Baker's Magic (Middle-grade Novels)

by Zahler, Diane

  “Do you like it?” she asked him innocently.

  “Why do you have to ask that?” he demanded, sounding irritated. “Your tarts are always good. Don’t make me tell you every time!”

  Bee suppressed a giggle—and the urge to apologize for making him cranky.

  Then she thought about the afternoon in the garden with Anika as she kneaded a loaf of bread. She focused on the happiness she’d felt as they’d lain beneath the cherry tree and watched Pepin wander through the flower petals, and the wonderful feeling of having found a new friend. Wil was busy that afternoon, so she buttered a slice of the bread and put it on the floor and waited to see what would happen. Kaatje the cat came to sniff at it and then nibbled a bit. A little later, a mouse poked its head from behind the big stove. Thrilled at its luck, for the kitchen was usually spotless, it dashed over to the bread and tried to carry the slice back to its mouse home. The bread was too heavy, though, so the mouse simply bit off a hunk and then disappeared with it as Bee watched.

  A half hour or so later, Bee came back into the kitchen to take a batch of tarts from the oven. Kaatje sat curled up in her basket, her eyes bright. Between her paws lay the mouse. Astonished, Bee watched as the cat gently washed the mouse with its rough tongue. The mouse seemed almost to purr with pleasure as it stretched itself luxuriously. Bee hoped the happy affection she’d baked into the bread would wear off the mouse first, or it would surely be Kaatje’s supper.

  Her final trial was a batch of meringue cookies she made after coming across an enormous spider in the broom closet. She whipped egg whites frantically as her heart thrummed with fear. Then, feeling a bit guilty, she fed the cookies to Wil.

  “Something’s wrong,” he said after eating them, looking around anxiously. “Do I smell smoke? What’s on fire?”

  “Don’t worry. It’s nothing. It’s me,” she confessed. “I’ve been experimenting.”

  Wil stared at her. “What do you mean, experimenting?”

  “I wanted to see if Master Bouts was right. I baked things while I was having … well, feelings. And it worked. It’s true.”

  “What feelings?” he demanded. He didn’t look pleased at all.

  “This last batch—it was fear. Are you especially afraid of fire?”

  Wil flushed. “I suppose I am.”

  “That’s a funny thing to be afraid of, when you’re a blacksmith,” Bee pointed out gently.

  “I know,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s not very convenient. I get sick to my stomach every time.” He held out his hands, and Bee noticed, for the first time, the scars on nearly every finger, the back of his hands, his wrists. “Hurts like the devil,” he said. “I have nightmares sometimes about being caught in a burning building. I’d rather do almost anything than work with fire.”

  “Like what?” Bee asked.

  Wil shook his head. “No use thinking on it,” he said. “I’m a blacksmith’s son, and a blacksmith I’ll be.”

  Master Bouts pushed into the kitchen. “Ah, cookies!” he exclaimed. “Just the pick-me-up I needed.” Before Bee could stop him, he’d popped one of the meringues into his mouth. They watched as he chewed and swallowed, then turned pale and said, “Do you hear water? Is it storming? Oh no, not another flood!”

  He started back out toward the shop, but Bee called out, “Wait! There’s no flood! It’s the cookies.”

  Master Bouts turned around. “The cookies?”

  “I baked them with fear,” Bee admitted. “And you’re afraid of … water?”

  Master Bouts shook his head hard, as if he were trying to shake out his thoughts. “Not water all on its own. Floods. Drowning, to be perfectly honest. I’ve nightmares about it sometimes, since that big storm. The water rises around my bed, and there’s no escape … and then I wake all in a sweat, as wet as if I’d been truly drowned. Horrible. Horrible.” He was quiet for a minute and then, realizing what had happened, said, “Ah, but it works, doesn’t it, my girl? What did I tell you? You have a small magic of your own, that you do.”

  “You were right,” Bee said. “I don’t understand it, but it’s true. And I certainly don’t know what use it is. It means I have to be careful when I bake, or the customers will riot!” She looked at her hands, turning them palm up and then down again. It seemed very strange that those hands could make magic. Very strange—and more than a little exciting.

