Of Mice and Magic

by Ursula Vernon

  “Now then,” said Harriet. She decided to find out what kind of princesses these were, and whether they were going to be any help in breaking the curse. “If you could be anything—anything at all, not a princess—what would you be?”

  The mouse princesses looked at her as if she’d lost her mind.

  “C’mon, don’t be shy. I fight ogres. I really want my own pirate ship. What would you do?”

  It was August who had spoken. Harriet wasn’t surprised at all. “Good choice! What else?”

  “Great!” said Harriet. “Nobody wants to brush their hair and sing duets with forest animals? Good. I can work with that. Except maybe the ten kids thing.” She cracked her knuckles. “Now, I gather that you can’t tell me anything about the curse.”

  Twelve mice shook their heads.

  “The spell stops you from talking about it, the usual magic stuff?”

  Twelve mice nodded glumly.

  “But you’d like it broken if possible.”

  Twelve mice nodded vigorously.

  “Does anybody here actually like dancing?”

  There was a long, long silence.

  “December, was it?” asked Harriet. She patted the youngest mouse on the shoulder. “Well, we’ll see what we can do.”

  A small room had been separated from the rest of the bedroom with paper screens. Harriet set her packs down inside it and looked at the bed. Dozens of unsuccessful heroes had slept there.

  Probably none of them had a Poncho of Invisibility, though.

  She sat down on the bed. In the other room, she could hear the princesses getting ready for bed.

  January, the oldest mouse, tapped on the screen. “I brought you some hot chocolate,” she said.

  “Thanks!” said Harriet. “That’s very kind of you.”

  There was an odd moment as January tried to hand her the mug, and at the same time tried to not hand her the mug. Her fingers flexed helplessly on the handle.

  Harriet could recognize a spell when she saw it. She took the mug away from the mouse and lifted it to her lips. January watched her closely.

  It was the best-smelling hot chocolate that Harriet had ever sniffed. It had nutmeg and cinnamon and spices.

  And if it doesn’t also have something in it to make me sleep, I will personally eat my sword. Without salt.

  August peeped anxiously around the screen frame.

  If I don’t drink it, January will know that something is up, though. I wonder if she’d be forced to give me another drink.

  Harriet drank the whole cup of hot chocolate in one draft and smiled brightly at the mouse princess.

  January nodded, took the mug, and left. “Good night,” she said from the doorway.

  Harriet waited until the princess had left, pulled the chamber pot out from under the bed, and spat the entire cup of chocolate into it.

  Everybody forgets that we hamsters have cheek pouches . . .

  “Blech,” she said under her breath, wiping her whiskers with a handkerchief.

  She looked up. August was still watching her.

  Harriet winked.

  CHAPTER 8

  When the door opened in the floor, Harriet was ready.

  She had been lying in bed with the blanket pulled up over her shoulders. She was already wearing the Poncho of Invisibility under the blanket. She kept her eyes nearly closed and watched the doorway under her eyelashes.

  January came to the door and glanced in.

  She was no longer wearing a nightgown. She wore a ball gown with frothy skirts and silken dancing slippers.

  “Come on,” said a voice. Harriet was nearly sure it was August. “She drank the whole thing. She’s out cold.”

  “Hurry up,” said someone else. “My feet are starting to itch!”

  “Very well,” said January, and turned away.

  Harriet could hear the sounds of mice getting changed, and the tapping of their feet. It sounded like some of them were starting to dance already.

  She threw the hood over her head and crept to the edge of the screened room.

  The door in the floor was just as the old shrew had described it. It yawned open like a mouth, and the mouse princesses walked through it, one by one. All of them were dressed in gowns and wore silken slippers on their feet.

  They were beginning to dance as they walked, tapping their toes, bouncing up and down. February and March did a tango the length of the bedroom, without looking as if they were enjoying it much.

  August was last. She paused in the doorway and glanced over her shoulder.

  “Close the door!” hissed one of the other mice.

  Harriet flicked the poncho so that it covered her feet and scurried through the doorway.

  There was a long flight of steps down, down, into the dark.

  August pulled the door shut. Harriet flattened herself against the wall so that the mouse wouldn’t run into her.

  As it was, the mouse princess brushed against the poncho anyway. Harriet held her breath.

  “What’s wrong, August?” one of the other mice called.

  “Hurry!” called January. “We’ll be late.”

  “Heaven forbid we keep them waiting,” muttered August. She gathered up her dress and hurried down the stairs.

  Harriet went down the stairs behind her, setting her feet down at the same instant that the princess did, just in case anyone was listening and wondering why there was an extra set of footsteps.

  The stairs went down and down and down. Harriet’s whiskers tingled.

  Magic, she thought grimly. Even if the castle had walls thick enough to conceal a staircase in, they were now a long way underground.

  Climbing back up is not going to be fun. Poncho of Invisibility or not, if I’m clinging to the walls and wheezing, they’ll probably hear me.

