Baker's Magic (Middle-grade Novels)

by Zahler, Diane

  “Oh, my people,” he said. His voice wavered in a way his body did not. “My people!” he repeated, more strongly. But he could not go on.

  “Long live the king!” Wil shouted, and the throng took up the cry. “Long live the king!” echoed through the night until the very air rang with it. Cheering, the people got to their feet.

  “Oh, Bee!” Anika clutched her arm. “They remember him—they love him!”

  “Of course they do,” Bartholomew said. “He’s their king.”

  The crowd quieted, and the king was able to speak again.

  “I have been imprisoned all these long years,” he said. “Imprisoned with the trees of Aradyn—the trees that Master Joris removed so long ago. And now we are back, I and the trees. They will bring us great bounty, and they will secure the land that has washed away under the assault of the autumn storms.”

  Bee could see those listening turn to one another, confused, whispering. Then one man spoke up.

  “But what of the tulip fields? My great-grandda told me that the trees went to make room for the tulips. And the tulips are our wealth.”

  “The tulips are Master Joris’s wealth, not ours,” the king replied. “The small fields that the tulip farmers of Aradyn tend will remain in their hands. We will still sell the bulbs. But Master Joris’s vast fields will grow wheat and vegetables—and trees. There will be food for all.”

  The throng was silent, taking this in. And then there came a voice that Bee knew well.

  “No, Your Majesty. You are mistaken. The fields will grow tulips, as they always have. And the people of Zeewal will prosper.”

  People looked around to see who had spoken. From the back of the crowd, a tall figure emerged. On either side of him, folk pressed back to make way, giving him a clear path as he strode toward King Crispin, sparks snapping behind his heels. Wil’s father held his lantern high, illuminating the sharp features, the dark hair with its streak of white. Many in the gathering gasped, and one woman cried out, as Master Joris reached the king and halted, his dark robes swirling around him.

  CHAPTER 20

  “’Tis the mage!” A murmur arose from the crowd. King Crispin and Master Joris faced each other. The king seemed even more fragile beside the mage, who towered over him. But he spoke strongly.

  “You kept me prisoner for a dozen years, Joris,” he said. “But I have returned to claim my throne and protect my daughter and my kingdom. Step down.” It was a clear command.

  Master Joris’s oily smile was visible in the lamplight, though clouds now covered the stars. “Kept you a prisoner?” he said in a tone of disbelief. “I? Why, Your Majesty, if you have been lost to us it is no fault of mine. And no one is more overjoyed than I to see you restored.” Bee and Anika exchanged a glance.

  “What a liar!” Bee whispered. Anika hushed her, but it was too late. Master Joris’s gaze fell on her, and his caterpillar eyebrows drew together. On either side of her, Master Bouts and Bartholomew moved close.

  As if announcing Master Joris’s anger, a clap of thunder sounded, so near that it was deafening. Lightning flashed, and in its brief glare the mage seemed to grow still taller and more menacing. The shadow he cast in the lamplight expanded along the ground behind him, shrouding onlookers who scrambled to get out of its way.

  As he lengthened, the mage spoke. His gravelly voice was nearly as loud as the thunder, and people cowered before it. “You have brought back the trees, but they will not thrive. They will die, all of them, and their moss maidens with them. And then only my tulips will remain. My tulips. Mine!”

  A sudden gust of wind blew dust and sand into listeners’ eyes, and they covered their faces with their hands. And then the storm hit, opening the skies in a torrential downpour. Another flash of lightning lit the night, and Bee could see that the space where Master Joris had stood was empty, as if he’d never been there at all. Someone screamed, and people began pushing and shoving, trying to get back on the road that led to Zeewal.

  “Where did he go?” Anika cried.

  “He is probably gone back to the palace to plan his next move,” King Crispin said, his arm around his daughter. “He was ever a deliberate, crafty creature.”

  Wil’s father called out, “Son! Gather your people and follow me!” He held his lantern high, but the wet wind blew it out, and most of the other lamps as well. The darkness was nearly absolute but for the momentary brilliant strokes of lightning. Bee could hear people shouting in the distance as the citizens of Zeewal ran wildly back toward town. Someone—was it Anika?—held one of her hands, someone else—Bartholomew?—the other. They scrambled and slipped onto the muddy road and ran with the others.

