How to Break an Evil Curse

by Laura Morrison

  With all the confidence of a person who doesn’t care about anyone but herself, she swooped out into the midst of all the partying and realized that this was going to be even easier than she’d thought it would be. Because of course, upon seeing her, everyone present collapsed into a bow or a curtsy, and they didn’t rise until she told them to.

  So, she just didn’t tell them to.

  She merely said in as pleasant a tone as she could manage, “Has anyone seen my son?” and swooped through the midst of all the lords and ladies who had come to the hunt.

  Someone said from behind her, “He’s in his tent, Your Majesty.”

  “Summon him. Tell him I must speak to him,” she said in what she hoped was a flighty sort of voice. “Please.” Then she added after scanning the camp, “I’ll be over there by those tables.” There was a group of picnic tables on the edge of the camp. From there, she would hopefully be able to sneak off with the child into the forest without too much trouble.

  She then told everyone to stop bowing, and walked off to the picnic tables to wait for Conroy Jr.

  Julianna, Warren, Corrine, and Copernicus were making good time, but they had a bit of distance yet to cover before they arrived at the King Moltar Wildlife Refuge.

  “We’re nearly there,” Copernicus announced. They had just passed an intersection that had one of those posts with a slew of arrows pointing down the roads saying how far it was to this or that village; one of the arrows had proclaimed that the refuge was two miles away. Julianna was glad they were near the end of their journey, because sunrise was only about two hours off. They had just enough time to notify people of Conroy Jr.’s danger and then backtrack to a little inn a few miles back where she could hole up for the day.

  “Okay, so when we get there, you guys just go and tell some soldiers, right?” Warren asked Corrine. She and Copernicus were going to go to the campsite to get word to the King and Queen while Warren and Julianna were going to hop off near the refuge and wait. They didn’t want to be spotted, trapped, and forced to get married.

  “That’s the plan,” Corrine said uncertainly. “But what if they don’t take us seriously?”

  “Then you come get me,” Julianna said. “They’ll believe if I tell them. But I’d rather try with you guys first. Once my parents see me, they’re not going to let me out of their sight again.”

  They covered the last few miles in pretty good time, and right about the same time Mirabella was settling down at the picnic tables to wait for Conroy Jr., Copernicus stopped the wagon so that Julianna and Warren could hop off and hide about a quarter mile from the edge of the refuge. From that distance they could make out the glow of the fires from the hunting party and even hear a bit of the carousing.

  Julianna and Warren watched the wagon roll off, then sat down on a nearby log and waited. Though they were so close and she knew that soldiers would be telling her parents in a matter of minutes, she still couldn’t keep from fidgeting.

  “He’ll be fine,” Warren said, patting her arm.

  “I know,” she said, then added, “I should just have gone and told them myself.”

  “No,” he said firmly. “No, there’s no reason for you to go risking your freedom to deliver the same message that Corrine and Copernicus can deliver just as well. Plus, if they see you, they may well assume I must be nearby. They’d track me down and then I’d be trapped too, and then before we know what’s up, we’d be married. You’d be Mrs. Warren Kensington,” he joked as he packed away his banjo.

  “I think you’d actually be Mr. Julianna Fritillary,” she corrected him, then lapsed into a thoughtful silence. “Which reminds me…I’ve been having some inconvenient thoughts lately. What if we should get married?”

  He somehow managed to choke and splutter even though he hadn’t even been eating or drinking anything. “What now?” he managed. She had just taken a simple little playful comment of his and turned it around in a manner most alarming. This was not where he’d been expecting the conversation to go.

  She patted him on the back like people do when someone’s coughing even though it does no good, and then she said apologetically, “Well, I’ve been thinking a lot about this. That you’d be pretty good at it. Being royal, I mean. Not being my husband.”

  He hacked a bit more, and then managed, “No, I most certainly would not. To either.”

  “You would, though. You care about people. You would consider the populace, not how decisions you make might inconvenience you.”