  “It means you can control what people feel, at least somewhat,” the baker pointed out. “And that is a powerful thing. You must take care not to misuse it.”

  Bee hadn’t thought of it that way. True, it might be fun to bake a tart of confusion that would send Mistress de Vos into a tizzy, or cookies laced with jealousy that might make the Tenbrook twins fight over the butcher’s boy, but it wouldn’t be right. She would have to restrain her less kindly impulses.

  “Well, I made today’s pastries for the palace in a state of perfect calm,” Bee said. “And I should take them over there now. If I’m late, no amount of calm cakes will soothe the angry mage.”

  She picked up the baskets she had prepared—three tarts this time, a cake, and the Bouts Buns. On her way out the door, Wil called behind her, “Ho, Mistress Boviardis, what were you so frightened by when you made those cookies?”

  “Oh, it was nothing much,” she said quickly.

  “Not fair! You know our fears now. What was yours? Tell!”

  “It was … spiders. I’m afraid of spiders.”

  “Spiders!” Wil snorted. “Those sweet little weaving bugs?”

  “They’re dreadful!” she cried. “Nasty eight-legged crawling things!” And she pushed through the door to the sound of Wil’s and Master Bouts’s hoots of laughter.

  CHAPTER 7

  Bee had made three more Tuesday trips to the palace. She never saw any servants except the butler and the cook. There seemed to be no maids, no footmen, nobody at all to tend the decaying palace.

  At each visit she met Anika in the garden. She still hadn’t mastered the maze; she had an odd suspicion that it changed with every passage. Anika had to guide her through it with shouted instructions from the other side.

  Being with Anika felt the way Bee had always imagined having a sister would feel. They were sometimes awkward with each other because they were both unused to having friends, but with each visit the self-consciousness grew less. They talked about nearly everything. On some subjects, like clothes and the meanings of words, Anika had a great knowledge. Her dresses were of the finest fabrics and most current styles, though no one but Bee ever saw them. And Anika admitted that she read the dictionary when she was bored and tried to use the most interesting words she found as often as she could. When Bee pointed out that she had never heard many of those words, Anika flushed with embarrassment and said, “I don’t converse with many people, you see. Besides, there are so many wonderful words. Why don’t more people utilize them?”

  “Well, you sound very royal,” Bee assured her. “And I’m learning a prodigial amount of vocabulary!”

  “Prodigious,” Anika corrected, and both girls laughed.

  About other things, like the people of Zeewal and their peculiar habits, Bee was the expert. Anika loved hearing about the bakery, about Master Bouts and Wil, about Kaatje the cat and the dour Mistress de Vos. There were a few topics they didn’t discuss: their lost parents, Master Joris. But Bee’s feeling that Anika feared the mage grew stronger, and, worried that her presence would get the princess in trouble, she took pains not to be discovered.

  On this Tuesday, when Bee left the bakery, it was raining. The rain was more of a mist than an actual downpour, but Bee was glad she’d covered her baskets with a cloth. She hurried through the dampness with her head down. At the palace Master van Campen let her in with an expressionless face, and she made her way down to the kitchen, where the cook sat in exactly the same position she’d held the week before and th
e week before that. Bee wondered if she moved at all in the seven days between visits.

  “I’ve come with the pastries,” Bee said. “And I brought you something.”

  “Oh?” This was a change from the previous visits.

  Bee unpacked the baskets. Every week they held more and better pastries than the week before; the payments sent from the palace were making Master Bouts a wealthy man, and he used the money to purchase the finest ingredients. Carefully, Bee set each sweet on its own plate. She put a little cake on a little plate and held it out to the cook. “This is for you—but only if you tell me your name.”

  The cook’s pudding face melted into a smile. “That’s a fair trade, girl! I’m Hadewig.” She reached out eagerly for the cake.

  “And I’m Bee,” Bee said. “Shall I cut the mage’s slices?”

  “Yes indeed,” the cook said. “He’s been down here twice this morning looking for them. You’re late again, you know.”

  Bee ignored this. “And … the princess? Can I see her?” She knew Anika wouldn’t be in the garden on such a damp morning.

