Wizard at Work

by Vivian Vande Velde

  "You see," the wizard continued as if she hadn't spoken, "I was following this crow. And it flew in here—you must have noticed it?" He spotted the vile creature, sitting on one of her bedposts, glowering. "And I didn't realize this was someone's room, and I'm terribly sorry, so I'll just be leaving now."

  Still ignoring the wizard's words, the lady went on, "I was thinking something along the order of a room divider or a screen for the first meeting, until I could explain."

  "You see, I'm on an important mission..."

  "But I suppose this will have to do, if you'll just give me another moment..."

  "I have to rescue a princess—"

  She emerged from under the sheet, smiling triumphantly and wearing a crown. "There."

  "Princess Rosalie," he finished.

  "Yes," she said, and gave a regal bow of the head.

  The wizard, with his hand on the door, froze. He looked at the lady, who was almost as round as a ball, then he looked at the door, then at the lady again. He cleared his throat. "Princess Rosalie?" he repeated in a very small voice.

  Her patience with him finally cracked. "If it's a shock to you, think how I feel," she snapped.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "The spell, Wizard, my ugly stepsister's magic spell."

  "Ah!"

  Princess Rosalie picked up her mirror again. "Is it really that bad?" She glanced at her reflection, then wiped a tear from her eye.

  "No," the wizard hurried to say. "No, really." She was huge, but her face was actually quite lovely. Somehow, he didn't think she'd appreciate his saying so.

  Princess Rosalie reached around the brass headboard and banged the edge of her mirror against the wall. "Bernard!" she called. Then, to the wizard, "If you think I'm bad, wait until you see Prince Bernard."

  Before he could think what answer he could possibly give to that, the wizard heard a scratching sound at the door.

  "If you don't mind?" The princess motioned toward the door.

  Slowly, warily, the wizard opened it, and a large Saint Bernard bounded in, knocking him down.

  "Prince Bernard—Wizard," the princess said by way of introduction. "Wizard—Prince Bernard."

  "Friendly fellow, at least," the wizard managed to say, as the dog sat on his chest and licked his face.

  Princess Rosalie started to wail. Loudly.

  As though to comfort her, Prince Bernard went over and began to lick her hand, but she snatched it away. "Look at him! And he drools. And he has fleas."

  Unperturbed, the dog-prince sat down, his tail thumping against the floor.

  "I see your problem." The wizard got back to his feet. "You say your stepsister did this?"

  "Yes." Princess Rosalie pouted. "And now she and that hateful boyfriend of hers plot with my stepmother to keep me a prisoner here."

  He was about to say that countering the magic of someone who did not want his or her magic countered was just about the hardest kind of spell—but that he would do his best—when he heard voices approaching.

  Princess Rosalie heard them, too. She gasped, "They're coming! Quick, hide!"

  The wizard glanced about the room hurriedly, though Prince Bernard remained calm, scratching behind an ear.

  "Hurry!" the princess cried.

  The wizard pulled open the door of a large armoire, but it was so jammed with dresses, shoes, and plumed hats that there was no room for him or the dog.

  "Oh, for goodness' sake!" Princess Rosalie threw back the covers and made to jump out of the bed. Instead, she floated—very slowly—to the ceiling. The wizard felt his jaw drop. The princess kicked the wall in frustration and went gracefully sailing in the opposite direction.

  Prince Bernard raised his head and began to howl.

  "What are you doing?" the wizard asked.

  "It's more of that miserable spell!" Princess Rosalie cried. "My stepsister said, 'Let my sister become big and fat and swell up like a hot-air balloon'—that's exactly what she said. And now look at me."

  The door flung open and the wicked-looking queen strode in, followed by her shifty-eyed daughter. "Rosalie, we heard you sere—" The queen's eyes narrowed at the wizard, and her thin lips pursed, and for a moment he was afraid that—should she know magic, as her elder daughter evidently did—she would put a spell on him before he had a chance to react. But then her attention snapped back to her stepdaughter, who had just bumped into the dresser and knocked off all the combs and perfumes. "Rosalie! Get down from there at once before you hurt yourself."