  “So what? With you and Conroy Jr. at the castle there’ll be plenty of reasonable folks running the show before too long. You don’t need me there as well.”

  “And what if it really does break my curse if we get married?” she asked then, bringing up the selfish aspect of her line of reasoning.

  “But it won’t!” he said nervously. “We’re not in love!” He then looked at her with apprehension; had she somehow fallen for him during the course of this adventure? He wouldn’t have thought it would be possible, the way he’d been lumbering about all out of his element and constantly getting injured. But then there was no way of knowing what she might like in a guy.

  He was quite relieved when she said, “True. But what if my mom’s right? What if we were to fall in love later? I mean, you’re a nice guy. There’s nothing about you that I don’t like.”

  He scoffed and said, “The longer we were married the more you’d realize that that’s just because you don’t know me too well right now.”

  “Warren, are you even giving this any thought at all? Try to think of it not from a personal perspective but from the perspective of someone making a decision for the good of the Kingdom.”

  “You’re a princess. You can think better in those terms. I’m a commoner, and when I think of marriage I think of love.”

  “Don’t you feel some sort of… fondness or something though?”

  “I think that just means we’re friends.”

  She sighed and pushed at the ground with her foot. Friends was nice; she’d never had a live one of those before. “Okay, okay. I didn’t really think you’d think it was a good idea. But I had to mention it anyway.”

  He was quiet for a few moments, watching her kick at the dirt. “Once all this is over—once your brother is safe and Farland’s not trying to kill me—we could always just sort of see what happens? There’s no rush. You never know.”

  She cast a glance his way and said, “But you don’t want to marry into royalty.”

  “True. But, I mean, let’s just keep being friends. Not leap into marriage right away hoping for a quick fix. That’s a huge gamble. But I guess it is possible we might fall in love later. Right?”

  “Sure, I guess. It’s not like I’ve got some other guy waiting in the wings. And you’re single, yes?”

  “Yep. The pirates were all dudes, and I’m not into dudes. I’ve actually never been in a relationship.”

  “Thanks, Warren. This is really weird. Thanks for offering.”

  He shrugged. “No problem. Can’t hurt.”

  “I guess.” Then she said abruptly, “Let’s talk about something else.”

  He gave a relieved laugh, and said, “So we’re done with that for now?”

  “Yes, we’re—” she said and then trailed off, staring with sudden fear toward the refuge.

  Warren followed her gaze, and saw a wagon heading toward them. Fast. It was Copernicus and Corrine, and they were in a big hurry.

  Julianna stood up and began to run toward them.

  Warren followed a few paces behind.

  Copernicus stopped the wagon and said urgently, “Get on. Your brother’s already gone. He was there a few minutes ago, but now no one can find him. Some soldiers said he went for a walk with the Queen.”

  Chapter Forty-one

  “Mirabella,” Julianna breathed and hopped onto the wagon.
“It must have been my aunt disguised as my mom.” That brought up the question of what had happened to her mother, but she could only worry about one family member at a time.

  Once they were all on the wagon, Copernicus turned around and headed back for the refuge.

  “We’ll help search,” Corrine said. “Mirabella might not have met up with Farland yet. Our best chance is to somehow find Farland before Mirabella gets to him.”

  Copernicus drove the wagon to the edge of the refuge and then turned off the road and drove as fast as he could over the field in the direction that the soldiers had indicated Mirabella had disappeared with Conroy Jr.

  As Copernicus drove, Warren pulled out the vial of magical raven blood and asked, “Do you have any ideas?”

  The vial was silent.

  “Any ideas would be very helpful right now,” Warren yelled at the vial.

  You talking to me, bro? squawked the voice in Warren’s head.

  “Yes. Yes, I am,” Warren snapped.

  Dude, how was I supposed to know?

  “Sorry. Geez. Do you have any ideas that might help us right now?”

  I don’t even know what’s going on. It’s all muffled and rustley in your pocket.