  “I thought—” Bee managed as she ran, “I thought mages couldn’t control the weather.”

  “They cannot,” Bartholomew answered through gasps of breath. “It is another autumn storm—well timed!”

  As they reached Zeewal, the sky began to lighten a bit in the east. Day was coming at last. People streamed through the town gates, heading for their dry homes and safety. Bee turned back to look at the road they had come up and the canal it bordered. In the gray half-light, through the pouring rain, she could see a line of trees that stretched from the town to the coast, all along the canal. The trees looked as if they had always been there. They bent in the gale’s wind, but they stood stolidly as the storm surge battered the banks of the canal. The trees were holding back the water.

  “Come on!” It was Wil, just ahead of them. The king flanked him, and the pirates surrounded them. “To my house!” Together they clattered down the cobblestones of the high street and turned off onto the street that held the blacksmith’s shop. Wil’s parents were already there. They ushered their guests inside and then slammed the door on the storm, its growls of thunder receding into the distance.

  “Is Master Joris following us?” Bee gasped, peering out the diamond of glass set in the front door. She could see the last stragglers racing toward their homes, but there was no sign of the mage.

  “He went,” Captain Zay said. “Pfft! Just like that. Mages!” She shook her head in disapproval.

  “Bring towels!” Mistress Weatherwax cried, and Wil’s sister Sanna, still dripping herself, emerged with an armful of soft towels and handed them around. “Get dry clothes, children!” They ran to obey.

  Anika and Bee followed Sanna into her bedchamber, and Sanna found them clean, dry dresses as Wil’s other sisters watched, wide eyed. When they were dressed, Anika tried to force a comb through her tangled curls, and Sanna came forward shyly, saying, “May I help you, Your Highness?” She took the comb from Anika and began to work it carefully through her hair.

  “You see the virtue of short hair,” Bee said, fluffing her own spiky mop with her hands.

  Anika winced as the comb pulled. “Perhaps I’ll cut mine off as well,” she agreed.

  “Oh no, Your Highness!” Sanna protested. “Your hair is lovely. I will have it untangled in a jiffy.”

  They went back downstairs when they were dry and combed. The main hall was filled to bursting. Pirates stood before the fire, their wet clothes steaming. King Crispin, dressed now in the blacksmith’s Sunday best, sat in Master Weatherwax’s cushioned armchair. His leg was bandaged, the wrappings showing below the leg of the blacksmith’s too-wide trousers. Mistress Weatherwax wove through the crowd handing out hot drinks, and the littlest Weatherwaxes sat together in a corner playing with Pepin the hedgehog, squealing with delight as he rolled and unrolled himself.

  Bee saw Ying-tao for a moment amid the crush, sad that she couldn’t yet reunite with her cherry tree. It would be too dangerous for the moss maiden to go to the palace where Master Joris raged and plotted.

  “A toddy!” Captain Zay said, pleased, as she took a cup from Mistress Weatherwax. She gulped, then frowned.

  “Sorry, Captain, but we’ve no rum,” Mistress Weatherwax said. S
he didn’t sound especially sorry.

  “Not to worry, goodly madam! I carry my own at all times.” The captain pulled out a silver flask and poured a generous amount into her mug, and then did the same for her men. Even the king held out his mug.

  Master Bouts took Bee aside as she came down the stairs.

  “I must get back to the bakery, Bee,” he said. “The sourdough will have risen far too much already. And my dry clothes are there.”

  “I’ll go too,” Bee said immediately. Bartholomew, standing near, turned his head to listen.

  “Nay, child,” the baker said. “I saw the way Master Joris looked at you. Even in the dark, I could tell he wasn’t pleased—and he knows well where you work. I think you’d best stay away from the shop for a little bit.”

  “But … I need to bake,” Bee protested.

  “You do not. You need to rest. How long since you’ve had a night’s sleep? Stay here, where you’ll be out of Joris’s way. Come to me in the afternoon—but come carefully. Be sure you’re not watched.” Master Bouts was firm. And he was right, Bee had to admit. She was exhausted.