  With all the dignity she could muster, the floating princess said, "Would somebody please?..."

  The wizard took hold of her by the ankle and pulled her back down.

  "Thank you." Princess Rosalie sat on the edge of the bed and daintily rearranged her dressing gown to make sure her knees were covered, but she held on to her ruffled pillow for ballast.

  "Yes," the wicked queen said, turning back to the wizard, "thank you, kind sir." She squinted at him again. "Haven't I seen you somewhere before?"

  "Oh," said Princess Rosalie, "no. I don't think so. This wizard just dropped by to offer to help find Prince Bernard. Didn't you, Wizard?"

  The wizard looked at the ugly stepsister, who was scratching the head of the Saint Bernard—which did, as Princess Rosalie had mentioned earlier, show a tendency to drool. He looked at the wicked stepmother, who was still peering at him through narrowed eyes. It suddenly occurred to him that she was nearsighted, and that she squinted to see better. "I think," he said, "I think I need a hint before I can guess what's going on here. Are you two keeping Princess Rosalie a prisoner?"

  "Poor Rosalie is the victim of a magical spell," the stepsister explained, and despite her ugly, mean-looking face, her voice was sad and full of concern.

  "Not yours?"

  The stepsister was too surprised to answer. Her mouth opened and closed twice, before she finally shook her head.

  "Hers," the queen said. And pointed to Princess Rosalie herself.

  "I think I'm getting a headache," the huge princess said. "Maybe you'd all better leave now."

  "What have you been telling this man?" the queen asked, though not unkindly.

  Princess Rosalie squirmed.

  "You see," the stepsister said, "Francis—he's the Master Craftsman of the Wood-Carvers Guild—Francis has been sort of courting me, and he gave us this nice fat goose for dinner last week."

  The wizard didn't see what that had to do with anything, but he gave her the benefit of the doubt and nodded for her to go on.

  "He had gotten it from this little old lady who lives in a cottage near the town wall, and she's always claimed to be a witch, but we never took that seriously—she's always been a bit odd, but so are a lot of other people—but, anyway, she gave him the goose in payment for a chair he had made for her, and he brought it here—the goose, not the chair—and we had it for dinner, because even though she said it was a magic goose, she says lots of things, but then after dinner we found the wishbone, and Rosalie and I decided to make a wish, so I took one end, and she took the other, and we both pulled—"

  "Yes," the wizard urged, his patience beginning to wear. "And?"

  "—and, it broke right down the center, so I thought that meant we'd each get our wish, but Rosalie said it meant neither of us would, and when we asked the little old lady, she said, 'That means you each get the other's wish.'"

  "Ah! Switched wishes." He turned to Princess Rosalie. "Is this true?"

  Again the princess squirmed, but he wouldn't stop looking at her. "Well...," she said. And still he stared. "More or less." And still he stared. "Yes!" she shouted.

  Let my sister become big and fat and swell up like a hot-air balloon. Rosalie had claimed that this was what her stepsister had said. It must have been what she herself had wished. She must have added, And let her boyfriend turn into a dog, too. But for the moment the wizard was more curious about something else. He turned to the stepsister. "What did you wish for?"

  She look
ed embarrassed, but explained, "Well, you see, even though Rosalie has always been very beautiful, and talented, and popular, she was sad, and she was always saying she wished for this, or she wished for that, so even though we don't get along all that well, I felt sorry for her, so I wished she'd have health and love and happiness, which I figured are the most important things in the world, and because the wish by its very nature has to be secret, and because I didn't know what she was wishing for—"

  "And did you get the benefit of that wish yourself?" the wizard interrupted.

  She blushed, right up to her beady little eyes. "Well, Francis—he's the Master Craftsman of the Wood-Carvers Guild—"

  "Yes?"

  "—Francis is leading the search party that's looking for Prince Bernard—Prince Bernard is Rosalie's betrothed, but he disappeared all of a sudden last week just at the same time all this trouble started—and we asked the little old lady who claims to be a witch, and she says she doesn't know anything about it and can't do anything about it, and Francis is looking all over to find him because we're so afraid he's been hurt or lost, but I'm sure they'll find him and he'll be all right, and then after they get back, Francis has asked that he and I get married, which I'd been hoping he'd ask for a long time, and I said yes."