  The stairs opened suddenly into an enormous cavern. A path made of white stone wound between swaying silver trees, leading across the cavern to a distant river.

  Harriet did not know a great deal about trees. There were only so many hours in the day, and she preferred to spend her time studying things that might attack you.

  She was pretty sure that normal trees didn’t grow underground, though.

  The other princesses were hurrying down the path. August trailed after them.

  Harriet reached up to a passing tree. The bark was cold under her fingers—cold like metal, not like wood. The leaves appeared to be made of silver foil.

  A whole forest made out of metal. This is getting very odd. Somebody spent a long time and a lot of magic building all this down here.

  Harriet’s whiskers twitched. Gotta be a witch. Nobody loves forests like witches. If you can’t have a forest underground, a witch would build one.

  Harriet had nothing against witches—one of her dear friends was a witch, in fact—but they did have their little quirks.

  Still, if I wanted proof that I’d actually followed the princesses, and wasn’t just making up a story . . .

  She snapped off a twig.

  CRACK!

  Harriet jumped. The sound of the twig breaking was like a bowling ball being dropped on a tin roof.

  All the mouse princesses froze.

  Harriet stuffed the twig into her pocket and ran after the mice.

  The silver trees became gold trees, the gold trees became diamond, and the black river drew closer and closer.

  And if I were not very sensible, I would start breaking off gold and diamond twigs too, and make more noise than an elephant coming through. No way. Either the king believes me when I show him a silver twig or he doesn’t.

  They reached the river.

  The water was as black as ink, and it didn’t move like water was supposed to move. Harriet scowled. The last time she’d seen water like this—stuff that was only pretend
ing to be water—there had been a squidweight* at the bottom of the lake.

  There were twelve boats drawn up on the shore. Standing in each boat was a hooded figure with a pole.

  “Nothing creepy about that . . .” muttered Harriet under her breath.

  Each mouse princess stepped up into a boat. The hooded person pushed off from shore with the pole and into the river.

  Uh-oh.

  Twelve boats, and there’s not a lot of room in each one—

  January and February were halfway across the river. The rest were pushing off. The only boat left was August’s, and only because she had stopped to tie her shoe.

  Harriet jumped into the boat just as August stepped in. It nearly overbalanced.

  “Whoa!” said the hooded boatman.

  “Sorry, my foot slipped,” said August.

  The prow of the boat was carved into a figurehead, in the shape of a giant earthworm. There was a little bench in the middle of the boat. The mouse princess sat down. Harriet crouched behind her.

  An earthworm? That’s . . . peculiar. I’ve seen dragons and swans carved on figureheads, but never earthworms.

  The boatman dipped his pole into the water and pushed away from the shore.

  The other boats quickly outdistanced them.

  “Have you gained weight?” asked the boatman.

  “Oh, aren’t we tactful?” asked August.

  “I didn’t mean—”

  Harriet bit her lower lip to keep from laughing.

  “You . . . wait . . . lead underwear?!” said the boatman.

  “It’s prescription,” said August. “For my back. You know, like copper bracelets when you’ve got arthritis? Well, if your back hurts because, oh, let’s say you spend every night dancing underground because of a fairy curse, you wear lead underwear.”

  “. . . I see,” said the boatman. “Well, it’s not much longer, you know. Another two months and the curse will be finished.”

  “Only a matter of time,” said the boatman.

  Harriet wondered whether she’d be able to knock him into the river and grab the pole before he went under.

  Funny thing, though . . . the boatman didn’t sound any happier about it than August did.

  Another two months. Hmm.

  The princesses may have two months, but I’ve only got three days to sort this out.

  August put a hand out behind her back.

  Harriet slipped one hand from under the Poncho of Invisibility and squeezed the mouse princess’s fingers tightly.

  Three days should be plenty. I hope.

  CHAPTER 9

  It took only a few minutes before the boat reached the far side of the river. A dock stretched out, lit with twinkling lights, and the boatman poled the boat up to it and tied it off.

  He offered August a hand out of the boat, but the mouse princess ignored it. She climbed out with the maximum amount of kicking and flailing, which covered the motion of the boat as Harriet slipped past her onto the dock, careful to avoid the boatman.

  The boatman pulled off his cloak.

  Underneath, wearing a tuxedo, was a mole. He had velvety fur and a twitchy pink nose, and he didn’t look particularly evil.

  Harriet scowled inside the poncho. A mole? Really? That did explain the giant underground caverns and the earthworm boat, but she’d never met a bad mole in her life. Or one interested in dancing.

  Come to think of it, she’d never met a mole interested in anything but digging. They liked farming and mining as long as they involved digging, games as long as they involved digging, and singing songs as long as the songs were also about digging.

  Moles have a rather one-track mind.

  Harriet followed the mouse and the mole along a pathway lined with more silver trees. Through the tree trunks, she caught glimpses of a lighted pavilion, where the other mouse princesses danced with the moles.

  There was an enormous symbol laid in tile on the dance floor. Whenever one of the couples danced over it, the tiles lit with an eerie blue light.