  “All right,” she said reluctantly, and saw the baker to the door.

  Captain Zay stood nearby, sipping from her mug. Master Bouts bowed to her, and she inclined her head. She had removed her tricorn hat, and her dark curls spilled over her shoulders. Her color was high. Bee thought at first that her flushed cheeks were the result of the sprint through the storm—or the rum—but then she realized that Master Bouts and the captain were both a bit red in the face. They stood gazing at each other for a moment. Captain Zay’s mouth opened in a little O.

  “Captain, this is Master Bouts,” Bee said, looking from one to the other in some confusion. “He is the inventor of the Bouts Buns that you like so much. And this is Captain Zay, who saved us from drowning … several times.”

  “Madam,” Master Bouts croaked. He cleared his throat. “Much obliged to you, madam. Don’t know what I would do without Bee.”

  Captain Zay closed her mouth and then opened it again. Bee began to smile.

  “Those bun,” the captain managed, then started over. “Those bun are quite the delectable taste. All praise to you, Master Baker!”

  Master Bouts turned even redder and bowed again. He fumbled with the door and finally opened it, bobbing his head all the while like a portly shore bird in search of clams. As he stepped out, he looked both ways quickly, to be sure he was not observed, and then disappeared around the corner onto the high street as Bee closed the door behind him.

  “I am very much liking a man that is substantial in figure,” Captain Zay said thoughtfully to Bee. Then she joined the rest of the pirates near the fire, taking the best spot beside the hearth.

  After a spirited argument with the Weatherwaxes, who wanted King Crispin to rest in their bedchamber, the king agreed to sleep in the boys’ room. Anika saw him settled and then came back downstairs, meeting Wil on the steps. Bee noticed how he took her hands and spoke quietly to her—and Mistress Weatherwax, with her sharp eyes, saw it as well.

  “Sanna, show the princess to the girls’ room,” she commanded. Anika protested, but there was no arguing with Wil’s mother. Her word was law.

  There was barely a free square foot in the Weatherwaxes’ main hall. Already most of the pirates were snoring. Mistress Weatherwax handed out blankets, and Bee took one gratefully and wrapped herself it in, sliding down to the floor with a yawn. Bartholomew lowered himself next to her.

  “That was your … employer?” he asked. “The baker?”

  “Yes,” Bee said. “But he is more than an employer. I had no home, and he took me in. He’s taught me everything I know—how to bake, but so much more than that.”

  “I am so very sorry, Bee, that I never looked for you.” Bartholomew’s voice was pained. “I had no idea. There was never any hint that you had survived the shipwreck. If I had thought even for a moment—”

  “I know,” Bee said quickly. “It doesn’t bear talking about. I’m just glad you’re here now.”

  “And I am glad you had someone to care for you. He sounds like a good man,” Bartholomew said.

  “A very good man. The best of men. He is my friend.”

  “I hope he will be my friend too, in that case.” Bartholomew was silent a moment. “Bee,” he said then, “will you tell me what it was like—your life? Not now, but … sometime?”

  Bee winced. She tried never to think about those years, much less talk about them. “Sometime,” she agreed. She closed her eyes.

  “Here, use my blanket for a pillow,” Bartholomew urged her. He wouldn’t let her refuse, but folded his blanket and placed it under Bee’s head. A moment later she was asleep.

  In Bee’s dream, the wind blew so hard that branches of huge trees were knocking together, and the trees themselves wept in pain and toppled to the ground, one after another. She woke bathed in sweat, her breath coming fast and panicky. The knocking of branches kept on even after her eyes opened, and it took her a moment to realize someone was hammering at the door. She was closest to the entryway, and she got blearily to her feet and opened the door.

  It was broad daylight outside, the sky washed clean by the storm, the air fresh and autumn-crisp. Master Knockert, the tanner, stood there, his weathered face worried. Bee tried not to breathe too deeply; the tanner always smelled strongly of his trade.

  “Mistress Bee,” he said, “they chose me to come. And they told me you were here. Everyone said I should come to you and tell you.” Then he stopped.