  The cook raised herself from her chair and rummaged in a drawer for a tarnished fork, then took a bite of her cake. She chewed slowly, her cheeks pink with pleasure. “I don’t say that you can, and I don’t say that you cannot. But she’ll be in the library—that’s on the top floor, third door on the right. Not that you heard it from me.”

  “Of course not,” Bee assured her. She prepared Master Joris’s tray and a plate for the princess, then bade the cook goodbye. “Till next week,” she said.

  “Don’t stay long,” Hadewig warned. “The master will be checking, I’ve no doubt.”

  Bee picked up her tray and left the cook chewing in delight. Up the stairs, down the corridor, to the fourth door on the left. The door to the mage’s study was very slightly open, and as she bent to leave the tray on the floor, she heard voices. Quietly, she angled herself so her ear was against the opening. Yes, that was the mage’s raspy tone.

  “That is correct, it’s settled,” she heard him say. “They’ll come in a fortnight for her, and then the thing is done.”

  “The princess won’t be happy,” another voice warned. Bee thought it was Master van Campen.

  “Making her happy is not my responsibility,” Master Joris replied. “It’s a fine match.”

  “Fine for him at least,” Master van Campen said. “He’s fifty if he’s a day. And with three children to boot.”

  “They need a mother,” Master Joris pointed out. “She’s a biddable girl, and she’ll be good to them.”

  “And you’ll be master here for good—unless King Thiedric decides the marriage entitles him to Aradyn.”

  “Do you think he would dare move against me?” Master Joris chuckled, and the sound made Bee shudder. It was like fingernails drawn across a slate. She heard a movement inside the room, and she jerked away from the door and fled with the princess’s plate, leaving the tray lying on the floor. Back down the corridor, up the stairs, and up again, then down the hallway. Second door—or was it third? She knocked on the second, but there was no reply, so she tried the third. It opened almost before her knuckles lifted.

  “Bee!” Princess Anika’s face was filled with joy. “I was so hoping you could locate me. It’s far too sodden for the garden today, and I dared not await you in the kitchen, as Uncle Joris kept checking for his pastries. I was fearful that you would have to depart without a visit.”

  Bee was panting. “Here, take this.” She handed the plate to Anika. “I can’t stay long,” she said. “I heard something—oh, Anika! I heard something terrible.”

  “Something terrible? Whatever do you mean?” The princess looked perplexed, but not alarmed.

  “Your uncle—the mage—he was talking … talking—” Bee was trembling.

  “Sit down. Compose yourself. What on earth is wrong?” Anika set the plate on a small table.

  “They plan to marry you off!” Bee burst out. “To an old man, some king—King Thiedric.”

  The color drained from Anika’s face. “How do you come by this knowledge?” she demanded, her voice low.

  “I heard the mage talking to Master van Campen. It was clear, what they said. It’s to happen in two weeks.”

  “But … why? Why would he consider such an action?”

  “To get rid of you,’” Bee said solemnly. Anika covered her mouth with her hand. “He plans to keep Aradyn for himself, I think.”

  Anika gasped. “No, that’s not possible.” She sank into a leather chair, then leaped up. “Ouch! Pepin, move!” She picked up the hedgehog, then sat again with him in her lap. “He has never mentioned marriage before. You must have misconstrued.” At Bee’s blank look, she said, “Misunderstood.”

  “I don’t think I did,” Bee said, shaking her head. There was a silence. “Does your uncle have the power to make the decisions? He isn’t the king, after all.”

  In her dismay, Anika squeezed the hedgehog a little harder than she intended. He looked quite perturbed and let out a squeak.

  “Give him here,” Bee suggested, and Anika, distraught, handed Pepin over.

  “He is not the king, you’re quite correct,” the princess said. “Nor is he truly my uncle. But he is the mage, and he has been so for more than a century. He has appropriated far more sovereignty than he’s entitled to. He has decided everything since my father’s death. I am just a girl. I am sixteen, and I am an orphan. If this is his strategy, what can I conceivably do? Oh, Bee, must I be joined in matrimony with an old man?”

