrine gave Charle
s and Myrtle a shrug and came to join them where they had been waiting impatiently on a bench across the street from Farland’s apartment. They all watched Warren and the old lady disappear around the corner at the end of the cul-de-sac, then Corrine sat down beside them to wait, since there was really nothing else that she could do. However, Corrine had no sooner started to explain to Charles and Myrtle that she was just as in the dark as they were, when Warren appeared again around the corner at the end of the road, alone this time and walking fast.

  “Warren? What is up with you?” Corrine said as he joined them.

  Warren explained as quickly as he could about the key, and he and his sister went over to the tailor’s door while Charles and Myrtle remained on the bench, now taking on the role of lookouts in addition to that of impatient guides. Warren took a deep breath and tried the old lady’s door. It swung open.

  “Nice!” said Corrine, and rushed in. “Okay, so we’re looking for a key.” At a glance, she took in the shelves of fabric and the little drawers that Warren was already opening, which held all sorts of bobbins sporting threads of every color under the sun. She watched him ransack for a few moments while she thought strategy. Then she said, “Don’t bother with those threads, Warren. People always have a drawer or a box or something where they put their random stuff. That’s what we need to look for.”

  “Good sleuthing!” he said.

  Then, he and Corrine began searching for the tailor’s stash of randomness. Before too long, they found it in a woven basket on top of a bookshelf. Hiding beneath a cluster of paperclips all linked together, a pocketknife, and a slew of broken pencils, Warren found a heavy iron key with a skull on it. “This has to be it,” he said with confidence. “I mean, look at this thing. It screams evil wizard. Just look at those tiny red stones in its angry little eyes.”

  “Quit speculating and try it out.”

  Warren put the basket back on the bookshelf and took the creepy key outside, then put it in Farland’s lock, turned it, and heard a click. It worked. He felt a chill and a moment of hesitation—this had suddenly become pretty intense. Did evil wizards have apartments riddled with booby-traps? But he couldn’t walk away now that he was this close.