  And that’s how they’re powering the spell, thought Harriet. Oh, there is definitely a witch at the bottom of this.

  Fairies are born magical, and when they do a spell, they draw on their own powers. But witches learn magic, and have to get it where they can. The good ones ask politely.

  The bad ones . . .

  “The princesses are compelled to dance,” muttered Harriet under her breath. “They have to dance, and when they dance over the symbol, it generates magic. Like water running through a waterwheel. So they dance and it powers the spell that keeps them dancing . . . and I bet there’s some left over for the witch. Right.”

  She straightened her shoulders. “I’ve had about enough of this.”

  She hurried to catch up with the mole and August. She had to wait until they went around a bend in the path and the pavilion was briefly out of sight. Then she took two steps forward, drew her sword, and put the mole in a headlock.

  August, not looking at all surprised, said, “I’ll go up to the pavilion and get a drink so that my sisters don’t wonder where I am. Then I’ll come right back.”

  She hurried off, dancing as she went.

  “See that?” said Harriet. “She’s got a good head on her shoulders. Do you?”

  The mole said, “Is there an answer that doesn’t involve you stabbing me? Because I’d like to pick that one.”

  “Right,” said Harriet. “Sit down here. I’m going to let go of you, but I want you to remember that I’ve got a sword and I’m standing right here, just in case you have any ideas about calling for help.”

  “Good,” said Harriet. “I’m Princess Harriet. I’m here to fix the curse. Now, what’s with the curse and the princesses?”

  The mole heaved a sigh. “Oh. That. That’s all my mother’s doing.”

  “I’m listening,” said Harriet.

  “My mother’s a mole witch,” said the mole.

  “Didn’t know moles went in for witchcraft,” said Harriet.

  “We usually don’t. Unless it’s dirt related. Mom’s . . . special.” The mole grimaced. “We think she maybe ate a little too much dirt with lead in it, if you know what I mean.”

  Harriet tapped a nail on the hilt of her sword. “And you don’t mind that when you dance, you’re powering her magic?”

  The mole shrugged. “She’s not a super-powerful witch or anything. If we dance, she’ll use her magic to do the dishes. If we don’t dance, we have to do them.”

  Harriet stared at him.

  “Do you know how many dishes twelve moles can generate in a day?” asked the mole. “It’s apocalyptic. A little magical dancing is way better.”

  Harriet grunted. A minor witch who had figured out how to power her magic through other people’s dancing.

  It didn’t surprise her. She knew a number of witches. Most of them were very nice. A few of them, however, were not so nice, and when witches went bad . . .

  “What are your names?” she asked. “You and your brothers?”

  “Aries, Capricorn, Pisces, Sagittarius—”

  “All twelve signs of the zodiac,” said Harriet, cutting him off.

  “Yep,” said the mole. “I’m Gemini.”

  “Cancer’s got it the worst,” said Gemini, “but we call him Crabby.”

  “Crabby?”

  “The zodiac sign for Cancer is a crab. And you’d be crabby too if your name was Cancer.”

  “Fair enough . . .” said Harriet.

  “So anyway, Mom put a curse on the princesses,” said the mole. “They have to come down here and dance with us. And when the spell is finally complete, our families will be united, and they’ll have to come live down here forever.” He didn’t sound thrilled by the prospect.

  “We can’t talk about it,” said August,
returning. “Not to anyone who doesn’t know about the curse already. I mean, we try and our throats close up.” She did a brief jitterbug in place. “And we have to keep dancing and January has to put a sleeping potion into the hot chocolate every night.”

  “Is there a curse on you too?” Harriet asked Gemini. “Is that why you’re dancing?”

  Gemini stared at her. “You have clearly never met my mother.”

  “No, but I expect I shall,” said Harriet.

  The mole sighed. “We don’t get a choice,” he admitted. “Aries refused once, said he didn’t want to dance, and she turned his claws into sponges for a week.”

  “Sponges?” said Harriet, baffled.

  “It was horrible,” said Gemini. “He kept trying to dig and all he did was get the dirt really, really soggy.”

  The hamster had to admit that this was ingenious. “So you don’t like dancing either?”

  The mole hunched his shoulders defensively. “I love my mother and all, but I don’t want to live with her forever! I want to travel! Go dig strange new dirts! Smell foreign rocks!” He sighed. “But the spell will keep us all down here, where she can keep an eye on us . . .”

  And keep you dancing to power her spells, thought Harriet, but didn’t say it out loud.

  “I don’t want to live underground forever!” said August. “I haven’t even left the palace for years! I’m tired of being stuck!”

  Harriet rubbed a hand over her face and turned to Gemini. “So if I can break the curse and deal with your mother, you and your brothers won’t put up a fight?”

  “Princess Harriet,” said Gemini, “if you can convince my mother this is a bad idea, you will have my undying gratitude. Anything you want dug, we’ll dig it. Anywhere. Anytime.”