  Warren quickly got the vial of magical raven blood up to speed.

  Oh, wow. Tough break, it croaked. Um. Um. Hmm… Let me think here…

  Warren sighed and tapped his foot, staring at the vial.

  Okay. I think I remember something. Farland was always walking around talking to himself about his plots and plans. I think I remember him saying something about meeting up with Mirabella by the water after she got the kid. Unless that was some other plot. I lose track. There are so many.

  “By the water?” Warren asked. “That’s vague.”

  That’s what I’ve got. Sorry I can’t be more help, the magical pool of raven blood squawked.

  Warren shoved the vial into his pocket and looked up at his pals. “Here’s the deal. Mirabella might be meeting Farland by some water. Maybe.”

  Julianna looked like she wanted to cry.

  “I know. I’m sorry,” he said apologetically, reaching out and patting her hand. “It’s not much.”

  Warren then asked Julianna and Copper, “Have either of you ever been to this refuge before?” He had a pretty good guess that the answer was no, but it would be nice if someone in the group had some sort of idea of the lay of the land. Lakes, rivers, ponds, etc.

  Julianna said shortly, “Of course not. I’m cursed.”

  Copernicus shook his head. “We couldn’t afford vacations.”

  “Okay,” Warren said, and took a deep breath. “Well. Um. We’re going downhill right now; that has to be a good sign, yeah?”

  “Probably,” Julianna agreed. It did seem logical that bodies of water might be more inclined to be in lower elevations. “So, let’s keep going downhill for a bit and then get out and go into the refuge and see if we can find water?”

  They all sort of nodded their heads in agreement while still trying to think of something better, but no other bright ideas surfaced in their little impromptu brainstorming session, so that’s what they did.

  At the bottom of the hill, they got out and divided into two groups, Corrine and Copernicus going north, Warren and Julianna going south. They raced through the trees, looking wildly around for a body of water, not because they had any real hope that they’d find Farland this way, but because it was the only hope they had.

  Julianna and Warren sprinted about, looking through the woods all around them for any break in the trees that might mean a body of water. Initially it was difficult to see well enough to look around very efficiently, but it got steadily easier and easier. At one point, they crossed a hiking path, and Warren happened to notice that just a few paces down from them there was a box nailed to a tree with a sign over it that read, “Trail maps supplied by the Friends of the King Moltar Wildlife Refuge Association”.

  Warren leapt over to the box, threw the lid open, swatted away a few sleepy wasps who had taken up residence inside, and grabbed a map. Warren and Julianna peered at it intently. “We’re maybe about here?” Julianna asked, jabbing he finger at a point south of the main entrance and a little bit into the refuge.

  Warren nodded. That looked about right.

  “Water. Where’s some water?” Julianna mumbled, looking at the map with the help of the increasingly good lighting. “There!” she pointed to a patch of water that looked like a small pond. It was not too far.

  “Let’s check there first,” Warren said, and pocketed the map.

  They were both so worried and distracted that at first it did not occur to either of them why it was becoming so easy to see. But at the same moment they both stopped in their tracks and stared at each other.

  “Sunrise!” Warren gasped.

  Julianna couldn’t believe she’d been so dumb. She reached immediately for her bag and rummaged through it for the thick blanket she had packed for just such an emergency. “I have this,” she said, waving it in the air. “I can hide under it just before sunrise. We still have some time.”

  “Julianna,” he panted, “You need to hide now.”

  “Just a few more minutes, Warren. The sun’s not up yet.” She threw the blanket over herself though, just in case, as she ran. She left just a slit for her eyes.

  “Julianna—”

  “Water!” she gasped. For a moment he thought she was really thirsty, but then he looked ahead and saw the unmistakable glimmer of sparkling blue through the trees.

  They raced to the tree line and scanned the shore of the big pond they had found. In the tree above them, a raven croaked. Warren looked up at the raven and was startled to see how clearly he could see it. It was too bright.