  This was quite a mouthful, even for her, and she finally had to stop to take a breath. The wizard looked at the Saint Bernard, which was scratching itself again. Princess Rosalie made a strangled whimpering sound, and the wizard took pity on her. "Well, because it's just a wishbone spell, it'll be easy enough for me to break."

  Princess Rosalie and her stepmother and her stepsister all sighed in relief.

  "And as for Prince Bernard, I can help there, too. So why don't you contact Francis"—he couldn't resist adding—"the Master Craftsman of the Wood-Carvers Guild, and tell him to come on home."

  "Oh, thank you!" The mean-faced stepsister threw her arms around him and kissed his cheek, while her mother curtsied to him.

  "Best of luck to both of you always," he added, as they started to leave. And if they noticed the spell-casting flip of his wrist or heard the strange, formal words that accompanied it, they didn't say.

  Before the door had even clicked shut, the wizard made a big wave with his arms and said some more magic words.

  The huge princess, sitting so lightly on the edge of her bed, diminished to about a quarter of her former size and sank solidly into her down mattress.

  The Saint Bernard, sitting on the floor by her feet with his tongue hanging out, tipped and fell over. Before he hit the floor, he had turned back into a young man. "I say," the prince said, scratching his head. And then again, "I say." He had a vacant, amiable look that had been more becoming when his face had been that of a dog. But the wizard figured that was Princess Rosalie's problem.

  Without a word to them, he started the gesture and incantation to transport himself back home. But then he stopped, just long enough to point a warning finger at the princess. "I hope you learned your lesson," he said.

  And he was already home by the time he added, very softly, "I certainly did."

  Beasts on the Rampage

  In the pond beyond his garden, the wizard was in his rowboat, which was held together more by spells than patches—because, long as July days are, they never seemed long enough both to fix the old fishing boat and to fish. Whenever it came down to making a decision, fixing or fishing, he always leaned more toward fishing.

  On the off chance that the warmth of the midsummer sun and the gentle swaying of the boat might, by coincidence, make him doze off, he had brought a pillow. He had his straw hat over his face—strictly to prevent sunburn—and he was just thinking that the last thing he needed at this perfect moment was for a fish to actually bite on the end of his line, when he heard someone call, "Halllloooo!"

  No, the wizard suddenly realized, a visitor was the last thing he needed.

  Maybe, he thought, this was just a case of a sound carrying over the stillness of the day. Maybe whoever was calling was, in fact, calling someone else.

  "Halllooo, Wizard!" the voice hailed.

  Drat! the wizard thought. He considered pretending he was asleep, but he suspected this person would not be deterred and would just keep on yelling until he became a real irritant.

  Or I could pretend I haven't heard, the wizard thought, and row for the farther shore. But the pond wasn't that big. If the wizard rowed to the other side, whoever this was could walk around and meet him there.

  The wizard considered doing a transporting spell, but that was silly: running away from his own home to avoid an unwanted visitor. And where would he go? And how long would he have to stay away to discourage this man into leaving?

  With a sigh, the wizard sat up, placed the hat back on the top of his head, and began rowing to shore. Maybe this won't take too long, he told himself. He kept his own, true appearance, hoping his youthfulness would discourage the man. But his visitor was young himself, and not easily discouraged.

  He tried to help the wizard out of the boat, though the wizard was perfectly capable and used to doing it on his own, so that they both ended up ankle-deep in a muddy patch on the bank.

  "I'm so glad I found you at home," the man chattered at him. "I come from the village of Saint Wayne the Stutterer, and we need your help."

  At least Saint Wayne the Stutterer was close by, just on the other side of the hill. The wizard dared to hope this might be quick after all.

  "What's the problem?" he asked.

  "Wild beasts on the rampage," the man said.

  "What kind of beasts?" The wizard was thinking, Rabid wolves? Diseased wolves, unlike healthy wolves, would attack people. Wild boar? The villagers had recently cleared a section of the forest, and maybe, with their territory destroyed, a family of boar—always aggressive animals—had turned on them. A pack of feral dogs? Dragons? Basilisks?