  “An old man with three children,” Bee said.

  “Three children!” Anika wrung her hands with horror, and Bee was relieved she had rescued Pepin. “No, I won’t do it. I will not.”

  “But what can you do?”

  “Let me ruminate. Let me cogitate,” Anika said. Bee worried and waited, looking around at the library for the first time. The shelves were immensely tall, running from the floor to the high ceiling of the room. They were made of a brown material that Bee had never seen before. She walked over to a shelf and ran her hand over it. It was smooth and hard and warm, not cold like metal. She could almost imagine it breathing beneath her hand. Each shelf was crammed with leatherbound volumes. There was a rail halfway up the shelves on which a ladder could be moved around so that the uppermost books could be reached. So many books! Bee didn’t know so many books existed in the world. She looked at the titles on their spines, sounding out the harder words silently. A Guide to Growing Bulbs in a Damp Climate. The Micropropagation of Tulips. Flowering Fields: A Handbook. They all sounded dreadfully dull. It was no wonder Anika read the dictionary!

  “Bee, what would you do?” Anika’s voice brought Bee back to the problem at hand. She was taken aback. Did the princess truly want her advice?

  “Well,” Bee said cautiously, “I lived in a place that was … bad. And when it got worse, I ran away.”

  “How was it bad?”

  “The master shouted and threw things. And the mistress beat me.”

  “Oh, Bee,” Anika said. There were tears in her big blue eyes. Bee marveled that the princess could be sympathetic when her own dilemma loomed so large.

  “I was all right,” Bee said. “I knew I could take care of myself on my own. So I left.”

  “You had to,” Anika said. “And I have to, as well. How did you do it? Was it difficult? Will you help me?”

  “Help you run away?”

  “Yes.” The princess’s voice was firm. “I will run away. I will not marry King Thiedric, nor anyone else not of my choosing. Will you help?”

  Bee was troubled. Surely Master Bouts wouldn’t think this was a good idea. But on the other hand … “Well, you are my princess. I will do as you please.”

  Anika jumped to her feet. “No, not like that! I don’t ask for your aid because I am your rule
r. Will you help me, as my friend?”

  A warmth spread through Bee, and she made up her mind instantly. “Of course I will. We’ll make a plan.”

  Anika threw her arms around Bee, squashing Pepin between them, and the poor hedgehog squeaked again. “Ouch!” the princess cried. “Pepin, you are a very vexing pet. But you will come as well.”

  “We haven’t much time,” Bee warned. “The mage said a fortnight.”

  “Then we will go soon. Tomorrow. No, the day after—my tutor’s day off. They don’t guard me well, for I’ve never tried to abscond before. Uncle Joris has no reason to believe I would.”

  “How will we go, though?” Bee asked. “We have to be practical. We can’t just walk off, a princess and a hedgehog and a baker’s apprentice. That would attract a lot of attention.”

  Anika looked out the window, cleaner than most of the palace windows. “The canal,” she said, pointing. “Have you a boat?”

  “I’m a baker,” Bee pointed out. “Bakers don’t have boats.”

  “Can you get a boat?” Anika persisted.

  Bee thought about it. “I’ll have to tell Master Bouts. I’m sure he’ll know someone with a boat. He knows everyone.”

  Anika’s brow furrowed. “But will he keep it clandestine? Is he trustworthy?”

  “I would trust him with my life,” Bee declared. “He is the most trustworthy man there is.” She said it without even thinking, but the words echoed in her heart. It was true. For the first time, she had someone she could trust utterly.

  Anika looked at her with shining eyes. “Oh, you are fortunate to know someone like that!” she exclaimed. “Then I will escape somehow—I’ll fix upon how—and I’ll unite with you on the other side of the dam at midnight, two days hence.”

  “Hush!” Bee warned, holding up a finger. There was a heavy thump of footsteps outside the library. Panic filled Anika’s face, and she pointed to a little closet in the corner of the room. Bee tossed her the hedgehog, which unrolled in midair and then rolled up again before Anika caught him. Then Bee scurried over to the closet, pulled open the iron door, and wedged herself inside, bent almost double, just as the door to the library opened.