  “Cover up,” he said urgently. She must have agreed on the necessity, because she didn’t resist when he guided her over to a patch of bushes and said, “Sit down here. I’ll come back once I’ve figured out what’s going on.”

  She nodded and covered her face up. She was suddenly feeling very scared now that she had before her the prospect of sitting all alone in the woods for who knew how long worrying about her little brother, all with only a bit of blanket separating her from life and death. She felt like saying, “Good luck,” would be too empty and inadequate, so she said nothing instead.

  Satisfied that Julianna was as safe as possible for the moment, Warren stood and scanned around the perimeter of the pond. “The sun’s up,” he whispered when he saw it pop up over the treetops a few seconds later.

  “Okay,” she said miserably.

  Then, Warren saw Farland.

  The wizard had just stepped out from behind a tree on the opposite side of the pond, eagerly looking around. Warren couldn’t believe it. They’d found him. Farland looked up at the sun and then back around as though expecting someone. Was sunrise their designated meeting time, then?

  Warren hoped against hope Farland had not seen them. They had not, after all, actually gone out onto the shore of the pond, so there was a chance he had not noticed their presence. “Farland’s here,” he breathed. “On the opposite side of this pond.”

  “Do something!” Julianna hissed. “Go over there!”

  But Warren was already creeping as fast as he could go through the woods. It was pretty slow creeping because he had to stay absolutely quiet. He was about halfway there when Mirabella burst through the trees not far from Farland with the (presumably unconscious) form of Conroy Jr. in her arms. She said something to Farland and then began to walk toward him.

  Abandoning all caution, Warren ran like lightning. There was no point in being quiet anymore. He’d never get there in time sneaking. But if he ran, he might be able to manage it. Especially since Mirabella, though closer to Farland, looked exhausted, and was carrying the dead weight of the Prince.

  Warren
sprinted like he’d never sprinted before. Panting, he skidded to a halt in front of Farland. Mirabella was still a few paces away.

  Farland stared at Warren in astonishment. “You?” he sleazed. “What in blazes?” he asked, then looked over to Mirabella questioningly as though she might have some clue as to what Warren was doing in the middle of the King Moltar Wildlife Refuge just in time to attempt to thwart their evil plan.

  Mirabella merely shrugged and put her nephew none too gently down on the ground at her feet. She stretched her arms a bit and said, “I have no idea. But it hardly matters. Just kill him and let’s go.”

  “But the other plan!” Farland pointed out. “I need him as a pawn in my other plan!”

  “Farland, for goodness sake! Just let that plan go. You can always come up with something else to get back at Conroy. I don’t want your fixation on that old plan to get in the way of this one after I’ve devoted so much time and energy to it.”

  Warren hovered there indecisively, listening to them bicker. If they’d attacked him, at least he’d have known what to do (or at least what to try to do), but here they were debating whether or not to kill him in a very casual, matter of fact manner that was seriously throwing him off.

  “I’ve been planning that one near my whole life!” Farland whined.

  “Okay then, fine, don’t kill him. Just knock him out or something. The point here is that we have to go! The woods are swarming with soldiers.”

  “Yes,” Farland finally agreed, and was about to turn on Warren to give him yet another concussion (though this one of a magical instead of a physical nature) but Warren had seen it coming, and he flew at the wizard, punching and kicking in a very unskilled and thus unpredictable manner that left Farland momentarily defenseless.

  Warren knew his only chance was to somehow keep Farland from using his hands. Also, ideally, he would like to stop Farland from speaking, because he might be able to do some damage with his voice alone.

  Farland was not much of a fighter either (in skirmishes, he usually relied on spells and his ability to disappear, but if he disappeared now he might lose his chance to get the Prince, so he was disinclined to resort to that just yet), so Warren was actually able to wrestle Farland to the ground and manage to sort of pin one of his arms behind his back while kneeling on the other arm and trying to shove his face into the dirt so that he couldn’t speak to say a spell. Warren’s broken arm protested heartily, but he persisted.