  The man from Saint Wayne's said, "Unicorns."

  The wizard shuddered. He said, "I'll go there immediately."

  The mayor of Saint Wayne the Stutterer was a woman named Enid, who had been voted into the top position when her husband, the previous mayor, had run off with the town treasury. Enid was a large woman who was honest and forthright and had a lot of common sense—attributes her missing husband didn't share.

  The wizard transported himself to the village and found Enid in her kitchen, kneading and pounding bread dough. Without a town treasury, there was no way to pay the mayor a salary, so Enid had to support herself.

  "Hello, Wizard," Enid said, pausing in her work. "Thanks for coming so quickly."

  "I know how unicorns can be," the wizard said. "Are these mature unicorns gone bad, or yearlings?"

  "Yearlings," Enid said, picking pieces of dough off the backs of her hands, "about a half dozen of them. Adolescent males showing off for the females, tough females—the kind that wear their manes all spiked and that laugh and egg the males on. They all get drunk eating fermented fruit, then come into town, where they make faces at the little kids, chew tobacco and spit it out on the sidewalk, form crop circles with the power of their horns, kick mud on the farm horses and call them 'no-horns.' We hoped they would move on, but the trouble's been escalating: They walk all in a line, intimidating people into getting out of their way. Goosing old folks with their horns. Breaking windows, though always at night—there's never any proof. Things disappear off laundry lines. But last night..."

  Enid paused and the wizard could guess what she was going to say next. All of this was following a typical pattern.

  "Last night," she continued, "they broke into Farmer Seymour's barn, grabbed one of the pigs, and had a pig roast out on the beach."

  The wizard shook his head. "Unicorns that eat meat only get wilder."

  "That's why we sent for you."

  "Any idea where they're likely to be?" the wizard asked.

  "Well, that's another thing," Enid told him. "My son, Jack, has been hanging around with them. That's another one that
doesn't seem to have the sense he was born with. Don't get me started."

  The wizard shook his head to indicate that getting her started was the last thing on his mind.

  "I try to give Jack responsibilities, hoping to make him more mature, think things through, act like a rational person rather than like his father." She repeated, "Don't get me started."

  The wizard guessed, "So ... you're saying Jack's likely to be with the unicorns?"

  "Try the pool hall," Enid suggested. "That's as good a place as any to waste away a fine summer day."

  "Thank you," the wizard said, backing out of her kitchen before she got started talking about sixteen-year-old sons or missing husbands or hooligan unicorns again.

  Jack was In the pool hall, though the unicorns weren't. The wizard hadn't really thought they would be. Magical creatures or not, unicorns were at a definite disadvantage when it came to holding pool cues, and the management had a sign up saying:

  Jack was sitting at one of the tables in the bar area, his head pillowed by his arms. The wizard thought maybe the unicorns weren't the only ones overdoing the fermented fruit.

  The wizard knew the smartest thing would be to ignore Jack and ask around to see if anybody else knew where the unicorns might be, but the young man was so obviously depressed, the wizard felt sorry for him. He went and sat down next to him.

  "My mother," Jack said, without bothering to look up, "is going to kill me."

  The wizard considered this statement. "Well, it's always a possibility, I suppose. But all in all, rather unlikely."

  "No," Jack insisted. "My mother is going to kill me."

  "Does this have anything to do with the unicorns?" the wizard asked, thinking they might have dared or taunted him into doing something he shouldn't have.

  "I don't think so." Jack sat up and looked at the wizard. "Do unicorns cheat at cards?"

  "Probably not," the wizard answered. "It's hard to have an ace up your sleeve when you don't, in fact, have a sleeve."

  Jack gave the wizard a disgusted look. "I wasn't playing cards with the unicorns. I was playing with a bunch of guys. You're the one who brought up the unicorns. I thought you were saying the unicorns sent those guys to win all my money from me." Jack winced. "Actually, it was my mother's money. She should never have trusted me. It's all her fault. Besides, I think the guys were cheating."