  “Tell me what?” Bee said, impatient and annoyed at having been awakened.

  “It’s the trees—the trees!”

  Ying-tao materialized at the doorway as if summoned by the tanner’s words.

  “What about the trees?” she asked in her shimmery half whisper. “What is wrong with the trees?” The others in the room sat up, rubbing eyes and stretching stiff limbs.

  “They are sick, every last one of them,” Master Knockert cried. “The trees are dying!”

  CHAPTER 21

  “What do you mean?” Bee asked. “Did the storm knock them down?” Her dream was still fresh in her mind.

  “It’s not that,” Master Knockert said. “I do not know what ails them. The children noticed first, early this morning. And we’ve all gone to look. It’s true. Suddenly their leaves are falling, their branches droop. They are like humans who’ve been stricken with some terrible illness.”

  “I must go to them!” Ying-tao murmured. She slipped through the door and was gone. The tanner, fearful, followed her, leaving his ripe odor behind.

  By now the pirates had crowded around Bee. Captain Zay clapped her hat on her head and pulled her sword from its scabbard.

  “We shall storm that palace!” she cried. “It is an injustice to be damaging those trees when we ’ave gone to such great lengths to save them!” Her men shouted in agreement and unsheathed their own swords.

  “Gentlemen—Captain!” Mistress Weatherwax spoke sternly from the stairs. “Put those weapons away. There are children here!” The little Weatherwaxes stood behind her, eyes wide with fearful excitement at the sight of the swords.

  Shamefaced, the pirates sheathed their swords again. The Weatherwaxes clattered down the steps, and behind them came the king and Anika, faces creased from sleep. Bee ran to Anika and told her what the tanner had said.

  “Oh, Bee!” Anika gasped, horrified.

  “Your Majesty,” Mistress Weatherwax said, “I will make tea. There is bread and honey. Break your fast and then we can think on what must be done.” Again, no one argued. The king sat at the long table, Anika at his right, and the others crowded round, taking cups and glasses of fragrant tea and slices of buttered bread that Bee recognized as Master Bouts’s own. But Bee couldn’t eat. She got up from the table and stared out the diamond-shaped window in the front doo
r as the others ate and drank their tea. Wil and Bartholomew joined her.

  “Without the trees, Aradyn will crumble into the sea,” Wil said. “We must find a way to save them.”

  The front door opened, and Ying-tao slipped through. Her usually serene face was twisted with worry. “What did you find?” Bee demanded.

  “This.” Ying-tao held out her hand. On her pale palm rested a bug. It was about an inch long, shiny black with white spots and white-striped wings. From its head sprouted long, hornlike projectiles. It was unmoving, clearly dead, but it still looked vicious. Sanna peered over Bee’s shoulder and gave a little squeal of revulsion.

  “What is it?” Bee asked, uneasy. Then she remembered. She had seen this beetle before—in Master Joris’s insect collection.

  “It is the hemel beetle. It eats away at trees, all kinds. It kills from the inside out. It is in all the trees—every last one.”

  There was a great silence in the room as everyone gazed at the beetle. Then Bartholomew spoke.

  “That must be Master Joris’s doing. I am sure of it. The masters on the Isle of Mages—all the mages—are well versed in insect and plant life. It is part of their charge to keep things of the earth in balance. But Master Joris perverts his duty. He is a force for chaos and destruction.”

  Bee was thinking hard. “The beetles eat trees?” she asked Ying-tao. The moss maiden nodded. “Just the wood part, or the leaves?”

  “Any part,” Ying-tao said. “They have quickly burrowed into the trunks and branches, but they are eating the leaves as well.”

  Bee turned to Wil. “Do you remember when I tested my baking on you?” she asked.

  “When you baked fear into your cookies? I do indeed,” he replied.

  “I tried it on Master Bouts’s cat too that week—and on a mouse. And it worked. If it worked on those animals, maybe it would work on bugs as well—if we can get the bugs to eat baked goods.” Bee wasn’t sure where in the process the magic lay—the mixing of ingredients, or the baking itself. She thought it best to tempt the beetles with what had worked before.